Industries are revolutionized by a discovery that changes thoughts or the state of mind of the people radically in all aspects from a political, social and economic perspective. After the discovery, people start seeing and managing affairs differently.
There have been four industrial revolutions for the past four centuries. These four industrial revolutions started developing after foraging and agriculture where people manually laboured using tools or implements for farming before the 18th century. In the 18th century, the first industrial revolution started with the discovery of machines for large scale enterprise. Thereafter, the second industrial revolution introduced electricity in the late 18th century and early 19th century and then in the late 20th century century, Information Technology was discovered to start the third industrial revolution. I believe it has not yet changed people’s thoughts radically but now that it is fully fledgling with the emergence of the fourth industrial revolution, I believe people should start seeing it differently.
In the first industrial revolution, the machinery started the revolution in 1735 when John Wyatt first announced his steam engine machine. Richard Arkwright then developed the machine into a water powered machine. These machines further encouraged Goerge Naylor and Edward Vicker to discover a steel machine, which further paved the way for railways and vehicles for shipping of large-scale enterprise. These machines changed people’s thoughts because they were autonomous. Whereas before the machines, people worked manually with tools, after machines tools were now implemented in the machines that were powered to manufacture products.
The second revolution brought the advent of electricity. Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse made the discovery of electricity possible with their inventions. Thomas Edison’s invention of the mechanical production of electricity began the revolution in 1870 and provided the streets of Pearl Street with electricity from a power generator. George Westinghouse further developed the use of electric generator with the invention of the Alternating Current (AC) in 1886. These inventions made mass production possible because it intensified labour making the process of production faster.
In the third revolution, the ARPAnet, which was a precursor for the internet, was discovered by Lawrence Gillman Roberts under the agency of the United States’ department of Defence, Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA). This discovery influenced Donald Davies to develop what he called “Packet Switching” which allows the transmission of data faster on the networks and made it possible to connect multiple computers at once. Malcom Gladwell described it succinctly when he wrote: “Dozens of terminals could be built, all linked to the mainframe by a telephone line, and everyone could be working online all at once.” The aim was to connect the agency, ARPA, to universities and research organizations.
However, it had an enormous ripple effect because it paved the way for the computer age in the world of business. Erik Brynjossis and Adam Saunders found that in the early 1970s, after the invention, hardware, software and other technical devices accounted for about one-fourth of all business investment. This is because it provided the opportunity to instantly share information easily through emails.
Now at the dawn of the fourth industrial revolution, the Information technology is fledgling with the emergence of new innovations which are continuing to unfold. These emerging innovations which we call “smart” integrate with the previous Information Technology because they include their computational designs with additive functioning such as automation digitization in autonomous vehicles or synthetic biology which can be seen in cleaning devices that can sense micro-organisms in our bodies and Personal Assistant Learning (PAL) in Mercedez Benz and also incorporated in Siri which can assist humans by listening, anticipating their needs and also helping when required or even when it is not asked because it can learn. These innovations have also been made possible by the ARPA now called Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and inventors such as Steve Jobs.
The fourth industrial revolution have changed how people work because it makes work easy and efficient at no cost. For example, devices can provide storage without taking up space and use cleaning services without taking time to clean or use PAL to provide potential human assistance.
It is important to note that inventors with their innovative ideas played a role in influencing the revolutions and patented their inventions or started companies and became entrepreneurs in the private sector to further develop these inventions. Therefore, the private sector was responsible for the development of the revolutions. However, the attitude of the people about the impacts of these developments on society also shaped the course of the revolutions with progressive legislations and policies.
The attitude of the people in shaping the revolutions to make their future
Revolutions change people’s thoughts and this change further influence them to take action to protect themselves in shaping the course of the revolutions. Throughout the industrial revolutions, people have waged struggles against the abuse of inventions to create norms that are conducive to society and force industries to take social responsibility.
Before the first industrial revolution, people used mere tools and domesticated animals in farming. This required a lot of workers and very long hours to produce food that enable the population to survive. The beginning of the first industrial revolution, however, changed people’s thoughts about working long hours and exposing vulnerable children and women to strenuous labour because machines were capable of increasing production that meets the needs of the population. For this reason, people protested for the reduction of the working day.
Karl Marx in Capital (p382) wrote, “The establishment of a normal working day is the result of centuries of struggle between the capitalist and the worker.” He describes how workers petitioned for the Factory Act that prohibited the prolongation of the working day. In 1853, the Factory Act of 1850, which prohibit the employment of children and women and reduced the working day from 15 hours to 10 hours, was completed and won by the workers. This further encouraged proposals to declare 8 hours to be the normal working day.
Although the reduction of the working day was a victory, it influenced the second industrial revolution of electricity and the assembly line to increase productivity. Electricity allowed the adjustment of the machines to operate at a faster pace and in this way, the intensification of labour to produce the same amount of products that would have been produced working very long hours within the normal working day possible. The assembly line also ensured faster production because different work stations operating simultaneously allowed workers to assemble parts all at one time.
