The Digital Revolution: Threat or Promise?

The Digital Revolution: Threat or Promise? Eric was a visionary and may still be one for all I know. Just about 30 years ago he discovered the personal computer, then in its infancy. On a warm sunny Sunday in 1984 we sat in a restaurant inside the IKEA warehouse in Richmond. Here Eric foretold the future and by & large, many of his predictions were spot-on. "Warehouses like IKEA Eric said, "will be totally changed. People will soon be shopping for everything on their computer." And, Eric continued, department stores may soon vanish. Soon everybody will be shopping 'on-line' as they say now. "Newspapers," Eric foretold, "will be changed because news will be broadcast over the computer." As Eric wheeled out one change after another I wondered out loud about what would happen to many workers. Would they keep their jobs or would they end up jobless and poor? Eric had no doubt that job loss would be massive, a fact he seemed to enjoy. "A huge new underclass would be created," he said in effect, "and this group would turn to revolutionary politics." Eric had taken part in many sizable 'new left' demonstration in the late 1960's and early 1970's in Vancouver. In fact when a commission of inquiry was held in 1971 into the reasons for the police-caused 'Gastown Riot', Eric was one of the star witnesses. But back in 1984 I was a New Democrat who believed in gradual progressive change. Eric's predictions threatened my view of the future. I looked south of the border where U.S. President Ronald Reagan's neo-conservatism was wrecking one American social program after another. "Soon Reagan's politics will come to Canada," I predicted. Massive job loss I worried would only make things worse. So who was right; Eric or me? In fact, we both were. Eric's future forecasts have arrived. Shopping, news gathering and dozens of other activities are now done by computer. 15 years after Eric made his predictions (in about 1999), I heard one person after another say, "I can't live without my personal computer." Another fifteen years later which is now 2014, most people use their i-phones to do countless tasks and amuse themselves as well. The digital revolution is just a fact of life. Yet my fears and Eric's celebration of job loss have come true too. Newspapers struggle to survive. Old department stores like Zeller's, Eaton's and even Sears struggle to survive or have disappeared. Recently I read of how car selling will soon be done on-line. Car salesmen and especially used car salesmen were the shock troops of the now defunct ultra-conservative Social Credit Party. Should I worry if dozens of very conservative car salesmen and women lose their jobs? In fact I should. Now the digital revolution has happened while many ultra right governments have come to power. Social programs have been cut to the bone across Europe and North America. This disturbing trend made even worse when combined with the Great Recession of 2007 & 2008 has caused havoc in the lives of tens of millions of people. "I'm living on $650 a month," a single father with one child told a reporter in Spain. In Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Italy massive job loss has forced millions of people to leave their country and move north to Germany and other countries. In Canada, the Great Recession has made tens of thousands of people living in Quebec, Ontario and Atlantic Canada to pick up their things and settle in Alberta & Saskatchewan. What makes things even worse is that the new barons of the digital revolution don't seem to care about this upheaval at all. Bill Gates and his wife Belinda have given billions of dollars to projects in Africa and around the world. Yet in their U.S. homeland, millions of people can't find work and aren't even covered by Obama's Medicare. Jeff Bezos of Amazon, the late Steve Jobs of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook & other high tech billionaires don't even seem worried about poor people and working people who now just struggle to survive. An advertising plan financed by some of these people ended up attacking President Obama's Medicare plan. And the high tech millionaires that I've read about in Canada are what’s called libertarians; people hostile to government programs that help the poor. "These people are like the robber barons of old" one observer of the high-tech elite remarked. "They remind of me of the multi-millionaires of late 19th or early 20th century U.S.A. like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford." Eric has now left North America. The digital revolution he forecast has now come true. His forecast of job loss did and has occurred. His political forecasts were way off base - at least for now. By Dave Jaffe