Technology and the Fate of Capitalism
“The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers." - Karl Marx
Abstract
Capitalism has been the successful economic system throughout history. It's the most basic system, as it rises naturally from interaction between humans. It's the base economic system. Alongside it, technology has evolved, too. It has advanced with time, and its growth helped capitalism, which then allowed capitalism to invest in technology. The two have been mutually beneficial for a long time, as technology allows capitalists to be more successful, and more success means more technological advancement. One of the products of this growth is automatic machinery, which was used to produce goods of all kinds. These machines replaced skilled craftsmen and workers, as they were faster, more precise, and didn't require regular pay. Similar problems exist right now. One of the commonly known reasons for the weak economy is lack of jobs. Many jobs have been taken by immigrants or people from other countries, as manufacturers like to pay the lowest wages possible to save money; workers from other countries require less pay, which means more profit for the employers. While this isn't good for the workers of America, it creates jobs in other countries, and thus the total amount of jobs stays the same, and only America is hurt--the rest of the world isn't. However, if machines are used to do jobs, the total number of jobs in the world goes down, and the world is hurt. This makes it more harmful than simply outsourcing, as eventually almost no jobs will be left. Eventually, machines may be producing enough for everyone to live, but no one will be able to have anything because they can't work. This is where capitalism may fall apart. This study will examine the relationship between technological advances, particularly of automation, with capitalism and the possibility of technology eliminating the need for humans to do anything, and thus rendering capitalism an impossibility.
Introduction and Literature Review
Economics are important. They can determine whether times are good or bad, and have done so for as long as economies have existed. Capitalism, the primary economic system of the world since society itself began, has worked reasonably well, seeing we're here today. It has done at least "well enough," though how much more has been debated--some see it as a superior system, while others see it as becoming increasingly obsolete. One of capitalism's fundamental concepts is that people work to allow themselves to survive. People can do a variety of things, but the important part is that it's their hard work that makes them successful. Capitalism gives people the incentive to work, which is one reason it has done better than Stalinism (communism in the Soviet Union), where people had no incentive to work. This is considered a positive property of capitalism--we'd all like to think that we could all be rich if we just worked hard enough, right? However, some examinations have shown the case to be otherwise (Mantsios). Multiple causes could be attributed to this fact--overpopulation, corruption, exploitation, foolish leadership, or the "evil forces of the universe." No matter the base cause, the result is always some kind of economical trouble. Another possible cause, perhaps unsuspected, could be technology. Technology has had all sorts of effects on the economy, some positive, some negative. Some technologies that we may take for granted, such as laundry machines, do make our lives easier. However, the relatives of this type of machine have more complex effects. Technology creates machines that do things people originally did by hand. These machines reduce the need for human labor. What twenty men can do with shovels, one man can do with a Caterpillar digging machine. This means that nineteen of those men with shovels need to find new work. Fortunately for them, there were plenty of things to do, as society didn't have everything. When society started to have "too much," problems arose, as there weren't as many jobs. Society recovered, as people created new things to do and new ways to make their livelihoods. However, it's a possibility that a problem could arise in the future, one with multiple possible outcomes.
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Capitalism is based on the idea that people make themselves survive. They give effort in some way and fend for themselves and the things they deem important. In nature, you'd have a hunter that hunts for himself and his family if he has one. He can use the pelts of his prey to fashion items for himself, or he can trade them to others for things others may have. This natural system works well in almost every situation. The exception that immediately comes to my mind is when a person is unable to work for their survival. This could be because they're physically or mentally incapable, and can't do what it takes to survive. Something like natural selection kills them off, which is what happens in nature. Another situation would be when there's no method of survival at all, which is often caused by domination by another force. In any case, whoever is better at surviving will survive, and existence will continue.
