Dr. Harrington's responses are consistent with my statements that the oligarchy took over a long time ago. But now we al upso know the solutions. No money legally leaves the USA permanently. Any amount of income, interest, dividends, and capital gains over a specified legal limit becomes taxable at the 100% rate. Inherited wealth has to be treated differently than the current system. I don't expect Congress to create any of these necessary limitations on outrageous wealth. We must start from scratch. This means a new American movement that does not idolize and strive for permanent wealth.
I look forward to DOGE initiatives from Musk and Ramaswamy to ensure full collection of taxes and prevention of offshoring by the like of Musk and Ramaswamy.
Other than confiscation at source, how can nominally democratic states level the playing field, since the broligarchs can literally buy the governments of their choice? An 1789-type French Revolution? Bring out the tumbrils? A covert mobile force of Luigi Mangiones?
We're stuck with these gobshites well into the future, and their outright seizures of power get closer and closer to reality.
Dear Sir: Violence is the wrong approach because armed conflict will surely be met with a state-sanctioned, ultra-violent military counter attack. No one will survive that onslaught. My recommendation is a home-grown movement that advocates people over profits. If this was easy, it would have been done by now. Restoring democracy will neither be easy nor quick. Progress will be slow and uneven. Many sacrifices will be made. The American people must reunite to denounce wealth that can buy governments off. Oligarchs and their owned governments sacrifice human life to protect the oligarch's hoarded wealth. If you want or expect the oligarchy to end in the next couple of years you will be disappointed. It's likely to take 1 to 2 generations to dislodge the relative handful of heirs who already own too much of Earth's resources.
Old solutions to new problems won't do. Pitchforks against drones? No chance!
What a new revolution would need is armies of hackers, and people who know how to do stuff, like building things, growing food, sewing clothing, cleaning water, survival skills in general
I loved this interview. Thank you so much. Very enlightening & scary at the same time. My only wonder is when the oligarchs rule all of us after the next great disaster, is when do the peasants revolt? I can’t imagine being a servant or security guard on Musk Island & being treated like crap & not organizing my fellow underclass workers with a plan. That’s just me.
its all well put, but the interviewee -- this is common with members of her socio-professional group -- leaves out how certain elements the American Academy, her stomping grounds, played a huge role in the advent of the so called Neoliberal Era and those certain elements benefited immensely from it, and in other writings of hers she also doesnt mention how American democracy was based around diffusions of economic and political power and decision making that was enable by a semi-decentralize system that while maintaining a string national framework still enabled significant amounts of policy variability, including in economic, fiscal, and most all governmental matters
Pre-repentance Jeffrey Sachs and his Yeltsin-fleecing ilk? That said, we could have a more centralized system run better. I'm not a fan of major federalism. I wish we had things impossible in this current constitution, like proportional representation in a semi-parliamentary or fully parliamentary system.
Well, lol, this is like the fourth time Sachs has "repented", after Bolivia in the 1980s, east Europe in the 1990s, Russia, then the UN Millennium Dev Goals, does it each time, feels like rinse and repeat at this point.
But no, t'was before he came along. The USA used to have a semi-politically decentralized, semi-economically decentralized, semi-scientifically decentralized system with limited but still genuinely democratic governance structures that were based around its old, completely different than today's versions, decentralized and publicly accessible mass member parties.
The political and economic centralizations of the 1970s and 1980s, which were the advent of the so called Neoliberal Era, were actively shaped by elements within the USA's universities and its broader Academy. They played a dual role: first, as intellectual architects, legitimizing centralization through research and policy advocacy that matched up with the interests of powerful financial and industrial groups; and second, as beneficiaries, capturing substantial funding from newly consolidated industries and centralized federal programs. By embracing the neoliberal ethos, universities and think tanks positioned themselves as indispensable intermediaries in the privatization and financialization of research and ed. This shift allowed them to grow their endowments, attract lucrative contracts, and secure influence, even as it hollowed out decentralized, local innovation ecosystems and reduced the accessibility of research and governance to the broader public. These benefits entrenched their role as gatekeepers in a system that dedemocratized decision making and did centralizing of power and wealth. LOL, are then newly de-democratized system's Congress in 1980 cited the universities "halos" to say the Bayh-Dole Act was "risky but safe" because the unis were involved
Respectfully, that a more centralized system could "run better" misses serious historical and structural realities. The UK's did intensive centralization in the 1980s and 1990s, and still formally has its parliamentary system, but it still got de-democratization. Power consolidates into the hands of a few elites, leaving localities and regions with greatly reduced influence over decisions that shape their economies and lives. Centralization also creates a brittle governance structures just begging to be captured by special interests, as seen in both the UK and the USA during the neoliberal era. These sorts of systems tend to prioritize elite interests and one-size-fits-all policies over localized needs, stifling innovation and responsiveness, while alienating the broader population from meaningful participation in governance. And an even more centralized system would strip almost all people of political and economic agency
A decentralized system can also be captured. Witness the entire Montana state lege being bought in the 1890s in order to get a pre-17th Amendment US Senator elected.
