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Comment by nilskidoo | Hacker News Reader

The trio of global trade treaties, TISA, TTIP and TPP had small writing permitting larger corporations to ignore or even rewrite international laws should said laws promote regulations. They also had a clause, as Assange himself wrote about, where if a government was doing something which one of these corporations could profit from, then the government was no longer permitted to pursue, lest they be sanctioned and embargoed by every other participating nation-state. I've been saying all along, the deals are dead in name only.

We've passed that sci-fi trope where corporations now wield more authority than governments.

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> where if a government was doing something which one of these corporations could profit from, then the government was no longer permitted to pursue,

I knew those 'trade' deals were full of the most awful stuff, but didn't know about this - I'd be grateful for some kind of source.

This is as good a starting point as any: https://wikileaks.org/ttip/

Could you narrow it down for me? There's some shady looking text in the State-owned Enterprise section, but the legalese is difficult to pierce.

Whenever I see stuff like this, all I can do is choose to believe that concentrated power will always eventually crumble under its own fragility. That's how it's worked so far. AI may change that equation one day, but one has to be able to sleep at night.

No it hasn't concentration of power has led to violence and revolution... at the very least to organized labor. Maybe it makes systems with certain structures fragile, like a despot but we don't have systems like these are are inherently fragile. Delusional to think that things magically fix themselves. AI consolidates power and makes revolt even more difficult once it's realized as something completely automated.

China might collapse under its own weight as it does not have robust systems and the West is looking to hurt its economy to further cause instability, but corporatism elsewhere continues to grow stronger.

> revolution...organized labor

Precisely. The masses have always been able to, eventually, usurp the few. The thing that's made democratic nations like the U.S. so successful is that they harness the power of the many. A diverse system is much more fault-tolerant than a centralized one. The minds and wills of a free populace, competing but also cooperating, have always been stronger than the minds of a minority which controls a populace. What's best for people has traditionally been aligned with what's effective, in this respect. Empires always fall.

But, yes, AI could change that. We'll see how it plays out.

It's not AI that's going to change that, it's mass surveillance and ubiquitous proprietary software. AI may contribute to it, but it's the fact that we've given away control over our life and our society that's the real issue.

People comprise more value than physical resources. People can innovate, adapt, create. Those that hold the value hold the power. Any situation where the minority is in control has always been temporary historically, because of this fundamental fact. It may take years, generations, or centuries, but things have always gravitated back towards balance.

The only thing that could disrupt this is AI, because it could conceivably allow a single powerful person to have the equivalent of an army of perfect (cognitive) servants. Our minds have always been our most valuable and exclusive resource. If that status quo is disrupted, all bets are off.

Of course nobody actually knows what AI will do to the world. Maybe it'll allow elites to do away with the rest of humanity. Maybe it'll take control of society for our own good. Maybe it'll never actually be able to duplicate our mental plasticity and there's nothing to worry about. Maybe global warming will end civilization before we reach the singularity. Who knows. I simply choose not to spend much time thinking that far ahead, because I'm not really in a position to do anything about it.

It’s a nice screed, but history has shown, time and time again, that monarchs and empires are the most stable form of government.

But the progress of our system has been to go from diverse to less diverse. Ever since 1776, we have become ever more centralized. We went from state rights to federal power. From many political parties to a persistent duopoly controlled by the same people.

Also, the masses have never usurped the few. No time in human history has the masses overthrown anything. The proles are never a threat to the powerful. The few have always been usurped by the other few.

The british in the US weren't overthrow by the masses. They were overthrown by the elite few. The same thing with the romanovs in russia. It was the well funded, highly educated and highly motivated portion of the elites who overthrew the romanovs.

The masses rising up is a romantic myth. It isn't real.

What makes the US so successful has nothing to do with democracy. It has everything to do with colonization, resource acquisition and centralized power. We conquered a continent and much of the world. We dominate the world's trade and currency. We are the greatest empire in human history. That's why we are successful.

The same thing with european democracies. They still manage a large remnant of their former colonies via business and political domination. Even military domination such as libya, mali, middle east, etc. Heck, a bunch of african countries' central banks are directly controlled by the french.

You can also, y'know, vote.

Meh, nah. You can vote to further validate the legitimacy of an existing power structure. But voting, by itself, doesn't necessarily function as an act that reorganizes power structures. As an obtuse example, does voting in Russia or Venezuela help to reorganize power? At a certain point those that bestow the gift of voting upon a population also have the ability to limit the actual result of that vote.

