Horrible right-wing politicians and their media lackeys have started to denigrate the Social Credit economic system. They say it’s what China’s got. I don’t know about that. We will explain it properly. We are publishing posthumously in serial form, Wilfred Price’s “Social Credit and the Leisure State”, 3rd Edition circa 1990.
PART ONE - THE SILICON CHIP AND AUTOMATION
N.B. For literary convenience masculine pronouns are used
in this treatise. However, it should be
understood that both sexes are represented equally.
One of the most dramatic pieces
of technology to hit the headlines in recent times must be that of the Silicon
Chip.
The latter half of the 20th
Century could be described as the period of the Electronic Revolution,
something which may prove as far reaching in its effect on human living as the
Industrial Revolution. Now, as a result
of computers, not only can vast amounts of information be housed ready on
demand, and the most complicated of mathematical problems be solved in the
twinkling of an eye, but also can be stored instructional programmes for a
whole series of intricate mechanical operations. Even in the early stages this meant a switch
from human to mechanical direction.
In the “Horizon” television
series the film “Now the Chips are Down” described the impact of the Silicon
Chip micro-processing technique on the making of computers. The film showed that a system of computers
which 25 years ago would have occupied an area the size of Greater London, and
presumably, averaging six feet in height, can now by means of micro-circuits on
assemblies of Silicon Chips, be contained in a volume the size of a human
brain. The film went on to indicate that
Britain was well supplied with “Software” specialists, i.e.: people who can
adapt these electronic “brains” to the direction of industrial processes. Two years ago, Dr. Chris Evans, the
scientific broadcaster, in an article, “Computers and Artificial Intelligence?”
(Science Fact, edited by Professor Frank George – Topaz Books) states, “The
horrendous fact that many prized skills are rather surprisingly easy to
simulate by quite simple computers will not penetrate human consciousness
overnight, but once it does there are likely to be fireworks.”
When also it is to be realised
that, besides factories, such automation can enter offices, surgeries,
transport, and, in fact any professional activity, an acute problem will
certainly arise in a community conditioned to the idea that employment is the sole
(or the only rightful) means of getting buying power. As the new computers will not only be
incredibly small, but also can be produced very cheaply, it is obvious that
millions of people will no longer be required in industry. This is a view that
is held by a large number of scientific experts who make it clear that far more
jobs will be destroyed than ever could be created no matter how much output is
increased. Even if any government were
to try and hold back this technical development, its country would suffer as a
result of world competition. It is this
that forced our government to invest well over £100,000,000 in the Silicon Chip
in 1978.
Professor Tom Stonier, of the
School of Science and Society, Bradford University, has pointed out that 200
years ago people would not have believed that the agriculture of Britin could
be carried out by 3% of the adult population and that today people find it hard
to believe that our industry could be carried out by a similarly small
proportion.
It has been contended that,
though Japan is the leader in the use of Micro-Chip directed robots, there is
still a low level of unemployment there.
However, the use is still on a small scale and the installation of the
robots is labour intensive. The picture
will change in a few years’ time. There
is an assumption that there will be a repetition of the situation as in the
early days of the Industrial Revolution when the then new technology made for
more human labour than it displaced because of the great expansion of
production. Toay, however, the situation
is different; if such an expansion happened, the increased demand for raw
materials and for clearings for more factories and roads would impose a great
strain on our country’s ecology. The
Japanese are beginning to find this out.
The idea that the diminishing
work-load can be shared equally is a myth. The more automation is used the more
industry is dependent on highly trained people to operate the new
technology. Let us take a case in point:
coal-mining is a dangerous and unhealthy occupation; therefore it would be a
good thing if it were completely automated, which it could easily be. But miners are not “software” specialists and
so would not be required at all in running the mines. We must face the fact that, when the microchip
technology begins to bite, the great majority of workers will not be required
at all in industry.
Of course, with anything new we
have to adjust; problems are created which have to be solved. One is that when automation destroys jobs it
destroys wages and salaries. Consequently
there will arise a glut of goods for which there will be no buying power. Is it therefore beyond the power and imagination
of men to devise a method of distributing this glut in a way that is independent
of employment? Can we not give ourselves
a leisure income and thus proceed towards a Leisure State in which no one is
compelled by necessity to seek a job, and is free to develop his own culture in
his own way, while all can enjoy the fruits of a fully automated economy?
The objective of the Social
Credit policy is such a Leisure State.
GREENSWIPE WIND-UP
The Horizon film “Now the Chips
are Down”, with extended studio discussion, was first transmitted in 1978 but
is currently available to view in the U.K. on BBC iPlayer.
Next time: “PART TWO of Social
Credit and Leisure State - Work Morality and the Common Cultural Inheritance”
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