Dear Andrew Yang

I followed with interest your campaign as a candidate in the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential primaries. You are widely known for advocating Universal Basic Income (UBI) as a necessary response to the massive unemployment that you expect to result from automation in the near future. I recently read your book The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future, published in 2018 by Hachette Books. I have also studied the website of your new Forward Party.

I am writing this open letter in response to your book and party website and in the hope of opening a dialog. Let me start, for the benefit of readers who have not read the book, by summarizing the main arguments you make there. 

You consider automation ‘the largest economic transformation in human history’ – larger even than the agricultural and industrial revolutions. It will bring ‘an unprecedented wave of job destruction’ that you call ‘the Great Displacement.’ 

As you acknowledge, many analysts distrust such bold assessments and prefer to explain unemployment in terms of other factors (see, for instance: Jason E. Smith, Smart Machines and Service Work: Automation in an Age of Stagnation, Reaktion Books, 2020). The skeptics, you suggest, are unduly influenced by past ‘false alarms’: after all, there has been talk about automation and its potential ever since the late 1940s. But the latest advances in information technology have finally made the use of automated systems the cheapest way to perform a much wider range of tasks. This time is for real. 

It is often argued that like previous technological revolutions automation destroys some jobs while creating others. While granting that this is so, you point out that the number of new jobs created by automation is very small by comparison with the number of old jobs it destroys.

In fact, you claim, the ‘Great Displacement’ is already well underway. Four million American manufacturing jobs have been automated since 2000. A hundred thousand department store workers were laid off in 2016—17, due partly to the automation of checkout and partly to the rise of e-commerce. 

To take another example, trucking currently employs several million people in the United States. In addition to three and a half million truck drivers, there are all the workers providing them with services at truck stops, diners, and motels. However, self-driving trucks are already here. They hauling iron ore for Rio Tinto in Australia and make deliveries in Nevada and Colorado. You expect that by the end of the 2020s trucking jobs will be gone. So will jobs driving buses and cars, such as those of the 300,000 drivers for Uber and Lyft.  

How many jobs at risk?

A task can be automated if it is ‘routine’ – that is, if a set of instructions (algorithm) can specify exactly how to perform it. A routine task may be physical or mental or both, simple or complicated, but it does not require independent judgment.  

It is estimated that 62 million jobs – 44% of all jobs in the US – are ‘routine.’ These are the jobs, at medium as well as low levels of skill, that are expected to disappear. What will remain? On the one hand, ‘cognitive’ jobs requiring a high level of skill and a capacity for independent thinking, including work to design, engineer, monitor, and maintain automated processes. On the other hand, service jobs that cannot be automated because they involve ‘nurturing,’ such as care of children, the elderly, and the disabled.    

Social consequences

In the absence of decisive corrective action by government, you argue, automation will lead to a society even more unequal than what we have today. The population will be divided into a minority of ‘affluent people in a handful of megacities’ and a majority of  ‘increasingly destitute and displaced people in decaying towns around the country.’ Competition for the shrinking pool of low- and medium-skill jobs will push wages down to a bare subsistence level. 

Readers outside the United States may not realize that in this country unemployment benefits are available only for limited periods (6 months up to 2 years) and only to those who did not leave their last job voluntarily. There is no public provision for the long-term unemployed. So automation will leave an expanding ‘permanent shadow class’ without legal means of subsistence.  

You are afraid of the violent social unrest that may result from this situation. That is one of the reasons why you advocate UBI as well as other reforms such as Medicare for All. However, your own analysis of the social consequences of automation implies that such reforms are inadequate as a remedy. 

You point out that in our society – and especially for men — status, respect and self-respect, and the sense of a meaning in life all depend on having a stable economic role. But there is a shortage of such roles and the shortage will grow worse as automation proceeds. You see a connection between this trend and a widespread demoralization that finds expression in addiction to drugs, gambling, and video games, breakdown of marriage and the family, despair and suicide. Simply ensuring that everyone has the basic means of material survival will not cure this malaise. 

A puzzle

The question at issue here is this. Can the social problems associated with automation be solved within the limits of the prevailing economic system, which is capitalism? Or is it necessary to go beyond those limits and replace capitalism by some other economic system?

