Technical progress increases inequalities

“If this digital orgy doesn't stop, what can we expect?

An increase in social inequalities and a gradual division of our society between a minority of children preserved from this “digital orgy” — the so-called Alphas from Huxley's novel [Brave New World, 1932] — who will possess through culture and language all the tools necessary to think and reflect on the world, and a majority of children with limited cognitive and cultural tools — the so-called Gammas from Huxley's novel — who will be unable to understand the world and act as enlightened citizens.

Alpha will attend expensive private schools with “real” human teachers.

The Gammas will go to virtual public schools with limited human support, where they will be fed a pseudo-language similar to Orwell's “Newspeak” and where they will be taught the basic skills of middle level technicians (economic projections indicate that these types of jobs will be overrepresented in tomorrow's workforce).

A sad world in which, as the sociologist Neil Postman said, they will have fun until death. A world in which, through constant and debilitating access to entertainment, they will learn to love their servitude^[1].”

— Michel Desmurget, neuroscientist and research director at Inserm, extract from an interview published in October 2020 by the BBC.

Don't worry, it is highly unlikely that such a scenario based on Huxley's novel will happen in the near future, for the simple reason that extreme inequalities cause extreme instability in the system. Technical progress has increased inequalities since the first industrial revolution, a trend that has been constantly accelerating since the beginning of the 20th century with electrification, and then during the years 1970-1980 with the computer revolution. This is the observation made by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in its “Technology and Innovation Report 2021”^[2] ”. The authors of this report are not so much worried about the ravages of technology on human beings (diseases of civilization — cancer, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, stress, depression, dementia, hyperactivity, suicide) and the natural environment (multiple destructions and pollution), they point first and foremost to the “backwardness” of certain countries as well as the risk of seeing “imbalances” that can “destabilize societies” grow. Are they talking about a popular uprising that would threaten the survival of the technological system?

To remedy this, the recommendations made by the technocrats seem to come from a progressive leftist political program — strategic planning of industrial development by states; the need for “vigorous social activism” supporting public policies and “strategic plans”; increasing taxation, transfers (allowances) and wages; “universal basic income”; strengthening unions; and other joys that will delight leftists. In an article published in 2014 that would have fit perfectly in the magazine Economic Alternatives in France, Martin Wolf, one of the executives of Financial Times, explained “why inequality is a major brake on the economy”, citing the concerns of analysts at the financial rating firm Standard & Poor's and Morgan Stanley Bank. Excessive inequalities are holding back demand and hampering the growth of economic activity. Even more serious is “the cost of eroding the republican ideal of shared citizenship,” reports Wolf, who is certainly concerned about political divisions and polarization in the United States. Wall Street and progressives, same fight: the stability of the techno-industrial system.

As the collective Pieces and Manpower (PMO) states in its article “The 4th Reich will be cybernetic”, the public enemy No. 1 of humanity and all living beings on Earth, it is indeed the techno-progressive left, and in general all parties and movements policies in favour of scientific and technological progress^[3]. History teaches us that the system loses weight when conditions conducive to revolution emerge (poverty and significant inequalities, for example). The system uses the progressive and reformist left as a shock absorber for social discontent, because from the point of view of the ruling class, it is better to pay more taxes than to end up tortured and shot by insurgents.

With the NBIC (Nanotechnologies, Biotechnologies, Informatics, and Cognitive Sciences) convergence, we are at the dawn of a new technological and industrial revolution with potentially cataclysmic consequences for the human race and the biosphere^[4]. In all likelihood, the speed of spread of these technologies combined with the increasing automation of work will leave many people in the lurch. At that point, every effort must be made to combat with the greatest determination the progressive nuisance that will attempt, as it has done now for at least a century, to defuse the revolutionary ambitions of the people.

A biased definition of inequality

Before continuing, it is useful to recall that the Gini Index is used as a reference for measuring inequalities, as the UNCTAD report recalls:

“Income inequality is generally measured using the Gini coefficient, which ranges from zero to 1, where zero represents perfect equality and 1 means that one person owns everything. In more egalitarian societies such as Scandinavia, the Gini index is between 0.2 and 0.3. More unequal countries like the United States have Gini values around 0.4. In some countries in Latin America and Asia, the level is around 0.5. But the highest levels are in Namibia (0.59), South Africa (0.63), and Zambia (0.57).”

