this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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No, not quite. I’m saying musk has never believed in the free market in his life and has never argued in good faith. All of those wealthy types know exactly what they are doing. They publicly embrace a fake ideal of free market economics up until they no longer have to put up the facade.
Correct. No politican, economist or, indeed, capitalist "believes" in the (so-called) "free market" - they all know perfectly well that it's a fairy tale designed to justify them and their cronies parasitizing at everybody and everything else's expense. The regime that made Musk's billions possible - the Apartheid-regime - knew perfectly well that the "free market" was a big, fat lie all the way back in 1948. That's why they built all the public infrastructure that enriched white people's lives (including Elon's) while repressing the majority of South Africans into becoming the glorified indentured labour that made Elon's daddy rich.
It's no different than "hearts & minds," "spreading civilization" or Cinderella's glass slipper. They all know it and they have always all known it.
isn't this the definition of hypocrisy?
I suppose you’re right, it is. I am not articulating myself properly here. Let me re-frame this.
Every time we chalk things up to a bad actor being hypocritical, we are taking our eye off of the ball. The problems we are facing are not individual actors that are simply acting hypocritical in the moment. We are, in reality, dealing with a much larger issue. The economic structure is filled with grifters, liars, and exploiters at the top because that is how it is best leveraged.
So when articles are written calling some billionaire a hypocrite, we are not accomplishing anything. I would argue it is largely a game of masturbatory whack-a-mole to make ourselves feel better, because we cannot fix this system with random callouts and the (extremely) rare removal of “bad apples.”
Care to articulate how you'd describe it?
Much more than just capitalism, right? Like that, plus our entire culture, generations of propaganda and indoctrination. All of our power structures, political, financial, military, media, education.
Everything. Much larger issue is an understatement. How do we fix it?
I will say that I am no oracle, just one man. It is easy to perceive problems and very hard to prescribe solutions.
That being said, I can offer the following perspectives.
In order to fix these problems, we need to fight back through locally organized groups; tenant unions, renters unions, etc. Having the hard conversations with friends and family. Re-framing arguments and world views in terms of class rather than cancerous “red versus blue” politics. Showing up to peaceful protests while we can still participate in them. Pulling the levers of democracy given to us in local elections, and on the national stage, pulling the levers for the candidate that will not plunge us into immediate fascism as a stop gap. We need to do this now and with vigor to prevent the other potentials.
The alternative to action now, I’m afraid, will end in revolution attempts by a divided working class. This implies civil war where nothing is certain.
Yep, capitalism is at direct odds with competetive markets almost by definition.
"free" is the non-specific term tht they use rhetorically. "Competition" is the market feature that might theoretically benefit consumers in some circumstances - and they don't often include that word in their rhetoric.
It's always been about acquisition of market power, this is sort of opposite of a free market.
If any threat of consumer rights / anti-trust / labour rights or balancing of market power arises, their incentive is to acquire political power and influence to defend their power.
It was the same story in western Europe before industry and "capitalism", just the landed class monopolising land vs peasantry (and/or enslaved/indentured labour). Landowners monopolised all the votes and even when suffrage expanded it was usually top down. Until maybe 1789 when something else happened to the top.
Unfortunately I think many of the major progressive changes of the past (that benefit people in general rather than the elites - again in "the West") have mostly followed catastrophic events or political upheaval, or martyrdom.
Peasants revolts, black death, aftermath/stress of major wars, civil war, workers uprisings, race riots, 1929, ww2.
I guess the 1929 and all the FDR stuff and strengthened social policies in western Europe was all widely democratically backed (honourable mention to the banks' major incompetence , to hitler for being such a massive c*nt and a decent 50-or-so years of European imperial decline) .
So maybe there's some hope for the democratic or the MLK/Gandhi type approach - not that it worked out too well for those two individuals.
They believe in the "free market" insofar as the government being commodities to be bought.