When the world heard news of Apple founder and CEO, Steve Jobs’ passing the other day, the news was followed by all sorts of glowing remembrances of the man. Some commentaries were as well written and as large as the man they sought to describe; how he had revolutionized the technological world of gadgetry and created an entire industry with specialized niches which the public could not have enough of.
Other commentaries of the man’s life downplayed the man’s influence, or at the very least attempted to bring it down to earth, and describe him as a visionary who had taken was already well established market – communications – computing – Internet – gaming – and wedded all of these into a single package small enough for people to carry in their pockets, when such uses in the market did not exist, and miniaturized components were beginning to have an impact on the world of cellular communications. But whether or not the man was as great or not as great as all of the above try to describe him, depends on just how his influence has impacted the industry of portable miniaturized communication devices and computing.
The ideas that spawned these inventions were his, and he took them and gathered the best technical minds and engineers he could find, and feverishly put them to work on the gadgets people today take for granted and use daily. What is missing from all of the glowing descriptions of Mr. Jobs is the fact that all of his ideas would not have been made possible if not for the development of miniaturized surface mounted components, and the manufacturing of multiple layered breadboards into which these would be soldered onto.
The rise and development of Nanotechnology only accelerated the development of these gadgets, since it took surface mounted technology (SMT) and gave it new and innovated, almost limitless potential uses. This was the era of incredible strides being made in medical science, graphics, and personal computing. All of these were impacted in some way by Mr. Jobs’ vision and Apple’s development of its own product line, but would not have been possible without the technology having been developed in the first place. To his credit, while he did not invent the technology, but he certainly knew how to put it to good use, and he did; and we have all benefited in some way by his vision.
With all of the glowing commentaries on the man having practically run the gamut, it was only a matter of time before an article would appear that would draw another picture of the same man whom the others almost elevated to god-like status; an absurdity that human beings do with one another, and have been doing since the dawn of time. Well, such an article is the one below, well written, with some good points of where Mr. Jobs failed, according to the writer, as a manager, and even as a human being.
The story, titled What Everyone Is Too Polite to Say About Steve Jobs, appears on a blogsite at the following URL http://gawker.com/5847344/what-everyone-is-too-polite-to-say-about-steve-jobs and it does not list the author’s name, though one can go to the site and then navigate to its home page and look up the blog’s writer. Whether or not this is important is debatable, though what is not debatable is the content of a person’s heart and mind in writing such a hit piece, yes I call it a hit piece, and I will explain why at the end of this write-up.
The article is well written, after the author praises Mr. Jobs as “polymath, a skilled motivator, a decisive judge, a farsighted taskmaker, an excellent showman, and a gifted strategist; he/she wastes no time in finding fault with Mr. Jobs’ character and behavior as CEO of Apple, describing him “rude, dismissive, hostile, spiteful,” and attributes Apple’s success not so much as determined by market forces such as demand, but to Chinese slave labor, as though this alone was unique to Apple in an industry rife with such abuses, and lays the entire blame on Job’s lap.
He/she also describes Jobs as authoritarian, and accuses him of “imposing centralized control of who could say what on his devices and his company.” Such charges and epithets must be taken one by one and examined under the light of reason, but importantly tempered by the fact that while abuses are what characterize the imperfections of man, to explain them is not necessarily to agree with them or to make excuses for them. We will try to do neither while attempting to do the former here.
The writer to the article describes what he/she calls Mr. Jobs’ “lowlights” by comparing the freedom the Internet has presented to the world of information and communication, a freedom that has revolutionized how we get our news, and one which has brought about the end of monopoly news information, by opening up almost instantaneously events around the world, even as they are happening, without having to wait, as we did for a synopsis of the news delivered by over-paid anchormen over the six o’clock news via the alphabet soup channels of CBS, NBC, ABC, and some minor others.
There was a time when the news was controlled and spoon fed to the public through the prism of these three main news channels at a specific time of the day, and they held a monopolistic control over it; censoring what they wished to censure and broadcasting whatever they wished to broadcast. Over time, such news became nothing more than public advocacy of various liberal causes, and this too spawned programs such as 60 Minutes, and others. But we digress; the Internet has done away with such controls.
But the writer to the article about Mr. Jobs forgets that while the Internet is a public domain venue used by almost everyone, a company such as Apple is a private enterprise owned by at the time, Mr. Jobs and his associates, and as such, is subject to the policies and practices of the owner/s of such a company. It is only fare that if I work hard to build a company up from the ground and develop the tools that others could use, I am entitled by reason that I am its proprietor to certain and various rights of which the public and my employees do not share; they are the sole property of the owner. No one, and not even the writer to the article, can dispute that the products developed and produced by Apple, were the property of Mr. Jobs and of his company, therefore, where does it stand to reason that I or anyone else for that matter have any rights to dictate to him what his policies will be with regard to content and use of said products?
