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CHAPTER 4

Science and Technology After The Year 2000

 

What can we conclude about the future of Science and Technology? Earlier, using Heideggerian logic, I unconcealed Capitalism as the primal technology for dominating Man as servant. Gargantuan debts are nothing but indentured servitude. In Book I, using Hobbesian logic, I revealed Capitalism as a Religion of Money (banks as churches, bankers as clergy, loan applications as auricular confessions, bankruptcies as excommunications, credit bureaus as index librorum prohibitorum, etc.). These two aspects expose Capitalism as a defective world order. Capitalism as priesthood has endured; but its permanence is not secure. This is because Capitalism has a formidable enemy -- Reason. It was Galileo's Science that challenged the priesthood of the 16th and 17th centuries; it was Science that defeated the Ptolemaic doctrine of the Holy Office. Capitalism, as priesthood, as ultimate being-in-and-for-itself, despises Science. The fiercest War of Capitalism will be against Reason. The stakes are immense; the loot is nothing less than the control of Life itself. How can Capitalism wage this War? It can:

  1. Indenture whole populations through loans to governments.
  2. Hijack Education and Research. Whole generations of students-as-minds can be indentured with loans.
  3. Privatize, own, and control Science and Technology. High-tech firms and laboratories can be infiltrated during their incubation period -- with money or venture capital as Trojan horse, etc.

But Capitalism, cunning and deceitful as it can be, will fail. Why? Because its Darwinistic powers are far outstripped by the Darwinian power of Truth. The new millennium will bring forth a new consciousness of Being -- Intelligence, Knowledge, Freedom, Will, and Energy --, a new perspective, a new openness, and a "looking beyond narrow perspectives."1 The confines of Capitalism are simply too narrow, too Ptolemaic -- money cannot be the center of life. Capitalism, therefore, cannot be "the proper way to be free."2 It must be surpassed. The trinity of Capitalism -- Usurer-Entrepreneur-Technology3 -- must be transcended with the trinity of Mind, Life, and Justice.

We must redirect Technology. Technology cannot continue to be an instrument of dominion over Man; it must become the primal instrument for multiplying the opportunities of Man. Increased opportunities means expanded horizons -- expanded freedom and progress. The same technology that allows banks to replace tellers with interactive multimedia software, allows society to replace bank CEOs with software robots -- and save money. Science and technology must be redirected to enhance life itself -- not just the economic interests of a few masters. To be sure, technology will eliminate jobs or replace full-time jobs with part-time jobs (for an example, see Plate 4-1). Justice dictates that such elimination means more leisure for all -- not just for masters. Science must never be the exclusive property of Big Business or Big Government. Science is Man's Darwinian advantage, and Technology his selective tool. Technology cannot be separated from Justice. Darwinian evolution means that intelligent computer-controlled devices will obsolete the Ptolemaic in both Justice and Capitalism. There is no escape: intelligent machines will replace servitude (masters can unplug the machines; but servants-as-the-electorate can unplug the masters). We must protect ourselves from the following dangers:

  1. The excessive concentration of ownership and control of assets. This concentration can be most dangerous -- because it ultimately breeds dirigisme and economic totalitarianism. The needs and motives of Big Business are not necessarily those of society. As a matter of fact, the needs and motives of Big Business are often extremely divergent from those of society.

Safety Legislation. Consider automobile safety, for example. For several decades, the auto industry has wanted to sell cars without the burdens of safety legislation.4 The "philosophy of driver responsibility" prevailed until the total number of automobile recalls was tallied.5 This philosophy was debunked by Ralph Nader in Unsafe at Any Speed.6 The philosophy of borrower responsibility is as absurd as the philosophy of driver responsibility. Apparently, borrowers are still fully responsible for their loans, even if bank actions destabilize, directly or indirectly, whole sectors of the National economy, including borrowers. Bank loan safety legislation is long overdue.

The allegiance of Big Business is not to society, but to major stockholders. Big Business wants the rights and privileges of a para-government -- without a government's social responsibility and accountability.

  1. The "megamachine."7 Technology as "megamachine" for dominating economic transactions can be used to dominate human affairs. It is not the power of the machine that must be feared; it is the unfettered power of the masters who own or control it that must be feared. Consider health care transactions for a moment. Should the quality, quantity, and price of medical care or of health insurance be determined and controlled by the interests of a few Capitalists through large-scale insurance companies or banks?
  2. Capitalism out of control -- masquerading as technology out of control.8 To be sure, the influence of top scientists on public policy is huge; but it is not disproportionate with the benefits from scientific discovery. President Eisenhower's warning against the danger that "public policy could itself become captive of a scientific-technological elite"9 was off target. The danger is not from scientists and engineers with the brainpower to master nature, but from rapacious Capitalists who know how to dominate Man as servitude pure and simple.
  3. Gross misuse and abuse of artificial intelligence. Software -- like laws -- can be preprogrammed, not just with viruses, but with the veiled intention to secure advantage, to deceive, or to defraud.

