See also "Moneyland" https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/07/moneyland-oliv...
Its about the ways in which the top 0.01% hide their money in networks of shell companies, tax havens etc, and the difficulty of actually taxing them.
There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
31–40 of 89 posts
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#32Interestingly, the original definition of “left” and “right” came from the French Revolution where in the National Assembly the aristocracy sat on the right and everyone else sat on the left. That matches pretty closely to the oligarchy vs everyone else.
Older then that. When Paris was becoming the center of learning, just before the formation of the University (1115) all the students lived on the left bank of the Seine, and the wealthy lived on the right bank. Hence the left vs. the right metaphor.
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#33So the gist of it is that there's no us against them black and white thinking there's just us and against them black and white thinking
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#34Ugh. What's this doing on Hacker News? Flagged.
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#35There have been numerous articles and columns written about the dangers of rising populism in Europe, yet here is a respectable voice advocating populism as the solution for US. So which is it, the solution or a danger?
This is an article very much in the vein of all the ones about the dangers of rising populism, which is generally portrayed as evil oligarchs brainwashing the populace into thinking that by supporting the other side's political views they're fighting back against the oligarchy. What it's advocaing is that the people rise up and fight back against the oligarchs by folliwing his side's political views, likely with some help from billionaires to educate them. Totally different, see.
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#36Not completely true. Some of the wealthiest people in the US are very progressive.
Progressive in that they are pro-life, fine with gay marriage, and pay lip service to environmental concerns. They are not going to be progressive in the sense of forwarding pro-social, anti-corporate policies. You seem to be taking within the narrowly defined USA Overton window.
> They are not going to be progressive in the sense of forwarding pro-social, anti-corporate policies.
Certainly not anti-corporate, but I don't see why they wouldn't be pro-social. They don't want to be the ones paying for those policies, but every American well educated and in good health would certainly profit their enterprises. It's just that it appears too expensive to be worth the profit to them.
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#37Rich vs poor is even less meaningful divide than right vs left. For instance i am not rich but my goals are much better aligned with goals of rich people like Elon Musk and Aubrey de Grey, than with any of poor people. The solution is not to take money from the rich, but to make the government more transparent and more inclusive. Now we only can vote for unknown bundles of policies in the form of people, and rich peo…
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I feel you’re talking about rich individuals and not rich people when you talk about Elon Musk.
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#38Rich vs poor is even less meaningful divide than right vs left. For instance i am not rich but my goals are much better aligned with goals of rich people like Elon Musk and Aubrey de Grey, than with any of poor people. The solution is not to take money from the rich, but to make the government more transparent and more inclusive. Now we only can vote for unknown bundles of policies in the form of people, and rich peo…
Hmm I wouldnt consider Aubrey de Grey, rich in same basket as Elon Musk. I wish he was though.
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#39The central question of this article:
> So why do we continue to hear and use the same old “right” and “left” labels?
> I suspect it’s because the emerging oligarchy feels safer if Americans are split along the old political battle lines. That way, Americans won’t notice they’re being shafted.
Wouldn't this imply the oligarchs control the media? Or at least the public discourse? But that's not the impression I get from the media. CNN, MSNBC, and other networks make it perfectly clear they are anti-Trump, in fact most of the media seems to be in agreement with that. Same with the most popular reddit channels, popular outlets like Guardian, Vox, Huffington Post, and Twitter. I mean almost everybody seems to agree that Trump is bad. YouTube and Fox seem to be the exception.
I wrestle with understanding why most media are anti-Trump and anti-oligarchy, and the oligarchs are still able to control those media's use of 'left' and 'right'. How does this work?
Re: There is no 'right' vs. 'left': it is the oligarchs against the rest
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you misunderstand the whole article? It did not vouch for populism in the least.
How so? Populism is by definition an ideologue of regular people against the elites. Or do you have your own definition of populism? Can I hear it?
When I see a politician or organization labeled as populist, it usually refers to the (quite common) practice of getting votes from dissatisfied masses by promising them impossible results, which they don't intend on even attempting to achieve.
Populism is not about ideology of regular people against the elites, that'd be apply more to e.g. various socialdemocratic parties who attempt such goals and ideologies but most of them aren't considered populistic especially if they're in power for years and have to actually implement policies instead of talking about vague results that'll magically arrive.
It refers to a tactic of identifying people who are dissatisfied with current reality and also with the realistic short-term prospects of how future is going to unfold for them even if the promises of the other parties arrive and reasonable economic growth and modest systemic improvement happens, and promising them unrealistic, unachievable improvement (often by suggesting major, radical changes that are a change but can't possibly give the effects they promise) - thus giving these voters hope that others don't, filling that (very valid) need and thus getting their votes.