Fordism: Mass Production Drives Mass Consumption
Classic economics was built on ingenious simplicity: the productivity engine drove wage growth, and the worker served as both the producer and the essential consumer. However, Martin Ford argues that this self-sustaining mechanism has suffered a structural failure. Automation and income concentration have clogged the fuel lines of the economy, steering us toward techno-feudalism.
Seven Trends and the Hourglass Market: A Structural System Failure
The collapse of this historical paradigm is evidenced by seven deadly trends, including wage stagnation despite rising productivity and a declining labor share of national income. According to Moore’s Law, any procedure that can be precisely described will eventually be automated. This process serves a disciplinary function similar to what Michał Kalecki described—today, it is the specter of the algorithm, rather than unemployment, that enforces worker compliance.
The result is an hourglass-shaped labor market: middle-income jobs are vanishing, while polarization grows between a high-skill elite and low-paid service workers. In this reality, education is no longer a safeguard. The "college premium" has become arbitrary, leading to what Ford calls the "great reversal"—machines are taking over cognitive tasks, degrading the status of university graduates.
Algorithms in the Office and Global Adaptation Models
Automation is hitting bureaucracy hard; it is becoming both a victim of algorithms and a cause of institutional delays. Global reactions to these shifts vary: the USA prioritizes profit and financialization, the European Union attempts to cushion the social impact, and Arab states treat AI as a modernization tool, though at the risk of political stability.
The system is falling into a logical aporia: if technology increases profit (P) while income distribution depends on labor (R), then maintaining aggregate demand (Q) becomes impossible. Machines do not buy goods, which leads to a demand crisis. Businesses suffer from a blind spot, ignoring the fact that without mass purchasing power, productivity gains lead only to a deflationary spiral and asset speculation.
Basic Income and Institutional Reforms: A Dam Against Techno-Feudalism
Daron Acemoglu points out that the primary barrier to development is the lack of AI that complements human labor. To avoid a collapse, Ford proposes a guaranteed basic income. This is not charity, but an economic necessity—a citizen’s dividend that refills the consumption tank and stabilizes the system in the age of robotics.
The vision of the technological singularity—the moment machines surpass human intelligence—carries the risk of a total loss of control over power structures. The only solution lies in institutional reforms: decoupling income from labor and redefining data property rights. Only a new social contract can ensure that technology serves society rather than a narrow capital elite.
Summary
In the era of algorithms and artificial intelligence, are we destined for an economic abyss where technology divides rather than unites? Ford’s analysis shows that without radical changes in wealth distribution, the engine of progress may become a tool for social degradation. ultimately, it is our institutional imagination that will determine whether the future is a techno-utopia or a techno-feudal dystopia.
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