They also launder their corruption through "woke washing". A great example being a study by PG&E's utility-backed front that made the claim that increasing rates of solar panel installations on houses will raise costs that get shouldered by poor BIPOCs [0]. That means the state should pass net metering changes that greatly favor PG&E, and if you're against them, you're a racist. They got what they wanted.
Regardless of the racism argument, it seems obvious to me that NEM 2.0 is forcing those who can't afford a solar system to purchase overpriced power from those who can.
I wish we'd just charge/pay people the instantaneous market rate of power. And at noon on a sunny summer day in California, the market rate should be pretty close to zero. Nowadays, the grid needs more storage and peaking generation than it does more solar panels, so we should stop artificially incentivizing rooftop solar panels.
So I'm wiring up 200A of resistive heaters and trying to net my monthly power usage by making Australia even hotter (insofarasmuchas that's possible) with 48kW of space heaters. Seems fun.
"It seems obvious to me that investor-owned utilities were forcing those who can't afford to own and operate a natural-gas power plant to purchase overpriced power from those who can..."
Are you sure it's just that as more solar comes online, less natural gas gets burned and so profits for the investor-owned utility drop, while the price for electricity remains the same?
I doubt that commercial generators are making anywhere close to 22 cents a kilowatt hour at noon on a sunny summer day. They'll turn on their gas turbines later in the day when solar output has dropped and the instantaneous market rate increases.
Homeowners should be paid lots of money if they can produce power at peak demand times, incentivizing the installation of storage. This is what it will take if we really want to turn down the natural gas generators.
My power goes directly into my neighbor's meter. The power company charges my neighbor the full rate for my power. They pay me almost nothing. Pure fucking profit.
I want to program my electric car to charge whenever the instantaneous market rate is below $0.10/kwH. If the instantaneous market rate of power goes above $1/kwH, I want my air conditioner to shut off. If everyone else did the same thing, the price would never get much above that.
Shielding people from the realities of supply and demand is what leads to overconsumption. Give them tools to control their consumption based on true market rates and everything will sort itself out.
Off topic: There was an ad that tried to make fun of green energy by having the Eiffel Tower converted to a wind turbine. The ad stated that even that will not be enough. I believe the company was Shell. Does anyone have a link to that ad?
NPR is going a great job with this. Another interesting report they have is at National Public Media (which receives corp sponsors for NPR, PBS, etc):
How do brands establish trust? A ground-breaking new study from NPR and Neuro-Insight explores how a platform can transfer its trustworthiness to sponsors, what the subconscious can tell us about purchase intent and the effectiveness of NPR radio sponsorship vs. commercial TV news.
How could media bias be a problem in a free market like the USA? Obviously all consumers will simply stop consuming news media that gets sponsored by big evil corporations and only support those who advocate for free open truth.
Wait, what do you mean every major news organization in the US is owned by billionaires or media conglomerates, dang, we didn't free market hard enough.
Adam Smith was pretty clear that monopolies were antithetical to what he called a free market. If consumers had a choice, they'd consume different news, under his theory. But the market is captured by a small handful of billionaires. The US is not a free market.
I guess the problem is that monopolies naturally form in a completely unrestricted market. So to make Adam Smith's free market, some kind of restrictions are required. But a lot of people think a "free market" is one with few restrictions.
Either way what we really have is capture of the government by a wealthy elite, and what they try to use the government for is to socialize risks and privatize profits. Whatever pure theories there are out there and no matter how much sense they make, the practical effects of private wealth concentration is elite control of the government.
Whether this would be possible under a more sophisticated implementation of democracy seems like a useful thing to contemplate, but we shan't discuss modifying our most sacred institution, as only far right Russian trolls think of such things as we all well know from our training courses.
What? Wikipedia, the Oxford English Dictionary, and nearly every informal conversation I've ever had on the subject all agree that "free market" means free of restriction, not free of rent. In practice, of course, free of "restriction" means chock-full of business entities squatting on each and every rent opportunity, strip-mining the market for maximum extraction and paying off the political establishment to keep the hustle going. I would love to live in a world that believed in freedom from economic rent, but nobody with any power interprets "free market" in that way.
I think they mean "to the government." Because no matter how badly megacorps treat people, folks still think that privatization of everything is the panacea.
