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As an idealist, I used to think that there would be some time in the future when social harmony and balance would be established in a true sense for the sake of human welfare. I believed in a gradual reform in our social, political, and economic attitudes towards a positive human social evolution.

As an optimist, I thought that I would witness the improvement of our social behaviour more and more in each coming year. I thought capitalism would create an ever-growing inspiration and healthy competition for individuals to work hard towards a better society. I believed that competition would act as a safety valve, which wouldn’t allow greedy individuals to spoil the system and exploit others. I firmly believed that eventually words like exploitation, poverty, atrocity, war, greed, hatred and pessimism would disappear from our vocabulary and would be interesting topics to be taught in history classes about our dark past.

I am still trying to believe in what I have been believing. However, a powerful sense of pessimism has been created and offered by my own human society. It rings a bell and tells me to wake up and smell the coffee. I try to keep my eyes shut, my nose pinched, my senses numb, and remain an optimist. But the smell of the coffee is too strong. It woke me up after all the years of optimism to see the reality about our own civilization.

With the collapse of socialism as a big failure in most communist countries at the beginning of the last decade of the 20^th century, capitalism went out of control too much, and instead of delivering a better modified system  which would sponsor human welfare and dignity, it gave birth to a century-old fetus of corporatism. With emerging corporations, the control and fate of human life fell into the hands of a few elites whose only interest was in maintaining the corporate system in order to gain money and services at any price.

If Adam Smith, John S. Miller, and David Ricardo, the fathers of capitalism, were here today, they would be regretting the modern results of their capitalist ideas. I wish I could ask Smith about all those promises he made about healthy competition being delivered to humanity under the flag of capitalism.

Industrial revolution eventually gave rise to technology. And technology is now here, affecting every aspect of human life. It can be used for humanity in a constructive or destructive way. Education is the only salvation for humanity and, sure enough, we can use technology to show us how to improve our physical and moral standards. However, technology without human wisdom is like an atomic bomb in the hands of a suicide bomber which can be used to destroy our so-called conscious civilization.

No wonder we choose to stop killing by killing, stop organized human atrocities by ordered atrocities. No wonder we spend a big portion of our wealth, time and money on making smart bombs in order to end organized destruction by ordered destruction. Where is the logic behind this madness? What is the rationale behind these unconscious human behaviours? Doubtless, we are intelligent and smart, like our smart bombs, but not clever, conscious or wise enough to see what we are doing as a civilization.

The problem is rooted in human education. the only way we can reach social consciousness is by  educating every single individual on the planet. Top priority goes to the elites who have their hands on everything, even our politicians. This minute class of human society should be educated first. Only a true education can help the elites of this century to wake up and smell the coffee that they have been brewing  for almost a century. Through true education, one may learn about human morality, ethics, relationships, partnerships, compassion, benevolence and sympathy. A true education helps one to realize  that all of us are part of the body of humanity in which, if one is hurt or ignored, the rest of us will suffer in consequence. True education gives one the vision to see humanity as the ultimate goal, and it can open a window towards the reality that we cannot easily dismiss each other.

Corporatism is the only thing that Adam Smith could not foresee. It’s a fact that human beings have become less worthy than machines. Another fact is that all corporations have a great tendency to replace and substitute individuals with machines where possible, simply because most of the time machines are cheaper, faster and more efficient than we are as a bunch of high demanding/maintaining organic bodies. Of course, there are exceptions, like minimum wage jobs and some service industries in which the presence of live and warm human bodies are necessary. This is because machines cannot replace them yet, or could be expensive initially.

All Smith meant by competition was competition between individuals, not between individuals and machines. Machines are supposed to work for individuals, not to replace them as a better service to corporations. Machines are supposed to take away the burden of physical work from individuals to create more free time to gain education and wisdom. Machines are supposed to contribute to the good of humanity. Nevertheless, machines are here today to replace us in order to allow corporatism to fulfill its unconscious goal.

Upon the beginning of the 21^st century, we are going to accept and experience a new contract called the “corporatist contract,” in which the survival of the corporatist system will be the priority at any price. According to corporatist contract, human beings are needed as long as they can operate the machines. Soon, artificial intelligence will replace human intelligence operating the machines. And if that is the logic and the law, then why bother with 6.2 billion human beings on Earth when artificial intelligence can do the job.

It is easy to imagine a planet with a few owners of massive machines representing a new form of intelligent civilization called the unconscious civilization. Don’t you think it is the time to wake up and smell the coffee?

© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

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