by system failure
Connecting
the dots one can discover the most nightmarish scenarios. Destructive
capitalism's next phase is the total substitution of the human labor
force with robotic machines, or in other words, the
hyper-automatization. There is a process taking place right now, and
no one (or nearly no one) knows what would happen after its
completion.
The true
picture behind unemployment
From
a latest article in PressTV:
“Did you
know that there are nearly 102 million working age Americans that do
not have a job right now? And 20 percent of all families in the
United States do not have a single member that is employed. So how in
the world can the government claim that the unemployment rate has
“dropped” to '6.3 percent'?”
“Well, it all comes down to how you define who is 'unemployed'. For example, last month the government moved another 988,000 Americans into the 'not in the labor force' category.”
“Well, it all comes down to how you define who is 'unemployed'. For example, last month the government moved another 988,000 Americans into the 'not in the labor force' category.”
102(!)
million working age Americans that do not have a job right now?
20%(!) of all families in the US do not have a single member that is
employed? Do you find these numbers exaggerated? Maybe not, if you
read the following story by the "eye-witness" Yanis
Varoufakis.
What
is going on in front of our eyes?
Yanis
Varoufakis in his article "What if the capital of future doesn't
need us?", describes what he saw in Austin-Texas and what that
means:
“While
I was watching from my window in Austin-Texas, I saw a big cloud of
dust deep in horizon. Two days ago, I was walking in that area and I
was surprised by the view of the big factory where bulldozers and
machines were continuously working, producing the dust. From the
front side of the building under construction it was obvious that
(fortunately) they were not building a new trade center or apartment
blocks. No, it was a big industrial center.”
“Although
I didn't notice it the first time, after a few seconds I realised
that something was missing from this factory: people! Specifically,
I counted three. All of them were wearing helmets and protection
suits and were located in a small office in a space outside with a
few computers, while they were covered by a tent like those used by
the army. Ten bulldozers, three cranes and more or less ten moving
tools, at least from what I could see, were moving without drivers,
operators, workers generally.”
“When I
returned to my office, I went straight to find a colleague who knows
well what's going on. He informed me that the workplace I saw, was
the new factory of Apple to produce MacBook Pro. It was true that, it
was constructed through almost complete automatization. The materials
had been selected through a way with which, the automatic machines -
therefore robots connected to eachother through a local wireless
network (intranet) - to be able to construct without human
interference - even the hydraulic structure of the building will be
constructed by plumpers-robots. A factory that under normal
conditions should employ thousands of workers is functioning with the
presence of less than one hundred souls.”
“I
asked him about the move of Apple to produce computers in America, by
bringing back in the US the production from China for the first time
after decades. 'How's that?' And the answer was the expected one,
although quite impressive: 'Wages are of no importance. The export
of productive processes from America to China (off-shoring) was only
an intermediate stage. The production has returned to America, but
not the jobs. The new factory of Apple, not only is constructed
without American workers' sweat, but will also produce MacBook Pro
through complete automatization, without hiring Texans. Welcome to
the New, Brave World', ended with a smile, referring obviously to
the Brave New World of Aldous Huxley.”
[...]
“When
bulldozers and plumpers-robots that at this moment build the new
factory of Apple, will start to learn from eachother and cooperate
inside a robotic network, even the few jobs concerning the operation
of these robots will vanish. In case that these armies of
interconnected machine slaves belonged to everyone, thus if everyone
had the right to benefit from the goods that they produce, then no
problem. What should be done, however, in case that these machine
slaves, the capital of future, belong (like the most of today's
capital) to the very few, while at the same time most of the people
do not have access in the goods they produce and an opportunity to
work for a (human) wage?”
Capital
"hyperaccumulation" : Useful for the next stage
Economic
crises are used to destroy big competitors and keep the value of
money high, through capital "hyperaccumulation". Capital
"hyperaccumulation", however, is also used to fund the next
stage of the destructive capitalism which is hyper-automatization.
How
all these connected to the Greek experiment?
How
long a society could tolerate an unemployment rate of 30% - 50%
without uprising that could bring an "instability" to the
system? When unemployment rate for the young people has reached 60%?
When pensions and wages have been cut? How much the unemployment
benefit should be cut in order to allow people to survive and consume
without uprising? How many could be left totally helpless without any
kind of social benefit? How much the mainstream media propaganda
affects people in order to stay scared inside their homes without
uprising?