London was founded as a trade port where, in exchange for military protection and market advantages, you pay tax and more tax and yet another tax -- if I understand it. There are theories of law and commerce that extend from that.
What people really want when they says "free markets" are competitive markets first, and free markets second. If we have freedom at the expense of competition, we'll end up with neither.
The most "free" markets are not the ones with the least regulation, as some might presume, but the ones with just right amount of regulation.
Even Milton Friedman said that prevention of monopolies was a legitimate and even necessary cause for government intervention, in order to preserve the free market.
Free market ≠ corporate capitalism. At least it didn’t use to be. Free market rhetoric is almost always using small businesses in their story telling, in which there is a lot of competition and an implicit level field. How to handle the vast concentration of power and wealth is basically outside the scope of most of these theorizers, which is unfortunate because it’s our biggest practical issue, imo.
>Adam Smith was pretty clear that monopolies were antithetical to what he called a free market... The US is not a free market.
The last time I pointed out the above in DC, I was called a communist and literally hounded out of the bar. (What is it with people who don't understand economics often also wanting to abuse the label of "service animal"? Someone should commission a study IMHO.)
Monopolies are to free markets like evil/incompetent dictators are to socialism: they might not be a core tenant of the philosophy, they may even be antithetical to the core tenants of the philosophy, but they sure seem to be encouraged by the practical mechanics of the philosophy.
It's almost as though large, powerful organisations will fight to protect their own positions within a market segment, whether they are private or government entities.
At least there’s a choice with capitalism. Not to mention that we can consume foreign media if we wish. With socialism there’s only one choice and power is much more concentrated. Like capitalism, socialism isn’t immune to corruption. The difference is the much greater concentration of power in one place for socialism which exacerbates the problem of corruption.
I don’t deny that we’re either experiencing or about to experience late stage capitalism, but socialism tends to hit the late stage much faster as we’ve seen in the 20th century.
Socialism is an economic system where the central government owns and controls all production and all distribution of everything. There is no private ownership in that system. If you want choice, that’s capitalism.
Both systems in the theoretical limits will result in zero choice, as the govt consumes all choice in one and in the other the most efficient player marginalizes out all less efficient players (i.e. Amazon basic products slowly taking over all generic products due to their scale).
Just gotta fingers cross that kings and billionaires keep being low key foolish and somehow destroying their monopolization on power so we don't live in a hell world
Yeah, the main thing I dislike about capitalism is how weak our say is about the corruption. Like we can watch insurance companies fuck us on the daily and people will genuinely act like it's their divine right to minimize cost at the expense of human life, because it unironically is, we are reduced to the place of dogs. At least in a state run system (with a functional democracy underlying) you're anger can be manifested in a changing of the state. Getting a functional democracy going is also it's own impossible problem though...
It’s actually much worse in socialism because one entity controls literally everything. Corruption doesn’t disappear in a socialist system. It actually spreads faster and is more virulent because there is no separation of powers. Just imagine a CEO of everything and substitute it for your insurance company example.
I would also argue that democracy is inherently incompatible with socialism due to this extreme centralization of power. The proof lies with multiple failed experiments in the 20th century. Socialism isn’t some new, radical idea anymore. We know what late stage socialism looks like.
i would argue the exact opposite. socialism, in its best form, is more democratic than capitalism. socialism != a CEO that controls everything. you put strong democratic systems in place to prevent the CEO or dictator. your insurance company is controlled by all the workers rather than a CEO, and they get to make decisions about the business, etc. there are a ton of permutations for how socialism can function and many of them aren't what the red scare leads everybody to believe. the 20th century failures were more like dictatorships than socialism.
socialism is all about how you organize a business by giving workers control, rather than organizing with the employer/employee relationship in capitalism. the workers can vote for a CEO to make the big decisions if they want, or a creative director to design or whatever, but they can also have the power to fire that individual if they don't think they're doing a good job.
and to your point about centralized control — we already have that with a ton of industries in america. we already have it for the US military, etc. seeing capitalism as the free market and socialism as a planned economy is a false dichotomy.
Your whole argument isn’t grounded in reality or history.
”socialism, in its best form, is more democratic than capitalism. socialism != a CEO that controls everything… you put strong democratic systems in place to prevent the CEO or dictator.”