Yes, the 2018 election in Venezuela is a major reason that we are looking at a potential transition of power... If no one ever voted, low voter turnout in 2018 would not have sparked an international backlash which has supported the rise of the opposition.

The one and only reason there is a backlash against Venezuela is because the US is exerting its clout. And, in turn, the one and only reason the US cares about Venezuela is because the Venezuelan government dropped the petrodollar in late 2017 (I mention the date to emphasize this event predates the election), swapping to the euro and yuan.

The petrodollar plays a major role in sustaining the US economy and consequently moving away from it is a perceived as a direct attack on the US. Other countries that have moved away from the petrodollar include Iraq, Libya, and Iran. Notably - these countries all moved away before being invaded (and Iran has yet to be invaded). In other words, their moving away was not a consequence of our invasions but rather our invasion was a consequence of their dropping the dollar. Saudi Arabia is one of the most belligerent and despotic nations on the planet, but since they keep to the petrodollar like their life depends on it (which it does), we're best friends forever. They even held the chair of the UN human rights council. Great guys, them.

There are sham elections, unrepresentative "regimes", and all other sorts of nastiness all throughout the world. Nobody cares. Unless they happen to have something somebody else wants, then it's time to go full-on won't anybody think of the children?

Looking at the situation in Venezuela, I do often think about Iran. Like, on the surface, they seem to be in a similar situation geopolitically. I would think, that if Venezuelan regime displayed at least the same level of competency as Iranian, they wouldn't have been in such a mess.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/03/why-us...

Jimmy Carter: "As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world."

Oh wait, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Venezuela "The proven oil reserves in Venezuela are recognized as the largest in the world, totaling 297 billion barrels (4.72×1010 m3) as of 1 January 2014.", never mind, let's bomb them.

2012 elections are not what we are talking about here.

Who is 'we'? The Venezuelans already elected their leader. This is a brazen coup attempt by the US to destabilize a democratically elected government and install a puppet oligarchy.

The UN rapporteur for Venezuela has a report for anyone interested [1][2]. Venezuela has an advanced election system, better than the US according to many, and all elections have been monitored by multiple global organizations including the carter center.

Michael Bolton and other leading US administration officials have already admitted this is about oil. Recognizing a self declared president with no elections and openly orchestrating coups is NOT supporting democracy. This is a violation of the UN charter and a mockery of democracy, rule of law and human rights.

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii5MlQgGXyk

Here you're arguing nonsense. Venezuela does not have a functional democracy under the Maduro government and the declaration of Guaido as interim president was absolutely an internal constitutional matter. The National Assembly (the equivalent of the U.S House of representatives basically) of the country, which is the only legislative body in the government where anything like a legitimate political opposition exists, declared Guaido interim president under Article 233 of the country's legal constitution, until a fully supervised and open election could be held due to the grossly rigged nature of the most recent Maduro victory, which had itself been approved by Maduro's own party-loyal replacement to the National Assembly, this replacement being called the "National Constituent Assembly". Maduro had originally disavowed the National Assembly in 2017 in favor of his specially created Constituent National Assembly because the legitimate National Assembly wouldn't allow him to replace the standing constitution of Venezuela with a new one that allowed him to stay in power indefinitely.

And you call this shit show an advanced election system?

Imagine if Trump tried to replace the U.S constitution, had this blocked by the House, then disavowed and replaced the House with his own special congress of purely loyal republicans, then had a rigged election to make himself president a third time, with the majority of the original, real U.S House declaring him illegitimate as a result, causing him to then declare them liberal-sponsored meddlers and further try to marginalize them.. Well, sort of the same thing in effect, but because the Maduro government is leftist, somehow this is considered perfectly alright and democratic by far too many people...

You clearly haven't read the links from the UN itself that comprehensively debunk these kind of uninformed propaganda.

Over 150 observers from 30 countries [1] observed the elections and declared it free and fair so you are spreading uninformed propaganda.

For those interested in the truth please watch the in depth interview with the UN rapporteur [2] to understand what is happening on the ground. Normal people will take the word of the UN rapporteur and multiple independent observers. For those merely interested in abusing the lives of millions of innocent people, 'democracy' and 'human rights' to further greed filled agendas the truth does not matter.

[1] https://fair.org/home/media-delegitimize-venezuelan-election...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii5MlQgGXyk

> You clearly haven't read the links from the UN itself that comprehensively debunk these kind of uninformed propaganda.

