From ‘Akwesasne Notes’, Spring 1983, Mohawk Nation territory
A new civilization is dawning. Already the first signs of its coming can be seen and the early visions of the future are with us. It is a civilization based on the marvels of modern technologies such as the silicon chip and fiber optics. It will advance into the Second Industrial Revolution, and will affect the lives of everyone in the West and therefore the world. It has already had an impact on the lives of most people in North America whether they are aware of it or not, and what has happened thus far is only a modest beginning.
We are entering the age of intelligent machinery. It is an age of computerized weaponry which will enable the wealthy governments of the world to generate weapons systems of startling sophistication and accuracy such as were demonstrated on a very small scale during the Falklands War. It will be an age of computerized toys such as the video games which are popular now, and an age of computerized tools.
One of the early results will be an explosion of information dissemination ability. Computer terminals will be as common as microwave ovens. Whole libraries of information will be available through the telephone lines to computer terminals in peoples’ homes. It could be the greatest challenge to the printed word since the invention of movable type — a revolution in communications. No longer will you need to wait until 3 o’clock when the newspaper is delivered to find out today’s news. You will be able to turn on your computer and access a news service and the latest news stories, some perhaps only minutes in the news service system, will appear on the screen before your eyes. The words travel at the speed of light and will offer you more information than you have ever had available to you from newspapers.
Eventually it will be possible for you to do research from your own home, calling up books to your video display terminal while you sit in the comfort of your living/computer room. The same machine which expands your mind will probably be regulating your hot water heater, acting as the thermostat for your house, turning the lights on and off when you leave home, acting as your burglar alarm, opening and closing your insulation shutters, and cooking the roast in your oven. It will be used to order groceries from the store, and when the transaction is complete, will pay for the groceries by sending an electronic check from your bank to the grocery store.
It sounds like something from a science fiction novel, but the scenario is probably much closer to being realizable than most people believe. It sounds almost too good to be true. Imagine — an automatic world where mundane tasks are attended to by an array of hardware and software. It should leave you with enough free time to become truly cultured. Now you will be able to turn your attention to the development of the arts. Finally you will have the leisure time to enjoy the ballet, brought to you live from Moscow via satellite to your big-screen television which has over 140 channels to choose from. At last you will have the time to use your mind for more constructive things, such as a fine appreciation of the opera. Perhaps you could learn another language and thus become a more balanced individual.
Sound too good to be true? It is.
The technology already exists which will do the things described above and more. Much more. American television news shows are carrying stories about the coming revolution in industry. The new industrial process is called robotization. It is revolutionizing life in our time. It is the process which is ushering in the Second Industrial Revolution.
Robots. They are intelligent machines. They can be adapted to jobs on assembly lines. They can move heavy loads and can do skilled jobs in industry such as welding and metal fabrication. They can sew, paint, assemble and package. Already the American auto industry is gearing up for their use. Proponents of the robots say they will create more jobs because people will be needed to tell the robots what to do.
The American and European industrial worker is an endangered species. It is not inconceivable that within a generation, if all goes as planned, the industrial worker could be nearly extinct in the advanced industrialized countries. Vestiges of the industrial past may survive here and there, but the major industries appear to be highly automatable given that the new “smart” robots can be programmed to do machine work to excellent tolerances.
And, of course, the robots do not have the disadvantages associated with workers. They do not get tired. They do not complain. They can work 24-hours a day. They are cost effective. They do not go on strike. They can work under conditions of heat and pollution and lack of air which would kill the now-obsolete human workers. The moguls of industry are jumping for joy.
Of course, there are disadvantages. They do not buy cars or television sets or houses. They do not pay taxes. And, there is the unfortunate fact that they promise to put a lot of people out of work. Permanently. That fact is bound to cause some social discontent.
The robots will do to the American and European worker of today what the spinning mule did to the English worker at the dawn of the First Industrial Revolution. The history of that period of England’s industrialization — the repression of the peasantry, the mass emigrations it caused, the poverty and human suffering — has generally been ignored.
The Industrial Revolution is seen as a time of historic prosperity and growth. There is little consciousness of the social costs and the relationship of industrialization to the rise of European colonialism which was sparked by the industrialization of such countries as England, France and Germany and, of course, the United States. The First Industrial Revolution brought enormous changes to the world.
The Second Industrial Revolution will also bring changes to the world. It is alarming that this Revolution, which de-emphasizes the human as a productive economic asset, is taking place at a time when there is extensive conflict around the world. Forty-five countries have soldiers in the field in April, 1983. We generally think of this as a time of peace because there is nothing which resembles the “world wars” of the past. Yet there are some four million soldiers under arms in conflict situations around the globe. They are shooting at one another in Indonesia, El Salvador, Angola, Iraq, India, Afghanistan, Ethiopia — the list is very long. They are fighting over natural resources, land, ideology and a host of other things including race and religion. There is good evidence to support the view that the East/West struggle is being fought in remote corners of the world by proxy armies of the super powers.
The Second Industrial Revolution is coming at a time of considerable global unrest and during a time in which there is not much public consciousness of the extent and seriousness of this unrest. It is coming at a time when the world market economy is in flux, when rich countries are owed more money by poor countries than the poor countries can reasonably hope to pay. It is coming at a time when some of the best economic minds are predicting the possible collapse of the world’s monetary system. And this new revolution promises to bring great change, rapid change. It is a technological revolution which will rival the great technological revolutions of the past.
The future holds a vision of a world where machines will be the producers. Natural resources will be mined by robot miners, transported by robot-operated trains, unloaded by a robot unloading machine, refined automatically at the robotized refinery, transported by robot to the factory and manufactured by robot assemblers. From there it will be shipped by robot express — to whom?
Who will have the money to buy what the robots produce? Possibly the former workers, now lumpen consumers, but what jobs will they have? There will be a need for technicians to create the software and to repair the robots, but already there is talk of robots which will be able to create software. And the new robots are geniuses at figuring out what is wrong with themselves and most of them have modular circuitry which can be replaced simply and easily. And, of course, the time is arriving when the robot can design circuitry which other robots will be able to execute to tolerances and in miniature at scales unimagined only a generation ago. It sounds fantastic, yet it appears to be inevitable.
And what of the Natural World. Is there any room in an age of super-mechanization for the Natural World? It is a good question, and one which people of the 1980s need to explore intensively. The Age of Robotization is upon us. It will affect all of us regardless of our ideology, and we need to know what it means to us, the future of human cultures, and the economies of our present world. It is less a future of promise than a future of threatening visions for both the peoples of the industrial world and for the Third World which will play an increasingly demeaning role in the economic life of a robotized future.
— John Mohawk [Seneca Nation]
Also
Endless Struggle reviews ‘From Riot to Insurrection’ (1989)
From Riot to Insurrection, by Alfredo M. Bonanno (1988)
Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord (1988)
Marxism from a Native Perspective, by John Mohawk (1981)
Spiritualism: The Highest Form of Political Consciousness, from Akwesasne Notes (1978)
Time is Life, by Vernon Richards (1962)