On "Fragment on Machines" (1858). Shouldn't automating work free workers? Not according to Marx, until capitalism is overthrown. Until then, automation actually just makes labor conditions worse and certainly doesn't give people more free time, since the capitalist keeps all the surplus gained by greater productivity.

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Mark, Lawrence, Sarahlyn and Al discuss the Coralie Fargeat/Demi Moore film The Substance in light of its Oscar nominations, along with related reflections on lost youth, e.g. Sunset Boulevard (1950), Death Becomes Her (1992), and Neon Demon (2016). We also touch on other cloning scenarios.

Is this film a serious meditation on aging in Hollywood, or just a particularly vivid but logically confused Twilight Zone episode? Is the message of this film already itself past its prime?

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We finish our treatment of Capital, Ch. 1, covering the little bit that Marx says about actual communism (he was wary of utopianism, contra his reputation), and think through a number of related practical problems. We introduce "Fragment on Machines" (1858).

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