
There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest - surak
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/07/donald-trump-oligarchs-democrats-right-left
======
colordrops
And it is the job of the oligarchs to use their resources (e.g. think tanks,
regulatory capture, political parties, media empires, etc) to convince the
rest that it's "right vs left".

~~~
Ididntdothis
This Chomsky quote comes to mind “The smart way to keep people passive and
obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow
very lively debate within that spectrum....”. The sad part is that a lot of
people seem to be addicted to the right vs left thinking.

A while ago I listened to a radio interview with an author whose thesis was
that modern philanthropists allow change only in a way that doesn’t threaten
their own wealth and power. This definitely rings true.

~~~
nafey
Was the interviewee Anand Giridharadas? I have been finding his takes
particularly enlightening.

~~~
thundergolfer
I think that Chomsky quote is decades old.

------
fallingfrog
Interestingly, the original definition of “left” and “right” came from the
French Revolution where in the National Assembly the aristocracy sat on the
right and everyone else sat on the left. That matches pretty closely to the
oligarchy vs everyone else.

~~~
mymythisisthis
Older then that. When Paris was becoming the center of learning, just before
the formation of the University (1115) all the students lived on the left bank
of the Seine, and the wealthy lived on the right bank. Hence the left vs. the
right metaphor.

------
PaulAJ
See also "Moneyland" [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/07/moneyland-
oliv...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/07/moneyland-oliver-
bullough-review)

Its about the ways in which the top 0.01% hide their money in networks of
shell companies, tax havens etc, and the difficulty of actually taxing them.

------
ddingus
The lexicon is one dimensional, but the reality is multidimensional.

On social issues, there is a fairly clear right vs left.

On economic issues, it really is oligarchy vs ordinary people.

On war, foreign policy, the MIC is linked up with big money, and ordinary
people vary, but anti war talk is often marginalized.

Go down the list, and it should become fairly clear big money does have
conflict of interest issues, and politics reflects that reality.

Right now, economics is a high priority. Flat out, too many Americans (and
this is true in other places too) are not getting what they need, and some
modest wants fulfilled from their labor.

That is forcing a class discussion as a priority over the usual politics.

Examples:

Even the bigots need Medicare for All (or sane health care policy generally)
Speaks to common class issues. Populism.

Given a choice between tolerating trans people, gays marrying, and say,
feeding kids in a reasonable home and the promise of gainful employment, which
has priority? Your socioeconomic status impacts this greatly. Speaks right to
divide on left, as well as common class issues.

The current shift toward class issues puts social progress at risk as new and
powerful wedges form at the boundaries of all this stuff.

Lefties struggle with a non trivial divide, and it is drawn right along big
money lines. And the anti big money people have that as a priority. Many will
not be swayed by threats or risks related to social regression.

I invite someone more aligned with the right to offer their take on all this.
Would be high value.

If you ask me, all these observations, and that is all they are, add up to a
basic shift in the body politic. And it has happened.

No undo. It will all just have to play out, until we reach a new more
consistent state.

------
HissingMachine
There have been numerous articles and columns written about the dangers of
rising populism in Europe, yet here is a respectable voice advocating populism
as the solution for US.

So which is it, the solution or a danger?

~~~
mc32
Obviously populism is the solution, but only if it’s on your side, otherwise
it’s this nefarious out of control thing that perverts political systems and
threatens democracy.

This author makes erroneous assertions along the way in support of their
thesis. So I don’t think it holds much water.

Soros and the Kochs are some of the biggest political donors and influencers
and while they donate massive amounts to progressive causes and libertarian
values, they have very little interest in helping working class Americans.

~~~
smsm42
> they have very little interest in helping working class Americans.

What you mean by "helping working class Americans"? I am definitely working
(every day, many hours), does my interest count? If I would like for America
to become more libertarian (or more socialist), can it be said Koch (or Soros)
are helping my interests? Or only a direct ACH transfer counts? Or something
in between - what? Every politician I've see has declared they'd be "helping
working class Americans" \- and they all have diametrically opposed ideas of
what that means. One can almost conclude it doesn't mean anything but a
meaningless platitude politician has to do along with shaking hands and
kissing babies.

~~~
spiralx
Or you could conclude it's a complex issue that well-meaning people can come
to very different views on the causes of and the solutions to. Different
viewpoints existing doesn't mean they're all meaningless and/or lies.

------
zokier
> That means creating a multi-racial, multi-ethnic coalition of working-class,
> poor and middle-class Americans who will fight for democracy and oppose
> oligarchy.

 _Arise, ye workers from your slumber,_

 _Arise, ye prisoners of want._

 _For reason in revolt now thunders,_

 _and at last ends the age of cant!_

There might not be right vs left, but the article definitely hits some
familiar notes

------
amai
“It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as
oligarchic when they are filled by election.” Aristotle

The solution is
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition)

------
raarts
The central question of this article:

> So why do we continue to hear and use the same old “right” and “left”
> labels?

> I suspect it’s because the emerging oligarchy feels safer if Americans are
> split along the old political battle lines. That way, Americans won’t notice
> they’re being shafted.

Wouldn't this imply the oligarchs control the media? Or at least the public
discourse? But that's not the impression I get from the media. CNN, MSNBC, and
other networks make it perfectly clear they are anti-Trump, in fact most of
the media seems to be in agreement with that. Same with the most popular
reddit channels, popular outlets like Guardian, Vox, Huffington Post, and
Twitter. I mean almost everybody seems to agree that Trump is bad. YouTube and
Fox seem to be the exception.

I wrestle with understanding why most media are anti-Trump and anti-oligarchy,
and the oligarchs are still able to control those media's use of 'left' and
'right'. How does this work?