No, it is not more democratic than capitalism. You have one entity controlling all manufacturing and distribution. There is no competition. There are no other competing entities with competing powers. A free press doesn’t exist in a socialist state because there’s only a state press. There’s no independent press to check on the government and report back to the masses.
”your insurance company is controlled by all the workers rather than a CEO”
That’s called a small co-op, and that can exist in a capitalist system. That cannot exist in socialism because there’s only one entity, the state. Not even large co-ops that span more than one building can function like this
“the 20th century failures were more like dictatorships than socialism.”
This is a bad argument. Using your logic, I can say what we have now isn’t capitalism because we have lots of regulatory capture and corruption. “It’s more like cronyism.”
If we’re being honest. It’s still capitalism, just like all the failed experiments in the 20th century are still socialism. The reason why socialism devolves into communism is because of the extreme centralization of power.
“socialism is all about how you organize a business by giving workers control, rather than organizing with the employer/employee relationship in capitalism. the workers can vote for a CEO to make the big decisions if they want, or a creative director to design or whatever, but they can also have the power to fire that individual if they don't think they're doing a good job.”
No, it isn’t. That is idealist fantasy. It’s like saying in a democracy, the citizens vote on everything. We do not. The masses elect representatives to act as proxies. Similarly, in socialism the masses also have representatives or leaders. Why? Efficiency. Of course, this is a vector for corruption. Also, unlike in a capitalist system, there’s no competition to the state (no checks or balances from competing powers: private vs public), which greatly magnifies the effects of corruption.
“and to your point about centralized control — we already have that with a ton of industries in america. we already have it for the US military, etc. seeing capitalism as the free market and socialism as a planned economy is a false dichotomy.”
And to your point, I can come right back and say that capitalism can fix our current mess because what we have right now is not ideologically pure, theoretical capitalism /s
…just as you refuse to acknowledge the pile of failed 20th century collectivist experiments as socialist.
nice cherry picked rebuttal. you missed a big point that there are tons of variations of how socialism can work. i define socialism as a way to organize a business where the workers control the business. that isn't capitalism and yes, you're right, it's closer to a co-op. i define capitalism where an owner (or owners) control the business and they employee workers who have little or no control over the business. if we can't agree on those definitions then there's really no point in nitpicking each other's arguments.
Your accusation is really comical since your arguments are way more cherry picked than mine. I at least acknowledge that what we have right now is indeed capitalism despite the lack of ideological purity.
> you missed a big point that there are tons of variations of how socialism can work.
We've literally had over a hundred years of political experiments with socialism. I've gone over all the variations that have existed in real life, with the longest running experiments being North Korea and Cuba.
> i define socialism as a way to organize a business where the workers control the business
The reason why this doesn't work is logistics. It's already incredibly hard just to get that co-op concept working in small company. (I believe it barely worked with a packaging company.) It's near impossible to even get that working for a co-op with locations nationwide. Our so-called national co-ops run more as a public benefit corporations than your strict view of a co-op.
> i define capitalism where an owner (or owners) control the business and they employee workers who have little or no control over the business.
In a system where even workers can own pieces of a corporation, that black and white view doesn't survive; especially when workers can strike, just leave for another company, or better yet start their own business. It is much harder for proletariats to influence the socialist state, than it is for employees to influence their bosses because capitalist systems have competing powers
> if we can't agree on those definitions then there's really no point in nitpicking each other's arguments.
When your entire argument falls apart from “nitpicking”, it means that it’s weak. Your argument is weak because it completely ignores history. We've done the socialism experiment for over a 100 years now. Ideas don’t live in an ivory vacuum. They need to survive reality. What we’ve seen in the 20th century is socialism in reality. If you ever get a chance to read the founding declarations of communist states, they are very similar to your co-op idealism.
What Confucius, Marx, Paine, Plato, and even Smith all failed to realize is that humans will always find a way to cheat the system and subvert it for their own gain. In HN speak, "individual nodes will always seek to optimize their own efficiency, at the cost of the system as a whole". Corruption doesn't disappear when you switch to socialism. Every known system regardless of whether it's capitalism or socialism will always eventually fail ie hit late stage, unless you can completely neutralize the human propensity to hack everything. Capitalism and socialism are both poor, temporary bandaids. Capitalism is only slightly better because it offers more flexibility.
i never said that we don't have capitalism now "despite the lack of ideological purity." again, you're misrepresenting my argument to fit your own argument. it's very clear this is the system that we have in america.
