In Cowboy Capitalism, High Technology Worsens Economic Inequities
Thursday, 05 May 2016 00:00 By Robert McChesney and John Nichols, Nation
Books | Book Excerpt
(Photo: Ars Electronica / RYBN)
What will happen when technology replaces people in the service,
manufacturing and professional industries of an already struggling economy?
In their new book, Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols explore the
possibility of reclaiming the future for the people, before it's too late.
Noam Chomsky calls People Get Ready "lucid and informed" while Thom Hartmann
says it's an "essential book." Get your copy by making a donation to
Truthout today!
The following is an excerpt from People Get Ready: The Fight Against a
Jobless Economy and a Citizens Democracy:
The growth in the economy's capacity to produce since the 1930s, or even the
1960s, has been extraordinary, much as these economists anticipated. If the
experts we used as counsel for this chapter are anywhere near accurate, the
next four or five decades could make the twentieth century look like the
twelfth century.
In popular economic theory, such revolutionary increases in productive
capacity are supposed to translate into higher living standards, much
shorter workweeks, richer public infrastructure, and a greater overall
social security. Society should have the resources to tackle vexing
environmental problems with the least amount of pain possible. In fact,
however, nothing on the horizon suggests that this is in the offing. As
automation and computerization take productive capacity to undreamed-of
heights, jobs grow more scarce and are de-skilled, many people are poorer,
and all the talk is of austerity and seemingly endless cutbacks in social
services. There is growing wealth for the few combined with greater
insecurity for the many. Washington, we've got a problem.
(Image: Nation Books)The false assumptions, of course, are that the
benefits of the technology accrue to more than the owners of the firms
deploying the technologies. And also that capitalists have incentive to
produce far more than they do to satisfy the needs of people worldwide. In
fact, Veblen had it right: capitalists produce as much as they do only as
long as it remains profitable to do so. Producing more than that lowers
prices and lessens profits. In short, to follow Keynes's logic to a place he
did not go, capitalism would seem to have little or no reason to exist if
the "economic problem" is solved, so it is imperative that the economic
problem remain. For business and wealthy investors to continue to win,
everyone else has to lose.
In our view, the evidence points in one direction: the economy needs to be
fundamentally reformed, if not replaced. Capitalism as we know it is the
wrong economic system for the material world that is emerging. This is a
radical conclusion, but it is not made merely by radicals. The number of
true believers who think leaving firms and wealthy investors alone to do as
they wish will ultimately solve the employment problem and give us a great
economy that can be the foundation for a vibrant democracy is shrinking,
primarily because it is a faith-based position. There are also some who have
a similar faith that technology is innately progressive and all-powerful, so
it can and will solve capitalism's problems for us. They tell us that all we
have to do is get out of the way, make some fresh popcorn, and grab a
front-row seat as the future unfolds.
But researching this book, what has been striking to us is that many,
perhaps most, of the people who have studied these matters -- from across
the political spectrum -- recognize that if the system is left alone, it
will not right itself. Instead, structural changes are needed, and
government will have to play the central role in determining and instituting
these changes. Even those who believe that the existing capitalist system
provides benefits that make it worth saving realize that significant reforms
and government policy interventions are necessary to prevent intolerable
outcomes. "It's time to start discussing what kind of society we should
construct around a labor-light economy," Brynjolfsson and McAfee conclude.
"How should the abundance of such an economy be shared? How can the tendency
of modern capitalism to produce high levels of inequality be muted while
preserving its ability to allocate resources efficiently and reward
initiative and effort? What do fulfilling lives look like when they no
longer center on industrial-era conceptions of work? How should education,
the social safety net, taxation, and other important elements of civic
society be rethought?"
Where markets and business and private investment figure into the new
economy is a matter to be studied, debated, and resolved; we only know that
it cannot be the same as what we have had for generations. The solutions to
the employment and economic crises in the United States are political. The
great debate is over what types of reforms there should be, and what type of
system we should end up with. A core responsibility of the democratic state
is to provide the ground rules and basis for an economy that will best serve
the democratically determined needs of the people. An unavoidable part of
this debate is to take up the issues last taken seriously in the 1960s: How
should technology best be deployed to serve human needs? Never has the need
for such a democratic debate and policymaking been greater than it is today.
Copyright (2016) by Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols. Not to be
reprinted without permission of the publisher, Nation Books.
JOHN NICHOLS
John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written The Nation's
Online Beat since 1999, is their Washington DC correspondent, and
contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times. He is also the
associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison,
Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune
and dozens of other newspapers, and he is a frequent guest on radio and
television programs as a commentator on politics and media issues. Nichols
lives in Madison, Wisconsin and Washington, DC.
ROBERT MCCHESNEY
Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of
Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the
author or editor of 23 books. His work has been translated into 30
languages. He is the cofounder of Free Press, a national media reform
organization. In 2008, the Utne Reader listed McChesney among their "50
visionaries who are changing the world."
RELATED STORIES
John Nichols and Robert McChesney: Progressives Ask for Too Little, Not Too
Much in Age of Plutocratic Rule
By Mark Karlin, Truthout | Interview
Robert McChesney: We Need to Advocate Radical Solutions to Systemic Problems
By Mark Karlin, Truthout | Interview
John Nichols on Bernie Sanders' Surge and the Rising Power of Movements
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Interview
________________________________________
Show Comments
Hide Comments
<a href="http://truthout.disqus.com/?url=ref";>View the discussion
thread.</a>
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
In Cowboy Capitalism, High Technology Worsens Economic Inequities
Thursday, 05 May 2016 00:00 By Robert McChesney and John Nichols, Nation
Books | Book Excerpt
. font size Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink
reference not valid.Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink
reference not valid.
