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From Apple To Xbox, Tech Companies Lean Left
Velcroman1 writes "Only a week to election time! How does tech feel about politics? If you guessed liberal, you're right: Big Tech leans left. 'They're dominated by coastal people who tend to be more liberal,' says Jim Taylor, a management consultant who writes about the business of psychology. 'Also, those in Big Tech tend to be educated in the better schools, which lean left. Big Tech skews younger and hipper [and favors] social and environmental issues. Their political values trump financial concerns at the organizational culture level and the missions of many firms, especially those that are new media.' For example, Marissa Mayer, known as 'the face of Google,' gave $30,400 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2009. In fact, of the top 10 contributions made by Google in 2009, only one — by CEO Eric Schmidt — was to the Republican National Committee. Facebook has donated almost exclusively to Democratic candidates, according to Transparency Data, including $1,000 to California Sen. Barbara Boxer a year ago, and more recently, almost $5,000 to Richard Blumenthal, who is running for senator in Connecticut."
I don't think you understand the word "liberal" in its oldest meanings. It used to be that liberal meant more freedoms, both economically and personally. Using that definition libertarians are the most liberal of parties. It is only in the last few years that liberal has become synonymous with the progressive movement, which isn't even liberal at all because most support less freedoms both personally and economically.
What the US really needs is more political parties so people could accurately state their belief system, because I don't think hardly anyone is truly a republican or democrat.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
No. Every single party/candidate fits along these lines in many ways.
For example, the libertarian party believes in maximizing both economic and personal freedom.
Candidates such as Palin might want to increase economic freedoms in some areas but want to bring the state into many personal issues.
Based on Obama's actions, he has wanted to decrease economic freedom and keep the level of personal freedoms roughly the same.
The green party wants to increase personal freedoms while limiting economic freedoms to better the environment.
Etc.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Conversley here in South America, everyone claims to be be of pure European descent(I guess they have been fucking their cousins for the last three hundred years to keep the race pure. So the one drop rule here means if you have one drop of European blood, you have to be white. I am a Colombian Cajun mix(cajun side being Sicilian settlers in Thibodaux) and before I excepted my present employment here in Colombia I was offered a relative high paying job in the Bay Area, but turned it down. I kept being accused of being a southerner when I spoke English and when I spoke spanish it was "you speak great english for a Mexican". I found everyone on the West Coast assumed every Latino was a Mexican.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
A more accurate statement about tech companies would probably be that at least until recently they were largely apolitical. They gave very little money, compared to their size and other companies, to politicians. It has been increasing, because politicians have been increasingly meddling (for good or for ill). MS is an interesting study in this. Prior to their anti-trust deal they gave only a token amount to either party, now they give quite a bit. Makes sense if you think about it, the government started bothering them, at the behest of their competitors. Now right or wrong on that, it let them know that they needed more influence, and so they set out to get it.
In general though, tech companies seem to donate a hell of a lot less. They just aren't as interested in buying off politicians it seems. Perhaps because they don't need to, perhaps because they are younger companies, I don't know.
Not really a bad thing if you asked me, I think companies out to stay out of politics, but there you go.
>>All corporations lean to the right
Do you mean "the right" in the European sense of the word, or the American sense of the word? To Europeans, all of America is "right wing". If you mean it in the American sense of the world, you should spend some time looking through Open Secrets.org to see how corporations actually give. Goldman Sachs gave nearly a million to Obama, and around two hundred thousand to McCain, for example.
>>After all, corporations exist for the purpose of realizing profits, so why would a corporation ever support a political party or movement that works against the system that has allowed corporations to become as big, powerful, and profitable as they are today?
Big businesses often trend Democrat because Democrats believe in protectionism, whereas Republicans believe in competition and small businesses. Small businesses represent threats to big businesses, but regulation and red tape (Democrat tools) can impose severe barriers to entry for small businesses. For an insightful lesson, look at the difference in how many big businesses failed in post-war France versus America in the same time period. Off the top of my head, something like 90% of France's large businesses in 1950 were still around in 1980, whereas only 10% of America's were. Competition vs. Protectionism. Too big to fail, and all that.
Contrary to popular perception, the ultra-rich also like Democrats. If you believed the media, you'd think that Republicans were all about giving tax breaks to the ultra-rich. But we pay taxes in two different ways here in America - 1) income tax, and 2) capital gains. A reduction on income tax doesn't make the slightest difference to the ultra-rich, who get most of their money from capital gains. But all you hear about in the media is "Republicans pose tax break for the ultra-rich" and you don't hear anything about how John Kerry reduced capital gains taxes, or how Democrats recently killed the carried interest exemption (one of their 2008 campaign promises) after they had a lot of money thrown at them by lobbyists. Not that tax cuts aren't good things, but the carried interest exemption is just a bone thrown to Goldman Sachs.
It's interesting reading to see how Billionaires actually donate to political causes:
http://www.newsmeat.com/billionaire_political_donations
Except Bill Clinton. (Assuming we use number of federal employees as the yardstick)
Then there's amazon.com, which in addition to their ground-breaking aggressive use of an inane software patent, was also donating money to the Republican party during the rise of the Bush Jr. regime... in contrast to Barnes and Nobles, which has been solidly blue, all along.
I know it's second nature to tar both major US political parties with the "whores for business", and I've done it myself. However, in the 30 or so years since I started to pay attention to politics, this much has become crystal clear:
Luke, help me take this mask off