Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology
As some readers know, I’ve written several posts on Agile as a business term and theory. I’ll link to those past posts with these two links. I wanted to follow up on one issue, namely the term ‘cargo cult Agile.’
What is cargo cult Agile? Is it a problem and, if so, how can companies avoid it?
About a month ago, I wrote a post on Agile – a set of ideas, business methods, and (perhaps) ideology. I invited readers to share their experiences with it, and I reflected a bit on my own. There’s also plenty of business literature available to those who want to find it. In short, Agile starts from the need for business agility (i.e., adaptability to change), and then it moves to a variety of methods of implementation. Scrum stands out as the most common.
With a month behind us, let’s take another look at Agile!
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The pundits and ‘wise men’ – especially the ones in tech – tell a tired narrative about jobs and automation. It goes something like this: Automation destroys jobs. As it gets more sophisticated, it will destroy millions of jobs, leaving people destitute and desperate. Andrew Yang built an entire presidential campaign – one he centered on UBI – around this narrative. Tech libertarians love telling this story.
But it’s not just wacky candidates and tech geeks. Classic sci-fi took up the banner all the same, and they did so as far back as the 1950s. From Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano to Isaac Asimov‘s The Caves of Steel, we see it from every direction. These days, popular sci-fi series like The Expanse simply take it for granted and bake it into their plots.
OK, so the narrative isn’t entirely wrong. Yes, automation destroys jobs. Marx pointed out more than a century ago that this happens. At the same time, it redirects and creates jobs. The net impact of automation on overall employment? It’s less clear than one might think. When we look at how work…works, we find that automation poses a bigger threat.
This post is about that threat.
Some time ago, I posted an analysis of fascism. And then I applied that analysis to Trumpism – both in a post and an eBook. The short version of all that: I consider Trumpism a movement of nationalist (or populist) white-identitarianism, a term I coined. I don’t mean to deny that work. I’m satisfied with it and consider it complete, as far as it goes.
But I’ve found some confusions out there on the left. Some leftists set up a false dichotomy. Here’s how it goes: either leftists use the term ‘fascist’ for all far-right viewpoints, or else they’re not taking far-right views seriously as a threat.
This false dichotomy carries the implication that people who don’t call all the far-right ‘fascist’ aren’t taking the far-right seriously. Of course, I don’t think Trumpism is a fascist movement. So it’s time to say a bit more about taking white-identitarianism seriously as a threat.
Many readers know I like to set a common theme for the year. For this year’s theme, I chose value and the corporate workplace, a topic I’ve also written about in prior years. So far, I’ve hit this theme in a number of ways. But one way I might summarize it all? Work won’t love you back.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I found out labor journalist Sarah Jaffe recently wrote a book called Work Won’t Love You Back.
Let’s take a look at Jaffe’s book.
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