ANALYSIS OF “HOW STEVE JOBS CHANGED CAPITALISM”

The argumentative text I am going to analyze is written by J. Baggini and appeared in 6^th October 2011’s The Guardian.

The journalist discusses contemporary change in Capitalism with reference to S. Jobs’ credit. Jobs’ death is the pretext of his writing, since “he changed the way we live”, but the article’s real matter deals with the transformation of the business’ world.

The background idea is that the idea of Capitalism, as conceived of during the Industrial Revolution, has turned into Consumerism.

The journalist develops the idea that nowadays Capitalism is not perfectly self-regulated and not maximally efficient by presenting different argumentations.

In the first place Baggini singles out an important aspect of contemporary society: consumers do not know what they want, however, they buy products. For this reason it is said that no longer the consumer is the king. In addition the present form of capitalism is linked to a new concept of innovation: just great innovation can become popular.

In the second place, Apple showed the cost of excellence. In the journalist's words “you can’t sustain quality by giving things away”, therefore premium product comes to a premium prize. Consequently thigh control is often required to protect quality.

The concept breaks with the philosophy of Socialism because it proves the inefficiency of producing good things for free and collaboration. This explains for S. Jobs' refusal of the open market and collaboration that he was considered demagogic.

In the third place the respectability of multinational brand was reinforced. A direct effect of such strength is the admiration and reliability felt for some of them.

The journalist underlines the importance of rethinking capitalism.

According to someone’s opinion the idea is old-fashioned, but the dynamic efficiency of the free market shows that there is no need  to pay women and men for their contribution.

It follows that  the reader is once more invited to reflect on the meaning of innovation. Baggini points out that human innovation “is not random at all” and “can walk quickly” because people of genius catch the potential success of ideas. S. Jobs himself was able to understand the uniqueness of some inspirations, to “see that some crazy ideas are made of gold”.

In the last paragraph of the article, the journalist clearly expresses his thesis: capitalism is not perfectly self-regulating.

His position adds to the argumentation because the reader can follow the argumentative thread and agree with it.

All in all, the journalist’s aim is to warn he  who reads to be an intelligent reader of social dynamics. Since world transformations work quickly, most consumers'behaviour is  irrational. As a result, being the whole system really complex,  the intelligent reader is invited to a full understanding of the most  relevant aspects  to achieve any success whatsoever.