In a tale, inspired by a recent British election (1992), Roger Penrose, a distinguished mathematician at the University of Oxford, described how such software can be used to pervert the results of an election.10

The global computerization and networking of flawed corporate administrative procedures can have globally devastating consequences.

  1. The plundering and poisoning of the environment for Life. Imagine the horrible consequences of privatizing the air you breathe and the water you drink -- the horrible consequences of privatizing Life.

The connection between Freedom and Justice must become the central preoccupation of all governments. Nietzsche was absolutely right: justice is "the supreme representative of life itself."11 Governments must broaden the "horizon of advantage"12 -- or they will not survive. Net advantages cannot be concentrated arbitrarily in Big Business and Big Government, at the expense of the Citizen.

Mathematicians have known for some time now, that the theorems of mathematics are enframed in axioms and rules of logical inference. We may not be able to automate the procedure for certifying the correctness of theorems; but we do know that axioms enframe theorems. Similarly, we may not be able to predict or compute with certainty the future of a people, but we do know that laws enframe the people's destiny (for illustrations, see Plates 4-2 and 4-3). Legislatives that do not understand this Truth risk annihilation or extinction. The greatest challenge for Science will, therefore, be the discovery of that Legislation which will be most conducive to increasing Freedom and Wealth for all.

LAWS ENFRAME THE DESTINY OF A PEOPLE. THEY DEFINE THE STATES THAT CAN BE OCCUPIED BY THE PEOPLE (FREE, INDENTURED, OR SLAVE), AND THE PROBABILITIES OF TRANSITION BETWEEN THESE STATES. LAWS ALLOT THE DISTRIBUTION OF ADVANTAGE13 -- AND, THEREFORE, OF POWER. THE SOLOMONIC CREED [Proverbs 22:7], AS ENFRAMENT OF SERVITUDE IN CAPITALISM, MUST BE THROWN OUT BY THE ELECTORATE -- FOR GOOD. THE GOAL OF LAWS MUST BE TO INCREASE WEALTH AND TO ELIMINATE BONDAGE. THE CHALLENGE TO SCIENCE IS TO MAKE THIS POSSIBLE.

 


1 Heidegger's expression in an analysis of the connection, made by Nietzsche, between freedom and justice; see Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. III: The Will to Power as Knowledge and as Metaphysics, translated by Joan Stambaugh, David Farrell Krell, Frank A. Capuzzi, edited, with Notes and an Analysis, by David Farrell Krell, at 148.

2 Heidegger's understanding of Nietzsche's thought of "'justice' . . . as the proper way to be free"; ibid., at 142.

3 For Oswald Spengler: the trinity consists of "the entrepreneur, the engineer and the factory-worker"; the entrepreneur and the factory-worker "become slaves . . . of the machine"; the danger comes from "the dictature of money"; and the "battle is the despairing struggle of technical thought to maintain its liberty against money-thought." See Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, An Abridged Edition by Helmut Werner, with a new Introduction by H. Stuart Hughes, 1991, at 409-415; the English Abridged Edition was prepared by Arthur Helps, from the translation by Charles Francis Atkinson.

4 See Joel W. Eastman, Styling vs. Safety, 1984.

5 Ibid., at 241-247.

6 Ibid., at 245-246.

7 See Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, 1966 and 1967, at 188-194 (The Design of the Megamachine), 228-231 (Reactions Against the Megamachine), 231-233 and (Curbs on the Megamachine).

8 For a study of "technological politics," see Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology, Technics-out-of-control as a Theme in Political Thought, 1977.

9 Quoted by Don K. Price, from The New York Times, January 22, 1961; see Don K. Price, The Scientific Establishment, in Scientists and National Policy Making, edited by Robert Gilpin and Christopher Wright, 1964, at 19-20.

10 Roger Penrose, Shadows of the Mind, 1994, at 403-406 (The Puzzling Election).

11 From a note by Nietzsche; quoted and analyzed in Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. III: The Will to Power as Knowledge and as Metaphysics, translated by Joan Stambaugh, David Farrell Krell, Frank A. Capuzzi, edited, with Notes and an Analysis, by David Farrell Krell, at 145.

