Juan Sebastian Carbonell teaches sociology at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Talk of a great technological replacement suggests that automation is rendering most workers obsolete. But innovation isn’t simply replacing human workers — rather, it’s created a battle over whose interests the new technologies will serve.
Claims that the working class no longer exists often suggest it’s been replaced by a “precariat” who don’t get a regular salary. But this precarious condition has been the experience of most workers throughout capitalism’s history — and where we did get stable employment, it was because we organized.