I think that is the critical point.
Big corporations are good at lobbying. They shape policy. Politicians do not only like big corporations, they allow them a lot of influence, so they can shape policy to advantage themselves against smaller competitors.
1. They say they are opposed to regulations publicly, but indicate they will "compromise" privately. 2. They lobby against some regulations and against others.
Here is an example of a business openly asking for more regulation: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51518773 I actually agree with some of his arguments, but I do not think his motives are exactly pure.
Exactly. one of the defining moments for my political views was hearing the CEO of a big pub company explaining that this was why they could keep expanding as smaller competitors gave up because of the administrative burden.
Both governments and big business live complex rules.
[only]https://www.wsj.com/articles/regulation-is-good-for-goldman-...
The CEO I heard was Ted Tuppen, who ran Enterprise Inns, a big British pub company.
Shows what a wide range of things this is true for!
A dying breed these days, unfortunately.
It is certainly glossed over by "market fundamentalist" types who tend to think let the market do its work is magic pixie dust.
The second time was shortly before the election, giving left-wing activist billionaire George Soros control over 200 stations [1] [2], in an expedited process that usually takes over a year.
It is not hard to see why they accelerated it and why they approved it at all.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
[1] https://www.foxnews.com/media/george-soros-closer-controllin...
[2] https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-langworthy-probe-p...
Only recently in the Biden administration has this narrative met serious challenges, with for example the appointment of Lina Khan and a comeback for anti trust activity.
Worryingly, Trump looks set to rewind anti trust activity against mega corporations like Google, ontop of hiring mega corporation advocates into his cabinet, and likely firing Khan despite her incredible performance.
Ronald Reagan was president from 1981 - 1989. He may have been a Republican, but his actual policies were quite left-wing (eg no-fault divorce, amnesty for illegal immigrants).
But to frame Reagan as left-wing is disingenuous. Immigration and divorce were very minor focuses of his policies. He was very much right-wing on healthcare, regulation, crime, welfare, abortion, etc...
Contemporary left-wing politics do not look like communist Russia when it comes to the economy. The American use of the term "liberal" (or "liberalism") is more useful in that regard, and that includes free trade, and also immigration of foreign labor, something that naive observers might categorise as "neoliberal" or "turbo-capitalist", except that many left-wing governments engaged it in (US, Canada, UK and many more).
> Was Bill Clinton "right wing" because of his free trade politics (eg NAFTA)?
Yes! This is the point. Who benefited from Clinton's economic policies? It certainly wasn't the employees of the companies who offshored production because they were incentivized to by NAFTA. By capitulating to the right on economic issues and trying to differentiate only on the basis of social issues, the Democratic Party ceded its strongest argument: That turbo-capitalist (as you put it) economic policy only benefits corporations and the wealthy, and harms labor and the country as a whole. Democrats as a party cannot credibly make that argument anymore, because they're fully complicit. A few politicians carry lonely torches for actual left-wing politics (e.g. Bernie Sanders), but for the most part, there's close to zero power behind left wing ideas today.
How do you "make money more diffuse"? I would agree that the hierarchy thing is broadly correct, and many use this definition, but I find it unsatisfactory, as it does not move me in any way. "Yeah hierarchy is so cool man" said no one ever.
Taking left-wing ideology at face value is a mistake, what is interesting is the underlying psychology. The stated goals and how it plays out in practise are never aligned, thus the "real communism has never been tried" meme. If you are attached to leftism or simply never delved deeper into political philosophy, these definitions might offend you, but they are psychologically correct:
"The bugman pretends to be motivated by compassion, but is instead motivated by a titanic hatred of the well-turned-out and beautiful." [BAP]
"Communism is when ugly deformed freaks make it illegal to be normal then rob and/or kill all successful people out of petty resentment and cruelty. The ideology is all just window dressing." [Mystery Grove]
And yet, the two quotes you put forth as "psychologically correct" both use hierarchies as assumed priors. In the first, a hierarchy between "the well-turned-out and beautiful" and everyone else, and in the second, a hierarchy between "ugly deformed freaks" and "normal [people]". Do you feel that these are useful distinctions to make when setting public policy?
> Taking left-wing ideology at face value is a mistake
Taking any ideology at face value is a mistake. Words are cheap; it's easy to say one thing and do another, especially when political parties control entire media ecosystems due to the consolidation of media companies that the root comment of this thread was discussing. Is the Chinese Communist Party communist in any meaningful sense? Does it serve to weaken or reinforce hierarchies? Does it seek to empower its constituents, or consolidate power for the benefit of the few?