One of the Core Principles of your Forward Party is ‘Human-Centered Capitalism’ – also described as ‘humanized capitalism’ or ‘capitalism made to work the right way.’ In order to make sense of this concept we first need to understand capitalism in its ‘natural’ form, that is, in the absence of ‘humanization.’ How does it work? What is its inner logic? Only then can we try to assess the extent to which the functioning of capitalism can be humanized. How realistic is the goal of humanizing capitalism?

The text on the website of the Forward Party that purports to explain the Core Principle of Human-Centered Capitalism is, to be frank, not very helpful. It says that ‘the economy’ must be humanized to ‘work for us’ and enhance ‘the quality of life of each and every person.’ Fair enough, but how (apart from UBI)? The word ‘capitalism’ does not appear in the text, so ‘humanization of the economy’ might be understood either as reforming or as replacing capitalism. Nevertheless, having no serious objection to anything in the text, I clicked the button to indicate my agreement. In response I received an email message thanking me for ‘supporting human-centered capitalism.’ But this misrepresents my position: I don’t support capitalism of any kind.

Toward the end of your book I noted a number of statements that seemed to me to imply that capitalism is inherently anti-human and that it is necessary to go beyond its limits. Thus:

‘Whom do we serve, Humanity or the Market?’ you ask (p. 242). You do not ask how to serve humanity and the market at the same time. 

And you declare: ‘Capital doesn’t care about us. We must evolve beyond relying upon it as the primary measurement of value’ (p. 243). 

And on the same page: ‘We must convert from a mindset of scarcity to a mindset of abundance.’ But the market is based on scarcity, is it not?

I find it hard to figure out what you really think on this crucial issue. I wonder whether you yourself know what you think. 

Socialism as a solution   

I am a member of the World Socialist Party US. Our party, and the World Socialist Movement of which it forms a part, consider it urgent for humanity to make the transition to a higher and more democratic form of society. We call this society ‘socialism’ or sometimes ‘communism’ – but for us these words signify a human community of social equals that values people for themselves, not the anti-human bureaucratic state order of countries under the monopolistic rule of ‘communist’ parties. 

The displacement caused by automation that you have brought to public attention is one of the major developments that make the transition to socialism so urgent. We acknowledge that social reforms like those you advocate can humanize capitalism to some degree. However, the potential for humanization within capitalism is constrained by the inner logic of the capitalist system. This inner logic was first analyzed in depth by a fellow named Karl Marx. Perhaps you have heard of him. 

The essential point is that capitalism, by its very nature, is not human-centered but capital-centered. Indeed, that is what makes it capitalism. Its driving imperative is the expansion and accumulation of capital – a goal pursued endlessly and for its own sake. When well-meaning social reformers go ‘too far’ in their efforts to force it to function in a humane manner, contrary to this imperative, it ceases to function altogether.   

In socialism the means of automation, like other means of production and distribution, will no longer serve to enrich and empower a tiny minority. They will be owned in common and controlled democratically to serve the welfare of the whole community. 

Automation will lighten the workload of the community by eliminating boring and tiring tasks that people prefer to avoid. But the more interesting and satisfying work that remains will be widely shared. Every able-bodied member of society will have some useful work to do, but the short hours made possible by automation will allow ample time for other aspects of life. 

Automation basically solves the problem of production. But the ecological degradation and climate chaos bequeathed to socialism by capitalism will impose another task of no less importance and urgency – rehabilitation of our natural environment. People will undertake many activities for this purpose, some of which may be automated and others not. 

Your response to this letter will be greatly appreciated, especially if it is a substantive response. 

Respectfully,

Stephen D. Shenfield

Secretary, World Socialist Party US

July 2022

Automation: an open letter to Andrew Yang – World Socialist Party US (wspus.org)

Environmental protection groups called the UN ocean conference a missed opportunity to promise real action in an ecosystem struggling with overfishing, warming temperatures, pollution and acidification.

Numerous NGOs criticized the conference’s closing declaration as non-committal and therefore meaningless. The five-day conference did not even present a report on the progress of the goals set out at the last UN oceans summit, which took place in 2017.

“We have seen many declarations before, we have heard many promises, pledges and voluntary commitments,” said Laura Meller of Greenpeace. “But if declarations could save the oceans they wouldn’t be on the brink of collapse.”

Marco Lambertini, director-general of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), said, “The ocean, climate and coastal communities worldwide need real progress, not promises.”

