Hacker News Reader

Comment by sigmaprimus | Hacker News Reader

I love reading the comments on stories like this and consider these comments to be a bellwether as to the current state of inequality in our society. Unfortunately I tend to consider myself one who exists on the lower part of the wealth distribution logarithm within the western world, globally it's a different story. Just as anyone tweeting on their smart phone or tablet claiming to be part of the 99% might want to rethink that in a global context, most of us in the west are global 1% ers. Could it be that the rise in terror incedents recently may in fact be caused by this inequality and not just radical religious zealots? Even if this is not the case we may want to make sure that our empathy does not diminish to the point where we suggest that the starving people of the world eat cake if there is no bread.

View on HN

So this is a good example of how the 99% vs 1% meme falls short. It's a description of wealth inequality, which is a symptom of the larger conflict between workers and business owners (proletariat vs. bourgeoisie). The central issue isn't that we have wealth inequality, it's about power. Capitalists get to control our economic planning, have a closer ear of our governments, and have an advantageous negotiating position compared to workers allowing them to pay us little while they receive huge profits (leading to inequality).

Often times it is in the interest of certain capitalists to get our government to engage in imperialism, or destabilize certain regions, which helps lead to the awful conditions for some people in the Middle East, and I think this helps pave the way to religious extremism. They rightfully recognize nations like the U.S. are partially to blame for their conditions, and unfortunately lash out at the everyday citizens who often had no part in the matter.

"Often times it is in the interest of certain capitalists to get our government to engage in imperialism, or destabilize certain regions, which helps lead to the awful conditions for some people in the Middle East, and I think this helps pave the way to religious extremism."

This is patently false.

The US - and 'capitalists' do not want 'destabilization' - over and above all they want 'stability'.

Case and point: Saudi Arabia. Here you have an 'extremely conservative Islamic state' - which is culturally the furthest thing from the American ideal - and yet the Americans are their protectors - doing pretty much anything to preserve the stability of that regime. And for what: direct access to Oil - at market prices. That's it.

Same thing for Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Egypt, Tunisia. And almost Libya until Gaddafi went to far oppressing an uprising, and remember the US supported Saddam so long as he wasn't invading allies like Kuwait.

Prosperity is not a zero-sum game. 100% of the Middle East could be thriving and plentiful if they organized themselves in a responsible manner. Most of them should have ample Oil surpluses to found basic progress.

I'm not saying all capitalists, I'm saying it is in the interests of certain capitalists. I'm sure McDonald's would love to have a stable region to begin building franchises in. On the other hand, a military contractor's profit is in part tied to conflict ridden regions.

I don't really see what your example of Saudi Arabia proves. We sell them arms and purchase much of their oil, it's in a lot of people interests to keep them stable. I'm saying in some cases it is in business interests to keep a region in conflict, and sometimes imperialism leads to instability or a lack of material wealth, promoting extremist thought.

This is a wildly revisionist view of US influence on the Middle East.

For starters, you're assuming that the US government and it's intelligence agencies always understand the actual consequences of their actions and are always successful, which is hilariously false. So instability is a frequently unintended result of meddling in foreign affairs, despite our intentions.

And the idea that all these nations would be "thriving" if only they'd "bootstrap" themselves is extremely naive. Iran is a great example of using "ample oil surpluses to found basic progress", when they attempted to nationalize the oil industry. But that would've hurt Western oil profits / consumer wallets, so we overthrew that administration.

I'm no ME expert but your understanding of the history of these nations is incredibly shallow. The powerless are not the cause of the world's problems.

"For starters, you're assuming that the US government and it's intelligence agencies always understand the actual consequences of their actions and are always successful"

I didn't assume that at all.

In fact, I'd agree with that assessment.

But the purpose of US involvement in the M/E is not to 'destabilize' - it's the opposite.

Even out of pure self-interest - the US gains from a stable M/E not a 'unstable one'.

If you were Exxon - would you rather a stable political regime with which you do business? Or one that is changing all the time - wherein it's so dangerous oil deals are impossible?

Do you know how many deals US Oil companies got in Iraq?

ZERO. Nada.

100% of Iraqi Oil is extracted, and exported by local entities - and European, Russian and Chinese companies.

The US got nothing out of it - granted - some Oil 'services' companies got some decent contracts.

