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".
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.
Why limit the comment to modern philanthropy? I doubt anyone, in meaningful numbers, has ever sought to undermine their own position in society. That would include anyone nominally seeking to “change things for the better.”
Anyone, or in meaningful numbers? I'm not sure you can specify both. I "earn" around $400k USD per year and give away nearly all of it other than my housing and food.
That's not really pertinent to GP's question because giving away that money does not really "undermine [your] position in society". In fact, it could elevate your status because you can boast about all your philanthropy, just like Bill Gates' public image has improved since he stepped down as Microsoft CEO.
Let's assume (without loss of generality) that your $400k income is from a salaried job at some company. Suppose that there is an NGO fighting to abolish said company on moral grounds. Would you be willing to donate your money to that organization?
> Suppose that there is an NGO fighting to abolish said company on moral grounds. Would you be willing to donate your money to that organization?
Which, even if that NGO succeeded, wouldn't undermine the position in society. If Facebook were dismantled, the employees would just switch to Google, Amazon & Co.
> 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.
What this is more broadly is the Overton Window. There is "acceptable" topics that can be broached.
As for Right versus Left, well that is 1 dimension politically. There is for example authoritarian / libertarian scale. So many political tests have the "Quad" or "Compass". Most people normally score around the middle.
However there are 4 dimensional tests such as this.
I have no idea how accurate these are, or whether they are biased. But there is certainly much more than left vs right.
> 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.
Well what you are talking about is the idea of hyper-normalisation. The idea is that you finance both sides e.g. pro fascist, anti-fascist etc. This creates a state of confusion where people don't really know what is going on and become apathetic to it.
Adam Curtis made a documentary about it, however here is a snippet from it.
I just tried that 8 Values thing. Interesting, but it depended too much on existing buzzwords and quotes, and contained a number of false dichotomies. E.g.
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs". If you didn't know the quote then it might sound like a good description of a modern welfare state, so only people with strongly libertarian views would reject it. However most people who recognise it as a quote from Marx will reject it because they are not Marxists.
"It is more important to have a balanced budget than to look after everyone" (quote from memory). False dichotomy: if a country fails to have a balanced budget over the long term then it won't be able to look after anyone.
I noticed the same about false dichotomies, particularly on the question of open borders.
> We should open our borders to immigration.
This would be a definite "No" to me, but I still answered with "Weakly agree", because otherwise it puts me in the strong-borders faction, which I definitely don't belong into. I don't want open borders right now, but I want the world to evolve into a state where we can have open borders 50 years from now.
(If you consider that outlook crazy, remember that it took Europe 50 years to get from WW2 to open borders under the Schengen treaty.)
It's important to note that the Schengen agreement was only about travel, and not what what is commonly assumed these days regarding border debates: the ability to come, settle, work, and take part in the social safety net.
Switzerland for example was a Schengen signatory. Switzerland has never allowed open immigration, work permits, or welfare benefits for people entering under Schengen terms.
So while I think you give a good example of what can happen in 50 years, I think it's very important to draw a distinction between Schengen-like agreements and what people commonly understand from the closed/open border debate.
'to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion' which is certainly now a widespread phenomenon cheered on by a seeming majority. In the UK these days, having the 'wrong opinions' albeit politely expressed can now land you with a criminal conviction or at the least, apprehension in the cells.
Most development aid is also philanthropy of that kind. Supporting countries in ways that keeps them from getting up and standing on their own legs, distorting the economy in the disfavor of local merchants and industries.
The Chomsky quote is something you hear from the Left from time to time: a political theory which implies some kind of deliberate coordination between capitalists as a class. Is there a Protocols of the Elders of Capitalism which includes this as a principle, or some Omniscient Council of Capitalist Vagueness who are defining the spectrum of currently acceptable opinion?
(Not that the Left has a monopoly on conspiracy theories of course, but it should be called out whenever it appears).
I don’t think it works that way. Trends often develop without central control. Looking at another trend, do you think there is a cabal of elite social justice warriors that control that movement or a secret book that sets the rules?
Deliberate implies documented in your comment. Of course it's implicit in this scenario. I suppose not much of the conversation in 100k/plate dinner fundraisers is about the weather.
At first read of the title, I thought this was about “there’s no right or left” meaning you could substitute Republican for right and Democrat for left. Ultimately, the authors talking about tangentially and in line with your quote and OP:
“The only way to overcome the oligarchy and Trump’s divide-and-conquer strategy is for the rest of us to join together and win America back.
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.
White, black and Latino; union and non-union; evangelical and secular; immigrant and native-born – all focused on ending big money in politics, stopping corporate welfare and crony capitalism, busting up monopolies and stopping voter suppression.”