12 Nietzsche's expression for "Justice, as the function of a panoramic power that looks beyond the narrow perspectives of good and evil"; quoted and analyzed in Heidegger, ibid., at 147.

13 Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. III: The Will to Power as Knowledge and as Metaphysics, translated by Joan Stambaugh, David Farrell Krell, Frank A. Capuzzi, edited, with Notes and an Analysis, by David Farrell Krell, at 148.

  

 

PART-TIME EMPLOYMENT IN THE YEAR 2000 AND BEYOND
SPECULATIVE FORECASTS FOR CANADA'S LARGEST BANK

 

Plate 4-1 [Top]

  

LEGEND

a Part-time to full-time employment ratios, derived from empirical observations for the period from 1978 through 1995
b Speculative forecasts for the period from 1996 through 2050, based on four weighted least-squares methods
c Average of four forecasts

  

Plate 4-1 [Bottom]

  

   
Plate 4-1   Speculative Forecasts for Part-Time Employment at the Royal Bank of Canada in the Year 2000 and Beyond

This Plate reveals the underlying trend for part-time employment at Canada's largest bank for the period from 1978 through 1995. Two questions are explored:

  1. Part-time employment, as percent of total employment, has increased significantly. What does this mean for the future of full-time employment at the bank?
  2. The bank provided data on part-time employment in its Annual Reports until 1995. It did not do so in its 1996 Annual Report. Why?

It is impossible to answer the first question with certainty. The bank, for one thing, may not exist in the future in its current form. It can merge with or acquire another bank; or, it can be acquired by a bigger and stronger bank -- just as Royal Trust was.1 Regression analyses can be used to predict the employment mix; but their adequacy is limited to the period for which there is data (arrow a). Good models can approximate reality; but they all have limited domains of adequacy. Therefore, any extrapolations (for the years spanned by arrow b) must be interpreted with extreme caution. In any case, one thing is absolutely clear: the bank's empirical ratio Pt of part-time employment to total employment, on a full-time equivalent (FTE) basis, has increased significantly,-- from 5.53% in 1978 to 16.64% in 1995.2 This means that full-time employment dropped -- from 94.47% in 1978 to 83.36% in 1995. Could this trend explain why the bank chose not to include data on part-time employment in its 1996 Annual Report? Freudian metapsychology suggests that the withholding of information can be a manifestation of a struggle against resistances3 -- of a blocking of analysis. If, to use the language of psychoanalysis, the bank is struggling against resistances (real or possible, actual or virtual4), then it has to work them through.5 How? Here's one way. First, the bank must use analytic strategies to quantify the relationship between technology and jobs. Then, it must confront what can be repressed from consciousness -- e.g., fear and anxiety regarding stability and security of jobs. Finally, it must understand and communicate the "topographical," "dynamic," and "economic"6 metapsychological factors affecting employment and technology. How can the bank estimate its future employment mix? Many weighted least-squares models7 can be used. Four models are considered here:

  1. The linear probability model (LPM).
  2. The logit model.
  3. The probit (or normit) model.
  4. The Gompit model.

The predictions for each model (estimated parameters, standard deviations, coefficients of determination) are tabulated below (the average of the four models is shown as surface graph c). All four models predict a substantial increase in part-time employment. The predictions are meaningful only if (1) the employment trend continues unchanged, (2) the model is good, and (3) the predictions are not inconsistent with other relevant trends.8 The regression analyses suggest that the impact of technology on future employment can be formidable -- a few decades from now, more than half of the employees could be working part-time. Corporations will continue to use technology, not just to increase productivity, but to substitute machines, telecommunications equipment, intelligent software, etc., for employees. If unchecked, a nearly exponential concentration of global financial powers (fortified by worldwide electronic networks, databases, and legislation) can lead to unprecedented turmoil. If the allegiance of Capital is to money only, then systematic substitution of technology for humans cannot escape the scrutiny of employment contracts -- and of legislation. Technology and globalization cannot be divorced from accountability and responsibility to community. People are better served with stable and secure jobs than with increased indenture and charity. Banks and other institutions must work-through and communicate, openly and intelligibly, the future of employment in each and every community served.

