Workers World Feb. 3, 2000: Workers vs. capitalists on the Internet<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="true" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../ui/styles/top.css" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="../../ui/script/ie5.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.workers.org/ui/script/DropDownMenuX.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> window.onload = function() { var ddmx = new DropDownMenuX("menu1"); ddmx.type = "horizontal"; ddmx.delay.show = 0; ddmx.delay.hide = 400; ddmx.position.level1.top = 0; ddmx.position.level1.left = 0; ddmx.position.levelX.top = 0; ddmx.position.levelX.left = 0; ddmx.fixIeSelectBoxBug = true; ddmx.zIndex.visible = 500; ddmx.zIndex.hidden = -1; ddmx.init(); } </script> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> </head> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#483d8b" vlink="#2f4f4f" alink="#a52a2a">  <table width="65%" border="0" cellpadding="10" align="center"> <tr> <td height="911" align="left" valign="top"><table width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td colspan="2"> <a href="http://www.workers.org/"><img src="../../images/wwlogo.png" alt="Workers.org" width="600" height="58" border="0" /></a></td> </tr> </table> <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="menu1" class="ddmx"> <tr> <td> <a class="item1" href="http://www.workers.org/">Home</a></td> <td> <a class="item1" href="javascript:void(0)">Books</a> <div class="section"> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/index.html">Selected works of Sam Marcy</a> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/sambol/index.htm">Bolsheviks and War</a> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/samtech/index.htm">High Tech, Low Pay</a> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/marcy/cd/samsoc/index.htm">Soviet Socialism: Utopian or Scientific</a> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/indonesia/index.html">Indonesia 1965</a> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/cm/empire.html">Expanding Empire</a> </div></td> <td><a class="item1" href="javascript:void(0)">Subscribe</a> <div class="section"><a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/email.php">Email list</a> <a class="item2" href="http://www.workers.org/orders/index.php">Print edition</a> </div></td> <td> <a class="item1" href="http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php">Donate </a></td> <td> <a class="item3" href="http://www.workers.org/mo/index.html">Noticias en Español</a> </td> </tr> </table> <print> <table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="3"><tr> <td width="19%" align="left" valign="top" bgcolor="#E2E2E2"> <p class="caption">Support<br /> anti-war,<br /> anti-racist<br /> news </p> <p class="caption"><a href="http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php">:: Donate now ::</a></p> <hr /> <p class="caption"><print><a href="http://www.workers.org/cgi-bin/mailww/mailww.cgi"><img src="http://www.workers.org/graphics/email.gif" width="21" height="20" border="0" alt="Email this article" />Email this article</a> </print></p> <p class="caption"><print><a href="/print.php"><img src="http://www.workers.org/graphics/printer.gif" width="21" height="20" border="0" alt="Print this page" />Printable page</a></print></p> <hr /> <p class="caption"><a href="mailto:letters@workers.org">Email the editor</a></p> <form method="get" action="http://www.workers.org/cgi-bin/search/search.pl"> <input name="Terms" id="fdse_TermsEx" size="12" maxlength="255" class="email" /> <input type="submit" value="Search" style="align: center; padding: 1px 2px 1px 2px; background: #DCDCDC; color: darkslategray; font-size: 9px; border: solid #696969 1px;" /> </form> <p class="caption"> </p></td> <td width="81%"> <blockquote> <div align="right" class="translate"><a href="http://www.faganfinder.com/translate/ref.php?from=en" title="click here to translate this page into any language, using the Fagan Finder Translation Wizard" target="new" hreflang="en">Translate this page</a></div>  <h1>Workers vs. capitalists on the Internet</h1> <P><I>The following is adapted from a talk on what every worker should know about the AOL-Time Warner merger by Gary Wilson, a managing editor of Workers World newspaper, at a Workers World Forum in New York on Jan. 21.</I></P> <P></P><P>Workers World newspaper had a headline a couple years ago that declared "Merger Mayhem." That was a great headline.</P><P>It described exactly what was happening and captured in two simple words the impact that these giant mergers were having on the working class.</P><P>The trouble is, you could probably run that headline every week.</P><P>Every day there are new mergers announced, with layoffs and cuts in the new merged corporation. This is followed by breakups and spinoffs, which are then followed by new mergers. The reason for this mayhem is that capital generally goes to wherever the rate of profit is highest. But eventually the rate of profit starts to decline and then capital flees to the newest source of high profits.