Gian Pablo @ ITP

A dialogue on concentration of wealth, power & the Internet.

Characters:

Pekka: An idealistic young student
Toivonen: A less-idealistic student

Scene:

Somewhere in the East Village

Toivonen: Hey Pekka! Where are you going?

Pekka: To find something for lunch - are you hungry?

Toivonen: Not really, but I will go with you. There are a lot of interesting things to see on the way. Over there, for example, a branch of the New York public library, originally designed to serve German immigrants.

Pekka: Nowadays, new immigrants can just use the Internet.

Toivonen: Perhaps to read newspapers in their own language, and to communicate. I don’t think it replaces books or a place to meet. The library I pointed out became the hub of an immigrant community in this neighborhood, a focus for social life and organization.

Pekka: An online community can become such a hub as well!

Toivonen: I think it can keep new immigrants in touch with their community back home, but not really act as the focus of a new community here. Note how the strongest communities are geographically concentrated. Even the Japanese and Koreans, with great technical sophistication and Internet access, all gather together in clusters…

Pekka: Still, I think the Internet makes the experience of a new immigrant far different from the past. Their ability to stay connected, to be informed, and to influence their living situation is far greater.

Toivonen: That depends on whether they can get on the Intenet at all! Internet café’s are not all that widespread, and still quite expensive here, and the immigrants with the greatest need to organize are not buying computers.

Pekka: Still, they manage to get there. I know of a lot of families that keep in touch with their home country by e-mail and Skype. Even those cheap calling cards you get at grocery stores are made possible by cost reductions driven by the Internet, and VoIP.

Toivonen: And of course, their children do play online games! But what you described, all that does is keep them in touch with their friends & families back home, it does not make them part of a cohesive community here. I don’t think it forsters any kind of political organization or self-determination here.

Pekka: Don't you think the Internet is a powerful democratizing force? It makes it possible for the population at large to be better informed.

Toivonen: But not to take action. You can spend endless hours “researching” many issues, but at the end of the day, your vehicles for action are the same as they always were: vote, write your congressman, spend your money or protest. (Arguably, the first three are roughly equivalent…) If you’re not ending up with one of those four, you’re basically just spinning wheels – in cyberspace. If you care enough about an issue to take action, you probably cared already, before the Internet came along.

Pekka: I don’t agree! I think it makes it possible for committed people to multiply their impact, to get others to take action as well.

Toivonen: Well, you still need committed people in the first place. The Internet doesn’t magically summon them into existence.

Pekka: Perhaps not, but it certainly makes it possible for these committed people to be more easily heard. After all, they can set up a website, a blog and an e-mail newsletter almost effortlessly, with a global reach.

Toivonen: Global reach does not equal a global audience! You can write and publish all you want, but it is no guarantee that anyone will read. Besides, too many voices quickly become noise. People respond more readily to a single loud voice, than the chatter of many. Moreover, it anaesthesizes people, insulates them from the reality, and convinces them that online life is real life, hence precluding real action. Even if you can get people to read, getting them to take action is still difficult.

Pekka: Well, perhaps by moving wealth and power away from the traditional establishment, the Internet creates avenues for social change. Look at all the new wealth that has been created, and put in the hands of young, intelligent people.

Toivonen: I would disagree – the “new” fortunes created by the Internet, and technology in general, have benefited already powerful and educated persons. Look at Bill Gates for example - his father a powerful lawyer, and his mother on the board of Sprint, even before he became wealthy. Most of this wealth has been created by highly educated university graduates (and yes, I know Bill Gates dropped out!), who are already a cultural elite. If you want an example of an industry that has benefited the underprivileged, try hip-hop music! It’s certainly put wealth where there was none before, but hasn’t exactly led to social change…

Pekka: Surely it leads to a more even distribution of wealth, by creating more efficient markets?

Toivonen: On the contrary,it leads to concentration of wealth and power, since competition is fluid & unfettered by geography, dominant players can achieve market positions unthinkable if constrained by geography.

Pekka: But surely, the values of these idealistic young billionaires cannot be corrupted so easily. These are people who understand how the system works, who are driven to create change even before they accumulate wealth.

Toivonen: Even radicals become coopted once they become wealthy, look at Steve Jobs.

Pekka: But coopted into what?

Toivonen: The wealthy seek their own interests, and quickly forget the interests of others. More subtly, if you are a highly-educated, intelligent, wealthy person with a social conscience, you will act from that basis. You will have difficulty understanding the issues of the people you are trying to “help” from their point of view. The very dynamic of social activism driven by the wealthy pushes the “beneficiaries” into a passive position, as simple recipients, and ultimately perpetuates disempowerment.

Pekka: But surely, something like the Gates Foundation can be far more effective than channeling the same amount of money through governments!

Toivonen: Well, a foundation can be more effective because decision making is highly concentrated. However, this power is concentrated in the hands of a wealthy individual, who can do what they think is right, without accountability to the recipients. If they happen to be doing nice things, everyone is happy, but they could change their mind on a whim, and do something else. Also, they may choose to focus their efforts on things that are not actually supported or required by their beneficiaries. Finally, consider this: say a poor African country receives massive grants from the Gates Foundation to implement vaccination programs. It will pretty soon become obvious to their people that it is the foundation, not their government, that has the money and power. This makes the government seem ineffectual, and will lessen people’s interest in trying to influence it. Instead, they will end up begging from the foundation, which has no incentive to respond based on anything other than the founder’s whims.

You may be able to get more people vaccinated in the short term. However, in the longer term, you may make it harder to for people to control their own destiny, by undermining their local institutions.

It reminds me of the EU’s misplaced “charitable donations” of surplus food to Africa, which had the effect of putting African farmers out of business… Sure, you fed some people in the short term, but destroyed their ability to feed themselves going forward.

Pekka: So what is to be done?

Toivonen: Don't count on the Internet as the answer - you must continue to strive for change and action. And don't confuse clicking on a mouse with action! The Internet can be a tool for creating a better society, but there is nothing inherent in its nature that will lead to that.