‘The Second World War

Came to an end

We forgave the Germans

And then we were friends

Though they murdered six million

In the ovens they fried

The Germans now, too

Have God on their side ‘

With God on our side. Bob Dylan.

Lieutenant General Alexander Sollfrank is the Commander of the Bundeswehr Joint Force Command, has stated that, ‘Berlin is prepared for a war with Moscow and stands ready to facilitate the deployment of 800,000 NATO troops towards the Russian border.’ Politico re has reported that Germany’s rearmament plans would cost it €377 billion ($440 billion).

For the third time those dammed Germans are trying to start a world war. (Sarcasm0. Don’t let us forget on Remembrance day the other guilty countries, who have engaged in military conflict of various kinds: Britain, America, France, Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire,,Israel, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portuguese, Sweden, and on and on and on. Not forgetting conflicts in Africa and Latin America etc etc etc.

We shouldn’t forget the reasons why nation states, and those who want to be nation states fight others – in the nineteen thirties Major General Smedley spoke about how the American military was used to protect and expand American capitalism. “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” Bu we should give remembrance, and not just on one day, to all the working class men and women who were propagandised, or brainwashed, into supporting nationalist ‘ideals’ and who perished and who were crippled, to fight for the particular minority capitalist class. And not forgetting all the millions of civilians who also suffered in conflicts they didn’t want and didn’t start.

Standing at the Cenotaph in “silent humility” at 11 o’clock on the Anniversary of Armistice Day were to be seen politicians whose whole political career is a record of pompous and contemptuous disregard for the lives of the working class; ‘ see below. They serve capitalist interests for their own interests. Neither they nor capitalism care about the vast majority except perhaps as cannon fodder.

How do we put an end to this baseless killing and destruction? By consigning capitalism to the dustbin of history

The below is from the Socialist Standard December 1920

‘There is, perhaps, no other epoch in history so mean and brutal as the present. Even the days we are wont to call the “Dark Ages” have no records of men slaughtered wholesale by gas and flame. Herod has been out-Heroded by dozens of petty military chiefs. Nero earned the execration of posterity by burning a city: a modern general will gain a title and the popular applause by burning a score.

Where in the pages of history can one read of such detestable hypocrisy as the burial of the “Unknown Soldier” that took place a short time ago in the very street where the erstwhile comrades of that lifeless clay had been batoned because they dared to rebel against the prospect of starvation? Does any thinking man suggest that the capitalist class had any other idea, in organising and carrying out, with such pomp and expense, the burial of a common soldier, than hoodwinking the working class?

Standing at the Cenotaph in “silent humility” at 11 o’clock on the Anniversary of Armistice Day were to be seen politicians whose whole political career is a record of pompous and contemptuous disregard for the lives of the working class; who had sent soldiers to shoot down strikers in their native streets, and who at that very moment were formulating plans for the calling together of scientists to assure that this country should be well supplied with poison gas at the outbreak of the next war.

Representations are being made to the Government to protect the infant dye industry against foreign competition—not because they want English frocks dyed with English dyes! That is (vide “Daily Mail,” 19th Nov.) only, apparently, a secondary point. The main reason is that of the maintenance of plant for the manufacture of toxic gases! And this almost contemporary with the announcement that the League of Nations is endeavouring to prohibit the use of gas in war.

We were told at the commencement of the war that no more would be seen the spectacle of men broken in fighting “their country’s battles” forced to seek charity in the streets or shelter in the workhouses. We were promised “a land fit for heroes.” Our eyes were dazzled with the prospect of an England made beautiful and happy so soon as the Prussian were crushed and rendered innocuous. Yet what do we find? Men wearing war ribbons hawking vegetables, or even begging coppers, may be met with all over the place. Certain newspapers are full of the plaints of ex-soldiers who have been swindled out of their pensions. One journalist has been going about the country as a tramp, and reports the casual wards in all parts to be full of ex-service men tramping about the land looking for work! The economic position of nearly everyone who possesses nothing but labour power is more desperate than ever it was before. And yet Prussianism is crushed. Its arch-exponent is reduced to the expedient of sawing wood as an outlet to his feelings.

Was it, then, Prussianism that was the enemy of the working class? Or was not the Socialist right when he told you that the capitalist system was the enemy to be fought and crushed? Do you still place reliance on your political representatives? Show us a capitalist politician and we will show you a fraud, a trickster, and a pot-hunter. Show us a labour leader and we will point you either a stupid ignoramus or a wilful misleader. Show us an ideal you cherish and we will show you how the capitalist class through their Press twist it to their own advantage. Even your tears and heartaches for your lost young men are used by this hypocritical class to blind you to the rottenness of the system upon which they batten and live their luxurious lives.

How, then, to escape from this murderous, slavish existence? Do we need tell you the way again? Or need we only urge you to think for yourselves? If you need encouragement go to Bethnal Green, or to the slums of Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, or whatever great town you may be near, and if you have any pity in you it will not be long before you discover the way to end the system that murders and degrades the large mass of its community in the interests of a small section, and assuages its grief-stricken millions with a circus.’