The
new nightmarish facts in Greek experiment could be proved quite
useful for the big companies that hyper-automatize production and
seek to remove the human labor costs.
Someone
has to consume
The
big question is: If all the production will be automatized (even the
services sector), who will consume the products? Are we going to a
model that most of the people will be receiving unemployment benefits
just to survive and consume?
In
overpopulated developing countries there are huge potential consumer
tanks. Their consuming power will rise and the complete
automatization of the production there will take decades. However,
the suitable conditions should be created first, in the aged and
saturated West, in order a limit in wages to be established and the
expansion of the Western social state model to be prevented because
all these things mean an additional cost for the global economic
oligarchy:
The
new model could lead to a future Dystopia beyond any fantasy:
“In the
middle of the pyramid, a restructured class will serve and secure the
domination of the top. Corporate executives, big journalists,
scientific elites, suppression forces. It is characteristic that
academic research is directed on the basis of the profits of big
corporations. Funding is directed increasingly to practical
applications in areas that can bring huge profits, like for example,
the higher automatization of production and therefore, the profit
increase through the restriction of jobs.”
“The
base of the pyramid will be consisted by the majority of workers in
global level, with restricted wages, zero labor rights, and nearly
zero opportunities for activities other than consumption.”
[...]
“However,
the most horrific thing of all will be the expansion of the lower
social level, consisted by millions of people all over the planet,
which will be left without any kind of help, dying in extreme
poverty, since the global economic elite will secure its domination
through the oversupply of labor force and consumers.
Unfortunately,
already, the human life increasingly lose value...”
Are they
all, so well designed?
Probably
not. One can imagine, more or less, what is being discussed in closed
rooms of economic forums and Bilderberg conferences behind cameras,
but that does not mean that the designers of the new world order can
build everything in detail.
In
many cases in the past, predictions and designs of various think
tanks have failed because there is no perfect theory that can
predict everything with accuracy and include all the unexpected
facts.
It
is obvious that the subsection of the global economic oligarchy in
Greece, fears a possible "accident" in euro elections since
things are not going well for the traditional parties in power which
support the local capital, and this is depicted in the way that the
mainstream media propaganda culminates as we get closer to the euro
elections day.
This
means that, the struggle of people against the future Dystopia is not
futile at all ...
This explains the alternative:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.economonitor.com/lrwray/2013/11/21/bow-down-to-the-bubble-larry-summerian-endorses-bubbleonian-madness-and-paul-krugman-embraces-the-hansenian-stagnation-thesis/
So no more physical labor. big deal. We will get over it and evolve.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that simple I'm afraid. I wish it was ...
Delete"In case that these armies of interconnected machine slaves belonged to everyone, thus if everyone had the right to benefit from the goods that they produce, then no problem. What should be done, however, in case that these machine slaves, the capital of future, belong (like the most of today's capital) to the very few…?"
DeleteOver the last year I have written several articles about robots including the one below about how they will take away many employment opportunities. If robot factories are the future then let them be located in America.
ReplyDeleteWhile they would not necessarily be a massive creator of jobs they would at least allow us to have control of our own manufacturing. Over the last three decades robots have become far more common in factories many have become dominated by robots. The article below looks at this job killer and how it might effect all of us.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2013/04/robot-factories-mean-less-jobs.html
A few generations ago 50% of people toiled away on farms, then came tractors and combines,etc. Now- less than 2% produce much more & cheaper food....... times change! Farm work is horrid, so is factory work- good riddance.
ReplyDeleteGood riddance if we don't need to work anymore, sure.
DeleteBUT…
The problem is : WHO OWNS the robots, and therefore who gets the whole benefits?
If workers are useless, do you think capitalist will share their benefits with them?
The probability they will decide to eliminate - yes, physically eliminate - the 'useless' part of mankind is much bigger... That's you and me and our relatives and most people !
