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Monetary Policy and Industrial Decline: Effect on Labor from the 1970s to the PandemicMonetary Policy and Industrial Decline: Effect on Labor from the 1970s to the Pandemic Joseph Newswander Contemporary Labor Issues, Professor Suarez December 15, 2022 Labor’s ideal political and economic climate is challenging to determine, as many structures of power and capital compete with the working class, making laborers’ objectives of reduced inequality by wage growth and insulation from inflation seemingly contradictory. Multiple factors contribute to the growing inequity and the inflations and recessions that often further these disparities. Global competition, domestic policy, and market factors contribute to the sectoral shift in our economy, and the working class is seldom given a voice in favorably structuring this shift. This essay examines the historical trends of financialization and the relationship between labor power and inflation, deindustrialization and the transition to service based industries, and the constant disruption by tech and financial firms. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how these factors contribute to the decline of working class representation in the conditions and compensation within their workplace. Despite seemingly grim conditions, it’s imperative to explore targeted solutions to mitigate the detrimental effect this decreased worker representation can have on the population. Piketty’s theory of growing inequality predicts that the return on capital will continue to outpace wage-based income. He refers to the Marxist principle of infinite accumulation, that as assets apart from real property had no natural limit, wealth disparity would continue to widen. This gap in economic class was especially apparent in the 1970s when the Federal Reserve took action in favor of maintaining capital accumulation over the immediate interests of the working class. Many parallels can be drawn between the trajectory of industry and policies of the 1970s and how both monetary policy and technology affect worker power today. Our economy has become increasingly reliant on services due to multiple factors of monetary policy, lack of fiscal investment, and disruptive competition from global and tech-based firms. The reclassification of workers within the burgeoning service economy was accelerated during the pandemic, highlighting disparities in the service sector. The Federal Reserve is tasked with maintaining the money supply by increasing or limiting cash flow amongst banks and the entire economy. J.W. Mason describes the result of Fed management with the analogy of cash flow pipes. “[The] plumbing is defective– it’s a source of instability and crisis, as the supply of credit is either cut back to a trickle or pours out in floods” (2). The restlessness of the currency means that the Fed’s sweeping monetary policy often is too much and too late for the working class. The unsurprising result of these jolts of instability is that it affects those with the least padding against fluctuations most adversely. Despite purported bipartisanship, the Fed is indisputably a political organization that must appease the often opposing interests of financial institutions and the general public. As J.W. Mason discusses, finance lenders favor preserving the dollar’s value above maintaining high employment and social stability. Too often, the Fed is more aligned with the aptitudes of capital accumulation and lenders’ profitable recovery of their liens. A strong US dollar comes at a cost. High-interest rates and less liquidity result in lesser investment into industry and more hoarding. While this may slow inflation, it comes at a high social cost of increased unemployment which can lead to other issues, such as rising “suicide rates and alcoholism” (Barker). When Volker utilized contractionary monetary policy in the 70s, it reduced the leverage that workers had accumulated and instead reverted to the demands of those who held the scarce dollar in capital quantities, the financial institutions. Banks can thrive and profit regardless of monetary policy, as they pass the bulk of the interest rate hikes onto those they lend to while rarely increasing the interest rate paid to consumer accounts. An increased interest rate effectively maintains and highlights the inequality of those possessing long-term inherited wealth and its accumulation while hitting working-class populations and debtors the hardest. In the late 1970s, Paul Volcker was appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Those close to Jimmy Carter, who made the appointment, said that he had “had finally caved to Wall Street’s demands for an aggressive attack on inflation without regard for the social costs.” (Friedman) Volcker pointed the money supply into a nosedive due to pressures from Wall Street and European trading partners. The effect of this was coined the Volcker shock. Following the Volcker shock, interest rates steadily declined again, increasing capital liquidity and encouraging speculative investing. Financial institutions benefited from this return to easy money, but the workers had not yet regained their leverage as jobs were still insecure. The speculative investment propelled asset prices, which, combined with stagnated wage increases, kept those not bought in effectively locked out of the housing market. In an economy that rewards property ownership above all else, this is a devastating blow without a clear laissez-faire path to recovery. “The Asset Economy” essay from the Los Angeles Review of Books notes, “The dramatic divergence between wages and property prices in large cities over the past decade… ‘The young are locked out.’ In almost all large Western urban centers, property prices have reached levels that make renting very expensive and put home ownership effectively out of reach for many. Property inflation in large urban centers is the linchpin of a new logic of inequality.” In an economy where asset growth over time in the market outpaces wage growth over time in the workforce, this phenomenon continues to widen equality gaps today. Housing unaffordability is just one example of the quality of life reduction workers take the brunt of with the increasing financialization of the economy. However, some economists argue that labor movements brought these pitfalls upon themselves by asking for too much. Those supporting Volker’s policies assert that labor had too much power just before the shock, claiming employees had too much leverage and the wage spiral they created was threatening the motive of capital to invest profitably, thus necessitating swift intervention. This presumption assumes that free market wage competition is viable for individual employees to bargain meaningfully. Organized labor provides a platform for competition more favorable for the employees than the alternative, but it still does not create the perfect balance that the free market promises. Critical in this analysis is evaluating employers’ position in an increasingly monopolistic economy. Just as monopolies become price-setters in the trade of goods, large employers have a massive sway in the price they pay for labor. Employers are better positioned to price gouge on a whim than even the largest unions could demand outlandish wages. Thus, placing the blame entirely on labor organizing and effectively bargaining for the adverse effects of inflation doesn’t paint the complete picture. Samir Sonti emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the risk of inflation that progress toward reduced inequality may induce. It’s paramount to mitigate this inflation wherever possible through policy so it does not reach extreme levels, which would often nullify much of the progress made if real buying power does not outpace the inflation. If all the labor movement achieves is incremental wage gains, and inflation keeps relative pace, it’s arguably still better than the dreaded “stagflation .”Sonti quotes economist Joan Robinson as describing inflation as “an expression of the ‘class war’.” Inflation is propagated by the consistent interest of the shareholders to maintain maximal share of company revenue, regardless of workers’ demands; any labor concessions will be considered an extra expense to pass to the consumer rather than a reduction in the profits reported to shareholders. So while working-class gains may contribute to inflation, the subsequent price/wage spiral cannot be attributed solely to such demands for moderate revenue redistribution. In “Bad Samaritans,” Ha-Joon Chang states, “Indeed, even many neo-liberal economists admit that, below 10%, inflation does not seem to have any adverse effect on economic growth.” (141). Rampant inflation is not sought for, but a policy-induced recession can exemplify symptoms felt by an economy. Volcker was effective in busting labor’s market power, and workers have since struggled to regain a semblance of the leverage once held in organized and even unorganized labor. Immediately following Volcker’s constrictive policies, rapid downsizing affected manufacturing, mining, and construction the hardest, especially exports, as “It was costly for businesses to pay their debts and borrow money to invest, while a strong dollar made American exports even less competitive internationally.” (Barker) The lack of competitiveness in global markets cedes the US industry’s valuable market share to cheaper producers. In certain core industries, quick re-entry into that market is not likely. Judith Stein, a distinguished CUNY historian, emphasizes the effect of foreign trade policy, or a lack thereof, is solely to blame for this loss of US market share during the late 1970s. She points to the US modus operandi of aggregate manipulation rather than targeted microeconomic policy as causing much of the decline of global competitiveness. The strict adherence to macroeconomic policy certainly had an effect, but arguably this was not solely due to the policies promoting international free trade. Just as Stein highlights, “No economy was separable from the society it served, ” so does this sentiment apply to monetary policy; the flow and value of fiat effects the society(s) it serves. Monetary policy’s casualties are not indiscriminate or inevitable as neoliberals would like to claim; African American workers and immigrants saw incrementally higher unemployment rates, hindering effective economic and social recovery from the ailments burdened on those communities years past. A potentially problematic contributing factor is deindustrialization. It’s not a given that a reduction in manufacturing and other tradable goods slice of the economic pie is a negative factor. Still, it does have the potential to separate workers from the products of their labor in more service-based industries, making measurement of output difficult, thus potentially decreasing the bargaining power of service-based workers. “High-interest rates imply higher cost for domestic firms, but as manufacturing firms face foreign competition, they cannot pass the cost onto consumers by raising its price.” (Mikayilov & Najafov 214). A reduction in market share in globally tradable industries leaves the US economy more vulnerable to a domestic downturn; when people spend less on services, fewer services will be needed, and manufacturing may not be fervent enough to prop up the recovery. Services is an umbrella term to describe value provided by resolving a problem, whether it’s a matter of life or death or of convenience. The term “services” encompasses sectors from banking, to barbers, to healthcare. The dependency on certain services for economic prosperity and quality of life was especially apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic as the type of services in demand dramatically shifted, and the availability of laborers was inadequate to meet such needs. Furthermore, it brought to light what kinds of jobs are considered “essential” and whether or not those holding such necessary occupations are appropriately compensated for their indispensable role. As Garbiel Winant describes in “Deindustrialization, Working-Class Decline, and the Growth of Health Care”, “The [2020] phenomenon of “essential workers” emerged—with all of its outrages of insufficient staff, equipment, and pay—because we had already designated an enormous workforce as simultaneously necessary for our society’s survival and reproduction, yet individually disposable.” As to be expected, amidst a global pandemic, medical services were most essential for the general public’s well-being in their ability to return to and remain in good health. Medical workers are often overworked and undervalued, and their compensation reflects that. Winant