The Control Society of Trucking

While reading Gilles Deleuze's Postscript on the Societies of Control, I recalled a Vox video I had recently watched on the eventual automation of the trucking industry and the constraints put on drivers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_UHknhNbAQ). Admittedly, before I came to the University of Chicago, I drove a 26(ish) foot box truck delivering ice for a company in Ohio. I really enjoyed the work, as it got me up and moving and the fruits of my labor were displayed to me after every delivery via the tablet the drivers used to track sales for the day. But after watching this video and reading Deleuze, it is clear that I was under control by the pursuit of profit, the desire for an academic job, and the increasing numbers on the screen.

Firstly, I needed to pay for school. Of course, I would get some help from the federal government, but its obvious the academic debt crisis is just another form of control--one that hangs over all our heads, even before we accrue debt and years after we graduate. I ended up taking two jobs at one point in the winter/spring of 2017, working 13-17 hours a day, all to pay for school that would result in a job (hopefully) sometime in about 6-8 years that may or may not pay off the compounding debt. The control the pursuit of profit was definitely controlling many parts of my life, my time, and my environment, present and future. Similarly, I was constantly being driven to sell more and more product as the day went on. The payoff was 8% of the total sales. The sales numbers on the screen pushed me further and further, stuffing the product into freezers to maximize my output. Additionally, my body began to fall apart as the months went by: a pinched nerve here, bloody knuckles there, maybe a partially torn hamstring. I will never blame my bosses for this, because they were actually friendly and encouraging, but the automation of the sales dug itself deep into my mind, pushing me to compete with other drivers and myself without ever having to be told to do so. All this to say, the Deleuze piece really hit home for me, making me reevaluate a lot. I succumbed to the control the government has over my finances and other students' for years to come. I realized the control an automated tablet had over my mind and my body, urging me ever so inconspicuously to sell, sell, sell. I really enjoyed that job regardless of my complaints, but it makes you wonder how many millions of people are under the absolute but silent control of their jobs, especially those in manual labor. The truckers from the Vox video have been denied seeing their families or making necessary money to feed them because a machine told them they could no longer drive that extra half-hour. And in time, their jobs will be eliminated because of automation by Telsa and the like. At that point, some have theorized a need for Basic Universal Income, which most certainly would be a centralized governmental endeavor. As we see via our student debt, financial material (or as Deleuze suggests, immaterial finances) such as a Universal Basic Income would only control more people because of the automation that rendered their production less productive than that of a machine. I don't mean to come off like some technology-phobic conspiracy theorist, but it is hard for me not to look around and see what Deleuze was talking about, especially in my own experiences. I do not have solutions for this automation, as it seems the capitalism all our authors speak of result in it. But with the optimism of Alan Kay, the limits of occupation have not yet been reached because we have yet to fully understand the human mind and all that it can accomplish. Yet, with the pessimism of Gilles Deleuze, I worry for the poor, the disabled, and those who cannot adhere to the demands of efficiency that will cast them aside for automated machines who do what they cannot.