1.
TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT AND THEIR ECONOMIC, SOCIAL
AND POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES
Fernando Alcoforado *
The idea of "progress" in social thought came with the industrial revolution of the
eighteenth century. From the eighteenth to the twentieth century, it was believed that the
only reliable means for improving the human condition came from new machines,
chemicals and various techniques. There has been a widespread belief that there is a
positive link between technical development and human well-being and that the next
wave of innovation will provide even greater progress.
Society lives, more than ever, under the auspices and domains of science and
technology. The propaganda that is made of science and technology is so intense that a
significant portion of people believe that they only bring benefits to society. Even the
recurring social and environmental ills that accompany technological advances have
rarely affected this faith. For man, technology makes life easier, cleaner and longer.
Man cultivates a growing relationship of dependence on science and technology in the
contemporary era.
It is usual behavior for much of society to regard science and technology as liberating
humanity from the burdens of labor and the threats posed by the forces of nature.
Adding to all this, there is a widespread view that scientific-technological progress
brings not only the advancement of knowledge but also a real, inexorable and effective
improvement in all aspects of human life. Today, there is a clear perception that science
and technology have provided progress for humanity, but that, along with this, have the
capacity to destroy it as well.
The thesis that science and technology would be the primary factors responsible for
human progress was put in check by the explosions of atomic bombs in World War II in
Nagasaki and Hiroshima. There has been a discussion not just on the positive side of
science and technology. A climate of crisis and doubt about them came to the surface.
Along with the benefits of science and technology, came napalm, defoliants,
radioactivity, the atomic bomb. But can it be said that mankind has progressed with the
advancement of science?
In his work A Dialética do Esclarecimento (The Dialectic of Enlightenment) published
by Zahar Editora (1985), Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, philosophers linked to
the Frankfurt School, say that the supremacy of science and technology has paved the
way for political derangement in favor of market capitalism. Being global and
omnipresent, market capitalism has the necessary technology, provided by science and
technology, to make men gears of their engine annulling them. Capitalist economics,
science and technology, now merged as if they were a single instance, consolidate their
supremacy over contemporary society, determining their course with the same
foolishness and impersonality of an invisible hand, according to Adorno and
Horkheimer.
Science is seen not only as liberating, but in certain situations as dehumanizing and
enslaving human life. Technology has shaped our lives because we are at the mercy of
interconnected systems and, what is serious, because we are submissive to its authority,
shaping us to its functioning. The omnipresence of technology in today's world, coupled
with its greater complexity, gives way to a very problematic situation.

2.
In the article Como serão as fábricas do futuro? (How will the factories of the future
be?), available on the website <http://delltecnologiasdofuturo.ig.com.br/para-
empresa/como-serao-as-fabricas-de-futuro/>, it is reported that it is possible to imagine
that the factories of the future will count less and less with the presence of human
beings in the production line. In 2013, sales of industrial robots in the world reached the
record of 179,000 units. Depending on the type of application, newer models are 40%
faster than previous generations. The second characteristic of this new industrial age is
the immense amount of digital information available. Product design, design, testing
with new materials, prototypes, factory architecture, production line organization, stock
of materials, manual of an equipment, everything is digital.
Automated and robotized factories mean industries with fewer and fewer people. In
three decades, 6 million industrial jobs in the United States were eliminated, causing
factory employment to reach the level of the 1940s. Jobs that involve repetitive
functions will disappear quickly in the coming years, says economist Michael Spence,
the winner of the Nobel Prize and professor of the University of New York. In rich
countries, it is estimated that 25% of all functions in industry are to be replaced by
automation technologies by 2025. Worldwide, an estimated 60 million factory jobs are
eliminated.
In the article under the title Capitalismoemcriseeodeclíniodotrabalho(Capitalism in Crisis
and the Decline of the Work), available on the website
<http://outraspalavras.net/posts/capitalismo-em-crise-o-declinio-do-trabalho/>, 2016,
the American sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein says, "a major technological
breakthrough now allows machines to engage in calculations of huge volumes of data.
The result is that such machines have already begun to eliminate the posts of these
white-collar workers. New jobs were actually created - but not among industrial
workers. They emerged among the white collar services professions. Consequently,
throughout history, the world economy witnessed a reduction of industrial jobs and a
significant increase in the percentage of white-collar workers. It was always accepted
that white-collar jobs were not subject to being eliminated. It was assumed that, because
they required interaction between humans, there would be no machines capable of
replacing human workers. It's not like this anymore". At the moment, this trend has
changed with the decline, too, in the supply of employment for white collar workers.
According to Immanuel Wallerstein, "before, when industrial jobs were eliminated or
reduced, they could be replaced by white-collar jobs. But today, if the white-collar
positions disappear, where will the new jobs be created? And if they are not created, the
overall effect will be to severely reduce effective demand. Without effective demand,
there can be no accumulation of capital. This is the reality that seems to be insinuating
itself. So it is not surprising that concerns arise. It is not likely, however, that the "timid"
attempts to deal with this new reality can make any real difference. The structural crisis
of the system is surfacing openly. The big question is not how to fix it - but what will
replace it". Wallerstein demonstrates that, in addition to harming industrial and "white-
collar" workers, technological advancement could jeopardize capitalism's own interests
by bringing down effective global demand to decline.
The big challenge for economic growth in the coming years is how to develop new jobs
that employ a larger population than we have today, and especially there is not a big
decline in the middle class where white collar workers are, since with a weak middle
class, overall consumption also declines, and the economy can collapse. Technological

3.
progress will inevitably have three consequences: 1) the decline in consumption or
general demand for goods and services due to the increase in unemployment and the
reduction of the purchasing power of the working population; (2) the decline of the
middle class with major implications of a political nature since it acts as an ally of the
bourgeoisie; and (3) the weakening of the struggle of the trade unions for the benefit of
the workers and of the class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
The reduction of the working class to the technological advance puts in check the main
strategy of conquest of power by the proletariat formulated by Karl Marx, who
considered the class struggle as the motor of history, that is, of social changes towards
socialism. The proletariat would cease to be the messiah of humanity as advocated by
Marx. The decline of the middle class in which white-collar workers find their social
ascent, whose marginalized and frustrated members along with the proletariat can
become powerful forces at the service of social change for the benefit of all society or
mass maneuver of fascism that benefits the ruling classes.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 77, member of the Bahian Academy of Education and the Brazilian Academy of
Letters - Bahia Section, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the
University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business
planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of the books Globalização
(Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para
o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os Condicionantes de Desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia
(PhD Thesis, University of Barcelona, http: //www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003),
Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento da Bahia do
Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The
Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM
Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e
Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia
Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica,
Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico
e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática
Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas,
Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016) e A Invenção de um novo
Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017). Possui blog na Internet (http://fernando.alcoforado.zip.net). E-
mail: falcoforado@uol.com.br.