"We've literally had over a hundred years of political experiments with socialism." again, you're cherry picking failure to fit your bias and you are also ignoring history (aka, in your own words, you have a weak argument). we've had almost a hundred years of success of socialism in finnish countries, particularly norway. i already know that you're gonna argue that BuT nOrWaY iS cAPiTaLIsM!!, but that's not true. go look at norway's nearly 80% of wealth that is held in public ownership when you don't count housing...that is a very clear success in history. so, you're right, "What we’ve seen in the 20th century is socialism in reality." we've seen it work in reality and we've seen it fail in reality. in the same way that we've seen capitalism work in reality, and we've seen it fail in reality.
and again, cherry picking with the "i believe it barely worked with a packaging company" ignores the many, many countless examples where that organization model has worked and has proven to be more resilient than a capitalist enterprise. very weak argument, especially because you say "i believe" but you aren't sure because that it is a fact, you just offhandedly heard that or something? i would share more examples with you but you clearly have no desire to learn and just want to win an argument.
"Corruption doesn't disappear when you switch to socialism." you're right, but you're ignoring the fact that socialism, in it's right form, is a democratic system. maybe i'm too optimistic, but that knowledge is a lousy reason to not setup a system of democratic to safeguard against this truth. the ability to hack democracy is one of those questions that keep me up at night, and i see it as a challenge and problem to solve rather than something to cede to (which should get the HN crowd excited). clearly this truth of corruption is abused in capitalism and it's exacerbated since we don't have the safeguard of a democratic process to prevent these abuses. at least with socialism, there's democracy.
EDIT: also, based on your argument style, i think that you might say, "but you said that socialism is a cooperative model and not norway. GOTCHA!" if that's the case, then LOL because you're missing the point and proving that you're only trying to win an argument.
> ”I never said that we don't have capitalism now "despite the lack of ideological purity." again, you're misrepresenting my argument to fit your own argument.”
No, you didn’t say that, but you keep using similar logic to ignore all of the socialist messes in the 20th century ie “No, that’s not socialism. That’s a dictatorship.” I’m just showing you how ridiculous that argument is.
> “again, you're cherry picking failure to fit your bias and you are also ignoring history (aka, in your own words, you have a weak argument). we've had almost a hundred years of success of socialism in finnish countries, particularly norway. i already know that you're gonna argue that BuT nOrWaY iS cAPiTaLIsM!!, but that's not true.”
I love how you keep accusing me of “cherry picking”, when you’re the one primarily doing it. For the record, there are only three Scandinavian countries (or four if you count Finland) while there are over 40 countries that were or are still socialist.
> “ we've had almost a hundred years of success of socialism in finnish countries, particularly norway.”
Now you’re cherry picking one out of three countries, with a ridiculous point that is completely untrue.
Norway might have a well funded socialist program, but that’s different from having a socialist economic system.
“According to a 2018-report from Statistics Norway, ten per cent of the population in the country owned 60 per cent of the wealth. The one per cent richest in the country owned nearly 21 per cent of all the wealth.”
Countries with socialist economic systems also don’t have stock markets.
> ”go look at norway's nearly 80% of wealth that is held in public ownership when you don't count housing...that is a very clear success in history. so, you're right”
You’re proving my point for me that it’s ridiculous to call Norway socialist, and you’re being hypocritical for cherry picking.
Yes, it's totally reasonable to overlook an important fact to make your argument work /s
Real estate is a huge asset, and has been considered wealth for thousands of years.
> ”EDIT: also, based on your argument style, i think that you might say, "but you said that socialism is a cooperative model and not norway. GOTCHA!" if that's the case, then LOL because you're missing the point and proving that you're only trying to win an argument.”
I’m not missing any point. You're just ignoring facts. I also find it funny that you’re self aware of just how flawed your argument is. Yet you still can’t admit to being wrong. Co-operatives barely work in a single location, let alone scale up nationally. Also it’s really ironic how you can comfortably loosen your definition of socialism to cherry pick.
> ”we’ve seen it work in reality and we've seen it fail in reality.”
No, we haven’t. The Scandinavian countries are all capitalist systems.
> ”ignores the many, many countless examples where that organization model has worked and has proven to be more resilient than a capitalist enterprise.”