Otherwise, respectfully, the last paragraph sounds a certain degree like Walter Karp, whom I found interesting in the first couple of books of his that I read, then, saw him jump the shark when he talked too much about that Jeffersonian little schoolhouse, etc. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1848504344
I never claimed that decentralization would eliminate all problems. theres always be risks related corruption and capture. But a decentralized system inherently diffuses power so widespread or systemic capture much more difficult and less damaging compared to centralized sys
Montana state legislature's corruption in the 1890s is a historical example of local capture, but misses context. Such instances were often corrected through state level reforms or public backlash showing the the self-correcting abilities of our prior decentralization. Also, it should be pointed out that in instances where they used the Fed Gov to help in correction, thats a demonstration of them having multiple levels of gov, that was a two way street, states could be used as a corrective to the Fed as well
Also, respectfully, your ref to Walter Karp is overly simplistic, somewhat irrelevant, and appears to grasp at straws. While Karp may have ran with an overly romanticized sense of Jeffersonian ideals in some of his later stuff, dismissing decentralization arguments based on perceived excesses in his rhetoric skips around the substance of the critique. Karp’s emphasis of localized power and public participation was not a nostalgic fantasy its was a response to the very real problems of centralized power eroding democratic economic and political agency. And trying to ty my argument to Karp's work is a reach because my points are about wider historical patterns and structural dynamics not one guys somewhat simplistic narrative and it feels like your pulling him out and sinking so much into him to move the convo away from the real issues and the thigs I mentioned
Actually, it was. There was massive public outcry and pressure for change. Montanans became very active about the need to address corporate dominance in their politics and local groups worked, ultimately successfully, to enact reforms to limit influence of powerful industrialists like the Copper Kings
Then, in a related matter, the 17th. But while the 17th Amendment was a federally enacted solution, it was generated by grassroots movements across the country, including Montana, shoeing the interplay between state level issues and federal corrective mechanisms. But today, that interplay is unlikely to exists because the de-democratization coupled with the ineffectualization of state and local governments, and that doesnt matter anyways because theres no such things as grassroots any more because we live in a centralized technocratic dictatorship which makes grassroots impossible
But even if you had been correct, it would have been strange to just dismiss the issue with a single historical anecdote and skip past engaging with the substantive points about the systemic risks of centralization
Dr. Harrington's responses are consistent with my statements that the oligarchy took over a long time ago. But now we al upso know the solutions. No money legally leaves the USA permanently. Any amount of income, interest, dividends, and capital gains over a specified legal limit becomes taxable at the 100% rate. Inherited wealth has to be treated differently than the current system. I don't expect Congress to create any of these necessary limitations on outrageous wealth. We must start from scratch. This means a new American movement that does not idolize and strive for permanent wealth.
I look forward to DOGE initiatives from Musk and Ramaswamy to ensure full collection of taxes and prevention of offshoring by the like of Musk and Ramaswamy.
Other than confiscation at source, how can nominally democratic states level the playing field, since the broligarchs can literally buy the governments of their choice? An 1789-type French Revolution? Bring out the tumbrils? A covert mobile force of Luigi Mangiones?
We're stuck with these gobshites well into the future, and their outright seizures of power get closer and closer to reality.
Dear Sir: Violence is the wrong approach because armed conflict will surely be met with a state-sanctioned, ultra-violent military counter attack. No one will survive that onslaught. My recommendation is a home-grown movement that advocates people over profits. If this was easy, it would have been done by now. Restoring democracy will neither be easy nor quick. Progress will be slow and uneven. Many sacrifices will be made. The American people must reunite to denounce wealth that can buy governments off. Oligarchs and their owned governments sacrifice human life to protect the oligarch's hoarded wealth. If you want or expect the oligarchy to end in the next couple of years you will be disappointed. It's likely to take 1 to 2 generations to dislodge the relative handful of heirs who already own too much of Earth's resources.
I'm not sure Thomas Jefferson agrees.
Old solutions to new problems won't do. Pitchforks against drones? No chance!
What a new revolution would need is armies of hackers, and people who know how to do stuff, like building things, growing food, sewing clothing, cleaning water, survival skills in general
Broligarchy. LOL. Using that.
I loved this interview. Thank you so much. Very enlightening & scary at the same time. My only wonder is when the oligarchs rule all of us after the next great disaster, is when do the peasants revolt? I can’t imagine being a servant or security guard on Musk Island & being treated like crap & not organizing my fellow underclass workers with a plan. That’s just me.
its all well put, but the interviewee -- this is common with members of her socio-professional group -- leaves out how certain elements the American Academy, her stomping grounds, played a huge role in the advent of the so called Neoliberal Era and those certain elements benefited immensely from it, and in other writings of hers she also doesnt mention how American democracy was based around diffusions of economic and political power and decision making that was enable by a semi-decentralize system that while maintaining a string national framework still enabled significant amounts of policy variability, including in economic, fiscal, and most all governmental matters
Pre-repentance Jeffrey Sachs and his Yeltsin-fleecing ilk? That said, we could have a more centralized system run better. I'm not a fan of major federalism. I wish we had things impossible in this current constitution, like proportional representation in a semi-parliamentary or fully parliamentary system.
