Embarking on the path to Corporate Feudalism

ZPG stands for zero population growth.  It was a term used more often in the Eighties and Nineties than today.  ZPG is however a serious concern for the business community, particularly those whose products and services have an international reach. Those that utilize the stock market and investors rely on two key factors when looking at companies, profit and growth; more specifically future growth.  Inevitably, there does come a time when growth plateaus which I like to call THE END OF GROWTH, borrowing from a Francis Fukuyama book title THE END OF HISTORY AND THE LAST MAN.  

One day the Earth will have all the inhabitants it can reasonably support.  If you're an Alvin Toffler fan, you'll remember FUTURE SHOCK and The Rome Society, predictions that the maximum sustainable population based upon land and resources is approximately 16 billion people.  Almost half way there, one must consider the obvious economic implications that this will have on our societies, our market places and those jobs that will be available.  That economy is already evolving, automating everything from the Secretary to the Sex Worker.  Technology is slowly but surely making man irrelevant, and removing the cost of his/her labor from the equation creating PEAK PROFIT and PEAK PRODUCTIVITY.  PEAK PRODUCTIVITY is the maximum achievable output a business system can generate.

Automation is a many splendid thing for Corporations that manufacture anything.  Think of the possibilities.  Your robot can work 24 hours a day 7 days a week, with a few hours down time for maintenance.  That's the equivalent of 3 full time and 3 part time human workers.  There is no unemployment insurance, there is no health insurance with which to dally, and no partial income tax to pay.  Best of all, there are no sick days or vacations!  Now, with driverless trucks, you don't even have to pay a person to get the product where its going.  There's no rosier scenario than one can imagine, right? 

PEAK PROFIT will not be be attained without eliminating all eligible cost margins, especially those costs which are variable, unpredictable, and subject to inflationary pressures.

The problem is that when men and women are replaced by machines, they make no income.  With no income, they can't consume the products or services that these companies are offering.  So taking a page from the Socialist European Elitists, some of Corporate America and Silicon valley are now backing the hair-brained scheme of Universal Basic Income (UBI).  The concept of UBI is very attractive, Companies now will still be able to garner revenues. People will have the ability to feed and cloth themselves and furnish their lives with the trinkets that please them.  Where will this UBI come from?  Taxes?  Will it simply be Perpetual Quantitative Easing (PQE)?

The Pandora's box that UBI and PQE open is the gradual transition from our democracy, to the penultimate corporate fascist system or Corporate Feudalism.  All monies distributed will end up in corporate hands via the purchasing patterns of the recipients of UBI.  Taxes on those revenues would pale by comparison to the monies being distributed, hence the need for PQE.  Corporate wealth will accrue, growing so vast that the Conglomerati will end up purchasing the National Debt, and hence perpetuate this new form of Feudalism, where the new Serfs become less and less educated, as their purpose in life is merely existence and consumption.  Is this a crude assessment?  You wouldn't think so given breakneck speed of Congress to usurp the States in unanimously approving Driverless Vehicle Legislation exempting 100,000 vehicles from safety rules.

The Driverless Vehicle is in itself a symptom of incubating Corporate Feudalism.  Do we really need driverless vehciles?   What purpose do they serve?  Are Americans clamoring for their proliferation?  Are tens of millions of Americans unable to drive or get a ride that these vehicles will satisfy some need?  The answer is undeniably "NO."  It's almost as if this Option were being forced down our throats like the ACA. There's always a way to get places, whether it be your famly, UBER, LYFT or the conventional Bus,Taxi or Train.  

It is curious that Congress does not recognize that automation is actually driving up the National Debt.  Impossible you say?  Well at $20 Trillion one might say you were ignoring the facts.  Going back to our Manufacturing Robot for a moment, consider the following.  The 3 full time and 3 Part Time workers displaced by the machine are not paying income tax to the State or Federal Government.  None of the 6 mentioned are contributing to the ACA, Unemployment Insurance, SSI or any other Government mandated program.  Why has Congress not proposed a Bill that would tax the existence of an Automaton in the work place, by levying treble taxation or a flat fee for the human shifts it has eliminated?  The Government programs supporting humans have to be funded, and because of this automation many of them will have ballooning budgets like SNAP, Unemployment etc.

Corporate Feudalism cannot exist if Men and Women are Independent, able to fend for themselves, drive cars, fly planes, grow food.  It relies on the gradual assassination of things we take for granted in our every day lives.  We are constantly told that technology enables Human productivity, and to some degree it does, for only those that do work or own a business.  It has enabled many to start their companies on shoestring budgets, becoming Black Swans in a matter of Years or even months.  But what of those that are less educated or less skilled?  Will they become the "wreaks and Wrecks" of Vonnegut's SIRENS OF TITAN, cleaning trash on the road side, removing graffiti, filling in potholes, etc?  

30 years ago a teenage cashier could provide you with change mentally, making the calculations on the fly.  Have you ever noticed, when you provide an excessive amount in attempt to receive as change a $5 or $10 bill, how the young person today looks at you with an empty expression, as if you have caused some wild error in change computation?  Yes they can post to Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram but these don't polish everyday working skills.  They subtract time from this ongoing edification and are in fact part of the dumbing down of the society.  Huxley posited the notion of intellect through embryonic intervention, by means of chemicals in Brave New World.  Are we so far away from this concept?  

In the end growth can only be sustained through acquiring other companies, mergers of larger and larger entities.  Our government stopped the breakup of companies long ago; Baby Bells now a seeming distant memory.  Will there ever be Baby Googles, Baby Amazons or Baby Apples?  Indeed the opposite seems true today.  There's more assistance being provided in putting monopolies together rather than taking them apart.  Peak Profit is the driving factor, along with the idea that the markets must continue to rise.  Inflation is now a key to making debt service less costly, and for that reason we will inevitably face an inflationary monster, the likes of which the United States has not faced in a century.  

Universal Basic Income portends an end to Humanity itself, for each of us receives more than a paycheck in performing a job.  It's self-worth and contribution to an effort, not to mention the sense of accomplishment at the end of a project, a simple task or just the start of a weekend.  The philosophic riddle that will ultimately evolve is, what is a person's existence worth?

Join us for our next installment which examines the Inflation Beast, where it hides today and how companies and the Fed are able to convince you that it doesn't exist.