traces the devaluation of care-based services to the economic climate during the healthcare boom of the 1970s. Plausibly, the healthcare sector looked to hire primarily women facing income insecurity following their partners’ lay-offs. African-American men were first to be laid off in the event of a downturn, leaving shaken families to seek whatever employment was available, which was increasingly concentrated in care services as the population aged with their relatively new health insurance and immediate poverty. The care sector has seen continually decreasing staff-patient ratios, which was only exacerbated during the pandemic. Nurses and other staff aren’t compensated for the increased workload, and stress levels quickly rise as the quality of care declines. Two sectors, in particular, have played an instrumental role in the current state of service work. First, the financialization of all industries has put much power in the hands of a few, specifically private equity firms that buy majority advisory ownership in a business with the sole purpose of optimizing the company’s profitability and offloading the liability for a windfall as quickly as possible. In the case of healthcare, clinics and nursing homes are acquired and stripped of their already faltering resources to provide adequate care, namely faculty members maintaining an acceptable level of care. The equity firm has no loyalty to the company itself but to its shortlist of investors. Ironically, financial services is considered a service, although not necessarily an essential one. Second, developments in computer technology have disrupted the service sector in a myriad of ways. Unfortunately, many of these developments have been used to veil regressive labor practices and absolve the firm of liability. Most prominent in this tactic has been in the taxicab industry, with giants such as Uber facilitating seemingly painless independent contracts for their drivers, who they can classify as “users” because they are a “technology company.” This obfuscation of their actual product, the rides they connect you with, and their political sway allows Uber to skirt existing laws regulating existing car services. Many similarly structured tech firms offer a variety of services, which saw increased utilization by both consumers and workers during the crux of the pandemic. The independent contractor relationship is not new to the taxi industry (Dubal) nor the broader service sector. Support staff such as cleaners and cafeteria cooks at office buildings, including but not limited to financial and tech services, often work on contracts that diminish worker power and protection. Anna Stansbury, a distinguished guest on the Odd Lots podcast, argues that sectoral bargaining, practiced in some European countries provides a viable protection against the precarity of a contract that leaves these workers quite vulnerable. For example, Germany has established sectoral bargaining at a national level and also requires that a firm’s board allocates just under half of the executive power to worker-elected representatives. The desired outcomes of growth and affordability for all are not mutually exclusive. Industrial planning and more targeted policies to accompany it can help our economy flourish and bring workers up with it. In similar cases of extreme, unsustainable inflation, many more will benefit if the majority burden is allocated to monopoly powers that propagate the inflation. Clearly, the free market is not effectively self-sustaining, and some level of intervention is often needed, so it would be best to target price gouging and anti-competitive behavior rather than let the bottom rung of the economy face the most devastating of the consequences when the delicate balance of the economy shifts. Samir Sonti explores how windfall profit taxes and price controls have been adequate to slow inflation in times of crisis and how these could work today. Many industries prone to monopolization or gouging already have some level of price controls in place and can still thrive within the confines of stability. In addition, an increased investment into service-based and supporting trade-based industries will diversify our domestic production and hedge against future downturns. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is a step in the right direction for reinvigorating industrial investment, but it lacks substantial labor standards. Meticulously planned infrastructure and industry development will benefit many, but protections for independent contract work, healthcare cost reduction and quality improvement, and sectoral bargaining still have much to overcome. Democratization of the workplace could once again realign companies’ interests with their workers, who are also their consumers, rather than solely asset-rich shareholders wishing to expand their wealth exponentially. Some form of temporary inflation may mount as we work out the kinks of progressive fiscal policies, but that would not excuse us from turning and run back to the falsehood of free-market neoliberalism contributing to inequality today. Bibliography Adkins, Lisa, Melinda Cooper, and Martijn Konings. “The Asset Economy.” Los Angeles Review of Books, August 11, 2020. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-asset-economy/. Barker, Tim. “Other People’s Blood.” N+1, 2019. https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-34/reviews/other-peoples-blood-2/. Bigger, Patrick, Johanna Bozuwa, Mijin Cha, Daniel Aldana Cohen, Billy Fleming, Yonah Freemark, Batul Hassan, Mark Paul, and Thea Riofrancos. “Inflation Reduction Act: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.” Climate + Community Project, August 2, 2022. https://www.climateandcommunity.org/_files/ugd/d6378b_f05b177ba6b142aaa50ca7111a91f08b.pdf. Burkitt, B., Bowers, D. (1979). Trade Unions and Wage Inflation. In: Trade Unions and the Economy. Macmillan New Studies in Economics. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-16206-2_4 Chang, Ha-Joon. Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. First. Bloomsbury Press, 2007. Dubal, Veena. “A Brief History of the Gig.” Logic Magazine, May 4, 2020. https://logicmag.io/security/a-brief-history-of-the-gig/. Judith Stein, “Conflict, Change, and Economic Policy in the Long 1970s,” in Aaron Brenner, Robert Brenner, Cal Winslow (eds.), Rebel Rank and File: Labor Militancy and Revolt from Below During the Long 1970s, Chapter 3. Mason, J.W. Economics for the 99%. Center For Popular Economics, 2014. Mikayilov, Farhad, and Salman Najafov. Impact Of Interest Rates On Manufacturing’s Share Of Gdp. Varazdin Development and Entrepreneurship Agency (VADEA), 2019. ProQuest, https://sunyoldwestbury.