The Moral Crisis of a Jobless Future: an analysis of presidential campaign rhetoric
Open AccessThis paper takes as its central concern whether we ought to reconsider Marx’s warnings given the recent developments in automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence (ARA). I argue that budding ARA developments are now building ultimate labor-saving-devices, and that on the economic horizon is a jobless future where human labor of all kinds will be entirely eliminated. On this subject, researchers break broadly into two camps: the utopians (those who believe ARA will only be a source of untold prosperity) and the pessimists (those who consider technology a source of serious concern). From a Marxian perspective, this paper demonstrate the implausibility of the utopian position. Indeed, the failure of the utopian perspective is now becoming increasingly empirically verified by key economic indicators signaling the coming future of a world without employment. I then go on to ask an important question: what is America’s the state of political preparedness for a world without jobs? Will we be capable to absorb the impact of ARA, economically and politically? To accomplish this I completed a relational content analysis of the political campaign speeches of the presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, in the 2016 presidential election. I reviewed their speeches for mentions of ARA, how the conceptualize the problem of lost work and income (the declining labor force participation rate and stagnant wages), and do these conceptualizations include the role of ARA?
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Donoghue_gwu_0075M_13598.pdf | 2018-01-17 | Open Access |
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