it was you and me against the world. but then the world won, and it was you and me against each other.
from a really fabulous, read-the-whole-thing essay by @adamkotsko on the increasing illegibility of what passes for capitalism these days. https://itself.blog/2024/06/15/what-is-the-economy-even-for/
Text: Now businesses increasingly take actively customer-hostile actions — locking up products, replacing paper menus with cumbersome QR codes, and of course chronically understaffing everything, which is the root of all of these issues — and insulate themselves from any feedback. This claim may seem paradoxical, since businesses are continually clamoring for a certain type of feedback. I feel like I am asked to rate dozens upon dozens of transactions a day on some kind of five-point scale, and higher-stakes encounters (like medical visits) result in repeated demands to participate in a full-dress, multi-step satisfaction survey. Even the public bathrooms in Chicago Union Station have built-in devices for patrons to register their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the level of cleanliness. Whenever I receive one of these demands, I want to shout in Don Draper style: that’s what the money was for!
plutocrats building apocalypse bunkers is maybe a great example of the iron law of institutions.
@sqrtminusone@emacs.ch i mean i hope it doesn't... but it's a pitch.
@sqrtminusone@emacs.ch here's a screenshot, the beginning of the first e-mail in my original post. ("First Name" is redacted in green, 'cuz there's a lot of red built in.)
Cleaned-up text from screenshot: FROM THE DESK OF Lara Trump YOU MEAN THE WORLD TO US! I really mean that. You never left President Trump’s side. Loyalty is huge in the Trump family, especially to my father-in-law. So please, I need you to take your support to the next level: SIGN THE PETITION TO STAND WITH TRUMP Without MAGA standing by his side, Donald J. Trump would have been destroyed by the Biden Regime. But there’s one thing | know about my father-in-law: He has felt your support through every single Indictment, Hoax, Raid, Arrest, and Witch Hunt... So right now before the clock strikes midnight PLEASE STAND WITH TRUMP BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!
@SteveRoth not a pitch i love tbh!
@SteveRoth (i think that there was a "the fuhrer loves you" vibe among "good germans", but i don't recall where i have gotten that impression and certainly stand ready to be corrected.)
A person who would also be 'swaldman' but with a different first name than me seems accidentally to have signed up an email address that's mine to Trump mailing lists.
I've found it fascinating. The public conversation from Trump is all resentment and grievance, but the inside pitch to supporters is "I love you, I chose you, I need you" It's about making the supporter feel special, essential, part of the family.
I've redacted the S-beginning first name that isn't mine.
Screnshot of e-mails from the last few days, transcribed here as we are all the hare.
Photo: Tortoise Jonathan at Plantation House Saint Helena 1886 and in 2020
@realcaseyrollins funding the government is just regulating demand. the government doesn’t need cash — it is the source of that. but if it just prints cash, there’s too much demand and thus inflation. thus one important role of taxation is to regulate demand, to make sure the cash it spends into the economy, along with other factors, don’t undermine the real value of the money it prints. i agree with you that taxes like sales or value-added taxes are one good way to do that.
@realcaseyrollins taxes have different purposes. a sales tax helps regulate demand. the main point of the income tax, though it has been enfeebled first by Kennedy, then by Reagan, is to regulate the income distribution. progressive is its very point.
@realcaseyrollins very progressive, especially at the high end.
we think of dracula as this bad guy, but among his kind he is revered for offering a product that is organic, ethically-sourced, free-range.
@realcaseyrollins taxation isn’t theft. when we had a reasonable income tax structure in the late 1940s, no one was stolen from.
@jgordon @pluralistic we all tell ourselves sweet little lies.
@jching @pluralistic they are great, until they aren't. that's often how it goes.
how on earth did Microsoft do this, and not face any meaningful consequence?
i mean all software has bugs, sure. but if you are selling high-consequence software, when you are notified of security issues, you address them. is there no criminal liability in selling a product for money when you know it to be extraordinarily dangerous to your customers, making no good faith attempt to mitigate the risk?
by #ReneeDudley #DorisBurke https://www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-solarwinds-golden-saml-data-breach-russian-hackers
ht @pluralistic
"There's an implicit bargain that every monopolist makes… I will be a benevolent dictator who spends…windfall profits on maintaining product quality and security… [M]onopolists always violate this bargain. When faced with the decision to either invest in quality+security, or hand billions of dollars to their shareholders, they'll always take the latter. Why wldn't they? Once they have a monopoly, they don't have to worry abt losing customers to a competitor" @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/14/patch-tuesday/#fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again
@Hyolobrika libertarianism absent democratic guardrails is very consistent with authoritarianism. the only state coercion you need is property rights enforcement to have authoritarianism under a plutocratic wealth distribution. everybody's free speech is harmless when all the distribution channels censor themselves in plutocratic interests. there are no demonstrations because the owner of the square doesn't permit them, though of course you have the "right" to demonstrate on your own property.
[new draft post] State capacity and authoritarianism https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/06/15/state-capacity-and-authoritarianism/index.html