by Donald Mender 3/23/06 Abstract accepted for conference on Rethinking Marxism

Ever since the totalitarian drift of Bolshevism first became evident in the 1920’s, freedom-seeking Marxists have searched for a potentially fruitful gap in the iron determinsm undergirding Marx’s metaphysics.  Thinkers like Lukacs, Marcuse, and Gramsci have tried to tease extra degrees of ethical freedom from Hegelian, Freudian, and Heideggerian “corrections” to Marx, but none have captured the broadest reaches of popular imagination.  Nevertheless,  Marx’s original diagnostic insights into the downside of capitalism remain so compelling that the search for a truly liberating rectification of his flawed therapeutic prescriptions still tempts our political appetites.
Almost all efforts at constructive revision so far have challenged the primacy of an economic productive base over its accompanying ideological superstructure;  even Althusser’s quasi-orthodox structuralism banishes economic determinsm to “the last instance.”  Yet no species of revisionism has yet posed the possiblity that such last instances of productive technology might entail an evolution of practical physics beyond the imagination of Marx’s 19th century horizons.
Those Newtonian horizons may soon be transcended by quantum computation, a revolutionary techology under development at Oxford University, MIT, and the Los Alamos National Laboratories.  Quantum computers promise to eclipse completely today’s digital processers, not only in sheer computational muscle but also in their attendant metaphysical mind set.  
David Deutsch, the Oxford don responsible for quantum computing’s most advanced incarnations, has asserted in his 1997 book, The Fabric of Reality, that his quantum Turing machines utilize a new “science of parallel universes.”  In making this assertion, Deutsch preferentially embraces the so-call “many worlds” hypothesis, quantum theory’s most explicitly ontological interpretation.  The existential implications of quantum computers are clearly drawn by the ontology of a many worlds approach.
This paper will explore how a future economy realized through Deutsch’s “multiverse” technology might form the productive base of a liberated superstructure by introducing quantum degrees of freedom that multipy each individual’s options across many “parallel” world histories.  The internal logic of each alternative history might proceed dialectically, but the ontological independence of each dialectical time line from others would be preserved through a “superpositional” inter-historical logic.  Individual existential leaps from one historical universe to another could be democratically randomized through the “praxis” of a quantum-communizing operator without restriction of one agent’s freedom by another agent’s leap.
As a result, the quantitative calculus motivating economic distribution might change radically.  For example, risk might come to assume the form of superpositioned probability amplitudes instead of classical probabilities;  commodified use and exchange values might be demystified by fungible quantum field statistics;  alienated labor might be reevaluated via treatment as scalar resonances.  
Perhaps most crucially, monopolies on information might melt away as universal quantum decryption becomes a capability widely distributed across class boundaries.  Weberian implications could include the demise of hierarchical bureacracies as we now know them.

But I would argue that the human experience is just as much, if even more, about Doing Stuff as it is about human interaction. Agreed, humans are not very good in the social interaction department: experts seem to agree that those filthy monkeys are fare superior to us in understanding group dynamics and such, and perhaps we could use some help.

But, and that’s a big BUT, we are very good (the best, it seems) in making things and doing stuff. I seem to remember that you also like to think of yourself as a craftsman. Working and building keeps people happy and sane. That’s why I think that fields such as money, garbage, agriculture, warfare, transportation or even love too are things that people should be responsible of themselves, even if we can build tools that would do them better. Even love and sex should take some work, I think. Of course many people will say that they would prefer not to work at all, but I suspect that’s just because it is perceived as compulsory, not voluntary.

Also, I would argue that modern waste disposal is not an automated process as such but a service bought from experts in the field. How does the all-new quantum landfill (is there garbage in it or is there not?) lead to improved human-to-human interaction anyway

I know that I certainly enjoy modern agricultural work, but the development of agribots is advancing steadily. Read Roald Dahl’s short story “The Great Automatic Grammatizator” and get that useless feeling yourself.

And of course “the most efficient way” is not synonymous with “the best result”, although it seems to be rare thought in these made-in-china times. Phew, sorry to rant again, hopefully I was cohorent… At least proves you have a reader

How much about waste disposal in cities does the average citizen know at the moment? There’s a lot of invisible infrastructure out there that keeps us alive, yet we don’t worry about it. Automated agents will do more and more of it in the future. But the real significance is in the human-human interactions.

Or, to put it another way, life imitates Charlie. )