Back To The Nineteenth Century And The Future
By: Liam Ireland
Tags: Capitalism, History, Dreams, Future, Illumination

Back To The Nineteenth Century And The Future

In search of the capitalist utopian dream

Photograph by Lenny Kuhne on Unsplash

Without a doubt, the most significant invention of our time is the silicon chip. It is up there with the wheel and the flying shuttle. And ensuing from this is the most significant development of our time, the internet.

The internet has brought about the democratisation of just about everything including knowledge, information, entertainment, education, media, art, culture and science and technology, to name but a few. And with more than a twist of irony, it has brought about the democratisation of capitalism. Or perhaps it simply signifies a return to a democracy of capitalists, if that’s not too oxymoronic for you.

In 1968 Andy Warhol stated that “ In the future everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes.” My prediction is that in the future everyone will be a capitalist for life. Indeed, largely thanks to the internet, we are all already well on the way to the fulfilment of that concept. Perhaps it was ever thus.

Pre industrial revolution in Great Britain at least, lots of people worked from home. I once lived in what is called a weaver’s cottage. It was a three story terraced house with the top floor reserved for weaving. Back in the day, every day a man with a horse and cart would pop round to collect the previous days production. In effect, every weaver was working from home (WFH). This was a capitalistic (textile industry) demand driven system that was yearning for a change. And that change came about as a result of certain mechanical inventions like the flying shuttle and the spinning Jenny. This in turn triggered industrial developments such as the upscaling of machines along with centralised mechanisation and mass production.

Now, in a bizarre twist of fate, we are being sent scurrying back to our homes to WFH in a pandemic driven exodus from the city and industrial complexes, parks and estates.

Meanwhile in the wider world, with companies like Tesla we are well on the road to self driving cars. In the future that will lead us to fully automated self making cars, or at least cars being made from home via the internet. Already much of the process of car manufacturing is automated.

It will be pre-programmed robots doing the all the actual manufacturing back at the factory. However, it will be out workers operating the technology from a distance, working from home. And those out workers will be encouraged to set themselves up as self employed operators. And this move will over time spread into other industries and professions.

Nowadays, we are all being encouraged to work from home and think of ourselves as a self employed, capitalist unit. The big idea is to learn how to develop and market that unit as a brand for our own self betterment rather than for the betterment of society as a whole. However, a betterment for wider society will be concomitant with these changes in how we live and work. For example we will see a big reduction in commuting and therefore a reduction in the use of energy resources and the contamination caused by their consumption. This in turn will result in us living healthier lives and making less demands on health services.

The important point is, manual workers and professional practitioners alike are being swayed towards being independent home based freelancing capitalists. However, this is only a short term objective, it is but a few moves towards the ultimate goal.

What we are seeing in our time is small but highly significant steps towards the construction of a brave new world in which there will not be any workers. A factory will be run entirely by one man and his computer working from home. What’s more, that same one man will own and operate everything. Every major manufacturer, retailer and corporation will be owned by him or her solely for his or her benefit. Hopefully that utopian capitalist dream is a long way off yet. Meanwhile, back to the present……..

In a way social change is being brought about by technological developments. Specifically, it is the silicon chip and the internet which is the crucial component which will enable factory and office workers alike to work from home.

And this is no different to what happened during the industrial revolution with the inventions of the flying shuttle and the spinning Jenny. Only this time the pendulum of change is swinging the other way to put us all once again to work on the third floor of our weaver’s cottage. Not to put too fine a point on it, the more things change the more they stay the same, until the pendulum begins to swing once more towards the capitalist utopian dream, shedding all workers in favour of machines for the entire process of production.

Airlines do not want to employ pilots to fly their planes. Taxi companies do not want to employ drivers to drive their cars. Car companies do not want to employ factory workers to make their cars. Any company wanting to cut costs will as a matter of routine look for ways to reduce the workforce. And this will go on until there isn't a workforce worth the name to reduce. Exactly where this will leave us is anybodies guess. Perhaps we will have to hope for the pendulum to swing one more time, or more radical yet, break the pendulum once and for all.