Off with their heads? (Sorry, I'm being waaay too French!) Joke aside, thanks for clarifying all of this. It really helps better understanding the society we collectively live in. And makes me want to move forward, and help in every way those who can stand up for the greater good. Also have high hopes in IM :)
It's a Friday, so I'm going to take the bait, such that it's been offered: Why do you assume that "oligarchs" are uniquely rapacious and/or that their rapaciousness is uniquely bad? I think if you invert that framing--which naturally I'll do for you--the phenomena you describe (and the problem/solutions that follow) adopt a very different look and feel.
State actors, regimes, and ruling classes (like ours) are similarly inclined towards "wealth defense." Not only that, but the scale of their coercive power, see e.g. Jack Ma, dwarves "meddling money," which, of course, regimes deploy in plenty (in addition to their coercive power). Regimes also have the benefit of expropriating their source of funds, where oligarchs generally do not (unless of course they've been granted rent-seeking rights from the regime). If anyone can, and does, "operate at a loss in perpetuity," it is regime actors, not private ones. The power imbalance strongly favors the regime, and it's unlikely that oligarchs have closed the gap, but if they have, you certainly haven't shown it. As per above, it makes little sense to plot the relative power of "oligarchs" v. "regimes" using material wealth only, especially given extent regimes use those self-same technologies to enrich themselves and their coercive power, e.g. through the expansion of the surveillance state or access to the banking system, not to mention basic gate-keeping in the form of licensing authority and regulatory interference.
But let's say you're right, that oligarchs have gained power at the expense of the regime, is that even a bad thing? The story of Musk at twitter is much more plausibly a unique example of a private citizen recapturing conquered territory from the regime and restoring it to the demos--indeed, the fear-mongering and hostility which has followed (regime meddling, if you will), including threatened coercion from the FTC as well as local authorities, reflects the consternation and anger of the ruling class, which had claimed twitter as it own. Musk not only demonstrated that 75% of the organization was nothing more than regime bloat--generally the regime insulates itself from charges of waste because it presents no alternative--but of course Musk's real sacrilege was wresting control of the public square. During the regime's control of twitter, "content moderation" or censorship, as its conventionally known, operated to "protect" users from information that they *liked* and/or found useful, but nonetheless diverged from the interests of the regime--that may well be good and proper, but it's surely not "democratic" or "liberal" in any meaningful sense.
To put a finer point on it, there is no reason to assume that oligarchal gains (particular at regime expense) leaves "the masses" "worse off" (and every reason to assume the opposite). You cite energy as another example, but of course energy is simply a consumer good--the profits and benefits of which are about as widely distributed as any consumer good I can think of. In general, prices are a far more dynamic and responsive signal of preference than limited-slate binary choices made every 2-4 years (i.e. voting). You wouldn't discover/calibrate product-market fit that way, so there's no reason to suspend disbelief when it comes to regime-proffered goods and services--the "take it or take it" latter are undoubtedly less democratic than the alternative. Put another way, oligarchs, energy companies or individuals like Musk, are more beholden to their customers--democratic, if you will--than regime officials or other members of the ruling class. Oligarchs obtain power by giving the people what they want. The regime, by contrast, gives the people what *it* wants.
That people consume lots of fossil fuels reflects their preferences relative to the choices at hand, and not some coercive or manipulative scheme (which, such that they exist, largely favor alternative sources of energy, not oil). Now, it may be that you disapprove of the "mass" preferences and/or believe the masses ought to be protected from themselves through coercive measures adopted by a select group of people comprised of wiser, right-thinking people like you . . . but again, while that may be right and proper, it is neither democratic nor liberal. If anything, it reflects an erosion of power along a dimension that you seem to recognize as "bad."
In any event, trying to understand the "interdependent set of problems facing the world today" without any accounting of the world's most influential forces, including their motivations, limitations, and the nature of their interventions, seems unlikely to succeed. The glaring hole in your analysis (and not just yours) is shaped exactly like the rapacious wealth protecting constituency that is both illiberal and undemocratic--indeed, so much so (and so convinced of its own virtue), that it does not even include itself in its own factor model!
This last piece reminds me of a fiction book I read recently, the oligarchs as you describe them were “taken down” by a group of white hackers… on a more serious note, voting with being correctly informed is more than ever important. Regulations on lobbying need to happen too ! And raising financial and economic awareness is essential.