In modern society, survival doesn't occur with the hunting of deer to feed your family. Most people have jobs which pay them money, and the money is used to buy food. The main exception is the guy living in his cabin in the woods in northern Canada that hunts his own food, but he’s not part of society. This happens because not everyone needs to focus on finding food--food is so plentiful only a small percentage of the population needs to find (or grow) it. Instead, people work on improving the quality of life in some way (both directly and indirectly). One part of this is the production of goods that are useful and make life easier and more enjoyable, be it chairs, refrigerators, or chocolate. Because humans have advanced technologically, machines now do a lot of this work. Hundreds of years ago, when food was plentiful enough that not everyone had to be farmers, many people made their living as craftsmen. Then the Industrial Revolution came around, and there were times when manufactured goods were so plentiful not everyone had to make them either. When the Industrial Revolution happened, many skilled craftsmen were replaced by machines, as the machines were a great investment--they were extremely fast and precise, and didn't need to be paid. One person with enough money could build a factory, which could take the place of hundreds of skilled workers, such as weavers and fabric makers. The factories did employ people, but they didn't need as many to produce a greater amount. The Industrial Revolution and the arrival of automated production displaced a lot of people. The world was producing more than ever before as well, yet so many people had almost nothing. The world's population was increasing, but that's not everything. Many people who lived on farms four hundred years ago lived in better conditions than the people who lived in cities 90 to 120 years ago (it’s a bit difficult to get worse than twenty people in a small, filthy apartment), yet the world had more of almost everything physical.
The "precursor" to this problem existed with the Industrial Revolution. A modern version exists today. In the United States, many Americans complain that they can't find jobs because they're being outsourced to other countries or are being taken by immigrants. India is one of the major places that high-skill jobs are being outsourced to (Crawford). While this may be bad for American workers, it's good for workers of other countries. This is because the number of jobs in the world stays the same overall; the only changes are for the two countries. This doesn't hurt the world (at least not directly). But what if jobs were outsourced into the void, to nowhere? What if they just disappeared? Technology has the potential to do this. What would we do then, if no one had work to do, but those who owned the machines could make everything the world would ever need? Then all of the jobs would be ‘outsourced’ to the owners of the machines, which would be a minority of the population.
What if 90% of the jobs went away? What if machines did nearly all of the work? That would mean that the world could have enough food and materials for humans to survive, but no one would have anything, as no one could work to earn it. This would obviously be a problem. This would recreate what happened in the past, but many times worse. The three results may be the end of capitalism, human extinction (which is relatively unlikely unless the planet is severely damaged; mass population reduction is more likely), or technological regression (which is extremely unlikely without the population of humans going extremely low).
Part One: Technology and Capitalism
Technology has always affected what people do and modern employment is no exception. It has changed what people do and how they do it. This means that jobs have come and gone in different numbers. For almost all of time, everything was done by hand. There was plenty of work to do, as survival wasn’t quite as easy. Now, less and less is done by hand. More work is getting done, and something known as leisure time now exists. A lot of work can be done so fast that people don’t have to try nearly as hard to finish it all. Surviving takes much less work than it used to, and so does living comfortably. A few hundred years ago, doing things like washing clothing, making chairs, and getting food required effort and were time consuming. Most people worked farms, and the crafting of furniture was often either done by a carpenter or yourself, both taking quite a bit of time. In these cases, everyone was doing something to get by--the farmer tends his crops and the carpenter makes things from wood for a living. Then complex machines came along and changed everything. The farmer that once paid twenty people to help him now only needs two as he can do most of the work himself. What used to take a lot of of effort then took much less, and so less people were needed. Then there’s the carpenter--someone designs a machine that can craft dozens of chairs in a single day, rather than a single chair in a couple of days. Whoever owns this machine can make quite a bit of profit, as they have something that is effectively dozens of carpenters that don’t need to eat, sleep, or get paid. When these machines are produced in large quantities, many, many carpenters need to find something else to do. The same thing is seen with weavers and those who work with fabric and textiles. When the Spinning Jenny was invented, cotton production soared. A Spinning Jenny can handle eight spools at once, instead of only one. This means that yarn could be produced much faster. Sixteen-spool machines were also designed. The cotton gin also made it much easier to take seeds out of cotton, which boosted production too. After production of cotton skyrocketed, there was too much cotton, considering the supply was higher than the demand after a bit of having so much. In the end, far fewer people were needed for producing cotton. It’s in these situations that we see how technology has removed jobs.
