The Great Reset: World Economic Forum Davos Confirms Your Enslavement

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https://mises.org/wire/dystopian-fourth-industrial-revolution-will-be-very-different-first-one

The Dystopian "Fourth Industrial Revolution" Will Be Very Different
from the First One

11/17/2020 Antony P. Mueller

Listen to the Audio Mises Wire version of this article.

If one takes the publications of the World Economic Forum (WEF) as an
indication of how the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” will change
society, the world is facing a massive onslaught against individual
liberty and private property. A new kind of collectivism is about to
emerge. Like the communism of the past, the new project appeals to the
public with the assurance of technological advancement and social
inclusion. Additionally, ecological sustainability and the promise of
longevity or even immortality are used to entice the public. In
reality, however, these promises are deeply dystopian.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution

According to Klaus Schwab, the founder and current executive chairman
of the WEF, the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (2016) represents a new
stage of the disruptive technological advances that began toward the
end of the eighteenth century with the textile industry and the use of
steam power. The Second Industrial Revolution took place in the
decades before and after 1900. It created a plethora of new consumer
goods and production technologies that allowed mass production. The
third Industrial Revolution began around 1950 with the breakthroughs
in digital technologies. Now, according to Klaus Schwab, the fourth
Industrial Revolution means that the world is moving toward “a true
global civilization.”

The fourth Industrial Revolution provides the potential “to robotize
humanity, and thus compromise our traditional sources of meaning—work,
community, family, identity.” Schwab predicts that the fourth
Industrial Revolution will “lift humanity into a new collective and
moral consciousness.”

Transhumanism is part of the transformation that comes with the fourth
Industrial Revolution, as artificial intelligence (AI) will surpass
even the best human performances at specific tasks. The new
technologies “will not stop at becoming part of the physical world
around us—they will become part of us, Schwab declares.

In the foreword to Schwab’s latest book, Shaping the Future of the
Fourth Industrial Revolution (2018), the CEO of Microsoft, Satya
Nadella, states that the evolution of the new technologies “is
entirely within our power.” Microsoft and the other high-tech
companies “are betting on the convergence of several important
technology shifts—mixed reality, artificial intelligence and quantum
computing.”

Satya Nadella informs readers that Microsoft, Amazon, Google,
Facebook, and IBM will cooperate in an AI partnership that will work
to develop and test the technology in fields such as “automobiles and
healthcare, human-AI collaboration, economic displacement, and how AI
can be used for social good.”
All-Embracing Transformation

In the preface to his latest book, Klaus Schwab predicts that the
fourth Industrial Revolution will “upend the existing ways of sensing,
calculating, organizing, acting and delivering.” He states that “the
negative externalities” of the present global economy harm “the
natural environment and vulnerable populations.”

The changes that come with the new technologies will be comprehensive
and will topple “the way we produce and transport goods and services.”
The revolution will upset how “we communicate, the way we collaborate,
and the way we experience the world around us.” The change will be so
profound that the advances in neurotechnologies and biotechnologies
“are forcing us to question what it means to be human.”

Like Satya Nadella’s foreword, Schwab’s text reiterates several times
the claim that the “evolution of the fourth Industrial Revolution” is
“entirely within our power” when “we” use the “window of opportunity”
and drive for “empowerment.” The “we” that both authors speak of is
the global technocratic elite that calls for central control and state
interventionism (called “shaping the future”) in a new system that is
characterized by intimate cooperation between business and government,
or, more specifically between high tech and a handful of key states.

The World Economic Forum’s webpage about the “Great Reset” proclaims
that “the Covid-19 crisis” presents “a unique window of opportunity to
shape the recovery.” At the present “historic crossroads,” the world
leaders must address “the inconsistencies, inadequacies and
contradictions” ranging from healthcare and education to finance and
energy. The forum defines “sustainable development” as the central aim
of the global management activities.

The “Great Reset” calls for global cooperation to attain goals such as
“harnessing the fourth Industrial Revolution,” “restoring the health
of the environment,“ “redesigning social contracts, skills, and jobs,”
and “shaping the economic recovery.” As thematized at the October
20–23, 2020, “Jobs Reset Summit,” a “green recovery” from the covid-19
crisis promises a “green horizon.” The WEF summit in January 2021 will
specifically address the transformations that are to come. The main
topics include “stable climate,” “sustainable development,” a “zero
carbon” economy, and agricultural production that would reduce cattle
farming in tune with the global reduction of meat consumption.
The Alternative

The rise of living standards together with the growth of the world
population became possible because of the Industrial Revolution. Those
who want to bring down capitalist society and the economy must
necessarily opt for declining living standards and depopulation. The
promoters of the plans to bring about a new world order with the force
of the state negate that radical capitalism could much better provide
the means to move to a better world, as has been the case since the
inception of the First Industrial Revolution.

What brought about the industrial revolutions of the past were free
markets and individual choice. As Mises explains, it was the
laissez-faire ideology that produced the First Industrial Revolution.
There was a spiritual revolution first that brought an end to “the
social order in which a constantly increasing number of people were
doomed to abject need and destitution” and where the manufacturing
activity “had almost exclusively catered to the wants of the
well-to-do” and their “expansion was limited by the amount of luxuries
the wealthier strata of the population could afford.”

The ideology of the World Economic Forum is that of the preindustrial
era. While the website of the forum (WEF) teems with terms like
“power,” “organization,” and managed “sustainable development,”
concepts like “freedom,” “market coordination,” and “individual
choice” are blatantly absent. The forum hides the fact that instead of
human progress, impoverishment and suppression is the future of
humankind. The implicit consequence of the planned “ecological
economy” is the drastic reduction of the world population.

With the abolishment of markets and the suppression of individual
choice, which the collectivist plans of the WEF propound, a new dark
age would come. Different from what the planners presume,
technological progress itself would come to a standstill. Without the
human creativity that springs from the mindset of individualism, no
economic progress has ever been possible.
Conclusion

The new technologies that come with the fourth Industrial Revolution
can be of immense benefit to humankind. The technologies per se are
not the problem but how they are used. A dystopian future awaits us if
the global elite of the World Economic Forum has its say. The result
would be a technocratic terror regime masked as a benevolent world
government. Yet there is an alternative. As widely proven over the
past two hundred years, free markets and individual choice are the
sources of technological advancement, human progress, and economic
prosperity. There are no rational reasons to presume that the fourth
Industrial Revolution would require collectivism. Free markets are the
best way to cope with the challenges that come with new technologies.
Not less but more capitalism is the answer.