The dream of automation (i.e. no work) reinforces class prejudice. The middle class is the one that has the dream since it seeks to expand its leisure-oriented activities. To the working class, automation means a loss of their job-preoccupation with unemployment which is the opposite of leisure. For the excluded, automation doesn't mean anything because it will not be applied to their forms of work.
The automation of the working class has become the ideology of post-scarcity radicals-from the anarchists at Anarchos to SDS’s new working class. Technological change has rescued them from the dilemma of a class analysis they were never able to make. With the elimination of class struggle by automation (the automation of the working class) the radicals have become advocates of leisure society and touristic lifestyles.
This anti-work attitude leads to a utopian outlook and removes us from the realm of history. It prevents the construction of collectivity and self-activity. The issue of how to transform work into self-activity is central to the elimination of class and the reorganization of society.
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