Debunking the Myth of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Date
2022-03-01
Authors
Moll, Ian
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Abstract
Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is all the rage these
days.
In ideological terms, it appears to be hegemonic
in its construal of our contemporary socioeconomic
context, from our day-to-day interpersonal exchanges to
the machinations of the global economic order. We often
hear appeals to the supposed “magic” of the technology
that goes with it, to resolve the economic, political and
educational crises and problems of the world (and latterly,
its health crises – WEF, 2020). Appeals to a 4IR usually
go with a listing of a whole lot of ‘new’, ‘unprecedented’
technologies that sound smart, make us feel outdated,
and leave us in awe of the future. Technologies like cyber
systems, artificial intelligence, delivery drones, the internet
of things, and fully autonomous killer robots.3 But it is
around this misleading sense of awe – which I shall later
refer to as an ideology – that my argument turns in this
paper. None of these technologies necessarily warrants the
claim that we are in a technological revolution, let alone a
“Fourth Industrial Revolution”. I shall examine these and
similar technologies, to establish my claim. The argument
also runs deeper than that. An industrial revolution,
properly conceived, encompasses a complex range of
economic, social and cultural transformations, and there
is very little evidence to suggest that we are living through
a fourth one of these. A careful, deep analysis of the First,
Second and Third Industrial Revolutions will make this
quite clear. What we discover in these three revolutions,
by way of fundamental social transformation, is not taking
place in the current context of the digital, networked,
information society.
This paper commences with an account of the dispute
between Schwab (2016) and Rifkin (2011, 2016) about
whether there is such a thing as a 4IR, to provide a context
for subsequent arguments. It then moves to start to develop
its main argument, that there is no such thing as a Fourth
Industrial Revolution. First, an account of the First Industrial
Revolution (1IR) is provided, based on an examination of
historical literature. This establishes analytically that this
period of history was one of fundamental, transcontinental
change, characterized by complex, interconnected,
mutually-dependent social and socioeconomic relations
and practices, as well as economic and technical
innovations. The significance of the 1IR, of course, is that
it is the archetypal industrial revolution in historical and
theoretical terms. From this history, a framework for
the analysis of any industrial revolution can be derived;
this is done here to establish the criteria that any social
transformation must meet if it is to count as such. Having
established this analytic framework, the argument then
goes on to examine the Second Industrial Revolution (2IR)
and the Third Industrial Revolution (3IR). Again through an
analysis of historical literature, it is established that both
of these meet the criteria to be considered as industrial
revolutions. They did indeed take place, to the full extent
of the social, economic and cultural relations that one
might expect. The 3IR is also carefully examined in relation
to the aggregate of technical innovations that characterize
it, because this is crucial in determining whether or not we
can meaningfully claim a revolution from the 3IR to a 4IR.
The resolution reached here is that there is no evidence
that we are living in a contemporary, society-wide,
technological revolution of any sort. The final substantive
section of the paper moves on to the much more important
question of whether there is a contemporary industrial
revolution that is fundamentally transforming society
beyond the dominant everyday, economic, social, cultural
and geopolitical realities of the 3IR. It argues that it is quite
clear, on the basis of all the evidence adduced, that there
is no such phenomenon. The last part of the paper is more
illustrative. By way of a selection of quotations from a
range of sectors, it shows how the ideological frame of the
4IR as a massively converged set of global, technological
marvels has spread around the world, despite the fact that
it is nonsense.
Description
The author thanks the following colleagues for generative critical comments on earlier versions of this paper: S’tha Ndlovu, Yael Shalem, Lynne Slonimsky, Barry Dwolatsky, Reuben Dlamini, David Cooper, Wayne Hugo, Yvonne Reed, Bobbie Louton, Mandla Nhlapo and James Avis.