Saturday, January 11, 2025

Capitalism's Cold War...on people.

 

From the Socialist Standard

The popular lie, often put forward by champions of Britain’s welfare state, that “no one starves to death here any more” has currently been exposed as such by the recent high-lighting in the media of the condition known as hypothermia.

But hypothermia (or “low heat”) is nothing new. Old people have died by the thousand from lack of food, fuel and clothing for years under the welfare state. But only lately has there been significant publicity about it. From the Sunday Express we learn, “Soaring fuel costs which lead to thousands of old people economising on home heating were blamed yesterday for a massive rise in the number of elderly patients being taken to hospital suffering from effects of cold... One theory being put forward for the higher than ever toll is that pensioners, many living alone on small incomes, are frightened of using heating and lighting appliances because of the cost. So they sit at home without heating... Pensions, with the present price of electricity and food, don’t go very far”

From the Daily Mirror : “The tragedy spotlights the problem of hypothermia which claims an average of 45,000 lives in Britain each year... Ninety thousand old people have been given a twin death sentence—by the coldest weather for four years and rocketing fuel prices... The Department of Health and Social Security recommends a minimum temperature of 21C for homes. Yet a survey shows that 89 per cent of pensioners’ living-room temperatures were below the Government standard. And that was before the increased fuel prices.”

To the Socialist the answer to the problem would seem obvious. Food, fuel and clothing, like all other needs should be freely available (not only to the elderly) to all human beings.

But what are the capitalist solutions to the problem? Call in on elderly neighbours to find out if anyone is actually dying. (Milkmen are regarded as being useful here.)

Doctors can obtain special wide range thermometers so that if they find a cold, collapsed old patient in a cold house, lacking food, fuel and clothing they’ll be able to pinpoint the diagnosis.

And, so public-spirited is the Daily Mirror that they devoted a front page to the problem. Indeed, the way they launched their “campaign” one almost got the impression they were offering to finance food, fuel and clothing themselves. But, in fact, what they came up with was a free “cut-out” sos sign for those dying of hypothermia to put in their windows for the milkman etc. to see. And listen to the further contributions of these philanthropic crusaders:- “If you know old people who live on their own, make sure they have a copy of the warning poster” (and the Daily Mirror supplied it free remember.) "If you see the Daily Mirror's SOS sign in a window, see what help you can give. Knock on the door and give all the help you can”.

But the altruistic Mirror also gives a good capitalistic reason for donating SOS signs to the dying. It quotes Mr. Hugh Faulkner, director of Help the Aged who “welcomes the Mirror's campaign.” “The plight of the old is frightening this winter. The winter weather has really hit us now. Food and fuel bills are higher than ever before and pensions have just not kept pace with inflation. Someone, sometime will eventually realise it is cheaper for the nation to keep old people warm and well fed in their own home than have them go to hospital.” (our italics). So please help “the nation” to do it cheaper, chaps!

Still the Mirror:- “Everyone can help to alleviate the suffering and misery which is piled on old people year by year”, (they don’t say by whom). Then, in thick type:- “Today, the Daily Mirror appeals to everyone to help the old to survive winter. Be a busybody and you could save a life.” Then a broad hint that the neighbours should come up with the necessary funds: - “Check that the old man or woman living down the road is all right. Make sure they are warm and have enough food. If not, get in touch with the local welfare services and run a few errands to stock up their food larder.” Other advice the beneficent Mirror gives free is:- “make sure there is an efficient heater. . . . and they need at least one hot meal a day and frequent snacks and hot drinks.”

Actually, another newspaper takes the prize. The Stoke-on-Trent Evening Sentinel comes up with this:- “A cheap thermometer to alert old people to the dangers of cold and hypothermia went on sale at Stafford today. The thermometer at 20p, is being marketed by an Essex firm as a non-profit making venture.”

