The 4th Industrial Revolution: Liberalism’s Deathknell?

Industrialisation in the mid-18th century was accompanied by radical political change. On the cusp of mass automation in the early 21st centrury, what sort of radical political change should be anticipated? Will this change spell the end of liberalism? 

It is worth bearing in mind that the contemporary pop culture understanding of ‘a liberal’—a blue-haired person who asks you to refer to others by their correct pronouns—has drifted considerably from the original understanding of liberalism, which describes liberalism as it had developed by the 19th century. The newer understanding and the original understanding of liberalism are what have, respectively, been understood as “left-wing” and “right-wing” in the US and, to a lesser degree, the rest of the West.

Liberalism is widely considered as having been brought about by the disenfranchisement with premodern social hierarchies (e.g. those of feudalism), the evolving new social phenomena (e.g. urbanisation), and even by the advent of coffee in Europe. What is less-widely acknowledged is that liberal ways of organising needed industrialisation to proliferate.

What is also worth exploring are the circumstances under which ways of organising transition from one to another through the evolution of societal institutions, and the circumstances under which the transition occurs when those institutions are supplanted abruptly. I will be exploring these subjects because understanding the past relationship between developments in industrial practice and changes to society’s institutions can lend insight into the future of these relationships. Ultimately, I hope to show why I believe the 4th industrial revolution will have a profoundly different effect on how society is organised to the four revolutions that preceded it; why the agricultural revolution and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd industrial revolutions liberalised, while the 4th may illiberalise.

Cooperation, and the organisation that comes of it, can be said to have derived first from genetic relatedness, and transitioned towards a state where it derived more from reciprocal relations, such as barter. A tenet of liberalism is moving beyond this former, tribalistic means of organisation in favour of furthering the latter reciprocals means.

While there were of course reciprocal relations entailed in premodern organisations (tribes granted protection to their members), the structures (a.k.a. hierarchies) of these organisations were determined foremost by factors such as lineage. This is opposed to liberal organisations, where the structures not only encompass reciprocal relations, but where the structures themselves are predominantly composed of reciprocal relations.

To put this in other words, the position of a member of a liberal society is—unless they are a government official—based solely on the contractual relationships they are engaged with. Liberal principles—such as hierarchies being based on merit—enable networks of transactional relationships to form efficiently. Liberalism allowed for prosperity and innovation that were not possible within the premodern paradigm. As well as the principle of merit-based hierarchies, other liberal principles, often enshrined by constitutions, include universal property rights. The absence of socially equitable principles in premodern ways of organising meant that there was little mediation other than might making right. Developments that stemmed from the rational thinking so characteristic of the liberal paradigm were often obstructed in the premodern era. Famously, those such as Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei—who sought to test the bounds of our metaphysical understanding—were seen as threats to the premodern order and were suppressed accordingly.

Liberal ways of organising society proliferated in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, although the genesis of its concepts can be traced back as far as even the Renaissance. The crucible of liberal ideas was an underground intellectual network facilitated discretely in scientific academies, literary salons, and Masonic lodges, so as to be hidden from the premodern powers of monarchy and the Catholic Church. Liberalism developed gradually, and in revolutionary leaps; where it was known to be liberalism, and where it wasn’t.

It is not always possible to define when a society became liberal: When the United States seceded from the British Empire in the 18th century, revolutionary leaders used liberal philosophy as justification, even though the British Empire had been an earlier adopter of a number of liberal principles. At that time Britain had incorporated liberalism insofar as replacing mercantilism with free trade, and absolute monarchy with rule of law; American revolutionaries took those concepts further, as well as enshrining new liberal principles, such as the consent of the governed, and secularism. Although revolutionary America was not the first leap liberalism had made, it was the first time Liberalism, in and of itself, had been used as the primary basis for a society to be organised by; before liberal principles had merely been incorporated into existing structures.