INSEE adds that “the inequalities measured in this way can relate to variables of income, wages, living standards, etc.^[5].”; on heritage also^[6]. It should be noted that the Gini index is based solely on variables related to wealth, monetary or material. The values of the techno-industrial system introduce an enormous bias into the design of this measure of inequality. In this frame of reference, a peasant-breeder from the Batammariba people (Benin and Togo), living from his own work in an autonomous traditional community disconnected from globalized trading and monetary systems, will be considered poor. And it doesn't matter if these people are happy, healthy; it doesn't matter if their traditional system promotes sharing and equality in the community. In the world, there are still hundreds of millions (billions?) of people living in social organizations that are more or less similar. And such communities were legion in Europe before the modern era, before the institutionalization of private property leading to the transformation of land into a commodity.

Based on this biased definition of inequality, progressives play into the hands of the techno-industrial system by campaigning for all of humanity to access — and therefore become dependent on — modern technology and the globalized market.

The development of inequalities

Inequalities are now reaching levels that are increasingly unsustainable for the perpetuation of the technological system. The authors of the report give a surprising explanation to say the least:

“[...] rapid progress can have serious disadvantages if it exceeds the adaptive capacities of societies.”

A statement marked by supremacism that suggests the existence of an anomaly among human groups that would find it difficult to integrate, without devastating consequences for the structure of their societies, the technological advances exported by industrialized nations. As for those who would deliberately oppose development or consider it futile or even useless, progress thieves refer to them in turn as “reactionary,” “obscurantist,” or “backward.”

Further:

“We are living in a time of dramatic technological progress, mostly concentrated in developed countries, but the major divides between the countries we see today began with the start of the first industrial revolution. At that time, most people were equally poor and the differences in per capita income between countries were much smaller (figure 1). Then, taking advantage of the waves of technological change, Western Europe and its offshoots - Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States - as well as Japan, took the lead. Most other countries stayed on the periphery. Each wave of progress has been associated with greater inequality between countries - with growing disparities in access to products, social services and public goods - in areas ranging from education to health, as well as from information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure to electrification. Nevertheless, a few countries, especially in East Asia, were able to catch up later through technological learning, imitation and innovation.”

Naturally, after daring to blaspheme against Holy Technology, the authors are quick to point out that in the past “most people were as poor as each other and the differences in per capita income between countries were much smaller.” Before, people lived in misery and filth, starved to death, spent their time killing each other, copulating cheerfully, and did not live past the age of 30 on average. We are beginning to know the song by laudators of the progress of civilization, a caricature of historical facts so crude that it becomes ridiculous. On the contrary, the scientific literature shows that traditional and rural societies humiliate industrialized urban societies in terms of well-being and health.^[7].

Nothing is said about Western civilization, which for 500 years has put most of the countries of the South under tutelage to exploit their natural and human resources, or about China, Russia and the industrialized countries of the Middle East, which are increasingly challenging this imperial hegemony. The words “slavery”, “slave trade” or even “colonization” do not appear anywhere in the report; the story is ignored and erased. However, the slave trade partly financed the first industrial revolution in Europe.^[8].

The explanations put forward to decipher the origin of inequalities remain very evasive and some are downright grotesque:

“Inequality is a multidimensional concept linked to disparities in outcomes and opportunities between individuals, groups, or countries.

[...]

Between 1820, when the Industrial Revolution began, and 2002, the contribution of inequalities between countries to global inequalities increased from 28 to 85%. In other words, in 1820, income inequality in the world was due to class differences within countries. Today, it comes more from the birthplace lottery: a person born in a poor country suffers a “nationality penalty.”

Certainly, a human being born in France is more “lucky” than if he is born in the mining regions of Kivu or Ituri bordered by Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda; no one will deny an assertion of such platitude. But if the inhabitants of the Democratic Republic of Congo have suffered genocides and massacres repeatedly from the reign of the Belgian Leopold II to the present day, it has nothing to do with a “lottery”, “luck” or bad luck, but with the global demand for metals, wood and oil, but with the global demand for metals, wood and oil, and the presence of foreign multinational firms stoking violence.^[9]. The same colonial dynamic of land grabbing by states and multinational firms (extractive industries/agribusiness) in the North continues and is accelerating today^[10].

