A consensus-shattering account of automation technologies and their effect on workplaces and the labor market

Silicon Valley titans, politicians, techno-futurists and social critics have united in arguing that we are living on the cusp of an era of rapid technological automation, heralding the end of work as we know it. But does the much-discussed "rise of the robots" really explain the worsening jobs crisis?

In Automation and the Future of Work, Aaron Benanav uncovers the structural economic trends that will shape our working lives far into the future. What social movements, he asks, are required to propel us into post-scarcity, if technological innovation alone can't deliver it? In response to calls for a universal basic income that would maintain a growing army of redundant workers, he offers a counterproposal.

"Compelling reading. A rising star among the intelligentsia of the left" - Dublin Review of Books

"Thought-provoking ... packs quite a punch of macroeconomics and practical philosophy" - International Policy Digest

"The two parts of Benanav's book - analytic and utopian - correspond to the two halves of the Marxian project: to both interpret the world, and change it" - New Statesman

"Benanav dissects and disproves the idea that automation is eradicating work ... We don't need to wait for robots to do all the work; we can collectively decide what we need, then plan the economy to achieve it" - Passage

"He can write movingly and do so on a global scale" - Pittsburgh Post Gazette

"Meticulous...provides crucial insights into the causes of global stagnation and its effects on the kinds of work we do now." - The Baffler