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-latest-humbug-1920.html

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Anything politicians say should be taken with a huge sack of salt. However, even a stopped clock is right two times a day.

An American politician is concerned that A.I. could see unemployment drastically affected by Artificial Intelligence.

‘Artificial intelligence and automation technologies pose a threat to nearly 100 million jobs in the US over the next decade, according to a report released by Senator Bernie Sanders.

The report suggests the disruption will be widespread, affecting both white- and blue-collar professions.

According to Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, AI and automation could replace 40% of registered nurses, 47% of truck drivers, 64% of accountants, 65% of teaching assistants, and 89% of fast food workers.

“The agricultural revolution unfolded over thousands of years. The industrial revolution took more than a century,” the report said. “Artificial labor could reshape the economy in less than a decade.”

The warning contrasts with the stance of the Trump administration, which has championed American leadership in AI development, arguing that losing the technological race to China poses a national security threat.

In an opinion piece for Fox News accompanying the report, Sanders questioned the motives behind these massive investments, noting that “some of the very wealthiest people in the world,” including Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, are pouring hundreds of billions into the technology.

He warned that the “artificial intelligence and robotics being developed by these multi-billionaires today will allow corporate America to wipe out tens of millions of decent-paying jobs, cut labor costs and boost profits.”

Sanders argued that the technology is being leveraged primarily to increase corporate profits and concentrate wealth, citing executives who have announced significant investments in automation concurrently with mass layoffs and other cost-cutting measures.

The senator warned that workers in manufacturing, trucking, and taxi services face a particularly severe impact from the rapid advancement of self-driving projects by automakers and tech companies.

He also expressed scepticism that their goal was to uplift the “60% of our people who live paycheck-to-paycheck” and believes the true driver is because “investing in AI and robotics will increase their wealth and power exponentially.”

The trend is already underway, with corporate giants Amazon and Walmart having eliminated tens of thousands of positions as they intensify automation.’

The below is from the Socialist Standard October 2023.

‘‘Vinod Khosla, the businessman, venture capitalist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, told the On Technology podcast that AI would lead to fewer jobs but would increase productivity so greatly that it would lift economic growth. There would be greater redistribution of wealth to even out income equality and he predicted that in 25 years’ time, 64 per cent of all jobs would be capable of being done by AI: ‘There will be enough to afford a minimal standard of living for everyone, to pay them to live and do things that are useful, but not in today’s jobs.’” (Times, 22 August)

We have been told this before. Nearly 60 years ago an article in the January 1965 Socialist Standard on ‘Automation in Perspective’ noted:

‘A writer in Sunday Citizen (6 Dec. 1964), Mr. Stanley Baron, after he had talked “to the top brains in Britain” made the forecast that before the end of the century, “in every industrial country, certainly in the West, most of the essential work will be performed by about 20 per cent of the people—chiefly the most intelligent. The rest of us will work only as much as we wish—or as much as society requires’” 

So what went wrong? Basically, a failure to take into account that we are living under capitalism.

Capitalism is an economic system geared to the accumulation of profits as more capital invested in production for profit. It is not a system geared to improving the life of the majority.

New wealth, when it is produced, is initially divided into wages, which essentially cover what workers need to consume to recreate their ability to work, and profits. Profits are the part that in theory could be used to improve living standards. Some is taxed by the capitalist state to maintain itself, some is consumed by the capitalist class to maintain and improve its standard of living, but most is destined for re-investment in production, so expanding productive capacity. This is what drives the capitalist economy.

Given this, what Baron predicted was never going to happen. Profits were never going to be diverted to provide workers with a standard of living above what was necessary to maintain them as workers. Any attempt to do this would have clogged up the capitalist economic system by undermining its driving force.

Productivity did increase but not by as much as implied, once again because of capitalism where automation is only introduced if it is cheaper than employing workers, not as soon as it reduces the total amount of work involved. There was a redistribution of work from the manufacturing to the service sector including the capitalist state.

Baron’s figure of only about 20 percent doing ‘essential work’ — producing useful things and services — could be accurate. However, instead of this resulting in 80 percent being able to lead a life of leisure, the number of jobs that don’t produce anything or anything useful increased. These jobs, such as all those concerned with buying and selling, paying money, and providing buildings and hardware for this, are essential for capitalism to function, but not for society to survive.

Khosla will fare no better. AI will increase productivity but not by as much as he says, and certainly not spectacularly. The fact that 64 percent of jobs ‘would be capable of being done by AI does not mean that they all will be. And, are the capitalists going to allow their profits to be taxed to pay everybody a state income appreciably above the poverty line? Will any government even try to do this in the knowledge that it would undermine the driving force of capitalism?

Only on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of productive resources can production be geared to satisfying people’s needs, all the easier given the disappearance of inessential capitalist jobs, and automation and AI allow a reduction in work-time all round.’

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2023/10/ai-in-perspective-2023.html