An Age of Miracles and Wonders

Over in the Better Universe, where the United States is not knee-walking drunk on raw, Randite capitalist popskull, the idea that we now have it within our power to use the devices born of our ingenuity and imagination to meet the needs and ease the burdens of every citizen would not be considered an economic tragedy.

It would be heralded as a humanitarian miracle.

And if we had achieved it at a time when replacing the dirty, planet-crippling fuel that drives this amazing engine with clean and almost-indefinitely renewable alternatives is within our reach?

Over in the Better Universe, we would be out in the fucking streets singing every day and kissing strangers because the an Age of Miracles and Wonders would be at hand.

With the millions of human labors hours freed up from the need to live lives devoted to little but slouching after an ever-receding buck, our grade schools and high schools could become state-of-the-art palaces, and our colleges could be filled with lifetime learners, not trainees making a grim slog towards the last few Middle Class life preservers, while desperately trying not to pile up so much debt that they sink the minute they hit the water.

But here, in this Universe, its one more story of doom and despair on the financial pages of one of capitalism's journals-of-record:

It’s Man vs. Machine and Man Is Losing

By Kathleen Madigan

In the man-versus-machine competition, machine is winning. And it’s not just Watson beating humans on “Jeopardy.”

Since the recession ended, businesses had increased their real spending on equipment and software by a strong 26%, while they have added almost nothing to their payrolls.

In August, new orders and shipments of “capex goods” — defined as nondefense capital goods excluding aircraft — increased by 1.1% and 2.8%, respectively. In the same month, private payrolls (adjusted for the Verizon strike) edged up a mere 62,000.

For all the talk of uncertainty, the increase in orders is a sign that companies are optimistic about the future. After all, no executive would expand production facilities if he or she thought customer demand was about to stagnate.

In addition, the gain in shipments — up by nearly a 19% annual rate so far this quarter — suggests at least a modest gain in gross domestic product. After the shipment numbers were released, economists at J.P. Morgan raised their estimate for third-quarter real GDP growth to 1.5% from a previous 1.0%.

You can’t fault companies for investing in new machinery rather than hiring new workers. As two news reports detail, labor costs are rising, a function of both private and public pressures.

First, employers face a jump in health insurance costs. The Kaiser Family Foundation reported a 9% average increase in the premiums paid by employers this year. The average yearly cost to cover a family hit a record $15,073, up sharply from $13,770 in 2010.

Second, companies must deal with higher taxes to replenish state unemployment-benefit coffers. According to Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, employers will get hit by higher tax bills as many states have to pay back Washington for benefit money borrowed during the recession.

In comparison to these rising labor bills, the wholesale cost of capital goods is up 1.6% over the past year.

The man-vs-machine situation, however, presents a huge negative to the outlook. In an economy based on consumer spending, the lack of jobs and income growth means consumers can’t spend.
...

And here, in this Universe, as the technology that could be used to improve the human condition gets better, the economic violence gets more brutal:

"Imagine you've spent three years in law school, two more years clerking, and the last decade trying to make partner—and now here comes a machine that can do much of your $400-per-hour job faster, and for a fraction of the cost. What do you do now?"

As this continues, the machine-ethos (working around the clock at little cost with zero benefits as the optimal condition of labor) becomes, in fact, incompatible with the Middle Class, nobility-of-work ethos (work hard, ply your craft, earn a decent living, advance your condition.)

However the political utility of continuing to pretend that mass unemployment/underemployment is the largely the result of a failure of character of "those people" will continue, because the alternative is too frightening to consider.

In case you were wondering, yes, science fiction got there a long, long ago. A few examples:

The Day the Icicle Works Closed

Door into Summer

The Midas Plague

The Space Merchants.

Stand on Zanzibar

"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman.

One consolation: Someday, as I prepare for another lashing winter by relining my GE Chinese refrigerator box on Lower Wacker Drive with discarded copies of the Robot Wall Street Journal ("Robot NASDAQ 111110100 reaches record high!") I will amuse myself by watching the hordes of stunned, now-unemployed lesser dukes and duchesses of drown-the-Evil-Gummint capitalism descending on the the country's now-boarded-up Employment Offices ("Closed indefinitely by order of President Perry and U.S. Austerity Council Chief Paul Ryan") looking for help and finding only

less than friendly "Fuck You, Loser" Kiosks.


(By the way, in addition to clearing this post off my desk, you may also take this as a small example of why writing on the subject need not be drab, trite and awful.)