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by icebraining
2905 days ago
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That was a comment on the perils of mechanization/automatization, not globalization: Let us remember that the automatic machine, whatever we think of any feelings it may have or may not
have, is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor.
Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic conditions of slave labor. It is perfectly clear that this will produce an unemployment
situation, in comparison with which the present recession and even the depression of the thirties will seem
a pleasant joke. (...) Thus the new industrial revolution is a two-edged
sword. It may be used for the benefit of humanity, but
only if humanity survives long enough to enter a period
in which such a benefit is possible. It may also be used
to destroy humanity, and if it is not used intelligently
it can go very far in that direction. There are, however,
hopeful signs on the horizon. Since the publication of
the first edition of this book, I have participated in two
big meetings with representatives of business management, and I have been delighted to see that awareness
on the part of a great many of those present of the
social dangers of our new technology and the social
obligations of those responsible for management to see
that the new modalities are used for the benefit of man,
for increasing his leisure and enriching his spiritual life,
rather than merely for profits and the worship of the
machine as a new brazen calf. |
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Mumford#Megamachines