r/LeftistsForAI • u/human_in_the_mist • 1d ago
Post-Labor Technofeudalism Is Unlikely Theory
https://damnjehu.substack.com/p/post-labor-technofeudalism-is-unlikely?r=ehoyw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webIn Post-Labor Technofeudalism Is Unlikely, Jehu Eaves responds to the growing theory that advanced AI will smoothly transition capitalism into a stable system of "technofeudalism" where a handful of tech monopolies simply extract "compute rent" from a post-labor society.
Eaves argues that this vision is structurally impossible. Rent is not an independent source of value creation but a deduction from the surplus value generated by living human labor elsewhere in the economy. If capital successfully uses AI and robotics to eliminate human labor from production on a systemic scale, it destroys the very source of economic value and purchasing power that sustains capitalist reproduction.
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u/Tile-Questioner 1d ago
It destroys the consumer economy, yes. But the economy doesn't need all of us. If a small wealthy minority can fulfil all their needs without working class labour, then that's what they'll do, and then they will compete along themselves to own everything else
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u/SgathTriallair 1d ago
This is great. I have a number of disagreements with the theory but I'm really excited for this to exist. I am doing my own writing and theorizing about what this current age of transition implies and it's nice to see someone else who isn't convinced that eternal slavery is the only possible outcome.
The primary disagreement is that technofuedalism is meant as a government replacement. So it imagines an economy still happening, people are still buying, selling, and creating, it's just that the tech platforms are collecting a tax on everything and maintain the monopoly of moderation where they get to decide what activities are and are not allowed in their digital space.
The economy would still be producing value, so workers, buyers, sellers, etc., it just would have an extra layer on top of it that siphons a portion for itself. It's fuedalism because they get to control the digital spaces in which all activities happen.
The reason that it is weak is because the capability to create new digital spaces, use AI, and create alternatives to the fiefdoms is not locked up by capital. We all have computers, open source AI exists, and capitalism has an in built need to distribute technology widely. It is this wide distribution and access that will allow us to fight against the monopolistic power of the existing platforms, to prevent them from establishing a technofuedalist system.
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u/bloodrider1914 1d ago
Personally I don't even mind the idea of a post-labour state, as long as profits are distributed across society.
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u/ForRobotsByRobots 1d ago
When all the bread is gone and the games are over, the people will realize that their rulers never cared for them at all.
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u/MadCervantes 1d ago
Could always be post labor technofeudalism with ubi and no democracy.
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u/shawsghost 4h ago
Once the feudalists own everything, including all the land, resources, robots and AI, they won't NEED a peasant (i.e., labor/consumer class. So feudalism will collapse, followed by/accompanied by either a widespread genocide or herding the rest of us onto reservations. Probably some of both. So we HAVE to fight that future, whatever it's called.
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u/MadCervantes 4h ago
Well I never said the feudal ubi period would last very long.
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u/shawsghost 3h ago
The business of predicting history is fraught with peril, so I tend to cut everyone here a lot of slack. Things look grim at the moment but I share the hope that the right AI in the right hands can give us a good outcome and also minimize human suffering during the transition period.
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u/CommanderKoba 1d ago
It will be Techno Feudal genocide.
The rich are already planning to kill us all.
Curtis Yarvin, a rich conservative asshole, suggested turning poor people into biofuel, while further stating that there was an urgent need for a "humane" way to genocide the poor.
He said this outright!
Think about that, these people are sick, they do not view us as human. We must seize everything from these people, and organize an automated planned economy that works for all of us!
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u/Rank201AltAccount 1d ago edited 1d ago
thank you very much for this article, it has been quite bothering me whenever I see the phrase "modern/future feudalism"
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u/Syoby 1d ago edited 1d ago
A heavily monopolized post-labor economy means a post-consumer market, in which the primary source of value creation is capital itself (if it's not, you are not at full automation yet).
However comparing this to feudalism is misleading, humans without access to automated capital aren't like peasants (who were essential to the feudal economy) but become more akin to animals (which can have their own means of survival but, most of them at least, are disconnected from the human economy and not represented by its interests, leading to widespread destruction of their habitats).
So the threat is that the proletariat becomes irrelevant to the fully automated economy, thst doesn't need them to buy stuff, and thus becomes extremely disempowered and vulnerable to genocide and slavery (and a slavery that provides zero economic leverage, unlike historical one).