How does American society today compare to what it once was?

Hello classmates! Sorry that I didn't post last week. I forgot that it was my week to make posts so I’ll be posting this blog and more next week. Hopefully everyone is okay with that.

I remembered an interesting conversation we had as a class last week and I’m kind of hoping we can extend it here. Last Tuesday in class, we talked about the effects of the period in which many things we use today such as light bulbs, cars, and the telephone were invented. This lecture was very interesting because we discussed how this period of time connects to other periods in history where the invention of certain objects have greatly changed the daily lives of people.

Larry referenced how it specifically connected to modern day society through the use of mobile devices. Just how Thomas Edison didn't invent electricity but rather an ingenious way  to use it, people have made it possible to use the internet on tiny mobile devices known as cell phones. What we know of as a telephone today has greatly evolved from what it once was. It began with Alexander Graham Bell’s idea of creating an object that enabled people very far away to talk to others via sound waves. Now, nearly everyone seems to have a smartphone, a touch-screen cellphone capable of doing many tasks while still retaining the key function of acting as a telephone.

How do people use smartphones and what do they do? They use them for daily essential needs. From being an alarm clock to wake oneself up in the morning, a web browser to access the largest library of free information, a means to access social media, a gaming device, or simply a phone to call a friend; phones are used for a wide variety of daily needs. It’s like a Swiss army knife of the modern technological era, it does everything.  People have come to rely on their cellphones to simply make it through the day. Yet, these people are an example of a perfect group that could be manipulated if a person or cooperation is given enough power to monopolize the trade and usage of cellphones.

From what we learned in history from the period of industrial supremacy, it was very easy for a man of power and high status to manipulate the economy within a nation when few law are there to limit the exponential expansion of an individual’s influence. With much wealth and power, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and J.D. Rockefeller proved to be individuals that held the option of saving or destroying America. We learned, through watching a very detailed and informational documentary, that these people could be referenced as either “Captains of Industry” or “Robber Barons”. Both sides can be argued for each of these individuals and if you would like to review the successes of good and bad of each of these economic titans, reference back to Kenneth’s post from last week that contains notes of each individual and his accomplishments:

http://ushaplahs2013.blogspot.com/2013/10/hi-fellow-students-on-this-post-i-would.html#comment-form

Many laws were then created by the United States government to regulate the power and control that a single individual or corporation could have over society. However, lets envision present day America trapped in the old system, a system where no such laws existed to regulate and limit the desires of a growing capitalist. That would mean people who have ideas and strategies to manipulate the system such as Carnegie, Morgan, and Rockefeller did would have an opportunity to manipulate the system for their own desires. Remember what I said about cellphones?  What if instead of having control over oil, railroads, or banks, an individual had full control over the use of cellphones? People would not be able to adapt from being used to having their do-it-all smartphone to being limited to a flip phone. Or it could be worse, there could be a monopoly over phones, specifically smartphones. My question is: Would Americans be able to give up their need on cellphones or would they suck themselves dry of their money over the monopoly that they are placed under due to the rule of an economic titan?

Personally, I think that Americans would not be able to save themselves if there was a monopoly placed on cellphones. Americans take many things for granted, and while residents of the Bay Area, specifically Los Altos, may be okay financially if they were locked into a monopoly by an economic titan, the majority of the country would suffer from being monopolized. Most of the middle class citizens in our nation live day to day and barely make enough to pay their bills. For others, it's worse. Only the top 1% would probably not care if they was a monopoly for they would probably be involved in organizing such a thing anyways, or they would simply not be affected as much as others would be. While this scenario would never really happen in our world today due to the experience the nation has earned through the past century and thus creating laws to prevent such madness from occurring (hopefully), I thought that it would be a fun and interesting discussion to talk about how strong/weak American society really is.

Now you decide. Write comments about what you think would happen to American society if smart phones were placed under a monopoly by a single individual/corporation.

-Jason Leong