It's contrarian and unjustified to indicate that the US wants to engender instability in the region.

"I'm no ME expert but your understanding of the history of these nations is incredibly shallow. "

Save your ad hominem for Huffpo :)

"The powerless are not the cause of the world's problems."

The US is not the creator of terrorists.

Terrorists (and their ideologies) are the cause of terrorism. Some of them are powerless, some of them are not.

The Middle East is rife with natural resources, it's 100% their own fault, collectively, that the ME is mostly a craphole (despite some pretty nice things) and so many of them want to leave for Europe and North America.

Yes, the US would prefer a stable Middle East, but only a stable Middle East that serves US interests sufficiently. And they'll destabilize states that don't play into this. Notice how Saudi Arabia, the example you pointed out, is a horrible place to live?

(Also, how is pointing out your ignorance of the subject at hand ad hominem?)

Your posts reek of libertarian sentiment, which is based on looking at issues as simply as possible. Terrorists commit terror because they chose to in that specific moment, ignoring the X years of history and events shaped that moment. Everyone is 100% responsible for their own situation, no matter what.

You obviously had no interest in looking seriously at the ME or approaching the subject in anything resembling good faith. I knew that when I first commented, but your first post hit a certain nerve. Only the powerful thrive in the simple, just-world position you're promoting, and it's becoming more apparent how bleak a future that is.

"Terrorists (and their ideologies) are the cause of terrorism."

I think you might be incorrect there. IMO, Rhetorical tautology is the cause of terrorism.

I think that instability is surprisingly good for capitalists, however, I don't know if they "want" that instability. I live in Prague, and the instability and corruption following the fall of the iron curtain made many people very rich. It also allowed many western capitalists to buy assets in this country for very cheep prices. Right next to my house there used to be a park. Now there is an office building there. The city never built that office building, nor did it officially sell the land. Some corrupt official simply changed the title. Who can build a building like that and bribe an official? Not just anyone. You need money to build a building and bribe officials, so this chaos was very good for people with money. The same with the post office. Our post office has been privatized and is very profitably held by a Czech Billionair. How did that man buy the post office? Of course it was cheep at the time, and there was corrpution, but the main answer, is that he was able to buy it because he had money to buy it.

I suspect it depends on the kind of capitalist you are dealing with, industrial or financial.

Because while it seems financial capitalists thrive on instability, because this allows them to extract arbitrage, industrial capitalists are more likely to have their supply lines and similar disrupted.

I actually don't think it is that bad for industrial capitalists either. Afterall, a disrupted supply line often just means higher prices once the goods come through. You may be right that there is a distinction here but I think that "industrial capitalists" are rather rare. Few factories are owned by individuals anymore, they are owned by corporations, and those corporations are owned by stock holders. Perhaps direct ownership of factories is bad in times of chaos and that has meant that financial capitalists have gotten richer while industrial capitalists have gone bankrupt. I think that financial capitalists probably thrive best when society is stable for a time, when the capitalists can gather cash, and then unstable for a time, when the capitalists can go on a buying spree, buying things that are not normally for sale such as national post offices, and buying things bellow price.

"I live in Prague, and the instability and corruption following the fall of the iron curtain made many people very rich."

Prague went from one kind of stability - to a different one.

Without the resulting stability - nobody would have been rich.

Yes - I agree - a 'shock' to a system will create winners and losers, arguably, you could say that there is something to gain for the 'winners'.

That said - the cause of the 'fall of the iron curtain' was not 'capitalists' - their power was not nearly sufficient for this.

There was great sociopolitcal upheaval - and I might add most citizens where 'on the whole' good with it.

Of course there is 'change', and sometimes 'shock' - but on the whole - most businesses want stability, decent governance, baseline growth.

McDonald's would love African regimes to be stable and for their citizens to have $$$.

To be clear I didn't mean to say that captialists caused the velvet revolution, I said that they benefited from it. While the post-revolution years were mostly peaceful, I don't think anyone could honestly say that they were stable.

> There was great sociopolitcal upheaval - and I might add most citizens where 'on the whole' good with it.

This is an extremely wrong interpretation of the revolution, which I myself was also a victim of for a long time. Czech people were very much for change, afterall, they were literally occupied by an army that used tanks to keep control https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW3LCclYoz4 (I'm sorry, I cannot find this video with English subtitles, it is the "last radio anouncement" from an independent Czechoslovakia on the day when Russian forces invaded.) The Russians didn't invade a captialist state, they invaded a totalitarian communist one.

