Robots widen the gap between rich and poor

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Algorithms and machines do not have a will of their own, but the elites who own production have it. The absence of workers will go into the hands of the rich and help them isolate themselves from the unemployed masses left without a livelihood.

The robot labor tax and other legislative initiatives that control the adoption of robotics will help protect the world from the dystopia that Guardian correspondent Ben Tarnoff calls robotic capitalism.

The influence of automation is growing not every year, but every month. Not surprisingly, many entrepreneurs and politicians are thinking about introducing a tax on robot labor. Billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates has spoken out in support of the initiative. The European Parliament considered such a possibility, but abandoned the idea. Many consider this idea to be insane, although objectively machines and algorithms will deprive a significant part of the employed population of jobs. And people will need to live on something or, at least, be trained for a new specialty.

Robo-apocalypse has not yet arrived, and experts believe it is too early to worry. And the main problem is not that robots will get out of control and go to kill people - a scenario that Elon Musk dreams of in his nightmares. The main threat from robotization is progressive economic inequality. The problem is of a political nature and it also needs to be solved by political methods, according to The Guardian correspondent Ben Tarnoff.

History has proven time and again that automation not only destroys jobs, but also creates new ones. Since the emergence of ATMs around the world in the 1970s, the number of bank advisers has only increased. Their professional tasks changed, but the job remained.

But now everything is different, says Tarnoff, since soon people will simply have nothing to do. Technology creates a situation in which wealth is produced not less by the amount of labor, but by its absence in principle.

It would seem, what is wrong with the production of wealth without human labor? The problem is who has the wealth. In the capitalist system, workers' wages are a symbol of the products they have produced, these are the fruits of their labor. This share has declined over the years, and productivity has increased. In an automated world, nothing prevents the rich from multiplying their wealth alone, without the participation of other people. Capital independent of the labor of workers means the end of the very concept of wages. Workers are losing not only their livelihoods, but also their social power. In the age of automation, they can no longer go on strike and stop production on their own. And robots, as you know, don't go on strike.

The capital generated by robots will allow elites to completely abstract from society, although thanks to their private islands and airplanes, they are already quite isolated. One such scenario is considered by the sociologist Peter Freis in his book Four Scenarios for the Future: Life After Capitalism. "Exterminism" is a grim dystopia rooted in inequality and scarcity of resources. A group of wealthy people will form an elite and live in isolation, while the poor masses will be severely restricted in their rights, or, in the worst case, destroyed. Exterminism, according to Freis, is genocide in which the rich destroy the poor.

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If such scenarios do not justify the introduction of a tax on robot labor, then at least they make one think about taking at least some measures to prevent a possible dystopia. Bill Gates proposes holding back innovation until safety nets are in place. But for Tarnoff, monitoring progress is a dead end solution.

Technologies make life easier, and it is not robots and algorithms that complicate it, but wealthy elites

Already today, according to Oxfam, the 8 richest people in the world have the same amount as half of the world's population. In the future, a group of billionaires will already control 100% of the world's wealth. And something needs to be done about this before robotic capitalism destroys all of us.

Let us remind you that films describing such scenarios regularly appear in the cinema. One of these paintings is "Elysium. Heaven is not on earth." According to the plot in 2159, there are two classes of people: the very wealthy, living on a clean, man-made space station called Elysium, and the rest, living on an overpopulated, ruined Earth. A ruthless government official, Minister Rhodes will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve the luxurious lifestyle of the citizens of Elysium.