Garth Coghlan
Garth Coghlan  ·  last month
finished reading Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
Late-stage capitalism has given way to cloud-based fiefs, and we are the serfs. I need convincing on some of the detail (e.g. how effective are they at manipulating our desires?), but mostly agree with his main argument. Pairs well with Cory Doctorow's #enshittification ideas ( @pluralistic).

#BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #Economics #Capitalism

@WildWoila

tanya tussing
tanya tussing  ·  2 months ago
We're not going back.

"“the cost of 40 years of pro-monopoly can't be ignored. Monopolies make the whole world more brittle, even as the cost of that brittleness mounts. It's hard to pretend monopolies are fine when a single hurricane can wipe out the entire country's supply of IV fluid – again:”"

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/11/democracys-antitrust-paradox/

Another good post about recent monopoly busting and its future, @pluralistic

#AntiMonopoly #antitrust#Economics

Pachacutec
Pachacutec  ·  2 months ago
Has anyone seen any good discussion or analysis of the potential long term impact the Israeli pager explosives attack may have generally on mass consumer confidence, not only in Israeli tech, but in consumer tech generally?

How on the nose is it to demonstrate so cleanly that the tech you buy is not trustworthy, harms people, is designed to exploit you, and may even. . . kill you? cc @pluralistic

#privacy#tech #ai#Israel#Terrorism#Fascism#Democracy #labor #gaza

Pachacutec
Pachacutec  ·  2 months ago
@pluralistic This video essay touches on some of what I have been wondering about.

The channel is mostly China propaganda but the analysis of western espionage and potential impacts is not wrong, and at least reflect what China, the largest trade partner for most of the wold's countries, will be saying about Western tech globally.

#tech#IT #geopolitics#Israel #terrorism #gaza#china #imperialism #politics #economics

https://youtu.be/CGnVF55Eu0o?si=0OMlPEaaeuF_qu1z

tanya tussing
tanya tussing  ·  2 months ago
@pluralistic "For example, if you're asking about whether people should have the "freedom" to enter into contracts, it might be useful to ask yourself how desperate your "free" subject might be, and whether the entity on the other side of that contract is very powerful. Otherwise you'll get "free contracts" like "I'll sell you my kidneys if you promise to evacuate my kid from the path of this wildfire.""

#PoliEcon#Economics

tanya tussing
tanya tussing  ·  2 months ago
I hadn't thought about this point, its effect on our economic big picture...

Could be one of the biggest problems in our economic disfunction, @pluralistic . @nminow , thoughts?

"Friedman treated all the qualitative questions about the duty of a company as noise and edited them out of the equation, leaving behind a single, elegant formulation: "a manager is doing their job if they are trying to make as much money as possible for their shareholders.""

#PoliEcon #economics#MiltonFriedman

tanya tussing
tanya tussing  ·  2 months ago
@pluralistic "For example, if you're asking about whether people should have the "freedom" to enter into contracts, it might be useful to ask yourself how desperate your "free" subject might be, and whether the entity on the other side of that contract is very powerful. Otherwise you'll get "free contracts" like "I'll sell you my kidneys if you promise to evacuate my kid from the path of this wildfire.""

#PoliEcon#Economics

HistoPol (#HP) 🥥 🌴
HistoPol (#HP) 🥥 🌴  ·  2 months ago
#Economics

A swansong for #ShareholderCapitalism, as well as a dismantling of #StakeholderCapitalism by #CoryDoctorow ( @pluralistic .)

👉 I strongly recommend using the essay formatted, long version in Connection with a #ScreenReader.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/113158693528976262

Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow  ·  3 months ago
Broadly speaking, the role of an establishment economist is to come up with new ways of saying, "actually, your boss is right." In other words, the world we're living in is the best possible world, and the fact that you got contact burns from collapsing on the scorching sidewalk outside of the grocery store where you couldn't afford your weekly shopping is unfortunate, but unavoidable.

1/

Marius Fortuna_3
Marius Fortuna_3  ·  3 months ago
@pluralistic

Establishment Economists explaining the Central Bank setting interest rates at 20%, causing massive unemployment, collapse in the housing market, widespread small business failures, and suicides among small business owners and unemployed;

"Well last months M1 and M2 Money Supply numbers combined with high employment were at levels econmists and Central Bankers consider potentially inflationary so they had to do it."

#USPolitics #cdnpoli #ukpolitics #capitalism #economics

Alberto Cottica
Alberto Cottica  ·  4 months ago
1/
The ever-brilliant @pluralistic calls our attention to the fact that, in the US of A, three companies control the market for school lunch payments, and they hit poor families with junk fees that go up to 60% of what families pay.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/26/taanstafl/#stay-hungry

Now, some of you might have seen newer #economics papers refer to something called “mode of provisioning”. The concept is not very intuitive, but – I believe – the story of school lunch payments is great to explain it.

Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow  ·  4 months ago
Here's an open secret: the confusing jargon of finance is not the product of some inherent complexity that requires a whole new vocabulary. Rather, finance-talk is all obfuscation, because if we called finance tactics by their plain-language names, it would be obvious that the sector exists to defraud the public and loot the real economy.

1/

tanya tussing
tanya tussing  ·  4 months ago
So true, @pluralistic

"the confusing jargon of finance is not the product of some inherent complexity that requires a whole new vocabulary. Rather, finance-talk is all obfuscation"

#Economics#PoliEcon

Nonilex
Nonilex  ·  4 months ago
“Roberts is articulating a fundamentally #Christian view of #culture & #economics,” #JDVance writes, by “recognizing that virtue & material progress go hand in hand.”

