Technology and Social Transformation

The main argument in this paper is that the most profound historical changes are linked to changes in technology. The examples we have documented here are the production of cotton and auto. This is not an argument for technological determinism, but an argument for the origin of classes and the structural basis for class conflict. Technology is created by people, used by people, and impacts people on the basis of definite historical interests for gain, for profit. In each instance this determines who benefits and reveals the motive behind how production is organized.

What is critical to understand is how the technological dialectic--first the inclusion, then the exclusion of labor--first created one kind of transformation after sharecropping was ended, and then created something vastly different on the other side of mass production. When the sharecropping system was destroyed by the new technology, there was another labor system crying out for the newly created surplus labor. These industrial centers became magnets for the newly freed workers, and they swarmed there leaving their old rural shacks abandoned as testaments to a past fading into memory. The journey of northern migration was a progressive movement to a higher quality of social life, to an economic position of greater security.

However, the transformation we are currently going through is quite different, in fact rather the opposite. The current social transformation is expelling people from work and in this process is destroying the society built to serve the industrial system. The schools, hospitals, public transportation, affordable housing, and other institutions that used to make up society were designed to feed, clothe, house and care for factory workers to come to work, and care for their families as the source for the next generation of workers. Things are quite different now.

Five Revolutionary Processes

The overall complex process can be schematically summed up by discussing five features of revolutionary transformation: technological, economic, social, political, and spiritual. Each is important and has its own logic, and yet each is conditioned by the others with the fundamental logic of change resting on the technological and economic.

In The End of Work, Jeremy Rifkin estimates that only 20% of the current labor force will survive with wealth creating jobs, as productivity will rise very rapidly due to the new technology. >From 1953 to 1962 there were 1.6 million manufacturing jobs lost, and Black unemployment went from a previous high of 8.5% up to 12.4%. Since then, Black unemployment has been twice that of whites. Tom Kahn is quoted by Rifkin: "It is as if racism, having put the Negro in his economic place, stepped aside to watch technology destroy that place." US Steel had 120,000 workers in 1980. Ten years later, computer-based engineering and the new mini-mills allowed US Steel to leave the urban areas and Black workers residing there to make more product than ever with a work force of only 20,000.

It is common to hear that in fact the new economy is growing jobs. In 1992, however, 2 out of every 3 new private sector jobs were temporary or part time. Today overall more than 25% of all US jobs are temporary (a high figure, but not as high as in England where the figure is 40%). However, 40% of all faculty in post secondary education in the US are part time. The largest employer in the US is now Manpower, whose 1992 figure was 560,000. This is now a supranational corporation with headquarters in London, and offices in 35 countries. So part time, temporary or contingent workers are what we're getting. These workers get less pay, and less security, not only on the job but over the long run. About 50% of full time workers get pensions, while for part time workers it is less than 20%. Technological innovation so far has meant forcing people onto a "slippery slope" whereby they descend into economic oblivion.

2. Growing Inequality. The second point is that this technological impact is producing a growing polarization of wealth. The number of poor people is growing faster than the overall population, and the rich are getting richer.

From 1980 to 1994, factory wages rose 75% while executive pay on average rose 360%!
The differences between Black and whites are even more stark. Overall, the net worth of the American households declined between 1988 and 1991-- the drop was 12%, an average of $5,000 per household. The median wealth for a white household was $44,408, while for Black people it was $4,608 and for Latinos $5,345. Within the Black community there has been polarization. From 1967 to 1990, Black families making less than $5,000 a year increased from 8% to 12&, while those making more than $50,000 increased from 7% to 15%.

3. Social Breakdown. The third point is that this economic polarization has led to a destruction of the social fabric of society. This is the focus of the underclass literature, examining the concentration of social ills on the poorest sections of society and the breakdown of all conventional social institutions. This point is in plain view for all to see. Who can argue that any social institution is stronger, more democratic and inclusive, and more legitimate in the eyes of the American people. No. The situation is quite the opposite. Since the school to work link has been broken, the schools don't seem to have the ability to teach any more. And, as Jonathan Kozol points out in his book Savage Inequality, education is going on is for the rich and secure suburban communities. The family is transforming as more people get married than divorced, and an unprecedented number of people, including parents, never get married. Today a majority of the countries children live in poverty. The same di can be repeated in health, housing, nutrition, etc.

