Help tracking down some Karl Marx writings

[Paolo123]

I was having a discussion with someone the other day who told me that Marx said that eventually due to automation that there wouldn't be anything for most workers to do, but that this could be a good thing as in a society that is prosperous but doesn't require labor people could spend their time on arts/music, etc.

I'd never heard this before, can anyone point to any of Marx's writings that discuss this concept?

Sorry if I posted this in the wrong forum.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

1. Don't know about Marx,

but perhaps the reference was to John Maynard Keynes (who was no Marxist) 1930 prediction that our grandchildren would only be working 15 hour workweeks, and that living standards would improve eightfold by the year 2030.

[alp227]

2. some helpful links

wikipedia Organic composition of capital:

The hypothetical final result of the rising OCC would be full automation of the production process, in which case labour-costs would be near-zero. This is argued to herald the end of capitalism's functioning as both a profit generating economic system for capitalists, and as a social system, among other things because the capitalist system does not contain a means for distributing incomes other than that based on labour-effort. However, it is also possible that automation of material production displaces labour into the services sector. Provided sufficient income exists to purchase services, a service economy can grow.

marxism ideology

According to Marx, when mechanization and automation increases, workers are less needed and therefore get lower wages. This leads to society being split into two "classes": the capitalists who own the factories with the machines, and the proletarians, who own nothing and become poorer and poorer. Obviously, this isn't a stable situation; eventually the proletarians become so poor that they have nothing to lose by inciting a revolution, and the system breaks down ("Der Grosse Kladderedatsch&quot .

[Paolo123]

3. thanks nt