> How do you "make money more diffuse"?
There are tons of ways to do this, some better, some worse, and I think it's out of scope to go through them all. We do at least have a direct measurement of this one, though, called the Gini coefficient.
> And yet, the two quotes you put forth as "psychologically correct" both use hierarchies as assumed priors.
This is correct, but I would rather call it "accepting reality", not "motivating factor".
> Do you feel that these are useful distinctions to make when setting public policy?
Without a doubt: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gdz4G24WIAA6TEd?format=png&name=...
> Taking any ideology at face value is a mistake. Words are cheap; it's easy to say one thing and do another, especially when political parties control entire media ecosystems due to the consolidation of media companies that the root comment of this thread was discussing. Is the Chinese Communist Party communist in any meaningful sense? Does it serve to weaken or reinforce hierarchies? Does it seek to empower its constituents, or consolidate power for the benefit of the few?
I agree. This is why studying history is important.
> [...] Gini coefficient
So, equality. How did that work out for checks notes every single time it was tried, ever.
Perhaps not in those exact words. I'd argue that an implicit desire for hierarchy pervades a lot of right-wing thought. E.g. wanting a strong leader, a harsh penalty system, and traditional paternalistic social stratification.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros_conspiracy_theori...
> holds some culturally progressive views
This made me laugh.
Your attempt at implying anti-semitism is misguided (putting it generous), since Bill Ackmann, David Sacks or, gasp, Curtis Yarvin and Costin Alamariu are all prominent jewish figures of the right-center.
Also I do not think you have any idea what "neoliberal" actually means.
> Also in 2023, Tesla, Inc./SpaceX CEO and owner of social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) Elon Musk compared George Soros to Jewish Marvel Comics supervillain Magneto and accused him of wanting "to erode the very fabric of civilization" because he "hates humanity". He later alleged that the Soros organization wants "nothing less than the destruction of western civilization” in reply to a X user speculating about a “George Soros led invasion” of Europe by North African immigrants.
I saw from one of your other comments that you believe Raegan's policies were left-wing, so whatever you think neoliberalism is, I think my definition is closer to the truth. Soros is still very much pro markets, pro free trade. This is not a value judgement, simply something you can read on his wikipedia page.
There are also a lot of simple-minded lefties engaging in anti-semitism, for obvious reasons.
Regarding Soros, he is the target of a unique amount of hate, much more than other billionaires, when he is far from the worst of them. And it's coming from the right, from the aforementioned reasons.
Seems intellectually disingenuous to me.
And if you don't want to play along with the 'winner-takes-all' dynamic, then by consequence you'll lose anyway.
Politics as the heart of deliberative democracy seems already like a long lost ideal, or maybe that is too romantic a thought and it never really was like this to begin with? Maybe I am just getting old.
This is only possible if people, at scale, were voting based on merit, rather than tribalism.
Nowadays either side could run a literal vegetable and get near half the vote.
This botched view can only lead to the herd mentality of "if you're not like us, you're wrong", which in the US or South Korea has slowly turned to "if you're note like us, you're dangerous".
Democracy needs a personal implication into complex concepts that can't be answered with yes or no and many people lack the will to understand those concepts. Whoever comes forward and says "I'll handle this complex issue this way" will be the new messiah.
This now seems like the downside of bringing huge knowledge to the masses with the internet. Now that everyone knows everything, they don't want anything to do with it.
Maybe it's also linked to a current trend that you're supposed to have an opinion about everything happening. If you say that you're with the "magenta" party, everybody knows "your opinion" without the need of forging one yourself.
The writing style can be challenging at times, but it will answer some of your questions.
To say that mutual hatred of Santa Claus-level figures is a starting point for discourse says a lot about your attitude. Please review the HN commenting guidelines.
Unfortunately that isn't really true. Many might think the idea of being local is reasonable, but they don't really support it.
It's the same with startups. Many like they idea but ask them how to get affordable housing, healthcare and transportation so you can actually make ramen profitability, burn rate and opportunity cost work and they will at best ramble about zoning, taxes and bureaucracy.
Most of the time it isn't someone else doing it. Not the politicians, not the corporations, but the local population themselves. They are the ones lowering taxes, defunding colleges, buying cars, going to big box stores and supporting their local mini real estate tycoons. Until everyone who can leave for a bigger place. Which while not local have enough verity that you can carve out your own space.
People are even going to Thailand, Argentina, Portugal, China and other places to get a different lifestyle. They would go just about anywhere there was actual support for the local community. And sure, it isn't like other bigger developments doesn't affect the situation, but it is 'on the ground' that the changes are happening.
