Let The Robots Starve

Good morning.

Let’s get into it.

What Does ‘Let The Robots Starve’ Mean?

I’ve recently launched Let The Robots Starve.

What is it?

I’m not entirely sure yet. It’s something more than a newsletter but something shy of a movement. Though, I would love to see it as the rallying cry of every Main Street business owner who pushes back against private equity, Fortune 500s, and the corporate takeover of our local economies. I’d love to see blue-and-white-collar workers spit it across the room in city council meetings discussing data centers that chew up farm land, harm the local ecology, and feed a beast we know is not serving us.

The phrase Let The Robots Starve, like many other not-quite-complete thoughts I often have, came flying out of my mouth one evening last fall. I had been reading about layoffs, the threat of AI impacting jobs, and more private equity beige-washings in the American Rust Belt. Some Silicon Valley talking head warned that the changes new technologies would bring to the market would leave people “struggling to make ends meet” and could lead to “mass hunger.” As I often do when watching CNN or CNBC, I spouted off and threw up my hands, this time my rebuttal being “then let the robots starve!”

That’s it. I think that’s what Let The Robots Starve is—a rebuttal.

It’s the other side of the argument.

Do we need AI? I don’t know.

But I know we don’t need it to take our jobs.

Do we need private equity? I don’t know.

But I know we don’t need faceless, soulless firms coming into our communities and extracting every nickel they can from the local economy while taking the character, charm, and soul as well. (Damn, can’t they pick just one?)

Do we need chain restaurants and big box retailers and corporate healthcare systems? Again…I don’t know.

But I know we don’t need them more than we need locally-owned businesses and rural hospitals that curate their care to their patients rather than an algorithm or an ever-increasing ROI.

So, yeah, let the robots starve.

Who are the robots?

The literal robots? Yeah. But they’re not the ones making the decisions. They’re not the ones putting their integrity under their pillows at night in hopes of the Profit Fairy swinging by with a bag full of cash.

The real robots are the men and women who wake up every morning and leave their humanity on their own front porch. They protect themselves and their families by making decisions about laying off workers in exchange for a higher share price or quelling fears on an earnings call. They justify stripping retirees of their pensions during corporate bankruptcy as a “business decision.” (As I said a few months ago, It’s Never Just Business.)

When I think about robots, I think about the—sorry for the language, Mom—the ASSHOLES who brought us shrinkflation (paying the same price for less cereal, chips, pharmaceuticals, rent, fill-in-the-blank). Please understand, these people sit in a sharp, sterile office or a glass-walled boardroom and their primary concern is “how do we beat what we did last month/quarter/year?” If they made $1 in profit last quarter, they need to make $1.10 now. How do they do that? They reach their grubby, bony fingers into your pocketbook and pull out just a little more than they did last month. What are they going to give you in return? ……Hmmm? I’ll wait….

I could go on about who the robots are, but your time is more valuable than one of my rants.

Let’s wrap it up like this:

Let The Robots Starve is the beginning.

It’s the beginning of a people-first economy.

It’s the beginning of workers—blue collar, white collar, WFH, RTO, hourly, salary, exhausted, or eager—being seen as more than equals to the corporation. People are why businesses exist.

It’s the beginning of small businesses being the preferred option for as much of our purchasing as possible.

It’s the beginning of pushing back, defending our jobs, and stopping the feeding of technologies, ideas, and companies that don’t prioritize people over absolutely everything else.

Without people, what’s the point?

-AT

Adam Tidrow is a serial entrepreneur, expert in American business and economic history, and scholar whose work focuses primarily on local economic development in the American Rust Belt. His newest project, Let The Robots Starve, is an advocacy movement aimed at restoring the soul of locally-owned businesses that serve local communities. He is currently performing research for his forthcoming book, Baptism By Fire.