It is hard to imagine that the great European powers would have run the risk of allowing an alternative way of organising a free trial any closer than the entire North Atlantic away. It would take an opportune circumstance for liberal ideas to emerge unabashedly onto the political landscape in Europe. After the American Revolutionary War, France—then the most populous nation in Europe (excluding Russia)—had spread herself thin contesting with rival empires; in 1780, 43% of her revenue went towards servicing debt. While private collectors were being enlisted to shake down an exhausted, demoralised citizenry for newly invented taxes, the lives of the elite of premodern France were quite visibly unphased by circumstances.  

The culminating revolution came infused with the liberal ideas that had been hiding beneath the surface and among the growing middle class: Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité. Revolutionary France now had the trappings of liberalism in the form of social reforms that were unprecedented, or 2nd only to ancient Greece. Although France was now seen as the torch bearer of liberalism, Britain had, centuries before France, begun incremental liberal reforms—so why then was France regarded a liberal society and Britain a premodern one?

Following despotic rule under King John of England and disastrous wars in the early 13th century which culminated in the collapse of the Angevin Empire (England, western France, and portions of Wales and Ireland), liberal notions that the power of the crown should be bound from beneath were rife. Following King John’s defeat by King Philip II of France, he was forced by a group of powerful barons (major landlords) to put his seal on various articles in return for the barons renewing their oaths of fealty. The document that was created to formalise and record the agreement was the original Magna Carta, which entailed that there would be various bounds on a king’s power, rather than there being his mere will in absolute.

Most notable of the clauses in Magna Carta was clause 61, the “security clause”, which allowed a group of twenty-five barons to override a king. Soon after the adoption of the document, relations broke down and open warfare broke out between the King and rebel barons. The rebel barons initially tried to prop up the son of Philip II of France as the new ruler of England, but after King John passed away, and his son promised to rule by Magna Carta (albeit with some omissions such as the security clause) rebel barons gradually reunited with loyalists to push the French out of England. This was the first of many episodes of upheaval (all of which occuring before the French Revolution) that culminated in liberal reform in England.

While many of these reforms were social insofar as they extended rights to more people, the rights that were won mostly pertained to financial sovereignty: barons wanted primacy over their lands; merchants wanted to trade internationally (i.e. to adopt free trade instead of mercantilism); labourers wanted to be compensated and not coerced. The notion of an ordinary person having the same rights to own property (e.g. capitalism) as one of the landed gentry, and the notion of trade with another nation having the same ease as internal trade, are defining characteristics of liberalism.

 The advent of a capitalist class (which increasingly overlapped with the landed gentry, who had been anointed by premodern power) brought about by the coupling of liberalism and industrialisation was, unlike in France, not a disruptive manifestation of liberalism. Although the doctrine of liberalism was at odds with the premodern order of Britain, it could, with some compromise, be integrated into the premodern order in parts, and even form a synergy. Even Britain’s Glorious Revolution of 1688—which saw great upheaval to cement both the primacy of parliament over monarchy, as well as the primacy of the more-liberal Protestantism over Catholicism—ultimately entailed only the modification of existing institutions; by contrast the revolution in France one century later entailed the destruction of existing institutions. This was due to: (1) The manifestations of liberalism in Britain pertaining primarily to financial matters, and those in France pertaining primarily to social matters: liberalism’s financial tenets could coexist, and even thrive, alongside premodern power, granted concessions from either, whereas liberalism’s social tenets could not be fulfilled until the authority of premodern power was replaced. (2) While British politics had had some of the earliest liberal influences, those influences had developed through a series of episodes spanning centuries, rather than mostly through a single, seismic event, as in France. As such, Britain was a premodern society for the time being.

 As industrial practices evolved, power began to derive foremost from industry, and advances in industry developed most where liberal principles—such as rationalism, meritocratic hierarchy, and universal property rights—were embraced. At the same time, societal transformations consequential of industrialism (such as urbanisation and specialisation) were creating environments where liberalism’s more egalitarian manifestations (e.g. democracy) could proliferate and evolve.

