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> has been engineered into place You're conveying an image of handwringing illuminati in a room who are out to get us. Is that what you mean? If not, who has b

> has been engineered into place You're conveying an image of handwringing illuminati in a room who are out to get us. Is that what you mean? If not, who has been engineering this and why?

jinfiesto 8y ago
That's a little overstated. The Powell memo all but declared a war on the working class.
- throwaway7312 8y ago
  This memo? http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/ http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/ Hadn't heard of it. Just read it. Interesting stuff. It's very clearly a call-to-arms for business leaders against Marxists/communists. Not the working class. Most Communists, at least in the West, spring from the middle- and upper-middle class, not the working class. And Communist countries, historically, tend to make their working classes worse off, not better. Equating a defense against communism with an attack on the working class would seem a stretch.
  - jinfiesto 8y ago
    Yes. With regards to it being a call to arms for business leaders against Marxists/communists, that's accurate to a certain degree. If you look at what gets lumped in with marxists/communists though, it becomes pretty apparent that the memo was meant to be an assault on everything that could be "unfriendly" to business. In the Powell memo, you can see some of the precursors to what's happening today. For instance, I think the demonization of academia in right-wing circles as well as the death of organized labor (unions) probably start with this memo (I'm not the only person who thinks this. Chomsky as elaborated on this at length.) The Powell memo was also started the process of making lobbying both widespread and acceptable to society (even when it was legal, it used to be frowned upon.) I think most people would agree that lobbying is a cancer on our democracy.
rectang 8y ago
Corporate entities evolve and adapt akin to biological organisms competing for survival. Rather than a group of individuals (the illuminati) winning out through elaborate conspiracy over other individuals, it seems to me more likely that the diminishing power of individuals is coming as a result of non-directed evolutionary improvement by corporations.
- Applejinx 8y ago
  Absolutely. This is a significant point. People, being anthropomorphic, are looking for some Big Evil Person who is personally doing all this, when it's an epiphenomenon of the systems we accept/tolerate.
  - slimshady94 8y ago
    Is there any (succinct, easy-to-understand) research on the lifecycle/birth & death/power & influence of these entities? This seems a major point to be aware of, which is not taught anywhere in school/college.
    - rectang 8y ago
      What got me thinking about corporate evolution was Richard Dawkins, who applied concepts from evolutionary biology to non-biological spheres with "meme". You might consider his book "The Selfish Gene". This is a popular line of thought (try googling "corporation evolutionary biology", which gets you to pages like https://hbr.org/2016/01/the-biology-of-corporate-survival https://hbr.org/2016/01/the-biology-of-corporate-survival ), but it has a weakness: it's hard to be rigorous. In the field of evolutionary biology, experiments are hard to design and hypotheses are hard to falsify, so a lot of the writing is deeply infected by the author's prejudices. I'm sure there's something there, and I'm confident that whatever it is is more plausible than fragile conspiracy theories like the Illuminati. But exactly how non-biological entities compete and evolve is hard to say.
    - stevenwoo 8y ago
      This may be relevant to your question. https://www.vox.com/2018/6/28/17469080/american-dream-steven-brill-inequality-poverty-tailspin https://www.vox.com/2018/6/28/17469080/american-dream-steven...
fergie 8y ago
Capitalism has been allowed a free reign over western society with the consequence that _ownership_ is rewarded at the expense of _contribution_. The result is that owning property or a business is now really profitable, yet working hard in a salaried job is much less so. In economic theory "the gravity of capital" dictates that lumps of capital attract more capital- the larger the lump, the larger the attraction. Once capital is concentrated in too few lumps that are too large, it stops being a force for good, and starts to act as a force of oppression. Capitalism can work really well- but only if regulated. A modern nation state needs to have robust regulation of capital in order to keep it working for the benefit of society. Unfortunately this doesn't really happen just now in the US- most politicians are to some degree beholden to powerful, private interests who seek to increase their power by favourable legislation that generally involves financial deregulation. An 'illuminati' totally engineers the US economy by lobbying politicians, and this is no great secret.
- mgoetzke 8y ago
  `Capitalism can work really well- but only if regulated` --- Basically what Adam Smith said.
  - fergie 8y ago
    Yet he is so often (wrongly) portrayed as an advocate of unregulated markets.

