robots 2nd half

7
How does Cowan define housework? How was housework industrialized differently than other forms of industrialization outside the home? How did the automation of the home in the early and mid-twentieth century have different impacts on men and women?
How does the example of vacuuming illustrate the importance of understanding a work process instead of focusing on just the technology? Can you apply this lesson to other technologies and work processes?
Does Cowan think that the new household technologies "liberated" women and lowered their overall amount of work? Explain.
Explain how indoor plumbing both saved labor and created "more work for mother."
Why are standards and expectations of cleanliness important to the history that Cowan is telling?
8
In broad terms, what was the "Uprising of 1967"? What started it? What were some of its background conditions (specifically with regard to employment, race, and policing)?
What was the League of Revolutionary Black Workers? What were some of its basic goals? What made it different from other political and youth movements of the 1960s and 1970s?
What were auto plant working conditions like for black workers? What does "niggermation" mean?
Carter's "Please, Mr. Foreman" is featured in Finally Got the News. How do the themes of the song resonate with the themes of the documentary?
What does Finally Got the News say about slavery and capitalism?

9
Why does Ford think America's economic "Goldilocks" period is over?
What does Ford think is ultimately driving automation? Is Ford a technological determinist? What would Feenberg say about Ford's concept of technology?
How is contemporary automation different from past automation? What are some of the technologies that Ford thinks are creating a new "wave" of automation?
Why does Ford think we are threatened by a "jobless future"? Why will it be more difficult to find jobs in the near future? What is Ford's solution?

10
According to Moody, why should we be skeptical of the "rise of the robots"? Pay attention to the arguments he makes about particular industries--industrial robotics, logistics, etc.--and the larger, macro-level argument he makes about investment in technology in contemporary capitalism.
For decades futurists, academics and business experts have argued that automation, robots and other new technology would eliminate millions of jobs. Yet the workforce in the US has continued to grow, even if more slowly, to new heights. Work has changed, but the predicted ‘end of work’ failed to materialise even as technology has advanced, albeit unevenly. This article will argue that the answer to this apparent riddle is not to be found in analysing the technology itself, but in Marxist political economy. The progress of robots and related technology will be examined, but the argument is that the limits on technical progress in the actual production of goods and services lie in the turbulence of capitalism since the 1970s with its uneven profit rates.
What does Taylor mean by "fauxtomation"? Why does Taylor think automation is a "charade"? How does the charade advance particular class interests?

11
According to Graeber, what makes a job "bullshit"? How does he contrast meaningful work to bullshit jobs?
Why would we expect there to be no, or very few, bullshit jobs in capitalism? If they're bullshit, why do they exist?
What is the relationship between automation and bullshit jobs?
What are Frase's four futures and what does each assume? How does Frase's thinking about technology differ from Martin Ford's?
For Frase "communism" means the state administers everything and the individual disappears in the collective. True or false? Why?
How would work change in Frase's communist scenario?
How would capitalists continue to make profits in the "rentism" scenario?
What will happen to most workers in the "exterminism" scenario and what options will capitalists have in response?

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