Many defenders of capitalism admit the cold-heartedness of capitalism, but they claim the system is, nevertheless, the best because it is efficient. The claim of efficiency for capitalism is pure nonsense. Capitalism has given us traffic jams rather than efficient mass-transit systems; a high percentage of potential industrial output stands idle; the incredible waste of planned obsolescence and duplicated effort; dependence on oil instead of renewable resources; the destruction of our nation's topsoil and aquifers; depletion of wildlife and fish stocks; the burning of the rainforests; the massive production and use of weapons which destroy wealth rather than create it. The list could be extended almost indefinitely.
Self-styled visionaries assert that advances in computer and communications technology will bring about a fundamental and "revolutionary" transformation of society. The prophets of this so-called "knowledge revolution" proclaim that the rapidly developing information superhighway is a liberating technology which will irrevocably transform every aspect of our life-education, culture, politics and even national identification. It's easy to see what they are talking about. The computer has made enormous inroads into the lives of people everywhere. The power of silicon chip has sparked a meteoric rise in productivity. But what revolution?
Capitalism has been modified by "revolutions" in production such as the assembly line, transistors and by the introduction of telephones and television. But these changes haven't altered the system's fundamental operations geared to making profits for the corporations that own the technology. The true meaning of revolution is one class seizing economic and political power from another class. The oracles of the digital age overlook that the new technology does nothing to change underlying relationships of capitalist production. That genuine revolutionary change can't be accomplished by any machine, however, marvelous its technical capabilities. The relationships of production can be changed only by the human agency, by the working class organising to make the technology its own. The capitalist class finds, in the consequences of any new technology, only capitalist issues. A typical proof offered for the supposed revolutionary consequences of computer technology is that it will force a redefinition of property rights. The most valuable computer commodity is software, the labor-intensive product of highly-trained teams of programmers. Once written, software can be reproduced in unlimited quantities. To Silicon Valley, the replicative productivity of the new technology requires legal and technological solutions to ensure that "owners" get compensated for the use of their information. In other words, digital information, which can be made so readily available for use by everyone in society, must be "privatized" by copyright and intellectual ownership to the profit of an owner. Open-source is pushed to the margins, out-competed by brand advertising. When the industrialist hires workers to manufacture his product, that product loses the privacy of ownership that characterizes the work of a lone artisan. It becomes a social product, the product of the collective work of many people. To production by hired workers add the public availability of information with the new communications technology, and it becomes undeniably a social product. The "private ownership" of this intellectual property is a legal fiction. Converting it into the common property of all members of society changes the social nature of the product only by having it lose its class character.
Technocrats of robots and automation understand the new technology, and can even foresee why it will help some people and hurt others. But all the changes they predict amount to nothing more than the flourishing of some industries and the decline of others. Unless there is a fundamental change in the relationship between capital and labor, talk of revolution is pure hyperbole.
People considered "successful" in capitalist society such as Gates and Zuckerman are those who accumulate large sums of money and property. They automatically receive respect, admiration and deference - the very things the poorest people in society, who endure the chronic contempt or pity of society because they have no money, long most to possess. Since the manner in which the rich got their money is secondary to the fact they have it - if it is a concern at all-there is a hazy line between fortunes acquired legally or illegally. The big corporations particularly those in the computer industry are habitual lawbreakers, convicted over and over of violating anti-trust, restraint-of-trade, price-fixing, bribery, workplace-health-and-safety, labour-relations and environmental-protection laws. If they were real persons instead of only legal ones, nearly all would be locked up for life without parole. As it is, corporation executives seldom spend any time in jail, and corporation stockholders don't even have to worry about being accused for their companies' illegal actions that may provide them millions in dividends.
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