#Vance’s foreword is also, notably, a call for #revolution. “The old conservative movement argued if you just got government out of the way, natural forces would resolve problems,” he writes. “We are no longer in this situation & must take a different approach.”

#Trump#MAGA#Project2025 #extremism

Michael :donor:
Michael :donor:  ·  4 months ago
Here's an unprompted reminder that the tragedy of the commons is a heavily flawed and simplistic theory that is not generally applicable. It was mainly propagated by neoliberals to make people believe that self-governed resources are inevitably tragic (they are not), and to offer the privatization of the commons as a solution to the problem (it is not). The works of Elinor Ostrom make a good case against it.

Also, it was developed by Garret Hardin, a eugenicist and ecofascist, who was scared of overpopulation, and who used it to advocate for forcible population control for people of color.

( @joschi this is not a criticism of you or your post, it just triggered me to point out a common misconception)

@pluralistic

#sociology #economics #neoliberalism

Quote from "Governing the Commons" by Elinor Ostrom. What makes these models [free-rider problems] so dangerous - when they are used metaphorically as the foundation for policy - is that the constraints that are assumed to be fixed for the purpose of analysis are taken on faith as being fixed in empirical settings, unless external authorities change them. The prisoners in the famous dilemma cannot change the constraints imposed on them by the district attorney; they are in jail. Not all users of natural resources are similarly incapable of changing their constraints. As long as individuals are viewed as prisoners, policy prescriptions will address this metaphor. I would rather address the question of how to enhance the capabilities of those involved to change the constraining rules of the game to lead to outcomes other than remorseless tragedies.
Quote from "Governing the Commons" by Elinor Ostrom. What makes these models [free-rider problems] so dangerous - when they are used metaphorically as the foundation for policy - is that the constraints that are assumed to be fixed for the purpose of analysis are taken on faith as being fixed in empirical settings, unless external authorities change them. The prisoners in the famous dilemma cannot change the constraints imposed on them by the district attorney; they are in jail. Not all users of natural resources are similarly incapable of changing their constraints. As long as individuals are viewed as prisoners, policy prescriptions will address this metaphor. I would rather address the question of how to enhance the capabilities of those involved to change the constraining rules of the game to lead to outcomes other than remorseless tragedies.
Quote from "Governing the Commons" by Elinor Ostrom. What makes these models [free-rider problems] so dangerous - when they are used metaphorically as the foundation for policy - is that the constraints that are assumed to be fixed for the purpose of analysis are taken on faith as being fixed in empirical settings, unless external authorities change them. The prisoners in the famous dilemma cannot change the constraints imposed on them by the district attorney; they are in jail. Not all users of natural resources are similarly incapable of changing their constraints. As long as individuals are viewed as prisoners, policy prescriptions will address this metaphor. I would rather address the question of how to enhance the capabilities of those involved to change the constraining rules of the game to lead to outcomes other than remorseless tragedies.
Quote from "Governing the Commons" by Elinor Ostrom. By referring to natural settings as "tragedies of the commons," "collective-action problems," "prisoner's dilemmas," "open-access resources," or even "common-property resources," the observer frequently wishes to invoke an image of helpless individuals caught in an inexorable process of destroying their own resources.
Quote from "Governing the Commons" by Elinor Ostrom. By referring to natural settings as "tragedies of the commons," "collective-action problems," "prisoner's dilemmas," "open-access resources," or even "common-property resources," the observer frequently wishes to invoke an image of helpless individuals caught in an inexorable process of destroying their own resources.
Quote from "Governing the Commons" by Elinor Ostrom. By referring to natural settings as "tragedies of the commons," "collective-action problems," "prisoner's dilemmas," "open-access resources," or even "common-property resources," the observer frequently wishes to invoke an image of helpless individuals caught in an inexorable process of destroying their own resources.
Quote from "Governing the Commons" by Elinor Ostrom. Instead of being wrong, these are special models [Tragedy of the commons, Prisoner's dilemma game, Mancur Olson's logic of collective action] that utilize extreme assumptions rather than general theories. These models can successfully predict strategies and outcomes in fixed situations approximating the initial conditions of the models, but they cannot predict outcomes outside that range. They are useful for predicting behavior in large-scale CPRs in which no one communicates, everyone acts independently, no attention is paid to the effects of one's actions, and the costs of trying to change the structure of the situation are high. They are far less useful for characterizing the behavior of appropriators in the smaller-scale CPRs that are the focus of this inquiry...
Quote from "Governing the Commons" by Elinor Ostrom. Instead of being wrong, these are special models [Tragedy of the commons, Prisoner's dilemma game, Mancur Olson's logic of collective action] that utilize extreme assumptions rather than general theories. These models can successfully predict strategies and outcomes in fixed situations approximating the initial conditions of the models, but they cannot predict outcomes outside that range. They are useful for predicting behavior in large-scale CPRs in which no one communicates, everyone acts independently, no attention is paid to the effects of one's actions, and the costs of trying to change the structure of the situation are high. They are far less useful for characterizing the behavior of appropriators in the smaller-scale CPRs that are the focus of this inquiry...
Quote from "Governing the Commons" by Elinor Ostrom. Instead of being wrong, these are special models [Tragedy of the commons, Prisoner's dilemma game, Mancur Olson's logic of collective action] that utilize extreme assumptions rather than general theories. These models can successfully predict strategies and outcomes in fixed situations approximating the initial conditions of the models, but they cannot predict outcomes outside that range. They are useful for predicting behavior in large-scale CPRs in which no one communicates, everyone acts independently, no attention is paid to the effects of one's actions, and the costs of trying to change the structure of the situation are high. They are far less useful for characterizing the behavior of appropriators in the smaller-scale CPRs that are the focus of this inquiry...