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> "Oligarch" originally meant the post-soviet kleptocrats who were handed control over formerly state companies at discount prices. Aristotle already pioneered

> "Oligarch" originally meant the post-soviet kleptocrats who were handed control over formerly state companies at discount prices. Aristotle already pioneered the use of the term as meaning "rule by the rich for the rich" aka plutocracy [0]. That's why the US can also be considered an oligarchy [1]. [0] https://fs.blog/2017/02/aristotles-politics/ https://fs.blog/2017/02/aristotles-politics/ [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

clairity 7y ago
maybe this plutocracy/oligarchy framing will break out and overtake the identity politics so dominating the culture (in the US) right now (hoping, but not hopeful). the problem is not the color of your skin but the imbalance in power caused by many, many decades (5 centuries for some!) of intentional opportunity disparity, with wealth concentration as the metric. a functioning democracy relies on dispersion of power, which is why we have separation of powers in the constitution in the first place. the other critical component of a democracy is having an informed and active citizenry. the blame for the current dysfunction lies with all citizens, not just our plutocrats and politicians (although they certainly shoulder a larger proportion). sometimes we need to lean into adversity to maintain our freedoms, rather than hoping some hero will come along and shield us from it.
- andrepd 7y ago
  Exactly. I believe the focus on identity politics, rather than class, to be a big strategic mistake by the left. The emphasis should not be on race, sex, sexual orientation, etc, because although those are serious problems that need to be tackled, they can NEVER be the priority over class, which is and remains by far the greatest source of inequality in the world (again, notwithstanding other factors also being sources of inequality). It's such a bad job that I wonder how much of it is intentional misdirection, distraction from the true issues.
  - Arbalest 7y ago
    I agree. For quite some time, I've told people that I no longer pay attention to the social left, when it is the economic side of left politics that makes the greatest difference, even to social issues. If you ensure that people who are otherwise marginalised have money, they will have enough influence through their buying power to effectively punish the classes who want them to remain marginalised.
    - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
      Which is why it matters for the elites to make sure the ones who've been marginalized don't have money. Sure puts a different spin on not hiring someone for "culture fit".
    - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
      I see an obvious flaw in this plan. How do you ensure the economic power of say, gay people, when they can be legally fired from their job for just being gay? When they can't even visit their dying loved ones in hospital because they're not allowed to be legally married, never mind get tax benefits or inherit pension benefits etc. How do you stop a majority from punishing them economically and punishing others who try to help them? Can you talk me through how your approach would have worked for the civil rights movement in the 60s or how the various law currently being drafted that legally prevent people from boycotting specific countries would affect your plans if used against your suggestion?
      - Arbalest 7y ago
        With UBI, they should have enough to still be able to conduct themselves. If unreasonable expenses are still being hoisted on them, then that's still an economic issue. In other words, people should be empowered economically. Being fired for being gay is still a form of economic disempowerment.
      - Arbalest 7y ago
        Perhaps I should change my framing on this. Yes there are structures available able to subvert the system. Both do need to be worked on, but focusing on one without the other results in diminishing returns. We've focused on the social side of marginalisation for a long time, and I think we're about as far as we can get with it for the time being. We need to switch back to economic matters which also affect more people. Marginalised groups are already in the poorer majority, if for no other reason than the statistical likelyhood of not being particularly rich. Once we've got more class majority equality, we can switch back to more focused issues.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  the problem is not the color of your skin but the imbalance in power caused by many, many decades (5 centuries for some!) of intentional opportunity disparity ...which is frequently deployed against people with a different skin color. Class-based analysis is great, but a) it is not an exact science, contrary to the claims of many of its proponents, and b) avoiding the empirical fact of racial discrimination does not make it go away, any more than ignoring the empirical facts of misogyny or any other flavor of discrimination has caused them to go away. You can argue that these different forms of discrimination are just disguises for class-based discrimination, but it's equally arguable that discrimination against people on the basis of immutable characteristics is a highly effective class ordering mechanism.
  - freeflight 7y ago
    I agree with a lot of what you say, but imho it's problematic to consider class a characteristic that's easily mutable. When social mobility is near non-existent, then class has effectively become it's very own immutable characteristic. People can be born into wealth and poverty just as much as they can be born with colored skin. The "American dream" is the anti-thesis to that, stipulating that everybody can elevate themselves out of their lower-class if they just pull those bootstraps hard enough. But how realistic is that actually nowadays, particularly to elevate larger parts of the population?
  - clairity 7y ago
    yah, racial discrimination is not solved by any means, but i do think the best strategy is tackling the now-many systemic failures of our supposed meritocracy as a way of loosening opportunities around racial discrimination rather than the other way around. the current prominence of immigration in political discussions, for example, makes it easy to divide on racial lines rather than on fairness or economics, as republicans have effectively exploited. it's led to an economically irrational willingness to sacrifice growth (and its resultant opportunities) in favor of limiting non-white immigration (we cheer 2-3% growth as amazing, while other countries have double-digit growth--like china, whose economy is similarly sized). so support immigration on economic grounds rather than racial ones, because it can grow the pie more fairly than plutocracy can. most white folks can get behind more growth, but not all will get behind direct compassion and fairness for non-white folks (as bad as that sounds).
devnulloverflow 7y ago
> > "Oligarch" originally meant the post-soviet kleptocrats who were handed control over formerly state companies at discount prices. > Aristotle already pioneered the use of the term as meaning "rule by the rich for the rich" aka plutocracy [0]. "Original" is a dangerous term which roywiggins shouldn't have used in this case. But roy is right about how the term got used in the Eastern European context. And while things happen in the west too, people complain as much or more billionaires who made it big as outsiders who (initially) had no such connections to political power.
- roywiggins 7y ago
  Yup, I don't know about dangerous, but "original" was definitely innaccurate on my part! It's a word that came to be attached to post-Soviet kleptocrats, so that's why it ends up being used in that context and not in Western contexts, since it's taken on the meaning of wealth extracted from the state by pure cronyism.

