Monday, October 29, 2012

Analysis Two: "Jobs," a Rhetorical Red Herring


      
          In discussing the “qualitative transformation” of capitalism and its social consequences, Thomas A. Hirschl cites Marx’s theory that “an era of social revolution begins when the technological capacity of society supersedes or becomes too productive for the existing property relations” (158).  Technological innovation fervently continues, though, so in the interest of separating social and economic crises from their roots in information and technological capitalism, leaders strategically employ political rhetoric.  This is hardly more apparent elsewhere than in political debates, particularly the second Presidential Debate of 2012.  Nearly the entire debate was directed at the homogenized entity of the “middle class” and the need to “create jobs.”  Both candidates briefly reference technological innovation, but their overall avoidance of the role of information and technology in their supposed quest for jobs is like a pink elephant in the room—they talk all around it, obliquely alluding to it, without acknowledging the massive amount of space it occupies and its undeniable impact.  By limiting the depth of their discussion to expansive, vague references to "jobs," they avoid addressing the relationship between capitalism, technology, and structural unemployment.  This, in turn, shapes public discourse so that the recent economic crisis is seen in isolation, not as evidence of an accelerating trend with dire social consequences, and, in turn, neither candidate’s role and stake in serving this trend is exposed.
In their respective essays in the 1997 collection, Cutting Edge, Hirschl, Guglielmo Carchedi, and Ramin Ramtin address the economic and social malady of their time, a prescient description that anticipates the very situation addressed by Messrs. Obama and Romney fifteen years later.  The first question posed to the candidates does not specifically refer to technology, but neither does it mention the word “jobs” (what the college student actually asks is how he will be able to sufficiently support himself after he graduates).  Neither candidate addresses what Carchedi identifies as a crisis of capitalist social relations, “the relations between the owners and the nonowners of the means of production,” due to technological innovation (74).  Rather than delve into this unattractive reality, both candidates immediately respond to the question with effusive references to jobs—four for Mr. Romney and seven for Mr. Obama.  The moderator encourages this direction by following up with, “What about those long-term unemployed who need a job right now?”  Here, the candidates continue to sidestep a social and economic discussion of quality of life and reasonable self-sufficiency, of the purpose of education and the direction of the country, and become immersed in the realm of stop-gap measures and band-aids.  Mr. Obama speaks of “good-paying jobs” in the “private sector” and manufacturing jobs in the automobile industry, and Mr. Romney says, “I want you to be able to get a job.”  This rhetoric of avoidance does not explore the systemic expansion of labor-saving technologies and their consequences in a capitalist society—specifically, that technologies initially increase capitalist accumulation at the expense of laborers’ decreased purchasing power, which then results in less profits and an increased drive toward labor-saving technology.  This, in turn, results in less jobs, and the spiral continues (Carchedi 75).  Without identifying this pervasive and accelerating cycle of capitalist (self)destruction, both candidates effectively avoid proposing the radical economic and social changes necessary to interrupt this cycle, and thus, neither candidate can propose an adequate approach.
Further, only when pressed on foreign outsourcing and competition with China does either candidate finally broach the topic of information and technology.  Mr. Romney asserts, “China’s been cheating over the years … by stealing our intellectual property; our designs, our patents, our technology,” and Mr. Obama explains, “There are some jobs that are not going to come back.  Because they are low wage, low skill jobs.  I want high wage, high skill jobs … That’s why we have to invest in advanced manufacturing.”  Both candidates imply that technology plays a serious role in economic health (something markedly absent from their initial discussion of “jobs”), and they suggest that they would protect and develop technology to protect and develop jobs.  Neither addresses that these very advances in information and manufacturing technology only heighten socioeconomic polarization by delimiting the types of employment available.  The few laborers who are incorporated in advanced manufacturing work or as knowledge workers “are often in a position to share in their nation’s privileged position” (Hirschl 164), while the rest, in increasing numbers, become casualties.
Contrary to either politician’s stance, the source of these material and social consequences cannot be denied, nor can it be reduced to an inexplicable lack of jobs.  Joblessness is a symptom of a malady, but the palliative measure of treating a symptom without treating the problem does nothing to heal the person.  Ramin Ramtin explains, “The insecurity of capitalist conditions of labor has always acted as a powerful means of social control—but only because and as long as there is at least some hope of future employment” (247).  In emphasizing the creation of jobs without addressing the long-term and systemic reasons for unemployment, these politicians perpetuate that increasingly unfounded hope for future employment.  Consequently, they manage, if only temporarily, to hold on to their positions of power in a spiraling capitalist system. 

Works Cited
Carchedi, Guglielmo.  “High-Tech Hype: Promises and Realities of Technology in the Twenty-
First Century.” Davis, et al.  73-86.
Davis J., T. Hirschl, and M. Stack, eds.  Cutting Edge: Technology, Information, Capitalism                and Social RevolutionLondon: Verso, 1997.  Print.
Hirschl, Thomas.  “Structural Unemployment and the Qualitative Transformation of Capitalism.”
Davis, et al.  157-174.
Ramtin, Ramin.  “A Note on Automation and Alienation.” Davis, et al.  243-251.
“Second Presidential Debate Full Transcript.”  ABC News.  WABC, Los Angeles, 16 Oct.      
            2012.  Television. Transcript.  abcnews.go.com.  Web.


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