Does our Economic System still need Human Beings?



Wednesday, 14. October 2015 | 11:45 Uhr

Speaker

Philipp Theisohn

Organisation

University of Zurich

Abstract

Dehumanized economy is one of the integral issues we encounter while discussing our future. By «dehumanization», we mean a scenario, in which the productive forces of an economic system have been completely absorbed by machines. In this scenario, the automated production of goods is not reduced to the process of fabrication, but also includes planning, administration, and distribution. The scenario even provides the possibility of machines acting as full competent economic agents in terms of buying and selling, of expansion and investment. Think of a computer that does not only control a car, but a computer that builds up its own fleet of automated cabs.

Whereas the 20th century usually abhorred this scenario, it is meanwhile embraced even by critics of capitalism, such as the «Accelerationists» Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams. Being a literary scholar, my talk focuses mainly on the narratives that surround the dystopian as well as the utopian imagination of non-human economy. My talk should ask for the reasons of this change of mentality. It will survey competing future fiction and tries to find an answer to the crucial question: If all work is done by machines – how will we pay them?

Philipp Theisohn

Since 2013 Professor at the Department of German Studies at the University of Zurich
2012 Chair of Modern German Literature at the Institute for German Literature and Didactics of Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main
2011 Venia legendi for Modern German Literature and General and Comparative Literature
2008- 2013 Senior Assistant at the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies of ETH Zurich
2007- 2008 Assistant Professor at the Department of German Studies at Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen
2004-2006 Scientific Employee at the Department of German Studies at Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen
2004 Ph.D. at the Faculty of Modern Languages of Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen
2001-2002 Visiting Research Fellow at Hebrew University of Jerusalem
1994-1999 Studies of Modern German Literature, Medieval Studies and Philosophy in Tübingen and Zurich; Studies of Modern German Literature, Medieval Studies and Philosophy at Tubingen and Zurich; Graduation with M.A.

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