Yes to all of that - but - you can't expect individuals or even groups of individuals to do anything about it, especially those working in the industry. Unfortunately, control and/or mediation has to be done by National Governments working together within International frameworks. We don't want to shackle creativity which leads to greater productivity but we can regulate to protect and share employment and enhance working conditions, and tax profits to redistribute to the roots of the Economy through provision of what have hitherto been thought of as tax burden jobs - caring for the sick and elderly, better education, healthcare, environmental improvements and law enforcement and justice. Much better to provide well paid useful work than social security handouts - and the alternative could be mass unemployment where eventually the have-nots outnumber the haves, and you get increasing crime and eventually revolution.
There is currently not much useful work, and there hasn't been for a long time because the capitalist economy is not incentivised to offer useful work. People still believe that the government can keep capitalism on the rails, but it has gone of the rails a long time ago. Most people just haven't caught up yet because the decor is still in place, but there is no real democracy anymore.
Capitalism is not about the free trade of goods and services, like most people believe. The trade of goods and services is just a side-effect of capitalism, a means to an end. Capitalism as it exists today is really only about the accumulation and concentration of wealth and power. The real essence of capitalism is in what is called 'corporate capitalism'. It basically means the trade of the means of production, nature, capital, and labor. This inevitably leads to the mentioned concentration of wealth and power.
For a while, governments were able to treat the negative symptoms of this with taxation, legislation, and other types of interference, but that only slows down the process, and makes it less visible, making capitalism look far more possitive than it really is. It does not treat the actual problem, so the acquisition of wealth and power keeps growing until it has taken over government. This has already happened.
And just to give you an idea of how long people have been warning about this, here are two quotes from Roosevelt about this problem:
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
"Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."
Many different shades of Capitalism and Socialism and I agree the balance has shifted to the right Globally. I hope it can be brought back by showing electorates that extreme selfishness is short sighted and self-defeating - 'austerity' has surely been shown to be a failure - as is ' cut taxes and let the people keep their own money and it will trickle down', - it doesn't trickle down, Capitalism is designed to take a profit from every transaction and suck it up to the top.
Feed the economy at its roots, watch it grow, harvest the produce, fairly, through progressive taxation, and reinvest it by feeding the roots (providing the useful jobs). The people at the bottom don't consume money, they spend it on what they consume and the money gets sucked back up to the top. Waste is the waste of labour in keeping people idle.
One of the problems we have allowed through Globalisation is that Balances of Trade have become unbalanced and money is being lost out of National Economies to come back as asset purchases by foreigners - individuals and Governments - which means we end up paying them rents, dividends and interest.
Produce more of what we consume, restore National food and energy security and keep the investment in National economies. Global trade by all means, but get it back into overall balance over time. This may mean tariffs and subsidies but they should get less as a balance is achieved. It has taken 100 years or more to get like this - we need to view our economies more long term like, for example, the Japanese and Chinese - we should be able to get back to more balance in 30 years or so - and AI and automation and sharing the benefits should help.
Thanks, Brett, for this insightful letter. I've reposted it with this comment:
"This essay by Brett Scott clearly exposes the rat race we are all caught up in and its utter futility. Let’s all get off this treadmill, exit the matrix, and use whatever time and resources we have left to build a cooperative, convivial, and peaceful society. How? “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Nicely put. For those interested, I recently published an essay with similar themes, looking at the roots of today's AI in the modern states and corporations which have made it possible:
Thanks. That is a really clear and helpful thing to say, and for us to repeat. Reminds me to also keep on calling for cash in the bars and corner shops too!
Yes to all of that - but - you can't expect individuals or even groups of individuals to do anything about it, especially those working in the industry. Unfortunately, control and/or mediation has to be done by National Governments working together within International frameworks. We don't want to shackle creativity which leads to greater productivity but we can regulate to protect and share employment and enhance working conditions, and tax profits to redistribute to the roots of the Economy through provision of what have hitherto been thought of as tax burden jobs - caring for the sick and elderly, better education, healthcare, environmental improvements and law enforcement and justice. Much better to provide well paid useful work than social security handouts - and the alternative could be mass unemployment where eventually the have-nots outnumber the haves, and you get increasing crime and eventually revolution.
