79
Control Freaks
How does an Apple Store work?
How does an Apple Store work?
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88
After Apple recently won the race to surpass a $1tn valuation, CEO Tim Cook emailed staff to explain, “Financial returns are simply the result of Apple’s innovation, putting our products and customers first, and always staying true to our values.”
While seductive, this story is, like the Apple store itself, a managed fiction.
Apple’s system of operation is less the result of genius than of capture and control. Semiconductors, microprocessors, hard drives, touch screens, the internet and its protocols, GPS: all of these ingredients of Apple’s immense profitability were funded through public dollars channeled into research through the Keynesian institution called the US military. They are the basis of Apple’s products, as the economist Mariana Mazzucato has shown.
The company’s extraordinary wealth is not simply a reward for innovation, or the legacy of “innovators” like Steve Jobs. Rather, it flows from the privatization of publicly funded research, mixed with the ability to command the low-wage labor of our Chinese peers, sold by empathetic retailers forbidden from saying “crash”. The profits have been stashed offshore, tax free, repatriated only to enrich those with enough spare cash to invest.
some thoughs on this (relevant for book)
what apple has done (like most successful tech companies) is figure out how to put the pieces together (wtih ofc some creative control, innovation) in such way as to mint a ton of money. now, the big q is: is this good (intended behaviour), or is it bad (an aberration)?
something about profit's morality being socially constructed: if you forge money, or say forge/steal something and sell it, you're committing a crime. if you pay chinese workers a pittance to assemble devices based on tech you're cobblign together from various sources, you're innovating. this is considered legal because it's been created to be so - it's not a natural state of affairs. you could imagine alterantive systems where excess profit is essentialyl made impossible (or even criminalised) - workers must be better paid, prices must be lower, corporate taxes must be higher. whatever the rationale for allowing companies like apple to rake in profits in exchange for monopolisation supply chains doesnt seem worth it (not worth the costs)
After Apple recently won the race to surpass a $1tn valuation, CEO Tim Cook emailed staff to explain, “Financial returns are simply the result of Apple’s innovation, putting our products and customers first, and always staying true to our values.”
While seductive, this story is, like the Apple store itself, a managed fiction.
Apple’s system of operation is less the result of genius than of capture and control. Semiconductors, microprocessors, hard drives, touch screens, the internet and its protocols, GPS: all of these ingredients of Apple’s immense profitability were funded through public dollars channeled into research through the Keynesian institution called the US military. They are the basis of Apple’s products, as the economist Mariana Mazzucato has shown.
The company’s extraordinary wealth is not simply a reward for innovation, or the legacy of “innovators” like Steve Jobs. Rather, it flows from the privatization of publicly funded research, mixed with the ability to command the low-wage labor of our Chinese peers, sold by empathetic retailers forbidden from saying “crash”. The profits have been stashed offshore, tax free, repatriated only to enrich those with enough spare cash to invest.
some thoughs on this (relevant for book)
what apple has done (like most successful tech companies) is figure out how to put the pieces together (wtih ofc some creative control, innovation) in such way as to mint a ton of money. now, the big q is: is this good (intended behaviour), or is it bad (an aberration)?
something about profit's morality being socially constructed: if you forge money, or say forge/steal something and sell it, you're committing a crime. if you pay chinese workers a pittance to assemble devices based on tech you're cobblign together from various sources, you're innovating. this is considered legal because it's been created to be so - it's not a natural state of affairs. you could imagine alterantive systems where excess profit is essentialyl made impossible (or even criminalised) - workers must be better paid, prices must be lower, corporate taxes must be higher. whatever the rationale for allowing companies like apple to rake in profits in exchange for monopolisation supply chains doesnt seem worth it (not worth the costs)
91
[...] Apple's profits, at root, are a product of its power to control.
Apple's ability to govern its employees, supply chains, and image allow it to restrict behavior and creativity in its interests - try getting a genius to say "crash," the company to pay tax, or your music out of your iPhone. Apple's ability to assert proprietary control over public goods, from the town square to government research, allow it to generate income far in excess of anything it could hope to wring from its staff. Apple's performance of friendliness and innovation allows it to soothe customers while convincing both them and investors that it is the source of a happier, richer destiny. Apple's profit does not come from packaging the labor of the past, in other words, but from the power to organize the present in a way that makes others believe that is inventing the future.
damn this is great
[...] Apple's profits, at root, are a product of its power to control.
Apple's ability to govern its employees, supply chains, and image allow it to restrict behavior and creativity in its interests - try getting a genius to say "crash," the company to pay tax, or your music out of your iPhone. Apple's ability to assert proprietary control over public goods, from the town square to government research, allow it to generate income far in excess of anything it could hope to wring from its staff. Apple's performance of friendliness and innovation allows it to soothe customers while convincing both them and investors that it is the source of a happier, richer destiny. Apple's profit does not come from packaging the labor of the past, in other words, but from the power to organize the present in a way that makes others believe that is inventing the future.
damn this is great