“There is no consensus on the dynamics of economic inequality - which depends on many factors, such as wars and epidemics, as well as on political processes influenced by power struggles and ideologies. Globalization and technological progress have also been singled out as factors of income inequality within countries.

[...]

At the same time, technological revolutions are also affecting inequality. Technological change combines with financial capital to create new techno-economic paradigms - in which the technologies, products, sectors, infrastructures, and institutions that characterize a technological revolution are grouped together.

In countries at the center of these new technological waves, development can take place in two phases. The first is the installation phase, during which technology is introduced into basic sectors, which has the effect of widening the gap between workers in these sectors and others. The second phase is that of dissemination, which also tends to be unequal: not everyone immediately benefits from the benefits of progress, such as life-saving treatment or access to clean water.”

There are “wars” and “epidemics”, “power struggles” and “ideologies”, “globalization” and “technological progress”; hard to get any more evasive and superficial. The UN should not be expected to provide a detailed analysis of the regime of permanent and global violence generated by industrial society. For that, it is better to read Denial of reality: Steven Pinker and the apology of Western imperialist violence by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson.

That said, the next two paragraphs at least have the merit of emphasizing that inequality is systemic.

Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel and economist Hélène Tordjman tell the story of how capitalist industrial society was imposed by the state in Europe and around the world, in particular by destroying the ancestral customary links maintained by human beings with the land and nature. The aim was anything but altruistic — by establishing private land ownership, the aim was to uproot the peasantry and atomize traditional communities into docile workforces that could easily be exploited in factories and plantations.

According to Jason Hickel:

“[...] the world has gone from a situation where most of humanity did not need money at all to a situation where most of humanity is struggling to survive on extremely little money^[11].”

Hélène Tordjman, in her book Green growth versus nature — Critique of Market Ecology :

“Since its beginnings, the history of capitalism has been marked by an increasingly thorough and systematic exploitation of nature. The colonization of Africa and the Americas was motivated by the capture of land and mineral wealth, an extractivist aim. Later, industrialization streamlined and standardized our relationships with the natural world in order to increase its efficiency. The evolution of agriculture since the end of the 19th century is an example of this transformation.

This physical exploitation has historically been inseparable from a major movement of legal appropriation of the natural environment, as the natural environment could be exploited and made profitable. Thus, through the enclosure movement, land gradually took on the status of private property. The resulting right allows the use of land (Usus), to enjoy its fruits (Fructus) and to alienate it (Abusus), conditions necessary for the appropriation of the income generated by activities to exploit natural resources. But the appropriation almost always reversed an expropriation: the enclosures led to the expropriation of millions of more or less free peasants throughout Western Europe; as for the appropriation of land in America, it was achieved by expropriating the Amerindians of their territories, through war and through law.”

It is nevertheless interesting that the UN (Antoni Guterres, United Nations Secretary General, prefaced the report) recognizes the responsibility of technology in the global explosion of inequalities. Therefore, the so-called neutrality of technology does not exist, reading the report leaves no room for doubt about that.

To sum up, not only are the gaping inequalities of industrial society unnatural, but they are at the heart of the DNA and dynamics of the system. In his book, which sold more than 30,000 copies in Germany, the German economist Niko Paech writes that, in the context of industrial society, all social progress necessarily involves economic and material growth, and therefore through an increase in energy needs, the extraction of raw materials, the extraction of raw materials, the extraction of raw materials, commercial exchanges, waste production, pollution, and so on.

“Since each facet of our existence, each small box in our schedule, is linked to consumer objects and comfort infrastructures, the social must also be absorbed into the economic. According to this logic, being free and participating appropriately in social life means being able to afford as much as others. Therefore, social progress necessarily takes the form of economic expansion, and it does not matter whether these new services are provided by the market or the state.^[12].”

Risks of increasing inequalities

A “major concern” of the authors of the UNCTAD report today is the risk of job destruction through AI and robotics. Technological innovation has regularly destroyed jobs since the first industrial revolution, but creates others that are more and more specialized and devoid of meaning. It could be otherwise with “cutting-edge technologies” (AI, robotics, robotics, biotechnologies and nanotechnologies) which would be capable, according to the highest estimates, of automating 30 to 50% of jobs over the next twenty years in Europe and the United States.

