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How Monopolists drive the power and wealth divide
- boringuser2 3y ago>Who are Global Justice Now? >We are a democratic social justice organisation working as part of a global movement to challenge the powerful and create a more just and equal world. We mobilise people in the UK for change, and act in solidarity with those fighting injustice, particularly in the global south Seems like you might want to vet your sources, this is a highly, highly polemic group: you can especially tell because moderately polemic groups will at least try to obfuscate their bias.
- phartenfeller 3y agoWhy not debate what they say? Whoever brings up an argument doesn't matter if they have a point, in my opinion. Otherwise it would be ad hominem: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem .
- boringuser2 3y agoYou're skirting on the fact that what I've stated isn't an ad hominem because I'm not directly refuting any specific argument. I'm applying a heuristic.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago> Why not debate what they say? Because it's not worth debating to us and the vast majority of us aren't policymakers when it comes to matter of global-economics. ...I suspect the link was to posted here to HN on the off-chance a CTO or tech-savvy CEO of an influential SV company sees it and decides to bring it up at Davos this week - just like how other NGOs take-out ads in The Economist around this time of year. So it's pretty flattering to the HN crowd to imagine that we all virtually rub-shoulders with the world's elite.
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- jdewerd 3y agoAh, yes, all the economic think tanks funded by people and organizations of a certain economic background promoting policy that coincidentally serves the purposes of those same parties are more trustworthy because they try to obfuscate their bias. What? This argument is certifiably nuts! The biggest players can launder their size into the appearance of impartial organic consensus, yes, but observing this in action isn't a reason to trust them!
- boringuser2 3y agoYou've erected and demolished a strawman, this is an actual logical fallacy, unlike the attempt below.
- jdewerd 3y agoApplying formal reasoning to defend a self-admitted heuristic is a special kind of silly. Besides, your heuristic sucks. Just because it formally sucks due to being an ad-hom doesn't mean it can't informally suck on other dimensions, like mindless deference to authority. Logic has nothing to say about that, but when considering bias it's something you should probably try harder to keep in mind.
- amelius 3y agoThe least we can do is agree that money is a societal construct, and if money grows all by itself then the gains should be fully taxed and given back to society.
- boringuser2 3y agoThis is an incredibly pointless statement. Nobody thinks that money isn't a contract. Calling everything a "social construct" -- or, rather, calling anything a social construct is meaningless. Everything is a social construct, even "I" as a concept.
- gamepsys 3y agoIs hydrogen a social construct? Is pi a social construct? Is the sun a social construct? I'm not completely sure about the answer to those questions, but they all derive meaning in a different way than money does. I think calling money a social construct just highlights that as far as mutually agreed upon meaning being focused on an abstract concept goes, money is pretty high on the list of having lots of meaning and being very abstract.
- boringuser2 3y agoYes, they are. Even something as minute as considering a collection of atoms an "element", i.e. organizing things into discrete clusters, is a social construct. The human brain has a CPU limit so it has to cluster things to interact meaningfully with material reality. Glimpsing beyond this is nearly impossible because it goes outside the bounds of our abilities, but you can scrape at it if you abstract it enough like I'm doing here.
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- quickthrower2 3y agoI agree. I mean why else is someone doing a load of work for me just because I tapped a bit of plastic on a device?
- brigadier132 3y agoAnother organization ran by college educated burnouts claiming to be advocating in favor of the "working class". Blue collar manual laborers hate this shit.
- l33tbro 3y agoWhile there is a large public appetite for breaking up monopolies, it really does seem that antitrust policy has sadly become something of a bygone era. A decent authority on the subject is Matt Stoller's book Goliath [1], which lays out the history of US monopolies and how they formed the bedrock for these modern tech companies. Their strategic dominance is no mistake. He argues that our era of monopoly power goes back to the resentment of New Deal reform, which began percolating in the economics department of University of Chicago in the 1960s and, in the 70s, entered public policy. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Goliath-100-Year-Between-Monopoly-Democracy/dp/1501183087 https://www.amazon.com/Goliath-100-Year-Between-Monopoly-Dem...
- Aunche 3y agoDoes anyone know how the WEF and Davos are supposed to actually affect real people? I haven't seen anything written about it that isn't highly politically charged.