There are so few of them across several continents. Moreover, most if not all of them are tiny.
> ”I would share more examples with you but you clearly have no desire to learn and just want to win an argument.”
You mean that you’re going to cherry pick yet again, while continually accusing me of the same thing? There’s barely a thousand of them compared to millions of private businesses.
> “you’re right, but you're ignoring the fact that socialism, in it's right form, is a democratic system.”
That may be its “right” form in your mind, but that’s not how it evolves in reality due to the extreme centralization of power. Virtually all of them didn’t even incorporate voting for the masses into their governments.
> ”maybe i'm too optimistic, but that knowledge is a lousy reason to not setup a system of democratic to safeguard against this truth”
That knowledge is called studying history to avoid repeating the dozens of failures in the 20th century. Like I said, socialism is no longer a new experiment. We know what late stage socialism looks like, and how fast it takes to get there. For many countries, these systems couldn’t even last a 100 years.
> “the ability to hack democracy is one of those questions that keep me up at night, and i see it as a challenge and problem to solve rather than something to cede to (which should get the HN crowd excited).”
I am not ceding anything. You’re just ignoring a fundamental truth. Capitalism is flawed, but it’s still better than socialism because it handles corruption better due to its focus on decentralization by design.
> ”clearly this truth of corruption is abused in capitalism and it's exacerbated since we don't have the safeguard of a democratic process to prevent these abuses.”
You still haven’t countered my argument as to why corruption spreads much faster and is more pervasive in a socialist system as opposed to a capitalist one. If you need reminding why, it’s because socialist systems centralize power much more than capitalist systems. Essentially saying that it will just magically work is not a good argument.
> ”at least with socialism, there's democracy.”
Out of close to 50 socialist systems in the 20th century, only one of them was a democracy, and I don’t even think it lasted a year. What you wrote is baseless and untrue.
Yes, claiming that I’m ignorant and that you’re illiterate is a great counter argument just because you can’t respond to facts and history /s
If you can’t properly explain your position within HN comments, it means that you don’t really understand what you believe in or that it’s really flawed. No, I’m not emailing you. If there’s anyone who’s ignorant of anything in this discussion, it’s you. You have no knowledge of the history of socialism despite your claims. I’m confident that you don’t even fully understand what socialism is based on your comments.
You should probably re-read Animal Farm which is notable work from a notable socialist
> You should probably re-read Animal Farm which is notable work from a notable socialist
...about how Leninism and related systems, despite superficial rhetoric borrowed from socialism, were not socialism, and looped back around to be equivalent to the capitalism that socialists oppose. (And, more broadly, about how people in practice could continue to maintain faith in those and other systems in which the nominal ideals of a revolution were utterly betrayed by revolutionary leadership.)
I don’t like repeating myself in the same thread, but it is socialism. That’s how socialism evolves in the real world just like what we call capitalism isn’t a true free market and it has a lot of corporate welfare. If I were to use your same logic with capitalism, I would say “Let’s bring back capitalism because what we have now isn’t capitalism. Instead, it’s ‘chrony capitalism’ since it doesn’t match Adam Smith’s pure ideology“.
It’s a flawed argument that you guys keep parroting. Leninism is another word for late stage socialism.
Your comment also shows that you failed to read my previous comments. Why bother replying if you’re just going to ignore what I wrote?
All you've proven is the exact opposite. The facts and history are on my side. You're just parroting talking points from someone else who didn't study history. I've already destroyed your talking points, which is even more apparent given your reply
is animal farm where you get all your ideas about socialism? lol ok
it's clear that you're the one who doesn't know what socialism is. this is a pointless discussion and you have no idea what you're talking about and didn't really respond to any of my arguments in good faith. i'll say it again because it went over your head in my very first comment: state dictatorships with nationalized industries are not socialism.
i've been properly explaining my beliefs but you've just been misinterpreting my claims and ignoring what i say because you're bad at debating. it's impossible to argue with somebody who says that everything you say is wrong (despite the claims being true). it's beating somebody at an argument through gaslighting.
this is a waste of my time. i'm not putting in the effort to write my arguments better — this is like arguing with a racist about why the confederate flag is a hateful symbol.
