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Thiel pointed out that (paraphrasing): “libertarianism is the safe way to be right-wing in Tech, because it’s not politically credible. You can be safely ignore

Thiel pointed out that (paraphrasing): “libertarianism is the safe way to be right-wing in Tech, because it’s not politically credible. You can be safely ignored.” Left authoritarians have more in common with Right authoritarians than with the broader Left. You saw this in Germany and Russia when their respective authoritarianisms collapsed and the same people simply changed teams. The argument implicit in the headline is therefore perhaps better expressed as two thoughts: why did the tech right get tired of being ignored, and how did they go about flipping the authoritarian structures that already existed?

mindslight 11mo ago
> libertarianism is the safe way to be right-wing in Tech The deeper lie is that libertarianism is right wing. So-called right wing Libertarianism is fallacious - ultimately a product of the corporate neutering of political organization just like the main parties. I certainly understand why right- "Libertarianism" is highly appealing - stick to these small core set of axioms, and you will be free, and everything that appears to be bad will actually be justified because it's merely a result of people exercising freedom. It makes it sound like we just need to simplify things. If we just perform a rewrite and avoid giving into the temptation to make bloat, don't you know we will all be free? The fallacy is easy demonstrated, but requires the reader to suspend the mainstream indoctrination asserting a dichotomy between government and corporations (promulgated in the "Libertarian" dogma by the lemma that a corporation is definitionally incapable of exercising coercion). In actuality - a government is a corporation, and corporations can exert coercive power like government. What we consider a corporation is merely a partial version of what we consider a government. If we're in need of a particular product or service and there are many corporations to choose from, we feel more free (just as if we could choose between multiple governments!). If there are only a handful of corporations to choose from, especially if the executives all implement similar policies in lockstep, then the dynamic feels much less free. If there is only one corporation to choose from, then we have a de facto government that can coerce us up to the limit of needing that product/service. Essentially any authoritarian/totalitarian government can be transmuted into an axoimatic right-"Libertarian" utopia simply by reframing its government as a singular corporation with which every citizen has a lifelong contract of onerous terms. And so the only way to approach libertarianism is to set the metric as a society's constructive outcomes for its citizens having effective freedoms. As for the original topic, the Thiel quote shows that Thiel never actually was a libertarian, or at least least as long as he's been relevant. Rather the only "freedom" he is interested in is his own "freedom" to coerce others. And as he's gained more power, that "freedom" mask has been slowly flaking off. This is the exact shape of Silicon Valley's surveillance industry as a whole - "disrupting" the world merely to make centralized web/apps that exert fine-grained top down control. "Freedom" for their founders, not for their users. That's not freedom, it's just new systems of control. And now that this new crop of nouveau riche have entrenched themselves, they want to shamelessly start exercising their power.
- throwpoaster 11mo ago
  Thank you for taking the time to write this thought-provoking response. It brings to mind themes of “The Unincorporated Man” [0]. Valley techno-capitalism has always existed in the context of (and as a function of) the military. I broadly agree with your characterization of corporate power as a tool governments use to delegate and aggregate economic control. Over generational time scales I think regulatory frameworks will develop sufficient to mitigate tech’s worst excesses. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unincorporated_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unincorporated_Man
- sifar 11mo ago
  What is also an example of stunning ignorance here is that a corporation (and by extension capitalism) cannot exist without the laws and the coercive power of the government to enforce them. One can argue a government is whoever can enforce rules for markets to function. This, I think is the heart of the lie that people miss. Which leads to myths being established that companies/markets are something different from governments and not an extension.
  - mindslight 11mo ago
    There is a whole body of thought about corporations existing outside of governments, anarcho-capitalism. In fact, the way I equated corporations and government relies on assumptions from this view. You're coming around to the equating from a different angle, but it feels a bit lacking to me because corporations certainly can exert pressure on governments and asserting that corporations are reliant on governments would seem to downplay this dynamic.
    - Jensson 11mo ago
      Corporations that competed with governments had armies historically, trade corporations like Hansa or East Indies operated that way. So as long as they aren't fielding armies they are not competing with governments, just influencing them a bit.
      - 11mo ago

mindslight 11mo ago

> libertarianism is the safe way to be right-wing in Tech The deeper lie is that libertarianism is right wing. So-called right wing Libertarianism is fallacious - ultimately a product of the corporate neutering of political organization just like the main parties. I certainly understand why right- "Libertarianism" is highly appealing - stick to these small core set of axioms, and you will be free, and everything that appears to be bad will actually be justified because it's merely a result of people exercising freedom. It makes it sound like we just need to simplify things. If we just perform a rewrite and avoid giving into the temptation to make bloat, don't you know we will all be free? The fallacy is easy demonstrated, but requires the reader to suspend the mainstream indoctrination asserting a dichotomy between government and corporations (promulgated in the "Libertarian" dogma by the lemma that a corporation is definitionally incapable of exercising coercion). In actuality - a government is a corporation, and corporations can exert coercive power like government. What we consider a corporation is merely a partial version of what we consider a government. If we're in need of a particular product or service and there are many corporations to choose from, we feel more free (just as if we could choose between multiple governments!). If there are only a handful of corporations to choose from, especially if the executives all implement similar policies in lockstep, then the dynamic feels much less free. If there is only one corporation to choose from, then we have a de facto government that can coerce us up to the limit of needing that product/service. Essentially any authoritarian/totalitarian government can be transmuted into an axoimatic right-"Libertarian" utopia simply by reframing its government as a singular corporation with which every citizen has a lifelong contract of onerous terms. And so the only way to approach libertarianism is to set the metric as a society's constructive outcomes for its citizens having effective freedoms. As for the original topic, the Thiel quote shows that Thiel never actually was a libertarian, or at least least as long as he's been relevant. Rather the only "freedom" he is interested in is his own "freedom" to coerce others. And as he's gained more power, that "freedom" mask has been slowly flaking off. This is the exact shape of Silicon Valley's surveillance industry as a whole - "disrupting" the world merely to make centralized web/apps that exert fine-grained top down control. "Freedom" for their founders, not for their users. That's not freedom, it's just new systems of control. And now that this new crop of nouveau riche have entrenched themselves, they want to shamelessly start exercising their power.

throwpoaster 11mo ago
Thank you for taking the time to write this thought-provoking response. It brings to mind themes of “The Unincorporated Man” [0]. Valley techno-capitalism has always existed in the context of (and as a function of) the military. I broadly agree with your characterization of corporate power as a tool governments use to delegate and aggregate economic control. Over generational time scales I think regulatory frameworks will develop sufficient to mitigate tech’s worst excesses. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unincorporated_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unincorporated_Man
sifar 11mo ago
What is also an example of stunning ignorance here is that a corporation (and by extension capitalism) cannot exist without the laws and the coercive power of the government to enforce them. One can argue a government is whoever can enforce rules for markets to function. This, I think is the heart of the lie that people miss. Which leads to myths being established that companies/markets are something different from governments and not an extension.
- mindslight 11mo ago
  There is a whole body of thought about corporations existing outside of governments, anarcho-capitalism. In fact, the way I equated corporations and government relies on assumptions from this view. You're coming around to the equating from a different angle, but it feels a bit lacking to me because corporations certainly can exert pressure on governments and asserting that corporations are reliant on governments would seem to downplay this dynamic.
  - Jensson 11mo ago
    Corporations that competed with governments had armies historically, trade corporations like Hansa or East Indies operated that way. So as long as they aren't fielding armies they are not competing with governments, just influencing them a bit.
    - 11mo ago