Off with their heads? (Sorry, I'm being waaay too French!) Joke aside, thanks for clarifying all of this. It really helps better understanding the society we collectively live in. And makes me want to move forward, and help in every way those who can stand up for the greater good. Also have high hopes in IM :)
Hi Rob! It's been a while and I hope all is well!
It's a Friday, so I'm going to take the bait, such that it's been offered: Why do you assume that "oligarchs" are uniquely rapacious and/or that their rapaciousness is uniquely bad? I think if you invert that framing--which naturally I'll do for you--the phenomena you describe (and the problem/solutions that follow) adopt a very different look and feel.
State actors, regimes, and ruling classes (like ours) are similarly inclined towards "wealth defense." Not only that, but the scale of their coercive power, see e.g. Jack Ma, dwarves "meddling money," which, of course, regimes deploy in plenty (in addition to their coercive power). Regimes also have the benefit of expropriating their source of funds, where oligarchs generally do not (unless of course they've been granted rent-seeking rights from the regime). If anyone can, and does, "operate at a loss in perpetuity," it is regime actors, not private ones. The power imbalance strongly favors the regime, and it's unlikely that oligarchs have closed the gap, but if they have, you certainly haven't shown it. As per above, it makes little sense to plot the relative power of "oligarchs" v. "regimes" using material wealth only, especially given extent regimes use those self-same technologies to enrich themselves and their coercive power, e.g. through the expansion of the surveillance state or access to the banking system, not to mention basic gate-keeping in the form of licensing authority and regulatory interference.
But let's say you're right, that oligarchs have gained power at the expense of the regime, is that even a bad thing? The story of Musk at twitter is much more plausibly a unique example of a private citizen recapturing conquered territory from the regime and restoring it to the demos--indeed, the fear-mongering and hostility which has followed (regime meddling, if you will), including threatened coercion from the FTC as well as local authorities, reflects the consternation and anger of the ruling class, which had claimed twitter as it own. Musk not only demonstrated that 75% of the organization was nothing more than regime bloat--generally the regime insulates itself from charges of waste because it presents no alternative--but of course Musk's real sacrilege was wresting control of the public square. During the regime's control of twitter, "content moderation" or censorship, as its conventionally known, operated to "protect" users from information that they *liked* and/or found useful, but nonetheless diverged from the interests of the regime--that may well be good and proper, but it's surely not "democratic" or "liberal" in any meaningful sense.
To put a finer point on it, there is no reason to assume that oligarchal gains (particular at regime expense) leaves "the masses" "worse off" (and every reason to assume the opposite). You cite energy as another example, but of course energy is simply a consumer good--the profits and benefits of which are about as widely distributed as any consumer good I can think of. In general, prices are a far more dynamic and responsive signal of preference than limited-slate binary choices made every 2-4 years (i.e. voting). You wouldn't discover/calibrate product-market fit that way, so there's no reason to suspend disbelief when it comes to regime-proffered goods and services--the "take it or take it" latter are undoubtedly less democratic than the alternative. Put another way, oligarchs, energy companies or individuals like Musk, are more beholden to their customers--democratic, if you will--than regime officials or other members of the ruling class. Oligarchs obtain power by giving the people what they want. The regime, by contrast, gives the people what *it* wants.
That people consume lots of fossil fuels reflects their preferences relative to the choices at hand, and not some coercive or manipulative scheme (which, such that they exist, largely favor alternative sources of energy, not oil). Now, it may be that you disapprove of the "mass" preferences and/or believe the masses ought to be protected from themselves through coercive measures adopted by a select group of people comprised of wiser, right-thinking people like you . . . but again, while that may be right and proper, it is neither democratic nor liberal. If anything, it reflects an erosion of power along a dimension that you seem to recognize as "bad."
In any event, trying to understand the "interdependent set of problems facing the world today" without any accounting of the world's most influential forces, including their motivations, limitations, and the nature of their interventions, seems unlikely to succeed. The glaring hole in your analysis (and not just yours) is shaped exactly like the rapacious wealth protecting constituency that is both illiberal and undemocratic--indeed, so much so (and so convinced of its own virtue), that it does not even include itself in its own factor model!
This last piece reminds me of a fiction book I read recently, the oligarchs as you describe them were “taken down” by a group of white hackers… on a more serious note, voting with being correctly informed is more than ever important. Regulations on lobbying need to happen too ! And raising financial and economic awareness is essential.