Emperors and Empires

For many centuries, trade was the mainstay of most economies. Empires and civilisations made a living from transporting commodities, such as silk and spices from producers to consumers. Most notable of these civilisations, from the Jordanian perspective, were the Nabateans, and later the successive Muslim Caliphates.

These reflections came to me the other day when I heard on the news that Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, is now the richest man in the world. In a mere twenty years, Amazon developed from an online bookshop, to a multibillion-dollar enterprise that transports commodities from producers to consumers. 

Remarkably, the great wealth of Jeff Bezos was accumulated not from producing anything, but from exploiting the human tendency to follow the path of least resistance, i.e. do as little as possible. The goods that Amazons delivers are often readily available at the corner shop (except in the case of books in the Middle East); Amazon simply spares its customers the trouble of going out to do their shopping.

The same can be said of the other great enterprise of the day, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook. Despite all the scandals and revelations of possibly illegal and certainly unethical treatment of people’s personal data, people continue to use Facebook and pour money in Zuckerberg’s already bulging coffers. 

It is worth considering if this marks a transformation in capitalism. Seriously, for the longest time, all the world’s tycoons were captains of industry or some activity related to producing something. After all, capitalism is about creating wealth not pillaging it. Agriculture and industry are wealth-creators because they produce goods and they create many more employment opportunities for the size of investment. 

The profit figures of Facebook, on the other hand, are mind-boggling, but what is its value added? Moreover, the activities of Facebook are not regulated and the tax agencies, ever vigilant to catch the slightest omission by average citizen Joe Bloggs, are at a loss how much to tax it. 

This allowed Zuckerberg to claim that he pays all the taxes requested of him. Is it his fault if the tax requested is little more than chicken feed? This is standard capitalist behaviour, despite all attempts to present capitalism as a moral system. Capitalism, as described by John Maynard Keynes who ought to know, is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.  

But conversely, capitalism is not synonymous with immorality. It did not prevent moral people such as Bill and Melinda Gates or Warren Buffet from giving away most of their wealth for charity. 

The point here is merely that capitalism seems to be going through a major transformation. This change may be producing important social upheavals such as the disappearance of the middle class and the annulment of the work ethic. If this is true, then this situation may be one of the most serious concerns facing humanity, not less than the environment and the possible need for Planet B.

[email protected]