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/conference-papers-proceedings/impact-interest-rates-on-manufacturings-share-gdp/docview/2188519056/se-2. Morran, Chris, and Daniel Petty. “What Private Equity Firms Are and How They Operate.” Pro Publica, August 3, 2022. https://www.propublica.org/article/what-is-private-equity. Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty First Century. Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press, 2022. Rafiei, Yasmin. “When Private Equity Takes Over a Nursing Home,” August 25, 2022. https://futurework2022.commons.gc.cuny.edu/files/2022/08/When-Private-Equity-Takes-Over-a-Nursing-Home-The-New-Yorker.pdf. Singer, H. (2022, June 27). Neoliberal economists are giving Biden bad advice on inflation. ProMarket. https://www.promarket.org/2022/06/17/neoliberal-economists-are-giving-biden-bad-advice-on-inflation/ Sonti, Samir. “Who Pays for Inflation?” New Labor Forum 31, no. 3 (2022): 8–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/10957960221116831. Stansbury, Anna, Tracy Alloway, and Joe Weisenthal. Odd Lots: Anna Stansbury on How to Boost Worker Barganing Power. Podcast Audio. Odd Lots, 2022. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/anna-stansbury-on-how-to-boost-worker-bargaining-power/id1056200096?i=1000574976239. Winant, Gabriel. “Coronavirus and Chronopolitics.” N+1, 2020. https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-37/politics/coronavirus-and-chronopolitics-2/. ———. “DeindustriaRead More »Monetary Policy and Industrial Decline: Effect on Labor from the 1970s to the Pandemic
Joseph Newswander (He/Him) wrote a new post on the site Joseph Newswander 53 seconds ago

Human Agency in Communications Revolutions: Past and PresentJoseph Newswander Professor Josh Kruchten English II 10 December 2023 Human Agency in Communications Revolutions: Past and Present 1. Predictions and Perceptions The evolution of technology has caused panic and excitement alike repeatedly throughout history. Fears over the way a development could revolutionize communications, labor, and public consciousness are almost always mirrored by an idealistic enthusiasm for the ways in which the development can improve the lives of the many or the few. Recently, modern society is constantly presented with prospects of an unprecedented Information Age, only to have those prospects reimagined within a decade. A primary narrative in the public discourse at the time of writing is the forecast of Artificial General Intelligence, a type of generative, automated computing system. The term ‘general’ intelligence refers to computing power combining extensive knowledge of its source material with learned reasoning capabilities that meet or exceed humanity’s capacity. Most experts agree that this innovation has not yet been realized, but predict that it is possible within a generation. Industry leaders and academics remain optimistic about the potential of the technology but cast broad, grave warnings about the societal impact of improper widespread adoption. Some of the potential dangers highlighted are the proliferation of propaganda or the downward spiral of an economic system unprepared to adapt (Roose, 2023). Because these software programs can effectively generate ‘unique’ outputs and effectively learn to reproduce themselves, the speculation of the potential of the technology has perhaps spiraled out of the realm of useful dialogue. Public perception of such technology ranges from an equation to a linguistic TI-84 to fears of posthuman sentience. Many academics speak of the implications of a new Industrial Revolution-level social shift. Predicting societal and technological evolution is difficult in a unidisciplinary sense, and becomes even more uncertain when attempting to trace the prospective intersections of each. Researchers caution us to recognize the often futile nature of prediciting all of the capabilities, much less the use-cases of future technologies. One thing is clear: once a tool is publicly accessible, “our sense of having them disappears” (Sturken 2004, p.180). Technologies integrate into society given time after their utility in the market has been proven (Ibid., p. 163). However, social and environmental implications are often considered “externalitites” to market imperatives, primarily profitable production in the relative short term (Hutchinson 2017, p. 293). This makes it even more challenging, but perhaps more important, to evaluate the implications of technological innovation. The major question we are faced with as a society is how we will collectively react to ensure technology elevates us all. To perform a sufficient preliminary evaluation, we will look at the nature of technology and it’s place in society, the determining forces of market power, and humanity’s agency within this framework. Historical case studies will provide insight into past communications revolutions and the pace and magnitude to which the provoking technology shapes society, and vice versa. These contexts should give us a more holistic view of the issue at hand: the agency of humanity to ensure the ethical and prudent development of automated communications technologies innovation to provide the most benefit to all with the least detriment. 