THE FIFTY YEARS TO COME

I remember an article from the 1970's on the negative impact of automation in economics. No solution was found and things were left as they came. Now most developed countries are hitting the ground and becoming economically slow. More and more people are jobless. My guess is that not only automation is involved in the current economy's downfall. It seems World War II years were the last important techno-scientific revolution span. That happened long ago. On current time humankind is drowning in cars. To me, this is half the problem. Car factories cannot grow anymore or even survive. Building cars and parts appear to be an important segment of global economy. Some kind of tech-revolution should burst from somewhere. If not, a worldwide war might force the change with the risk of returning to past centuries after destroying the current civilization.

Automation and an economy focused on cars are the combination that leads to a failing economy from my viewpoint.

What to do with automation? There are four choices:

• Letting things flow on their own
• Stopping the automation progress (not likely as I see it)
• Developing some kind of welfare-economy led by corporations
• An unexpected correction devised by governments, companies or both

If nothing is done, the world's economy is going to deteriorate every day. A global war might arise or some kind of civilizations-collision could happen. My bet is that a sort of free income will be given to jobless people only by big corporations in the beginning. Then it should  spread to almost every company either big or small. It does not seem a good solution since nobody wants to give money away. So this free emolument should be very short if determined exclusively by the private sector. Therefore it would not boost any economical growth.

Perhaps the impulse to a change is coming from developing countries which are more free to experiment. So this means a different world with the power moving from Europe and The United States to China, India, Brazil and some other. It is already in course...

Forgive some misspelling. English is second language to me. By the way, this is not a translation from Spanish. There is no Spanish document similar to this.