The vast majority of Czechs are "good with" the idea of no longer being occupied by the Soviet Union. The majority of them are "good with" the idea of the Czech Republic being a capitalist state. The VAST majority are very much against the current political structure which is mostly manned by people who were in power before the revolution. To say that they are "on the whole good with it" is just wrong. Indeed, there is, on occasion, signs that there might be a second revolution, only, no one is sure which direction that would go (probably not towards communism... ), sadly, if it happens, it will probably in a nationalistic one. The "lets take care of our old people, break away from the EU, and impose strict laws and draconian punishments for anyone who is the slightest bit lazy or corrupt" is popular among a very vocal minority, which might just have the energy to gain power.

EDIT: Just to back myself up a bit with facts, only 2/5ths of the population or 38% thinks that things are better now than they were before the revolution. 17% thinks that things were better then, and the rest aren't so sure either way. That's pretty pathetic, really, when so few people are sure that they are better off now than they were under a totally insane totalitarian state. It's like asking "is it better to have corrupt capitalism or a pile of shit thrown in your face" and most respondents aren't clear on the answer to that question.

At the same time, %66 say that the revolution was a good thing. Afterall, who wants to be ruled by an occupying force?

https://globe24.cz/domov/19542-mame-se-lepe-nez-pred-rokem-1...

"To say that they are "on the whole good with it" is just wrong."

Do you think Czechs would really like to go back to being occupied by the Soviets?

No?

Then they were 'good' with the change, overall.

True, sometimes special corporate interests want more stability than is sane or helpful; so they support dictatorships. But you can't say they've never wanted to off a stable dictatorship, or done so. Note too that U.S. policy toward Saudi Arabia is sharply turning - and no wonder, since the US energy industry is now an exporter and gains from instability and fewer energy supplies coming from the Middle East.

Islamic-inspired terrorism draws a direct lineage from the writings of Sayyid Qutb (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyid_Qutb), an Egyptian civil servant who studied in America and was aghast at how consumerism subversed communal and religious virtues, and even more shocked to see the same transformation occurring in the Arab world. He eventually drew the conclusion that consumerism sequestered people away from reality, and so he came to advocate for terrorist attacks on civilians specifically to force people to look at and confront what he perceived as poisonous Western values.

To say that all those poor misguided young men just need jobs and money misses the point entirely. The problem is with society itself. They yearn for an alternative, but we in the West are too much a part of the system to imagine life outside of it.

Note that his thinking didn't turn militant until he was jailed and tortured by the Egyptian government. That at the time had backing of USA, and thus trained by the CIA.

Yes, and this is vital. Thank you for mentioning this. A lot of radicalization occurs for a reason. People don't just stumble across radical outlets and casually indoctrinate themselves. They are catalyzed first.

His Wikipedia article disagrees with this, saying "Upset that Nasser would not enforce a government based on Islamic ideology, Qutb and other Brotherhood members orchestrated a plot to assassinate the Egyptian president in 1954. The attempt was foiled and Qutb was jailed soon afterwards;"

I guess someone will have to take that up with Adam Curtis...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares

I suppose it could be a chicken and egg situation, I think that some people facing difficulties in life look for answers in religion, and there are more than enough people in the religious communities offering all the answers and it is not just Islam, there are plenty of radicalized people in every religion. As far as the west goes and the consumerism, I tend to agree you and can not help but feel that we in the west are in effect worshiping a proverbial golden bull called the all mighty dollar.

Maybe not - globally, the 1% own just over half of everything. The 99% includes almost everybody everywhere. Even working-class Americans.

Fair enough maybe not 1% but the metric you are using does not exclude us from the 1%, keep in mind that 2.7 billion people are trying to survive on less than 2 dollars a day. Eg, there are 1000 people in a group, one of which has 1 million dollars, 9 others have 100 dollars each and the rest only have 1 dollar each there are still 10 people in the top 1%.

>2.7 billion people are trying to survive on less than 2 dollars a day

2 dollars a day isn't all that little in places like say, India. Sure, they're not going to be living a life of luxury, but it's very different from $2 a day in the US, and you shouldn't have trouble feeding yourself and having shelter with $2 a day in India, which amounts to about Rs.50,000 a year. In fact even though inequality is increasing, a number of studies have confirmed that poverty and extreme poverty have drastically reduced over the past few decades. It still exists of course, but much better than what it used to be.