So where in your region can I live to have runway to start a business? Where can I find a space to do some manufacturing? How can I attend the local college? Well, actually... *excuses*.
Most just blatantly doesn't support their local community. They complain that the business are closing then defund and sell everything local, lower taxes and spend the money elsewhere.
I wish it was more complex than that, but in most cases it isn't. In many cases the local car dealership and contractors are doing well. Because that is what they actually prioritize and spend money on in those communities.
When it comes down to it, most people would rather save money and pay less than shop at small businesses.
On a note about radio: it's dead. If you want a local radio feel, listen to podcasts. Stephen King most likely is losing advertisers because radio, as a medium, is getting overtaken by podcasts and things like Youtube.
I used to listen to the radio every day and I haven't been a regular listener for almost a decade.
You hit the nail on the head exactly here. People are very good at maximizing their short term situation, even at the detriment to their community. A good example is people who travel to nearby cities to buy things because they have lower taxes. They don't seem to understand that (for the most part), taxes in their own city benefit their city. Taxes they pay to a neighboring city don't benefit them or their neighbors.
How is it to our long term benefit to continue paying more for goods forever? Maybe we’re just better off in a world where industries that have severe economies of scale like retail get consumed by the big guys so we all save money, and small businesses keep fixing the pipes, designing our graphics, etc.
Economies of scale are better in almost every way, if the benefits of economies of scale are somewhat evenly distributed, and that the benefits don't come with significant negatives somewhere else.
However, most of the time, the majority of the benefits of economies of scale tend to go to the wealthy. The small amount of benefits that do go to consumers/people make them think that they are the beneficiaries, and often the societal cost is masked.
Some have some economies of scale but not severe and service or quality or other things matter and there you usually find big businesses and small competing with each other. (I work in the packaged food world, it falls into this category.)
And some, like retail, have such large economies of scale that a small business just can’t really compete. In the case of retail, this is largely because of logistics being such a big portion of cost of goods.
They usually understand that perfectly well, but understanding that doesn't mean that they should not rationally try to minimize the taxes that they personally pay. The ideal scenario for any individual A is that A pays as little in taxes as possible and all A's neighbors pay as much as necessary to fund the government programs which A benefits from. For A, intentionally shopping locally in order to pay higher but local taxes is against their own rational self interest.
Policy shouldn't be designed to only work for the collective good if every individual works against their own self interest—any policy designed that way is doomed to failure from the get go.
One of the biggest socialist programs of wealth redistribution in the US is actually our highway and road system, where we pay hundreds of billions of dollars from cities to smaller municipalities and counties to maintain a system of public roadways by which those smaller municipalities can reach larger cities by car. Absolutely nobody complains about that. So clearly paying taxes on that is beneficial. And that suggests that paying taxes on other things is beneficial.
But my point is that it's not. It's in your interest to have those things but not in your interest to pay for them. Having government programs such as roads is beneficial. Paying for roads out of your own pocket is not. So we should expect to see people dodge taxes wherever it's practical to do so.
This has implications for how you design a taxation system. For example, there is an optimal sales tax rate that is neither significantly lower than your neighbors nor significantly higher—one where the inconvenience of shopping somewhere else is higher than the cost of shopping locally.
The only way to get around the problem is to make receiving the government services contingent on paying the tax. Vehicle registration fees are a good example, as are property taxes. If roads are paid for out of a tax that you can't avoid paying if you own a car, then using the government-provided infrastructure is contingent on paying for it and it's in your self interest to do so.
Sales taxes are particularly problematic in this regard because the people who pay them are often not the people who benefit from the programs paid for. (Though this is less true in small isolated towns than it is in large Metro areas.)
This is entirely a matter of opinion whether you believe that a democratic process should be able to direct individuals' funds to public works projects or not. I believe that it is. But when you assert one way or the other you're challenging an axiom.
So sure you could completely redesign the taxation system, or you could work with people to convince them that paying taxes actually confers benefits.
Alternatively, many may understand that claim, but disagree with it.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but if not then the shipping market is just completely broken and begging for disruption.
In the case of shipping, I'm not an expert but I do know a few of them:
* The amount of time per mile a human needs to spend handling that shipping container is lower, because there are only a few very long legs rather than many transfers.
* The amount of time per pound of goods a human has to spend handling the shipping container is much lower, because the container is moved all at once, where your cubic-foot package has to be handled individually.
* The fuel cost per pound of goods per mile is lower with the shipping container because it is usually transported by boat and train, which are far more efficient than the trucks used in last-mile delivery.