Another impact could be an increase in high- and low-wage jobs combined with a decrease in middle wage jobs. But “the increased use of AI and more agile robots” could also impact “the least qualified manual jobs”.

The “gig economy” or Gig Economy has encouraged the emergence of a “precarious class of dependent contract workers and gig workers” exploited by a handful of wealthy platforms that grant themselves monopolies. There is also a “concentration of markets and profits” in the hands of a “small number of major players”, thus creating “less incentive to reduce prices”. As a result, profits and inequalities explode.

With regard to inequalities in the world, “Industry 4.0” could lead to a “widening of the technological gap” between developed and poor countries. Technical progress would reduce competitiveness linked to labor costs in the latter, which would encourage the former to repatriate industrial activities to their own territory.

Technological development also seems to be harmful to “women,” “ethnic minorities,” and “other disadvantaged groups.” For example, artificial intelligence can “perpetuate stereotypes and reduce the benefits of products for women.” And some people may not have access to the fabulous promises of transhumanism:

“Genome editing also raises ethical questions about what constitutes an ideal human being. The result could be an underclass of people who can't afford gene therapy.”

Another way to interpret inequality is to see it as a measure of the level of addiction and sociopathy of techno-addicts. We are privileged to enjoy a culture where the craziest — the social elites — serve as role models for the rest of the population. For example, the former MIT roboticist Rodney Brooks sees his family members as “machines” and dreams of having a Wi-Fi chip implanted in the brain.^[13] ; in addition, the numerous obsessive-compulsive disorders and the obsession for efficiency of the Oxford transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom — among other things, he takes his meals in the form of smoothies to save time — suggest an underlying mental pathology^[14].

Let us add that the increasing specialization of work induced by technological progress leads to the emergence of a class of technicians and scientists. Trained in prestigious schools and employed in strategic positions, this social elite often revolves around the central government. This is another example of inequality that is intrinsic to the complexity of the technological system, and it goes without saying that no reform will ever change this reality. La giant dump of electronic waste from Agbogbloshie in Ghana (photo on the front page of this article) is also part of the innumerable material implications of technical progress and the global inequalities it generates.

The “strategic” state must stabilize the system

The remedy prescribed by UNCTAD's technocrats is based mainly on the great return of planning and the welfare state:

“[Governments] need to define strategic directions within the framework of national research and innovation plans capable of dealing with new social challenges such as aging and regional disparities.

National innovation policy must also be harmonized with industrial policy. Maintaining the competitiveness of national or regional industry is a central objective of most strategic plans for AI and Industry 4.0 technologies. These plans can take advantage of the reviews of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Framework (STI) from UNCTAD, which can lead to the adoption of measures to harness cutting-edge technologies for smarter and more sustainable cities, food security and smart agriculture, and the creation of jobs in smarter factories.”

It is essential to “guarantee universal access” to technology and “inclusive” development; a misleading newspeak to say that technology must be imposed on all human beings, whether they want it or not. Because any person or group that is not under the surveillance and control of the technological system is a potential threat to their survival.

“To overcome [the] obstacles, governments and the international community must guide new and emerging technologies so that they contribute to sustainable development and leave no one behind.”

Civil society and public authorities must work together for stability:

“Countries, regardless of their stage of development, should promote the use, adoption, and adaptation of cutting-edge technologies, preparing people and businesses for what lies ahead. This requires, to an important extent, effective national governance in which the State must develop a vision, mission and plan to create and shape a market for inclusive and sustainable innovations.

Governments will also need to invest in human and physical resources. To help them achieve this, developing countries should be able to rely on international cooperation: communities of nations would work together to build an international institutional framework that encompassed countries at all stages of technological development.

These public policies and programs should be supported by strong social activism, allowing individuals and organizations to work together to identify the mismatches between technological innovation and societal responses. For the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals] to remain central guiding principles, civil society organizations will need to be constantly vigilant.”

The strategic state must ensure that no one escapes divine progress, resulting in increased social protection to deal with technological shocks:

“To some extent, governments can alleviate inequality at the national level through progressive taxation on income or wealth, or on capital income. They can also make services such as education available to everyone free of charge. They can also increase social transfers, such as unemployment benefits, which reduce the risk of people falling into poverty. In the workplace, these actions can be complemented by those of stronger unions that contribute to higher wages.”