I've been all over un.org. I can't find any of these links. I don't think the UN has even investigated the elections yet, and they never actually sent observers. Proposals to start an investigation seem to be stuck in the security council.

I have to comment on that first link you provided. This appears to be the most biased article I've come across with regards to the elections.

There is no mention of candidates that were banned from running (including, but not limited to Henrique Capriles, Leopoldo López, Antonio Ledezma, Freddy Guevara, David Smolansky, María Corina Machado, and Miguel Rodríguez Torres);

No mention of unconstitutional spending of public funds on maduro's campaign;

No mention of parties being disqualified and forced to re-register weeks before the election;

No mention of the fact that some political parties refused to run because of all of this;

No mention of the limitations placed on international observers, OR the fact that no international observers were reported to be present

No mention of protests rejecting the election;

No mention that Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Saint Lucia, stated prior to the elections that they would not recognize the results;

etc.

Instead, the article focuses on accusing the "western media" of being propaganda... because English-speaking news outlets use the word "amid" (why this is bad is never established). Yet it's not just the media that cast doubt on the election. Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, refused to recognize the election results and called for new, democratic elections.

I also love how MacLeod made a claim about an unnamed originator of a story about how expensive condoms were... and then linked to a reddit AMA featuring none other than MacLeod himself. In the AMA he makes the same claim with the same wording. He actually makes a few of the same claims as he answers questions that were never asked.

This whole article seems to be nonsense. I haven't previously heard of "Fair", but they seem to be named ironically.

If you want a less biased view of the elections, I'd start with the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Venezuelan_presidential_e...

There is no need to speculate about bias. There is a link to a full hour interview above with the UN rapporteur for Venezuela about the facts on the ground. What is a more credible source?

UN reports are routinely used by the US, Europe, the global media and many others as credible sources.

Given there is a history of illegal regime change and installing puppet regimes in South America that cause suffering to millions of people there is a clear need for anyone genuinely concerned about human rights and democracy to be wary of self serving interests using propaganda to further their own agendas.

First and foremost. You mentioned "links from the UN itself that comprehensively debunk" what the other commenter was saying. After searching the UN site, I gave you an opportunity to produce them. Where are they?

> There is no need to speculate about bias.

I'm not really speculating as much as making an explicit assertion.

> What is a more credible source?

IMO, Anything at the bottom of the wikipedia article would qualify as more credible than a single person's opinion on a video blog channel. A video blog channel that has an obvious narrative. I mean... did you watch the video? Around half of it cuts away from the interview to present talking points and infographics.

It's also not enough to simply state that all of these media outlets and nations (along with millions of people inside Venezuela itself) are propagandists with an agenda. That's just FUD.

> UN reports are routinely used by the US, Europe, the global media and many others as credible sources.

The UN hasn't investigated the election, much less released a report on the topic.

> Given there is a history of illegal regime change

And given the overwhelming evidence of foul play in the Venezuelan election, those genuinely concerned about human rights and democracy should be extremely wary of those seeking to downplay the severity of the events.

Here is a link to the UN press release already linked in the comment so there was no need to search.

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

Here is the interview of the UN rapporteur, this is not 'some single person'. This is the official UN rapporteur for Venezuela who is on the ground and provides a lot of facts and details in the interview.

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii5MlQgGXyk

No one can take the position that they trust a Wikipedia page over the official UN representative in the region so it seems like you are not interested in the truth.

> Here is a link... https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...

That link does not "comprehensively debunk" anything shadowprofile76 was saying. It doesn't address the validity of the elections (or the legal ramifications for maduro's later actions). Where is that link?

Also, what can this accomplish once I click the link and find out it's irrelevant to the immediate discussion? It's very likely that you and I are the only ones reading this, so who is going to be fooled?

> Here is the interview

That vlog was already linked. Do you have some response to what I said about it?

> No one can take the position that they trust a Wikipedia page

I never suggested I trust a wikipedia page. As per usual, I scroll to the bottom and start clicking on the references.

> the official UN representative in the region

He's not an official UN representative. He is independent of the UN.

> it seems like you are not interested in the truth

What exactly is the point of making this statement? Do you think I'll suddenly "see the light"? Do you think you'll demoralize me so I'll shut up? What do you hope to accomplish?

Doesn't this apply to the 2 party system in the US too with both republicans and democrats following the same neoliberal policies over the last 40 years?

Democracy only works with effective choice and at the moment we seem to have the motions of choice but no real change.

