A week ago, our southern neighbors in Doña Ana formally approved a huge development project in Santa Teresa near the border. The Jupiter Project, proposed by a large consortium of firms, wants to build an AI data center that will require a loan from the county of some $165 billion for construction (about the total Gross Domestic Product for the state in 2024). It will bring jobs to the county, but it will also need very large amounts of water and electricity. Heath Haussamen at haussamen.com has been writing this past month a series of well researched and balanced considerations on the project, the county’s involvement and vetting process, and the people’s responses. Here is a link to his in-depth look from a month ago; at the end of the article (after the comments) there are links to the more recent articles on various aspects of the discussion during the past month: Developer must guarantee Project Jupiter’s rosy promises.
These valid considerations of transparency and impact are truly important, but there is another consideration, which is what this project tells us about future developments in NM. Apparently, the Jupiter Project has become part of a yet larger data center project called Stargate Project (a consortium organized by Open AI and Oracle, among others). Two days ago, Stargate announced that the Jupiter Project’s center was to form part of its group of data centers, having, apparently, leased the yet unbuilt Jupiter Project. Doña Ana County’s Project Jupiter joins $500 billion Stargate initiative led by OpenAI, Oracle | Business | abqjournal.com.
The questions and concerns that Mr. Haussamen asks will be facing us all as NM is swamped by the power of money. The MAGA attack on international trade and the push for jobs means that in the coming years, companies that have been exploiting cheap labor in smaller and cheaper economies around the world will be looking for cheap labor at home. That means us, an economically small state, one of the poorest states in the union, with birth statistics that puts us with third world countries. We will be a target for worker exploitation.
In case you are uncomfortable with my use of the term “exploitation,” let me explain. Anyone who pays someone for time and labor (“work”) must pay less than what that work is worth. If you work for someone who is trying to make a profit, there is no way that that calculation can be avoided. As my first boss told me on a construction job, “Max, why would I hire you if you cost more than you’re worth?”
There are mitigations, of course. Most of us, unless we ourselves become bosses, need jobs to live, but that doesn’t change the fact that jobs are exploitation. Bosses can pay more or less, can make jobs appealing, can make them more comfortable, can provide benefits of all kinds, but bottom line is that you always get less than the worth of your work. You are being charged for the privilege of working for a living.
The history of work is the history of push and shove between bosses and workers. Sometimes the government favors one side; sometimes, the other. Right now, in America, with a business instead of a government, a boss instead of a president, we are in full exploitation mode. And that makes New Mexico a target for worker exploitation. Cost of living is low here, so people are willing to take a lower salary. We need – or think we need – jobs; so, for the bosses, New Mexico is a win-win place of the future. We’ve just become a third world country within the union.