Dear Michael:
While I have been navel gazing on some abstractions, I have let slide
comments on some very good posts, yours among them. Robert Vazola has
raised three very interesting questions which did not receive much feedback.
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Gurstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: futurework <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: ict-4-led <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: August 21, 1998 7:27 PM
Subject: (ICT-JOBS): ICT and corporations (fwd)
>
>
>I'd like to take this final opportunity to raise three points on the ICT
>and jobs issue:
>
>1. New technology or intermediate technology? It was E.F.Schumacher who
>raised powerful arguments in favor of intermediate -- what are now called
>appropriate -- technologies, those which improved on current ways of doing
>things, but which created more jobs per unit investment than the latest
>technologies. I believe Schumacher's arguments continue to carry powerful
>force, although his message has been eclipsed by the current hype over
>ICT, mostly by those who will earn a lot of money from it.
>
>Schumacher noted the "law of the disappearing middle", in which
>middle-level technologies tended to disappear, leaving one with no choice
>but the very old, or the very new. When I went to out to buy a black&white
>monitor last week (which I preferred because they were more comfortable to
>my eyes -- not to mention cheaper), I couldn't find any. They sell only
>color monitors now. Today, I asked around for 30-pin memory chips to
>upgrade my 386, and I couldn't find any either. Neither do they sell the
>older non-PCI video cards anymore. So, I can't upgrade my old computer; I
>have to buy the latest Pentium (and new software, presumably -- no 486s on
>the market either). When my trusty 386 goes (no spare parts anymore...) I
>either have to buy a Pentium or go back to the typewriter.
>
>The whole technology, it seems, was designed so you have to replace all
>your hardware every several years or so. Very wasteful for us users, but
>very profitable for the seller.
Thomas: This is one of the by products of capitalism called growth. This
list has commented many times on the concept of durability as value over
innovativeness. Business cannot listen to this message because it implies a
trend towards a steady state economy which is the anti-thesis of the
capitalistic model. Wait until we run out of something like oil and all the
experts will be there talking about conservation and durability.
>
>Which leads me to my second point.
>
>2. Should corporations control ICT? The moderators' summaries as well as
>many of the panellists have hardly touched on the issue whether the
>responsibility for ICT direction, design and deployment should be left to
>corporations. This has been assumed -- to use Michael Gursteins' analogy
>-- as "default" by some, and as "hardwired" by others.
>
>This is a major omission. Our analytical lenses should focus on
>corporations, particularly those huge enough that their decisions and
>actions impact on millions of people and on whole populations. Considering
>that corporations have come under increasing scrutiny for their role in
>ecological problems as well as in the current Asian financial crisis, and
>considering that they have accumulated over the decades vast powers that
>now exceed those of many states, their hold on ICT should not be taken for
>granted.
>
>Other groups have raised more fundamental and possibly valid issues
>against the corporation itself as a social institution. While it is
>theoretically accountable to its stockholders, who are themselves members
>of the public, the practice has become very different, as the development
>of the stock market has further diluted stockholder interest in corporate
>decision-making, and as institutional investors have become major
>corporate stockholders themselves.
>
>Thus the global corporations of today have become increasingly detached
>from human concerns and accountability, responsible only to themselves and
>to the single measure of corporate fitness: how well they maximize
>profits. While human beings can respond to emotions like love, pity,
>guilt, fear, etc., corporations only respond to the profit-maximizing
>motive (or what in human terms is called greed). I can neither upgrade nor
>repair my PC because it is more profitable for corporations that I buy
>myself a new Pentium instead. Thousands lose work because it is more
>profitable to replace them with machines.
>
>I am raising this issue on this list: have corporations grown too large
>and too powerful for the good of humanity? Shouldn't we take steps to
>curtail their size and power -- particularly their control over very
>powerful technologies including ICT -- and to subsume them under
>human-scale, national- and community-determined goals. I question not only
>"hardwiring" corporate control over ICT and other aspects of our lives,
>but also accepting such control as the "default" mode of society.
Thomas: Corporations have become the third arm of government in that the
induce policies that set directions and sell them through advertising.
Their argument that the consumer votes with the dollar is their rebuttal to
the non democratic effects of decisions made to increase short term profit.
There has been talk that the hidden costs of each product should be included
as well as the features and benefits of each product in their advertising.
Adam Smith's injunction that when both sides are fully informed, a mutually
profitable exchange can be made is neglected by business. The consumer
doesn't know and the seller is not fully informing the buyer, therefore a
rational decision cannot be made.
>
>3. My second point questioned the suitability of the corporation as the
>dominant institution in setting ICT (among other things) direction, design
>and deployment. This third point questions the idea of gain maximization
>as a social (or for that matter global) strategy.
>
>Should we maximize gains or minimize risk? The emergence of the
>corporation as a dominant social institution can perhaps be traced to Adam
>Smith's dictum, that maximizing individual gain tends to maximize the
>gains for society as a whole. Once this idea was accepted, the idea of
>implanting the singular goal of gain maximization in a legal personality
>couldn't be far behind.
>
>Since Adam Smith, this strategy has become not only the "default" but a
>"hardwired" strategy. More than that, other societies who are not
>otherwise inclined to follow such strategy are forced by global rules,
>corporate intrusion, or externally-imposed competition to adopt the same
>strategy.
>
>Practices of traditional societies and more ecologically-adopted
>communities suggest that they tended to adopt a somewhat different
>strategy, in which risk minimization played a bigger role than gain
>maximization.
>
>Risk minimization recognizes limits (zero risk) and encourages cooperation
>(to spread the risk). The strategy is therefore more consistent with
>principles of ecology and social justice. Applied to ICT, it means that
>ICT direction, design and deployment has to answer such questions as: "Do
>they pose risks to some sectors? What kind of risks? How can these risks
>be reduced or minimized?" It means that these issues will be given more
>priority than issues about additional gains, and the voice of those who
>face greater risks from the introduction of ICT must be given greater
>weight in the decision-making. Among the Greens, we have raised this
>strategy to a level of principle, the Precautionary Principle.
Thomas: A very interesting point and one which would turn the commercial
world upside down. In their internal practices of course risk minimization
is considered in any expenditure, so it is not unknown to them. However it
is not generalized out into the greater society because of the need for
"profit" to keep fueling the desire for growth.
>
>One specific proposal that many Green groups have raised is a minimum
>basic income -- a minimum income that the State will guarantee to each
>citizen, whether he/she has a job or not, whether he/she is engaged in the
>corporate sector, the voluntary sector, or in household work. Perhaps,
>this is one among many possible responses to unemployment -- a
>risk-minimizing strategy that takes the edge off the profit-maximizing
>strategies of corporations.
Thomas: It is good to hear your proposed solution, nothing makes me feel
better than when an intelligent person making an assessment agrees with my
conclusion. A Basic Income discussion at the level of government is long
overdue and perhaps our current financial meltdown will finally bring it out
of the backroom as a potential solution.
>
>I will leave it to the economists to prove the hypothesis that risk
>minimization by individuals will also lead towards optimizing
>socio-economic security (ie, low risk) for society as a whole.
>
>Roberto Verzola
>
>
>
>