2. The Nature of Technology: Constructed or Determined First, to define technology, Greek etymological evaluation defines the contraction as “techne (craft, trick) and logia (knowledge). Nurlana Kerimova, et. Al, describes technology as the link between these two inherent human forces, “method and intelligence [with] movement, and ability” (2016). Knowledge and movement do not belong to humans exclusively, so what is it that makes technology an extension of humanity rather than a natural phenomenon? In a word, desire. “The vast universe of objects [are] used by humankind to cope with the physical world, to facilitate social intercourse, to delight our fancy, and to create symbols of meaning.” (Basalla 1977). Clearly, early technologies we can attribute to the desire to survive. So how do we explain more recent innovations that have progressed and have seeped outside of objects themselves and into a sociotechnical system, that is “habits of mind, analytical menthods, and behaviroal routines”. Why have theorists warned “that society was becoming more rationalistic, technical, and materialistic…[leading humanity to] become a passive, purposeless, machine conditioned animal”? (Dafoe 2015, p.1055) Clearly technology has an impact on society, the importance of the question lies in whether we need to address the technology itself or the societal conditions to stifle unintended consequences of societal and technical development coinciding. The academic ideology of technological determinism, or, inertia in technology itself as the defining precursor to societal structure) has been largely assessed since the 1960s as a crude philosophy, as the tunnel vision on a particular technology obfuscates the social pressures of any innovation and elevates a tool to an agent of its own. Social constructivism is the other well-established framework in which to view consequences related to technology. Let’s return to the distinction of desire as the defining human element present in technology . For a long time, humanity learned to trust our desires through some combination of spiritual dogma and a self-determinist humanistic outlook of trusting our feelings informed by the information we have accumulated in our individual lives and our collective experience or memory (Harari 2016). A reductionist evolutionary viewpoint allows us to subject all human desire to inherently self-concerned procreative imperatives, which makes it challenging to view technology as an inherent determining factor for humanistic outcomes. So wouldn’t the products of innovation humanity create be an extension of shared and individual motivations, thus maintiaining human agency in the adaption of technology? Three macro factors challenge this linear social constructionist approach and create unique challenges for AI’s coevolution with society, namely: technological lock-in, autonomous reproduction of technology, and military-economic adaption. Through the increasing globalization of society, several opposing values on how our human desires should be realized are uncovered. Larsen (2020) iterates these values as liberalism, socialism, and fascism, or individualism, collectivism, and tribalism, respectively. Regardless of which value states preach or practice internally, in the global society, a state is typically tribal, employing elements of collectivism when beneficial to protect their own interests, and spread their values and influence. The tribalistic behavior can be seen in military operations and strategies. Individualistic behavior is the driving force behind market competition. These given traits of our global society today feed the narrative of deterministic theory, which often leans heavily on selectionism or Universal Darwinism in evaluating the evolution of technology and the survival and elevation of societies that innovate most efficiently (Dafoe 2015, p.1060). The topic of agency is addressed in this theory as groups “face an illusory choice over whether to adopt or reject [powerful technologies]: either they adopt it or they will be defeated” (Ibid., pg. 1061). As long as any particular group within society at large decides to innovate, others will be forced to adapt in one way or another; either through competion or assimilation. Although some societies or groups may have greater ideals of peace, as long as any particular group is competitive, and creative in their competion, either for natural resources or for their ideological proliferation, a perpetual military and economic competition emerges, shaping technological inventions and diminishing the agency of others to focus on societal harmony. Another convincing argument for a certain level of technological determinism does not ignore the human element and instead highlights the dangers of “Technological lock-in…while technology may be indeed socially constructed at a given point in time, later generations have limited freedom in re-interpreting it or phasing it out. In this way, technology may become an inter-generational tool of power by which earlier generations determine some important aspects of – and even limit the boundaries for – later societies” (Héder 2021, p 121). An obvious modern example of all the ways the planet has been unnecessarily depleted of natural resources and polluted because of economic competition seeking to drive prices down to keep profits up. In recent years a greater emphasis has been placed on conservation and reversal of these damages in political and social spheres, but our autonomy in accomplishing these goals has been limited by past adaption of technologies without sufficient concern for externalities. Theories of military, economic, and historical determinism clearly outline the ways in which a potent societal force can push a technology to evolve and force humanity at large to adapt to their impacts, if not adopt them to remain competitive. It seems that social forces of one kind or another see their desires reflected, humanizing the technology, even if with a negative connotation. So how is Artifical Intelligence different? AI evolves itself. The generative model of the technology allows it to continue to learn from it’s interactions with natural intelligence even after it has scoured and aggregated data from human sources. In this way, it can become a self-reproductive entity. The danger of this lies mostly within the human element. Although speculation can lead to fears of an omnipotent software capable of reasoning, with no concern for the human race, this falls out the realm of what is practical to analyze for the purposes of this paper, given our working theory that some form of AI is bound to proliferate. Remember: although the technology has some level of generative and reproductive ability, as a realtively novel innovation, the driving force behind its implementation and future is still of a human nature. Because of this, the determinants of economic and military adaption and social lock-in are all the more critical. “If technological change proceeds too quickly and extensively, ‘socieities face the distinct possibility of going adrift in a vast sea of ‘unintended consequences’. There has never been a time more suitable for the proliferation of an aggregated