If I'm understanding your example correctly, these types of firings are possible thanks to Right-to-work laws. Which political party introduced and continues to advocate for Right-to-work? Which has generally opposed Right-to-work and has supported workers unions, which would protect workers from arbitrary firings?
I think you're missing the implied cause and effect here. Lighthanded regulations allow for ridiculous amounts of wealth to be acquired in the U.S. Larry Ellison, Elon Musk, etc. are so unfathomably rich (and therefore powerful), they can now trivially bend government to their will.
Peel it back even more: how does any State not fall victim to monied interests? This is usually handwaved away by socalists in the sense that everything is handled by "independent commissions" that can totally not be corrupted.
The solution is really to keep the scope of government small so that any corruption isn't detrimental to the populace, and they can handle it in the next election.
> Peel it back even more: how does any State not fall victim to monied interests?
Go with either the FDR route (94% tax rate), or the CCP route (clip the wings of the Icaruses who fly too high).
Edit: if the above are too extreme, another approach would be firm and consistent application
of anti-competitive laws, resurrecting the fairness doctrine, and stop pretending that artificial constructs have human rights.
> or the CCP route (clip the wings of the Icaruses who fly too high).
This seems like a great way for the monied interests from WITHIN the party to just take full control.
> Go with either the FDR route (94% tax rate)
The reason why this worked is because FDR oversaw the US during a period of incredible change and after the Great Depression. It's not like the tax rate was responsible for his successes.
> > or the CCP route (clip the wings of the Icaruses who fly too high).
> This seems like a great way for the monied interests from WITHIN the party to just take full control.
They already do in the US, so this is a non-response.
> > Go with either the FDR route (94% tax rate)
> The reason why this worked is because FDR oversaw the US during a period of incredible change and after the Great Depression. It's not like the tax rate was responsible for his successes.
Once again, this is a vacuous response. If the claim was “high taxes caused the change during FDR’s time,” “There was change” is not an alternative explanation to that claim. If we took the counter-factual claim, do you think the period would have been as transformative if the tax rates weren’t high?
> This seems like a great way for the monied interests from WITHIN the party to just take full control.
Politicians already have political power in every country and political system. The blatantly corrupt ones get the death sentence if their provincial or central committee patron can't save them, and those get culled every decade or so, so you can't go overboard.
That's not a solution, that just removes an opponent of monied interests from the table entirely, it's exactly what they want. The only thing these people want more than a government they can capture is a government so small they can replace it entirely.
But theres a balance to be struck there — keep the government too small and weak and it is susceptible to corruptive forces from domestic and foreign enemies alike.
So imho it isn’t enough to simply keep government ‘small’ —it is also important to keep it the size proportionate to other potential threats.
It’s also important to keep in mind that size is but one dimension and is only being used as a proxy for power which is the ultimate factor that matters — a government of one person with control of WMDs can be much more of a threat than a large government without WMDs.
Small government goes against the original and deepest Capitalist thinkers, who all pushed that strong government oversight was a REQUIRED part of Capitalism to keep it healthy and in balance.
That's a solution. Another would be to enshrine in law independent watchdog agencies whose goal is to win trophies for rooting out corruption, reducing waste, preventing or breaking up harmful monopolies, etc.
How valuable are those trophies compared to bribes, or the tacit bribes of cushy "consultancy" roles? How do you stop lobbyists from gutting those regulators - what use is a fiercely independent regulator that has no resources?
Getting money out of politics is the hardest part.
I am not sure how the US will find the political will short of getting burned badly enough for partisans to align on reform. How bad does it have to get?
That's no solution, since once someone has corrupted said small government, the obvious next step is to use the influence to increase its size and power.
Capitalism by it's design, and as outlined by it's original and deepest thought leaders requires strong and decisive government oversight to keep it in check and keep it healthy. Being against strong government oversight is to be against a working, Capitalist system and against traditional Capitalist thought.
Strong and decisive don't mean huge expenditures and picking winners. Our government does so much more than governing. Capitalism needs a government that sets and enforces rules in the face of market failures. It doesn't mean a government that redistributes trillions of dollars.
There's more than one type of government that can resist corruption, since much that drives corruption is extra-governmental (populace education level, media environment, trust in institutions, wealth equality, etc).
So it's unsurprising there are different optimal anti-corruption government types for different combinations of those qualities.
Yes. But, I don’t think a single one of those “least corrupt” top contenders could be described as:
> The solution is really to keep the scope of government small so that any corruption isn't detrimental to the populace, and they can handle it in the next election.
Which was kind of my point. In reality, the least corruptible types of governments tend to be ones libertarian-skewing Americans would crassly describe as socialist.
Singapore is strange place - aside from being a city-state. You'll get sent to the gulags for being in possession of a joint, but prostitution is legal. I know a guy who once got in a bar fight there, and he immediately packed up and went to the airport.
I wouldn't exactly call it lightweight government.
The graph here can get a bit wonky. And Switzerland is definitely the closest example of “limited government” working, I’d agree. But both of those countries, e.g., have universal healthcare. Switzerland through a more strict version of something like the ACA. Singapore, state-funded. Switzerland has compulsory military service, higher taxes, more gun regulations, etc. than the U.S. I think the U.S. beats these two on having a more conventionally “limited government” design.
I don't entirely disagree, but also note that the extreme wealth of both these guys is at least partly a result of state spending not pure private market forces.
Oracle has always had a huge presence in government. Large companies too, but Federal use has really helped keep them afloat as open source and competing products that are far cheaper have eaten their lunch.
