Roland Kulke, who works with Transform, Europe, looks at the digital economy in this power point presentation, and asks how can we save the progressive parts of the economy in a post-fosil fuel non-market economy.

2. National and International
Aspects of the Digital Revolution
Roland Kulke, Brussels
transform! europe
kulke@transform-network.net
International Conference on Universal Social Protection and Labour
Kathmandu, Nepal
4-6 April 2019

3. Content
1. Introduction
2. National Aspects of the Digital Revolution
3. International Aspects of the Digital Revolution
4. Samir Amins „Challenge of the future culture of Communism“

4. Introduction: two major trends around digitalization
Planetary Boundaries
• CO2 only one challenge
• 4 or 9 boundaries have been crossed already
• „ Anthropocene“ or „Capitalocene“?
Privatised Keynesianism is finished
• End of growth rates in post-industrial societies
 so… what‘s next for the poor capitalists!?

5. National aspects of the Digital Revolution
Industry 4.0 – perspective on social relations - dangerous: corporatism
Other terms: Internet of Things; Smart Factory…
Goals:
1. higher workers exploitation – reduction of human bodies to robots
2. Control of each single produced good along the Value Chain
3. Autonomous production – neutralising strikes
Results:
General: further pressure on extractivism in Global South + rising energy
demands + longer value chains, more transport
In I. World: enhanced concentration of productive assets in the Centre
(Germany vs Italy – Study of Punto Rosso (Italian transform member))
In III. World: premature deindustrialisation – garment sector and AI (FT, “Sticked
up by robots”, 18 July 2018)

6. International Aspects of Digital Revolution
Nepals new constitution, Preamble:
„We, the Sovereign People of Nepal, internalizing the people’s sovereign right
and right to autonomy and self-rule…”  people‘s sovereignty as main
moment
Free Trade Agreements: „Deep Integration“
Integration beyond the borders  breaking our constitutions
ISDS, regulatory cooperation (Parliament for the Capitalists)
What does digital revolution a.k.a. AI needs?
Not any longer Big Data, but AI – AI needs currently (!) massive amounts of
data in real-time harvesting
Now intra-capitalist struggles:
1. advanced (China) vs. super-advanced (Triade: USA and satellites)
2. 76 countries in Davos (here Quartet is leading vs. Progressive III World)

7. Samir Amins „Challenge of the future culture of Communism“
Amin (Eurocentrism, 1988)
Historically all non-capitalist societies tend to have a more homogenous
superstructure than capitalist societies  What does this mean for our future?
Skidelsky (How Much is Enough? Money and the Good Life, 2012)
“Can a society which has no religious impulses motivate itself to pursue the common
good? We do not really believe that this might be possible.“
Materialistism & Aristotelian philosophy – same result  strong argument
Buen Vivir and Pachamama  culturally bound and not transferable
Challenge for the left: how can we develop an open and inclusive super-structure
which allows both: guidance for us as well as a radical „laissez faire“ in regard to
individual values. To put it in more theoretical words. How can we save the
progressive parts of “modernity” in a post-fossil-fuel non-market economy?