communication technology such as AI.. Dafoe attributes this sort of concentrated development trendsetting to a be a derivative of sociotechnical selection. He states “Computing power must increase because it can” (2015, pg. 1055). The economic conditions of selection have driven software to be one of the most viable frontiers for major profits, and as such the gold-rush effect of a new industry is a breeding ground for negligence with lasting effects. “AI has tremendous lock-in potential” (Héder 2021, pg. 127). Software is cheap to distribute after steep development costs, making it easily prone to monopolization. The intangible nature of the product allows for further anti-competitive conduct and profit maximization, such as the deployment of ‘walled-garden’ network effects (hardware and software compatibility, bundling, etc.) and subscription fee schedules. If we accept competition as a factor that minimizes agency in further technological development, we could be stuck with a few impenetrable major players such as we are now with many software-based services (SaaS). This can magnify the lock-in effect as it grinds the cycle of social desires reinforcing development to a crawl, making it imperative our AI pioneers build ethically with critical consideration of externalities. Evaluating these theories of determinism and the level of free will to be had in adapting technologies in the first place helps to demonstrate the almost certain inevitability of technology progressing, given the current sociopolitical climates. An inordinate amount of focus in public discourse is placed on whether or not we should develop potentially revolutionary technologies such as AI, instead of the steps we can take to mitigate and forsee negative implications (Roose, 2023). Even if we do not have the collective willpower to refuse adoption of any particular technology, control over the technology itself and the progression of its adoption can be molded to bring positive outcomes to the most amount of people, rather than to fulfill chauvinistic interests. 3. Communications Revolutions and Social Control Unintended consequences of technologies can be positive, liberating, even. We can learn from the impact previous innovations had on The spread of knowledge and varied perspectives is generally considered to be a net-positive, and AI stands to enhance information flow across societies in the way it aggregates data and digests it on behalf of readers. The powerful way in which enhanced information flow can empower society cannot be understated. Larsen argues that control over data, specifically collective and individual memories, is “a hallmark of totalitarian rule” (Larsen, 2023, p. 25). Language is a way in which we collect, preserve, and share these memories and thoughts. The advent of massive global communication networks has been accelerated by the internet, causing a sort of information overload that can increase depressive symptoms, particularly in developing youth (Matthes, et. Al. 2020, pg. 9). A robust AI system that effectively synthesizes information from an inhuman amount of comprehension could provide some relief from these challenges. Scholars have diagnosed our current society with a problem of “‘high input’ with ‘deficient synthesis’” (Winner 1977, pg. 288). As a result of the abundance information, economic forces have selectively favored specialization, which allows for an impressive competency among dedicated individuals in a particular discipline, but the exponential rate of specialty fragmentation and content generation makes it impossible for any individual to consider every perspective. Perhaps a balanced computing system can allow us to more effectively process large amounts of linguistic input, as it has done for quantitative analysis in the recent decades. The optimistic outlook for this impact of a major sociiotechnical advance can not be depended on naturally, as discussed, the economic and military variables at play carry a greater weight than the mere potential of the technology itself. Who decides the level of control? Follow the money. Arguably the industry leader in this space right now is OpenAI, the research nonprofit with a mission to build safe AI technology. In order to accelerate its ends, the outfit transitioned in 2019 to a capped-profit structure and began accepting investor capital, most significantly from Microsoft (Reich 2023). The economic pressures and competition nonprofits face in the capitalist US does not allow for pure neutrality from economic influence, which has been known to push innovation forward even on shaky grounds in terms of safety. Metz, et. Al describes the current developmental environment as fearful competion, one of the most powerful accelerants to development and implementation. “The people who were most afraid of the risks of artificial intelligence decided they should be the ones to build it. Then distrust fueled a spiraling competition” (pg. 1). Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI highlighted in a recent interview that a lot more work is be done, and proceeding carefully, only when the system is ready, for certain use cases is appropriate. The main issue the system has currently is hallucination and control the controllability of which has yet to have found an appropriate medium. Essentially, the system can make up misleading information. Turn the lever down on hallucination and it loses creativity and ability to generate unique output. Turn it up, and you have propagation of misinformation. Aggregating human input means that human biases can be propagated exponentially if the system does not appropriately align. Alignment presents additional challenges as to wheteher the user should set parameters or the system as a whole should be held to certain framkworks. Altman has proposed a sort of democratic alignment process, where users and nonusers are surveyed annually to determine the paradigms in which the system is to reason and generate communications. Such a process seems ideal, but undue government influence and reproducing social biases could still proliferate through this system. The rapid innovation in computing technology is not the first time society has been faced with a significant sociotechnical development with the potential to transform labor systems and communications so thouroughly. Research into the impacts of the printing press has shows us the broad implications of such developments and the influence of socioeconomic forces on the adaption. 