3 ms·

There is a set of values that are common among news organizations. If you don't share a value, then of course you wouldn't think it's important enough for a new

There is a set of values that are common among news organizations. If you don't share a value, then of course you wouldn't think it's important enough for a newspaper to defend. That doesn't mean it's not important to those who do share the value.

mostlysimilar 2y ago
In case you haven't noticed, the current US administration is packed full of billionaires who are dismantling all protections that keep free markets from steamrolling average people. They don't need more defense. They are winning more strongly than they ever have.
- XorNot 2y ago
  The logical goal of any corporation absent regulation is to become a monopoly...which of course ends the free market. They don't want a free market. They want to be free to control the market.
  - kibwen 2y ago
    "Competition is for losers." ~ Peter Thiel
  - typeofhuman 2y ago
    1. Maybe there are some (?alot) of regulations that put the government as a middleman collecting lots of royalties for doing nothing. 2. Big corporations actually like, encourage, and write the regulations because they form a moat for which smaller competitors can't cross (how is this news to this website?).
    - XorNot 2y ago
      This isn't contesting anything I said. If your goal is to become a monopoly, then you do what you need to achieve that with any tool available to you. The lesson is don't let corporations write regulations, not "obviously regulations are always bad".
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - mattoftheweb 2y ago
      You just described two sub-steps of: > They want to be free to control the market 1. One of the tell-tale signs of regulatory capture is when the Government's efforts do little to control/limit a corporation. Like when they end up relegated to 'middleman' between the corporation and consumer. 2. Regulations that serve as a 'moat' against competition is the carrion call for free markets. Capitalism thrives on competition. If the only competition they face is what they allow, then they have no incentive to innovate and create value, only maximize the value they already have. The counterpoint to #1 doesn't mean that we don't need to trim the fat... but there is a MAJOR difference between what businesses and the average–joe consider 'fat'. That is what I think is so scary about this, there is no chance Beelzebub's idea of a free market matches my own.
      - fsckboy 2y ago
        >the carrion call for free markets you do realize there's no such thing as a carrion call? a clarion is a trumpet, and a clarion call is a call for urgency I suppose with crows ("here's the thing...") you could get a carrion caw
- typeofhuman 2y ago
  > dismantling all protections that keep free markets from steamrolling average people. Which ones exactly?
  - ineedasername 2y ago
    CFPB
- bitshiftfaced 2y ago
  Why are they, in your words, "winning"? More people voted for it than against. My point is that it only seems strange to defend it if you don't personally share the value. Clearly many people who voted differently have different values, and they might say it would need defending. To see this, suppose Bezos talked instead about how the editorial staff needed to prioritize egalitarianism. There are plenty of people who share this value. You can find a great many manifestations of this value in our society. It's embedded into our constitution and legislation. But does that mean that the newspaper would be wrong to defend egalitarianism?
  - whattheheckheck 2y ago
    Most people can't string 3 steps of a logical argument together and can't see the system they live in. They actually believe in God and they actually believe they get an afterlife... like how much more gullible can you get
    - paulddraper 2y ago
      You could even belong in morality.
  - Terretta 2y ago
    > More people voted for it than against. What's meant by "it"? • 77,302,580 voted for this administration (49.8%) • 77,935,722 voted against this administration (50.2%) Source: https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024presgeresults.pdf https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024pres...
    - araes 2y ago
      I'd actually like to see the Greens and the Libertarians get together and run a candidate. Oliver (Libs) got 650,126, and Stein got 862,049. Put em together and you've got enough voters to actually have a reasonable chance of grass roots momentum, exponential involvement, compounding returns on capital / effort, large donor buy-ins, numbers that meet news media minima for free coverage, and long-term viability. The Green's usually are identified as being libertarian socialism anyways, so it would not be a horrible cooperation to hang out with Libertarians and discuss how to make environmentalism; nonviolence; and social justice work with civil liberties; non-interventionism; and laissez-faire capitalism. And then they could state that they're not a spoiler, since they draw voters relatively equally from what might otherwise be Democrats and Republicans.
rtpg 2y ago
the comment is, I believe, not about importance but about the relative strength of those ideas in American society. How much ink needs to be spilled defending ideas that have huge amount of backing, even among people who theoretically are ideologically opposed to it? Elizabeth Warren calling herself a capitalist is a pretty strong indicator of how much capitalist realism has taken hold. It's like Bezos sending out a note saying that editors need to go out to promote not kicking dogs. Even amongst the supposed enemies of free markets, if you ask them enough questions so many people in the US still basically believe in it. Especially among the Post's readership!
- WillPostForFood 2y ago
  The ideas don't seem to have much backing within the cultural elite (perhaps hypocritically as they benefit from the system), mainstream media, and certainly not the Washington Post. Also declining backing from both political parties.
  - rtpg 2y ago
    While for a conservative it might look like the cultural elite is opposed to these ideas, for someone who is more to the left, the "big tent" on economic issues between the 'cultural elite' and more conservative elements feels much more present. Price fixing was done during World War 2. Actual, real price fixing. Harris talking about a tiny version of that with an anti-price gouging bill during the campaign got the following headline: "When your opponent calls you ‘communist,’ maybe don’t propose price controls?" There is an entire world of political and economic positions that exist that are not represented in the pages of the Post. And on the left, not only could you fit entire major ideologies to the left of the leftmost US newspaper op-ed writers, you could _fit entire ideologies to the left of those ideologies_.
    - WillPostForFood 2y ago
      "There is an entire world of political and economic positions that exist that are not represented in the pages of the Post" I agree, but the case here isn't for fringe views, it is for more balance and debate within the big tent.

mostlysimilar 2y ago

In case you haven't noticed, the current US administration is packed full of billionaires who are dismantling all protections that keep free markets from steamrolling average people. They don't need more defense. They are winning more strongly than they ever have.

