Beyond the Permanent Underclass

​As the powers that be thrash out the doom and gloom of our futures, a new threat peeks its head out of the trenches: the creation of a permanent underclass. 🧟

​Maybe by now, you've heard it at a party that you should probably have not gone to: We have two years to escape the permanent underclass.. "To the lifeboats Henry! Git your equity, git your bunker bag an lets do one before the robots take the rest.."

​On the up side however, Silicon Valley is now talking about economics and class as if its life depends on it (because welp.. it does). But so far the plan seems to be every person for themselves.

​So what does this all mean? This evening we will frolic and roll around like felines in cat nip, bathed in debates around:

• ​Why class politics went missing in the US, and especially in San Francisco

• ​Whether AI is putting class and economics back on the table

• ​Whether the permanent underclass is a credible risk or just doomhype

• ​What Polanyi, Du Bois and Keynes would say if they could see us now? What would Marx & Gorz be waxing lyrical over?

• ​And remind me again, why can't we build an economy that serves life, instead of human lives serving the economy?

• ​And the big one: what do we defend, protect, and build to steer us away from the darkest timeline.

​Come and join a salon on this as we enter the final phase of our two-month residency.
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Commons University 2026 — Automation for the People
https://embassy.community/