Ned K.
Australian-born and New York-based venture
capitalist Jeremy Philips does not have much of a "Christmas cheer”
message this year. He is a key investor in Wealthfront, the world's largest
automated investment service which already has $2.1 billion in client assets.
"It is inevitable that trillions of
dollars will be managed algorithmically," he is quoted as saying in an
interview with the Australian Financial
Review.
What this means is that robot financial
advisers will replace human financial advisers with a predicted loss world wide
of 25 million currently well paid jobs. Phillips is not worried about the loss
of 25 million financial services jobs. Why not? He says the 25 million will
dwarf the millions of factory jobs being replaced by robots and automation already.
Marx expained that one of the historical
roles of capitalism was to revolutionise the means of production. The next wave
of the impact of technology on people's lives under capitalism has already
commenced.
Under socialism, technological advances will
be introduced in a way to benefit the people. One way is to balance
technological advance with a reduced number of working hours on full pay for
the people.
Under capitalism, capitalists have in recent
times made more use of part-time and casual workforces, but on miserable wages.
The advances in robotics in the financial services industry are estimated to
increase productivity by 45-55 per cent according to the McKinsey Global
Institute.
What all this means for the anti-imperialist
struggle at this point in time is that millions of white collar financial
services will be drawn in to the struggle to defend living standards Many will
organise to maintain a reasonable standard of living.
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