economics | Terry Bell Writes

Browsing All posts tagged under »economics«

Strap in — it’s the rise of the machines

January 21, 2020

Artificial Intelligence and the technology employing it is not our enemy; it is who controls it and to what end that will determine whether humanity benefits or finds itself in the sort of dystopian world only imagine4d by the most pessimistic speculative fiction writers. The technology now being developed, displaces human labour; it does not (as in previous industrial revolutions) provide machines that make human labour more productive. It has never been more imperative for working people to take democratic control and perhaop liuberate humanity.

2020: Tumult lies ahead — but hope too

January 17, 2020

Hope for the future lies in placing the massive advances in technology and AI under democratic, accountable and transparent control. Failure to do so could result in a dystopian future that only the most pessimistic of speculative fiction writers have imagined.

Time to stop thinking & acting in silos

December 15, 2019

If wishes were dinners, the hungry would eat. It's a variation on an old Scottish proverb about beggars and horses, but it seems worth bearing in mind as this year draws quite grimly to a close. Because wishes and hopes are, in themselves, futile at a time when clarity of thought and analysis, followed by appropriate action is called for.

A fight for the many, not the few

November 15, 2019

Workers and their unions will once again be castigated as greedy, selfish and unpatriotic as they fight back against having to pay for the maladministratio0n, incompetence and corruption of the existing order. But they are, for all their faults, battling to protect the many from the increasing predations of the few.

The political voice labour must find

November 5, 2019

Riven by ideological squabbles and apparently unwilling to face up the technological realities of the 21st Century, the once militant South African trade union movement is in danger of becoming increasingly less relevant. Yet this was a m ovement that played a significant role in the anti-apartheid struggle.

SA unions: still seeking a coherent political role

November 2, 2019

Ever since making a tentative move toward principled unity 23 years ago, South Africa's modern and militant trade unions, once to the forefront of the struggle against apartheid, have steadily weakened, with a degree of fragmentation. Now, with the realities of the digital revolution being felt, time is not on their side if they wish to remain relevant and play a role of protectors and extenders of democracy.

Race & the colour of money

July 28, 2019

Populist demagogues tend to emerge during times of economic and social crises. They use the age-old method of divide and rule to prey on the fears and insecurities of the working class battered by a system of exploitation that the demagogues fundamentally support. But at the root of the problems faced by the global majority is not race, religion, language or ethnicity: it is capitalism where the colour of money is all that matters.

4IR & the ideological prison

July 12, 2019

The business and political elites are trapped within an ideological prison that does not allow for them to consider ther need to break out in order to salvage both themselves and the world at large. And so they continue to prattle away about how best to reform the system from within when, in fact, it is the system itself that is at fault.