Learning and the modes of learning are transforming rapidly as the world shifts towards a more digital approach, in an ideal world, this is a just transition, which offers us a more plausible approach towards reaching our ends of access to education and perhaps even closer to free education as a country. In the world we live in, the turn of any industrial revolution has proved to be first, the yardstick of inequality, secondly, it proves to be an attempt to widen the inequality gap and lastly give the capital a stronger grip on the international financial market. The tragedy of the industrial wheels turning is that the world is strong-armed to form part and parcel of the exercise. The presumed challenges of the migration in the midst of the COVID-19 disaster has proved beyond reasonable doubt that we are not ready for the migration based on the socio-economic divides of the country and the readiness of institutions, secondary is the blatant ignorance of tech companies greed in exploiting the migration.
In early 1800 when the first Industrial revolution happens, the noble English man of Nottingham wage a just cause in industries that introduced steam-machines into their workspaces. The noble actions of the Luddites was marked by a revolt that was based on vandalism but however the means didn’t achieve the Ends, they end up being pushed out of the workspace and replaced by other individuals willing to sell their labour. In this case history teaches us a lot of lessons in fighting the turns. Central to the turns, it has always been a capital gain and exploiting the vulnerable in society.
In the wake of the wheel turning to the fourth industrial revolution, tech companies sit at the throne of capital again and driving the shape and form that the world will take. A tech fight that has emerged in status quo in the migration from 4G technology to 5G, this presents us with multiple challenges as students, it marks the end of a generation of technology that can be used. The investment into the current crop of technology to roll out online learning is hasty and ill-advised, in a year or so 5G compatible technology will have to be rolled out which would indicate more exploitation by tech companies. The kind of capital dictatorship that is on the rise stems from tech companies, the very same companies that practice digital capitalism and are the sole custodian of the revenue generated in the market. The very same revolt exists in status core, in the USA, a mass civil suit happened as apple was taken to court for practising Built-in obsolescence plan. A mass-based strategy that can be linked to the Luddites however with a different approach that stems from social justice to hold tech companies accountable through legal system for immoral and disingenuous business strategies.
The tragedy is the extensive silence and lack of robust debates from the student movement about the fourth industrial revolution, no clear stance has been adopted in the wake of the turn and allows exploitation to happen on a wider scale. Inbuilt obsolescence is likely to thrive in institutions of higher learning. The continuous need to have gadgets produced by tech companies, central to online learning, puts students on the back foot and makes students prone to exploitation. The central spaces of benefits sit there. Life span based equipment, in this case 2 years per device, only breeds’ exploitation and has been a target weakness in the turn by most social democrats across the world. Social democrat Andrew Yang a former presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, proposing a higher taxation system to redirect the money back to Universal Basic Income that he coins as the freedom dividends. This action that eventually led to his defeat in a liberal society shows that there are legal ways to put capital to the task and eventually gain benefits for the marginalized.
A social democrats approach should be one that is adopted in the student movement and fuel a national discourse in an attempt to reverse the roles and the power in the fourth industrial revolution. An introduction of tax systems that will be directed to companies that practice built-in obsolescence plan, either in declaration in use or companies being caught out using it, there is a need for states to tip the scales of equilibrium in serving the most vulnerable in society and it is a meaningful transition in society.
Focal to SASCO and how it shapes the discourse should be how the tax will be directed. The fight central to the movement is of access and free education; the tax could initially be used as a means of increasing access to the institution of higher learning or could be used to fund systems that will push for inclusive migration to online learning. A long-standing cry in the country has always been how to push private companies to fund education, the lack of political will and a slow push to the actual realization of free education by students movements has led to complacence by government. The wheel turning to digital platforms and other systems like automation and artificial intelligence offers society with another chance to have a stronger push towards the world we envisage as student leaders.
It is in this moment that knowledge-generating platforms like institutions of higher learning have robust discussions in and around the true realities and a shift of legislature and policy position of the country stands to adequately deal with the challenges and opportunities offered by the fourth industrial revolution. A rather traumatic form of silence from unions and lack of adequate planning has to lead the student movement to believe in the words of Herbert Marcuse when he said, ’in the absence of a radical working class, the student’s activism becomes a revolutionary class’’. It is at this moment that those words should resonate with us more and be the justification of our deeds and actions.
Phathutshedzo Nthulane is the Convener of SASCO Gauteng PTT. Writes in his personal capacity.