Then the advent of the Information Technology brought a world online where people inhabit to socialize, learn and conduct business. The universities were prominent in adopting information technology to connect with students and academics because IT was meant for research purpose and also for research by scholars to be shared easily and instantly with governments and organizations. This meant that people who have no access to the internet were excluded from participating. Therefore, it created a system of inequality.
This influenced the people to protest for equality, dignity and fundamental freedoms such as academic freedom and also freedom to conduct academic research. For this reason, the constitution was won which provided for fundamental rights such as the right to equality, dignity and fundamental freedom. This provided the roll out of free wifi access and media centres which contain internet connected computers in schools, public libraries and community centres for learning purposes, giving people the opportunity to learn these technologies.
By the time the fourth industrial revolutions started, the constitution which is the supreme law was already enacted in parts of the world, it made it possible to enjoy the benefits through projects such as elearning which involves the use of smart devices such as Apple tables to carry electronic books with additive functioning such as note taking and smart boards in public schools. However, this industrial revolution has not yet radically changed people’s thoughts about the impact of these innovations in society.
The Challenge of the fourth industrial revolution
People have not yet grasped the effect of the use of new technology on the welfare of society. The reason why it eludes them might be that it is a new practice and therefore it is difficult to understand.
Erik Brynjolfsson and Adam Saunders found that online transactions are excluded in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP is a measure of the goods and services produced in the economy in a given period of time. It is necessary because it includes Value Added Tax on the goods or services counted in GDP. This is important because VAT improves the welfare of society.
The problem is that the GDP counts goods that are commercial such as goods and services in the financial market. “Information goods” are those goods that are exchanged online such as electronic books, pdf or doc files, pictures, music downloaded and videos watched on youtube and also services such the PAL and synthetic biological cleaning. These “information goods” are uncounted in the GDP. For example, if a copy of a newspaper is brought from the news stand or a store, it will be counted in GDP because it is commercial activity. However, if news are read online on a website it will be uncounted in the GDP. These information goods makes the use of innovative devices affect the standard of living in society because it is excluded in GDP.
The problem has been prevalent in the third industrial revolution. Business people have begun exploiting it to substitute labour for capital. They have employed fewer workers and avoided the renting of buildings and shipping of goods because “information goods” are online and provide businesses with an opportunity of operating without hiring a driver, transport and renting a building for storage of goods. For this reason, instagram and google have had concentration of wealth provided that the companies also did not require funding for start-up.
Substituting labour for capital, however, also does not only affect people who become unemployed, it also affects the society because labour is rendering a service that is tax deductible. For this reason, it is also counted in the GDP as services rendered and therefore also contributes to the welfare of society.
And since the third industrial revolution is integrated in the fourth industrial revolution, the problem will still continue to affect the society. There has also been predictions that the fourth industrial revolutions will evolve the environment in which we live in such a way that newspapers, papers and books will soon be a thing of the past and people will read, learn and work online to live in a paperless environment. This evolution can further exacerbate the problem because it will not improve the standard of living in society.
Rewiring innovation for greater standards
Just as in the first and second industrial revolutions, people should be aware of the impact of inventions on society and continue to wage the struggle in the workplace and in politics to win progressive legislations and policies that improve the welfare of society.
This requires a new approach. People cannot interpret a ground-breaking discovery in terms of the order of old practices. Old practices should be forgotten. A revolution changes holistically how people see and manage affairs. The world cannot only be changed by new innovations, people's thoughts about it should also be changed and shape the course of the revolution.
This new approach, therefore, creates a struggle with regulating intangible assets. Information goods are difficult to value. Most commercial goods can be valued because of their quality and according to quantity. Services can also be valued according to the expenses and ability to produce results in providing services. However, information goods are intangible and they are consumed at no cost: visiting a youtube website to watch a video or visiting wikipedia to view information costs the consumer no money. This makes it difficult to value these goods.
There has been emerging tracking devises that have been used to map activity on the internet. It allows companies to collect data used to observe the online activities and then provide detailed billing statement of information goods. Synthetic biology can also allow companies to determine work patterns in the workplace by sensing motions. These devises can be used to measure information goods and services for economic purposes to ensure technological advances benefits the economy.
However, the people also have to take action to propose laws as in other revolutions that regulate the IT industries to create an information economy. A regulated information economy that has welfare effects. There have already been proposed drafted bills on regulating cypocurrencies to bring them into financial markets so that anyone who owns and sells them can be taxed according to the 2018 Draft Taxation Laws Amendment Bill and 2018 Tax Administration Laws Bill. Information goods have yet to be touched.
Neethling has identified these intangible assets in legal terms as personal immaterial property rights and classified them as possible fifth category of rights because the objects of rights that have been classified were respectively things that are tangible and if not tangible, they could be expressed outwardly in a perceptible form such as an invention or service. The possible fifth category make it possible to classify information goods to regulate it as a product.
The people, however, have to wage the struggle to win legislating these new practices. It is easy to imagine that in the next 5 or 10 years, technology will continue to advance and double or triple the capabilities it offers today. The problem will not be technological because people have easily adapted to using technology. The problem will be understanding how to use it to raise the standard of living and have high returns to people who need it the most.
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