The Technology Myth

[updated 09 Jan 2023]

In recent discussions with Jeff Eder of ProgressiveMoney.ca on the subject of monetary reform (podcast launch in January) we touched on CH Douglas’ Social Credit. These talks inspired the present article concerning technology.

Technology and the “end of work”

Faith in the virtues of technology in CH Douglas’ time (early 20th C) seemed to promise the “end of work”. That still has not materialized. Later, in the 1970s, the mystique of grand efficiencies achieved with computer technology enthralled the Soviets when they dreamed of solving, once and for all, the socialist “calculation problem”. They wanted to use mainframe computers to determine the correct allocation of resources, production levels, etc. to achieve a functioning economy. It was an epic failure.

This mesmerization continues today among people who believe reflexively that AI, robotics and the latest software apps are the key to efficiencies, better profitability and more leisure. Despite undeniable technological advancement, this unbounded faith in the modern god, technology, ignores three fundamental issues.

Three problems with tech

1. Each specific technology is a double-edged sword, often producing unintended consequences, and leading mankind around in a circle of seeming progress – but with concomitant detrimental effects. This was pointed out by Jacques Ellul. The classic example is our friend the automobile, which, in its current mode of deployment, kills 40,000 people annually (ref: FEE article). In another contemporary example, "big data" and AI might enable services desired by the consumer, but at the same time they are used to accomplish their owners’ narrow agendas of control, regimentation or manipulation.

2. The high cost of efficiencies eludes public attention. Efficiencies through technological advancement are indeed gained – but only after years of hard-won experience, mistakes, failures and enormous sunk costs, often born by the hapless taxpayer, notably in financing of private labs in the military industrial complex. As the saying goes, the public bears the risk, the rewards are privatized.

3. Implementation is fraught with problems. Even if a technology promises well, certain preventive measures -- although already identified as "best practice" decades ago -- are not used today in the roll-out. 

I audio-posted in LinkedIn (scroll to “innovation - successful tech implementation part 01”) on the reported high failure rates in AI (artificial intelligence); IoT (internet-of-things); SaaS (software-as-a-service); government records systems, etc. The well-documented principles of successful technology implementation, established as far back as the 1980s, are routinely ignored by the current “tech-savvy” people. The result is chaos and waste.

People now believe that machines will soon build and fix themselves, and no doubt already are, but I would guess only in isolated lab environments. In broad application, the technology experts, evidently, have not assimilated basic project management and implementation principles. Therefore the prospect of independent computers and robots taking over society in a beneficial manner is remote at best. And if extraordinary autonomy were realized by the technology in question, the outcomes would certainly show again principle #1 mentioned above: unintended consequences. (Search on this: self driving cars failures accidents).

Do we, therefore, reject technology outright? Obviously not. We want its benefits, and will pursue it, despite the difficulties and hurdles. The point is not to embrace technology as a guaranteed saviour, in and of itself.

Does tech really give you “the end of work” ?

The displacement of a single worker on the factory floor by, say, a welding robot, is not a simple one-for-one replacement, throwing the worker out onto the street. The change-out is only enabled by having in place, beforehand, a veritable army of highly skilled personnel: viz., mechanical engineering designers; developers; coders; hardware specialists; trades; installation experts; foundry workers, etc. The displaced worker will presumably retrain as one of these, and find more fulfilling work, at a higher pay grade.

In other words, new technology entails an endless ramification of new endeavour, requiring ever more specialized and refined training.

Is the end of work really even desirable?

Despite our frustrations with technology, is not techne bound up with human creativity? The end of work and enforced idleness is not likely a desirable end – but the transformation of work into ever nobler purposes is highly desirable.

It will be a matter of what people take themselves to be; what they desire; what they require in their march through the procession of psychological states, proper to humanity in its search for fulfilment. 

Conclusion

This exposé of the tech myth does not negate technological advancement; I merely point out that technology is a neutral tool, hopefully to be deployed intelligently, in a balanced way, for human purposes, on a human scale.

It is the economic analysis of CH Douglas Social Credit -- not the technology argument -- that really answers the question of leisure time: to free up the working day, we need release from having to pay interest to a private cartel for our own money infrastructure. This view is echoed today by most schools of monetary reform. Please tune in to our podcast launch on January 27, 2023.