p Sergei Dalin, D. Sc. (Econ.)

p The scientific and technological revolution is having an immense impact on the process of capitalist reproduction. It has swept simultaneously every branch of industry, agriculture, transport, communications, and every field of science. It is developing both in the capitalist and socialist countries, but with diametrically opposed socio-economic effects in each case.

p Because of its universal nature, the sweeping advance of science and technology gives rise to numerous theoretical problems. Thus, the self-contradictory process of the economic growth and decay of capitalism has again become a question of current interest.

p Lenin described the decay of capitalism as one of the tendencies characteristic of its monopoly stage, observing that “in some branches of industry, in some countries, for certain periods of time, it gains the upper hand".  [173•1  At the same time, Lenin pointed out that “it would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of capitalism".  [173•2  This statement is of paramount importance also to the analysis of modern capitalism in general, for it has to do with the intensification of historical development, with the rapid growth of the antagonisms that are driving capitalism to its doom. Neither the numerous theories on the stagnation of capitalism nor the claim that Lenin’s conclusion has lost its relevance since the Second World War have been confirmed by practice.

p The scientific and technological revolution has proved once again the truth of Lenin’s teaching that capitalism develops more intensively at the imperialist stage, which by no means rules out the possibility of some industries, and even some countries, having periods of decay and stagnation. The dialectics of the scientific and technological revolution consists precisely in the fact that it has sharply accentuated the uneven development of capitalism. Thus, Japan has demonstrated high growth rates, while Britain’s post-war development has, on the contrary, been sluggish and marked by frequent periods of stagnation.

p Among the driving forces of the scientific and technological revolution, as it develops under capitalism, the monopolies’ effort to lower production costs by cutting down expenditure on labour has turned out to be one of the most significant. The more the working class gains in its struggle and the higher wages become, the more the monopolies strive to cut the total wage bill by reducing, whether absolutely or relatively, the number of people employed.

p The period from 1964 to 1972 is characterised by intensive scientific and technological progress. But despite the growth of industrial production in all the imperialist countries, the level of unemployment did not fall but, if anything, actually rose. The number of jobless workers increased from 413,000 in 1964 to 595,000 in 1969 in Britain, from 114,000 to 222,000 respectively in France, from 157,000 to 182,000 in West Germany, from 549,000 to 672,000 in Italy, from 324,000 to 385,000 in Canada, and from 370,000 to 611,000 in Japan. In the United States alone, on account of the Vietnam war and expansion of the war industries, which absorbed additionally over a million unemployed, joblessness at times slightly decreased. Nevertheless, by the close of 1970, it had again reached six per cent—a record figure for the past ten years, which means that over five million American workers were out of jobs.

p Thus, while scientific and technological advance enormously boosts labour productivity, it also results in fewer jobs, both in absolute and relative figures. And although this tendency is restrained by the growth of new-type industries, services and the state apparatus, the general result of the scientific and technological revolution in capitalist society is greater unemployment, which is a constant menace to the working class. This revolution becomes the chief instrument of attack on the working class and a means of greater capitalist exploitation.

p The scientific and technological revolution in the capitalist world is greatly influenced by rising competition in the world markets. The advantage the United States has in this respect is its higher efficiency of production, which is offset by the fact that in the European capitalist countries and Japan the workers are paid lower wages as compared with the United States. In recent years the European and Japanese workers have won higher wages through class battles, and the positions of the European and Japanese monopolies in the world markets have come to depend on the competition with the United States for technological superiority. Hence the drive for research and new inventions in which some European capitalist countries and Japan have already moved ahead of the United States in certain industries, e.g., in shipbuilding, railway transport and electronics. The scientific and technological revolution thus intensifies the uneven economic and political development of the capitalist countries, and this leads to an aggravation of the contradictions of imperialism.

p And lastly, a major part in this revolution is played by the antagonism between imperialism and the world socialist system, by the economic contest between capitalism and socialism. Science and technology today form the arena for the economic competition between the two opposed socioeconomic systems.

p The first artificial satellite was launched by the Soviet Union in October 1957; the system of education in the United States was reformed; there, and in other capitalist countries, government appropriations to research were sharply stepped up. The financing, management and co- ordination of research have now become another expression of state-monopoly capitalism.

p The imperialists seek to use the achievements of science and technology, above all, for the arms race. Nearly 90 per cent of total US budget appropriations to research is intended for military purposes. As a result, the better-qualified and more talented scientists and engineers are concentrated in the war industry while the civilian industries suffer from a shortage of scientific and technical personnel, by reason of which they lag behind the war industries.

p The effect of the scientific and technological revolution on the capitalist economy is of a highly contradictory nature. While increasing production capacity, it simultaneously brings down employment, absolutely or relatively, and 176 increases the discrepancy between production and consumption. As a result, the scientific and technological revolution is accompanied by a growing chronic below-capacity operation of factories in all capitalist countries. In the interest of the monopolies, governments try to reduce such below- capacity operation by placing orders for armaments, which put a heavy burden on the tax-payers.

p The scientific and technological revolution requires better-educated workers, and this is conducive to a levelling-up of mental and physical labour. Yet, the capitalist system still hinders the spread of education among the masses. For instance, in the United States the cost of college education, including tuition fees, amounts to $4,000 a year, or a total of $16,000-20,000, which is well beyond the means of the great majority of industrial workers, farmers and office workers. Moreover, for lack of means a large proportion of their children cannot complete secondary school, dropping out because they have to earn. Thus, while the scientific and technological revolution creates a greater demand for secondary-school and college graduates, capitalism deprives a large proportion of young people from working-class families of the qualifications absolutely required under presentday conditions, and thus dooms them to unemployment. At the same time, this revolution promotes the socialisation of research and its concentration at big monopoly or government laboratories, turning scientists into hired employees. It has put once privileged brainwork on the same footing as mass hired labour.

p In agriculture, the scientific and technological revolution has brought bankruptcy to small and even to many of the moderately well-to-do farmers. Of the 5,967,000 farms the United States had in 1945 only 2,976,000 had remained by the end of the sixties. This means that in the past 25 years more than 50 per cent of the country’s farms have been liquidated and their land went to the big farmers. This process is taking place in capitalist Europe as well, though at a slower rate: in West Germany, France and other capitalist countries.

p Under capitalism the scientific and technological revolution has caused a growth of wealth which has not abolished and cannot abolish poverty but does increase economic inequality. The main effect of this revolution on capitalist 177 society is to aggravate the contradiction between the productive forces and relations of production of modern capitalism; far from moderating the contradictions of capitalism, it has heightened them.

p Some bourgeois economists and Right-wing Socialists try to prove that the current scientific and technological revolution is a “second industrial revolution”, heralding a new progressive stage in the development of capitalism, which, they claim, will end poverty. Actually, however, this is not so at all.

p In recent years the main feature of the US economy has been the mounting economic crisis and continued inflation. The years 1969 and 1970 saw a perceptible slump in industrial production, a sharp increase in unemployment, and a skyrocketing of prices for consumer goods and foodstuffs with the result that workers’ real wages have fallen and their living standards worsened. In the USA, the richest capitalist country in the world, where the scientific and technological revolution has made considerable headway, millions of people live below the subsistence level.

The facts described fully corroborate the conclusion L. I. Brezhnev drew in his report of April 21, 1970, that “imperialism has created a vast production machine but this machine serves only to increase the wealth and power of a tiny handful of capitalist magnates. Wherever international big business holds sway, scores and hundreds of millions lead a starved and impoverished existence. Imperialism uses the greatest achievements of technology to intensify the exploitation of millions of working people and to prepare for piratical wars".  [177•1