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Background Briefing: December 31, 2019
The Dystopian Reality of the Tech Industry
On this New Years Eve, we continue our look back on the defining stories of 2019, today looking into the promises from the techno-utopians of Silicon Valley compared to the dystopian reality of how the tech-industry has impacted our society and economy. We begin with an interview from Feb 13th of 2019 when we were joined by award-winning author, broadcaster, and documentarian who studies human autonomy in the digital age, Douglas Rushkoff. Named one of the world’s ten most influential intellectuals by MIT, he is a research fellow of the Institute for the Future and founder of the Laboratory for
Digital Humanism at the City University of New York and the author of the new book, Team Human. We discussed how our technologies, markets, and cultural institutions – once forces for human connection and expression – now isolate and repress us and if we are to resist and survive we must come together and recognize that being human is a team sport.
A Nation of Jesters in the Court of the Platform Kings
Then we go to an interview from September 1st of 2019 when, over the Labor Day weekend, we spoke with Stacy Mitchell, the Co-Director of the Institute for Local Self Reliance, who recently testified before the United States House Judiciary Committee at a hearing about the monopoly power of dominant tech platforms. She joined us to give her account on how our politicians might finally be coming to the realization that if monopolies like Facebook and Amazon are not reined in with antitrust action, the United States will soon end up a nation of jesters in the court of the platform kings. With the new gig
economy promising to turn America into a nation of rickshaw drivers, we discussed the new signs of hope from the Presidential candidates running in 2020 who seem to be starting to reckon with the mistakes of financial deregulation and deference to billionaires who have shown an utter contempt for workers and unions. Will Democratic voters play it safe with Biden, or take a bold stance with Sanders or Warren to enact progressive agendas that empower working Americans and reinvigorate Labor Unions? With the Republicans committed to busting Unions and distributing even more wealth to the top 1%, can Democrats be at least as bold as FDR?
Reigning in the New Monopolies with Antitrust
Then finally we revisit an interview from October 13th 2019 with Matt Stoller about his new book, Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy. A Fellow at the Open Markets Institute who was previously a Senior Policy Advisor and Budget Analyst to the Senate Budget Committee, he joined us to explain how
authoritarianism and populism returned to American politics for the first time in 80 years leading to the fall of the Democratic Party. We also looked into the new dominant global monopolies Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft and the steps needed to create a new democracy at a time when corporate power in increasing and the middle class is shrinking.
A Holiday Message from Background Briefing
As a new year and a new decade begin, we thank our listeners and supporters for their donations which sustain and build Background Briefing. At this critical juncture when the year ahead 2020 will determine the fate of our country and the world should Donald Trump be impeached, voted out or, God-forbid, reelected. It is a sad irony that at the moment when we most need an alternative network in a radio landscape dominated by Rush Limbaugh and his clones, Pacifica, the network over which Background Briefing broadcasts, is teetering on bankruptcy due to factionalism and mismanagement. Your support is even more urgent as we transition to online broadcasting while trying to find a new home on the radio.
Despite Trump’s ruinous regime, we must continue our work to revive the truth, shed light in the darkness, overcome hatred with love, and spread kindness instead of cruelty. As President Lincoln said in his First Inaugural Address, “Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again [we are] touched... by the better angels of our nature.”
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