clairity 7y ago

maybe this plutocracy/oligarchy framing will break out and overtake the identity politics so dominating the culture (in the US) right now (hoping, but not hopeful). the problem is not the color of your skin but the imbalance in power caused by many, many decades (5 centuries for some!) of intentional opportunity disparity, with wealth concentration as the metric. a functioning democracy relies on dispersion of power, which is why we have separation of powers in the constitution in the first place. the other critical component of a democracy is having an informed and active citizenry. the blame for the current dysfunction lies with all citizens, not just our plutocrats and politicians (although they certainly shoulder a larger proportion). sometimes we need to lean into adversity to maintain our freedoms, rather than hoping some hero will come along and shield us from it.

andrepd 7y ago
Exactly. I believe the focus on identity politics, rather than class, to be a big strategic mistake by the left. The emphasis should not be on race, sex, sexual orientation, etc, because although those are serious problems that need to be tackled, they can NEVER be the priority over class, which is and remains by far the greatest source of inequality in the world (again, notwithstanding other factors also being sources of inequality). It's such a bad job that I wonder how much of it is intentional misdirection, distraction from the true issues.
- Arbalest 7y ago
  I agree. For quite some time, I've told people that I no longer pay attention to the social left, when it is the economic side of left politics that makes the greatest difference, even to social issues. If you ensure that people who are otherwise marginalised have money, they will have enough influence through their buying power to effectively punish the classes who want them to remain marginalised.
  - crankylinuxuser 7y ago
    Which is why it matters for the elites to make sure the ones who've been marginalized don't have money. Sure puts a different spin on not hiring someone for "culture fit".
  - ZeroGravitas 7y ago
    I see an obvious flaw in this plan. How do you ensure the economic power of say, gay people, when they can be legally fired from their job for just being gay? When they can't even visit their dying loved ones in hospital because they're not allowed to be legally married, never mind get tax benefits or inherit pension benefits etc. How do you stop a majority from punishing them economically and punishing others who try to help them? Can you talk me through how your approach would have worked for the civil rights movement in the 60s or how the various law currently being drafted that legally prevent people from boycotting specific countries would affect your plans if used against your suggestion?
    - Arbalest 7y ago
      With UBI, they should have enough to still be able to conduct themselves. If unreasonable expenses are still being hoisted on them, then that's still an economic issue. In other words, people should be empowered economically. Being fired for being gay is still a form of economic disempowerment.
    - Arbalest 7y ago
      Perhaps I should change my framing on this. Yes there are structures available able to subvert the system. Both do need to be worked on, but focusing on one without the other results in diminishing returns. We've focused on the social side of marginalisation for a long time, and I think we're about as far as we can get with it for the time being. We need to switch back to economic matters which also affect more people. Marginalised groups are already in the poorer majority, if for no other reason than the statistical likelyhood of not being particularly rich. Once we've got more class majority equality, we can switch back to more focused issues.
anigbrowl 7y ago
the problem is not the color of your skin but the imbalance in power caused by many, many decades (5 centuries for some!) of intentional opportunity disparity ...which is frequently deployed against people with a different skin color. Class-based analysis is great, but a) it is not an exact science, contrary to the claims of many of its proponents, and b) avoiding the empirical fact of racial discrimination does not make it go away, any more than ignoring the empirical facts of misogyny or any other flavor of discrimination has caused them to go away. You can argue that these different forms of discrimination are just disguises for class-based discrimination, but it's equally arguable that discrimination against people on the basis of immutable characteristics is a highly effective class ordering mechanism.
- freeflight 7y ago
  I agree with a lot of what you say, but imho it's problematic to consider class a characteristic that's easily mutable. When social mobility is near non-existent, then class has effectively become it's very own immutable characteristic. People can be born into wealth and poverty just as much as they can be born with colored skin. The "American dream" is the anti-thesis to that, stipulating that everybody can elevate themselves out of their lower-class if they just pull those bootstraps hard enough. But how realistic is that actually nowadays, particularly to elevate larger parts of the population?
- clairity 7y ago
  yah, racial discrimination is not solved by any means, but i do think the best strategy is tackling the now-many systemic failures of our supposed meritocracy as a way of loosening opportunities around racial discrimination rather than the other way around. the current prominence of immigration in political discussions, for example, makes it easy to divide on racial lines rather than on fairness or economics, as republicans have effectively exploited. it's led to an economically irrational willingness to sacrifice growth (and its resultant opportunities) in favor of limiting non-white immigration (we cheer 2-3% growth as amazing, while other countries have double-digit growth--like china, whose economy is similarly sized). so support immigration on economic grounds rather than racial ones, because it can grow the pie more fairly than plutocracy can. most white folks can get behind more growth, but not all will get behind direct compassion and fairness for non-white folks (as bad as that sounds).

devnulloverflow 7y ago

> > "Oligarch" originally meant the post-soviet kleptocrats who were handed control over formerly state companies at discount prices. > Aristotle already pioneered the use of the term as meaning "rule by the rich for the rich" aka plutocracy [0]. "Original" is a dangerous term which roywiggins shouldn't have used in this case. But roy is right about how the term got used in the Eastern European context. And while things happen in the west too, people complain as much or more billionaires who made it big as outsiders who (initially) had no such connections to political power.

roywiggins 7y ago
Yup, I don't know about dangerous, but "original" was definitely innaccurate on my part! It's a word that came to be attached to post-Soviet kleptocrats, so that's why it ends up being used in that context and not in Western contexts, since it's taken on the meaning of wealth extracted from the state by pure cronyism.