Sources and Notes:
1 See Royal Bank Annual Report 1993, Part Two, at 36 (Acquisition of Royal Trust).
2 Royal Bank annual reports (full-time employment, and total employment on a full-time equivalent basis, as at October 31; and non-interest expenses, for years ended October 31).
3
See Sigmund Freud, On Metapsychology: The Theory of Psychoanalysis, Volume 11, translated under the general editorship of James Strachey, compiled and edited by Angela Richards. London, England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1991. Angela Richards and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1964, at 174-178 (Various Meanings of 'The Unconscious' -- The Topographical Point of View), and 275 ('metapsychological' factors: 'economic,' 'topographical,' and 'dynamic').
4 On the similarity/difference between the real and the possible, and between the actual and the virtual, see Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, translated by Paul Patton, 1968 and 1994, at 279.
5 See Paul Ricoeur, The Conflict of Interpretations, edited by Don Ihde. Paris, France: Editions du Seuil, 1969. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1974, at 177-195 (Technique and Nontechnique in Interpretation, translated by Willis Domingo), especially 177-185.
6 See 3 above..
7 G.S. Maddala, Limited-Dependent and Qualitative Variables in Econometrics, 1983, at 28-32 (minimum chi-square methods).
8 For the period from 1978 through 1995, two trends corroborate the above predictions. As percent of total non-interest expenses, (1) human resources expenses (compensation plus benefits) decreased, and (2) computer rental and maintenance expenses plus telecommunications expenses increased.
9 The standard normal distribution function
F is defined as follows: 

F(z) = (1/Ö(2p)) ò exp(-t2/2) dt

where the integration is from to z.

[Copyright © 1998 by MACROKNOW INC. All rights reserved.]

  

 

HOW A NEW WORLD ORDER
CAN INDENTURE OR ENSLAVE A FREE PEOPLE

 

Plate 4-2

   
Plate 4-2   How a New World Order Can Indenture or Enslave a Free People

   This Plate illustrates how a hypothetical system of laws, which enframes the social and economic order of a people or country, can impact their time-evolution -- or history.1 The graphs show what can happen to a free people after a new exploitative legal order is introduced by a powerful, cunning minority. The graphs demonstrate why electorates must always remain vigilant, and why societies need a system of checks and balances -- to prevent the establishment of indentured servitude. Most important, the graphs demonstrate how deeply serious the responsibility of legislators is. The assumptions are:

  1. Initially, all the people are free.
  2. The new order is imposed at time 0 by a powerful, cunning, Darwinistic minority. It is imposed and perpetuated through the use of despotic force, wicked oppression, coercion, deceptive trickery, hocus pocus, or seductive propaganda.
  3. The new order, which aims at the division and misappropriation of labor, creates two new states: INDENTURED SERVANT, and SLAVE. Following Aristotle,2 a man is a slave if he, or if all his economic output, are an article of property of another man, a corporation, or the State. A man is indentured if a portion of his economic output is an article of property of another man, a corporation, or the State.
  4. Breeding rates do not depend on state (FREE, INDENTURED SERVANT, or SLAVE). But state is inherited. Thus the son or daughter of a slave is a slave.
  5. The dominion over the indentured servant and the slave is absolute. People who fall into indentured servitude or slavery are tame, timid, and unconditionally obedient -- they are subjugated: they cannot, or do not, rebel against their masters.
  6. The hypothetical new implicate order of the society -- its destiny --, favors the cunning minority. It is encoded in the form of a fixed transition probability matrix P (a 3-state finite Markov chain). The cunning consists in divorcing work performance from reward or payment -- in taking unmerited possession of other people's property, in controlling prices and lending rates, in attributing causality to time and chance, etc.

Pij stands for the probability of the transition from the ith state to the jth state (Pij is the element at the intersection of the ith line and jth column of the matrix). The total number of possible states is three: FREE, INDENTURED SERVANT, and SLAVE. For simplicity, the transition probabilities are assumed to be fixed over time. P11 is the probability of the transition (FREE®FREE) (P11=80%); P12 is the probability of the transition (FREE®INDENTURED) (P12=20%); P13 is the probability of the transition (FREE®SLAVE) (P13=0%; state SLAVE is not accessible from state FREE); P21 is the probability of the transition (INDENTURED®FREE) (P21=9%); etc. The questions resolved here are:

  1. How do we expect the new implicate order to change the distribution of the people -- after one year, 10 years, 100 years, etc.?
  2. What percentage of the people can be expected to become indentured in the long run?
  3. What percentage can be expected to become enslaved in the long run?

Since the time-evolution, or the history, of the people is assumed to be encoded in the transition probability matrix, one can calculate the state of the population at any discreet point in time (t=1,2,...,n).3 The expected long-run outcome for the above hypothetical probability transition matrix is as follows: 18.37% of the people remain FREE; 40.82% become INDENTURED SERVANTS; and 40.82% become SLAVES. In the long run, the great mass of the people, about 82%, are expected to lose their freedom. The percentage of indentured servants peaks at about 63.5%, twelve years after the new order is imposed (arrow a). (The above tabulated outcomes are given to the nearest one-tenth of a percent.)

