working for capitalists

The automation of human work is an ongoing objective of our capitalist systems. Our accounting practices amortize machines while listing people as costs, which keeps the power of labour down. The machines do not even have to be as good as a person, due to our bookkeeping systems that treat labour and capital differently. Labour is a cost while capital is an investment. Indeed, automation + capitalism = a perfect storm.

Recently, The Verge reported that the CEO of Shopify, an online commerce platform, told employees — ‘Before asking for more Headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI.’ The underlying, completely misinformed assumption being that large language models and generative pre-trained transformers are as effective at thinking and working as humans.

So how can an informed citizenry take control of our real economic power? It’s all about numbers — or how many people will get involved to change the system. For example, “when the committed minority reached 25%, there was an abrupt change in the group dynamic, and very quickly the majority of the population adopted the new norm”, and also that, “when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society”.

But an essential factor in movements for social change is that they should be non-violent to be really effective. This is the 3.5% rule: How a small minority can change the world (2019).

Looking at hundreds of campaigns over the last century, [political scientist, Erica] Chenoweth found that nonviolent campaigns are twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent campaigns. And although the exact dynamics will depend on many factors, she has shown it takes around 3.5% of the population actively participating in the protests to ensure serious political change … “Ordinary people, all the time, are engaging in pretty heroic activities that are actually changing the way the world – and those deserve some notice and celebration as well.”

So let’s go to organize!

Image by Hugh MacLeod at GapingVoid