With every charge of authoritarianism, there is an underlying political aspect to the charge, and the writer’s charge appears in bold relief before US when he/she writes:
“In the name of protecting children from the evils of erotica — "freedom from porn" — and adults from one another, Jobs has banned from being installed on his devices gay art, gay travel guides, political cartoons, sexy pictures, Congressional candidate pamphlets, political caricature, Vogue fashion spreads, systems invented by the opposition, and other things considered morally suspect.”
Therein lies the rub; Mr. Jobs astute judgment of preventing his products from being misused by pedophiles, and other social deviants is being attacked by the writer, because he/she sees such actions as nothing but censorship and authoritarianism. Well too bad. The products are developed and sold by HIS company, and they are HIS intellectual property; and he determines, as would the owner/proprietor of any company, to have sole rights over the product/s, good and services, their company produces.
If he wishes to keep his products from being misused by those whom he correctly sees as doing children harm, it is his right and prerogative to do whatever is necessary to prevent it from taking place within the parameters of his own product. If he/she tries to do the same with another’s intellectual/technical property, then it is open for debate, but not in regards to one’s property.
Whatever Apple or any other company creates and develops and then decides to put or not to put into their product is their right, because it is their intellectual property of which he/they as creator/s has/have exclusive rights to. To call this “un-American” as the writer does betrays an ignorance of the liberties we as Americans enjoy and have enjoyed precisely because of personal freedom and responsibility; something that is being taken away from US by the strong arm of government in support of such fallacious political correctness.
As to the charge that Apple employs Chinese slave labor, I cite the following observation made by a reader who calls him/herself as Anonymous:
“Just a note on this subject. Jobs obsessed on US manufacturing when the Macintosh and later the NeXT Computers were first announced. He did everything the company could do to make state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in the US.
However the competition from the rest of the industry and demand for low-cost devices pushed the company to China where Apple Computer could compete with the rest of the industry.
As for Foxconn, they do not exclusively produce for Apple Computer, those facilities produce products for the following companies: Acer, Amazon(Kindle), Asus, Intel, Cisco, HP, Dell, Nintendo, Nokia, Microsoft, MSI, Motorola(Google), Sony Ericsson and Vizo.
Apple Computer increased pressure on their production line partners to improve their conditions and systematically weeded out the ones that failed to improve.
In 1997 Apple Computer was on the brink of going out of business, the company had to make decisions to reduce consumer costs and increase the value of the computers. This inevitably led to decisions to look at Chinese manufacturing.
For those of you who always complained that Apple Computer products cost too much, this was one of the solutions - ahh the invisible hand of the free market.
If you want to draw a picture of the failures of Apple's manufacturing that ink stains every company today producing computers and consumer electronics. (Edit comment)”
The reality of today’s market is that there is not a single product of which Americans enjoy that is not being manufactured either in Communist China or in Latin America, in places of questionable surroundings, some in the harshest of environments, and under rigorous taskmasters, with wages that we consider in this country a pittance (comparably to ours, which is why they’ve moved their operations “over there”); but for which we do not object as long as we continue to be able to purchase our toys cheaply. It is cheap because of cheap labor. If it weren’t cheap labor, it would not be cheap, though Apple products are by no means cheap or affordable, but people buy them anyway.
The Western World bought into this moral relativism long ago, and everyone has in some way been impacted by it. It is amoral, it is reprehensible, and it is something that in the deepest of our being we find revolting, but too many of US still buy the products even knowing where they’re made, because in today’s world, the products are being manufactured in these places by these people.
On the flip side, some would argue, and I am not one of them, that even under such austere conditions, the employment of millions of such laborers in these places has allowed them a level of living they otherwise would not “enjoy” if not for our business, because life in such places is so adverse, so below our own, that even under those conditions, their lot has improved somewhat, and this is in some small measure to American industry moving overseas and relocating in their communities throughout Asia and Latin America. The reader gets the point; Apple does not hold exclusive rights to slave labor; it is one of hundreds of companies and corporations whose products we use that shares it. As another reader observes, “To be fair, Apple is hardly the first or only corporation that puts profit above ethics; it's pervasive in today's global economy. Nonetheless, it doesn't make it right.”
