By CKG Nair
May Day (May 1, or International Workers’ Day) has come and gone quietly. It was overshadowed by US policies and actions on tariffs, immigration, jobs in government/agencies, total support for capital and select capitalists, and disruption of established norms and processes, with heightened uncertainties on many fronts. However, the most clear and present danger has fallen heavily on workers and job seekers. The (in)famous experiment of instilling efficiency in government/agencies by the Department of Government Efficiency is playing not only with established systems but also disrupting the lives of many. The tariff wars unfolded chaotically — although it affects goods trade directly, it indirectly affects employment everywhere. Anti-immigration policies directly affect employment — the US’ trade-employment-immigration policies have created enormous uncertainty in the global economy. While experts are working overtime in assessing the impact of these volatile policies, one clear outcome is the turbulence it has generated on the employment front. Donald Trump’s 100-plus days in office have created years of possible misery for millions of people worldwide.
In a 2003 book titled Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists: Unleashing the Power of Financial Markets to Create Wealth and Spread Opportunity, Raghuram Rajan and Luigi Zingales argued that a free market (a basic premise of capitalism) protected from powerful private vested interests through appropriate governmental measures including free trade and social safety nets could protect capitalism and is the policy path to progress. While few doubted the sagacity of those neoliberal suggestions, tech-capitalists had different ideas. They struck back in no time, internalised capitalism, and, with growing political clout, started challenging many of those assumptions using their enormous wealth and newfound tech power. They were simply not ready to shrug off their imaginary counterparts in the world of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Now, the neo-capitalists have a new weapon in artificial intelligence (AI). The Trump-induced disruptions, including co-opting tech giants, have pinned down the hopes of saving capitalism via its soft version, as envisaged by Rajan and Zingales.
Reports on firing workers by big-tech companies have become regular, as reports on hiring become increasingly rare. Pink slips had become a routine in the last decade. However, the growing audacity now being exhibited by companies in firing large number of their employees instantaneously is unprecedented in the post-industrial revolution world, except during major recessions. Some recent episodes of such firing negate the much-touted labour welfare stand of even India Inc.
The mounting troubles for workers are over and above what has been happening to them with the rise of big tech in the past two decades. In this period, they became mostly temporary or gig workers, facing a merciless work environment with no one in positions of authority speaking about it. There are no “workers of the world unite!” exhortation by political or social organisations. Quick commerce and related entities play with the lives of such workers, treating them like robots by reducing delivery/service time and other conditions to inexplicable levels. Workers are now simply at the mercy of the giant tech leviathans.
The US, hitherto an immigrant haven, is making headlines because of anti-immigration policies and actions. Though illegal immigration is on the front-burner, legal immigration is also facing major restrictions, with small mercies from the judiciary creating more uncertainties. Other advanced countries are not far behind either, with socio-political templates decisively shifting against immigration. Tech giants need only a few highly skilled people capable of creating AI tools. All the indicators — the heightened bond between governments and the tech industry, anti- immigration policies, rapid firing of employees (even in government), the growing army of gig workers with no employee rights — are correlated. They declare the arrival of the age of AI, which is capable of replacing millions of employees in many areas. People skilled in creating AI tools and other hi-tech activities may be in great demand, but that number will be a tiny fraction of the five billion (and growing) labour force in the world.
Tech optimists believe that technology has rarely reduced employment in the past, with every technological wave creating new jobs and displacing old ones. That could be true earlier, when tech changes used to be autonomous developments that were not deliberate and policy-induced. The resulting all-round uncertainty (like on a simple question pertaining to whether a US company can employee a foreign worker) itself is a huge disruption for workers. Uncertainty is a disruption for every entity, including nations, but with disproportionate weight on the common people, particularly workers. US citizens always believed that their nation is the undisputed world leader. A small personal incident in the late 1990s vividly captured that mindset. A group of government officials from several countries were undergoing training in the Japanese ministry of finance. The coordinator of the programme, a director in the ministry, once asked the officials in the group, “Which country should dominate the world?” The American representative said, “Of course, the United States of America.” When his turn came, this author said, “If people are to rule the world, India should dominate; but if materials rule, of course the US.”
The US has always been materialistic, and this has been unabashedly unleashed as public policies these days. People, particularly employees/workers, do not seem to matter much in the current schemes of the tech-capitalists and policymakers, barring highly skilled humans. Even they, according to some, are part of capital (capitalised human resources), just like the time when machines were considered crystalised labour. The rest of the world also lapping up that culture — of neo-mercantilism — in varying degrees. Mayday calls from workers everywhere could be imminent, like distress messages from flights facing extreme turbulence.
The writer, a former Securities Appellate Tribunal member and director of National Institute of Securities Markets, is a public policy commentator.
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