The CGT and FO are clapping with both hands.

And the fun continues:

“Those who cannot be trained or retrained and who lose their jobs should be able to count on stronger social protection and conditional benefits mechanisms as well as on different forms of income redistribution such as a negative income tax and a universal basic income. Unions are also becoming increasingly important in defending the rights of workers and in expressing their legitimate concerns about maintaining their jobs in the digital economy and the increasing automation of tasks.

Funding for these measures could come from a “robot tax” that would generate tax revenue from technologies that replace workers. Or there could be an automation tax combined with the removal of investment-related tax deductions that corporations benefit from. On the other hand, rather than taxing people or technologies, it might be better to tax the resulting wealth.”

It's like reading the program L'Avenir en Commun (Mélenchon). All leftists praising the virtues of industrialization and the technological colonization of human existence can only welcome such recommendations.

Like techno-progressive leftists, the authors of the report defend themselves from being technolaters and criticize techno-solutionism:

“But technology is rarely a solution by itself. Problems such as poverty, hunger, climate change, or inequalities in health or education are inevitably complex and multidimensional. Technologies, whether cutting-edge or otherwise, can support social, political, and environmental initiatives of all kinds, but all technologies must be used carefully if they are to be beneficial, rather than being a barrier or producing unwanted effects.

While technology likely impacts disparities, inequalities can also affect technology — so that they translate, replicate, and perhaps amplify systemic bias and discrimination. Currently, technologies are created, for the most part, by companies in the North and, in a predominant way, by men. They tend to prioritize the needs of the rich and ignore innovations that could benefit the poor. Technological change is also influenced by gender inequalities, in part because more men than women have studied STEM disciplines [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math].”

To calm the ardor of sweet dreamers, remember that social protection will always remain conditional (“conditional allowance”), which will certainly also be the case with the universal basic income; nothing could be easier to set up with the “digital identity wallet” already in the cards.^[15]. Let's add that social credit “à la Chine” is already in the testing phase in the heart of Europe, in Bologna, Italy.^[16].

The same systemic logic inspired by the cybernetic model^[17] is recommended internationally:

“Reducing income inequality between countries will require harnessing technology and trade for structural transformation. If developing countries want to create an economy that provides better paying jobs for their people, they will need to take advantage of the new technological paradigm. Developing countries, and entire continents like Africa, cannot afford to miss this new wave of technological progress.”

Inequalities, a necessary evil for the anti-tech revolution

To free people and end “the global war against nature”^[18] ”, the rise of inequalities is a necessary evil to create conditions conducive to a revolution against the technological system that threatens Earth's habitability. These words will certainly offend the sensitivity of supporters of good will and cause screams in progressive cottages. The slaves of the system will invoke every possible philosophical or moral rationalization to justify the preservation of industrial society and to disguise their abject cowardice. Techno-progressivists are the “functional collaborators” of the industrial system, a threat to humanity and life in all its forms, an “amorphous, wait-and-see, even opportunistic mass”, like many French people under the German Occupation.^[19]. What story do you want to leave to your descendants, that of a collaborator or that of a resistance fighter?

Finally, Walter Scheidel, a professor of history at Stanford University, analyzed the dynamics of inequalities since the advent of the first civilizations several millennia ago. He concluded that only violent shocks (revolution, state disintegration, global war and epidemic) that ravaged — or even completely destroyed — a political-economic system were capable of causing a lasting drop in inequalities.^[20]. That said, political scientist Gene Sharp, sometimes referred to as the “Machiavelli of nonviolence” or the “Clausewitz of nonviolent war.”^[21] ”, who has studied the revolutionary movements of the 20th century, presents interesting elements for learning how to combat ultra-repressive regimes that are likely to become — and to some extent have already become — the norm in the 21st century^[22]. (In passing, we remind you that ATR is part of Gene Sharp's nonviolent perspective.)

Thus, not only will addressing inequalities by reformist means be ineffective, but making this choice will also spell the death of the biosphere — and therefore of humanity. Clearly, there is no way out of inequality and infinite growth — or the endless destruction that results from it — within the ideological and material frame of reference imposed by industrial society. That is why we have to dismantle it.

S.C.