Environmentalists slam UN inaction at ocean conference | News | DW | 01.07.2022

 As many countries face the difficulties of food shortages and higher prices, according to the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), are being forced to cut back on their food production.

The concentration of vast capital into the hands of a continually decreasing number of capitalists, accompanied by more efficient methods of production, swells to an enormous extent the wealth of this class. While, on the other hand, this development brings with it a more intense form of exploitation, greater insecurity, unemployment, and poverty of the wealth producers. The result is that, as capitalist society develops, the distinction between the two classes becomes wider and clearer; and the opposition of interest more intense. These facts are having a powerful influence on the minds of the workers, and are slowly but surely preparing them to accept the principles of socialism. Having progressed so far towards an understanding of their class position, they become less easy to deceive. Consequently the older political parties, who openly defend the present system of society, and claim that there is no alternative, can no longer command the support of an overwhelming majority of the workers as they did in the past. Hence the need, to the capitalist class, of a political party that can secure the support of this discontented section, by criticising the system, and when necessary expressing sympathy towards socialism, and that can, at the same time, be relied upon to maintain capitalist society. In face of the trials the workers experience in their struggle to live, such attempts to mislead them must fail. And as the system develops, the need for a change in the basis of society from the private ownership in the means of life to common ownership becomes more evident. When the majority of our class realise this simple fact, they will join with us in the fight to secure control of the political machinery and armed forces for the purpose of establishing what must be the one and only object of a working-class political party—socialism.

Global capitalism’s reaction to so-called natural disasters shows the system in its true colours—greedy gold and bloody red.  The profit system proves woefully inadequate to deal humanely and effectively with such situations. These misfortunes are presented as unavoidable natural disasters. To some extent, this is true. But it ignores the difficult-to-quantify consequences of the deliberate pursuit of profit at the expense of environmental protection and conservation—the emission of poisonous gases, the destruction of forests and so on. The severity of the disasters is compounded by the fact that capitalism’s priority is to preserve and enhance the profit system, not to preserve and enhance human life. How would the consequences of natural disasters be dealt with in a socialist world? The frequency and severity of such events would be minimised by not damaging the environment in the pursuit of profit and not forcing people to live in areas that are prone to really unavoidable natural disasters. When a hurricane, earthquake or whatever did occur, help would be organised directly and immediately to meet the needs of the victims. No waiting around for funds to be set up, relief costs to be authorised, etc. No question of debt moratorium or cancellation to be considered—not debts would be created. Just the simple meeting of human needs. Is that too complex and unthinkable an idea to understand and act on?

The problem of evil in the world, the existence of wars, poverty, unemployment, crime, crises, etc., made it clear that no Supreme Being existed. Nor could it be claimed that evil, cruelty and barbarity are just man made, for barbarity exists among the animals. The cat plays with a mouse until it has been slowly tortured to death and the jungles are filled with ferocious beasts who live by tearing to pieces smaller and weaker animals. If God could make herbivore animals why not make them all like that instead of creating carnivorous ones. Everywhere the law of the jungle dominated human life under capitalism. It is possible to trace the evolution of the idea of God in primitive society, and now that we know the origin of the God idea, this cuts the ground from under the feet of the theist. The heavens no longer proclaim the glory Of God, nor does the firmament show his handiwork. God who could reveal himself at any moment has now to be searched for. The time has come to conduct God to the frontiers, thank him for his services, and ask him not to call again and trouble us with his diversions, as we wish to change the economic basis of society, and for this purpose do not need spirits, spooks or spectres (whether holy or otherwise). Instead of God creating man in his image, man had created his God or gods and always in his own image. The gods of the African tribes were black, with short black curly hair, and the gods of the Eskimos were fat and covered with thick furs.

 The G-7 leaders have promised Ukraine over $31.6 billion in budgetary and humanitarian support. 

Yet despite the ever-growing global hunger crisis, intensified by fallout from the war, the G7  said it would provide only an additional $4.5 billion, amounting to a total of over $14bn for hunger relief. 

 $2 billion will be to directed toward emergency interventions, $760 million will be used for sustainable near-term food assistance to help mitigate poverty, hunger and malnutrition in vulnerable countries that are affected by high food prices, fertilizer and fuel. The investments aim to support efforts in more than 47 countries and regional organizations by tackling fertilizer shortages and purchasing resilient seeds.

