This is my next big work

TL;DR

• 1

  Automation breaks the old social contract: Shapiro argues that when elites no longer depend on human labor for production, taxation, or force, the mutual dependence that underpinned democracy and civil rights starts to collapse.

• 2

  Labor mattered because it had seven hard-to-replace properties: He lists labor as embodied, mandatory, coordinatable, refusable, perishable, geographically locked, and specialized, which together gave ordinary people bargaining power throughout history.

• 3

  Rights are won through credible threats, not moral appeals alone: Using examples from labor strikes to Athenian ostracism, he says elites concede rights only when repression costs more than concession, echoing Frederick Douglass and Acemoglu and Robinson.

• 4

  The real danger is not techno-feudalism but "mass irrelevance": Shapiro says robotics could remove even the residual need for human subjects, creating what he calls "redundant biomass" rather than merely badly treated workers.

• 5

  Nonviolent disruption works better than violence: He cites success rates of about 53% for nonviolent resistance versus 26% for violent resistance, arguing general strikes, tax resistance, and coordinated non-cooperation are the better path to constitutional change.

• 6

  He thinks the window is closing fast: With US prime-age labor force participation at 83.8% and the 3.5% participation rule for successful campaigns, he says labor still has leverage now, but that leverage is a depreciating asset as automation improves.