For Musk the case is even more extreme. Tesla's early growth was bankrolled by EV credits and carbon offsets, which were state programs, and SpaceX is a result of both Federal funding and direct R&D transfer from NASA to SpaceX. The latter was mostly uncompensated. NASA just handed over decades of publicly funded R&D.
These two would probably be rich without the state, but would they be this rich?
The same was true back in the original Gilded Age. The "robber barons" were built by railroad and other infrastructure subsidies.
However I do agree that private wealth beyond a certain point begins to pose a risk to democracy and the rule of law. It's a major weakness in libertarian schemes that call for a "separation of economy and state." That's a much, much harder wall to maintain than separation of church and state. Enough money can buy politicians and elections.
As much as I don’t like Musk and think Tesla is overvalued meme stock and the cars suck compared to other EVs (I have driven a lot of EVs during the year that we went without a car on purpose - long story), SpaceX did something that the government couldn’t do - have a lot of failures before it had a success. Politics wouldn’t let it happen.
Let’s remember: Musk bought Tesla. He was already ridiculously wealthy in order to get himself into this position of basically robbing the U.S. government.
Of course. That was also my point, as I think it is yours. There is an event horizon after which an individual can corrupt government and really accelerate their wealth accumulation even faster.
Isn’t the cause that people just happened to elect someone who doesn’t care and is corrupt? Are you implying money decided the election? How do you reconcile this with the fact that trump was outspent?
I borderline want a conscription-style policy, where young adults are required to live in Boston, Philadelphia, NYC, DC, Seattle, or Chicago, car-free for a year. Americans’ inability to even imagine a world where a car isn’t the way to get around is really a problem.
If I’m understanding you right, I’m confident it’s screen analysis. I have a Hisense Roku TV I exclusively use with an AppleTV. I get creepy intrusive popups telling me: “you could be watching this on other streaming providers!” all the time. So it “knows” what’s being displayed on the screen regardless of what app (or HDMI input) is being used.
I don't necessarily disagree with the crux of your point. But I suspect the lackluster sales also had something to do with the $3,500 price tag. Meta has sold sold over 20x as many Oculus units.
Politics isn't Newton's Third Law of Motion. Prior to Musk's takeover, there absolutely and unequivocally was no "equal but opposite" deliberately biased system in place like there is now.
This is a classic playbook in U.S. politics. Conservative media gins up a conspiracy theory (e.g., Hollywood is biased, universities are biased, mainstream media is biased, social media is biased, etc. etc.) and then they use these imaginary foes as justification for actual retribution. There was no purposeful and systematic bias at Twitter under Jack Dorsey (himself, a pretty conservative character, having backed Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr in the past election, both of whom both now work in the Trump administration).
> if the post were about ballot stuffing by the Democrats with irrefutable evidence like I've seen
That's incredible. You're not even American, and have seen irrefutable evidence of "the Democrats" participating in blatant electoral fraud? Why haven't you shared this? There's no shortage of literal billionaires who'd reward you handsomely for such proof!
Beyond this, why I constantly make fun of "both-sides!" guys is because they tend to ignore degree. To a vegetarian, eating hamburgers is wrong (some might even call it evil). But you'd be hard-pressed to find one who'd consider hambuger-eaters and murderers basically the same. You'd rightfully consider someone with such beliefs insane. Between murderers and hamburger eaters, one is considerably worse than the other.
You gotta hand it to the Democrats, they're a lot more subtle about their corruption and malevolence. The Replublicans are comedically bad in contrast and it gives plenty of fuel to Democrats to claim that they're Different.
A good example is how Trumps taxes are viewed versus the blatant insider trading that the Democrats engage in.
You’re doing the thing. The Democrats are both: different in magnitude of corruption than Republicans, and absolutely imperfect and worthy of criticism.
For your example, 7 of the 10 congress members with the highest cap gains in 2024 (including the #1 spot) were Republicans. The previous democratic president and a significant number of Democratic members of congress support banning members of congress from trading stocks. The parties are not the same.
My source shows an even 5/5 split for best performance in 2024. And 7/10 of the worst performers are Republicans (lol they can't even insider trade without messing up).
> The previous democratic president and a significant number of Democratic members of congress support banning members of congress from trading stocks
So why didn't they do it when they were in power last term. See this is what I mean, they do a decent job of sounding less corrupt whereas it's like the Republicans aren't even trying. But the outcome is the same, and it just fools people into thinking there is some significant difference.
In my country there are way bigger differences between the parties compared to the states, and even so I and a lot of other people still consider them mostly the same. So when people talk about massive differences between D & R I think they're just zoomed way in.
No. We’ve got masked goons kidnapping people and sending them to international labor camps. We’re indiscriminately bombing small fishing boats in distant international waters based on accusations of being drug smugglers, we’re stripping people of the already internationally recognized pathetic health insurance we have, we’re trying to hide as much information we can about our president’s close friendship with the most famous underage sex trafficker to have ever lived, we are illegally, unilaterally, tariffing our allies, we’re withholding release of basic economic reports, we’re openly accepting bribes from foreign actors …
But your insight is that American Football is precisely the same as basketball because: they both involve balls, there’s passing, there’s 2 teams, and hell, they both have field goals, and stadiums filled with spectators! Any fool who sees a difference is just looking too close. Thanks for sharing such wisdom. V helpful.
The only evidence of Democrats doing ballot stuffing is they also royally failed to get the majority last time around. Therefore they must have done it since they’re good at failing (/s).
Let's even say (incorrectly, probably) that the switch to Calibri was "performative" or "virtue signaling". That's, in my opinion, significantly less terrible than performative cruelty or anti-virtue signaling.
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