NGOs have described the results of a summit of G7 as inadequate, with Oxfam Germany explaining the  summit declarations are “intended to distract from the historic failure of the G7,” to prevent growing food insecurity.

“The $4.5 billion pledged is far too little to end the global food crisis and prevent people from continuing to go hungry,” Charlotte Becker, advocacy and campaign director at Oxfam, said in a statement. “At least an additional $28 billion is needed to end hunger and fund the United Nations’ appeals for help.”

It failed to include any debt relief for affected low- and middle-income countries. For every dollar of aid money, two dollars would have to be paid to creditors.

 G7 disappoints on energy and food crises | Business | Economy and finance news from a German perspective | DW | 28.06.2022

 Asparagus in winter, pears from Argentina, Peruvian blueberries and Californian almonds — these are just a few of the several thousand products shoppers can buy when they enter a supermarket.  

It’s something our ancestors a century ago likely never imagined, but we’ve become used to this bounty of choice when we select our food.  

“It is truly peculiar to walk into a Carrefour Marche in France or Wal Mart here in the United States and see what’s on offer,” says Janet Chrzan, a nutritional anthropologist from the University of Pennsylvania. “We are living in a food environment which is unlike anything our species has ever encountered.” 

German supermarkets carry more than 10,000 products on their shelves. In the US, it is more than 30,000. Climate scientists say change, including moderating our diets, is exactly what’s needed to bring down greenhouse gas emissions from food. That means eating less red meat and more plant-based foods. Opting for seasonal produce rather than buying, say, strawberries in winter can also make a difference.

Food production accounts for around a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Most of that comes from meat and dairy, which contribute almost 15% of global emissions. Producing food also causes other problems, such as pollution, biodiversity loss, contamination of soils and water shortages.  

Food consumption has been increasing worldwide for decades. High-income countries, including the US and Germany, take in the most calories per capita. At the same time, the UN estimates that households globally throw away 11% of the total food available for consumption, although this statistic does not include low-income countries. 

When faced with an abundance of choice in the grocery store, consumers tend to make decisions that are quick and based on habit. Our consumer behavior is notoriously difficult to change because food choices and eating patterns are so embedded in the way we live.

Stefan Wahlen, a food sociologist at the University of Giessen in Germany, says despite small blips, people tend to eat the same food 95% of the time.  

“You live in your routines, and even though you might be trying some new foodstuff, there’s little variation in what we actually eat,” he says, adding that these routines help us in “coping with the complexity of our daily lives.” 

Two-thirds of consumers in the study by the Brussels-based European Consumer Organization said they were open to changing their eating habits for environmental reasons, with many willing to reduce food waste at home, buy more seasonal fruit and veggies and eat more plant-based foods. But only one in five were willing to spend more money for sustainable food.

It can also be complicated for consumers to know which foods are ecologically sustainable, given that most products don’t display their carbon footprints or how much land and water went into producing them.

Food consumerism: What′s stopping the switch to a climate-friendly diet? | Environment | All topics from climate change to conservation | DW | 29.06.2022

  306,887 civilians are estimated to have been killed in Syria between March 1, 2011 and March 31, 2021 because of the conflict.

The figures released by the UN do not include soldiers and fighters killed in the conflict; their numbers are believed to be in the tens of thousands. The numbers also do not include people who were killed and buried by their families without notifying authorities.

More than 300,000 civilians killed in Syrian conflict: UN report | News | Al Jazeera

 Record-breaking floods in the north-eastern region of the country of Bangladesh have wreaked havoc as an estimated 7.2 million people have been affected and are in desperate need of shelter and emergency relief.

The highest amount of rainfall in decades has led to the overflowing of large river systems running between India and Bangladesh and completely swallowing surrounding areas.

Bangladesh Red Crescent Society Secretary General Kazi Shofiqul Azam said: “We have never seen this sort of flooding in our living memories in that region.”

 Many blame climate change for the floods affecting several million across the country.

Millions in Bangladesh impacted by one of the worst floodings ever seen – Bangladesh | ReliefWeb

 The Supreme Court has been throwing its weight around lately. Not content with sabotaging legislative attempts to restrict access to mass-murder weapons, it has now overturned Roe v. Wade (1973), which established a legal right to abortion.

For most, although not all of its existence, the Supreme Court has played a reactionary role in American society. Indeed, it is one of the mechanisms – the Electoral College is another – that the Founding Fathers created for the express purpose of weakening the democratic elements in the Constitution. That is why an effort to democratize the Constitution may have to precede the establishment of socialism in the United States. 