Four chemists in the Stafford area have agreed to sell the thermometers which are blue and white. When the temperature falls to the blue zone—below 15.5 Centigrade —it indicates danger to the old people from cold. “This may not save lives but could alert people who may not realise they are in danger”, said Mrs. Jane York, the firm’s social representative. “The see-at-glance thermometer could also warn social workers and visitors of old people at risk,” explains Mrs. York.

What useful gifts—stick one of these on their wall and the pensioner dying of cold will be able to see exactly why.

It makes one marvel at the bitter irony and cynicism which can unconsciously be spewed out by people not wanting to face the obvious. Were it not so tragic it would be hilarious.’

R. B. Gill

The above piece is from the Standard of March 1976. It was edited to disguise when it was published. Almost fifty years on its content is as relevant today as it was then. Arguably, many older people are even worse off given the cost increases in utility bills. The removal of the Winter Fuel Payments, upon which many relied, were removed by Labour as soon as they got into government. Parts of the legacy media are talking of the Labour Party taking us all back to the 1970’s at a rate of knots. Whilst they are demonstrating incompetence at running capitalism on its behalf we don’t want to see capitalism better run. We want to see it replaced. It is ridiculous to think that another fifty years should go by without capitalism being abolished and replaced with socialism.


https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2020/02/capitalist-solutions-to-hypothermia-1976.html




Friday, January 10, 2025

SPGB Meeting TONIGHT 10 January 2025 1930 GMT ZOOM

 

2025: MORE OF THE SAME? (ZOOM)


Event Details

  • Date:  – 

Discussion on what happened in 2024 and what is likely to happen in 2025.

To connect to a Zoom meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

Artificial Intelligence and Capitalism

 

The deployment of artificial intelligence could deal a heavy blow to the worldwide labour market and result in massive layoffs in global companies, the World Economic Forum (WEF) Future of Jobs report warns.

The study, which surveyed hundreds of large businesses worldwide, found that 41% of companies plan to slash their workforce by 2030 in response to the increasing capabilities of AI. Further, 77% of companies are preparing to reskill and upskill their existing staff from 2025 to 2030 for better human-machine collaboration. 

The report predicted that 170 million new jobs will be created by the end of the decade, while 92 million jobs will be displaced. The WEF noted that skills in AI, big data, and cybersecurity are expected to be in high demand.

“Trends such as generative AI and rapid technological shifts are upending industries and labour markets, creating both unprecedented opportunities and profound risks,” Till Leopold, the head of Work, Wages and Job Creation at the WEF, said.

The WEF said that advances in AI, robotics, and energy systems, particularly in renewable energy and environmental engineering, are expected to boost demand for specialist roles in these fields.

The report also identified job categories that will face the largest decline in numbers due to AI and other technological trends. They include service clerks, executive secretaries, payroll clerks, and graphic designers.

“The presence of both graphic designers and legal secretaries just outside the top 10 fastest-declining job roles, a first-time prediction not seen in previous editions of the Future of Jobs Report, may illustrate GenAI’s increasing capacity to perform knowledge work,” the report said.

The report stressed that the impact of AI extends beyond job displacement, highlighting the potential of the technology to augment human output, rather than replace it outright.

The WEF concluded that “human-centered skills” such as creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, and agility will continue to be critical.

Meanwhile, high-profile figures and scientists have raised concerns in recent years over the potential dangers posed by AI. Last year, computer scientist and author Paul Graham warned that the use of AI for writing will result in the majority of people losing the skill in a few decades.

The labour market will change significantly because of the adoption of advanced technology, according to Daniil Gavrilov, the head of the Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory at T-Bank AI Research. Everything a human is capable of doing can be done by AI, and machines can do it well, he said in an interview with RIA Novosti last year.

Gavrilov noted that in the short and medium term, employees will have to master AI skills in order to remain competitive.’


