Conclusion 167
Five have changed since I began writing. In 2011, when Eric Schmidt
defined the “gang of four” (excluding Microsoft) as the major shapers of
technology, he caught the cusp of a new definition of the digital age in
which Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google were the coolest companies to work for in the world. Some of their lustre – with the exception
of Apple – had already begun to tarnish by the time of Donald Trump’s
announcement for the presidency in 2015, but over the next three years,
all of them would be affected by accusations of tax avoidance, poor employment practices, and, in the case of the digital duopoly of Google and
Facebook, of putting democracy itself in danger. Jonathan Taplin, citing
Robert Reich, outlines the dangers of the monopolisation of particular areas of the economy clearest, drawing attention to how libertarian
attempts to gut anti-monopoly regulation since the Reagan era have allowed them to thrive: “Big Tech has been almost immune to serious antitrust scrutiny, even though the largest tech companies have more market
power than ever. Maybe that’s because they’ve accumulated so much political power.”
12
To be most effective, however, such power benefits most
where it is almost invisible, and in the age of Trump, Facebook, Google,
and Amazon (the latter especially through Jeff Bezos’s ownership of The
Washington Post) are coming under ever greater scrutiny, assaulted by
the political left and right for their activities. The half-trillion-dollar club
that Schmidt alluded to in 2011 now have a combined market worth that
is only superseded by the very largest nations, but they also find themselves subject to potential trade wars and legislation by governments
outside the USA that are less amenable to turning a blind eye to various
light-touch fiscal agreements after a decade of austerity. The Big Five are
likely to dominate lists such as the Fortune 500 for the next few years,
and after a century even Standard Oil, the monolith of the early twentieth century, is still a force to be reckoned with as Exxon. Nonetheless,
the easy trajectory upwards they have enjoyed in recent years appears to
be generating more antagonism and demands for oversight. At various
times throughout this book, the spectre of China has also appeared as
the site of the next major tech company which has manipulated markets
to limit the power of companies such as Facebook and Google in particular. The inevitability of a Chinese technology breakthrough is made
more uncertain by the trade wars initiated by Donald Trump, but all the
big tech companies realise the importance of entering the largest growing market in the world to secure their own futures.
In his recent book on the rise and decline of the United States as a
global power, Alfred McCoy argues that President Trump is dismantling the pillars that had sustained American hegemony in the post-war
period, but that this fall from grace had begun long before his tenure in
office. In 1945, the USA accounted for approximately half of manufacturing power in the world and, at the end of the Cold War, half of its
military forces; nonetheless diplomatic alliances, had already begun to
Five have changed since I began writing. In 2011, when Eric Schmidt
defined the “gang of four” (excluding Microsoft) as the major shapers of
technology, he caught the cusp of a new definition of the digital age in
which Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google were the coolest companies to work for in the world. Some of their lustre – with the exception
of Apple – had already begun to tarnish by the time of Donald Trump’s
announcement for the presidency in 2015, but over the next three years,
all of them would be affected by accusations of tax avoidance, poor employment practices, and, in the case of the digital duopoly of Google and
Facebook, of putting democracy itself in danger. Jonathan Taplin, citing
Robert Reich, outlines the dangers of the monopolisation of particular areas of the economy clearest, drawing attention to how libertarian
attempts to gut anti-monopoly regulation since the Reagan era have allowed them to thrive: “Big Tech has been almost immune to serious antitrust scrutiny, even though the largest tech companies have more market
power than ever. Maybe that’s because they’ve accumulated so much political power.”
12
To be most effective, however, such power benefits most
where it is almost invisible, and in the age of Trump, Facebook, Google,
and Amazon (the latter especially through Jeff Bezos’s ownership of The
Washington Post) are coming under ever greater scrutiny, assaulted by
the political left and right for their activities. The half-trillion-dollar club
that Schmidt alluded to in 2011 now have a combined market worth that
is only superseded by the very largest nations, but they also find themselves subject to potential trade wars and legislation by governments
outside the USA that are less amenable to turning a blind eye to various
light-touch fiscal agreements after a decade of austerity. The Big Five are
likely to dominate lists such as the Fortune 500 for the next few years,
and after a century even Standard Oil, the monolith of the early twentieth century, is still a force to be reckoned with as Exxon. Nonetheless,
the easy trajectory upwards they have enjoyed in recent years appears to
be generating more antagonism and demands for oversight. At various
times throughout this book, the spectre of China has also appeared as
the site of the next major tech company which has manipulated markets
to limit the power of companies such as Facebook and Google in particular. The inevitability of a Chinese technology breakthrough is made
more uncertain by the trade wars initiated by Donald Trump, but all the
big tech companies realise the importance of entering the largest growing market in the world to secure their own futures.
In his recent book on the rise and decline of the United States as a
global power, Alfred McCoy argues that President Trump is dismantling the pillars that had sustained American hegemony in the post-war
period, but that this fall from grace had begun long before his tenure in
office. In 1945, the USA accounted for approximately half of manufacturing power in the world and, at the end of the Cold War, half of its
military forces; nonetheless diplomatic alliances, had already begun to