Apple is an amazing company and Jobs was a great man, not only in terms of technological but in ground breaking style and marketing innovation: he changed the world. Remembering this more completely perhaps can help do something more than a momentary fetish ideal to identify with, use his photo as your profile on facebook or chat about this death with friends while shedding tears with trembling gratitude. He was already achieving a celebrity status during his lifetime; in his death he has become even more of an Icon, with which thousands of people who never knew him identify and admire. The public outpouring of grief reminds me the outbreak of grief over Princess Di’s death. So perhaps it’s time to remember a fuller picture.
Apple’s factories in China employ 12 year olds and some of their fingers were worn off because of poor conditions, or for the horrible conditions they and many other companies employees in China endure (they are now the true working class/slave labour of the world). Steve Jobs knew this (he got several letters from the workers and must have read his own company’s report) and also knew that it could be remedied without increasing product price or damaging Apple’s huge profits. Yet he simply dismissed it as “supplier’s fault” and did nothing at all to change it. Does the world have only tears for a calculated and media doctored image of a great man but not for some of the terrible costs of his legacy?
Other things one should know is that Jobs had a terrible reputation of being ruthless, bully and abusive to his employees, in fact he got deposed from the position of CEO once for that. He was a centraliser who did not believe in free speech in the company, implementing a nearly paranoid control mechanisms about anything that has not yet been released to the media made by Apple. He brutally penalised anyone who deviated from his overly zealous rules. He also amassed a huge personal fortune as did his company Apple, neither ever helped in any substantial form of charity work. He also personally ordered the censorship on the famous Apple Aps store of anything to do with 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”, all in the name of “protecting children”.
The amazing thing about this is that not only the product is a fetish but even the death of its maker, Steve Jobs, is used as one. Not only did he achieve Icon status in the public’s eye but Silicon Valley holds him as an ideal image for a CEO to be studied an emulated. Maybe we should use Jobs’ death to do something good and educate people about products and the fetishist aspect that hides the element of their production cost and the real human drama behind it. It won’t disfigure or discredit their achievements… No, it will make it even a more important and human achievement. Jobs was a human being who as a young idealist that dreamed of changing the world and as being the underdog of computing had an edgy alternative feel to him, his colleagues and the initial Apple legacy. And change he achieved yet his original zeal, spark and genius that made him and Apple a world changer got trapped in something bigger and much more sinister which ultimately betrayed his ideals and rebellious creative drive. The leader of the IT world, with good intentions, got lead into something quite different. Remember, it’s not just Jobs, Apple or one or two companies, it is bigger – it’s a system that doesn’t share any of your humanity but merely exploits yours.
Remember Jobs and remember this too:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3334201.htm
http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2011/10/06/the-dark-side-of-steve-jobss-dream/
http://news.salon.com/2011/08/30/china_apple_workers_jobs/singleton/
http://newsthump.com/2011/10/07/tributes-continue-to-pour-in-for-dead-iphone-factory-worker
It doesn’t take away from his death, it brings you closer to life.
RIP Steve Jobs and respect for the people who suffered and suffering under Apple in China (and many others across the world from similar practices).