> has been engineered into place You're conveying an image of handwringing illuminati in a room who are out to get us. Is that what you mean? If not, who has been engineering this and why?

jinfiesto 8y ago

That's a little overstated. The Powell memo all but declared a war on the working class.

throwaway7312 8y ago
This memo? http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/ http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/ Hadn't heard of it. Just read it. Interesting stuff. It's very clearly a call-to-arms for business leaders against Marxists/communists. Not the working class. Most Communists, at least in the West, spring from the middle- and upper-middle class, not the working class. And Communist countries, historically, tend to make their working classes worse off, not better. Equating a defense against communism with an attack on the working class would seem a stretch.
- jinfiesto 8y ago
  Yes. With regards to it being a call to arms for business leaders against Marxists/communists, that's accurate to a certain degree. If you look at what gets lumped in with marxists/communists though, it becomes pretty apparent that the memo was meant to be an assault on everything that could be "unfriendly" to business. In the Powell memo, you can see some of the precursors to what's happening today. For instance, I think the demonization of academia in right-wing circles as well as the death of organized labor (unions) probably start with this memo (I'm not the only person who thinks this. Chomsky as elaborated on this at length.) The Powell memo was also started the process of making lobbying both widespread and acceptable to society (even when it was legal, it used to be frowned upon.) I think most people would agree that lobbying is a cancer on our democracy.

rectang 8y ago

Corporate entities evolve and adapt akin to biological organisms competing for survival. Rather than a group of individuals (the illuminati) winning out through elaborate conspiracy over other individuals, it seems to me more likely that the diminishing power of individuals is coming as a result of non-directed evolutionary improvement by corporations.

Applejinx 8y ago
Absolutely. This is a significant point. People, being anthropomorphic, are looking for some Big Evil Person who is personally doing all this, when it's an epiphenomenon of the systems we accept/tolerate.
- slimshady94 8y ago
  Is there any (succinct, easy-to-understand) research on the lifecycle/birth & death/power & influence of these entities? This seems a major point to be aware of, which is not taught anywhere in school/college.
  - rectang 8y ago
    What got me thinking about corporate evolution was Richard Dawkins, who applied concepts from evolutionary biology to non-biological spheres with "meme". You might consider his book "The Selfish Gene". This is a popular line of thought (try googling "corporation evolutionary biology", which gets you to pages like https://hbr.org/2016/01/the-biology-of-corporate-survival https://hbr.org/2016/01/the-biology-of-corporate-survival ), but it has a weakness: it's hard to be rigorous. In the field of evolutionary biology, experiments are hard to design and hypotheses are hard to falsify, so a lot of the writing is deeply infected by the author's prejudices. I'm sure there's something there, and I'm confident that whatever it is is more plausible than fragile conspiracy theories like the Illuminati. But exactly how non-biological entities compete and evolve is hard to say.
  - stevenwoo 8y ago
    This may be relevant to your question. https://www.vox.com/2018/6/28/17469080/american-dream-steven-brill-inequality-poverty-tailspin https://www.vox.com/2018/6/28/17469080/american-dream-steven...

fergie 8y ago

Capitalism has been allowed a free reign over western society with the consequence that _ownership_ is rewarded at the expense of _contribution_. The result is that owning property or a business is now really profitable, yet working hard in a salaried job is much less so. In economic theory "the gravity of capital" dictates that lumps of capital attract more capital- the larger the lump, the larger the attraction. Once capital is concentrated in too few lumps that are too large, it stops being a force for good, and starts to act as a force of oppression. Capitalism can work really well- but only if regulated. A modern nation state needs to have robust regulation of capital in order to keep it working for the benefit of society. Unfortunately this doesn't really happen just now in the US- most politicians are to some degree beholden to powerful, private interests who seek to increase their power by favourable legislation that generally involves financial deregulation. An 'illuminati' totally engineers the US economy by lobbying politicians, and this is no great secret.

mgoetzke 8y ago
`Capitalism can work really well- but only if regulated` --- Basically what Adam Smith said.
- fergie 8y ago
  Yet he is so often (wrongly) portrayed as an advocate of unregulated markets.