Governed By Machine
By Robert Wise
16 December, 2011
Countercurrents.org
The dean of mid-century science fiction, Isaac Asimov, speculated at length about autonomous, self-willed machines. He named the new science of Robotics in one of his early stories. Each of his robot tales reached further into the future, climaxing in a time when earth would be totally controlled by a set of robotic computers known simply as the Machines.
The Machines made economic plans, allocated resources and shaped every aspect of government and industry for the benefit of mankind. They had not conquered by force; men willingly put them in charge and obeyed their instructions. The top government officials acted as direct assistants to the Machines, making sure their plans were carried out to the last detail.
Today we have our own Machines working in government, no less robotic than Asimov's creations but striving toward goals that have nothing to do with human needs: publicly traded corporations. Their robotic nature has been pointed out before (The Cyborg Amongst Us, Rein in the Robots).
Like Asimov's Machines, they are autonomous creatures with strong built-in motivation. But the Machines were programmed by engineers to work for the good of humans, with rigid safety rules guiding their conduct. Our corporate machines were developed over centuries by financiers and lawyers, with a single over-arching motive built in: to seek profit.
In the course of robotic development in Asimov's world, we saw Robby, the nursemaid robot who dived in front of a moving truck to save a child. There was Daneel, the suave robot detective, analyzing clues with the subtlety of a Sherlock Holmes. And there was Daneel's cousin Jander, so sensitive to human needs he was taken as a lover by a lonely woman.
Robotic development in the real world proceeded through generations of legal constructions, from royal charters to trusts to joint stock companies. It culminated in New Jersey in the late 19th century with the invention of the holding company: a corporation that could own other corporations. Instead of the gentle Robbie, the cultivated Daneel, or the wise Machines, we have the robot from Jersey: Guido.
As Asimov envisioned, the influence of robots has grown steadily. Starting with the invention of soft money in the 1980's, we have progressed to a point where both major political parties are financed mostly by corporate donations. There are more corporate lobbyists in Washington then elected officials; the defense industry alone has a thousand, more than two for every senator and representative. In a crowning touch, the Supreme Court recently ruled that corporate "persons" could donate unlimited amounts to political campaigns -- a privilege denied to living citizens.
If these sponsors and lobbyists had been deployed by Asimov's Machines, we could be sure they were setting political agendas and drafting legislation for the good of the American people. But instead they are deployed by corporations, so we can be sure they are pushing for programs and laws that will bring more profit to their employers, regardless of any living person's needs.
To "get money out of government" will take many new initiatives, but most will be aimed at eliminating corporate influence. The ideal will never be completely achieved; we will need, as Jefferson warned, "eternal vigilance." But the biggest advance we could achieve at one stroke would be a Federal law to abolish corporate personhood.
Bob is a retired software engineer, amateur writer, avid bicyclist and occasional sailor, living with his wife Kae and four cats on an island in Florida. [email protected]
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