PHOTO/NDOELJINDOEL
“It seemed like as soon as they first put the robots in, they made the announcement about layoffs a month later. I’ll never forget that day,” said a Carrier worker of 25 years.
Labor Day 2017 finds the workers worldwide facing a very uncertain future. Forty percent of the American workforce are now part-time, contingent, minimum wage and below minimum wage workers. Another 92 million are structurally unemployed, and these include millions who are destitute and homeless.
As stated in the January 2017 report of the McKinsey Global Institute, “Recent developments in robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning have put us on the cusp of a new automation age. Robots and computers not only can perform a range of routine physical work activities better and more cheaply than humans, but they are also increasingly capable of accomplishing activities that include cognitive capabilities once considered too difficult to automate successfully such as making tacit judgments, sensing emotion, or even driving.”
There isn’t one area of the economy that will remain untouched. Jobs in all sectors are subject to automation and the basis for capitalism, wage-labor, is being eliminated on a global scale. In the U.S., even if some of the outsourced manufacturing jobs return, corporations will have to utilize robotics to remain competitive, thus providing nowhere near the jobs needed.
This technological revolution in society is causing a polarization in wealth and poverty like nothing we have seen before. In 2012 alone, over half of U.S. income went to the top 10%. There are now 540 billionaires in the U.S. Eight billionaires now own as much wealth as 3.6 billion people on earth. The ruling class fights to maintain its wealth and privilege in a dying system at the expense of millions of us being displaced and devalued by automation.
These technologies hold the potential to create a world of abundance and a cultured life for all, but are owned by a few as their “private property.” In a new society built around these technologies, owned in common, we could all have what we need and finally put an end to all the false divisions that have historically kept us fighting each other over crumbs.
This Labor Day 2017, let us declare our intentions to unite based on our common need to survive the corporate class’s growing assault on our rights as human beings to thrive peacefully in a world of abundance. Let’s declare our intentions to build such a world from the social wealth accumulated from generations of our labor. We have a world to win.
