Peter Frase

I got some interesting interviews in the past week or so, which I figured I’d stick here for those who care.

First, Truthout made me their “progressive pick” for a week, and Mark Karlin ran this interview about the general arguments of my book.

I was invited to this roundtable for BBC radio, in which we discussed automation and its implications for the future of work. I’ll just say that when you’ve gotten used to hearing Owen Bennett-Jones’ plummy voice in the background on your radio, it’s very odd to find yourself actually on the line with him. It was a well constructed panel, including both a professor from Ghana and a self-professed Luddite from Maine. Things got interesting at the very end, when one of the other guests tried to argue that technological progress automatically leads to shorter working hours–when it’s almost axiomatic to me at this point that the causality runs in the opposite direction.

Finally, I went straight from one Manhattan studio to another (in the middle of a blizzard) so that I could shift from the BBC to the CBC. Jim Brown and I had a nice little talk about my perpetual insistence that automation can liberate us from work–but only if our side wins the class struggle.

Finally, I got written up at Rolling Stone Italy. But I don’t speak Italian, so anyone who does is welcome to tell me if I’ve been horribly misrepresented.