8 ms·
There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
- colordrops 7y agoAnd 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 7y agoThis 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.
- ianai 7y agoAt 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.
- arkades 7y agoWhy 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.”
- gwm83 7y agoAnyone, 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.
- majewsky 7y agoThat'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?
- luckylion 7y ago> 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 just switch to Google, Amazon & Co.
- tenaciousant666 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
- nafey 7y agoWas the interviewee Anand Giridharadas? I have been finding his takes particularly enlightening.
- thundergolfer 7y agoI think that Chomsky quote is decades old.
- ianai 7y agoThat definitely sounds like Anand.
- davesmith1983 7y ago> 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. https://8values.github.io/ https://8values.github.io/ 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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=31&v=wcy8uLjRHPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=31&v=wcy8uLjRHPM
- PaulAJ 7y agoI 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.
- majewsky 7y agoI 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.)
- PaulAJ 7y agoThe 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).
- gwm83 7y agoDeliberate 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.
- PaulAJ 7y agoI think this goes beyond a few random conversations. Chomsky's comment implies a command structure.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoThat’s your interpretation. That’s not how I read it.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoI 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?
- rv-de 7y agoMost 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.
- vixen99 7y ago'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.
- fortran77 7y agoNot completely true. Some of the wealthiest people in the US are very progressive.
- ivoras 7y agoIt 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 7y agoNo true Scotsman right?
- ivoras 7y agoIt'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.
- CTOSian 7y agothose 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
- DFHippie 7y agoYour 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.
- yeslibertarian 7y agoThere's those in favor of freedom, and those who prefer tyranny. For the tyrants, the state is the almighty god that is the solution for all problems. We know how this story goes, we've seen it countless times.
- charliebrownau 7y agoRule 1 - The LEFT Lies The Guardian is just another LEFT WING Marxist "WOKE" political activist arm
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- HissingMachine 7y agoThere 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?
- distances 7y agoDid you misunderstand the whole article? It did not vouch for populism in the least.
- HissingMachine 7y agoHow so? Populism is by definition an ideologue of regular people against the elites. Or do you have your own definition of populism? Can I hear it?
- JohnStrangeII 7y agoYour 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.
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- CriticalCathed 7y agoFlag in 3-2-....
- fallingfrog 7y agoInterestingly, 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 7y agoOlder 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.
- meerita 7y agoThe true way of life is ensuring personal freedom. Any form of politics that involves taxes, regulations and social rules is simply another form of totalitarianism. States must be reduced and limited only to justice and national defense and let citizens follow their life projects. Since someone is awarded a title to spend the money of others, we already enter a left dynamic. The left will always sell you masked privileges in the form of rights. The right always sells you the basic anglosaxon conservative principles: life, liberty, property. It's up to you all to understand those differences.
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- nightwing 7y agoRich 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.
- traderjane 7y agoI’m not saying you’re wrong, but I feel you’re talking about rich individuals and not rich people when you talk about Elon Musk.
- nightwing 7y agoThere 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.
- mclightning 7y agoHmm I wouldnt consider Aubrey de Grey, rich in same basket as Elon Musk. I wish he was though.
- nightwing 7y agoYes, sadly he only had 10s of millions instead of billions, and i agree it would be amazing if he had billion. But in the context of articles proposal of "coalition of working-class, poor and middle-class" even millionaires end up outside of "good forces".
- PaulAJ 7y agoElon 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-want-to-reform-democracy-7f3b1ef10597 https://medium.com/civic-tech-thoughts-from-joshdata/so-you-... and then think again.
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- PaulAJ 7y agoSee also "Moneyland" https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/07/moneyland-oliver-bullough-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/07/moneyland-oliv... 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.
- sadmann1 7y agoSo 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
- tome 7y agoUgh. What's this doing on Hacker News? Flagged.
- PavlovsCat 7y agoBecause pressing "hide" and moving on isn't enough?
- quickthrower2 7y ago“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 7y agoThat 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.
- baq 7y agoTechnology enables politics, politics enable technology. Can’t really separate the two even if that sounds impure.
- raarts 7y agoThe 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?
- luckylion 7y ago> 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.
- gwm83 7y agoTrump 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.
- finnthehuman 7y ago>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?
- zokier 7y ago> 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
- ausbah 7y agoI think this article gives Donald Trump a bit too much credit for his abilities.
- ddingus 7y agoThe 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.
- amai 7y ago“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