. (Photo: Ars Electronica / RYBN)
. What will happen when technology replaces people in the service,
manufacturing and professional industries of an already struggling economy?
In their new book, Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols explore the
possibility of reclaiming the future for the people, before it's too late.
Noam Chomsky calls People Get Ready "lucid and informed" while Thom Hartmann
says it's an "essential book." Get your copy by making a donation to
Truthout today!
The following is an excerpt from People Get Ready: The Fight Against a
Jobless Economy and a Citizens Democracy:
The growth in the economy's capacity to produce since the 1930s, or even the
1960s, has been extraordinary, much as these economists anticipated. If the
experts we used as counsel for this chapter are anywhere near accurate, the
next four or five decades could make the twentieth century look like the
twelfth century.
In popular economic theory, such revolutionary increases in productive
capacity are supposed to translate into higher living standards, much
shorter workweeks, richer public infrastructure, and a greater overall
social security. Society should have the resources to tackle vexing
environmental problems with the least amount of pain possible. In fact,
however, nothing on the horizon suggests that this is in the offing. As
automation and computerization take productive capacity to undreamed-of
heights, jobs grow more scarce and are de-skilled, many people are poorer,
and all the talk is of austerity and seemingly endless cutbacks in social
services. There is growing wealth for the few combined with greater
insecurity for the many. Washington, we've got a problem.
(Image: Nation Books)The false assumptions, of course, are that the
benefits of the technology accrue to more than the owners of the firms
deploying the technologies. And also that capitalists have incentive to
produce far more than they do to satisfy the needs of people worldwide. In
fact, Veblen had it right: capitalists produce as much as they do only as
long as it remains profitable to do so. Producing more than that lowers
prices and lessens profits. In short, to follow Keynes's logic to a place he
did not go, capitalism would seem to have little or no reason to exist if
the "economic problem" is solved, so it is imperative that the economic
problem remain. For business and wealthy investors to continue to win,
everyone else has to lose.
In our view, the evidence points in one direction: the economy needs to be
fundamentally reformed, if not replaced. Capitalism as we know it is the
wrong economic system for the material world that is emerging. This is a
radical conclusion, but it is not made merely by radicals. The number of
true believers who think leaving firms and wealthy investors alone to do as
they wish will ultimately solve the employment problem and give us a great
economy that can be the foundation for a vibrant democracy is shrinking,
primarily because it is a faith-based position. There are also some who have
a similar faith that technology is innately progressive and all-powerful, so
it can and will solve capitalism's problems for us. They tell us that all we
have to do is get out of the way, make some fresh popcorn, and grab a
front-row seat as the future unfolds.
But researching this book, what has been striking to us is that many,
perhaps most, of the people who have studied these matters -- from across
the political spectrum -- recognize that if the system is left alone, it
will not right itself. Instead, structural changes are needed, and
government will have to play the central role in determining and instituting
these changes. Even those who believe that the existing capitalist system
provides benefits that make it worth saving realize that significant reforms
and government policy interventions are necessary to prevent intolerable
outcomes. "It's time to start discussing what kind of society we should
construct around a labor-light economy," Brynjolfsson and McAfee conclude.
"How should the abundance of such an economy be shared? How can the tendency
of modern capitalism to produce high levels of inequality be muted while
preserving its ability to allocate resources efficiently and reward
initiative and effort? What do fulfilling lives look like when they no
longer center on industrial-era conceptions of work? How should education,
the social safety net, taxation, and other important elements of civic
society be rethought?"
Where markets and business and private investment figure into the new
economy is a matter to be studied, debated, and resolved; we only know that
it cannot be the same as what we have had for generations. The solutions to
the employment and economic crises in the United States are political. The
great debate is over what types of reforms there should be, and what type of
system we should end up with. A core responsibility of the democratic state
is to provide the ground rules and basis for an economy that will best serve
the democratically determined needs of the people. An unavoidable part of
this debate is to take up the issues last taken seriously in the 1960s: How
should technology best be deployed to serve human needs? Never has the need
for such a democratic debate and policymaking been greater than it is today.
Copyright (2016) by Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols. Not to be
reprinted without permission of the publisher, Nation Books.
John Nichols
John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written The Nation's
Online Beat since 1999, is their Washington DC correspondent, and
contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times. He is also the
associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison,
Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune
and dozens of other newspapers, and he is a frequent guest on radio and
television programs as a commentator on politics and media issues. Nichols
lives in Madison, Wisconsin and Washington, DC.
Robert McChesney
Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of
Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the
author or editor of 23 books. His work has been translated into 30
languages. He is the cofounder of Free Press, a national media reform
organization. In 2008, the Utne Reader listed McChesney among their "50
visionaries who are changing the world."
Related Stories
John Nichols and Robert McChesney: Progressives Ask for Too Little, Not Too
Much in Age of Plutocratic Rule
By Mark Karlin, Truthout | InterviewRobert McChesney: We Need to Advocate
Radical Solutions to Systemic Problems
By Mark Karlin, Truthout | InterviewJohn Nichols on Bernie Sanders' Surge
and the Rising Power of Movements
By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Interview
Show Comments