It's the profit, stupid!

Dr Don Huber, Emeritus Professor of Plant Pathology, Purdue University, US, speaking about GMO crops and glyphosate, said: “Future historians may well look back upon our time and write, not about how many pounds of pesticide we did or didn’t apply, but by how willing we are to sacrifice our children and future generations for this massive genetic engineering experiment that is based on flawed science and failed promises just to benefit the bottom line of a commercial enterprise.” Rosemary Mason (1)

Profit is the part of labour’s added value taken by capital. It can increase by paying less to labour or by having labour work longer days. But both possibilities are limited if the work force is to survive over time. That leaves a third way, which is to increase productivity through organisation and technology. The intent, of course, is not to constantly increase profits, but to compensate their continual decrease on a competitive market, where price and novelty determine sales. Peter Harrison argues that capital’s expansion is synonymous with technological development (2). That they feed off one another and came into existence together. This means that today’s technology has been modelled by profit, and non-profitable or less profitable alternatives have not been considered. And the most lucrative – biocides, fossil fuels and plastics - have turned out to be the most destructive.

Technology has fashioned humanity from the start, from the first hand held weapon that could be wielded far more effectively while moving on two legs. And most technology through the ages has been concerned with getting more produce out of less energy and time. This process has often been very slow, with sudden accelerations after fundamental modifications, such as the discovery of bronze and steel. Europe’s Middle Ages only added the stirrup and the windmill, until gunpowder, paper and printing arrived from China along the Old Silk Road. Guns brought military power, but the printing press was a blatant example of the linkup between capital, technology, productivity and profit. Nothing as significant would happen until the steam engine, more than three centuries later. Guns and steel got deadlier but, though wind and water were being harnessed, muscle power still drove just about everything, until fossil fuels became a source of motor energy.

The printing press had shown how a different process could hugely accelerate production, and how a machine modified the profit that could be extracted from labour. This logic was applied to weaving by mechanical improvements to the hand-loom. But the decisive moment was the transformation of heat into movement. Max Weber imagined the origins of capitalism in Protestant sobriety, investing rather than spending. But for most of history the only investments available were land and slaves, which put considerable restrictions on entrepreneurship. The steam engine, theorised by Denis Papin and finalised by James Watt, offered vast new possibilities for investments and set off the fossil fuel age. The use of coal to drive machines was the dawn of capitalism and of global warming. Since then profit and energy resources have determined the path of history.

Technology has maintained profits, and profits have guided technology. And productivity has multiplied, except in some domains that have remained labour intensive. Parts of agriculture still need a lot of hands, as do health care and cleaning. In these sectors productivity stalled a while ago, and profits have relied on greater workloads and reduced wages. Mining, industry and finance have hugely increased their profitable technology and have massively outsourced to cheaper labour markets. But their productivity gains and profits are past their peaks, and no new technological surge is visible on the horizon. The digital acceleration has run its course. There is nothing faster than instantaneous. The linking of profits and technology to produce more with less labour is not getting any more traction, and is beginning to feel the head wind of climate disruption. Wildfires are annihilating forests on all continents, and recession is lurking in the not too distant future. The 2020s will see the shape of things to come, mutation or extinction.

1. https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/17/gone-fishing-no-fish-but-plenty-of-pesticides-and-a-public-health-crisis/

2. https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/16/the-wonders-of-modern-life-briefly-explained-an-anthropology-of-the-industrial-revolution/

And this interesting piece on how the poor are forced to accept miserable, insecure, low-paid jobs:

https://monthlyreview.org/2019/12/01/from-mass-incarceration-to-mass-coercion/