The other side is how technology has created jobs. During the Industrial Revolution, many people worked fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, for next to nothing. Most of the people were still alive, though, as they were getting paid and feeding themselves. Employers needed many workers for simple, repetitive work with the machines. Technology wasn’t so advanced that the machines were able to run themselves, so jobs were kept in this way. People were also needed for human services and resources, administration, designing, planning, and keeping things running in general. Even though not everyone had a job, most people were able to do something to get by (until they got injured). Since then, humans have done everything that machines can’t. But the number of things that have to be done by people has been going down. Where once we had bank tellers, we now have ATMs, which run 24/7 and don’t ask for a raise. We have answering machines to take calls for us. Machines are improving to do progressively complex tasks, and if recent technology was put into use everywhere, many more things would be automated. The reason it isn’t is because of the high start-up cost--investing a million dollars may yield a much greater amount of money, but few people have a million figurative dollars to invest.
Here is where we see the pattern of technology: at its birth, more people are required as new things are able to be explored and done. As it advances, however, the technology starts to lose some of its dependency on humans. Eventually it may very well be able to design itself, in the event that someone manages to create a super-intelligent AI. Such a machine would be able to design machines more intelligent than itself, leading to a mechanical entity with theoretically infinite intelligence. It would also be able to do almost everything a person is capable of, excluding emotion--at least until artificial emotion is designed. Part Two: The Problems
The number of ‘production jobs’ has consistently decreased over time, while total production has either stayed the same or increased. Because of this, the total wealth of the world has gone up, but the number of jobs in creating physical goods has gone down. People have found jobs producing things machines can’t produce and doing service jobs, but how long can it last? Eventually machines will be able to produce more delicate things and perform more complex tasks. One more recent device, once given a digital design and a block of solid aluminum, is able to grind the metal down into a three-dimensional object. A video of this happening can be found on the internet--it created a to-scale aluminum motorcycle helmet with amazing exactness. All it used was a tool and the cube of aluminum, and it was practically a craftsman in that manner. Another older example is of the ATMs, as mentioned previously--they replace human tellers. As machines become more intelligent, they’ll be able to do more jobs that humans are doing right now.
As for human manufacturing, we’ll look at cars and iPhones. Right now, machines are great for putting together things like cars. The work isn’t exactly delicate and requires strength. There’s even a type of machine that can be guided once, and it will repeat the actions exactly as many times as needed. A human can do it once, and the machine will continue until it’s told to stop. Because of this, machines are extensively used in the manufacturing of cars. If we look at iPhones, however, we see that they’re primarily assembled by hand, as machines just don’t have the dexterity to do something like that yet. There is another side to this though: look at the small parts of the iPhone, such as the computer chip. That can only be made by machines. It’s so small that everything in it has to be synthesized together in the beginning. Technology has been getting smaller for a long time, and eventually many things will need to be made the same way, as they’ll be so tiny. The pattern with size is that machines can do large and incredibly small things, but aren’t good at assembling medium-sized things. Humans are best are doing things in between, but machines are improving. Foxconn, a company that employs over a million workers in China assembling technology (such as the iPhone), is already replacing its workers with machines (Branigan). The jobs that will be left are designers of technology, some administration, a few people for transportation, and mechanics to take care of the machines. Human service jobs are still required, but machines are also getting better at tending to people. There are cars that can drive themselves too, removing the need for drivers. Once machines reach higher thinking, mobility, and dexterity, they may be able to do many of the things that mechanics do, too.
Eventually, and likely not too far off, almost all of the jobs will be in administering machines, designing things, and human services. We can’t have ten billion people doing that; there aren’t even five billion positions to be filled, which is over the world’s current population. The problem will only grow as the population does. The design of a super-intelligent AI, which would be able to design even smarter machines, would effectively replace most people like engineers and those in human services, too. That would leave very little left.