All of your comments have no basis in fact, reality, or history. You should read more before you continue to comment on a subject that you know nothing about including Animal Farm. If you don’t have a good understanding of metaphor and allegory, just read the history behind it
Yeah, given your terrible arguments that would be you who doesn't have a good understanding. When you start relying on attacking people instead of arguments, that signals that you lost the argument and that your knowledge is both flawed and weak.
The free market vision you are deriding is failing because of government licensing and law making. Only certain outlets are licensed to print news. And laws are written to prevent what are perceived to be slanderous rumours. This is to say, information is not actually free. And free movement of information is essential for a free market.
I also think that implicit in what you state, is a request for greater governance to manage the free market.
If you ask me, what you really want is less government oversight.
You may respond to say that we will be run by robber barons, if we have even less oversight, or free information.
To which I would respond that we are already run by (the worst) robber barons who currently maintain their control via their control of the governance apparatus, and the illusion many hold that we have anything like a free market. It's just that we are suffering under our illusion so much, that we don't even recognise the problem!
If you ask me, we actually live under a form of disguised fascism, where governments and corporations work together and pretend we have democracy and a free market. They use their mouth pieces (media, education) to misinform us.
This is an important subject - there is something deeply rotten in the utility world in the South. There are a bunch of stories you wouldn't think are connected, but all have major utilities in the background. From 'fake news' sites set up to smear candidates, to huge bribes paid via nonprofits, to sham candidates backed by the utility running in close elections, to capital plans that include hundreds of millions of dollars in case of snow in Miami.. I really hope the FBI is working on this;
Vogtie really is going to scare a lot of people off from nuclear for a very long time. I think ultimately, the federal government will need to assume responsibility for the construction and operation of nuclear plants. And when future generations look into why that is, Vogtie will be right up at the top of the list of reasons.
FPL (through a third party) also hired a private investigator to follow around a local opinion columnist because he was writing articles against the proposed privatization of Jacksonville's municipal utility company.
Also worth mentioning the related scandal[1] of JEA's former CEO and CFO attempting to sneak in a "Long-Term Incentive Performance Unit Plan" that would have paid out hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars as bonuses to executives if "a recapitalization event (including a sale of JEA) occurred, meaning payouts would have been funded by net proceeds to the COJ from the sale of JEA."
Entirely unsurprising who the top private bidder was[2].
Thanks for collecting these. It's interesting that these issues don't (appear) to plague larger utilities like the TVA[1], which seems to be actively exploring and developing renewable projects.
Yeah, I'm not sure what it is about the TVA -- feels almost like DARPA in a way. Something about the staffing and organization has led to a model utility. They're not without minor scandal occasionally but given the amount of political power they wield, maybe it's the distinction that TVA is government-owned and NextERA (who runs FPL) and Southern Company are both for-profit corporations?
Apolitical civil service government organizations are good at sustained operations and incremental growth/change. They are bad at rapid change. The controls they have are reasonably effective at preventing the type of corruption that you see.
The coal/rail/electric supply chain is a breeding ground for all sorts of shenanigans for all sorts of people. Plenty of drunken uncles have bullshit jobs in the utility and rail space. That culture permeates into new projects as well.
In the Federal space, that kind of crap doesn't fly for long.
You can also maybe extend that further to the people behind the decisions to make something private or public. If you're looking to commit crimes, you're probably going to have an easier time in the private sector.
Ha. Well maybe technically. In the government sector, you may control what the definition of a crime is, or maybe you exempt yourself from the laws that apply to everyone else (looking at you, Congress).
Somehow I knew this was going to be Alabama Power before I clicked the link
This is just scratching the surface. To any normal person this sounds like a massive scandal on its own but this is just what they've allowed to get out. The corruption in state and local government in the states served by Southern Company's electric utilities would make Putin blush
For example, Alabama Power's former CEO is on the board of directors of Regions Financial Corporation, based in Alabama, and a top 25 bank in the US
Constructively, when people are out of reach of regulation or seeing consequences for their clearly unethical actions, how do you suggest solving that problem, particularly without an angry mob?
How do you propose bringing corrupt politicans or billionaires to the bargaining table? What would they be bargaining for, if not peace?
Do you think violence is always wrong? When is violence justified?
If the state is to have the only morally justified use of violence, what can be done when a state uses violence to oppress, enslave, or promote only the interests of the wealthy class?