It seems puzzling that people who claim to care so much for the ‘right to life’ of the fetus should so stubbornly uphold the right to buy and bear firearms designed to kill lots of people very fast. Their motto, I suppose, is: the right to life ends at birth.

Abortions will continue whatever the law may say. Making them illegal has never stopped them and never will stop them. 

Remarkably, the Guttmacher Institute has shown that the abortion rate in the US was higher when in most states abortion was illegal.

David French, writing in the June 2022 issue of The Atlantic, cites this fact, but avoids drawing the obvious conclusion that criminalizing abortion is pointless or even counterproductive. He still favors ‘legal protections for unborn life’ – a pretty phrase that obscures the ugly reality of desperate women, together with the physicians and nurses who try to help them, being arrested and dragged off to jail.  

According to medical specialists, of the 42 million women who have abortions worldwide each year 20 million have abortions that are illegal and therefore especially unsafe (there are risks even in legal abortions).

How are illegal abortions performed? 

“Methods of unsafe abortion include drinking toxic fluids such as turpentine, bleach, or drinkable concoctions mixed with livestock manure. Other methods involve inflicting direct injury to the vagina or elsewhere—for example, inserting herbal preparations into the vagina or cervix; placing a foreign body such as a twig, coat hanger, or chicken bone into the uterus; or placing inappropriate medication into the vagina or rectum. Unskilled providers also perform dilation and curettage in unhygienic settings, causing uterine perforations and infections. Methods of external injury are also used, such as jumping from the top of stairs or a roof, or inflicting blunt trauma to the abdomen.”

Some 68,000 die as a result, the main causes of death being ‘hemorrhage, infection, sepsis, genital trauma, and necrotic bowel.’ Five million suffer long-term health complications, which ‘include poor wound healing, infertility, consequences of internal organ injury (urinary and stool incontinence from vesicovaginal or rectovaginal fistulas), and bowel resections.’

So the issue is not: abortion yes or no? The issue is under what conditions abortions will be performed. By qualified physicians In hygienic clinics? Or in back streets, with resort to all sorts of desperate and dangerous methods? 

Most people admit that abortion is an abhorrent procedure, not to be undertaken lightly. However, making it a crime does much more harm than good. This is one of many social problems that cannot be solved by punishing people. 

In a socialist society, abortion will be a rare event. On the one hand, there will be free access to a wide variety of safe, effective, and unobtrusive contraceptives for both sexes. On the other hand, people will no longer be forced to prevent births because they cannot afford to take care of another child. A few abortions will continue to be performed for health or other reasons. 

Stephen Shenfield

World Socialist Party of the United States

The right to life ends at birth – World Socialist Party US (wspus.org)

 The population of England and Wales has hit a historic high of 59,597,300, an 6.3% increase on the 2011 figure of 56,075,912 – an extra 3.5 million people. It means the wider UK population is almost 67 million, once census results published last month for Northern Ireland, showing a population of 1.9 million, and the latest estimate for Scotland, of 5.47 million, are added in. 

The total is on course to break the 70 million mark in the next five years, but population growth has decreased slightly over the last decade. Under-15s make up a declining proportion of the population, and at 10.4 million have been overtaken in numbers by the over-65s in the last decade.

With 434 residents per square kilometre, England now ranks as the second-most densely populated country in Europe after the Netherlands (507 persons per sq km).

Present and projected increases in the population only pose a problem under the conditions imposed by capitalist society—the laws of profit first and can’t pay, can’t have. 

Capitalism is not only a system of artificial scarcity, it is also a system of organised waste. Countless millions of workers are to be found in the armed forces, many more in the security and law and order business, with many times that number employed in the field of commerce and finance.

The problem becomes not one of feeding the growing population, but of organising production and distribution on a rational basis. While we can expect the Malthusian prophets of doom to remind us that every new child means an extra mouth to feed, they will neglect to add that it also means an extra pair of hands, an extra brain, capable of contributing to the common good. It is no state secret that production is not primarily produced to satisfy needs. It is produced for the market and with a view to making profits.

Socialist society will ensure that the resources of the Earth are used in a manner that ensures every man, woman and child is adequately fed, cared for and housed—something capitalism has never been capable of overseeing.