Here is where another problem is seen--there are too many things in the world that need to be done, yet there aren’t enough jobs, which forms an ironic combination. There’s not enough food? Get more farmers. We don’t need or can’t get more farmers? Why don’t we have enough food? The world needs things to be done, but no one can do anything if no one has a job, and no one wants to pay for it. The government pays farmers to grow food because crop prices fell so much, so clearly farming isn’t the most profitable trade. This means that less people will want to do it for the business. The world’s population is also at such a level that resources can’t be mindlessly wasted or given out in mass quantities. Thousands of years ago, society and economics were a bit simpler, so these problems didn’t exist. If people needed more resources, they moved to a new area. We can’t do that now.
Related to this is the idea that capitalism is most efficient at using resources, because when profits are affected, people have an incentive to not waste things. But when their profits become so high that wasting is easier than reusing or recycling, and people get lazy, things start to become inefficient. It’s estimated that thirty to fifty percent of the food in the United States is wasted. There are starving people all over the world. There are starving children in the United States. This country also has a problem with obesity and being overweight. People are both wasting food and eating too much. Everyone could be fed, but instead they aren’t. One issue is distribution. The other is that few people want to donate significant amounts of food. It’s “their food and they can waste it however they want.” This is an idea that goes well with capitalism, one that has its roots in greed, that is harmful to society as a whole. This is not to say all capitalists are like that, but that way of thought is a part of capitalism itself. This problem is more obvious when more people go without food, even when more than ever is being produced. When jobs go away, and the amount of food, or even total wealth, doesn’t decrease with it, society will either fall or be a horrible thing to live in (even more than it is now). This situation necessitates an overhaul of how the system works. Not necessarily everything in the world, but a good portion.
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As time goes on, and technology becomes more advanced, it will likely become even more integrated into society (as technology rarely ever regresses). This means that the demand for it will increase, which will in turn increase required production. It may be thought that this would increase the number of people needed, but the other side is that production itself will be advanced. Machines will be able to manufacture everything faster, with less guidance, and with fewer errors. Before the end of the world, nearly everything will be able to be produced by machine. So what will people do? The machines will be doing what the people used to do, so what’s left? A few things, mainly under ‘keeping everything running.’ But not everything can be done by everyone, and many, if not most, people will be left with nothing to do. Today, these people are known as the unemployed. People are unemployed for various reasons, but not all of them are under their control, such as the economy. While some people are rude, lazy, or just not desirable employees, others are just the opposite, and yet still can’t find work. This is in part because humans have been replaced by machines in many places. The other reason is likely caused by a base problem in the economy and society which was brought out by automation.
Another thing to look at is that over time, higher education has become even more important for acquiring a job. The reason for this is that less base-level work needs to be done by humans. Where once a person with a high school diploma could get a job doing something as simple as driving a cart around a warehouse, we now have that position filled with a cart, a system of lasers, and some software. The carts can now use the lasers to position and guide themselves to where they need to go. The role that an Associates or Bachelors degree used to play--guaranteeing a job--are now going to Masters degrees and doctorates. More and more education is needed to obtain a job, which signifies the increasing emphasis on higher education and higher thinking--things that are much less required in basic work. It looks like this decline will climb up the ladder of education, and following this, maybe everyone will eventually have the equivalent of a Ph.D (I’ll try not to climb the slippery slope, however).Part Three: What could Happen
There are many possible outcomes. The four I foresee are societal upheaval, global poverty, economic transition, or some currently unknown solution that keeps everything going forever without need for change. The results of these could include a massive decline in global population and technological regression, a destroyed or uninhabitable planet, or maybe even a Utopian society if things go right.
To start, I’ll explain the things that are definitely some sort of change, but may be considered good or bad, depending on who you ask. These things aren’t considered almost universally “bad,” like human extinction is. One such situation is where the human population and technology effectively go back a few hundred years. Then almost everyone would be a farmer and live in a farming community (a commune). Technology and population are unlikely to decrease independently and without purpose, so these are unlikely to happen by themselves. Population (or at least population density) could go down by itself, assuming humanity survives and realizes a less-dense population is better than a massively dense one. However, not even the current population would be able to survive without today’s technology, so removing technology would likely cause a great population drop; without medicine and modern farming techniques, not enough food would be produced and many would die from disease.
