I’ve noticed in the past few years that there’s a trend among both libertarian socialist types and even supposed ‘anarchists’ which I’ve come to call “technodefeatism”. Broadly, the tenants of technodefeatism are as follows 1. Revolution is not coming, 2. Technological advances in fields like automation will soon bring about a post-scarcity society 3. Therefore, our goal should be to make things livable until that post-scarcity society comes about through things like environmental protection and social welfare. Technodefeatism is a cancerous trend that must be catalogued and extirpated as it tempts discouraged activists away from revolutionary activity and towards lethargy. I’ll attempt here to outline the tendency and give some thoughts on how best to combat it.
A key component of technodefeatism is the belief that revolution is unlikely or even undesirable. This pessimism can come in a variety of forms. There are people who just can’t imagine a radical break from the status quo happening, who think on some level that the system is unassailable and indestructible. There are people who think that proletarian revolution is a less likely outcome of a general crisis than fascism is, and on that basis are skeptical of revolution. There are people who, seeing how effectively the state co-opts and reincorporates agitation against it have become totally demoralized and disillusioned. This pessimism, whatever form it takes, is a prerequisite to arriving at technodefeatism.
This pessimism on its own is familiar to most people on the left. It’s what’s known as ‘doomerism’; a sort of intense, all-encompassing pessimism regarding the future. Technodefeatism goes further than mere doomerism, though, because it purports to offer a solution. This solution is to do… nothing! That’s the beauty of technodefeatism: it doesn’t require any major change from the status quo. It doesn’t ask anything of us; it doesn’t require us to risk anything. It presents itself as an inevitability; as a ‘safe bet’ (as opposed to the very unsafe bet of armed struggle).
This confidence comes from its adherence to a principle which is, at its core, liberal in origin. Namely, that capitalism spurs innovation which leads us inexorably towards greater progress. The main focus of technodefeatism is automation and robotics technology, although AI plays a role in some technodefeatist thinking. The idea is that as capitalist society moves towards greater and greater automation, the need for wage labor will slowly dissolve given the availability of cheaper robotic labor. Because nobody needs to work anymore, and because capitalists no longer need to extract surplus value from humans to profit, we will be able to live in a world of consumption without (human) labor. Sometimes this is even put in Marxist terms, that the rate of profit will fall to near-zero given advances in automation technology. Subsequently, the thinking goes, capitalism will ‘wither away’ as it no longer fits this new automated mode of production.
Given that we’re on track for a post-scarcity utopia in the minds of technodefeatists, what ought we to do now? Invariably, they concede that environmental degradation is a big concern and could put a damper on their dreams of indefinite progress. For this reason, they will support legislation (yes, though the bourgeois state) to create environmental safeguards and limit the harm of capitalism as best they can before the new mode of production is upon us. In keeping with this ‘minimizing harm’ mentality, they usually advocate for things like universal healthcare and welfare expansion. To make things easier until the new age dawns, you understand.
Reader, you have probably already noticed that this is a very familiar set of political goals. This is straight out of the social liberal playbook. Welfare expansion, environmental protections, and investment into private-sector technological research? You’d struggle to find a disagreement between a technodefeatist and a typical liberal. The difference lies solely in the framing of the issue. Whereas the core of liberal reformism is patrician noblesse oblige, the core of technodefeatism is a desperation to escape their soul-crushing pessimism. A technodefeatist would likely say “yes I would support a revolution if it happened, but it never will”. A liberal of course would oppose revolution on principle.
Here we can finally see the true nature and purpose of technodefeatism: to draw disillusioned and pessimistic leftists towards serving liberal ends without requiring them to fundamentally change their worldview. The technodefeatist doesn’t have to renounce Marx, or renounce revolution. They don’t have to denounce their anarchism or hatred of capitalism. All they have to do is accept a couple of premises that bourgeois propaganda already primes us to accept.
The technodefeatist is a travesty of a revolutionary. They profess their Marxist ideals while making the case–using the vocabulary of a revolutionary–for campaigning on behalf of bourgeois politicians to pass reforms that they know are doomed to fail.
As we’ve seen, technodefeatism stems from ‘doomerism’, that crushing pessimism felt by many a leftist. In order to combat technodefeatism, then, it stands to reason that we ought to focus on morale and revolutionary optimism. There are many ways to do this, of course, and perhaps I’ll go into them in further detail later. Just by way of example I’ll say that publicizing actions and talking openly about real wins that we’ve made (however small they might seem) do wonders to combat this pessimism. It’s harder to sit in a corner and sulk when comrades in your community are out fighting the good fight.
Another way to combat technodefeatism is by questioning its assumptions, in particular the assumption that automation under capitalism will lead to a better society (let alone a post-scarcity one). The capitalist class, for all its moral failings, is not stupid. They will seek to maintain their wealth, power and influence no matter the cost. The utopia of technodefeatist imaginations may not be as idyllic as they make it out to be. In particular, the most vulnerable part of their analysis is the idea that capitalism could ever ‘wither away’ due to advancements in production. This tenant is just sort of taken for granted by technodefeatists; they imagine a smooth transition from the hellish world we have now into the post-scarcity utopia. This is more unrealistic than any prospect of revolution. Automation will increase the contradictions capitalism as it develops further, and there is no reason to think that this will be a painless process. Nor is there reason to think that automation will necessarily develop into a post-scarcity society rather than one of intensified exploitation and widespread misery. Undermining the supposed inevitability of the technodefeatist argument should be a key focus.
Technodefeatism is a rising trend in the left. It threatens to turn disillusioned activists into the willing servants of the status quo while making them think they’re furthering the cause of the working class. We must consciously combat this trend; we ignore it at our own peril.
Tankette Rambles 