Power Increasingly Concentrates

https://nypost.com/2020/07/09/17-nyc-catholic-schools-will-close-due-to-covid-19/

I read the above with alarm. Catholic schools are not only often the best schools available; they are often the only alternative schools available for many lower income, intercity children. Related to this I want to share a story. I grew up in the sputnik/we better have exceptionable schools era. People in Buffalo were familiar with the Bronx High School of Science and other schools in New York City. But Buffalo was a fraction of the size of New York City with the city schools serving about half the population and about a half dozen suburban districts serving the rest. No district had the resources for specialized schools. But the Catholic schools covered the whole area and decided to open a school for geniuses. They gave entry exams and many of those that qualified were Jewish.  Since religious instruction was required they added a rabbi to their faculty.       

But the above is a background story about the growing concentration of power. While a specific school was the project, the greater significance is the existence of a group with resources and some power separate from expansive government and the mega corporations. Warren Buffet represents another somewhat independent source of power. Putting his politics aside, he has traditionally invested domestically and in basic industry. I like that.

The ongoing lockdown has accelerated the concentration of power by so many orders of magnitude that we can’t even currently comprehend it. Both small and large businesses are going under so rapidly that I get confused between the daily news and the science fiction I read as a teen anger.  The Walmarts and Home Depots are thriving. But this process is far more than a news item, it has and will affect us increasingly on a daily level, lockdown or not.

Those of us who post on Facebook know all too well of their censorship and usage suspensions in Facebook jail. Many claim Google search can sway elections. Anyone interested can find   more examples of the media giants and their agenda quite easily. One upon a time, before radio, etc, the average city had about five newspapers. Everyone freely debated their future there.

Along with Facebook, I use Microsoft Word daily. I will type in a word and Microsoft tells me it’s misspelled or that it’s not a word. Upon looking it up, I learn that’s it’s a word and that it’s spelled correctly. The primary system of most written communication today follows a seemingly deliberate plan of dumbing us down. This fits nicely with Gates’ role in Common Core and vaccinations. Read about his deadly experiments with children in India.

I experimented with what could have been a lucrative business on the eBay/PayPal combine. On a cash basis I made some money, but even if being paid $10 an hour I lost money because my time was consumed trying to mitigate their thievery. EBay would mysteriously make charges on my credit card account without my consent.  When I denied and reversed those charges they did the same thing with another credit card of mine. Companies get away with this because you have probably consented with a click. If you question them you get answers like its on page 83, paragraph 5, section 63X. Unless you took a few days off from other activities to study the agreement and perhaps hired a consulting attorney, your click agreed you to be ripped off.

PayPal would refuse to send me my money. During one horrendous phone conversation they produced a list of former addresses and asked me if I had lived there. Like eBay, they had immediate access to all data about me. And the above are just highlights of their thievery.  The fact that I had a 100 % satisfaction rating from my customers was irrelevant to them. For certain items I tried a specialized sales site, but they also required the PayPal monopoly for payment. While undoubtedly others have suffered as I have, PayPal stock is soaring. It’s probably a shrewd bet on the New World Order cashless society. The Globalists are winning.

Despite the many complaints, including Congressional hearing on social media concentration and censorship, one needs to understand the underlying background of scale.  The number of computer chip manufacturers is surprisingly small. The more sophisticated and expensive production is the fewer participants are possible. Not that terribly long ago in the span of human history you would go to a tailor for a pair of pants. You would be measured and fabric cut by hand. The industrial revolution created the sewing machine which was later electrified. Clothes became made in factories/sweat shops with the fabric cut 10 bolts deep with a band saw like machine. But they pulled at the fabric limiting their capacity with bolt or two being cut a bit shorter. Some of you may remember trying on a pair of jeans, then grabbing another pair the same size and having the clerk tell you to try on the second pair.  They understood the production process. Today laser beams cut fabric in vastly higher quantities.

The more efficient the technology is the greater the scale and minimum investment required. Most people would be frightened to learn how few factories actually produce all the semiconductor chips the world now depends on. While monopolies and public utilities can be regulated are social media a business service or a first amendment protected news media? The hearings on Capitol Hill appear inconclusive.

I have no prognostications, only fears.  Given the technologically driven monopolies or semi-monopolies plus the pandemic and mobs burning businesses, the free enterprise system is in danger. And while capital, as in Capitalism, is critically important and should be available it is useless without innovation.  The free enterprise system means the right to freely enterprise.  The less restrictions you put on somebody, the more likely their innovation will become reality and benefit many. I don’t see it as more complex than that. The rest is all intellectuals talking to each other.

Copyright 2020, Mark L. Bennett