Edit-the point is to see beyond that possible connection and to what really needs to happen: the voters demanding and reinforcing their political powers. Practically, I think this asks people to not become jaded, “tune out”, and accept what’s going on as too big and beyond your influence.
Engage-read the news, do all the research you can muster on what politicians are doing, and come up with your own opinion. Then do your civic duties to reinforce your opinions.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
All forms of government have a good form and a destructive form. Democracy is rule of the mob if it tramples individuals liberty. An incompetent, selfish king is a tyrant, a good king that serves society can be highly effective and create a great society. As with all things, it is balancing the extremes as the mean between competing needs or interests is often the best outcome.
> 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.
I think this reinforces the author's point more than opposes it. Who in their right mind thinks the Koch brothers are anything but pro-oligarchy?
> 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.
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.
When I see a politician or organization labeled as populist, it usually refers to the (quite common) practice of getting votes from dissatisfied masses by promising them impossible results, which they don't intend on even attempting to achieve.
Populism is not about ideology of regular people against the elites, that'd be apply more to e.g. various socialdemocratic parties who attempt such goals and ideologies but most of them aren't considered populistic especially if they're in power for years and have to actually implement policies instead of talking about vague results that'll magically arrive.
It refers to a tactic of identifying people who are dissatisfied with current reality and also with the realistic short-term prospects of how future is going to unfold for them even if the promises of the other parties arrive and reasonable economic growth and modest systemic improvement happens, and promising them unrealistic, unachievable improvement (often by suggesting major, radical changes that are a change but can't possibly give the effects they promise) - thus giving these voters hope that others don't, filling that (very valid) need and thus getting their votes.
Your definition is wrong. Populism is a political strategy based on the oversimplification of issues, inventing scapegoats, and generally appealing to popular "bar talk" as offering solutions to problems that are in reality way more complex. Other symptoms of it are an unwillingness to make compromises, not listening to experts, alluding to conspiration theories, an alleged fighting against the elites and for the "common man on the street" (as long as he's politically aligned), an US versus THEM mentality, anti-intellectualism, and discrediting media and science. All of this makes sense, because the populist needs to be able to sell his oversimplified solutions, and often science, statistics, and, generally speaking, the truth stands in the way. Most problems do not have simple solutions.
Populism is pretty much what used to be called "proto-fascism" by Ecco, but communists can also have a strong populist agenda. Where I live, in Portugal, the communist party used slogans like "Leave Nato, away with the Euro" in general elections - simple recipes that couldn't possibly have beneficial effects and that in reality nobody would implement.
What you define as populism has nothing to do with real-world populism, it's just a construct.
Part of populism is also claiming to be neither left or right on the political spectrum because it can be both or neither, a good example of this is Five Star Movement from Italy. But what is mostly common with populist movements is the appeal to the common man and blaming elites. So how the author of this article isn't advocating for populism is something someone needs to explain to me.
I don't necessarily disagree with that assessment, just wanted to correct your definition of populism by a more adequate one that is based on indicators of tendencies. There is no problem identifying right wing and left wing positions or discerning different brands of fascism, populism, socialism, etc. The people who claim that these positions cannot really be distinguished any longer are usually trying to push some sort of extremist agenda. A typical example are the recent "alt right" (= run off the mill Fascism, nothing special about it) attempts to promote the absurd and historically false claim that the German Nazis were left wing, because they choose the phrasing "national socialism". Of course, there are also similar attempts by populists to re-appropriate terms like "populism", that's not very surprising.
This is an article very much in the vein of all the ones about the dangers of rising populism, which is generally portrayed as evil oligarchs brainwashing the populace into thinking that by supporting the other side's political views they're fighting back against the oligarchy. What it's advocaing is that the people rise up and fight back against the oligarchs by folliwing his side's political views, likely with some help from billionaires to educate them. Totally different, see.
Obviously, if my ingroup folks are doing it, it's the solution - we are just appealing to the wisdom of crowds and attracting common people to our cause. However, if outgroup folks do it, they are exploiting the ignorance of the masses and appealing to the basest instincts of the mob, and thus it is a grave danger.
Regarding housing problem in the US, well known here on HN patio11 has a simple solution: build homes [1]. Does this mean that he is a populist? Or do politicians just call themselves left-wing or right-wing, and in reality both of them represent the interests of landlords, as the article suggests?
I don't known which articles and columns you read. But I am from this European country with rising populism. In my opinion, things are going in a better direction than in the times of non-populist government. The current government fulfills promises and pays broad social benefits, but at the same time this populist government has reduced the budget deficit.
> 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
> 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?
> I wrestle with understanding why most media are anti-Trump and anti-oligarchy,
Who told you they are anti-oligarchy? They are most definitely pro-oligarchy, they are just upset the power is not in their (I mean a person from their peer group) hands. Compare media behavior when the control belongs to "their" and "opposing" party, and you'll see a stark difference.
