Will the masses become obsolete? The question is pondered so much that it no longer sparks profound debates. This current trend contrasts with the historical experiences where the masses were a necessity, albeit a burdensome and inconvenient one. Many social conditions now though show elites who can prosper without relying as much on the masses. Luddites two centuries ago could smash machines. But, machines are progressing at a rate and range of applications that they won't simply serve as extensions of human beings but will redefine what constitutes them.
Vast bodies of literature exist wherein authors predict post-human futures. This body often features technological applications initially serving humanity until its advances eclipse humanity. Bill Joy, co-founder and former Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, putatively whacked at this industry of futuristic speculation. "WIRED" magazine published Mr. Joy's article "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us." [1].
His well balanced article is worth reading because he ask critical questions while avoiding making deterministic claims that humanity either faces a technologically induced extinction or that utopia awaits. Joy recalls a conversation with Ray Kurzweil that occurred in 1998 during which Kurzweil shared his prediction that humans will evolve into robots. This prediction alarmed Joy, prompting his thinking that such technology regardless of its eventual application will cause a fateful redefinition of human beings. This technological pace continues. Thus, we continue our analysis on how quickly robotics will render us as transitional primates whose existence sets the stage on which robotics could use what was useful in humans for the new conditions while discarding the rest. This analysis remains crucial, but other less glamorous phenomenon lacking advanced technological trappings exist already that deserve as much attention as necessary to assess the utility of humans.
Latest technologies bring out both the panglossian and pessimistic impulses in many people. Both types often see humans becoming more irrelevant. While technological advances may redefine or at least alter what being "human" means, social and political trends seem content to marginalize many humans to a state of powerlessness and anonymity. In that context, humans are not defined just forgotten. Of course on an unrelated yet important note, the latter state wouldn't be the kind that allows them to escape the digital eyes of the NSA. Instead, this anonymous state refers to many people existing in the "informal economy" with less social safety net protection.
Economists and academics define the informal economy as economic activity which occurs outside of any legal framework and evades tracking and monitoring by the host government. Because the informal workforce evades the formal structures of the "legal or legitimate" economy, it is difficult to use a reliable method to calculate its size and scale. We see the size of the informal economy decline as it further develops. The factors causing economic development are a different issue. Many examples show what factors lay a solid foundation for creating economic development. In that vein economic development has historically reduced informal employment while increasing average wages. This phenomena can encourage people to claim a statistical justification for belief that the U.S. provides the most prosperity for the greater good. But, weaknesses in this edifice of prosperity begin to show as more americans live on the brink of "informalization." More important, this increasing "informalization" results less from technology's deterministic rhythms rendering working class expendable and more from the elites' deliberate decisions.
All attempts to see whether technology or political and social institutions or a combination of both serve as the primary catalyst informalizing the masses can result in a glut of examples showing the primacy of each. Regardless of this glut, history shows strong examples that deliberate decisions made by political and social institutions pushed the masses further into informalization. One notable example is the G-7 meeting that occurred on November 15-17, 1975 at Rambouillet, France during which Chancellor Helmut Schmidt discussed deindustrialization:
"Harold [Wilson, of the UK], you talked of viable industries, and indicated that this excluded lame ducks. You referred to textiles as an example. I am a close friend of the chairman of the textile workers union in Germany. It is a union of a shrinking industry. I would hope that this would not be repeated outside this room. Given the high level of wages in Europe, I cannot help but believe that in the long run textile industries here will have to vanish. We cannot ward off cheaper competition from outside. We will eventually need some hothouse or botanical garden for this industry. It is a pity because it is viable: capital invested in a job in the textile industry in Germany is as high as it is in the German steel mills. But wages in East Asia are very low compared with ours. The garment industries in France and Italy, which make high fashions, will survive. They are ingenious and creative and will survive. The German textile industry is viable, but will vanish in ten or twelve years." [2]
Future changes to the textile industry in Germany showed Schmidt comprehended and accepted its "inevitable" hollowing out. From 1965 to 2006, the number of German clothing businesses declined from 5,500 to 408. [3]. This decrease also caused decline in the number of employees in this industry from 400,000 to roughly 45,000. [4]. These reductions in number of businesses and employees show examples of capital gaining more power over labor.