The below is from the Socialist Standard June 2022


‘In this issue we spotlight the rise and rise of Artificial Intelligence, a hot topic that raises fundamental questions about how it should be used, and what happens if it develops in ways we don’t expect and don’t want.


Currently AI is strictly horses for courses, confined within rule-based parameters and master of just one thing at a time, rather than becoming a super-jack of all trades. So, like numerical engines before the era of programmable general-purpose computing, it has been of limited use. But artificial general intelligence (AGI) is without doubt the ultimate goal, and the race is on to achieve it.


With this in mind, and with a chequered history of failed AI winters behind them, developers are concentrating on the ‘can we do it?’ question rather than the bigger ‘should we do it?’ question. Even less ethically distracted are investors whose only question is ‘can we make money out of it?’ This is not encouraging, given capitalism’s track record.


One problem with AI is that the more advanced it gets, the less we understand it. AI is increasingly a ‘black-box’ phenomenon, whose inner workings are a mystery to us and whose results are often inexplicable and unverifiable by other means. We can’t just treat it like a Delphic oracle, because it’s already clocked up embarrassing gaffes such as building racism and sexism into its staff-hiring rationales, or factorising income instead of health conditions into its medical outcomes estimates. And there have been several public relations disasters, with AIs answering enquiries with profanities after reading the online Urban Dictionary, Facebook chatbots creepily inventing their own language that no human can understand, and Amazon’s Alexa laughing demonically at its own joke: ‘Why did the chicken cross the road? Answer – because humans are a fragile species who have no idea what’s coming next’ (bit.ly/3wd4vh6).


Then there is the lack of internationally agreed definitions, paradigms and developmental standards, in the absence of which each developer is left to make up their own rules. Can we expect global agreement when we can’t get states to agree on climate change? In the absence of such a framework, it’s no wonder that people fear the worst.


Frankenstein-anxiety is nothing new in the history of technology, of course, and if we banned every advance that might go wrong we would never have stopped wearing animal skins and woad. It’s uncontroversial to say that the possible advantages to capitalism are huge, and indeed we’re already seeing AI in everything from YouTube preference algorithms to self-drive tractors and military drone swarms. And that’s small potatoes next to the quest for the holy grail of AGI. But while all this promises big profits for capitalists, what are the pros and cons in human terms? What is the long-term effect of the automation of work, for example? Tech pundits including Tesla boss Elon Musk take it for granted that most of us will have no jobs and that the only solution is a Universal Basic Income, a solution we argue is unworkable.


That’s not the worst of it. In 1950 Alan Turing wrote, ‘[T]he machine thinking method […] would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers. At some stage therefore we should have to expect the machines to take control’. IJ Good, Turing’s colleague at Bletchley Park, helpfully added, ‘The first ultra-intelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control’ (bit.ly/3FNCekb). The last thing we ever need, or the last thing we ever do, this side of a Singularity that wipes humans from the Earth?


It’s not so much a question of a Terminator-style Armageddon with machines bent on our annihilation. Even in capitalism it’s hard to imagine anyone investing in developing such a capability, at least not on purpose. But the fear is that it could happen by accident, as in the proposed ‘paperclip apocalypse’, in which a poorly considered instruction to make as many paperclips as possible results in the AI dutifully embarking on the destruction of the entire globe in order to turn everything into paperclips. Musk has similarly argued that AI does not have to be evil to destroy humanity: ‘It’s just like, if we’re building a road and an anthill just happens to be in the way, we don’t hate ants, we’re just building a road, and so, goodbye anthill’ (cnb.cx/3yJ7pMl).


Stuart Russell, in his excellent 2021 Reith lectures on AI (see our summary here), makes a telling observation about capitalist corporations like the fossil fuel industry, arguing that they operate as uncontrolled superintelligent AIs with fixed objectives which ignore externalities. But why only certain industries? We would go one further and argue that capitalism as a whole works like this. It doesn’t hate humans or the planet, but is currently destroying both in the blind and disinterested quest to build ever greater profits, so goodbye world, to paraphrase its richest beneficiary, one Elon Musk.