Next, the things that could happen that would be considered (generally) to be bad--the societal upheaval, damaged planet, or effectively going back in time. First, riots happens when people are displeased; if everything was alright, no one would have a reason to riot. If society were to continue downhill, and things became much, much worse (like unemployment past 50%), most people would be very displeased. Millionaires and “important people” (such as politicians) may not suffer as much, but average people certainly would. When the governments of the world cannot handle the problems, there’s definitely a chance a part of the population will try to take matters into their own hands and revolt. Just look at Libya or the Occupy Wall Street protest. Things like this can end in a variety of ways, not all of which can be predicted. However, change is certain, though it may just be a change in leadership rather than the world, which only delays the final collapse.
Another thing that will eventually happen is the end of humanity. This too can be caused by a multitude of events: nuclear warfare, starvation, biological warfare, a supervirus, toxic waste, the universe exploding, you name it. Humans have had the ability to greatly accelerate the journey to the end for a while. The easiest way to get all humans is when they’re all on the same planet, before they reach the realm of science fiction and space travel and are reduced to waiting for the universe to explode. This is also the prime time for humans to destroy themselves. Some methods of self-destruction are pollution (currently a problem), global warming and everything that comes with it, like rising sea levels (also currently a problem), overpopulation (yet another current problem), and nuclear warfare, the large potential threat. Running out of resources and starving is something else that could happen, something that we’re beginning to see now. A few of these things could leave the planet uninhabitable, such as pollution, or simply leave it a barren wasteland caused by nuclear fallout. Either way, society ends, resulting from the actions of humans.
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A possible solution is something that I’d call a ‘Distribution System.’ The term itself is fairly vague, but the main point is that a central body (the government) is responsible for distributing the things necessary for modern life. This may sound a bit like communism, and there are some similarities, but the two are not the same thing. Communism is a specific way of government, while a distribution government would be more of a category, as there’s a wide variety in how to do things. The idea is also quick to draw fear of a corrupt, repressive government that controls everything, such as the government seen in the Soviet Union under Stalin. This doesn’t have to be the case though. Personal freedom is something that I myself find to be very important, as life becomes a bit less worth living if it’s miserable. The government giving everyone food in proportion to individual needs doesn’t mean that you’re going to be forced to work in a factory in horrible conditions and will have no free will, being just another slave. What if everyone received food, shelter, and healthcare, so that they didn’t have to worry about getting by, but could get money from doing jobs or making money somehow? Even further is the ideal Utopian society. There, people wouldn’t need to worry about surviving, and people would do things for different reasons--not because they had to to survive, but because it was something they enjoyed. A person would be a doctor because they enjoyed helping others. A musician would create music because they felt good when people enjoyed their music. An architect would simply enjoy designing architecture.
For a society like this to exist, however, several conditions must be met. Society being very efficient with its resources and people in general being interested in helping society as a whole are the two main requisites. Basically, stop wasting everything and stop being mean to each other. With humans having been so horrible for so long, the second seems unlikely as of now, and so does the first with current general laziness. People may change, but nothing is guaranteed, so I expect to see nothing in my lifetime.
I hope I've made my point in my writing, and explained well enough what could happen if things stayed the way they are. With some luck, you'll now understand some of what could be a large problem in the future, and one of the proposed idea on technology--it benefits the lives of individuals, but is harmful to society as a whole. I love technology, but it might be better for the entire world if it all went away. It seems we must either go back to nothing or advance so much we can fix our problems, but I don't see that advancement in the near future.
Resources
Boyle, David, and Karl Marx. The Communist Manifesto. 1848. Print.
Marx’s classic piece on the repression of the Proletariat by the Bourgeois. It details capitalism’s flaws, how the economic system of oppression has worked over history, and what type of system should be put into place instead, to give a very brief summary.
I didn’t read the entire writing, as I have once before and it’s quite long. It’s also related to my topic but isn’t specifically the same thing. Marx did say some similar things, but he said them for different purposes. I used this more as a resource than a real source, as I didn’t directly quote it or use it except for the quote in the beginning. The Communist Manifesto had some use, but wasn’t the most useful, as it wasn’t directly related. It’s not a bad source, just different. Dyer-Witheford, Nick. Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-technology
Capitalism. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1999. Print.