4. Historical Case Study The printing press was introduced into the Western European mainstream in the mid-15th century. The centuries passed since its soceital integration and the clear path of decendency to more modern inventions made to disperse information allow for examitnation of the short and long term unintended consequences of the innovation’s adaption and the accelerating factors to its creation and reach. Elizabeth Eisenstein, a distinguished historian in the study of this invention, compared the adaption of the printing press as akin “to the agricultural revolution” in the way that one craftsman could now reach multiples more for a fraction of the cost (2007). This increase in production drastly increased literacy rates and the spread of ideas, old and new. Despite the increase in literacy, this effect was not immediate or comprehensive, as the price still exceeded what many working class could reasonably afford (Rosenthal 1968, pg. 141). However, even if a family could only afford a single work, it meant literacy could continue for many generations, uplifting the mobility of the working class when opportune economic conditions arose. When compared to the potential of AI to remain accessible, current free editions of AI technology seem promising. However, the intangible nature previously mentioned means that a liscence to use a software is not a physical asset, and has no right of inhertance. The accessiblity of any major technology is a major consideration for projecting and planning its beneficial implementation. Even 500 years ago, the technology could not exist independent of economic and political forces. The primary sociopolitical imperative of the Western European ruling class, at this time was to proliferate their sect of Christianity, namely Catholicism. This can at least partially be attribute the social environment that the man credited with the invention of the printing press, Johannes Guentberg, took out a loan to prototype a system in which molds were cast to facilitate the copying of manuscripts formerly painstakingly hand copied. His first priority was mass-producing the Catholic Bible (Wixon 2016). An unintended consequence of this was the open accessibility of religious texts, which allowed Protestant and other alternative sects to Catholicism, much to the dismay of the political behemoth the aforementioned Church was at this time. At the beginning of the 16th century, citizens under Catholic rule were threatened with excommunication, and at other times, executed (Chartier 1987, pg. 221) for printing texts unfavorable or without permission from the Church (Wixon.). Despite the institutional resistance, the collective curiosity of the commonwealth had been empowered. “God has made all men worthy of penetrating his secrets” (Chartier 1987, pg. 221). Elizabeth Eisenstien equates the advent of printing to be an “emancipatory force. Indeed, the Renissance and the critical thought that it delivered could not have been possible at the same exponential rate without a technology able to quickly reproduce texts. Arguably, it may not have been possible at all. The critical nature of a technological revolution is that the evolution institutional powers that be cannot evolve quickly enough to quash the rebellion of thought that emerges when information accessiblity is elevated. Dafoe argues that respective of the social/economic/military climate, technology or society may be the catalyst the comprehensive selectionism that occur across all disciplinary paradigms. The lag between political, economic, and social adaption is critical for an innovation to spark an impactful communications revolution, as otherwise the selection pressures may assimilate the newfound capability into the status quo. This raises the question of which path we want AI to take. The political system in power amidst the dispersion of printing technologies was hardly equipped to combat the socioeconomic drives that drove the reproduction of such capabilities. Neither were they equipped to handle the propaganda that emerged through the spread of pamphlets, and sensationalism in journalism years after the invention. Arguably, any form of political messaging that attempts to persuade or evoke emotion is propoganda, regardless of the approval of the reader, although the term typically involves some assessment of the dishonestly of the material. The spread of misinformation poses a serious pitfall to any communications technology, and AI is no different. The potential of current or emerging ideologies to propagate rapidly should be a serious cause for concern, but as with the printing press, the most powerful regulatory forces often have some level of vested interest in maintaining the status quo. We need to examine carefully if potential regulations developments of technology overreach in censorship or ideological alignment, or simply tame the economic forces can also threaten the societal improvements the technology stands to bring. The economic reaction to any technology that expedites a task and increases accessiblity is the gold rush of mass production. Especially when a technology is novel, prices can far exceed the actual social value of shallow media while undercutting the value of quality works. In the years immediately following the invention of the printing press, merchants could get away with selling printed works as handmade as public knowledge of the technolgy’s existence was limited (Thompson, 2023). Economies of scale does not demand a high level of accuracy or quality as these can be inflationary to the capital required to produce, thus narrowing the potential market for the material. The current inexpensive model of AI and the unreliability of detection could drastically alter the economic viability for quality manual composition, as the massive appetite for a computer algorithm does not pave the way for a viable revenue-sharing model among authors and tech firms (Newton 2023). One only needs to look at the current state of media sharing on the internet (namely the influence and prevelance of advertising, paywalls, and starving atrists and its impact on content creation) to see how exponentially enlarging the scale of the operation could exacerbate exisitng issues. 