I certainly don''t expect to come up with anything so swell as a theory of gravity. Besides, I'm sitting under a fir tree, not an apple tree. Still, pondering during a time of plague remains popular, and it's pretty near free.
Many science fiction writers and entrepreneurs and I expect the world to be organized rather differently in the future from what we know now. Some, like William Gibson expect a dystopia. Some, Mark Zuckerberg among them, expect the connected world to be better for everyone. I, who look at the world as evolving from smaller to ever-more-inclusive units of identity, expect that there is no pre-determined outcome. Barringthe complete collapse of human societies, which seems more likely during the Covid pandemic than it has for a while, the trend will almost certainly be towards larger units that we rely on for our identities and to provide us services. In the struggles between Google and the European Union, I expect Google to prevail over the long run.
But in the longer run, I must admit that we are only seeing the beginning of really large pan-national organizations. Trying to think of antecedents, the British East India Company comes to mind. If I weren't so lazy I would study it more closely. It's popular these days to denounce imperialism and look at the East India Company as some sort of evil empire at its worse. But, empires are old news. I think that the East India Company's role in exposing the British to the thought of the world beyond Europe. Think, for instance, of Max Muller's Sacred Books of the East project, which introduced me to ideas beyond those of the narrow protestant town in which I was raised. The experience of the empire set the stage for the development of classical liberalism, which was concerned with the rights of all mankind, not the just rights of Englishmen. Those ideas with the more material goods then spread to a world in which they were revolutionary. I suspect that the trade of the East India Company was necessary for the sort of world view that lay behind Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, and it would be such ideas on which reformers from Gandhi to King relied.
Today's multi-nationals, however, dwarf the East India Company in scope and influence. Perhaps none of them are overtly imperialistic as Facebook, but they all are focused on growing both in size and function. Apple long ago quit being Apple Computers and became just Apple, moving into more and more areas of service, most recently health and banking Samsung don't seem to be in the same league as the giants, but it has its own military division. Microsoft and Alphabet (Google) are both led by men who can only be seen as heirs of the British Empire. We might think of Amazon as a store--I can if I want with my voice tell the cute little red cube sitting on the corner of my desk to send me anything the card tied to my Amazon account will allow, but Amazon make most of their money storing data. Indeed, I am typing this
ponder on a computer that I bought from BestBuy through Google Shopping. Despite all of these competitors for influence of my life, I can usually ignore two of the biggest players, Alibaba and Ten Cent, while Walmart, which remains the company with the largest gross revenues, to which I contributed only yesterday, is quickly escaping its brick and mortar fortresses to become a big player in William Gibson's cyberspace.
So, you may wonder, if you have stuck with my meandering this far, what am I pondering, exactly. Well, I am wondering how these empires will survive the death of their founders, and I think I have found some clues/answers already. The most valuable company in the world currently, Saudi Aramco, has the most complicated history of all, having been multi-national and complicated from the beginning. Walmart has not only survived the death of Sam Walton, but has gotten over the 'what would Sam have done?' problem, akin to the 'what would Steve think of this?' question that still hovers over Tim Cook. Apple seems to have had its War of Spanish Succession while Jobs was exiled on Corsica, if I may mix a metaphor. The next similar battle seems always to hover around Zuckerberg at Facebook. Google has had both a Regency and an abdication, and seems to plow on smoothly, making an ever-wider world for right-think.
But I also suspect that these companies, which seem huge, are more like what we nowadays call the 'petty German Principalities' that began to gather power when the printing press and the Reformation rocked--disrupted--Europe and overthrew the hegemony of the Papacy.
Damn, it's a fascinating time to be alive. I suspect that now we see through a glass darkly. I only know in part. Then will I know as I am known to Facebook?
No comments:
Post a Comment