According to a recent study by the consulting firms Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, in 2006 the number of millionaires, as measured in dollars, totaled 9.5 million people worldwide, an 8.3 percent increase from 2005. If we consider Latin America alone, the number of people that hold more than one million dollars experienced an even greater growth: 10.2 percent. And apparently, capitalism is also just as efficient at manufacturing rich people unconcerned with who’s running the economy, because the countries of the region who saw the greatest growth in millionaires were Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, and all three of them are ruled by self-declared leftist governments. Also in 2006, the total wealth of high-net-worth individuals* in Latin America rose by 23.2 percent, making it the region with the highest growth in the world.

 

While the number of millionaires is swelling, the number of workers is dropping, a phenomenon driven primarily by two causes. The first has to do with the increase in productivity, however paradoxical that may seem and even if it contradicts the arguments wielded by the advocates of neoliberalism. To verify this we need only to recall a study published in March 2004 concerning the productivity of the 100 largest companies in the United States: that year, only nine workers were needed to produce what 10 workers produced in 2001. We all know what the reason for this is: capitalism’s success is based on cost reduction, including the cost of labor, hence its constant search for technologies -managerial technologies, among others- that increase productivity, cut salaries, and eliminate labor. The second cause is more recent and stems from the concealment of work. Three decades ago, as large factories started disappearing, labor became increasingly invisible. Outsourcing and subcontracting led to the concealment of whole segments, which in turn resulted in the casualization of employment, the reduction of labor costs –which involves the introduction of working conditions that are unacceptable in terms of health and safety-, and the elimination of labor rights. This means that the burden of continuously increasing productivity is shouldered by “invisible” workers, who pay for it with their health, and in some cases even their lives.

 

Just like the increase in millionaires, the above is also translatable into numbers. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), every 15 seconds somebody in the world dies from work-related causes, adding up to 6,000 deaths per day. The same source reveals that 2.2 million people die every year from causes connected with their work, and that 22 thousand of these ‘casualties’ are children. At this point, there is no doubt that the rise in occupational accidents and diseases is directly proportional to work restructuring and casualization.

 

Among the most prominent work-related conditions are those known as Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSIs), which are caused by certain postures and efforts at work (more information). To illustrate this we can cite a report prepared in 2005 by Spain’s National Safety and Health at Work Institute, which concluded that 75 percent of that country’s workers suffered from RSIs. The World Health Organization (WHO), for its part, refers to these injuries in several of its documents as a pandemic.

 

Now we hear in the news that Japanese researchers have just unveiled a prototype of a robotic hand designed to be used in industry. Instead of the traditional claws, which are commonly used in industrial robots, the team of scientists headed by Dr. Ichikawa Yukata hope to achieve an artificial hand with all the characteristics of a human hand. In addition to the strength and skill of the human hand, researchers are seeking to reproduce its texture and flexibility, providing the robotic hand with a “skin” that will give it the same feeling and hygienic possibilities of a human hand with rubber glovers. The press release says that the new instrument’s acid test will be in the food industry, as the engineers hope to automate certain tasks, such as cutting products into various shapes and placing them in their corresponding packaging.

 

Does this mean that RSIs will disappear in the immediate future? Should we demand that “Japanese hands” be installed in every factory, even thought this might mean the elimination of jobs? As things stand, we don’t know if this new development is a solution or a new problem. We would be very deluded if we celebrated the disappearance of RSIs due to the triumph of science. Occupational diseases and work-related accidents cannot be corrected with mere technical measures. RSIs arise from the aforementioned urge to increase productivity while at the same time reducing costs. It’s possible that the robotic hand, which will most likely be sold in the market at a very steep price, will be introduced in some factories in certain developed countries –probably in the European Union or Japan itself-, but that won’t happen in our countries. Here, companies will just speed up their production lines (there’s always room to accelerate) and the workers’ protests will be stifled with threats of importing the “Japanese hand.” This is yet further proof that no solution is possible in a system that favors private property, where goods are produced as commodities, and where the aim of production is to make a profit.

From Montevideo, Enildo Iglesias © Rel-UITA July 09, 2007