- CPLX 3y agoIs there any anything more suited for political discussion than a group of people who own and run the world gathering in a heavily guarded mountain enclave?
- roenxi 3y agoThe important frame here is to understand that society is a mixed bag, or patchwork quilt, of tribes. In theory everyone can do anything but as is often noted in practice the switching costs means they specialise for life. And following that line of thought (plus looking at the world) reveals that there are tribes for things. So for example there is a particular subset of the population who act as the political class, as journalists, as technical leaders, as manual labourers, etc. It really shines through when the intellectuals go off the rails, because there are situations where the public discourse and the voting population are in disagreement over what to do next. Anyway, Davos/the WEF is one of the most powerful tribes getting together to decide what is important and in their best interests. It will shape politics because they will decide what political ideologies get funding and advertising, and in a few years the legislators will start aligning to the Davos opinion and writing laws. Assuming there is consensus in Davos and it isn't one of the rare occasions where the elites are frustrated. How it affects real people is informal but the pathway is clear.
- TriangleEdge 3y agoLike Peter Thiel once said in Zero to One, the point of a monopoly is monopoly profits.
- armchairhacker 3y agoI always wonder why people argue about things like pronouns and immigration when a bigger issue seems to be the wealth gap. Many countries are democratic and social media makes things viral, so even with bribes and centralized media, I think if people worked together they could elect people who would redistribute the wealth. But a decent number of people seem to be against wealth distribution, and most won't vote for a politician who makes it his entire platform (Bernie Sanders) over someone whose less genuine. More importantly I wish people would vote for someone who has an engineering mindset and prioritizes how to get common things done (like increase everyone's standards of living by increase efficiency) instead of what kinds of things to get done. Because even though said person can just hire these people, based on how inefficient the government is, I believe the people in charge don't have the capability for even that.
- mettamage 3y agoThe problem is that a politician needs to be good enough at being a politician. An example of what you said is Cornelis Lely. Being a civil engineer, he designed the Afsluitdijk in The Netherlands, fixing a lot of water issues we had. He was also an amazing politician [1]. Shower thought: I'd argue we need a "politics school" for engineers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_Lely https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_Lely
- j0rdans 3y agoIf I were to put on my conspiratorial hat, this is exactly what those in positions of power want us to be arguing about. These narratives and the constant fuelling of the outrage fire are constantly pushed by the media and "influencers". I'm not saying that they are somehow complicit in a conspiracy, but more-so looking to make money from the elevated engagement derived from outrage. As long as we keep fighting amongst each other about various ideological issues, we're never going to make progress on the things posing an existential threat.
- alexilliamson 3y agoWith the exception of abortion - which I think is the hardest ideological gap to bridge - I agree that the media and government keep the focus on trivial culture war issues to create the illusion of having multiple options in the voting booth. Sure you can pick a side on book banning, mask wearing, etc. But if you care about class and the distribution of wealth, you only have one option. Republicans and Democrats are the same party when it comes to class, wealth, and power. Both parties demonstrably work for the ruling class. But I don't think you need a conspiracy hat to see that.
- bonaparten 3y agoI do not understand in which sense debating whether money is a costruct or not is that relevant for the discussion. Everything is a construct: society, democracy, beauty, country, etc. The point is, the market through money becomes natural. I mean by that evolution is the law. Everything needs to transform to survive. This create monopolism, because most of the competion will die. Every CEO would be glad if he did not have competition. Not distributing money make the society natural. Everyone needs to change to economically survive. Money is the variable, like time and spaces are for physics. None is interested in make possible that all people start with the same possibilities on this planet. Monopolism and Capitalism create inequality if money are not given back to the society to improve it. "Work" (e.g. building products) is only possible in a society, which means for others.
