Career of Steve Jobs Showed How Capitalism was Supposed to Work
"This is the crux of the
current crisis. There is no sign that the link between production and income generation
on the basis of employment will be mended for the purpose of creating wealth. …
Those protesting on Wall Street have already realized this, and they certainly
use Apple products to maintain their communication with the rest of the world."
Economist Joseph Schumpeter: You may never have heard of him, but Steve Jobs was perhaps the most effective representative and follower of his notion concerning the 'creative destruction' of capitalism.
Steve Jobsis the face of an economy
directly associated with productivity and a very sustained cycle of accelerated
innovation. The Apple Company, which was his creation, the symbol of which is
recognized around the world, is a global reference to the era of personal
computers, telephony and communications right in the palm of your hand - and
the way we obtain and listen to our music. With Pixar, he also developed the
use of computer animation in film.
Seventy
years ago, Joseph Schumpeter
indicated that capitalism involves a form of economic change that by its nature
can never be stationary. According to Schumpeter,
this trait isn't only due to an ever-changing social and natural environment that
includes rapid population growth, which is constantly altering the data that propels
its evolution. He declared that the fundamental thrust that maintains the
capitalist engine comes from consumers, the goods that are produced, and new markets and
forms of industrial organization.
So it was that
Jobs became a contemporary exponent of this dynamic, which is based on what Schumpeter
dubbed “the process of creative destruction.” That is, overcoming conventional
ways of making money by generating new avenues for value and wealth.
Apple
definitely got it. Jobs created, literally, new needs and ways to satisfy them,
starting with a series of new businesses, investment opportunities, job
specializations and employment possibilities. Above all, he created a special
kind of pride for those that use and identify with Apple products.
A similar
process of developing products based on direct consumer consumption has
succeeded on several other occasions, as was the case, for example, with cars,
products like televisions and radios, household appliances, and later, products
associated with the use of microelectronics. A mere 25 years ago, computers
didn't even exist. Today, many wouldn't know how to use a typewriter with its
color ribbon or dial a rotary phone.
Now
that such a huge segment of financial activity is being openly questioned, especially
with regard to the major banks and the way they manage the debts of families and
even states, it is sensible to refocus on the essential meaning of production
and work.
Jobs
underpinned that part of the economy which combines scientific advances and
available technology to develop new and attractive products and expand markets.
In terms of the famous Disney characters, he was a Scrooge McDuck type of
businessman, only much more sophisticated and in a vein more characteristic of
an innovator rather than an inventor like fellow character Gyro Gearloose.
The
impact of Jobs' quite public departure is apparent among his closest
associates, competitors, the global press, and even his customers. It isn’t
unusual to see this kind of reaction in a world characterized by goods and
services where everything is exchanged on the market; but not so much on one
focused on money and rampant speculation, which has been called the "financialization"
of the economy. This can be seen in the recent history of capitalism, and is clearly
illustrated by the way it has operated over the last decade.
The
simple fact is that production and credit go hand-in-hand. When financial
activity becomes an autonomous form of conducting transactions, it turns into
speculation and tends to go too far. Today the two are divorced and there is no
reconciliation in sight.
In
the most fundamental sense, this is the crux of the current crisis. There is no
sign that the link between production and income generation on the basis of
employment will be mended for the purpose of creating wealth. If this process
does not guarantee widespread social equality, then this ongoing disassociation
will only accentuate inequality. Those protesting on Wall Street have already realized
this, and they certainly use Apple products to maintain their communication
with the rest of the world.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
The
destruction of value and the break in the generation of human and material
wealth that is being caused by the financial markets is a disease that
constitutes a criminal act; an act that leaves politics and even governments
themselves completely impotent.
One
need not reach the corporate heights of Steve Jobs, whose company was recently
valued higher than petroleum giant Exxon Mobil. There are innumerable scales of production
that thus generate income and consumption capacity. That must be based on the
capacity to raise funds.
But
the scale of micro, small and medium-sized businesses is often ignored. The big
banks in particular have abandoned the provision of credit as a part of their
core business in favor of handling transactions and reaping the benefits of
outrageously-priced commissions. The speculators, meanwhile, gorge themselves on
the feast.