Elizabeth Warren recently proposed an amendment to abolish the electoral college. Would that qualify for you as reorganizing the power structures in a positive way?

No. Actually getting such an amendment passed might qualify (and won't happen), but proposing an amendment does not.

Oh God. It's like Futuramas clone candidates. I mean trump was a godsend as far as "not a politician", but... One would have hoped for more. But hey he's doing OK.

Anyway, voting isn't a silver bullet.

Voting isn't any sort of bullet. Voting is a pacifier. A periodic release valve that let's people blow off steam and think they've done something.

I do, every two years. That's still not most of the time.

    > concentrated power will always eventually crumble under its own fragility.

That's plausible, but how long is "eventually"? I mean, the Roman empire "eventually" crumbled after ~1000 years.

How long have we been waiting for North Korea to collapse? The Soviet Union already collapsed, but what do we have now in Russia? China appears to be ascendant and simultaneously accelerating towards a nightmarish Orwellian dystopia with no signs of ever slowing down.

We can't afford to just wait for these things to run their course like a case of the flu. It requires will-power and a bit of courage.

Minor correction: the Roman empire crumbled after only a few hundred years.

Rome split. The Eastern Roman Empire, e.g. Byzantium, lasted much longer than the Western Roman Empire. Although towards the end it was quite pathetic. It's decline was long and thorough.

Incidentally some people count the Roman Republic when talking about how long the Roman Empire lasted, which is technically incorrect, but in a sense maybe it's not. Most of the expansionism was during the Republic period, and the demotion of the Roman Senate is an example of how collapse of centralized power isn't so immediately inevitable, don't you think?

> Rome split. The Eastern Roman Empire, e.g. Byzantium, lasted much longer than the Western Roman Empire. Although towards the end it was quite pathetic. [Its] decline was long and thorough.

In that case it crumbled after ~1500 years.

> Incidentally some people count the Roman Republic when talking about how long the Roman Empire lasted, which is technically incorrect, but in a sense maybe it's not. Most of the expansionism was during the Republic period, and the demotion of the Roman Senate is an example of how collapse of centralized power isn't so immediately inevitable, don't you think?

Now we're at 1700, 1800 years.

Well crispyambulance said ~1000 years. That squiggly line means approximately, you can nitpick with him how approximate you want to be and which start and crumble dates you want to pick. Although he might point out that from the start of the Roman Republic to the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire gets you quite close to 1000 years (the overthrow of the 7th legendary king in 509BC; and Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of Western Rome, up until 476 AD.)

Honestly this is a silly thing to nitpick, particularly when we all seem to agree that power structures can be virtually immortal on human timescales.

Not saying this is true of the previous commenter, but I also think that some people confuse the couple of hundred years of Pax Romana as being the entirety of the Roman Empire instead of a relatively small part.

And it all has a name: Corporatism

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

We're actively transfering national sovereignty in chunks to organizations that can by design, as their sole purpose is to make money, turn against the interests of the people of a country in a switch.

I don’t think that Wikipedia article is about the same topic.

I think what you mean is Corporatocracy or Plutocracy

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

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

We've passed that sci-fi trope where corporations now wield more authority than governments.

I have a better relationship with corporations more than governments. A corporation has never harassed me at an airport when trying to leave. If I don't like MacDonalds I can... stop eating at MacDonalds. If I don't like the services the state provides I have to physically remove myself.

If you don't like Google and Apple you can't stop using both of them. If you don't like your local ISP you probably can't stop using it. The free market only gives consumers power over corporations when those consumers - through democracy - keep them from amassing too much power via regulatory bodies. Some people act like the government is the threat, but in a democracy the government is the only thing that truly gives you any power.

I don't agree. Which is more likely for you to end up in jail? Not buying an iPhone or stop paying your taxes?

I was once served eviction papers by Louisville police over going a full winter without gas in my apartment. It wasn't that I neglected a bill, but that thanks to other obligations I knew I couldn't afford it, so I never opened an account. The landlords understood until the badges showed up, and then wouldn't return my deposit. So I was punished, half a week in jail followed by a couple of homeless months, for not being a customer. It absolutely happens.

And debtors prisons are still a thing: https://www.aclu.org/issues/smart-justice/sentencing-reform/...

I don’t understand why this sort of thing doesn’t permit US citizens to seek asylum as political refugees in slightly less fckdup countries.

Because opting out of consumerism isn't a freedom that is recognized officially anywhere, nor is it protected like religion or similar things.

