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It looks to me like a transition to 'inverted totalitarianism'/'managed democracy': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism https://en.wikipedia.

It looks to me like a transition to 'inverted totalitarianism'/'managed democracy': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism The state is increasingly controlled by the hyper-wealthy individuals and corporations that fund politics, and its policies and propaganda increasingly reflect their interests. Standard totalitarianism, by contrast, is where the corporations are controlled by the state. As to whether it's new, I suspect it's just today's manifestation of the same shit that's always been going on, where the wealthy and powerful oppress the poor using whatever technologies are available. The interesting bit for me is how technology will change people's reaction. It's always been the case that powerful people can manipulate mass media to control the narrative. However, it's only recently that we have developed tools that make it possible for one person (e.g. Snowden) to undo billions of dollars of secrecy by leaking more documents that one could physically carry if they had been printed on paper, then distributing them to millions at zero cost. I think this tips the balance in favour of the citizens. I suspect that we are just seeing more of the efforts to control us exposed in the media than we normally would be aware of. It kind of brings to mind the recent spate of child abuse revelations in the UK. I don't for a moment think that that sort of stuff only started happening a decade or two ago. Far more likely that it has always been present and only now do we have technology and media that makes it near impossible to hide, so it all comes out. I wonder what other technologies will emerge that allow us to surveil the powerful in new ways for the first time in history, whether they like it or not.

aetherson 12y ago
What are the corporations/who are the wealthy people you imagine are driving this? What corporate interests do you think this serves?
javajosh 12y ago
>The state is increasingly controlled by the hyper-wealthy individuals and corporations that fund politics, and its policies and propaganda increasingly reflect their interests. The root problem isn't money in politics, but alienation of voters from the the real business of government, a business people must understand if they are to hire (elect) the right people to run it. Political money just fills the void of that ignorance. That business is fundamentally an allocation game that starts with accumulation from taxes, fines and fees and ends with a set of spending decisions over time. This "spending decision set" represents a much greater degree-of-freedom than the traditional, policy-obsessed "how a bill becomes a law" narrative from school would imply. One key part is the appointment game, where an elected executive leader assigns arbitrary people to run major government departments, who themselves get wide discretion with "operational policy", policies that have the most impact on tax payers and yet get the least attention. So, yeah, let's start focusing on government as a hierarchy of allocation and policy decisions.
marcosdumay 12y ago
> The state is increasingly controlled by the hyper-wealthy individuals and corporations that fund politics, and its policies and propaganda increasingly reflect their interests. Looks like a standard definition of Faccism.
borgia 12y ago
>However, it's only recently that we have developed tools that make it possible for one person (e.g. Snowden) to undo billions of dollars of secrecy by leaking more documents that one could physically carry if they had been printed on paper, then distributing them to millions at zero cost. I've often wondered what has been said, or what kind of policies have been changed, or implemented, etc. in the NSA since Snowden came to the public forefront. I wonder what they've done internally to try to ensure that this doesn't happen them again.
- rustynails 12y ago
  They would have said "weather the storm". To deny would ha e been folly. They also locked down IT so that no one person had access to everything. They may also have increased scrutiny of materials they could bring onsite/take offsite.

aetherson 12y ago

What are the corporations/who are the wealthy people you imagine are driving this? What corporate interests do you think this serves?

javajosh 12y ago

>The state is increasingly controlled by the hyper-wealthy individuals and corporations that fund politics, and its policies and propaganda increasingly reflect their interests. The root problem isn't money in politics, but alienation of voters from the the real business of government, a business people must understand if they are to hire (elect) the right people to run it. Political money just fills the void of that ignorance. That business is fundamentally an allocation game that starts with accumulation from taxes, fines and fees and ends with a set of spending decisions over time. This "spending decision set" represents a much greater degree-of-freedom than the traditional, policy-obsessed "how a bill becomes a law" narrative from school would imply. One key part is the appointment game, where an elected executive leader assigns arbitrary people to run major government departments, who themselves get wide discretion with "operational policy", policies that have the most impact on tax payers and yet get the least attention. So, yeah, let's start focusing on government as a hierarchy of allocation and policy decisions.

marcosdumay 12y ago

borgia 12y ago

>However, it's only recently that we have developed tools that make it possible for one person (e.g. Snowden) to undo billions of dollars of secrecy by leaking more documents that one could physically carry if they had been printed on paper, then distributing them to millions at zero cost. I've often wondered what has been said, or what kind of policies have been changed, or implemented, etc. in the NSA since Snowden came to the public forefront. I wonder what they've done internally to try to ensure that this doesn't happen them again.

rustynails 12y ago
They would have said "weather the storm". To deny would ha e been folly. They also locked down IT so that no one person had access to everything. They may also have increased scrutiny of materials they could bring onsite/take offsite.