Since this is a full-length book, I didn’t read the whole thing (I don’t even have access to that). I got some information for my topic from it, but it didn’t play a major role. As far as I can tell, the book would be similar to an extensive version of my essay converted into a book. I think it would definitely be useful if I were to do so in the future, writing my own book.
Heilbroner, Robert L. "Technology and capitalism." Social Research 64.3 (1997): 1321+.
Academic OneFile. Web. 19 Mar. 2012.
A piece on the effects technology has had on modern capitalism and its sociopolitical role. It goes into detail about how it has changed “economic life” and how society’s way of living has changed and how this has affected stability, along with how the control technology has given us over nature may not be enough to ensure goods times forever, as it doesn’t control society’s behavior--the true destruction force.
This writing is more of an economical one, and while it did have good information, it wasn’t something I found incredibly useful. Not to say I found it useless; I don’t think it was a bad source.
"The future of capitalism." Leadership & Organization Development Journal Feb.-Mar. 1997: 93+.
Academic OneFile. Web. 19 Mar. 2012.
Gorz, Andre. "The exit from capitalism has already begun." Cultural Politics 6.1 (2010): 5+.
Academic OneFile. Web. 21 Mar. 2012.
A piece on the relationship between technology and capitalism. Discusses how technology has changed productivity and why this interferes with the market, and the problems of a financial industry. Also goes over how negative growth is necessary to sustain the world and the different parts of immaterial ‘commodities,’ such as electronic music.
This essay was interesting and obviously of a related topic, though the specifics were different from my own writing. It went over things I hadn’t originally thought of (it is more professional, after all). Probably one of the more useful sources. Brynjolfsson, Erik, and Andrew McAfee. "Thriving in the automated economy: two management
experts show why labor's race against automation will only be won if we partner with our
machines. They advise government regulators not to stand in the way of human--machine innovation." The Futurist Mar.-Apr. 2012: 27+. Academic OneFile. Web. 21 Mar. 2012.
A piece about technology, capitalism, wages, and why machines with defeat humans for employment. It goes on to say that the best results come from the partnership of humans and machines working together; both have positive properties that the other doesn’t. It gives examples of this, one being the chess-playing robot called Deep Blue defeating the world chess champion in 1997. In this situation, the machine was able to win, although it was designed by humans and may have been helped by the designers during the match (this is unproven, though).
This gave me a different perspective: rather than the machines just beating us, we should work with them. It was definitely an interesting piece to read and added to my store of knowledge to use for general writing on this topic. Appears to be a good source to me.
"The road to riches." The Economist [US] 25 Dec. 1999: 10. General OneFile. Web. 10 Apr.
2012.
A piece about economic growth, how it has accelerated in the past few centuries, and how science and technology tie into this. Also discusses people’s desire to succeed and become rich and the measure some groups took against the change that came from technology.
It seems to be a good source to me; it gave me some knowledge about the history of the relationship between technology and capitalism (or more specifically, prosperity and profits). Mantsios, Gregory. "Class in America." Norton Field Guide to Writing. Second ed. Norton.
697-716. Print.
Branigan, Tania. "Taiwan IPhone Manufacturer Replaces Chinese Workers with Robots." The
Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 01 Aug. 2011. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/01/foxconn-robots-replace-chinese-workers>
An article about Foxconn replacing its workers with robots, and the title suggests. After hearing about Foxconn on NPR, I decided to see if I could use this in my argument and thus found this article. Just a minor statistics source. I will assume that the Guardian is a reliable source; I’m fairly certain it’s a news source from the UK. I also found the same information in other places.
Crawford, Franklin. "High-skilled Jobs Being Outsourced to India." Cornell Chronicle Online.
Cornell University, 12 July 2007. Web. 17 Apr. 2012.
As the title of the article implies, it’s an article about jobs that require a high skill-level being outsourced to India. I just used it for some information/statistic-like things to add. It’s not a major source.
“More High-end American Jobs Being Outsourced to India.” Mercury News, 17 Oct. 2008. Web.
17 Apr. 2012.
Another article about jobs that require a high skill-level being outsourced to India. I used it for the same reason as the article above. Not a major source.
