The Dystopian "Fourth Industrial Revolution" Will Be Very Different From The First One
The Dystopian "Fourth Industrial Revolution" Will Be Very Different From The First One
by Tyler Durden Wed, 11/18/2020 - 17:10
Authored by Antony Mueller via The Mises Institute,
If
one takes the publications of the World Economic Forum (WEF) as an indication
of how the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” will change society, the world
is facing a massive onslaught against individual liberty and private property.
A new kind of collectivism is about to emerge. Like the communism of the past,
the new project appeals to the public with the assurance of technological
advancement and social inclusion. Additionally, ecological sustainability and
the promise of longevity or even immortality are used to entice the public. In reality, however, these promises are
deeply dystopian.
The
Fourth Industrial Revolution
According to Klaus Schwab, the founder and current executive
chairman of the WEF, the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (2016)
represents a new stage of the disruptive technological advances that began
toward the end of the eighteenth century with the textile industry
and the use of steam power. The Second Industrial Revolution took place in the
decades before and after 1900. It created a plethora of new consumer goods and
production technologies that allowed mass production. The third Industrial
Revolution began around 1950 with the breakthroughs in digital technologies.
Now, according to Klaus Schwab, the fourth Industrial Revolution means that the
world is moving toward “a true global civilization.”
The fourth Industrial Revolution provides the potential “to
robotize humanity, and thus compromise our traditional sources of meaning—work,
community, family, identity.” Schwab predicts that the fourth
Industrial Revolution will “lift humanity into a new collective and moral
consciousness.”
Transhumanism is
part of the transformation that comes with the fourth Industrial Revolution, as artificial intelligence (AI)
will surpass even the best human performances at specific tasks. The new technologies “will not stop at
becoming part of the physical world around us—they will become part of us, Schwab declares.
In the foreword to Schwab’s latest book, Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial
Revolution (2018), the CEO of
Microsoft, Satya Nadella, states that the evolution of the new technologies “is
entirely within our power.” Microsoft and the other high-tech companies
“are betting on the convergence of several important technology shifts—mixed
reality, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.”
Satya Nadella informs readers that Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook,
and IBM will cooperate in an AI partnership that
will work to develop and test the technology in fields such as “automobiles and
healthcare, human-AI collaboration, economic displacement, and how AI can be
used for social good.”
All-Embracing Transformation
In the preface to his latest book, Klaus Schwab predicts that
the fourth Industrial Revolution will “upend the existing ways of sensing,
calculating, organizing, acting and delivering.” He states that “the
negative externalities” of the present global economy harm “the natural
environment and vulnerable populations.”
The
changes that come with the new technologies will be comprehensive and will
topple “the way we produce and transport goods and services.” The
revolution will upset how “we communicate, the way we collaborate, and the way
we experience the world around us.” The change will be so profound that the
advances in neurotechnologies and biotechnologies “are forcing us to question
what it means to be human.”
Like Satya Nadella’s foreword, Schwab’s text reiterates
several times the claim that the “evolution of the fourth Industrial
Revolution” is “entirely within our power” when “we” use the “window of
opportunity” and drive for “empowerment.” The “we” that both authors speak
of is the global technocratic elite that calls for central control and state
interventionism (called “shaping the future”) in a new system that is
characterized by intimate cooperation between business and government, or, more
specifically between high tech and a handful of key states.
The
World Economic Forum’s webpage about the “Great Reset” proclaims that “the Covid-19
crisis” presents “a unique window of opportunity to shape the recovery.” At
the present “historic crossroads,” the world leaders must address “the
inconsistencies, inadequacies and contradictions” ranging from healthcare and
education to finance and energy. The forum defines “sustainable development” as
the central aim of the global management activities.
The
“Great Reset” calls for global cooperation to attain goals such
as “harnessing the fourth Industrial Revolution,” “restoring the health of
the environment,“ “redesigning social contracts, skills, and jobs,” and
“shaping the economic recovery.” As thematized at the
October 20–23, 2020, “Jobs Reset Summit,” a
“green recovery” from the covid-19 crisis promises a “green horizon.” The
WEF summit in January 2021 will specifically address the transformations that
are to come. The main topics include “stable climate,” “sustainable
development,” a “zero carbon” economy, and agricultural production that
would reduce cattle farming in tune with the global reduction of meat
consumption.
The Alternative
The rise of living standards together with the growth of the
world population became possible because of the Industrial Revolution. Those who want to bring down capitalist
society and the economy must necessarily opt for declining living standards and
depopulation. The promoters of the plans to bring about a
new world order with the force of the state negate that radical capitalism
could much better provide the means to move to a better world, as has been the
case since the inception of the First Industrial Revolution.
What
brought about the industrial revolutions of the past were free markets and
individual choice. As Mises explains, it was the laissez-faire ideology that
produced the First Industrial Revolution. There was a spiritual revolution
first that brought an end to “the social order in which a constantly increasing
number of people were doomed to abject need and destitution” and where the
manufacturing activity “had almost exclusively catered to the wants of the
well-to-do” and their “expansion was limited by the amount of luxuries the
wealthier strata of the population could afford.”
The ideology of the World Economic Forum is that of the
preindustrial era. While the website of the forum (WEF) teems with terms like
“power,” “organization,” and managed “sustainable
development,” concepts like “freedom,” “market coordination,” and
“individual choice” are blatantly absent. The forum hides the fact that instead
of human progress, impoverishment and suppression is the future of humankind.
The implicit consequence of the planned “ecological economy” is the drastic
reduction of the world population.
With
the abolishment of markets and the suppression of individual choice, which the
collectivist plans of the WEF propound, a new dark age would come. Different
from what the planners presume, technological progress itself would come to a
standstill. Without the human creativity that springs from the mindset of
individualism, no economic progress has ever been possible.
Conclusion
The new technologies that come with the fourth Industrial
Revolution can be of immense benefit to humankind. The technologies per se are not the problem
but how they are used. A dystopian future awaits us if the global elite of
the World Economic Forum has its say. The result would be a technocratic
terror regime masked as a benevolent world government. Yet there is an
alternative. As widely proven over the past two hundred
years, free markets and individual choice are the sources of technological
advancement, human progress, and economic prosperity. There
are no rational reasons to presume that the fourth Industrial Revolution would
require collectivism.
Free
markets are the best way to cope with the challenges that come with new
technologies. Not less but more capitalism is the answer.
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