but, communism is automation. and, it's closer than you think.
they're talking about slaughtering us. this is class warfare; entirely rational. the real question is why we aren't plotting a means to take control. but, what i've been saying for years - and i'm sure others have been saying it, too - is that it's the inevitable result of unemployment, which is not very marxist, granted, but literally right out of bakunin.
if you drop the classical marxist narrative around the uselessness of the lumpenproletariat and pick up the classical anarchist narrative around the lumpenproletariat as the essential revolutionary force, the road map begins to materialize more clearly, and the way it works is like this:
1. automation savages the economy, leading to massive unemployment.
2. a mass of unemployed workers finally organizes.
3. ??????
4. communism.
and, the question marks are the point, here - they're the part that is really important, the part we can't write, the part we have to figure out on the fly.
unions were necessary to get us out of the dickensian period, and are still required to help the mass of oppressed workers in asia. but, it was clear to all of the early socialists that were close to the movement that they were inherently conservative institutions, with no real revolutionary potential. i know that malatesta gets a lot of credit for pointing this out.
a real revolution is not going to happen from well fed auto workers trying to seize control of production, auto workers that are themselves the beneficiaries of supply chains using slaves in asia. all they know how to do is march and take bribes. it is going to have to come from desperate, starving people that are looking to take control of these machines to redistribute their produce as a last resort - as was the character of the revolution in france.
the capitalists could pull their heads out of their asses before that happens, and we could end up with another rooseveltian type intervention that restructures the system around a gai - we could write some kind of bill of rights to access the machines, and declare some kind of minimum standard of living. and, for a lot of people, that would no doubt be better than what we have.
or, this could be the catalyst required to overthrow the system.
that's up to us to figure it out.