 As such, it could be said that not only was liberalism conducive of industry, but that industry was conducive of liberalism. In places like Britain and Prussia—where it was more so financial pursuits that led to social reform—liberalism developed gradually within the premodern order—a relic of this being that the UK is still, at least nominally, a monarchy. Whereas in France and the US—where it was more so social reform that then enabled financial pursuits—liberalism manifested in direct opposition to the premodern order (a.k.a. in France, the Ancien Régime). While many would frame the liberal movement towards more reciprocal ways of organisation as the product of a collective conscious will for a more egalitarian way of being, it could be argued that it is no coincidence that liberalism proliferated at a time when advancements in industry increased the imperative for reciprocal relations in a near-exponential manner. While the pursuits of disenfranchised peasants, an increasingly-large, curious middle class, and dissident theologians had sparked liberalism, it is the industrial imperatives for liberalism that would carry it forward to become the pervasive paradigm of the West.

 ]That liberalism formed the left wing when it appeared in the National Assembly in France, and has for the past few decades characterised most of the Western right wing, is testament to how much the political landscape has evolved throughout the course of industrialisation. While the shift of liberalism from left to right is in part because it became relatively more right-wing as premodern ways of organising faded and later modern ideologies such as socialism manifested, the primary driver of liberalism’s rightwards shift was industrialisation. Before the implications of the agricultural revolution and Industrial Revolutions took hold, the financial freedom of capitalism (one of the core tenets of liberalism) meant it was commercially feasible for the smallest of landowners to own a means of production through their land ownership alone. This was a monumental change seeing as before capitalism ownership of the means of production, agricultural and otherwise, had been permitted only to the anointed aristocrat class.

 Capitalism had at first been an equitable force—allowing common men the same property rights as premodern aristocrats, and hence distributing ownership more equitably. However, industrialism evolved the nature of capitalism; factories and large agriculturalists who could afford new equipment, such as the threshing machine, outcompeted their earlier less-industrious counterparts. As industrial and agricultural processes became more elaborate due to industrialisation, economies of scale took hold, capitalism in conjunction with industrialisation reconcentrated ownership of the means of production by economic factors.

 That there was now a financial imperative towards developing industry and concentrating ownership, but that this process of concentration led to major inequalities when left to itself, set the stage for liberalism’s later sibling, socialism. That industrialisation drastically evolved sentiments towards liberalism, and that it enabled socialism, demonstrates that the prevalence of political ideas among a people is very much relative to the given material circumstance.

 This is why the 4th Industrial Revolution offers a seismic change to material circumstances across the globe.

The first two industrial revolutions were machine-driven—steam power mechanised the means of production, and electrical power enabled mass production. The Third was defined by automation and data-enhanced production. While we have seen automated machines at checkouts and in car factories for some decades now, these are the machines of the Third industrial revolution, not the Fourth. Blind to the world, these one-trick machines are only cost effective in highly specific situations. They are automated, but they are not autonomous. In each of the first three industrial revolutions, workers were made more effective, despite disruption. They could work faster (assembly lines), put in longer hours (artificial lighting), and work more efficiently, doing the work of several people, as basic human tasks had been automated.

While these first three industrial revolutions displaced many people from their work, the vacuums left were soon saturated by new, more-specialised labour demands—new work that stemmed from the innovation that had displaced the old work.

At its most revolutionary, the Fourth industrial revolution is the introduction of self-learning artificial intelligence into the workforce. That the new AI are self-learning introduces to us the conundrum of to which degree the imminent 4th industrial revolution will follow the trend of displacing work and replacing it with more-specialised work, and to what degree it will simply displace work. Whether the less-severe former case or the more-severe latter case better depicts the future of the developed world, the disruption will likely be much greater than in previous industrial revolutions.