Thank you all for your comments and links. Progress in not the issue here. Fully automated societies would be a huge step for humanity to solve many problems as long as serve equally all humans and respect the environment. Current sociological model is deeply rely on inequality more and more, expanding fast. Even capitalism in its classical form won't work for the benefit of all humans under full automation. Instead of truly evolve towards a more viable model the system "evolves" to an opposite direction bringing nightmarish imbalances and instability. Read also:
ReplyDeletehttp://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/08/the-dominant-elite-ready-to-break.html
I traveled the country as a trucker for years. Starting in about 1996 i kept meeting people who would tell me of whole factorys closing down and going to China. I figured out was for cheaper labor and no regulations. But the first thing i thought,was what jobs will replace all these ones we are losing.? This went on for years, sometimes the amount of people losing their jobs was incredible. Now i look around and there are so many people unemployed and all i hear about is high tech jobs. Yeah.. will i can only see so many of those. The schools push common core which is heavy on math. I guess they think we need engineers and scientist. And with this whole global economy thinking, Kids get to compete with all the future scientist from around the world. I think this isn't thought out to well.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. seem's to be the worlds exporters of death right now. So i wonder about our governments thinking. I don't see much long term thinking anyhow.2015 should be an interesting year. Many of the things our president wanted or started come into play. Along with the cost of which the public will learn about soon.
I recommend this web site,check it out for a week. Learn some things from non PC thinking people. And no im just a reader of this site. The Burning Platform. Is the name.
So, sorry to tell folks like "anonymous" and others that this is NOT a sociological issue, it is a purely economic issue. It is this simple: consumer spending drives capitalist economies. The amount of consumer spending is directly related to the disposable income of individuals participating in that economy. And where do we get disposable income? Wages. Wages are the source of the majority of Americans disposable income, i.e. consumer spending. No jobs = no wages = no one to buy products and services = stalled and then crashed economy.
ReplyDeleteThere is a huge potential of consumers due to unprecedented human population. Once wages will further rise in China-South East Asia, there will be plenty of consumers to buy more products. However, I'm afraid that this is also only a transition phase. It's not a matter of money, they can print as much as they want. It's a matter of power and control. Once the elites reach the point to control all the resources and the means of production, the model will change from capitalism to global feudalism.
DeleteIn all history progress comes from free men and women. Slavery (including robots) is the mother of complete stagnation.
DeleteMany of our modern inventions were invented as toys and amusements in ancient Greece, Babylon, Rome. But they stayed amusements. The will for progress wasn't there because of slavery.
This NWO isn't new at all...it's very old indeed. The elite will eat each other, betray each other. Historians will study the meteoric rise and total failure of its hubris.
I wonder about your term "destructive capitalism." The corporations who give us open borders, off shoring, and sovereignty-dilution trade agreements, among other things, fit into that category well. They are large enough and politically influential enough to be able to enjoy "crony capitalism" as well. So they enjoy the income they can obtain from low wages anywhere in the world and from manipulating the political process. (There is also the problem of the financial elite who have done much damage by fiddling with money and disconnecting it from productive activity.)
ReplyDeleteThere's another kind of "capitalism" that leftists like to talk about. It is the heavily-regulated and taxed bastard, gelded, immobilized goat version of something or other where the vitality of entrepreneurship and genuinely free markets is wrung out of the economy. So we have not socialism but a fascism lite with the government controlling everything with a blossoming, metastasizing network of regulations and inspectors and tax eaters. However, the current situation is held up as "capitalism" from which we must flee eo instante into the arms of our socialist and communist masters.
All of the above refers to economic actors who act with either a disembodied pursuit of profit or in aid of a yet more destructive political control.
The possibility of actual free markets thus ends up being discounted, even worked against. Economic life gets controlled by grifters, sociopaths, and Stalinists. If it is useful to talk about "destructive capitalism" I think there is an obligation to recognize that a ton of our problems have come about because we refuse to acknowledge the enormous value of having small business who DO have the interests of the citizens as their primary objective. In the process, too, we all need to focus on how the federal government (and the uber-diseased E.U.) have grown to such enormous proportions as to be beyond popular control. In short, we need to refocus on liberty. Too many individuals and entities are profiting at the expense of liberty.
I agree with you but we have grifters, sociopaths and Stalinists NOW. they are two heads of the same monster.
DeleteI am a small business owner and my Main St operation is shrinking and shrinking to where our 'off season' is now 6 or 7 months of the year. Our customers are families - and they stop spending even the last week of October - because Halloween is a budget buster.
The super bowl is a budget buster... every paycheck is accounted for ... and anything added... pizza, beer, chips... means they don't spend on other things.
Nail parlors, gold buyers and tattoo parlors are popping up where women's stores, formal wear and music stores went out of business.
So the need for 'small business' .. and we have a GREAT niche... is drying up as well.