The news from the World Economic Forum 2016 (WEF) is abuzz with reports of the Fourth Industrial Revolution - #4IR. [The first two used water/steam and then electric power to create mechanised and mass production. Electronics and information technology followed, and now we have digital which is “characterised by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital and biological spheres” (WEF, 2016). ]
We hear today that the 62 richest people in the world now own as much as the
bottom 3.5 billion (WEF Trust Survey). The rich continue to get richer, the
poor poorer and the middle
class is being “hollowed out”.
Generally,
commercial farmers fall in the middle class bracket. Agriculture in Greece
faces the knockout punch as a result of the latest austerities; there are
challenges for farmers worldwide, but a brief look at the SA picture: SA operates
on a planet that had its hottest year on record in 2015. The drought here (the
worst on record) is a major blow to many, compounded now by rumours of another,
giant leap in the energy price. With over half the population in SA already
food insecure, the drought will place the price of food further beyond the
buying power of the poor. And measures like energy price hikes in this context
threaten the production of food itself.
US Deputy
President Joe Biden spoke of the danger of losing something special when we
lose our belief in the possibility of a better life, namely “the soul of our
humanity that no machine can replace”.
His speech outlines steps to strengthen the middle class and the way to
it:
- Invest in education and training
- Strengthen core social protection and obligations to employees
- Modernise infrastructure
- Ensure a progressive tax regime so that all pay their fair share of the taxes
- Make capital more widely available
Writing on
the WEF today, Lionel Bisschoff offers suggestions for SA, after pointing to the unlikelihood of the current 8 million unemployed ever being
able to find work in agriculture, manufacturing or corporate services (machines and “digital clones” will do the work as a result of #4IR). Bisschoff
says we need to reform our current monetary system: our debt and interest based
system of money creation will not work for us. Following on this, through the
creation of “locally constrained money”, millions of our unemployed will build
infrastructure. These two points are explained in his article.
We don’t
have much more time to stop the alarming patterns of inequality. If we don't strengthen the middle class and the way to the middle class, #4IR will have made these patterns worse next year this time. The steps
proposed by Biden and Bisschoff hold promise but do we have the will to change?