Even in less-severe case, where the gaps in labour are by-and-large refilled, the gaps could take longer to refill than in previous industrial revolutions. In the previous industrial revolutions, labour that stemmed from disruptive industries was available immediately to those whose labour had been disrupted (e.g. farm labourers becoming factory workers). There was also labour that stemmed from new lines of work becoming economically viable due to decreased costs of living, but this took time to propagate (the time for decreased prices to circulate, and the time for innovation to occur given the now cheaper factors of production). During previous industrial revolutions, the work that filled the disruption-made gaps in labour was usually in the newly created disruptive industries.

The relatively small amount of human work that will stem from the disruptive industries of the 4th industrial revolution (e.g. machine learning engineers) will be specialised to the degree of being inaccessible to the vast majority of displaced labourers; nearly all the work that can fill the disruption-caused gaps that will come of the 4th industrial revolution would have to be from new lines of work (e.g. non-famous social media influencer) becoming economically viable due to decreased cost of living. Seeing as most of the possible new work would be of the sort that takes longer to materialise, in the most stable case where there is new work, the disruption should still have a longer impact on society than in previous industrial revolutions. 

Transport will likely be the first major area of employment to be completely altered by autonomous automation. Self-driving cars have already travelled hundreds of thousands of miles up and down the California coast and through cities, and legislators in European states, such as Ireland, have bills being drafted. There are, however, still a considerable number of edge cases that need ironing out for autonomous driving, such as distinguishing between leaves and birds, and taking other drivers, AI or human, into account in niche scenarios. Beyond that it is only a matter of instilling confidence in the public, so as to induce legislators to allow and consumers to buy the autos.  

Once a successful precedent is set in one region it is most probable that others will fall into step. Some jurisdictions may resist the autos and their displacement to transports workers at first due to political pressure from unions and populists. However, the history of the past couple of centuries is filled with workers and unions who fought technology that would replace them, and the most successful only delayed the inevitable—as always, the draw towards what is most financial efficient is incredibly deterministic. The wave of displacement on our horizon will not stop at blue collar work; to what degree the displacement will affect white collar work is another conundrum that determines the magnitude of the impact of the 4th industrial revolution.

A great portion of the work that would be available would be, partially or fully, available online. There would no longer be a necessity to live nearby an urban centre to participate in highly specialised work.

As autonomous AI replaces workers, businesses in the revolutionised fields will become much more scalable, and the number of businesses will thin out as a result. Ownership of much of the economy in the developed world would become concentrated like never before. Despite all this concentration, certain parts of the economy would become more decentralised (both in access to work and ownership). The parts of the economy that would become more decentralised would be those which have had their gatekeeper undermined by the disruption: The flagship example of this is the supplanting of formal third level education by online learning. It is not a bold claim that most work will be gig work after the advent of the 4th industrial revolution.

Without a doubt, the replacement of more concrete forms of employment will cause demands for new social securities. Financially feasible employment would be elusive for a time until the factors of production made cheaper by the 4th industrial revolution result in new work. For the duration of labour disruption, most goods and services would have become cheaper (in cases even orders of magnitude cheaper). As such, a universal basic income seems like the most probable measure to deal with matters—covering both the unemployed and the less lucrative sections of the greatly-enlarged gig economy. Due to the drop in prices as the 4th industrial revolution takes hold, a UBI should be able to cushion the accompanying disruption quite handily—at least initially.

It is hard to imagine though, for various reasons, that the universal part of the UBI would remain intact as time goes on. Nature abhors a vacuum: It would be against human nature for birth rates not to increase given the new state of material comfort and free time. Although sociocultural factors would likely by then have led great parts of the population to have little or no interest in reproduction, those who do have an interest would come to the fore demographically, in a few generations if given the liberty. Humans have demonstrated in the past — namely after the agricultural revolution — how fast populations can grow while basic resources remain in abundance. It is hard to imagine that this same instinct would not manifest, and it is harder yet to imagine that the state of this abundance wouldn’t become saturated if so. It seems we as a species tend towards an equilibrium of scarcity when left to our own devices — when there is an abundance, we spread ourselves and when there is too little we retract, often tragically.

