Book Review: Post-Capitalism by Paul Mason

In his famous 1950s book, The Affluent Society, John Kenneth Galbraith presented a utopian vision of the future in which the need to work would be reduced to four hours a day and wealth would be shared much more evenly among those who choose to work. and those who chose a life of leisure. Now Paul Mason has outlined the process by which this could be done. Extrapolating current trends, particularly the growing abundance of ‘free stuff’ on the internet, and taking into account the looming crises of climate change, population growth, and increasing longevity, he explains how capitalism, like the proverbial old man soldier, he will not die. but they just fade away.

Galbraith drew on the work of anthropologists who estimated that primitive man, who lived as a hunter-gatherer, needed to spend about four hours a day in search of food. In the modern era, with the ever-increasing use of automation, Galbraith envisioned a future in which man would once again spend only four hours searching for his daily bread. Now, after the explosive growth of personal computing and the Internet, Paul Mason can see more clearly how this transformation could come about. The first step in the process is the universal availability of free knowledge through websites like Wikipedia. Knowledge that has cost a lot to produce can now be obtained by all who need it at no additional cost.

Mason sees a trend where more and more information, services, and products become abundant to the point where their bottom line costs drop to zero. This is described as a growing non-market economy alongside a declining market economy. Large companies that rely on cheap labor would be forced by legislation to become “high-tech, high-wage, high-growth economic models.” And if this sounds too radical, Mason points to business models that have been banned in the past, such as those based on slavery and child labor.

Mason warns against the danger of capitalists creating monopolies as a defense mechanism against post-capitalism. The creation of monopolies must be resisted and the rules against price fixing must be strictly enforced. When a monopoly can be essential, as in a service industry, it must become public property. He argues that providing services such as water, energy, housing, transportation, health, telecommunications infrastructure and education, at cost, socially, would be a strategic act of redistribution much more effective than increasing real wages.

Mason follows Galbraith in arguing that everyone should receive a basic income, although he is relatively less generous to the unemployed. Galbraith proposed that those who choose to remain unemployed should receive about 90 percent of the income of those who work, while Mason advocates a universal basic income of just one-third of the minimum wage. So while Mason charts a useful course toward utopia, Galbraith might feel like there is still some way to go.