I knew those 'trade' deals were full of the most awful stuff, but didn't know about this - I'd be grateful for some kind of source.
> concentrated power will always eventually crumble under its own fragility.
How long have we been waiting for North Korea to collapse? The Soviet Union already collapsed, but what do we have now in Russia? China appears to be ascendant and simultaneously accelerating towards a nightmarish Orwellian dystopia with no signs of ever slowing down.
We can't afford to just wait for these things to run their course like a case of the flu. It requires will-power and a bit of courage.
Incidentally some people count the Roman Republic when talking about how long the Roman Empire lasted, which is technically incorrect, but in a sense maybe it's not. Most of the expansionism was during the Republic period, and the demotion of the Roman Senate is an example of how collapse of centralized power isn't so immediately inevitable, don't you think?
In that case it crumbled after ~1500 years.
> Incidentally some people count the Roman Republic when talking about how long the Roman Empire lasted, which is technically incorrect, but in a sense maybe it's not. Most of the expansionism was during the Republic period, and the demotion of the Roman Senate is an example of how collapse of centralized power isn't so immediately inevitable, don't you think?
Now we're at 1700, 1800 years.
Honestly this is a silly thing to nitpick, particularly when we all seem to agree that power structures can be virtually immortal on human timescales.
China might collapse under its own weight as it does not have robust systems and the West is looking to hurt its economy to further cause instability, but corporatism elsewhere continues to grow stronger.
Precisely. The masses have always been able to, eventually, usurp the few. The thing that's made democratic nations like the U.S. so successful is that they harness the power of the many. A diverse system is much more fault-tolerant than a centralized one. The minds and wills of a free populace, competing but also cooperating, have always been stronger than the minds of a minority which controls a populace. What's best for people has traditionally been aligned with what's effective, in this respect. Empires always fall.
But, yes, AI could change that. We'll see how it plays out.
The only thing that could disrupt this is AI, because it could conceivably allow a single powerful person to have the equivalent of an army of perfect (cognitive) servants. Our minds have always been our most valuable and exclusive resource. If that status quo is disrupted, all bets are off.
Of course nobody actually knows what AI will do to the world. Maybe it'll allow elites to do away with the rest of humanity. Maybe it'll take control of society for our own good. Maybe it'll never actually be able to duplicate our mental plasticity and there's nothing to worry about. Maybe global warming will end civilization before we reach the singularity. Who knows. I simply choose not to spend much time thinking that far ahead, because I'm not really in a position to do anything about it.
Also, the masses have never usurped the few. No time in human history has the masses overthrown anything. The proles are never a threat to the powerful. The few have always been usurped by the other few.
The british in the US weren't overthrow by the masses. They were overthrown by the elite few. The same thing with the romanovs in russia. It was the well funded, highly educated and highly motivated portion of the elites who overthrew the romanovs.
The masses rising up is a romantic myth. It isn't real.
What makes the US so successful has nothing to do with democracy. It has everything to do with colonization, resource acquisition and centralized power. We conquered a continent and much of the world. We dominate the world's trade and currency. We are the greatest empire in human history. That's why we are successful.
The same thing with european democracies. They still manage a large remnant of their former colonies via business and political domination. Even military domination such as libya, mali, middle east, etc. Heck, a bunch of african countries' central banks are directly controlled by the french.
The petrodollar plays a major role in sustaining the US economy and consequently moving away from it is a perceived as a direct attack on the US. Other countries that have moved away from the petrodollar include Iraq, Libya, and Iran. Notably - these countries all moved away before being invaded (and Iran has yet to be invaded). In other words, their moving away was not a consequence of our invasions but rather our invasion was a consequence of their dropping the dollar. Saudi Arabia is one of the most belligerent and despotic nations on the planet, but since they keep to the petrodollar like their life depends on it (which it does), we're best friends forever. They even held the chair of the UN human rights council. Great guys, them.
There are sham elections, unrepresentative "regimes", and all other sorts of nastiness all throughout the world. Nobody cares. Unless they happen to have something somebody else wants, then it's time to go full-on won't anybody think of the children?
Jimmy Carter: "As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world."
Oh wait, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Venezuela "The proven oil reserves in Venezuela are recognized as the largest in the world, totaling 297 billion barrels (4.72×1010 m3) as of 1 January 2014.", never mind, let's bomb them.
The UN rapporteur for Venezuela has a report for anyone interested [1][2]. Venezuela has an advanced election system, better than the US according to many, and all elections have been monitored by multiple global organizations including the carter center.
Michael Bolton and other leading US administration officials have already admitted this is about oil. Recognizing a self declared president with no elections and openly orchestrating coups is NOT supporting democracy. This is a violation of the UN charter and a mockery of democracy, rule of law and human rights.
[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
And you call this shit show an advanced election system?
Imagine if Trump tried to replace the U.S constitution, had this blocked by the House, then disavowed and replaced the House with his own special congress of purely loyal republicans, then had a rigged election to make himself president a third time, with the majority of the original, real U.S House declaring him illegitimate as a result, causing him to then declare them liberal-sponsored meddlers and further try to marginalize them.. Well, sort of the same thing in effect, but because the Maduro government is leftist, somehow this is considered perfectly alright and democratic by far too many people...