XorNot 2y ago
The logical goal of any corporation absent regulation is to become a monopoly...which of course ends the free market. They don't want a free market. They want to be free to control the market.
- kibwen 2y ago
  "Competition is for losers." ~ Peter Thiel
- typeofhuman 2y ago
  1. Maybe there are some (?alot) of regulations that put the government as a middleman collecting lots of royalties for doing nothing. 2. Big corporations actually like, encourage, and write the regulations because they form a moat for which smaller competitors can't cross (how is this news to this website?).
  - XorNot 2y ago
    This isn't contesting anything I said. If your goal is to become a monopoly, then you do what you need to achieve that with any tool available to you. The lesson is don't let corporations write regulations, not "obviously regulations are always bad".
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - mattoftheweb 2y ago
    You just described two sub-steps of: > They want to be free to control the market 1. One of the tell-tale signs of regulatory capture is when the Government's efforts do little to control/limit a corporation. Like when they end up relegated to 'middleman' between the corporation and consumer. 2. Regulations that serve as a 'moat' against competition is the carrion call for free markets. Capitalism thrives on competition. If the only competition they face is what they allow, then they have no incentive to innovate and create value, only maximize the value they already have. The counterpoint to #1 doesn't mean that we don't need to trim the fat... but there is a MAJOR difference between what businesses and the average–joe consider 'fat'. That is what I think is so scary about this, there is no chance Beelzebub's idea of a free market matches my own.
    - fsckboy 2y ago
      >the carrion call for free markets you do realize there's no such thing as a carrion call? a clarion is a trumpet, and a clarion call is a call for urgency I suppose with crows ("here's the thing...") you could get a carrion caw
typeofhuman 2y ago
> dismantling all protections that keep free markets from steamrolling average people. Which ones exactly?
- ineedasername 2y ago
  CFPB
bitshiftfaced 2y ago
Why are they, in your words, "winning"? More people voted for it than against. My point is that it only seems strange to defend it if you don't personally share the value. Clearly many people who voted differently have different values, and they might say it would need defending. To see this, suppose Bezos talked instead about how the editorial staff needed to prioritize egalitarianism. There are plenty of people who share this value. You can find a great many manifestations of this value in our society. It's embedded into our constitution and legislation. But does that mean that the newspaper would be wrong to defend egalitarianism?
- whattheheckheck 2y ago
  Most people can't string 3 steps of a logical argument together and can't see the system they live in. They actually believe in God and they actually believe they get an afterlife... like how much more gullible can you get
  - paulddraper 2y ago
    You could even belong in morality.
- Terretta 2y ago
  > More people voted for it than against. What's meant by "it"? • 77,302,580 voted for this administration (49.8%) • 77,935,722 voted against this administration (50.2%) Source: https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024presgeresults.pdf https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024pres...
  - araes 2y ago
    I'd actually like to see the Greens and the Libertarians get together and run a candidate. Oliver (Libs) got 650,126, and Stein got 862,049. Put em together and you've got enough voters to actually have a reasonable chance of grass roots momentum, exponential involvement, compounding returns on capital / effort, large donor buy-ins, numbers that meet news media minima for free coverage, and long-term viability. The Green's usually are identified as being libertarian socialism anyways, so it would not be a horrible cooperation to hang out with Libertarians and discuss how to make environmentalism; nonviolence; and social justice work with civil liberties; non-interventionism; and laissez-faire capitalism. And then they could state that they're not a spoiler, since they draw voters relatively equally from what might otherwise be Democrats and Republicans.

rtpg 2y ago

the comment is, I believe, not about importance but about the relative strength of those ideas in American society. How much ink needs to be spilled defending ideas that have huge amount of backing, even among people who theoretically are ideologically opposed to it? Elizabeth Warren calling herself a capitalist is a pretty strong indicator of how much capitalist realism has taken hold. It's like Bezos sending out a note saying that editors need to go out to promote not kicking dogs. Even amongst the supposed enemies of free markets, if you ask them enough questions so many people in the US still basically believe in it. Especially among the Post's readership!

WillPostForFood 2y ago
The ideas don't seem to have much backing within the cultural elite (perhaps hypocritically as they benefit from the system), mainstream media, and certainly not the Washington Post. Also declining backing from both political parties.
- rtpg 2y ago
  While for a conservative it might look like the cultural elite is opposed to these ideas, for someone who is more to the left, the "big tent" on economic issues between the 'cultural elite' and more conservative elements feels much more present. Price fixing was done during World War 2. Actual, real price fixing. Harris talking about a tiny version of that with an anti-price gouging bill during the campaign got the following headline: "When your opponent calls you ‘communist,’ maybe don’t propose price controls?" There is an entire world of political and economic positions that exist that are not represented in the pages of the Post. And on the left, not only could you fit entire major ideologies to the left of the leftmost US newspaper op-ed writers, you could _fit entire ideologies to the left of those ideologies_.
  - WillPostForFood 2y ago
    "There is an entire world of political and economic positions that exist that are not represented in the pages of the Post" I agree, but the case here isn't for fringe views, it is for more balance and debate within the big tent.