German wages have earned a declining share of national income relative to capital. Wages and salaries accounted for 71% of national income in 1991 and then fell to 64.8% in 2007. [5]. This increase in capital accumulation has increased income inequality [6]. Do these trends show that Helmut Schmidt's comments demonstrate a conscious agenda to weaken the working classes? Or did they emerge from the results of nameless, faceless natural laws? Regardless of the causation, human masses experience increased marginalization around the world. Neither Third world nor developed nations have avoided this increase in economic stratification.
Other examples show us that such a strong momentum pushes marginalization that it is, paradoxically, a centrifugal force touching wider swaths of the masses. An overall macroeconomic trend and a specific event show that the marginalizing of the masses continues.
The opening of the world to "capitalism" during the post-cold war era ignited a process cautiously deemed "a race to the bottom" a la maquiladoras, Shenzen, Bangladeshi garment factories, etc. Meanwhile, America's political economy shows the world how the most developed nation helps lead a race to increasing marginalization.
During April and May 2014 the Detroit's water and sewage department began shutting off water for over residents who are delinquent on their bills. The shut offs reached 7,200 homes during June 2014. [6]. A long term solution to this problem is still pending. Is this a glimpse into the future? Impoverished citizens face being thrown off of the grid? This problem results ultimately from multiple causes one of which is structural unemployment or non-employment.
The rate of persons during 2013 in the U.S. considered "employed" totaled 58.6%, which is much less than the historic high of 64.4% reached in 2000 [7]. This drop bodes poorly for the working classes in the U.S. because this decrease started before the housing-bust-induced meltdown beginning in 2007-08 and has since not improved. This trend of decreasing of the total employment rate is inversely proportional to revenue growth in business-to-consumer and business-to-business data [8]. Revenues of the former increased from "$1.8 billion in 1997 to $70 billion in 2002
[9]. Also, business to business "had similarly smooth growth from $56 billion in 1999 to $482 billion" [10]. And, "In 2004 it is approaching $1 trillion" [11]. This trend was observed 10 years ago but shows that a dynamic and rapidly growing sector diverges from the overall employment rate in the U.S.; and, equally important, occurred while income and wealth inequality increases. This trend so far appears to be forging a new paradigm in economics and history which includes rendering obsolete the economic maxim that increased output leads to increasing wages.
The Great Recession that began in 2008 does not explain the repeal of the economic "law" that stated increased output caused wage increases. For example, "Between 1997 and 2005, manufacturing output increased by 60% in the United States while 3.9 million manufacturing jobs were eliminated during roughly the same period, between 2000 and 2008"[12]. Moreover, capital inputs continue to increase productivity, marginalizing workers:"By 2007 manufacturers were using more than six times as much equipment-computer and software-as they did 20 years earlier while doubling the amount of capital used per hour of employee work" [13]. Marginalization of labor preceded, coincided, and continues before, during, after, respectively, the Great Recession.
Is the world moving toward a state where first and third world nations are ceasing to exist? Rather than our identifying a nation as "developed" or first world or third world, the globe will consist of land masses with pockets of billionaire elitists and other sprawling areas resembling squatters' villages?
Economic trends show marginalizing of the masses sweeping the developed world; meanwhile, Ray Kurzweil, in particular, expresses confidence that technological advances will "keep us alive long enough to live forever." Does the latter scenario offer salvation from the masses afflicted by the former scenario? Kurzweil and Bill Gates discuss the possibility of a new God emerging from a post-biological reality created by humans merging with technology:
Bill: We need to get away from the ornate and strange stories in contemporary religions and concentrate on some simple messages. We need a charismatic leader for this new religion.
Ray: A charismatic leader is part of the old model. That's something we want to get away from.
Bill: Okay, a charismatic computer, then.
Ray: How about a charismatic operating system?
Bill: Ha, we've already got that. So is there a God in this religion?
Ray: Not yet, but there will be. Once we saturate the matter and energy in the universe with intelligence, it will "wake up," be conscious, and sublimely intelligent. That's about as close to God as I can imagine.
Bill: That's going to be silicon intelligence, not biological intelligence.
Ray: Well, yes, we're going to transcend biological intelligence. We'll merge with it first, but ultimately the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will predominate. By the way, it's not likely to be silicon, but something like carbon nanotubes.
Bill: Yes, I understand-I'm just referring to that as silicon intelligence since people understand what that means. But I don't think that's going to be conscious in the human sense.
Ray: Why not? If we emulate in as detailed a manner as necessary everything going on in the human brain and body and instantiate these processes in another substrate, and then of course expand it greatly, why wouldn't it be conscious?
Bill: Oh, it will be conscious. I just think it will be a different type of consciousness. [14].