> and the oligarchs are still able to control those media's use of 'left' and 'right'. How does this work?
They are the oligarchy. Talking heads on TV are part of the system. There's no some struggle to control them and bring them under the toe of the oligarchy - they are a body part of it. Nobody wonders how a man manager to control the fingers of his own hands - it's his hand, of course he controls it.
> 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'.
Wrestling is a good point here as in it's a show put on for the audience, and Donald Trump was playing a role in it. The idea is that the public left-vs-right in the media etc is a show put on so the people are distracted and don't realize what's going on behind the scenes. The louder the conflict, the better. If I want to relieve you of your wallet, you won't notice the slight touch while I bump into you and create a much stronger sensation by stepping on your toes.
>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?
> 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.
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.
> 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.
Trump is embarrassing, but he has dramatically improved the ability for the wealthy to abuse the poor via policy and regulatory changes.
The very wealthy (and even those of moderate means) genuinely believe they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and made their own success, completely blind to the fact their incredibly wealthy or successful parents put them there.
“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.”
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.
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?
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.
those people's "left" ideology is more like fashion trend. As progressive, well, when you don't have any financial issues you can pretend you are uber-ecologist eg. buying expensive organic food instead of canned/frozen sh*t for the plebs
Your straw man looks very fierce and imposing, but this is argument by assertion. If self-identified progressives find the goals and actions of Bill Gates, say, to be congenial, what does it matter that you believe his heart isn't in it? -- it's "more like a fashion trend", as you say.
It is very easy to convince yourself that someone else's actions are insincere. If this -- your own belief supported by your desire to see them as horrible people -- suffices for you as evidence, why should anyone attempt to argue against you?
In other words, there isn't much value in "fashion" or "virtue signaling" accusations except in preaching to the converted.
> They are not going to be progressive in the sense of forwarding pro-social, anti-corporate policies.
Certainly not anti-corporate, but I don't see why they wouldn't be pro-social. They don't want to be the ones paying for those policies, but every American well educated and in good health would certainly profit their enterprises. It's just that it appears too expensive to be worth the profit to them.
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.
In principal e-voting to increase transparency is a nice ideology, but how would you engage the people over time? I'm afraid this would rather cause an increase in fake news and the likes. The obvious case is the Brexit vote, that gave the people two options: a remain (no change) and leave (open ended in terms of how).
With e-voting can keep mostly the same system we have now, but augment that with two small changes. 1) you can change your representative at any time, which changes the weight of his vote, 2) you can overrule your representatives vote on issues you care about.
In this way there won't be a situation like Brexit because after initial open ended vote people can participate in subsequent votes too, and can eventually decide that they don't want Brexit or want it even without any trade agreements.
Fake news, (or rather people not smart enough to distinguish fake news), will remain a problem, but democracy uses assumption that most people are smart enough, if this assumption is not true then oligarchs buying politicians is actually useful to the society, but i don't think this is very likely.
> 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.
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).
There are other rich people that are pretty cool and whose goals align with mine: Gates finances target malaria, Bezos works on Blue Origin, Thiel founded seasteading institute, etc. My point is not that all rich people are good, but that there is no poor people team vs rich people team. We can't team up with class of people, only with individuals.
> 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.
I wonder what those goals are, or whether you just have a morphed idea of what goals poor people have.
My main goal is to increase the number of people in the world, and to increase the opportunities they have. Because that also increases my opportunities too: living longer, having better computers, learning new physics, etc. will be possible only if other people work on this problems.
I did not mean that non-rich do not share this goal, (in fact most people contribute to this merely by their existence willingly or not). What i wanted to say is that being rich or poor is not a good criterion for division.
Elon Musk's goal is to persuade you to give as much money as possible to him while paying as little as possible in taxes. If your goals are aligned then I expect you to be writing a cheque to him now.
Thought not.
On your second paragraph, the fundamental problem with democracy is that voters cannot have informed opinions about everything: there are simply not enough hours in the day. Without informed voters any vote is little better than a coin toss. Read https://medium.com/civic-tech-thoughts-from-joshdata/so-you-... and then think again.
The method Elon uses for the persuasion is building rockets and taking money in exchange of services, i'll happily buy starlink internet when it is available. I have donated money to SENS foundation https://www.sens.org/.
> there are simply not enough hours in the day
Sure, that's why i do not propose to take referendums for everything, people give their votes to representatives who work hard to have informed opinions. The difference is that the vote can be changed anytime, and that on specific issues about which voter cares, the representatives vote can be overruled. Even if this overruling doesn't happen very often, the possibility of that will help the elected individual to keep voters interests at heart.
