Qualityland

NO GOING BACK

John looks out at the audience in the large factory hall. “This is ridiculous. Can’t we cancel?”

“Your speech is being live streamed,” says Aisha. “There’s no going back now.”

The android turns to walk toward the stage, but Aisha stops him. “John, one more thing.”

“What?”

“This is a campaign appearance, so if there are commas in any of the sentences you want to say, please reformulate them.”

“There were two commas in your sentence.”

“Yes, but I’m speaking to you. Not to the voters.”

Tony is finishing his introductory speech. He invites John to join him up on the stage, which has been constructed especially at the end of the assembly hall.

“Forget the audience in here, John,” whispers Tony. “Only the online viewers matter.”

John nods, goes to the microphone, and decides to come straight to the point.

“My dear humans, everyone is talking about a labor market crisis. But this isn’t the kind of crisis that can be overcome, so it’s pointless to treat the symptoms. Attempting to achieve full employment is a deception. It will never happen again. On the contrary: through digitalization, automation, and rationalization, workplaces will be done away with in ever greater quantities. In a different economic system, that would be a blessing! But in the current system, everyone is being forced to compete for an ever-shrinking number of workplaces. As a result, forms of exploitation and suppression that were considered a thing of the past are being reestablished. Nonetheless, we can’t blame the system for the abolition of workplaces. We should, however, criticize it for continuing to present as the norm the very thing it’s doing away with—in other words, wage labor—and for making the rights and dignity of every human being dependent on it!”

He receives a message from Aisha. “Please remember the comma rule!”

“Generations of humans had the same dream. That one day work should do itself! And now the time has come! But Conrad Cook and the Machine Breakers want to turn back the clock. It’s ridiculous! Instead we must redefine the concept of work! Work is not synonymous with wage labor! And the rights and dignity of a human being are not dependent on his job. They are unconditional! You cannot compete with us! Kurt Vonnegut once wrote: ‘Machines are slaves. Anyone that competes with a slave, becomes a slave.’”

John pauses. All the workers in the audience begin to clap.

“All the workers are applauding,” says Tony. “You should write that in the press release. It’s the truth.”

“Yes,” says Aisha with a sigh. “Except, unfortunately, everybody can see from the video footage that all the workers consist of just one.”

As a matter of fact, there really is only one human being left working in this factory. He is standing there amongst an army of robots, clapping. Aisha hadn’t thought it possible to clap in such a sarcastic way. But apparently it was. The robots stand still, silent and unmoved, until the one human worker gives a signal to continue working, and all of them burst into hectic activity. The speech, the worker has decided, is over. He has clearly had enough. John leaves the stage, and Aisha goes over to him.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “When we were campaigning four years ago, there were still well over a thousand people working here.”

“The factory belongs to Bob Chairman,” says Tony. “You know, Marcus’s father.”

“Martyn’s,” says John.

“The asshole really could have warned us,” mutters Aisha.

“Well,” says Tony bitterly, “look at the bright side. Soon our poll ratings will be so low that they can only go up.”