There is currently not much useful work, and there hasn't been for a long time because the capitalist economy is not incentivised to offer useful work. People still believe that the government can keep capitalism on the rails, but it has gone of the rails a long time ago. Most people just haven't caught up yet because the decor is still in place, but there is no real democracy anymore.
Capitalism is not about the free trade of goods and services, like most people believe. The trade of goods and services is just a side-effect of capitalism, a means to an end. Capitalism as it exists today is really only about the accumulation and concentration of wealth and power. The real essence of capitalism is in what is called 'corporate capitalism'. It basically means the trade of the means of production, nature, capital, and labor. This inevitably leads to the mentioned concentration of wealth and power.
For a while, governments were able to treat the negative symptoms of this with taxation, legislation, and other types of interference, but that only slows down the process, and makes it less visible, making capitalism look far more possitive than it really is. It does not treat the actual problem, so the acquisition of wealth and power keeps growing until it has taken over government. This has already happened.
And just to give you an idea of how long people have been warning about this, here are two quotes from Roosevelt about this problem:
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
"Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."
Many different shades of Capitalism and Socialism and I agree the balance has shifted to the right Globally. I hope it can be brought back by showing electorates that extreme selfishness is short sighted and self-defeating - 'austerity' has surely been shown to be a failure - as is ' cut taxes and let the people keep their own money and it will trickle down', - it doesn't trickle down, Capitalism is designed to take a profit from every transaction and suck it up to the top.
Feed the economy at its roots, watch it grow, harvest the produce, fairly, through progressive taxation, and reinvest it by feeding the roots (providing the useful jobs). The people at the bottom don't consume money, they spend it on what they consume and the money gets sucked back up to the top. Waste is the waste of labour in keeping people idle.
One of the problems we have allowed through Globalisation is that Balances of Trade have become unbalanced and money is being lost out of National Economies to come back as asset purchases by foreigners - individuals and Governments - which means we end up paying them rents, dividends and interest.
Produce more of what we consume, restore National food and energy security and keep the investment in National economies. Global trade by all means, but get it back into overall balance over time. This may mean tariffs and subsidies but they should get less as a balance is achieved. It has taken 100 years or more to get like this - we need to view our economies more long term like, for example, the Japanese and Chinese - we should be able to get back to more balance in 30 years or so - and AI and automation and sharing the benefits should help.
That was great, Scott! Thank for writing this.
No problem Paul, glad you like it
Great reminder for the nerds and techies and their believers, thank you Brett.
Maybe add some practical guidelines for the options of scepticals in a next post? Things like:
"Please help us as the rest of humanity to get a chance to stop the machines - just in case"
:-)
Thanks, Brett, for this insightful letter. I've reposted it with this comment:
"This essay by Brett Scott clearly exposes the rat race we are all caught up in and its utter futility. Let’s all get off this treadmill, exit the matrix, and use whatever time and resources we have left to build a cooperative, convivial, and peaceful society. How? “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Thank you for this powerful letter.
Thanks so much for your open letter. Somebody needed to say it and you did, and very articulately.
Nicely put. For those interested, I recently published an essay with similar themes, looking at the roots of today's AI in the modern states and corporations which have made it possible:
https://evernotquite.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-machine
Thanks. That is a really clear and helpful thing to say, and for us to repeat. Reminds me to also keep on calling for cash in the bars and corner shops too!
Totally agree Scott.
Everybody should resist digital ID and CBDC .
We need 'self-sovereign ID'. And we need digital money (not crypto) as well as paper money.
CBDC can be made to work with self-sovereign ID in a way that protects privacy and avoids the scams of crypto
Great Scott!!! :)