mjk@tty3b.UUCP (06/25/83)
The major question regarding industrial technology seems to me to be "Who controls it?" The Marxist question "Cui Bono?" (``Who gets the goods?'') seems to very frequently illuminate seemingly innocent or unrelated events. And if anyone doubts that it is the captains of industry, the managers, who call the shots, I'd suggest they aren't living in the same nation I am. Workers, with very rare exceptions, have no input at all. They just get pink slips one day. Of course, the promises are that there will be more jobs -- some day. And that there will be retraining programs -- some day. But profits increase -- today. Whose profits? Well, those who decided when, where and how to install the technology. Cui Bono? I think that some industrial and office technology can be good. Many industrial jobs are dehumanizing and unrewarding. But let's not be fooled by all the rhetoric. No one is installing office or factory automation to relieve the workers from their dehumanizing jobs. And this "trust this market" is just so much hocus-pocus: tell the 10 million people unemployed today that the market will solve their problems someday and they'll tell you they've got rent to pay tomorrow and groceries to buy the day after that. And I think that all the subscribers to this newsgroup are informed enough to know that the idea that all the steel workers are going to be programming computers is just so much BS. It's cruel to see them go through the training programs and then find, once again, no jobs waiting. There are over 200,000 automobile workers unemployed. Does anyone think there are 200,000 computer programming jobs waiting for them? When the benefits of technology are used to truly improve job quality and the priority is full employment, then I'll believe in robotics. Until then, I just keep asking, "Cui Bono?" Mike Kelly tty3b!mjk
laura@utcsstat.UUCP (06/29/83)
Mike Kelly writes:
When the benefits of technology are used to truly improve job quality
and the priority is full employment, then I'll believe in robotics.
Until then,I just keep asking, "Cui Bono?"
If through robots efficiency is improved and there is more money to in the
country, I'll take a government grant/welfare/waht-ever-you-call-it and
spend my time writing neat graphics for video-games, or terminal games
on a bitmapped display. I'd even have time to write more ficiton and see
if I ever get good enough to be published. How many people do you know
wouldnt rather be on paid vacation as long as they were fed and clothed
(admittedly in the standard that they had been accustomed to)?
I would rather if private industry gave out the grants, rather than the
government, but then I too favour a very limited government...
Laura Creighton
utzoo!utcsstat!lauratim@isrnix.UUCP (07/01/83)
I agree with Laura that robots and automation COULD be a wonderfully
liberating development for humanity. However that is going to involve
incredible changes in the system of work,production, and income
distribution that we have at present. So far those changes don't seem
to be coming- we are so stuck in the "Protestant Work Ethic" mentality
that grants for even very productive things like scientific research
are getting axed on the grounds we can't afford it. And any idea of
a Negative Income Tax or some such-we've got to get those cheaters off
the welfare rolls! I do not think our current system of welfare is
fair and I agree that it should be changed--because it is such a
hodge-podge of this program and that program it is fraught with
contradictions-one person could be just above the income line to
receive benefits and thus gets absolutely nothing. On the other hand
somebody else may be below that line and get subsidized housing,food
stamps,etc,etc,etc all of which add up to much more income than the
person just over the income line. If Reagan truly wanted to reform
Welfare why didn't he propose a Negative Income tax-just say you make
so many $$$ you get so many $$$-and get rid of the current morass of
umpteen programs which result in the inequity I described above.
The reason he won't propose such a thing is because conservatives would
howl about a "Guaranteed Income" and how terrible that is. That is how
far we are from giving people grants to 1)live with minimal food,
clothing and shelter OR 2)for their own creativity. Scientific American
last October had an interesting issue focussing on processes of
automation-how they work, their results and their history. One interesting
point was that made by Wassily Leontief, one of the developers of
input-output analysis who pointed out that the work week went steadily down
from 60-70 hours a week to about 40 hours a week in 1933. But since that
time the work week has scarcely changed at all! Why should some people
work 40 hours or more a week when there's other people who can't find
work at all? It shows how stuck we are in a certain mode of thinking
that we cannot even cut down the work week let alone make other changes
in the way we perform or allocate jobs. The best book I have ever read
on the likely effects of automation in this society as it is presently
constituted is "Player Piano" by Kurt Vonnegut. Everything has become so
automated that even the engineers who originally designed the system are
being put out of work by computers to figure out their jobs for them.
This leaves an incredibly wealthy leisure class elite that owns all this
prodigiously productive capital and two other strata of society-
to find work everybody else either joins the Army or the "Reeks and Wrecks"
The "Reeks and Wrecks" are people who stand in the middle of the road leaning
on shovels all day pretending to be busy.
But at least they work 40 hours a week!
Tim Sevener
decvax!pur-ee!iuvax!isrnix!tim