If you measure by market cap, Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft are currently five of the world's seven largest companies. (Saudi Arabia's Aramco and China's Alibaba are the other two.)
As the Wall Street Journal noted this week, these five tech giants are "frenemies" that both collude and compete with each other to dominate global markets for their goods and services. Not to go too Vladimir Ilyich on you but this is what Lenin observed happens when monopoly capitalism prevails, ultimately to the detriment of everyone.
So as we contemplate the current supremacy of American capitalism as well as its potential collapse from the monopolistic excesses of concentrated power, one thought occurs to me:
To the Big Five, there is something you can do about this. Seriously.
I write as a big fan of the technologies your companies have unleashed on the world. As a curious, mostly alert person, it was easy for me to see your rise coming, although at the time none of you existed. But what was clear was that information technology would profoundly alter the world as we knew it in the 1970s.
Visionaries foretold of the "Information Age," which, from a journalist's perspective sounded like the coming of an age of guaranteed income.
That, of course, did not prove to be true, because none of the innovators who created and led the revolution yielding your five companies were journalists or had anything to do with journalism. In fact, the coming of the Internet heralded the death of journalism -- first on the local level, and then spreading upward until the entire fabric of media in our democratic society hangs from the threads of the next steps you Big Five take.
What is desperately needed, from your legions of brilliant workers is not fancier or cooler products or ever-more efficient services, but schemes to break down the concentrations of wealth and power into family sized units, where everybody has a chance at a decent life.
This will require you to tinker with your business models. As if that wren't daunting enough, you must learn to value the many different types of human intelligence. The kind of brain that creates wonderful software code is only one type of brain. It rarely contributes to the art and music and compassion that lead to a holistic human experience. Dolly Parton funded the development of the Covid vaccine, not the Big Five.
In other words, technology development as it is currently constituted transforms the world but leaves the best stuff lying on the table.
The good news is it's not too late to make the world a better place. But you need to hire different people, different brains, different ways of seeing and hearing and feeling.
Most of all you need a massive dose of empathy. And that one essential human quality is the one I've found most lacking during my travels through your new world of tech as you've become dominant since the early 1990s.
Our collective survival clock is ticking. You are programming that clock. You have the power but you don't have the answers.
P.S. Apologies there are no bullet points or power point slides to illustrate this essay. I don't do those. If this story seems to make no sense to you, that is the point.
***
In 1995, the world's five largest companies by revenue were GM, Ford, Exxon, Wal-Mart, and AT&T.
The news:
* Family and friends were concerned that suspect was unraveling before Capitol attack (WaPo)
* The community colleges largely serving low-income, Black and Latino students are reeling, and experts worry that inequality in education will increase. (NYT)
* Kerry: U.S. 'hopeful' it can work with China to tackle climate change (Reuters)
* Surprising Nugget From the WHO Report: Most Early Covid Cases in Wuhan Had No Connection to Market (NPR)
* As coronavirus infections and vaccinations surge, hope collides with dread (WaPo)
* Deadly breach could delay decisions about Capitol fencing (AP)
* The St. James Theatre in New York on Saturday became the first Broadway theater to open its doors since the coronavirus pandemic shut down performance venues more than a year ago. (CNN)
* Fully Vaccinated Americans Can Travel With Low Risk, C.D.C. Says (NYT)
* Canada’s variant-fueled covid-19 surge prompts new restrictions as officials report younger people getting sick (WaPo)
* Saving Endangered Bonobos Teaches A Lesson In Empathy --At an animal sanctuary in the Congo, young students are learning why the gentle, endangered apes known as bonobos should be seen as a national treasure. (NPR)
* Few in GOP rush to defend Gaetz amid sex trafficking probe (AP)
* Democrats should end Iowa and New Hampshire’s political monopoly (Editorial Board/WaPo)
* Apprehensions at Border Reach Highest Level in at Least 15 Years (NYT)
* Births among endangered right whales highest since 2015 (AP)
* Wreck of WWII ship led by heroic Native American found, Navy says (WaPo)
* Robot artist sells art for $688,888, now eyeing music career (AP)
* Unused Student Loans? Here’s the Smart Thing to Do -- Schools make it easy to return excess loan money, and it will save you money in the long run (WSJ)
* HP, Dow, Under Armour among nearly 200 companies speaking out against voting law changes in Texas, other states (WaPo)
* Colorado child finds 68-million-year-old T-rex tooth while hiking (CNN)
* ‘They’re Doing Something To The Street,’ Reports Nation Staring Out Window (The Onion)
No comments:
Post a Comment