>Constructively, when people are out of reach of regulation or seeing consequences for their clearly unethical actions, how do you suggest solving that problem, particularly without an angry mob? How do you propose bringing corrupt politicans or billionaires to the bargaining table? What would they be bargaining for, if not peace?
Speaking as a former K Street policy wonk: they have been brought to the table (did you not hear about the insurrection?), and no one is out of reach of consequences -- the elites are just lucky folks are obsessed with murdering the president rather than targeting folks whose deaths could actually change things. I've seen a literal supreme court justice nearly get their head clipped off by an incoming WMATA because they were too impatient to check their phone, but we spend so much money protecting the president when the entire system is designed so that person is replaceable. Imagine what would happen if folks like that got... nudged... instead of having morons trying to jump the White House fence?
The main issue with your logic is that a meltdown like the insurrection occurs and someone who is corrupt and entitled double down on the eternal September 11th that has been chipping away civil liberties since Columbine without groking that's exactly the kind of behavior that led to the riot (and the general trend of populism that elected Trump in the first place)
>Do you think violence is always wrong? When is violence justified?
I only think violence is justified in self defense and it's better to use nonviolent means unless you are in imminent mortal danger, and even then, you should consider retreat rather than take a life for the sake of pride. You don't "fight" people -- you attempt kill anyone who puts you in fear of your life in a place you have no duty to retreat.
That subtle distinction is why one of my last initiatives at my old NGO was to sit down with one of the staffers who had joined me in putting a letter opener on her desk after Charlie Hebdo, and warned her that she should be more fearful of free expression lest a literal mob form on the mall, then moved back to Appalachia in a Ryder truck like a cyberpunk Timothy McVeigh. I was sipping a cute little cortado after having smoked my morning joint behind a biker bar when the insurrection happened, no one can cry about my behavior. (I tipped.)
All my life, folks like those dipshit FBI agents from the Pittsburgh field office who ran up on the Capitol have created false concern to oppress others and enrich themselves, while allowing true threats to the homeland to flourish.
You haven't truly utilized the first amendment until someone who victimized you calls you up in utter terror on the Signal you gave them to use in case of iminent civil war... and then gave them your email and told them to never contact you again unless it's to set up a consulting agreement because you aren't a communist and won't free, then blocked them on every comms platform under the threat of having them arrested by the same law enforcement officers who had rioted past their office if they ever contact you again for some Tom Sawyer bullshit.
(That's not hyperbole -- I literally dropped Mike Godwin's business card in the tip jar because I'd run out of two dollar bills, that's how unrepentantly fearless and adversarial my communications are. They should start printing them again and put Woz's face on the back above however you say "Fuck around, find out" in Latin, because dear lord, I'm tired of someone calling the secret service every time I try to buy a quad espresso.)
>If the state is to have the only morally justified use of violence, what can be done when a state uses violence to oppress, enslave, or promote only the interests of the wealthy class?
The solution there is to "Yes and" the capitalists (capitalism is an economic system, not a political system) by withholding your labor until said wealthy class acts out in ways that allow you to use the same laws and norms of neoliberalism they used to abuse others against them.
The above condensed and fictionalized example paints a good picture of how you accomplish that -- forgive me if I stick to creative nonfiction, but I'll need to commute home from here so I can't be as... specific... as I'd like... but I cannot emphasize enough that folks who think they can coerce others deserve to have their lives look like that one Phil Collins song about not saving a guy from drowning should be playing in the movie trailer for their life.
Anyways... thanks for posting parent. I'm off to pound some orange juice, I've got a terrible head cold and had too much Sudafed. Feel free to reply if any of the above requires clarification... but I'll need to get someplace where I can use my laptop -- I've had to start posting over Tor for opsec or whatever.
That and collective withholding of the labor power of the working class (strikes) are the only 2 ways any national ruling class has ever been meaningfully opposed. Take your pick and do everything you can to make it happen first.
Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34057162. (This is not a response to the content of your comment here. I'm just adding a reply to your most recent post since the previous comment is already a day or two old. It doesn't seem fair to do that if you don't see it.)
That is a very shallow angry view of the modern world which leaves out so many methods the people have successfully used to exercise their power.
Voting, for example.
I, for one, will likely never be in a position where it makes sense to go on strike and you won’t find me with a pitchfork and torch at the home of the latest social target. There are other methods, and much more needed ones than strife and violence in the 21st century.