Over 150 observers from 30 countries [1] observed the elections and declared it free and fair so you are spreading uninformed propaganda.
For those interested in the truth please watch the in depth interview with the UN rapporteur [2] to understand what is happening on the ground. Normal people will take the word of the UN rapporteur and multiple independent observers. For those merely interested in abusing the lives of millions of innocent people, 'democracy' and 'human rights' to further greed filled agendas the truth does not matter.
[1] https://fair.org/home/media-delegitimize-venezuelan-election...
I've been all over un.org. I can't find any of these links. I don't think the UN has even investigated the elections yet, and they never actually sent observers. Proposals to start an investigation seem to be stuck in the security council.
I have to comment on that first link you provided. This appears to be the most biased article I've come across with regards to the elections.
There is no mention of candidates that were banned from running (including, but not limited to Henrique Capriles, Leopoldo López, Antonio Ledezma, Freddy Guevara, David Smolansky, María Corina Machado, and Miguel Rodríguez Torres);
No mention of unconstitutional spending of public funds on maduro's campaign;
No mention of parties being disqualified and forced to re-register weeks before the election;
No mention of the fact that some political parties refused to run because of all of this;
No mention of the limitations placed on international observers, OR the fact that no international observers were reported to be present
No mention of protests rejecting the election;
No mention that Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Saint Lucia, stated prior to the elections that they would not recognize the results;
etc.
Instead, the article focuses on accusing the "western media" of being propaganda... because English-speaking news outlets use the word "amid" (why this is bad is never established). Yet it's not just the media that cast doubt on the election. Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, refused to recognize the election results and called for new, democratic elections.
I also love how MacLeod made a claim about an unnamed originator of a story about how expensive condoms were... and then linked to a reddit AMA featuring none other than MacLeod himself. In the AMA he makes the same claim with the same wording. He actually makes a few of the same claims as he answers questions that were never asked.
This whole article seems to be nonsense. I haven't previously heard of "Fair", but they seem to be named ironically.
If you want a less biased view of the elections, I'd start with the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
UN reports are routinely used by the US, Europe, the global media and many others as credible sources.
Given there is a history of illegal regime change and installing puppet regimes in South America that cause suffering to millions of people there is a clear need for anyone genuinely concerned about human rights and democracy to be wary of self serving interests using propaganda to further their own agendas.
> There is no need to speculate about bias.
I'm not really speculating as much as making an explicit assertion.
> What is a more credible source?
IMO, Anything at the bottom of the wikipedia article would qualify as more credible than a single person's opinion on a video blog channel. A video blog channel that has an obvious narrative. I mean... did you watch the video? Around half of it cuts away from the interview to present talking points and infographics.
It's also not enough to simply state that all of these media outlets and nations (along with millions of people inside Venezuela itself) are propagandists with an agenda. That's just FUD.
> UN reports are routinely used by the US, Europe, the global media and many others as credible sources.
The UN hasn't investigated the election, much less released a report on the topic.
> Given there is a history of illegal regime change
And given the overwhelming evidence of foul play in the Venezuelan election, those genuinely concerned about human rights and democracy should be extremely wary of those seeking to downplay the severity of the events.
[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
Here is the interview of the UN rapporteur, this is not 'some single person'. This is the official UN rapporteur for Venezuela who is on the ground and provides a lot of facts and details in the interview.
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii5MlQgGXyk
No one can take the position that they trust a Wikipedia page over the official UN representative in the region so it seems like you are not interested in the truth.
That link does not "comprehensively debunk" anything shadowprofile76 was saying. It doesn't address the validity of the elections (or the legal ramifications for maduro's later actions). Where is that link?
Also, what can this accomplish once I click the link and find out it's irrelevant to the immediate discussion? It's very likely that you and I are the only ones reading this, so who is going to be fooled?
> Here is the interview
That vlog was already linked. Do you have some response to what I said about it?
> No one can take the position that they trust a Wikipedia page
I never suggested I trust a wikipedia page. As per usual, I scroll to the bottom and start clicking on the references.
> the official UN representative in the region
He's not an official UN representative. He is independent of the UN.
> it seems like you are not interested in the truth
What exactly is the point of making this statement? Do you think I'll suddenly "see the light"? Do you think you'll demoralize me so I'll shut up? What do you hope to accomplish?
Democracy only works with effective choice and at the moment we seem to have the motions of choice but no real change.
Anyway, voting isn't a silver bullet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism
We're actively transfering national sovereignty in chunks to organizations that can by design, as their sole purpose is to make money, turn against the interests of the people of a country in a switch.
And...the OP concerns US firms building China's Orwellian state. Literally contributing to "how awful governments are".
I have a better relationship with corporations more than governments. A corporation has never harassed me at an airport when trying to leave. If I don't like MacDonalds I can... stop eating at MacDonalds. If I don't like the services the state provides I have to physically remove myself.
And debtors prisons are still a thing: https://www.aclu.org/issues/smart-justice/sentencing-reform/...
