Kevin Raber suggested that my observations on Luminous Landscape's recent reporting on the Photokina 2014 exhibition might find a home here. So here it is:
I recently was looking at a photography blog (
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/) that had a series of articles on the Photokina 2014 exhibition in September in Cologne Germany. As one of the premier photographic trade-shows their coverage of this event was full of tantalizing new products of interest to the amateur as well as the professional photographer. Understandably, the major displays at the show and the most “eye-catching” vendors were those associated with digital gadgets and advanced digital image capturing technology. What caught my eye though, and what admittedly elicited my most visceral response was the picture they had of a small Kodak display (
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/photokina___days_2__3.shtml about 3/4th way down the page). Under the single picture of Kodak’s booth was the note, “A Sad Story, Kodak Used To Occupy A Whole Hall.” I may only be an amateur photographer, but I have been a chemical engineer for over 30 years and the story behind Kodak’s (and Polaroid’s for that matter) rise and fall is far more complicated than simple corporate mis-management. It reveals to us some inherent problems unique to the United States economy, and alerts us to a path that we are proceeding down that may not be where we really want to go.
As of this year, 2014, Mark Zuckerburg age 30 of Facebook has a net worth of $33.1 billion. Larry Page and Sergey Brin both 41 of Google are worth $31.7 billion and 30 billion respectively. George Eastman had a net worth of $95 million in 1932 when he committed suicide with his famous note, “My work is done – Why wait? GE.” He was worth at the time about $26.8 billion in today’s dollars. Similar net worths, but that is where the similarities end. George Eastman invented, built, and created the infrastructure to create real things. Zuckerburg, Page, and Brin are simple Ad Men and Information Brokers, in other words, Grifters. Eastman created what he needed from scratch, the only thing he depended upon was maybe the reliability of the US postal service which could justifiably be depended upon as it is required my the US Constitution (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause). Zuckerburg et al. can only exist because of a vast amount of past and present infrastructure which they had no involvement in creating and or maintaining. Without electrical power there is no Facebook or Google. If Eastman could not get reliable electrical power for one of his plants, he would simply build a power plant himself! But most importantly beyond all the tremendous advancements in technology Eastman and his companies produced, he created an avenue for the common man to attain a comfortable middle class life working in one of his facilities. This in itself provided the important bedrock upon which the prosperity of this country has rested for much of the 20th century. Zuckerburg et al. provide no such foundation and it can be argued that their actions actually undermine the current foundations present. What does this have to do with Photokina 2014, please bear with me and read on.
It cannot be argued that the fall of Kodak as reflected by its tiny booth at Photokina 2014 was not the fault of gross mismanagement at this companies top. History shows this to be true, but this far from tells the whole story. It was also stated in the coverage of Photokina 2014 how well Fuji and Leica are doing reflected in their larges displays at the exhibition. First and foremost we must remember that Fuji and Leica are not US companies and this makes a huge difference as the fall of Kodak can be traced to the corporate outlook and economic pressures unique to the US as it can to anything else. Please allow me to elaborate.
Soon after I started my career in chemical engineering in 1983 I noticed a distinct fall in the status and need for engineers in America (I am not talking “software engineers” which are actually computer programers, I am talking about chemical, electrical, structural, civil, mechanical, nuclear, petroleum engineers). It was not until a number of years later and some historical research, something I had not time to do while starting my career and raising a family, that I came to a better understanding what was actually happening here. It all started with the evolution in the 1980’s of the “Greed is Good” outlook that culminated in the Savings and Loan Crisis perpetrated by Michael Milken and his ilk that almost brought this country to its knees. One of the hidden to the general public results of this was its disastrous effects on major manufacturing companies. Even companies not directly threatened by the Savings and Loan sharks felt the effects. These companies, some of which had spent 50 or even 100 years building up a “fully integrated” production capability quickly changed their mindset. Faced with the potential of a hostile takeover and selected sell-off of their once integrated components for short-term profits (or to simply pay off loans taken to purchase the firm in the first place) these once powerful firms entered into this self-destructive behavior on their own. To do so these companies transferred their leadership into the hands of managers of that mindset. The result was off-shoring and other decisions that created short-term gains to satisfy Wall Street while decimating these companies’ long-term viability. Frankly in addition to this these managers were so short-sighted that they simply made horrible business decisions like those made by Kodak.
These actions corresponded with and assisted in the “financialization” of the American economy (see:
http://www.63alfred.com/whomakesit/index.htm) that has steadily increased since the 1970s reaching a point in about 1986 when the percent of GDP in the US involved with Finance, Insurance, Real Estate, Rental, and Leasing exceed that of Manufacturing. By the late 2000s the financial sector of our economy, as a percent of GDP, had reached about 21% while that associated with manufacturing has fallen to about 11%. I would contest that the small Kodak booth at Photokina 2014 was inevitable due to the evolution of economic pressures on businesses that has been allowed to fester in the US.
Fuji and Leica are Japanese and German companies respectively and although the Japanese economy may not have fully recovered from its downturn in the 1990s these counties still have a far different outlook on how the government, the economy, and companies interact. Because of what residents in Japan and Germany expect from their companies and how their respective governments respond to these public expectations, the pressures on these companies are much different and I would contest that this allows them to concentrate far more on the long-term viability of their operations than the short-term return of their shareholders. And that is why their booths at Photokina 2014 were so much larger that than of Kodak’s.
This is important because as we rely more and more in the US on an economy supported by the Facebook’s and the Google’s we are concentrating on short-term goals that really do not create lasting wealth in our economy and cannot sustain a middle class existence for the majority of our population.
Ironically, my old fashion, 20 year old 35mm film camera (with Kodak Ektar 100 film) can still take pictures that have a higher resolving capability than almost all current cell phone cameras (since cell phone cameras are the main mode of image capturing these days). Also my 30 year old medium format camera (with the same film) can easily exceed the resolving capabilities of most current digital SLRs and even approaches that of digital cameras costing many thousands or tens of thousands of dollars (
http://63alfred.smugmug.com/Shootingfilm/Film/Film-vs-Digital/i-RtHFfc6/A). Again it seems that even as individuals we have abandoned quality for quantity, and long term durability for short term gratification.