Those who come to the fore demographically are more inclined to have a strong sense of ethnic identity. As the abundance of resources made available by the 4th industrial revolution are saturated, it would only be natural for ethnic rivalry to arise. Certain states would offer much more comfortable UBIs than others, and resentment would grow towards financially motivated migrants.

There would seem to be no incentive for the late-liberal leaderships of western societies to facilitate major population growth. A powerful narrative already exists that the uncontrolled masses are a threat to themselves: that they destroy our planet’s environment, become influenced by misinformation and populists, and fail to adhere to public health advice. This expert-ist narrative in conjunction with the collapse of financial imperatives for the liberties of the masses could lead to what I have coined ‘late-liberal authoritarianism’ unless an opposing political movement, revolutionary or not, supersedes the current Western hegemony.

Despite the drastic drop off in the economic usefulness of people, imperatives for liberalism will still exist after the 4th industrial revolution, although they will be far from unanimous. Of the factors determining which societies will come out on top of the 4th industrial revolution, technological advancement must be the greatest. To be at the technological cutting edge requires at least select liberties.

A great example of this imperative manifesting is as follows — For over a decade, one of the most, if not the most, restrictive regime in the World, North Korea, has allowed a surprising degree of liberty to their ‘cyber warriors’. These young men are hand-picked from school and granted liberties in travel, internet access, and lifestyle that ordinary North Koreans would not recognise — this is done because these measure are necessary for them to have the necessary exposure to be at the cutting edge. As an example, on a much grander scale: Shenzhen, China’s tech capital, has been granted nationally exceptional liberties for the past half century. Save knocking the odd tech tycoon into place, it would seem that the CCP is not planning on reeling back this selectively-liberal bubble, but doubling down on it: by expanding it into a greater bay area that will encompass a number of cities, and give Silicon Valley a good run for its money. 

If the current Western regime (Biden, Macron, and the others considered centre-left and centre-right) is to survive the social turmoil that will proceed and ensure the next industrial revolution, it is my belief that we will find ourselves in late-liberal authoritarianism. Liberalism would be done away with in most practical forms while being preserved as the official culture. It would be late-liberalism because it would grant itself meaning with the same narrative of individual emancipation as classical liberalism, although in practical terms it would bear little resemblance to this ancestral ideology. The most lavish rights (e.g. rights of transgender people not to be referred to incorrectly) would be enshrined despite the much more fundamentally liberal freedom of expression being sacrificed. Many rights would be lost in order to ‘put an end to hate’ and ‘ensure the safety of our democracy’.

For the regime to push through changes the defiant spirit of liberalism would be resurrected by astroturphed dissidents and whistle-blowers to guide consumerised activism. Effective populists would be relentlessly tarred by the official media. The dissident right would be relegated to the depths of cyber space, away from the watchful eye of the state-sponsored algorithm. The progressive left would be allowed to ‘rebelliously’ bargain for more crumbs off the same table, for more equity within the existing framework. The current ‘do whatever suits you’ zeitgeist would reach full fruition, and that narcissism wrapped as self-care would fuel consumerism. Devoid of any collective sense of meaning greater than the self, who is probably financially dependent on UBI, social decay would reach unprecedented heights. Such an environment would render the right as the energetic alternative to the stiff, late-liberal status quo.

As with the evolution from premodern ways of organising to liberal ways of organising — where the evolution occurred more gradually in some places and more abruptly in others — the adjustment from liberalism to whatever is to come next will most likely manifest by a variety of means. It could be feasible for late-liberal regimes to adopt immigration-critical positions as the financial imperatives for the migration of ordinary people comes to an end. 

In terms of what type of societal organising is to come next, it goes without saying that this is the million-dollar question.