The Age of Information Oligarchs
It was Marx (Karl, not Groucho, although he probably made a relevant comment, too) who drew attention to the significance of owning the means of production. This disenfranchised and enslaved those who had to work within those factories. Carnegie’s control of steel production, Rockefeller’s monopolizing of oil, and Vanderbilt’s ownerships of railroads and shipping are powerful examples of how, as Marx illustrated, ownership of major parts of the economy inevitably drifts towards monopoly. It was this insight that gave the board game its name and power.
Governments in many countries became aware that such monopolies undermine the central premiss of capitalism. That is the belief that competition will be beneficial, being a means to reduce the depredations which uninhibited monopolies can impose on consumers and, more generally, society at large. Anti-trust laws, insisting on breaking up huge conglomerates, such as British Telecom in the UK and similar challenges, for example to Google in the US, and other legal processes all seek to encourage competition.
Of course, those who hold monopolies have great power in challenging governments. They were the oligarchs and potentates of the past. Sometimes even the official government, as in medieval Venice, or dominant influences on their monarchies as happened across Europe in feudal times. For although the 1215 Magna Carta reduced the power of King John, it did this to benefit the barons, and their influence as nobility, rather than giving many freedoms or democratic rights to ordinary people.
These same struggles between government and powerful oligarchs are happening today. But now it is not the means of production, control of railroads, or even ownership of petroleum exploitation and distribution. It is the ownership in very few hands of the means of communication. Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos and a few others have amassed vast personal fortunes by holding onto the ownership of their information technologies. They have the sort of wealth that Rockefeller or Vanderbilt could only have aspired to. With that comes power and influence that can fight any attempts to constrain their control.
Being able to manipulate and control the means of communication gives these present-day oligarchs even more influence than those in earlier centuries. They have been able to support the election of a president of the US, one who shares their desires to have free reign over their wealth and the influence it brings. Even more importantly, to allow them to enable their social media to operate in a similar way to Marx’s view that religion was an “opiate of the masses.”
These latter-day Robber Barons are keen to be philanthropists, as were their counterparts in earlier centuries, but as welcome as that is, their removal of significant safeguards to the use of their platforms, would be like allowing Vanderbilt to ignore any safety regulations when building railroads. Indeed, it was only through the prevalence of accidents in construction generally that governments began to introduce safety regulations. However, there are still plenty of places around the world where such regulations are ignored. Governments in Europe are aware of the need to regulate social media. This is in part stimulated by deaths that have been caused by this unregulated communication industry. Will there have to be more examples of the destructive impact of unrestricted social information distribution before the power of these information oligarchs will be restricted?
