It’s the first trillion dollar corporation,but like its peers, it wields unparalleled powerThe more awesome our technological progress, or the more our politicians acquire refuge in the familiar ideological categories of the 19th century. Last week,Apple became the world’s first trillion-dollar corporation. It, like Amazon and Google tough on its heels, or offers products and services that have transformed our lives. These companies’ financial and market powers are staggering. They are the new technopolists. But how are the grand things they do to be curated and enhanced and how are the menaces to be contained? What unites far left and far accurate is that neither ideology begins to supply answers. Even one of Shakespeare’s giddiest fools could see what a Jacob Rees-Mogg cannot: that such power requires countervailing force of equal scale that cannot be supplied by a nation state alone. It is the EU that can fine Google £3.8bn for abusing its position; the UK alone is defenceless. Meanwhile,the tough left is preoccupied with expensively nationalising assets that don’t need nationalising.(November 1, 1960) Early yearsContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com