</P><P>So the first question we ask when a big merger like the AOL-Time Warner merger is announced is: What about the workers?</P><P>Workers World carried an excellent account in the Jan. 27 issue on what the AOL-Time Warner merger will mean for the workers at these companies. The bosses will use this merger first to cut jobs, and, if they can, break the back of the union.</P><P>For us, that is one of the most important aspects of this or any other merger. And we want to support the workers and their union in their struggles to protect their jobs. There is absolutely no reason that the workers should lose their jobs just because the bosses have decided that their profits have to be higher.</P><P><B>The Internet and the merger</B></P><P>Of course, there are other aspects to this merger. Its impact will be wider than what happens to the workers at AOL and Time Warner.</P><P>AOL is the biggest Internet service provider in the country and probably the world. Time Warner is one of the biggest media conglomerates on earth.</P><P>The merged company will be called AOL-Time Warner. Putting AOL at the beginning of the new company's name is a tip-off that the Internet is the focus of the new company.</P><P>The Internet is the new technology that has profoundly changed business and the economy. What does it mean? And why is media giant Time Warner merging with a much smaller Internet company and giving the Internet company top billing? After all, an earlier Time Warner merger with Ted Turner's CNN didn't involve any kind of name change.</P><P>The Internet is a fascinating subject. It is a new technology that was not built by the so-called free enterprise system. No, in fact, free enterprise had nothing to do with it. It was funded entirely by big government, first by the Pentagon--which is the biggest of all big government--and then by other agencies of the U.S. government.</P><P><B>Internet is socialist in form</B></P><P>By design, the Internet is a thoroughly socialized technology. By this I mean that it is completely socialist in form and remains so to this day. It can exist only through the collective efforts of computer workers in every country of the world, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This is true even though the Internet is now being privatized.</P><P>In this respect, the Internet can be seen as socialist. Except for one glaring contradiction. The capitalists have control of it.</P><P>This is not really anything new. Lenin, in his primer on imperialism, describes the growth of monopoly capitalism. He shows how the monopoly corporations really create the foundation for socialism. They completely socialize the labor process and make it ready for a socialist takeover. The only obstacle is the private ownership by the capitalists.</P><P>Anyway, never before has there been such a totally global, completely collective, socialist technology as the Internet. It is hard to describe this fully. But the Internet is truly global. And the centers of its development are now equally outside of the United States--from South Africa to Mexico, from Pakistan and India to China as well as Europe.</P><P>Only a week or two ago IBM announced it was opening up a whole new division. It will be headquartered in India. The Internet makes it possible to do this. And the reason is not simply explained by the lower pay that workers in India will receive or the ability to have instant worldwide communications through the Internet. The fact is, some of the most important development of the Internet technologies have come out of India.</P><P>The Internet is big. We know that the "experts" on TV all say the Internet is big. So we all agree that it is big even if we don't know what that really means. </P><P><B>AOL's and Time Warner's troubles</B></P><P>So where does the AOL-Time Warner merger fit into all this?</P><P>AOL is the number-one company for providing personal Internet services for home use. And AOL is in trouble. You may not know that. And it may not have been mentioned in the TV newscasts about the merger.</P><P>But the fact is, AOL is certain to die in a couple of years unless it can completely change itself somehow.</P><P>AOL sells dial-up service to the Internet. And the day is not too far away when dial-up connections will be completely replaced by different kinds of connections.</P><P>There are three basic new kinds of connections that are coming. These are called broadband connections. One is DSL, which uses the phone lines but is not a dialup connection. The second is a cable connection, using your cable TV connection. The third is satellite connections using small satellite dishes.