Reading the comments section is almost as interesting as the article itself, some positing some very well reasoned and salient points of view which are being borne out by market forces here and overseas. Another reader makes the following excellent observation that historically has proven to be true, at least with regards to our own country and that of the Western Democracies:
“This thinking, at least in respect to Apple, ignores that the supply for labor is global. Cheap, efficient labor is one of China's main current competitive advantages in the global economy. All of the Asian Tigers (and all industrialized and post-industrialized countries have gone through this stage of development).
Gradually, the wages and standard of living in China will rise (it's already happening). Labor protections and wages are necessarily relative, not absolute. A Chinese worker will get far more marginal utility than an American will from the same wage. You may find their working conditions horrific, but they find them less so. No one forces these people to work at Foxconn, they do so willingly. If you asked them, I'm sure they'd much rather have Apple source in China than not.
Similarly, if, for example, a sub-Saharan African country could get themselves politically stable and built a container port infrastructure as efficient as Shanghai, every electronics company in the world would relocate their operations there and literally pour capital into their economy. Wages would start dirt cheap and working conditions would not be ideal, but over time the capital infusion would lift both of these as their economy developed.
This kind of global commerce does not, as you say, cause wages to race to the bottom. Quite the opposite. It's a cycle that's been seen again and again and again.
I suggest you take a look at Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong now, and then compare their working conditions to fifty years ago.
[en.wikipedia.org]
It is in no way predatory or immoral. It's the process by which poor countries develop their economies and become rich. (Edit comment)”
This moral relativism has come with a price however, because as manufacturing (like so many other industries), has moved overseas through outsourcing, so have American jobs, and with it American affluence. Years ago we could afford that new car or that new house because many of US held good jobs that enabled US to earn a decent wage, some even a very good wage, with decent benefits.
But, with the outsourcing of key industries overseas in the last four years, more and more Americans have lost that economic edge they once had over the rest of the world. And while Americans can enjoy the cheap and not so cheap little toys that companies like Apple produce, they have found that the price for such enjoyment has cost them their own jobs here at home, and with it their own prosperity and financial stability, as well as the diminution of its skilled work force.
An entire generation has been impacted by this, and even these jobs were to return, America lacks enough of the skilled labor necessary to meet the demands that would be put upon it to produce what is being produced overseas. As it stands currently, there is not enough skilled labor to even meet the diminished demands of the shrinking job market in technology today, which is the most compelling reason technical recruiters and employers give for the flood of H1 Visas given to foreigners in the industry.
As to the charge that Mr. Jobs was a less than exemplary philanthropist because he removed all public philanthropic connections between Apple and the various so-called “charities,” there are some very good reasons why anyone in his position would want to do this, and they run the gamut. In almost every case, many of these so-called philanthropies have in one way or another political connections to causes and other organizations the owner of a company such as Apple may not want to participate in.
For example, a religious organization such as World Vision International might wish to not participate in activities sponsored by the United Way because of the United Ways stated acceptance of homosexual/Lesbian/Transgender causes and organizations. This is not to say that the United Way is involved in this, but we use these names as examples in our illustration.
Another very compelling reason is the Scriptural injunction not to make philanthropic and charitable work a public matter, at least as individuals are concerned. It’s understandable that organizations such as World Vision International would wish to make its activities public, because it depends upon public donations for its work, and thereby is accountable to those who contribute to it.
But, it is quite another matter if, for example, Mr. Jobs did not want his personal charitable work made public, and to that end, he ended all public charitable work precisely for that reason. We may never know in this life whether this is so, but we know that it is not fare for writers such as the one to the article to berate Mr. Jobs’ decision, because there were some very good reasons (at least to Jobs) why he made them.
Whether it was good or not, only G-d who looks into men’s hearts, can be the judge of that, because He and Mr. Jobs, and perhaps those closest to him; know for sure why he removed all public philanthropic work from Apple. And while the writer draws comparisons between Bill Gates who has publicly given upwards of $60billion in charitable donations with Mr. Jobs who has not, it is the one who gives generously without making a public show of it that is to be commended, because he/she has done it out of the kindness of their heart, and not for public praise.
In conclusion, if there is one thing that everyone who reads articles such as these, either from the perspective that Mr. Jobs was a genius or a scoundrel; can come away with; Mr. Jobs was just a man. He was one of US, with all of the foibles and weaknesses that accompany the Company of Man; the Human Race – that unique creation of G-d – whom He made in His image, but who has corrupted his way and is inclined to do evil, though from time to time, also does good, though not without its dark flipside, because no one is perfect and no one is sinless but G-d.
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