~~~
finnthehuman
>CNN, MSNBC, and other networks make it perfectly clear they are anti-Trump,
in fact most of the media seems to be in agreement with that.

By focusing on how much they hate Trump, what are they not focusing on? What
have they all decided has been solved off-screen that you shouldn't worry your
head about?

>I mean almost everybody seems to agree that Trump is bad. YouTube and Fox
seem to be the exception.

Why are those the positions? And if judging the president was about good
governance, how did this split happen across brand lines? And you're saying
this as a point _against_ the idea of oligarchs controlling the public
discourse?

~~~
raarts
> By focusing on how much they hate Trump, what are they not focusing on? What
> have they all decided has been solved off-screen that you shouldn't worry
> your head about?

I dunno, this almost sounds like an Alex-Jones style conspiracy theory.

~~~
finnthehuman
What did you think of William Arkin's resignation letter from NBC News?

The idea of deliberate, clear, top-down oligarch manipulation of media is
nonsense, I just thought the argument against that hypothetical to be empty. I
do not find the lack of editorial consistency across outlets to preclude it. I
could just as easily say the strong division around a low number of media
sanctioned positions could even suggest the existence of warring factions of
oligarchs. But I don't think that either.

I do think lots of small, deliberate and conscious editorial decisions are an
evolutionary process that creates giant editorial shifts where none (or few)
participants can see the forest for the trees while they're in the middle of
it. Only after it's effects are seen does the change come into focus.

~~~
raarts
> What did you think of William Arkin's resignation letter from NBC News?

Did not see that until now, but I do get bored by the unlimited barrage of
anti-Trump articles that some outlets put out. Sometimes I feel like they are
just in meetings all day mulling what they can write to put Trump down.

Still don't think lots of small, deliberate and conscious edits are happening.
I know various people in the news business, and they would notice if this
would be happening.

EDIT: funny tweet that shows how I feel:
[https://twitter.com/tabytchi/status/1146513236398944256?s=21](https://twitter.com/tabytchi/status/1146513236398944256?s=21)

------
ausbah
I think this article gives Donald Trump a bit too much credit for his
abilities.

------
tome
Ugh. What's this doing on Hacker News? Flagged.

~~~
quickthrower2
“On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.”

-

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
tome
That rule can be used to justify a lot of content that doesn't belong here.
Reading the discussion here is like reading a forum for political scientists
discussing the tradeoffs between strong and weak typing.

------
sadmann1
So the gist of it is that there's no us against them black and white thinking
there's just us and against them black and white thinking

------
fortran77
Not completely true. Some of the wealthiest people in the US are very
progressive.

~~~
ivoras
It really, extremely depends on how you define "progressive" and then you get
to the left Vs right narrative which inspired this article.

To oversimplify greatly to the point of banality, if rich person A says "I'll
be on the left" and rich person B says "I'll be on the right", and both
actively pump money into their respective campaigns, what do they have in
common?

~~~
macspoofing
No true Scotsman right?

~~~
ivoras
It's more like it's closer to the baser parts of human nature to put self-
interest first. We might talk "left or right" till the cows come home but I'm
fairly certain that when push comes to shove, we'll find more important things
to discuss.

------
nightwing
Rich vs poor is even less meaningful divide than right vs left. For instance i
am not rich but my goals are much better aligned with goals of rich people
like Elon Musk and Aubrey de Grey, than with any of poor people.

The solution is not to take money from the rich, but to make the government
more transparent and more inclusive. Now we only can vote for unknown bundles
of policies in the form of people, and rich people can pay to change the
bundle after it is voted in. The solution to that is to use e-voting to be
able to change your vote for separate issues when you do not agree with the
vote of your representative.

~~~
Sharlin
> Rich vs poor is even less meaningful divide than right vs left.

Which is why the author is careful to not use those words to describe the
situation. Someone like Aubrey de Grey (who isn't even "rich" in this context)
is as far from the oligarchy as can be.

~~~
makomk
If you look at the author's other writings, Aubrey de Grey is precisely the
kind of wealthy person he thinks is looting the country at the expense of
everyone else by not paying _much_ higher taxes, though. Framing the
discussion in terms of "the oligarchy" and "puppet masters" just makes for
better rhetoric than telling us that he wants to turn the rest of the populace
against the top few percent whilst leaving the handful of ultra-wealthy people
relatively untouched (which is what his actual policies seem to do).

