Platform Socialism
Devolved Scotland doesn’t have many powers when it comes to unilaterally defending ourselves against a Trump trade tantrum that Starmer will suplicate and grovel to avoid – but the powers we have are surprisingly powerful.
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Canadian tech journalist (and author and wearer of many other hats) Cory Doctorow has been advocating that Canada shouldn’t just retaliate against the Trumpist Trade War with tariffs (which inevitably hurt Canadian consumers who can’t shift their purchases to tariff-free alternatives) but should look at measures that hurt the American economy while BENEFITING Canadian consumers. In fact, he has an idea that could undercut the American economy, would benefit Canadian consumers AND would also benefit American consumers too.
Take a look at your smartphone. How do you install new apps on it? 95% of the time it’ll be by going to the Google/Apple app store (many phones are even set by default to block or throw up warnings against installing apps via any other route). But how do the apps get on the store? Enter, the techfeudal monopoly. Google and Apple both maintain internal monopsony-monopolies within their respective fiefdoms. They don’t aggressively push other forms of app store onto each other’s platform but they DO aggressively push out other app stores from theirs. If you develop an app and want to get it to people then you need to post it to their stores and you need to surrender 30% of the price of buying your app to them. Never mind Trump’s 25% tariffs – your paid apps are already 30% more expensive than they should be because of Apple and Google taking their cut.
So, Doctorow says, Canada should develop a Canadian App Store that undercuts the barons. They don’t even need to do it for free, they can merely charge a more reasonable levy – 5% say – to host those apps and they could provide jailbreaking kits (something that is a felony level crime in the US) to allow people outside Canada to download apps from the store too – The billionaires propping Trump up get hit but ALL OF US benefit. He goes on to suggest jailbreaking other walled tech gardens like the Playstation store or John Deere’s tractors.
One issue with this plan from a political point of view is that retaliatory tariffs are easily reversible. Once issued, they can be retracted. Once the “Canada App” jailbreaks Apple, that can’t so easily be put away again. However I agree with Doctorow that this is a feature, not a bug.
Indeed, we’ve advocated for something very similar that is within Scotland’s power to do right now.
Several websites ago, we published an article pointing out that one of Scotland’s lesser known devolved powers sits in regard to “Crown Use” of patents (yes...it’s another article about copyright and tech). For reasons known only to the beings that bestow the King’s Magic Hat with its power, it is possible for the either the UK Government or the Scottish Government to override patent laws when doing so is “in service to the Crown”. This allows the governments to basically do what they like with inventions – including selling them or services using them – if doing so benefits the Crown (and when these laws have been tested in regards to telecommunications and medicines, basically whatever benefits the Realm and the Crown’s subjects benefits the Crown). There – I bet you didn’t expect a pro-monarchy argument from me ever! (Republics are free to enact similar laws – Editor)
The UK should consider freeing us from the grip of the tech barons not just because Trump is a tariff-happy powerbaby but because the barons who supported him into power need and deserve to have their power broken for the exact same reason that the land barons who own most of Scotland deserve to have their power taken from them. All gatekeepers who skim profits from transactions made more difficult only because of the gates they built should be pushed out of the way. Their rentierism does nothing to benefit anyone other than themselves.
As with the App Store, and hackable-but-not-repairable tractors, so too places like Amazon that forces you to use their store, forces you to jack your prices up everywhere else, forces you to pay to push your products up in the search rankings, then rips off your product and demotes you anyway. Common Weal actually piloted an “Amazon alternative” several years ago. Common Market brought together artists and crafters from across Scotland who couldn’t get their crafts seen by people in Scotland. The pilot was small and short-lived but it not only worked, it proved that even we could do it. So if we can, then surely the Scottish Government could too and how far could it take that principle of giving us right to roam through the virtual spaces. See Kaitlin’s article this week on how this principle could be applied to other platforms like buying gig tickets or even just finding out where the gigs are in the first place.
This is Platform Socialism: the ability for the spaces around us – real and virtual – to be used by All of Us, for the Common Good. Not enclosed and corralled for the benefit of a billionaire who likely wouldn’t have gotten to where they are today without the use of that common good for themselves no matter how “self-made” they tell themselves they are. This is the “Free Market” that Adam Smith advocated for. Not one free from “regulations” that keep us safe, but free from landlords who charge us rent to use things that they and only they insist we must use. Trump has precipitated this round of trade wars and we need to protect ourselves from his next tantrum but be under no illusions that the alternative is to just wait till a “more reasonable” politician takes over from him because it was the “reasonable” ones who created the techbarons in the first place.