Sources and Notes:
1 The concept of "Universal History" -- the history of a people -- was developed by Hegel. See G.W.F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, translated by J. Sibree, with Prefaces by Charles Hegel and J. Sibree, and an Introduction by C.J. Friedrich, 1956, at 1-79 (Original History, Reflective History, and Philosophical History), especially 4 ("Universal History"), 9 ("Reason is the Sovereign of the World"), 10 (History as unfoldment of Spirit), 13 (Providence as a "concealed" plan), 16-17 (Science of History), 34 (Reason and Freedom), 35 (history as "struggle of passion"), 39 (the "absolute final aim" of the State, of Laws, is the "realization of Freedom"), 54-79 (The course of the World's History: Nature as "self-repeating cycle"; the principle of Development), 72 (History as "development of Spirit in Time"), 73 and 77 (repetition of the same), 76 (Real vs. Ideal), and 78-79 (Spirit as "seed," and history as the development, realization, and unfoldment of this seed).
2 Aristotle, Politics, translated by Ernest Barker, revised with an Introduction and Notes by R.F. Stalley, 1995, at 13-14 (Slavery, 1254a13).
3 Stochastic Markov processes and related formulas are discussed in many texts; see, for example, U. Narayan Bhat, Elements of Applied Stochastic Processes, 1984.

[Copyright © 1998 by MACROKNOW INC. All rights reserved.]

  

 

REBELLION AGAINST A DEFECTIVE LEGISLATURE
RETURN OF THE SAME VS. NEW LEGISLATURE

 

Plate 4-3

 

SCENARIO 1: RETURN OF THE SAME SCENARIO 2: NEW LEGISLATURE

The rebellion voids defective contracts, frees all the people, but does not change the essential core of the legislature. Therefore, the transition probability matrix which enframed the old implicate order remains the same. The power does not devolve to the people. The old legislative of lordship and bondage3 is brought back again. The old "long trail of abuses, prevarications and artifices"4 -- the subversion of government -- repeats itself.

The rebellion establishes a new legislature with a new implicate order. A new history unfolds. The government is dissolved and the power devolves to the people. The transition from the old order to the new order is orderly. The new order increases the sphere of opportunities for all the people; it, therefore, increases the probability of transitions to freedom. The probabilities of the transitions (SLAVE®INDENTURED) and (INDENTURED®FREE) increase from 9% to 50%, and from 1% to 90%, respectively. The new order is not perfect, but the long-run distribution of the population, which was 18.4% FREE, 40.8% INDENTURED, and 40.8% SLAVE, becomes 83.2% FREE, 16.6% INDENTURED, and 0.2% SLAVE.5 The perfect implicate order is the one where all the people are both rich and free.

  

   
Plate 4-3   Rebellion Against a Defective Legislature: Return of the Same vs. New Legislature

This Plate illustrates the effects of two kinds of hypothetical rebellions against a defective legislature. The initial legislature (or implicate order) of the society is assumed to be given by the transition probability matrix with three states (FREE MASTER, INDENTURED SERVANT, and SLAVE). This order is assumed to have existed for 100 years. The dominion of a few masters results in the taking away and destruction of the property1 of the great mass of the people -- too many are arbitrarily indentured or enslaved. By the year 100, about 21% of the people (FREE MASTERS) control the remaining 79% (as INDENTURED SERVANTS, and SLAVES) (see previous Plate). The breach of trust, mismanagement, exploitation, and corruption which are brought about by the defective legislation lead to a Jeffersonian "bloodless revolution"2 in year 100. Two hypothetical Scenarios are examined:

The outcomes are given to the nearest one-tenth of a percent.

Sources and Notes:
1 See John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (1690), edited, with an Introduction, by C.B. Macpherson, 1980, at 111.
2 For information on Jefferson's "bloodless revolution," see Willard Sterne Randall, Thomas Jefferson, 1993, at 287-288.
3 For a philosophy of freedom and self-consciousness, see G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), translated by A.V. Miller with Analysis of the Text and Foreword by J.N. Findlay, 1977, at 111-119 (Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage), and 119-138 (Freedom of Self-Consciousness); see also the Analysis at 520-523.
4 John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, at 113.
5 Stochastic Markov processes and related formulas are discussed in many texts; see, for example, U. Narayan Bhat, Elements of Applied Stochastic Processes, 1984.

[Copyright © 1998 by MACROKNOW INC. All rights reserved.]

  

 


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