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I think this story is touching. But it misdiagnoses the real danger facing the US at the present time and misapplies the lesson to be learned, which no doubt i

I think this story is touching. But it misdiagnoses the real danger facing the US at the present time and misapplies the lesson to be learned, which no doubt is applicable in some parts of the world. The real danger facing the US at the present time is not of becoming a fascist surveillance state. It's of becoming a corporation, with a vast sea of indentured servants, where the owners of the corporation are a small group of people with wealth beyond one's wildest dreams. This is the dystopian scenario that Orwell would write about if he were alive today. In this future, you will have to be on good terms with the management of the corporation, or you will find yourself in great difficulties. The owners will take pride in the acts of charity and goodwill that they bestow upon you, the poor, and will expect gratitude in return.

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- allochthon 13y ago
  I can sympathize with your position. But I think effective action requires one to be clear-eyed in one's analysis. In my own analysis I see two mostly independent threats. One is a genuine threat (the coming of plutocracy), and one is a threat that feels more theoretical than pressing. That's just my analysis. Other people will come to their own conclusions.
rosser 13y ago
...because your scenario and /u/161719's are somehow mutually exclusive? To the contrary, I think the eventuality described in TFA is almost necessary for establishing the corporatist state you fear.
- zzzcpan 13y ago
  His one is the cause.
snitko 13y ago
Corporations are many. Government is one. Corporations don't have police force or armies because they would be paying for them out of their own pocket. Instead, they lobby the government to use violence/regulation/wars where it is required for profits, and then taxpayers pay for it. So, what you really want, is remove opportunities for corporations to use free money. Then everything they do, they'd have to pay for out of their own pocket. And that would be a game changer.
- pron 13y ago
  The thing is, large corporations aren't many; they aren't one either, but they're a few. The number of powerful conglomerates in the US is comparable to the number of states (maybe double). There's plenty of power for each, and without a strong central government, those corporations will merge to form fewer, more powerful ones. This isn't hypothetical. This was the situation in the US about 100 years ago when the robber barons ruled the country. And by the way, some of them did pay for their own police force (the Pinkertons) to fight the unions.
zzzcpan 13y ago
In more general terms: concentration of wealth is the root cause of all evil in the world.
maxerickson 13y ago
It'd be really funny if Orwell were alive and writing essays about how surprisingly responsible the use of power was. I'm not saying I think he would do that, but hey, who really knows what he would think about things today. (Maybe take this as whinging that people should try to speak for themselves)
vidarh 13y ago
Italian fascism was corporatist. What you describe is pretty much fascist corporatism.

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allochthon 13y ago
I can sympathize with your position. But I think effective action requires one to be clear-eyed in one's analysis. In my own analysis I see two mostly independent threats. One is a genuine threat (the coming of plutocracy), and one is a threat that feels more theoretical than pressing. That's just my analysis. Other people will come to their own conclusions.

rosser 13y ago

...because your scenario and /u/161719's are somehow mutually exclusive? To the contrary, I think the eventuality described in TFA is almost necessary for establishing the corporatist state you fear.

zzzcpan 13y ago
His one is the cause.

snitko 13y ago

Corporations are many. Government is one. Corporations don't have police force or armies because they would be paying for them out of their own pocket. Instead, they lobby the government to use violence/regulation/wars where it is required for profits, and then taxpayers pay for it. So, what you really want, is remove opportunities for corporations to use free money. Then everything they do, they'd have to pay for out of their own pocket. And that would be a game changer.

pron 13y ago
The thing is, large corporations aren't many; they aren't one either, but they're a few. The number of powerful conglomerates in the US is comparable to the number of states (maybe double). There's plenty of power for each, and without a strong central government, those corporations will merge to form fewer, more powerful ones. This isn't hypothetical. This was the situation in the US about 100 years ago when the robber barons ruled the country. And by the way, some of them did pay for their own police force (the Pinkertons) to fight the unions.

zzzcpan 13y ago

In more general terms: concentration of wealth is the root cause of all evil in the world.

maxerickson 13y ago

It'd be really funny if Orwell were alive and writing essays about how surprisingly responsible the use of power was. I'm not saying I think he would do that, but hey, who really knows what he would think about things today. (Maybe take this as whinging that people should try to speak for themselves)

vidarh 13y ago

Italian fascism was corporatist. What you describe is pretty much fascist corporatism.