Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Tom Friedman: A New Ayn Rand for A Dark Digital Future | Richard (RJ) Eskow

Tom Friedman: A New Ayn Rand for A Dark Digital Future | Richard (RJ) Eskow
Well written piece on Tom Friedman.
"If Thomas Friedman didn't exist, America's high-tech entrepreneurs would have had to invent him.  Come to think of it, maybe they did. The dark science-fiction vision he celebrates serves them well, at pretty much everyone else's expense.
Friedman's vision is worth studying, if only because it reflects the distorted perspective of some very wealthy and influential people. In their world the problems of the many are as easily fixed as a line of code, with no sacrifice required of them or their fellow billionaires."
.. .
"Friedman glorifies globalization and the destruction of good jobs. He's indifferent to the loss of social mobility and infatuated with mediocre or at best mildly clever web enterprises. Friedman is the praise singer of Palo Alto, the griot of Los Gatos, and he's never met a Internet billionaire he didn't like.
Thomas Friedman is the perfect mirror for the undeserved self-infatuation which has infected our corporate, media, and political class. He's the chief fabulist of the detached elite, the unfettered Id of the global aristocracy, the Horatio Alger of self-deluded, self-serving, self-promoting techno-hucksterism.
But give the man his due: When it comes to "building your brand reputation," Friedman's a master of the art."

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