- mrangle 3y agoLeaving aside the introduction that reads like it was was written by a stoned middle school marxist and thefefore is difficult to get beyond, some simple critiques: Divided wealth is inherent in the nature of the tool of money. Divided power is inherent in the tool of democracy. However, the nature of the power divide is different than is widely percieved. Like businesses, governments also are successful due to monopoly secrets. Functioning democratic republics are what prevent massive genocides, sometimes if not most often attempted in the name of wealth redistribution and with subtextual ethnic cleansing goals. Monopoly is the bedrock of business. Business is the bedrock of preventing populations from being enslaved and killed by foreign governments, as global businesses fund militaries in a zero sum global wealth environment. That is, if you choose to impoverish your society, this means a vacuum for another government to economically fill and dominate. Strongly consider that anyone who wants you to be poorer hates you with a murderous passion. In a global business environment, monopolies are essential to national security for a variety of reasons. As discussed, one of the most important being the ability to compete globally. There is no moral logic that can argue that it is moral to dismantle a monopoly for the benefit of competing governments. The article's logic and conclusions are both childish and insane. The time for railing against monopolies was prior to when the same types also wanted to create an economically globalist society.
- Alpha3031 3y agoThat's a reach, but if the primary purpose of monopolies in your view is to fund the military, then there's no issue with taxing them more or even nationalising them, is there?
- mrangle 3y agoIt's not a reach, but a basic fact of the tax base. I stated that global competition is "one of the most important" justifications for monopoly. You adding the phrase "primary purpose" and attaching it to "fund the military, and then answering your own statement with a rhetorical question, is barely worth responding to. >then there's no issue with taxing them more or even nationalising them, is there? If you are so sure of you're reasoning, then why the rhetorical framing? I don't agree that you've made a rhetorical point, at all. There are figuratively a dozen reasons not to nationalize nor overtax them. Perhaps the best of which, to start, is that I haven't seen presented logic that it makes sense.
- dluan 3y agoVenture capital's failure to address this flaw in the past 3 decades has basically soured everyone - the fact that it's a great tool for handling high risk endeavors, and also happens to be an even better tool for finding and establishing monopoly. There's a very big blurry zone between the first check in the startup and the last check before IPO where this goal becomes more and more explicit. And eventually it gets to a point where it's like cancer, where monopoly only exists to ensure its own existence and starts to suffocate everything else around it.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoWhat monopolies have emerged out of venture capital in the last 3 decades? In any industry?
- dluan 3y agoI am honestly not that surprised anymore to see that HN commenters don't remember Microsoft or Oracle antitrust suits, or how Twitter rose to prominence, or etc x 1000. Laughable.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoWhy use an ad-hominem that can only discredit the writer, 'dluan'? It seems silly to waste reputation on something so menial.
- dluan 3y agoIt's not an ad-hom to point out that "Hacker News" used to be populated by Hackers, who maintained an ethos of trying to take on unfair players. Maybe it was too long ago.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoIf someone calls your commenting 'Laughable' that's not an ad-hominem? Even under the most generous reading, if you want to make a point, then adding random noise isn't going to help.
- moose_man 3y agoIt's in the interests of the wealthy and powerful to do something about inequality. Revolutions don't usually end well for those in power. Recommended reading: End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration https://www.amazon.com/End-Times-Counter-Elites-Political-Disintegration/dp/0593490509 https://www.amazon.com/End-Times-Counter-Elites-Political-Di... "Peter Turchin, one of the most interesting social scientists of our age, has infused the study of history with approaches and insights from other fields for more than a quarter century. End Times is the culmination of his work to understand what causes political communities to cohere and what causes them to fall apart, as applied to the current turmoil within the United States. Back in 2010, when Nature magazine asked leading scientists to provide a ten-year forecast, Turchin used his models to predict that America was in a spiral of social disintegration that would lead to a breakdown in the political order circa 2020. The years since have proved his prediction more and more accurate, and End Times reveals why. The lessons of world history are clear, Turchin argues: When the equilibrium between ruling elites and the majority tips too far in favor of elites, political instability is all but inevitable. As income inequality surges and prosperity flows disproportionately into the hands of the elites, the common people suffer, and society-wide efforts to become an elite grow ever more frenzied. He calls this process the wealth pump; it’s a world of the damned and the saved. And since the number of such positions remains relatively fixed, the overproduction of elites inevitably leads to frustrated elite aspirants, who harness popular resentment to turn against the established order. Turchin’s models show that when this state has been reached, societies become locked in a death spiral it's very hard to exit."
- snapplebobapple 3y agoRevolutions arent typically caused by the peasants, thry are caused by surplus elites. The majority doesnt seem that relevant most of the time.
- dgfitz 3y agoI don’t expect this to be received well, but it seems ‘ol Ayn Rand may have been on to something after all, huh?
- 3y ago