So if we live long enough, we can download an app exposing us to a new consciousness. Critical discussions about the future of subjects of God and Consciousness must occur within the most robust dialogue.
No failsafe algorithm can explain why such optimism is warranted when we as humans fail to allocate our resources more humanely to offset this marginalizing of the masses. Thus, if we allow masses to be marginalized, should we take a leap of faith into a world imagined by Kurzweil wherein it is intrinsically benevolent? Before we take this leap into a world wherein we as humans overthrow limits imposed upon us by biological and physical laws, we should indulge the sentimental practice of using poetry to keep language alive while it remains a unique faculty of us humans. Many examples recorded across time and space show poetry keeping language alive. Zbigniew Herbert tested the power of the Word to withstand the Soviet's imposing of martial law on many Polish workers for their forming their Solidarity Movement:
they-western sympathizers of the Polish workers-have not lived through a siege long as an eternity
they who are touched by misfortune are always alone
defenders of the Dalai Lama the Kurds and the Afghans
now as I write these words those who favor appeasement
have acquired an advantage over the party of the staunch
an ordinary mood swing the stakes are still being weighed
cemeteries are growing the number of defenders shrinking
but the defense continues and it will continue to the end
and the the City falls and one man survives
he will carry the City inside him on the paths of exile
he will be the City
we look into hunger's face the face of fire face death
the worst of all--the face of betrayal
and only our dreams have not been humiliated [15].
Polish workers prevailing over the Soviets may evoke a pedestrian image compared to the transcendent hype of humanity evolving into the Singular state of life prolonged indefinitely. Still Lech Walsea deserves our remembrance. I prefer one Lech Walsea and a Solidarity Movement of whom all endured humiliation to save their "dreams" compared to the unforeseen consciousness emerging from the Singularity. So.....Solidarity or Singularity? Or will there be something in between?
[1.] Joy, Bill. "Why the future doesn't need us" WIRED. Issue 8.04. April 2000. http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
[2]. Prashad, Vijay. The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. Verso. London. 2012. Kindle version. Locations 826-831 of 7808.
[3]. "The situation of the textile and clothing industry in Germany." Leonardo-da-Vinci Project. Agreement n [I/06/B/F/PP-154073] Phase II. Katholische Univeristat. Eichstatt Ingolstadt. Fashion Net. p.16. http://portale.parma.it/fashion-net/allegato.asp?ID=458192
[4]. Ibid.
[5.] Hall, John and Udo Ludwig. "Neo-Liberalism, the Changing German Labor Market, an Income Distribution: an Institutionalist and Post-Keynesian Analysis." John Hall Publications. JEL Classification Codes: B52, B59, E65. http://johnhallpublications.com/publications/neo-liberalism-the-changing-german-labor-market-and-income-distribution-an-institutionalist-and-post-keynesian-analysis/*****Of course technological innovations have resulted in more productivity while devaluing human labor in this industry. Wages account for a smaller % of national income so it seems workers haven't simply shifted to higher paying industries.
[6]. Thurman, Scott. "Detroit water shutoff controversy igniting nationwide debate." The Associated Press, ABC 7 News. July 31, 2014. http://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/07/detroit-water-shutoff-controversy-igniting-nationwide-debate-105641.html
***The number of persons whose water was shut off varies according to the source viewed. Numbers range from a few thousand to over 100,000. The latest news on the water shut offs in Detroit is available at the website of the Detroit Water Brigage http://detroitwaterbrigade.org/
[7]. "Employment rate in the United States from 1990 to 2013." statista The Statistics Portal. http://www.statista.com/statistics/192398/employment-rate-in-the-us-since-1990/
an "employed" person in this statistic meets the following criteria: persons who did any work for pay or profit during the survey reference week; persons who did at least 15 hours of unpaid work in a family-operated enterprise; and persons who were temporarily absent from their regular jobs because of illness, vacation, bad weather, industrial dispute, or various personal reasons.
[8]. Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Penguin Books. 2005. Kindle Edition. Location 1737-38.
[9]. Ibid.
[10]. Ibid.
[11]. Ibid.
[12]. Rifkin, Jeremy. The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, The Collaborative Commons, And The Eclipse Of Capitalism. Palgrave Macmillan. New York. 2014. page 122 of 356.
[13]. Ibid.
[14]. Ibid. Location 7138-7158.
[15]. Herbert, Zbignew. The Collected Poems 1956-1998. CCCO. 2007. 416-18.
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