Musk is right about one thing, saying ‘the least scary future I can think of is one where we have at least democratized AI because if one company or small group of people manages to develop godlike digital superintelligence, they could take over the world’. It’s rather ironic that, once again, Musk sees himself as part of the solution, not part of the problem.


To democratise AI you would first need to democratise social production, because in capitalism science and tech are sequestered behind barriers of ownership by private investors anxious to avoid any uncontrolled release of potentially profitable knowledge into the environment. AI needs to belong to all humanity, just like all other forms of wealth, which is why socialists advocate post-capitalist common ownership. In such circumstances, a global standardisation of AI development rules becomes genuinely feasible, and as Russell argues, it wouldn’t be that difficult to program AIs not to kill us all in the quest for more paperclips: you simply build in an uncertainty principle, so that the AI understands that the solution it has devised may not be the one humans really want or need. It’s a sensible approach. If only humans used a bit of natural intelligence and adopted it, they’d get rid of capitalism tomorrow.’


Paddy Shannon


1

Thursday, January 09, 2025

SPGB Online Meeting 10th January 2025 1939 GMT ZOOM

 

2025: MORE OF THE SAME? (ZOOM)


Event Details

  • Date:  – 

Discussion on what happened in 2024 and what is likely to happen in 2025.

To connect to a Zoom meeting, click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

Wednesday, January 08, 2025

Socialist Sonnet No. 176

Exploitation

 

Oldham, Rotherham and Telford, all stained

With children’s tears, as if just these places

Are marked, are being marked, by anguished faces

Distressed through exploitation unrestrained;

Only to be exploited once again

As it suits politicians to sound

Like they are standing on moral high ground.

Apologies will be issued and then

Comes obfuscation by legislation.

Law can’t mitigate what’s tacitly assumed,

That consumers determine what’s consumed;

Economics regulate relations.

Rolling headlines, interviews by the score,

Until victims are invisible once more.

 

D. A.

Can't stand the heat


The UN has reported that the ten hottest years on record have been in the last decade, including 2024.

Many temperature records were broken last year, and many countries saw a prolonged heatwave. And it’s not just temperatures: while some areas had a reduction in rainfall, in the Philippines there were six typhoons in a thirty-day period.

In the words of a researcher at Imperial College London: ‘Extreme weather is clearly causing incredible suffering in all corners of the world.’

Global heating and other forms of climate change are having devastating impacts on humanity and the planet we inhabit. Capitalism with its profit motive and imperative for growth are behind it.


https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/


Tuesday, January 07, 2025

Goal is liberation from capitalism

 

How should we react to the news that Elon Musk is unhappy with the present executive committee running British capitalism? Musk is apparently also unhappy with Reform Party leader Nigel Farage and wants to see him replaced.

We’re reminded of the saw that life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think. Unfortunately, capitalism is, for the majority, no joke.

A Doge was the term used to refer, during the Renaissance to an elected head of Italian city states. Elon Musk is tasked by Donald Trump to run a non-federal executive Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE. The two things are probably unrelated but under capitalism extreme wealth equals extreme power and Musk certainly appears to be intent on having his fingers in many pies.

‘Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has continued to spar online with the top British leadership, suggesting Washington should become involved and “liberate” the Brits from their supposedly “tyrannical government.”

The billionaire conducted a poll on the idea on Monday on his social media platform X, asking users whether “America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government.” The proposal got a positive reception, with nearly 59% of respondents backing it. More than 1.4 million people voted on the issue in less than 12 hours.

The apparent regime-change suggestion comes amid a continuing attack launched last week by the US-based billionaire against the top British leadership. Musk has targeted British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, accusing him of failing to tackle the grooming-gangs issue and to properly investigate numerous assaults on underage girls at the time the incumbent PM headed the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service, from 2008 to 2013.’