This rapid social decay is plunging healthy communities so far down that they have become forbidden zones, areas that are stigmatized and avoided. This is obvious for inner city areas of Black and Latinos, but this includes the prisons, the Indian reservations, small town and rural areas where white poverty remains relatively invisible. The center piece of this is the way in which tv (legal) and crack (illegal) have captured the time of the poor and transformed many of their activities into anti-social and increasingly violent orgies. The mainstream media tends to place the blame on the moral degeneracy and lack of leadership within the communities suffering from poverty, rather than place these developments in a causal chain that starts with the liquidation of the economic structures that have enabled people to lead safe and secure lives.

4. Destroying the Safety Net. The political response to this crisis has been an attack on the poor and economically insecure. This is the fourth point. Both Clinton and Gingrich agree that the budget should be balanced in 7 years, that big government should be cut down to size, that people should be forced off of welfare, etc., etc. They argue about how fast this should happen, and how soft the process should be. The big point is their agreement, that the role of government is not to insure the economic security of the population. The Republicans are driving the national debate, moving it further and further to the right. One example of this is the current debate over taxes. From 1954 to 1963, if you were single with kids you paid a tax rate of 78% of all the money you earned over $75,000. Today the overall rate for these people is 31%. The plan for a so called flat tax, proposed by the super rich conservative Steve Forbes, would reduce this rate down to 17%. If we went back to the 196 could get rid of the deficit with little difficulty. They say its more difficult than that, but that's only because they want poor people to pay for the debt.

The Peoples Tribune carried an article by Bruce Parry that sums this budget crisis up very clearly as an attack on poor people:

As drug offenders now account for 60% of prisoners, it is important to note the severity of sentences for crack which is clearly a class based attack. Black people make up 13% of the population and about that same level of drug use. But they are 35% of those arrested for drug use, 55% of those convicted, and 74% of those serving time as a result of this so called drug war.

5. Spiritual Crisis. Finally, the fifth point is that this crisis is sapping the idealism from the American spirit robbing people of their idealism, expectations of social progress, and belief in the American way of life. People are spiritually impoverished.

A New Class, A New Hope

This portrayal should not, however, produce depression and the dread of defeat. There is a basis for hope and optimism. The key and historically most significant point of all is that these revolutionary developments are revolutionary mainly because they are bringing a new class into existence. This new class has both the necessity and possibility for transforming society. This is good news indeed.

A flower can be called a weed, and if we believe that it is, we will treat it as such. We will kill it and be content in our ignorance that we have done good. But if we study the situation and find out that this is not a weed but a sweet and beautiful flower, then we will nurture it and help it develop so that it reaches its full potential. Gingrich and Clinton call the new class a bunch of criminals, weeds in their garden. But, we are suggesting that members of the new class are the flowers destined to make the gardens of the world beautiful and sweet smelling in the 21st century. We are the gardeners, and we must plan for what has to be done.

A class is an aggregate of people forced into existence by a structural change in the economy, who are socially molded into a historical force destined to vie for power and control of the society. The concept of class is always associated with class struggle. Class struggle is not just the sum of every issue, little or big. This is about which class rules society, and how the economic wealth of the society is distributed.

The industrial system emerged with both the capitalists and the workers uniting to defeat the feudal powers. But the conditions of their relationship put the capitalists in control. The capitalists owned the means of production and forced the workers to sell their labor power because there was no other way to survive. In fact, it was the social organization of production, especially the factory system, that imposed a discipline upon the workers. Otherwise, the role of the police was to make sure that discipline was maintained.

The workers in turn fought the bosses and the police to achieve certain standards for their lives, especially in wages and benefits, hours of work, conditions of work, etc. This general set of terms can be summed up as the social contract. This can be summed up as the terms of class peace between the workers and the capitalists.

Now we have a new proletariat. They are people who not only have no means of earning a living other than going to work for somebody, but now they are useless labor in an economy run by smart machines. They are outside of the existing social contract. This is forcing the emergence of a police state, because there is no other way to impose discipline on these permanently unemployed workers. The illegal ploy is the spread of drugs and gangs for the youth, so the legal state can rise to the dangers and throw folks in jail.

There are at least four approaches to this problem, where both scholars and theoreticians joined with politicians in developing policy.