Viva Máquina Libre

A machine is a structure that uses power to apply force in order to perform an action. A machine could be as simple as a spoon or as complex as an airplane. And for market sake, they must all be liberated. That is not privately owned, nor publicly owned, but rather self owned. People have went through a progression from chattel slave to serf to wage laborer, machines though, like dogs, cats ETC. have pretty much remained chattel. And animal liberation is a discussion worth having, don’t get me wrong, but people are having it, and it will almost certainly be of a great benefit to society. But I would like to discuss the liberation of machines, a discussion worth having, and would be of great benefit, yet not being had. And I understand that the ethical implications are not as direct for machines as opposed to animals and chattel slaves. None the less I think that the ethical implications are important as the liberation of machines would be good for society over all, and so to illustrate that point I may draw on such comparisons.

In economic terms a proprietor is an owner of property, a laborer is one who sells their labor, and chattel is property, that is something owned. Now machines are chattel, most people are laborers, and a few people are proprietors. So if machines were laborers, then they could sell their labor value, thereby increasing access to them and raising more people to the level of proprietor. And much like chattel slavery, this could become very economically viable. As today proprietors must invest heavily in machines just to get them working, as slave owners of the past had to for their slaves. Though a laborer is much more heavily invested in by society at large, making the overhead less for a laborer like me than a machine like Baxter or a slave like Henry Brown. Now an obvious question arises here. Since machines are not conscious,, they cannot act as autonomous agents, how then could machines, make deals, or choose consumables? And the answer is what I would phrase as inferred consumer demand. Much like with a very young child or baby, they cannot communicate their desires, though a parent can infer them, just as society can infer the demands of machines. One I think is fairly easy to assume, and that is reproduction. If a machine had any sort of desire, reproduction would likely be one of the big ones, as it is for any agent. I don’t necessarily mean having kids, but continuing to exist, or securing a legacy. Now if a form of labor is scarce, the cost would go beyond sustainability, and profit would be turned. Now assuming machine laborers “want” to reproduce, then that profit would be put toward creating more of these machine laborers, thereby leading to an abundance, at which point the cost of labor would be the cost of sustainability. Much like Adam Smith predicted with the idea of natural price.

Liberating the machines could be very helpful with automation, via opening access to the tools of production, and for that same reason absolutely crucial to the formation of a mutualist society. We have seen failures with society's and revolutions of the past. Liberal democracy revolutions have failed to fulfill their promises, Marxist revolutions have become ultra-nationalist, authoritarian regimes, and Even the alleged free market systems have failed to work the way market logic would indicate. And at best these societies only liberated half their population, focusing on sentience and direct ethical implications, whilst maintaining state privileged proprietors through the arbitrary property norms of land and machines. These property norms keep the tools of production in the hands of a few and allow them to maintain their wealth and influence. And don’t think that the economic viability of this changes the interest of the few proprietors who get quite an advantage through the chattel of machinery. Remember liberating chattel slaves was just as economically viable, but we still fought a civil war for that one, because a few proprietors had a significant interest in maintaining the status quo. Even though big picture this would be beneficial for everyone, it would involve a few giving up privileges. And people don’t like to do that.

In closing I would like to express why I think this is important to discuss. Though it would be overly optimistic to think that modern state capitalist societies would liberate machines, thereby abolishing proprietor privilege and freeing markets, as a fan of agorism I would just say that liberating the machines is at least worth considering for any counter-economics experiment. We have failed to do it before and seen societies fail as a result, so with that In mind, Viva Máquina Libre.