| Archive: Issue 5 - Fall/Winter 1997 |
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| Assessing
cy.Rev: One of the most perceptive critics of "information revolution" hype is Doug Henwood, whose indispensable Left Business Observer covers the high-technology beat on a regular basis. Henwood is no neo-Luddite himself and maintains an electronic version of LBO on the World Wide Web while making his presence felt on numerous Internet mailing lists. In his review of James Brook and Iain Boal's Resisting the Virtual Life, Henwood makes a number of keen observations about the "information revolution" hype and Robert Reich's role in it. Leaving aside the unlikely possibility that American capitalism is capable of improving its public schools to the level necessary to turn out "symbolic analysts," Henwood questions of the availability of such jobs in the future: "Is there any truth to Reich's blather? How big is the high- tech, infobahn workforce now, and how big is it likely to get? The share of the workforce employed directly in information superhighway kinds of tasks is well under 2% -- and that includes people who design, make, and program computers, chips, and telecommunications equipment. Business purchases of computer and telecommunications equipment totals just over 2% of GDP. What the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS -- an agency within the department Reich now heads) calls scientists, engineers, and technicians now constitute about 5% of the total workforce. By 2005, it reckons, these workers will account for all of 5.6% of total employment. Looking at high-tech industries rather than workers gives an even less impressive picture; now they account for just over a quarter of total employment, but by 2005 their share is likely to fall by over a percentage point. The number of systems analysts and computer scientists will grow dramatically, yes -- by almost 80%. But since there are under a half-million of such folks now, their share of the workforce will remain nearly invisible to the naked eye. The same can be said of computer programmers, electronics engineers, and biotech scientists." This leads us to another premise accepted uncritically by cy.Rev, the "disappearance of jobs." Is it the case that machines are replacing human labor to the extent that we face a totally redundant workforce beyond the 21st Century? In his review of Jeremy Rifkin's "End of Work," Henwood observes that "People have been worrying about machines replacing human labor since the beginning of capitalism. Yes, machines do replace workers -- but employment nonetheless continues to expand, quadrupling in the U.S. over the last 60 years. In most parts of the world, aside from Europe and Africa, employment is growing. Throughout history, capitalism has constantly drawn new people into paid labor, though the demand for jobs always outstrips the system's capacity to provide them." Clearly the task of mapping the future trajectory of capitalism in the 21st century will test the capacities of any professional "futurist", especially those of the Marxist persuasion. Immediately after WWII, the Marxist left in the United States anticipated economic depression and revolutionary upsurge. Instead we got the growth of suburbia, widespread availability of consumer goods and a quiescent working-class. Certainly there are profound changes occurring in the American economy, but it would be a mistake to rule out the creation of many new industrial jobs. For example, the current generations of mostly middle-aged auto workers are getting ready to retire. Some experts in the auto industry predict wide-scale hiring over the next ten years. The critical question of course remains whether these will be well-paying union jobs or not. Another problem with cy.Rev is that it seems to never consider the possibility that the progressive movement has alternatives to Sale's neo-Luddism or a brokered marriage between the Tofflers and Karl Marx. To start with, there were alternatives to polluting heavy-industries in the USSR. What happened historically had little to do with Marxism's embrace of a "Second Wave" model, but instead had more to do with Stalin's go-for-broke rapid industrialization schemes. Stalin put through his wasteful and grandiose projects against the advice of the Soviet Union's most talented and pro-socialist engineers. Loren Graham's "Ghost of the Executed Engineer" is a penetrating study of the fate of one such engineer who stood up to Stalin. Peter Palchinsky, a civil engineer, joined the Communist Party shortly after the 1917 revolution. Palchinsky supported the idea of planning. He believed that the Soviet Union opened up possibilities for industrial development that were impossible under Tsarism. He thought that engineers could play a major role in the growth of socialism. Palchinsky argued against the type of gigantic enterprises that had captured Stalin's limited imagination. He noted that middle-sized and small enterprises often have advantages over large ones. For one thing, workers at smaller factories are usually able to grasp the final goals more easily. He also believed that the single most important factor in engineering decisions was human beings themselves. Successful industrialization and high productivity were not possible without highly trained workers and adequate provision for their social and economic needs. His differences with Stalin's pyramid-building approach erupted over the Great Dneiper Dam project, one of the most fabled 5-year plan projects. Palchinsky made the following critiques. The project did not take into account the huge distances between the dam and the targeted sites. As a consequence, there would be huge transmission costs and declines in efficiency. Also, the project did not take into account the damage resulting floods would cause to surrounding farms situated in lowlands. Some 10,000 villagers had to flee their homes. As the project fell behind schedule and overran costs, the workers' needs were more and more neglected. The workers suffered under freezing conditions, living in cramped tents and barracks without adequate sanitary facilities. TB, typhus, and smallpox spread throughout the worker's quarters. Palchinsky argued forcefully against projects such as these and offered a more rational, humane and less ideologically driven approach. In other words, he stressed sound engineering and planning methods. He helped to organize a study group dedicated to his principles. Palchinsky and other engineers who opposed Stalin's bureaucratic system allied themselves to some extent with Bukharin and Rykov who had often defended engineers and their approach to industrial planning. Stalin cracked down on the Bukharin opposition around the same time as he attacked dissident engineers and had Palchinsky imprisoned. The engineer died behind bars two years later. More >>
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