The Corporate Elite Playbook: From Globalization to AI Automation

The corporate and economic elite's playbook has not changed. Not from when globalisation was causing economic disruption, and not now that artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape the labour market. The script is the same. Only the technology has changed.

How Globalisation Was Sold

In the early 2000s and 2010s, globalisation was sold with four core promises:

• Displaced workers would land higher-value jobs.
• Retraining programmes would move people up the value chain.
• Overall employment would grow.
• Cheaper goods would stimulate more hiring.

The results tell a different story. Workers displaced by offshoring still earn 9 to 12 per cent less years later. One third of wage losses stem from accepting lower-paying positions. Manufacturing decline devastated local economies, with lasting damage to regional wages.

The elite pocketed increased profits while accepting zero accountability for their failed promises to average workers.

The AI Work Week Deception

Now they are recycling the same script. Zoom CEO Eric Yuan recently told the New York Times that AI will make five-day work weeks obsolete: "Every company will support three days, four days a week." Nvidia's Jensen Huang echoed similar claims about AI enabling four-day work weeks across industries.

The language matters. Yuan says employers will "support" reduced work weeks. Here is the likely reality behind the marketing:

• Three-day work weeks paired with 33 per cent pay cuts.
• Extended daily hours, roughly 9.5 hours across three days.
• Loss of full-time status below 30-hour thresholds.
• Part-time employees forced to cover their own health insurance costs.

Why the Money Does Not Add Up

While company profits skyrocket with reduced labour costs, employees' fixed expenses do not adjust accordingly. Rent, mortgage payments, utilities, and groceries increase with inflation whether you work four days or five. The gap between reduced income and increased living costs creates immediate and long-lasting financial pressure on families and communities.

The Pattern

This mirrors the globalisation promises exactly. Corporate leaders present technological change as inevitable progress that benefits everyone. They emphasise worker liberation, more free time, less burnout, while obscuring the economic reality of reduced compensation and benefits.

The fundamental dynamic remains: technological advancement increases corporate efficiency and profits while shifting financial risk to individual workers. The rhetoric of empowerment masks a transfer of economic security from employees to shareholders.

The Core Issue

These are not predictions about technological possibilities. They are strategic communications designed to normalise upcoming labour market changes that primarily benefit capital owners. When CEOs publicly advocate for reduced work weeks, they are preparing the ground for policies that will be presented as worker-friendly while fundamentally restructuring employment to their advantage.

The pattern is clear: promise liberation, deliver precarity.

This is why the conversation around who actually represents working people matters so much. And it is why the public's role in demanding accountability from elected officials is not optional. It is the only counterweight.