Little Fish Podcast

Think you live and work in a free-market economy? It’s a delusion. From the United States to Australia, and whether about beer, banking or Big Tech, consumers have been sold a turkey. Monopoly and oligopoly corporations dictate our choices, how much we pay for products and services and how little we earn. After more than a generation of monopolies rising and regulatory capture, faux free-market capitalism is getting the scrutiny it deserves. Will the 1 per cent continue to resist reform or embrace it? In this podcast, The Myth of Capitalism co-author, Denise Hearn and Little Fish host, Sandy Plunkett discuss how capitalism can get its groove back and work for the 99 per cent. “If we define capitalism as competitive free markets, that is not the capitalism that exists in today’s universe… we are in a situation where most industries are dominated by a handful of very large companies. Beer and airlines and banking, most people are aware of those. But what we found is that (concentration of industrial power) is incredibly pervasive in areas that are not intuitive like funeral services, eye glasses or kidney dialysis. The list of industries that are concentrated is just endless.” Denise Hearn, co-author, The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition

Hopes for a landmark US/China trade deal in March are likely to fizzle; but the first quarter of the 21st century will be about an escalating tech cold war between rival superpowers. With nothing less than global domination the goal, is there anything left for anyone else?  We kinda confront a choice between two worlds, neither one very appealing: Silicon Valley’s world where data are available indirectly to the highest bidder because everything is essentially about advertising revenue; and a Chinese model in which the priority ultimately is maintaining the power of the Communist party and your data are available on-demand to Xi Zinping. That’s not a great choice. Niall Ferguson; renowned global economic historian; Snr Fellow, Hoover Institution In this episode. Little Fish presenter and digital economy pundit Sandy Plunkett talks with international economic relations expert, Niall Ferguson about the a very 21st century problem – the geopolitics of “Big Tech.” Battle lines have been drawn around AI, big data and globally expanding e-commerce marketplaces. No matter who’s side you’re on, here’s what you need to know to navigate the US China tech cold war minefield.

  “This is a power we’ve never seen before in the world … someone with an algorithm that reaches into 2 billion people’s brains at the same time and is the platform for most political discussion for most people, makes the Carnegies and the Rockefellers look impotent by comparison.” Anand Giridharades, author, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World The Internet has changed the lives of four billion people on the planet in profound ways; but not as we may have hoped. Power and wealth are becoming more concentrated at the very top; traditional jobs are being decimated; people’s online and offline privacy has been invaded and abused; and elite global and business leaders seem tone deaf to the growing concerns about the future of work and civil society. In this podcast, LittleFish presenter, Sandy Plunkett and global experts in computing, social science; economics and venture capital explore the implications of a system gone wrong and ask, what’s next for the Internet; for the handful of giants that control it; and for we LittleFish who can’t seem to live with or without it. Featured Experts in this podcast: Genevieve Bell; Futurist, Anthropologist and Intel Corporation Fellow “Part of the reason I came back from Silicon Valley to Australia is that I was really interested in the notion of how do you build different kinds of futures.” Anand Giridharades, author, Winners take All: The elite charade of changing the world “I think the the answer to a winners take all world is for winners to take less and the only way to do that, is not by asking Mark Zuckerberg to be a nicer guy. It’s politics.” Jaron Lanier, Internet pioneer, computer scientist and author, Who Owns the Future? “The problem with the way we are creating success, is that we create it by pretending all the people who do the work don’t exist and we concentrate the benefits around who has the most central computer.” Duncan Davidson; Silicon Valley venture capitalist and entrepreneur “The corrupting part is they cheat... a lot of the clicks on Facebook or Google are fake clicks attributed as a real click …and so they are overcharging the advertiser maybe by 2X in order to make their business model work.”   References and Credits: LittleFish would like to specially acknowledge and thank: Anand Giridharades, author Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World Christiane Amanpour, CNN: Interview “It’s Time to Cancel Davos” with Anand Giridharades; January 21, 2019 https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2019/01/21/anand-giridharadas-amanpour.cnn Rutger Bregman, Economic historian and author; World Economic Forum 2019 panel on Inequality hosted by Time Magazine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG0w2rTKE2w Jaron Lanier, computer scientist and author: Who Owns the Future? Steve Paikin, The Agenda on Canada’s TVO; interview with Jaron Lanier; July 12, 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdEuII9cv-U Australian Broadcasting Corporation; Boyer Lecture Series Oct 2017; Fast, Smart & Connected – What it means to be human and Australian in a digital world with Boyer Lecturer Genevieve Bell - Futurist and Anthropologist https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/boyerlectures/series/2017-boyer-lectures/8869370