Well, lol, this is like the fourth time Sachs has "repented", after Bolivia in the 1980s, east Europe in the 1990s, Russia, then the UN Millennium Dev Goals, does it each time, feels like rinse and repeat at this point.
But no, t'was before he came along. The USA used to have a semi-politically decentralized, semi-economically decentralized, semi-scientifically decentralized system with limited but still genuinely democratic governance structures that were based around its old, completely different than today's versions, decentralized and publicly accessible mass member parties.
The political and economic centralizations of the 1970s and 1980s, which were the advent of the so called Neoliberal Era, were actively shaped by elements within the USA's universities and its broader Academy. They played a dual role: first, as intellectual architects, legitimizing centralization through research and policy advocacy that matched up with the interests of powerful financial and industrial groups; and second, as beneficiaries, capturing substantial funding from newly consolidated industries and centralized federal programs. By embracing the neoliberal ethos, universities and think tanks positioned themselves as indispensable intermediaries in the privatization and financialization of research and ed. This shift allowed them to grow their endowments, attract lucrative contracts, and secure influence, even as it hollowed out decentralized, local innovation ecosystems and reduced the accessibility of research and governance to the broader public. These benefits entrenched their role as gatekeepers in a system that dedemocratized decision making and did centralizing of power and wealth. LOL, are then newly de-democratized system's Congress in 1980 cited the universities "halos" to say the Bayh-Dole Act was "risky but safe" because the unis were involved
Respectfully, that a more centralized system could "run better" misses serious historical and structural realities. The UK's did intensive centralization in the 1980s and 1990s, and still formally has its parliamentary system, but it still got de-democratization. Power consolidates into the hands of a few elites, leaving localities and regions with greatly reduced influence over decisions that shape their economies and lives. Centralization also creates a brittle governance structures just begging to be captured by special interests, as seen in both the UK and the USA during the neoliberal era. These sorts of systems tend to prioritize elite interests and one-size-fits-all policies over localized needs, stifling innovation and responsiveness, while alienating the broader population from meaningful participation in governance. And an even more centralized system would strip almost all people of political and economic agency
A decentralized system can also be captured. Witness the entire Montana state lege being bought in the 1890s in order to get a pre-17th Amendment US Senator elected.
Otherwise, respectfully, the last paragraph sounds a certain degree like Walter Karp, whom I found interesting in the first couple of books of his that I read, then, saw him jump the shark when he talked too much about that Jeffersonian little schoolhouse, etc. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1848504344
I never claimed that decentralization would eliminate all problems. theres always be risks related corruption and capture. But a decentralized system inherently diffuses power so widespread or systemic capture much more difficult and less damaging compared to centralized sys
Montana state legislature's corruption in the 1890s is a historical example of local capture, but misses context. Such instances were often corrected through state level reforms or public backlash showing the the self-correcting abilities of our prior decentralization. Also, it should be pointed out that in instances where they used the Fed Gov to help in correction, thats a demonstration of them having multiple levels of gov, that was a two way street, states could be used as a corrective to the Fed as well
Also, respectfully, your ref to Walter Karp is overly simplistic, somewhat irrelevant, and appears to grasp at straws. While Karp may have ran with an overly romanticized sense of Jeffersonian ideals in some of his later stuff, dismissing decentralization arguments based on perceived excesses in his rhetoric skips around the substance of the critique. Karp’s emphasis of localized power and public participation was not a nostalgic fantasy its was a response to the very real problems of centralized power eroding democratic economic and political agency. And trying to ty my argument to Karp's work is a reach because my points are about wider historical patterns and structural dynamics not one guys somewhat simplistic narrative and it feels like your pulling him out and sinking so much into him to move the convo away from the real issues and the thigs I mentioned
Well, the buying of legislative elections wasn't corrected at the state level, and otherwise, I'll move on.
Actually, it was. There was massive public outcry and pressure for change. Montanans became very active about the need to address corporate dominance in their politics and local groups worked, ultimately successfully, to enact reforms to limit influence of powerful industrialists like the Copper Kings
Then, in a related matter, the 17th. But while the 17th Amendment was a federally enacted solution, it was generated by grassroots movements across the country, including Montana, shoeing the interplay between state level issues and federal corrective mechanisms. But today, that interplay is unlikely to exists because the de-democratization coupled with the ineffectualization of state and local governments, and that doesnt matter anyways because theres no such things as grassroots any more because we live in a centralized technocratic dictatorship which makes grassroots impossible
But even if you had been correct, it would have been strange to just dismiss the issue with a single historical anecdote and skip past engaging with the substantive points about the systemic risks of centralization
"Broligarch"! Passing this word on.
And, per another commenter, surely the "DOGE" advisory group stole that from dogecoin, which of course is also designed as an attach on nation-states.
It's just not true that 20% of 'Russians' don't have indoor plumbing.
It is according to multiple Russia media sources.