5. Conclusion The contents of this essay are hardly a comprehensive analysis of AI’s potential impact on society at large or our power to predict and mold the outcomes of such adaption. That was not the purpose of writing, rather to provide an interdisciplinary lens in which to apply analyses of the causes of development and the effects of its implementation. As technological and social sciences evolve sporadically based on the choices and motiviations of individuals, we can only develop of the contexts in which to view new predicitions, innovations, and social dynamics to get the most comprehensive vision of the impact of our reactions. As Sam Altman said in a recent interview, “How society reacts [to the technology] can’t be predicted in a lab” (2023). Using the definition earlier discussed, technology is the marriage of knowledge and ability. So what sort of agency does humanity have over technology, if the seemingly autonomous machine of economic, military, and social determines the timing and outcome of any advancement? We cannot forget the human element of technology: desire, the necessity of pursuing such is the epitome of the human spirit that breeds innovation in the first place. If we desire to anticipate and effectuate the greatest potentials, we can empower ourselves to necessitate mitigation through technical planning. Langdon Winner exalts “Planning in modern society [as] the technical method” (1977, pg. 239). Who knows, maybe AI’s capabilities can lend a hand in mapping the road to the best roads in its implementation. It did not, however, write this paper (really). Works Cited Chartier, Roger. The Culture of Print: Power and the Uses of Print in Early Modern Europe. 1st ed., Princeton University Press, 1989. Dafoe, Allan. “On Technological Determinism: A Typology, Scope Conditions, and a Mechanism.” Science, Technology, & Human Values, vol. 40, no. 6, 2015, pp. 1047–76. Dewar, James. The Information Age and the Printing Press: Looking Backward to See Ahead. RAND Corporation, 1998. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.7249/P8014. Eliades, Angelo. “Technological Utopianism – Why Bad Ideas Cause Very Real Environmental Problems.” The Permaculture Research Institute, 16 June 2017, https://www.permaculturenews.org/2017/06/16/technological-utopianism-bad-ideas-cause-real-environmental-problems/. Elizabeth Eisenstein – From Scribal Scarcity to the Disruptive Text. 2013. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdDlYQVYBOs. Evans, Benedict. “The ‘AI Doomers’ Have Lost This Battle.” Financial Times, 25 Nov. 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/a2c29506-4a38-47a3-8775-beb5e488c169. Gaines, Brian R. Hyperconnected Civilizations: Some Historic Perspectives. Harari, Yuval Noah. “Yuval Noah Harari on Big Data, Google and the End of Free Will.” Financial Times, 26 Aug. 2016, https://www.ft.com/content/50bb4830-6a4c-11e6-ae5b-a7cc5dd5a28c. Héder, Mihály. “AI and the Resurrection of Technological Determinism.” Információs Társadalom, vol. 21, no. 2, June 2021, p. 119. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.22503/inftars.XXI.2021.2.8. Hutchinson, Dr Emma, and University of Victoria. 5.1 Externalities. Nov. 2017. pressbooks.bccampus.ca, https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/uvicecon103/chapter/5-1-externalities/. Joshi, Rahul. “Automation vs Jobs, People vs Machines: A 500-Year-Old Problem.” AccelerAsia, 9 July 2018, https://accelerasia.com/blog/automation-vs-jobs-people-vs-machines-a-500-year-old-problem/. Leed, Eric J. “Elizabeth Eisenstein’s The Printing Press as an Agent of Change and the Structure of Communications Revolutions.” American Journal of Sociology, edited by Elizabeth Eisenstein, vol. 88, no. 2, 1982, pp. 413–29. Matthes, Jörg, et al. “‘Too Much to Handle’: Impact of Mobile Social Networking Sites on Information Overload, Depressive Symptoms, and Well-Being.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 105, 2020, pp. 106217-. cuny-gc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.106217. Metz, Cade, et al. “Ego, Fear and Money: How the A.I. Fuse Was Lit.” The New York Times, 3 Dec. 2023. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/technology/ai-openai-musk-page-altman.html. Newton, Casey, and Kevin Roose. An Interview With Sam Altman. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/20/podcasts/hard-fork-sam-altman-transcript.html. Reich, Robert. “What’s the Real Frankenstein Monster of AI?” Robert Reich, 22 Nov. 2023, https://robertreich.substack.com/p/whats-the-real-frankenstein-monster. Roose, Kevin. “A.I. Poses ‘Risk of Extinction,’ Industry Leaders Warn.” The New York Times, 30 May 2023. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/technology/ai-threat-warning.html. Rosenthal, Bernard M. “Review of Printing, Selling and Reading, 1450-1550.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 62, no. 1, 1968, pp. 139–44. Sturken, Marita. Technological Visions : The Hopes and Fears That Shape New Technologies. viii ed., Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 2004. “Technological vs. Cultural Determinism and the Printing Press.” ChristinaWixson, 3 Oct. 2016, https://cwixso.wordpress.com/2016/10/03/technological-vs-cultural-determinism-and-the-printing-press/. Thomson, Jonny. “People Destroyed Printing Presses out of Fear. What Will We Do to AI?” Big Think, 6 Apr. 2023, https://bigthink.com/the-past/printing-press-ai/. Winner, Langdon. Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought. 1st ed., MIT Press, 1977. Roose, Kevin. “A.I. Poses ‘Risk of Extinction,’ Industry Leaders Warn.” The New York Times, 30 May 2023. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/30/technology/ai-threat-warning.html. Rosenthal, Bernard M. “Review of Printing, Selling and Reading, 1450-1550.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 62, no. 1, 1968, pp. 139–44. Sturken, Marita. Technological Visions : The Hopes and Fears That Shape New Technologies. viii ed., Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 2004. “Technological vs. Cultural Determinism and the Printing Press.” ChristinaWixson, 3 Oct. 2016, https://cwixso.wordpress.com/2016/10/03/technological-vs-cultural-determinism-and-the-printing-press/. Winner, Langdon. Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought.Read More »Human Agency in Communications Revolutions: Past and Present
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