You were not evicted for not being a customer. You were (probably, since I don't know any details of your case) evicted under §156.181 of Louisville's code[1] which requires the capability to heat a dwelling to exist in order for that dwelling to be occupiable. If you have gas heat, that means needing to maintain gas service. You can't waive this requirement by agreement with your landlord because slumlords would abuse that power imbalance to skirt their obligations to keep shit working.
[1] http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/Kentucky/loukymet...
We forgot/neglected to make the last payment to AT&T when we switched to Comcast. I am not so worried about the police sending me to AT&T jail. My unaddressed car registration is a different story...
Not clear what happened in your case, the Gas Company notified the police to evict you? Is the Gas Company following a law in which they are required to tell the police?
If there were no government, you would still have the same problems, only now unrestrained corporations would be at the root of those problems.
Government and Corps are no different in the end. They all seek to perpetuate and consolidate their power over the plebs.
The only difference between them is that a democracy, at least in principle, exists to serve the people. Corporations expressly exist only to serve themselves. Democracies may face corruption, but there's not even a principle to be corrupted in the case of corporations; in a free market they have no accountability to society.
I suppose you could call co-ops "democratic corporations", in which case governments and corporations are exactly the same, but from that perspective today's corporations would be analogous to oligarchies; they exist to serve their small circle of shareholders. So forgive me if I choose to put my faith in a flawed democratic government instead of oligarchical corporations.
I trust an elected government far more than any for-profit organisation.
I'm just saying, both are ripe for abuse by tyrants, plutocrats and oligarchs. Corporations moreso though, for sure.
Given the power, they absolutely can, and will.
Ask AT&T and Verizon. Or Facebook. Or Monsanto. Or Nestle why they behave the way they do towards their customers.
You guys have WAY too much faith the benign passivity of publicly-traded companies. There is a LOT of money to be made in price-fixing, cartels and customer abuse.
And I'm not sure why you're bringing the USSR into this. This is almost a Godwin-like reprieve for those with no awareness of the 10-20 million people a year who die as a result of capitalism and capitalist policies, globally.
How about the US itself? It has murdered almost 20 million people since the end of World War 2 in its efforts to maintain its economic hegemony and take revenge on countries that leave the petrodollar.
The US, most aggressive and expansionist nation of the 20th and 21st centuries, is a capitalist country that can't even provide many of its citizens with clean drinking water.
"Capitalism is the worst system, apart from all the others" is a common refrain amongst those capitalism actually serves. They make no mention of the lives destroyed when a capitalist wants what you have.
But we move off topic.
But you'll need to provide a source for:
> the 10-20 million people a year who die as a result of capitalism and capitalist policies
And are you so sure those are capitalistic policies, or cronyism (the two are often conflated by the hn crowd)?
- 8 million due to lack of clean water
- 7.5 million due to hunger
- 3 million from preventable disease
- the millions killed by 'friendly dictators' and their regimes, like Pinochet.
- the unrecorded deaths as a result of national or global depressions, bankruptcies and debt (don't know where to get the numbers for this though)
Capitalism is a global system at this point, apart from the odd hold-out like North Korea etc. A lot of the deaths from lack of clean water and disease are attributable to things like the privatisation of water supply in Bolivia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_privatization_in_Bolivia
Then we have Chiquita, Coca-Cola etc. hiring miltias to crack down on labour movements in Central and South America resulting in countless murders. How did they get away with it?
Most of the deaths caused by capitalism are due something called 'structural violence':
It refers to a form of violence wherein some social structure or social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs.
So, clean water, healthcare and access to medicine. Something that capitalism has failed spectacularly at.
If you're going to say the crony capitalism we have now isn't capitalism then that's as much a No True Scotsman fallacy as people who say true communism has never been tried.
What we have now is capitalism by the very definition of the word. The cronyism inherent in it isn't some transforming influence, it's part of the core.
I was going to write up a massive post but this guys seems to sum it up pretty well if you fancy a read:
https://www.quora.com/What-has-killed-more-people-communism-...
Of course, a sustained decades-long propaganda campaign has been waged to portray capitalism as not only 'the natural way' but also as being 'simply the only option', as if it is axiomtically good and natural.
Some have even tried to spin it as capitalism being a core part of the human condition, and fighting against it resulting in things like the millions dead under communist economic mismanagement.
I personally think you'd have to be a moron to believe that capitalism is the same as simple trade which humans have been doing for millenia, especially considering capitalism is a man-made economic concept that originated in the 1700's and has an actual dictionary definition; but it seems we are surrounded by the gullible.
I don't have an alternative system ready for you. I'm not a political scientist or a revolutionary. That doesn't mean I can't see when something isn't working for everybody and needs improvement.
The biggest disservice we have done to ourselves is to believe free-market fundamentalists like Hayek, Friedman, Thatcher ansd Reagan when they told us that there is simply no alternative.
Friedman's monetarism has been widely discredited as bullshit by now. It's time to question the rest of the neoliberal ideology.
Not all markets are competitive, and corporations that are operating at the state level are often effectively monopolies.
HN is a bit of an echo chamber, unfortunately.
We've passed that sci-fi trope where corporations now wield more authority than governments.