Game theory says otherwise. If there's a substantive distinction between the rich and the poor, then the interests that align them need to be greater than their own individual interests for any sort of peace to work. As it stands, the rich frequently engage in bottom-of-the-barrel, self-interested machinations, so it makes 0 sense from a game perspective for the poor to refrain from doing the same.
The obvious answer is to make the distinction not substantive, i.e. have a middle class; unfortunately the U.S. seems too preoccupied with other things to enact this solution
In a certain sense this is true. Giving to charity is a self-interested machination because the giver gets something out of the transaction: satisfaction, a belief in their own goodness and self-worth, the esteem of others, maybe a ticket to heaven. But in a more useful sense this is false. We use "self-interested machinations" to describe things that are deceptive and harmful to others, not adopting puppies. Even people who apply the nihilistic self-interest-all-the-way down argument to neutralize criticism in one case will tend to abandon it in another and become the critic.
In the fight between the rich and poor, voting is not very effective when both parties have been captured by the wealthy.
However there are effective non-violent means of change, like organizing labor power, mutual aid, and supporting legal funds to help get the laws changed.
A significant amount of money transferred for political purposes falls within campaign finance reporting which includes contact information for the transaction. I'm sure this is used broadly for folks to make funding pitches to donors but cold calling is a tough way to start fundraising.
>We like to point the finger here in the US about how corrupt Russia, Ukraine or any other country is but we’re no Saints.
Our finger-pointing is not due to coincidence; it's due to conflict. Specifically, the conflict is between the inherent interests of competing national ruling classes.
>The executives of these companies should have their addresses listed as well as all the politicians on the take and let the people do with them what they will.
The executives of these companies answer to the company owners (corporate boards) who collectively control the state by leverage of capital. Because we are a capitalist society, the owners of the capital have the power. Any apparent exceptions will always be withheld from accumulating meaningful influence, short of revolution by the working class.
In other words, this is not a matter of faulty policy. It is a conflict of power. Let's discuss it as such.
Here's another way of framing this headline: "A company that provides critical services has lobbyists - just like pharma, hospital networks, national defense, and food and agriculture."
It appears that a significant chunk of the local online news market in these regions is only financially viable based on pay-for-coverage arrangements with moneyed interests.
So, I agree, lobbyists gonna lobby. And some of the lines in the article are pearl clutching. (GASP a utility company donated to a SuperPAC that opposed a ballot initiative? Yeah, that's normal. You might not like Citizens United, but that's just something they did, not something they're "accused" of.)
But to the extent that you have a crop of local-interest news and politics websites that present as objective but, based on the quotes in the articles, wouldn't be able to exist without opaque financial arrangements that slant coverage... yeah, it's a genuine media story. Less about the power company, and more about journalism. (Which, indeed, Folkenflik is NPR's media reporter.)
Alabama has high electric rates, an unusually profitable utility company, and this arrangement has proven durable. For me, that's a good enough "so what" for a New York based media reporter to condescend to the journalistic ethics of these Southern publications. It's not just academic; it's harming people.
Everybody has lobbyists, but there are legal limits on lobbying. Lobbyists have to register and make some of their activities transparent. They're not allowed to be used for laundering money in political donations, which are sharply limited. Giving money to a newspaper to support a candidate may cross that line. It would take an FEC (or state equivalent) investigation to make a judgment (and probably the courts would want a say in it, too).
Newspapers also have ethical limits. Ethical limits aren't legally enforceable, but for the most part major newspapers don't allow pharma, hospitals, defense, etc. to cross those lines. There are always exceptions, I'm sure, but the newspapers still cling to the hope that they'll be seen as accurate rather than simply shilling for whoever pays them. It undercuts their entire mission.
So this isn't the same as the usual round of lobbying. Lobbying is a legal and regulated activity, a way for groups to coordinate access to politicians and plan their public relations. That always has the risk of being shady, but it's more above-board than most people imagine.
Except when the rules are broken, and in that case it might be a crime. That's newsworthy.
Instead of volunteering PR and adding distractions, it might be better to say that power companies have "lobbyists" that bribe news sites in return for slandering critics of those companies.
Even though it's strange to call people who bribe news outlets rather than politicians "lobbyists," because that sort of begs the question.
[0] https://calssa.org/blog/2021/6/5/debunking-the-cost-shift-de...