5 Worst Things About the Techno-Libertarians Solidifying Their Grasp on Our Economy and Culture
5 Worst Things About the Techno-Libertarians Solidifying Their Grasp on Our Economy and Culture
There's a lot wrong with the tech industry, and it's increasingly impacting ordinary Americans.
By Richard Eskow / AlterNet
April 1, 2015
Nowadays the Silicon Valley is either celebrated as a hotbed of creativity or condemned as a cauldron of greed and wealth inequality.
While there are certainly some talented and even idealistic people in the Valley, there's also an excess of shallow libertarianism, from people who have enriched themselves with government-created technology who then decide they're being held back by government. That's shortsighted and vain. And yes, there are serious problems with sexism and age discrimination – problems which manifest themselves with some ugly behavior.
But such ethical problems aren't solely, or even primarily, the product of individual character defects. They're the result of self-reinforcing cultural norms at work. Anthropologists and sociologists could do worse than study the tech culture of the Silicon Valley. It would be important work, in fact, because this insular culture is having a deep and lasting impact on our economy and society.
Here, to star them off, are five socially destructive aspects of Silicon Valley culture:
1. Tech products become the byproducts of a money-making scheme rather than an end unto themselves.
It's almost inevitable when big money enters the picture: Smart or talented people are drawn to a field for the chance to get rich, not necessarily because it's where their greatest talents or dreams lie. The same thing has happened to fields as diverse as film, pop music, and the financial sector. There's nothing wrong with getting rich, but it should be the byproduct of a happy marriage between talent and inspiration.
But here's how it works instead: The goal of entrepreneurs and innovators was once summed up in the cliched phrase, “build a better mousetrap.” But for many Silicon Valley products and services, including services like Uber and AirBnB, the goal now is to build a product which can be hyped into a multi-billion-dollar valuation – preferably by winning as much market share as possible, and then using that market position to engage in the kinds of practices usually reserved for monopolies and monopsonies (markets in which there is only one buyer). This process is described in more detail here. ..............(more)
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