I found Branko Milanovic's "The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality" to be an eye-opener. Roughly paraphrased, if you're in the top half of the US, your equivalent in India would be the top 1%.

I don't remember if it was that book or something similar I read around the same time, but I have a faint memory of membership in the Indian middle class essentially being "owns a household appliance".

I agree and am pretty sure that at least some of the islamists are people that feel left behind by the west, maybe would like to have a similar live but grow to hate them because they just can't have it and use the religion find likeminded people. And i say that without any elitism. It is similar to trying to understand where all the Trump votes come from when you are more liberal.

Its a bit of a mix as best i can tell.

Those that are recruited in "the west" are younger people straddling two cultures. The one of their immigrant parents, and that of the culture of the community they grow up in. Over time the stress of this life makes them lash out and open for recruitment.

Those from "the east" see their way of life encroached by "westernization" just as much as certain right wing groups in "the west" fret about "islamization". And over time the fear and frustration grows until they become violent.

The original Al-Qaida (every major member is now dead) which planned 9/11 actually didn't feel left behind at all. They were trying to fight change and westernization. I think that most of the current batch of terrorists, however, are just a bunch of primitive drug addicted machos who want to blow things up (and I'm serious about that, go read the Wikipedia articles on the people who have made attacks in Europe lately).

> The original Al-Qaida (every major member is now dead) which planned 9/11 actually didn't feel left behind at all. They were trying to fight change and westernization.

Go read the Wikipedia article about 9/11, they were fighting against the US attacks on Muslims, their influence on local politics, and their support of Israel. Why do people think it takes more than that?

Yes, they didn't like attacks, but "their influence on local politics" goes right into the "change" that I was mentioning that Al-Qaida was fighting against.

Edit: Please try not to tell people to "go read" it comes across as combative. Especially since I have read that article.

I was echoing your use of "go read."

Saying that's change is misleading. It's foreign control they're opposed to, and that has been normal for over a century.

"Could it be that the rise in terror incedents recently may in fact be caused by this inequality and not just radical religious zealots? "

The prosperity of nations is not a zero sum game.

Many of those 'terrorist nations' have ample natural resources, in the way of Oil - and would be prosperous, glorious civilizations were it not for their totalitarian means, and total lack of intelligent social organization.

The USA is not 'rich' because of something the Middle East gives them. The US purchases Oil from some of these nations, giving them massive trade account surpluses that they should be using to build their civilizations. But they don't.

I'd argue the 'root cause' of their failure may actually have a lot to do with their 'cultural ideologies' which are related to their specific local religion. I'm not against religion or Islam, rather pointing out that some flavours may be detrimental to some forms of secular progress.

Surely - the perception of inequality and anger may be a driving factor, but their anger may be misguided. Also - I think many of them understand this - the #1 ire of terrorist groups such as ISIS etc. is not 'The West' - it's what they perceive to be their local tyrannical governments: Saddam, Assad, 'House of Saud' etc..

> The prosperity of nations is not a zero sum game.

Yes, but violence is mostly powered by irrational impulses, at least to get started. It may co-opt reason later in the process, but initially it's just a visceral eruption. So it does not care at all about zero-sum games and whatnot. It only cares that the bastard over'ere seems to have too much stuff and I don't have any.

Yeah, I agree with that. 'Perception of inequality' is perhaps all that matters.

> Many of those 'terrorist nations' have ample natural resources, in the way of Oil - and would be prosperous, glorious civilizations were it not for their totalitarian means, and total lack of intelligent social organization.

And a worrying number of them turned out that way thanks to outside meddling in internal affairs...

Only if you ignore PPP and use exchange rates do you get ~33k/year. However, even then plenty of people in the US make less than that.

The rise in terror is not caused by radical religious zealots. It's caused by bombs raining down everyday on your life from foreign occupation.

This is just as simplistic - and wrong - a view as the one you're opposing.

Well pardon me for my over-sensitive reductionism and not contemplating the geopolitical subtleties of the situation while my town, family, children and everything I can see around me is being flattened by your tax payer funded bombs. Is it still over simplistic now?

Yes

can it be both?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com