I’m a communist, more precisely I’m a neo-marxist, which means that whoever you are there are good chances that I’m at the left of the political spectrum you have. And I have a huge problem with Elon Musk: he's the symbol of one of the biggest problem of marxism, how to reward exceptionnal individuals and conduct them to contribute to the positive evolution of society.
Who's Elon Musk?
Elon Musk is someone most of you will know I guess, but for the ones who don't know exactly here are the few elements that you should know. First Elon isn't a complete self made genius: he's the son of a South American engineer and a Canadian model. So his parents sent him to study to the USA after he could claim the Canadian nationality. He's from a very comfortable social class and was able to go in the best universities in America.
Nevertheless there is no doubt he worked hard his whole life and had exceptionnal abilities. I'm not denying that considering the number of sources specifying that he read and worked more than any of his classmates. He also worked part time during some of his studies so it's not like he just had everything given to him on a plate.
What did he build?
He created a first company named Xcom which you know better as Paypal. A great idea created from scratch. And the begining of the fortune for him!
He used the money and the credibility of Paypal to take control of the Tesla company and launched massive productions of electric supercar. Aggressive marketing and the new ways of communication helped him to become widely known for being a creative futuristic genius. Same came with the next company SpaceX and the false promises of Mars colonization.
Why is that a problem?
It's complicated. In itself there is no major problem with Elon Musk. He seems to be nothing more than a successful geek and there is nothing ong with that. Even when he launches pretty... Weird ideas like the sells of the flamethrower it's not something that hugely impact society negatively. But here is the point, Elon Musk used environmental advantages (high social class, parental influence, technological advances, national schools...) to developp his potential fully. He then created something, something new and extremely innovative. And it gave him lots of money and legitimacy, which means lots of power and means. With this power HE decides WHAT he will do next.
We're rather lucky, Elon Musk seems to want more or less only to developp new technologies and reach space. It's not like money was his only obsession. But there is the problem, Elon Musk is the king and he does whatever he wants here. Some economics advance the theory that free market will influence creators and entrepreneurs so that only the best choices for society will be rewarded, which would mean that capitalists will always work for the greater good. This theory is simply false and if you believe this... Well I might discuss this later but it's pretty obvious if you look at some precise cases like Monsanto.
But how to ensure that Elon Musk and his kinds developp fully while still contributing to the society in a positive way? Marx didn't really work on this question so marxism doesn't give any answer. I'm not saying I have a perfect solution but here is a begining of a solution to think about: what if rather than depriving entrepreneurs from the ownership of the company, which is the classical communist answer, we maintain their ownership but spread the control?
To make it more simple, if Elon Musk created his companies from scratch it seems normal that he owns them. But why should he decide of the evolution of the company and the impact on society when hundreds of people work at its development? We could maintain his property but give him only a partial control (100% of share property but only 30% of shares power for example) and the 70% split between the employees. The idea is to still give more power to the initial leader and his vision but not make him an absolute king.
It's just a communist opinion, but I think it could be a way to balance the incentive of taking the risk to create and the power some people have. Reduce the monopoly while having progress.
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