</P><P>What you may not know is that right now you can't get AOL in the usual way through any of these new high-speed connections. In fact, AOL has a big lawsuit going against the cable industry over this very issue. So there have been many predictions that within the next five years AOL would just disappear altogether if it can't find a way to be the primary service provider for broadband connections.</P><P>Time Warner is a different kind of failure. Time Warner has been trying for years to sell its publications on the Internet.</P><P>Time Warner publications like Time magazine and Sports Illustrated were charging for access to their pages. They couldn't do it. Now all of those publications are available for free on the Internet.</P><P>CNN, also part of Time Warner, has never charged for access. It has become the second most popular news site on the Internet.</P><P>But the bosses at Time Warner still want to charge money for accessing their "content" on the Internet. What Time Warner hopes to do is to take AOL's success at selling Internet services and use it through its cable connections. The Time Warner execs hope to then be able to collect money from everyone who reads their publications, listens to their music or watches their movie clips on the Web.</P><P>But there are some problems with this. Even if AOL takes control of all of Time Warner's cable connections around the country, that's only a fraction of the home users on the Internet. Most of the Internet would not be tied into AOL's exclusive system.</P><P>AOL-Time Warner seems to be determined to control access for home users of the Internet, and charge a premium for it. But there is no reason to think it will succeed in doing this.</P><P>Since this is the age of monopoly capitalism, we know that unless there is a workers' revolution that overturns the system, monopoly capitalism will constantly seek out ways to control the Internet.</P><P>But it would be a mistake to say that AOL-Time Warner is in a position to take over the Internet.</P><P><B>The Internet and Big Business</B></P><P>In relation to the Internet, AOL-Time Warner is only one player. It may be the biggest among home users, but the Internet is much bigger than home users. </P><P>In fact, as much as 90 percent of the use of the Internet is for commerce by big business. This is the dominant force on the Internet.</P><P>Businesses are using the Internet for everything from tying together company work sites to worker training to production. Company-to-company business is now dominated by the Internet. Email is now the primary form of business communication. Banking and the stock market are all completely tied into the Internet.</P><P>The Fortune 500 and Wall Street banks aren't interested in letting AOL-Time Warner control access to the Internet. They require that the Internet and access to it remain open, just as the roads and waterways must be open and accessible to all businesses.</P><P>If they are selling on the Internet, they don't want to pay an AOL-Time Warner tax for every transaction. They will require open and free access to their company Web sites and the free flow of email.</P><P>In fact, the government's lawsuit against Microsoft is probably motivated most by a drive by a significant section of the ruling class who were alarmed by Microsoft's move to take control of the Internet and access to it through its Windows operating system. Microsoft's Windows is used on almost 95 percent of the computer desktops.</P><P><B>The role of the workers</B></P><P>What shouldn't be forgotten about the Internet is that it is completely dependent on computer workers around the world. These workers have a power much greater than they know. </P><P>There are many kinds of Internet workers doing many, many different tasks. It is truly a collective effort. </P><P>So when Seattle happened, when the WTO demonstrations were taking place, computer workers around the world figured out a way to bring down the World Trade Organization web site during the days of the demonstrations. </P><P>I say, to paraphrase Karl Marx, workers of the world unite, we have nothing to lose but some oppressive Web sites.</P>  <p>This article is copyright under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">Creative Commons License</a>.   <br /> Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011<br> Email: <a href="MAILTO:ww@workers.org">ww@workers.org</a><br> Subscribe <a href="MAILTO:wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net">wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net</a><br> Support independent news <a href="http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php">http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php</a>)  </p> <p class="caption"><a href="http://www.workers.org/">HOME</a> :: <a href="http://www.workers.org/us/">U.S. NEWS</a> :: <a href="http://www.workers.org/world/">WORLD NEWS</a> :: <a href="http://www.workers.org/editorials/">EDITORIALS</a> :: <a href="http://www.workers.org/orders/">SUBSCRIBE</a> :: <a href="http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php">DONATE</a></p> </blockquote> </body> </html>