Steve Jobs: An Obituary!

"Greatest innovator of this world has died." We were bombarded by these headlines and newsflashes by the media on the next day of the death of Steve Jobs. The corporate media gave a tearful farewell to Steve Jobs, the former CEO of Apple inc. and founder of ‘PIXAR’. It is true that Steve Jobs was a true corporate hero. He was a media celebrity. Media celebrated everything about Steve Jobs. However, let's see how noble was this symbol of modern capitalism and how he showed his compassionate benevolence to the world!

If we are not mistaken, we are talking about the same Steve Jobs who refused to accept his daughter as his child and claimed that he is impotent (just to avoid paternity, because that would have cost him millions of dollars!!). He was a champion in dog-eat-dog corporate competition, having his eyes fixed at the throat of his opponent. He showed his Weberian spirit of entrepreneurship by expelling fellow engineer Wozniak from his company and later getting expelled himself in a plot against Sculley. Ironically enough, all these skillful maneuvers are not a reason for disdain due to the unethical conduct of Jobs; on the contrary, these are the very traits which make Jobs the hero of the corporate world and most celebrated by the media! He was a true capitalist for whom the measuring unit of everything human, like ethics, morality, justness, etc was only money. His company Apple manufactured I-Pod, I-Pad, Laptop, PCs, Software etc. As advertisements claim, these products have changed lives of many high class and higher middle class people. Why not!? However, Jobs changed the lives of the working people in his corporation in a different way. Steve Jobs has made life for thousands of workers a living hell, just for profit. Foxconn and Intech are two main contract manufacturers of Apple. The workers' campus of Foxconn forces workers to work in inhuman conditions. It is known as a ‘hell’ for workers in China. Workers have to work for more than 16 hours continuously. This is done to ensure the quality standard of Apple! The workers are underpaid here which is the second reason why Apple gives Foxconn the contract. Apple shines on blood and sweat of workers of China and other Third World countries. A lot of workers have committed or have tried to commit suicide due to conditions of slavery in this campus. Apparently, that must be regarded as a great change in the lives of the workers by Steve Jobs!!

Products like I-Pod, I-Phone, X-Box and other such electronic goods of companies like Apple, Microsoft, Samsung are designed to make person ‘comfortably dumb’. The social system we live in today has alienation, consumerism, laziness bred through these products. Video games, social networking sites, pornography spread the culture of alienation, perversion and self-centeredness amongst people. These products kill every tender human emotions, make people insensitive to everything that matters, and teach people to enjoy perversion. Every now and then, these companies launch some new product that have new options for new perversions and convince that the older was not pervert enough! The human emotions and sensitivity are devoured by these gadgets. These teach people not to think and just enjoy in an inconsiderate way.

It is quite easy to understand why all media houses sobbed over Steve Jobs’ death. Whether he was a great technology innovator is a non-question. He was definitely an enterprising exploitator. We are not sure about technology, but he was definitely an innovator and pioneer in new methods of exploitation and spreading stupidity through gadgets in the society. The technology his company has been working upon is a kind of luxurious upgradation. It nowhere relates to development of society.

So, while a true radical can never celebrate the death of anybody, there is not much to mourn for common students, workers, pro-people intellectuals and other common people in the death of Steve Jobs. That is the most we can say in this placebo for an obituary.