Author Malcolm Harris argues that the economic and technological ills of society can all be traced back to one city in the heart of Silicon Valley.
to abandon him and start their own company, Fairchild, and from there populate the Valley with other upstarts like Intel? Wouldn’t that mean that the modern system of VCs funding startups—and ultimately, companies like Apple and Google— was based on ato the white-supremecist ethos that Harris finds tucked away in every corner of his hometown? Harris pushes back on that theory. “They made chips for bombs!” he says of the “traitorous eight.
But for all his verbiage, Harris falls short when it comes to proposing remedies for the wage exploitation, racism, ecological carnage, and suicides he sees rippling outward from Palo Alto. He doesn’t provide a prescription for ending capitalism, short of waiting for its horrors to reach a point when ragtag survivors will finally pull the plug on it. He does have an idea how to fix Palo Alto, though.
Brightening as he speaks of the concept, he wants Stanford to return its 8,000-acre campus to the 614 people recognized as remaining members of the Ohlone, which once indigenously prowled that very turf. It’s a tall order, he admits.
I’m actually in agreement with a lot of Harris’ critiques of systems that reward harmful market power . While proponents of the status quo claim that Silicon Valley is the engine of wealth creation, income inequality is worse than ever, with the Bay Area. But my preferred solution is to constrain capitalism rather than employ Karl Marx’s playbook. I realize that significant change is difficult when the most destructive forces have the money and power to thwart reform.
But while we struggle to improve conditions for those not lucky enough to afford Palo Alto’s Craftsman homes, can’t we at least acknowledge that some of the technological benefits that have sprung from the system, tainted as it is by over-rewarded founders and exploited workers,made our lives easier and richer? Even the scary technology of the moment, generative AI, has potential to perform amazing services for all walks of life.
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