Читать книгу The Unintended Consequences of Technology - Chris Ategeka - Страница 17

Private ownership of capital has enabled large technology firms to gain monopoly power in product and labor markets. Companies with monopoly powers—like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook—have exploited their position to charge higher prices, pay lower wages to workers, avoid paying their fair share in taxes, and gain unilateral control of who they do or do not want on their platforms.

One of most recent examples is Amazon, one of the most valuable companies in the world, fighting tooth and nail to prevent its workers from forming a union. It's a battle for higher wages and improved working conditions. The company has steadfastly said its “workers don't need any union” (Greene, 2021).

In a capitalist society like the United States, there is great inequality between the owners of capital and those who work for their firms. In the current pandemic of COVID-19, for example, folks who are doing all the heavy lifting (the essential workers) under the harshest conditions are often getting paid minimum wage. Research at the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC, titled a report “The COVID-19 Hazard Continues, But the Hazard Pay Does Not: Why America's Essential Workers Need a Raise” (Brookings Institution, 2021). As Robert Reich, a UC Berkeley professor and former Secretary of Labor pointed out, “Jeff Bezos' [the founder of Amazon] net worth in 2009 was $6,800,000,000 and $200,000,000,000 in 2020; meanwhile the Federal minimum wage in 2009 was $7.25 and is still $7.25” (Reich, 2020).

The following quote appeared in an NPR article, “There Is Rich and Then There Is Bezos Rich” (Zarroli, 2020):

“You probably think 2020 has turned out to be a pretty lousy year, what with the coronavirus pandemic, a global recession and unceasing partisan warfare in Washington.

Then again, you're not Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk.

Thanks to soaring stock prices at Tesla, the company Musk founded, the quirky South African-born entrepreneur has seen his personal wealth soar to unimaginable heights of $147 billion [less than a month later this number was $188 billion making him the richest person in the world].

In fact, Musk is one of only five centibillionaires in the world, or someone with a personal fortune exceeding $100 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.”

This is not sustainable. If we have learned anything from nature and the laws of physics, nothing grows forever. Whatever goes up will peak, and then it has to come down! The bottom line is that there are a limited number of resources on this planet. How we share and distribute these resources to all living things is a matter of importance that affects our future, and should affect our conscience. Unbridled capitalism is not sustainable, nor is it humane.