This also applies to endless other real world things and services. Prices for so many things are completely out of touch with reasonably approachable costs, yet there's no Elon in shipping or these zillion other broken industries that, if fixed, could really reshape and perhaps even revitalize the American economy.
This is quite literally, one of the benefits people are referencing when doing commerce in large quantities when they mention “economy of scale”.
In computer science terms the shipping containers are like bits. They either exist or they don’t. If you want something with more precision like an integer or a float, you can make it happen, but it’s more costly in terms of resources
Most people don't even care, since now there are so many more independent sources of easily accessible information than anyone could have envisioned 40 years ago.
In fact, of decades of being in tech, having a lot of friends and connections, I don't know I have even heard one friend lament this, ever. Compare that to the many topics I regularly hear people worry about, or the hundreds of conversations on various repeating topics, I find it way out of touch to think this topic is that big to nearly anyone.
> Almost everyone except politicians is critical of big corporations
Also not true. I suspect you're in some 20s aged echo chamber?
> Without regulation, small businesses will not be able to compete with the giants.
Regulation historically serves to entrench big business since they can more easily afford to ensure they meet regulations, and can amortize legal and employment issues than mom and pop stores.
> leaving small mom-and-pop businesses by the wayside.
The fact is that small businesses have increased much more rapidly in the last decade than perhaps ever. There are over 30 million small businesses in the US, and out of a population of 345M (including infants, teens, retirees...) that is around one small business per 5 working age adults. [1] Read some about small businesses before making so many claims apparently based on poor sources.
[1] https://www.uschamber.com/small-business/small-business-data...
How has the regulatory framework changed during the last few administrations and congresses? Who has lobbied for this (de)regulation? Has it led to less conglomeration or more?
Regulation is good, regulation is bad. It depends entirely on what it consists of. Changes in regulation historically has probably generally served to entrench big business through extensive and ever increasing lobbying, but that includes both regulation and deregulation.
That's vastly too simplistic. There's not some simple good versus evil linear axis for nearly anything, including regulation. Regulation provides tradeoffs, and even those are likely never simply two sided.
> Changes in regulation historically has probably generally served to entrench big business
Yes, that's what I wrote, and for the reasons I wrote it. To rephrase: regulation often means companies must comply with new rules, and keeping track of those changes and complying costs money (=time). Such things ten to have a fixed cost and an amortized cost. Big businesses can spread the fixed cost over more revenue.
So it almost matters not at all what the regulation is - if there's a rule that needs followed, whether it's employee benefits, waste management, financial tracking, OSHA, EPA, IRS, or anything - each adds costs to every business.
And most of them are easier to deal with on a per revenue basis as revenue increases.
The main difference being you can't vote on a Corporation's behavior but theoretically, you have some say in your government's handling of state-owned industry.
(inb4 communist dictatorships) At the local level in existing socialist/communist states, there's unions and local leaders who have to answer to the workers generally.
Not a perfect system, but hey, China will execute the CEO if they sell poisonous baby food. Can't say the same for whoever was responsible for the Boar's head poisonings.
More efficient in terms of doing things at low cost in a system them manipulated to give them a cost advantage. True. Supermarkets are monopsony buyers, tech companies use patent thickets to keep out new entrants. They lobby for regulations that small businesses without separate compliance departments cannot afford to keep up with.
Corporations found themselves a river of wealth flowing throught the economy and squat on it. That how they became corporations. By walking randomly they landed in a profitable spot, which allowed them to grow like a tumor and extract even more value. That's why politicians are interested in them, because they can leach some of that wealth that's getting extracted. Mom and pop shops are just potential corporations that sat in the wrong spot. They are failed businesses. What's why governement doesn't pay attention to them. While corporations are pumping out rivers of wealth with industrial pumps mom and pop shops are just treading a little bit of liquid wealth in a puddle with a short stick and taking out a little bit that stuck to it. Effect on community, jobs and such is totally irrelevant. Government and the rich don't care about poor people unless there's a chance they might rebel.
When you say "everyone except politicians is critical" - "everyone" means, nobody important.
I currently live in Nashville TN and the local public radio music station is so good that I never use algorithmic streaming any more.
I do, however, have a lot of t-shirts and tote bags.
Almost nobody likes this development, yet no-one does anything about it. Almost everyone except politicians is critical of big corporations, yet they're ever growing like a tumor, leaving small mom-and-pop businesses by the wayside.
In recent years, I'm hearing more and more how we're supposed to shop locally and support regional producers. Yet, I don't see how our government is supporting this call themselves. Without regulation, small businesses will not be able to compete with the giants.