About twenty years ago I was visiting an old aunt in Ireland. She asked me: "What is a computer." It took me back. I was very sad for her as she was surrounded by young ones talking about computers and did not know what they were talking about. Along with this I had to for the first time try to put into words what i understood to be a computer. I said it is a machine which can accumulate a lot of information, take commands to sort out this information in many different ways and help conclusions and new ideas be drawn. It was the best I could do. It made me think that computers could be used for the good. But could is the word here. They can also be used for the bad, develop and launch nuclear weapons for example. Iphones can be used to call the emergency medical services or to drive you mad listen to the inane chatter of others and break down the humanity in social life.
Tonight looking at the mass capitalist media on Jobs I have these thoughts.
The coverage is dominated by how good Jobs was at marketing his product. That is how good he was at pushing consumption of his products, at getting people to buy consumer goods, specifically his consumer goods. Hmmmmm. A salesman. There is no explanation as far as I can hear of what the technical scientific aspects of Apple or which Jobs brought to Apple which made these products so desirable. The superficiality of the mass capitalist media is again illustrated.
Jobs is being compared to Ford others. Maybe we should not get too carried away. Ford and his ilk did not make their products, their workers, engineers etc did. Ford and company, their main skill was in getting people to buy their products. Consumerism again. And Hmmmmm again.
I am not saying there are no geniuses in the world. There are, but most times a break through in thought comes on the basis of collective work of many, and on the top of these many comes to stand an individual figure. This was true of Darwin, Marx and all of the great thinkers.
Then there is the other thing. Billions of people in the world are starving. They have never heard of Apple or Jobs probably never will and will never have a chance to use any computer never mind an Apple computer or phone or whatever. To listen to the capitalist media tonight the entire world is in mourning. When as i say the majority of the people of the world have never heard of Jobs.
It is a question of priorities. Feeding, housing, clothing, keeping healthy and educated the people of the world, these are the priorities. Computers have helped in this in some ways. In other ways they have not helped. Under capitalism computers increase the ability of capital to exploit. They also increase the ability of capitalism to raise the productivity of labor but this is at the expense of jobs. Under democratic international socialism computers could be put in their place, under the control of working class people and a democratic socialist world system to help that system give the people of the world a better life.
A true hero is not a Jobs with his multi multi millions of dollars. A true hero is the woman who is fighting to raise her children and is able to use her utterly inadequate resources to try and keep them alive. Real progress in society is not an new and more exotic electronic toy but a changed social and economic system which can give a decent life to all.
Sean.
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