> I was once served eviction papers by Louisville police over going a full winter without gas in my apartment. It wasn't that I neglected a bill, but that thanks to other obligations I knew I couldn't afford it, so I never opened an account. The landlords understood until the badges showed up, and then wouldn't return my deposit. So I was punished, half a week in jail followed by a couple of homeless months, for not being a customer. It absolutely happens.

You were not evicted for not being a customer. You were (probably, since I don't know any details of your case) evicted under §156.181 of Louisville's code[1] which requires the capability to heat a dwelling to exist in order for that dwelling to be occupiable. If you have gas heat, that means needing to maintain gas service. You can't waive this requirement by agreement with your landlord because slumlords would abuse that power imbalance to skirt their obligations to keep shit working.

[1] http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/Kentucky/loukymet...

Legal mumbo-jumob guaranteeing customers for utilities companies. It was obviously livable as I was there for 5 months altogether without issue.

Your link on debtors prison is referring to people not paying their government imposed fines, which seems the opposite of your point.

We forgot/neglected to make the last payment to AT&T when we switched to Comcast. I am not so worried about the police sending me to AT&T jail. My unaddressed car registration is a different story...

Not clear what happened in your case, the Gas Company notified the police to evict you? Is the Gas Company following a law in which they are required to tell the police?

The government is the one writing the laws in that case.

If there were no government, you would still have the same problems, only now unrestrained corporations would be at the root of those problems.

Government and Corps are no different in the end. They all seek to perpetuate and consolidate their power over the plebs.

> Government and Corps are no different in the end.

The only difference between them is that a democracy, at least in principle, exists to serve the people. Corporations expressly exist only to serve themselves. Democracies may face corruption, but there's not even a principle to be corrupted in the case of corporations; in a free market they have no accountability to society.

I suppose you could call co-ops "democratic corporations", in which case governments and corporations are exactly the same, but from that perspective today's corporations would be analogous to oligarchies; they exist to serve their small circle of shareholders. So forgive me if I choose to put my faith in a flawed democratic government instead of oligarchical corporations.

No, I'm with you on this as well.

I trust an elected government far more than any for-profit organisation.

I'm just saying, both are ripe for abuse by tyrants, plutocrats and oligarchs. Corporations moreso though, for sure.

Politicians are paid to push the laws that they do, and not by taxpayers.

I'm not sure why you're getting down votes. The police power of the state is multitudes more powerful than corporations (who unless are outright monopolies, will do everything in their power to keep you as a happy customer since you have a choice).

Let's have AWS accidentally decrypt a few more dozen terabytes of DoD datum and then decide.

The only reason corporations haven't behaved in this way is that at the moment, they can't.

Given the power, they absolutely can, and will.

How would it be in a corporations interest to abuse either their employers or customers in a competitive market? Last time I checked, I have many product and employment choices (with the exception of select industries ruled by cronyism). Last time I checked, Stalinist USSR murdered far more people than McDonalds or Ford.

>> in a competitive market

Not all markets are competitive, and corporations that are operating at the state level are often effectively monopolies.

I don't disagree. But tech is one of, if not the most, competitive sector right now.

> How would it be in a corporations interest to abuse either their employers or customers in a competitive market?

Ask AT&T and Verizon. Or Facebook. Or Monsanto. Or Nestle why they behave the way they do towards their customers.

You guys have WAY too much faith the benign passivity of publicly-traded companies. There is a LOT of money to be made in price-fixing, cartels and customer abuse.

And I'm not sure why you're bringing the USSR into this. This is almost a Godwin-like reprieve for those with no awareness of the 10-20 million people a year who die as a result of capitalism and capitalist policies, globally.

How about the US itself? It has murdered almost 20 million people since the end of World War 2 in its efforts to maintain its economic hegemony and take revenge on countries that leave the petrodollar.

The US, most aggressive and expansionist nation of the 20th and 21st centuries, is a capitalist country that can't even provide many of its citizens with clean drinking water.

"Capitalism is the worst system, apart from all the others" is a common refrain amongst those capitalism actually serves. They make no mention of the lives destroyed when a capitalist wants what you have.

But we move off topic.

I don't disagree with the bad behavior by the US since WWII (and period before it as well).

But you'll need to provide a source for:

> the 10-20 million people a year who die as a result of capitalism and capitalist policies

And are you so sure those are capitalistic policies, or cronyism (the two are often conflated by the hn crowd)?

I'll find sources for my numbers after work, but I recall:

- 8 million due to lack of clean water

- 7.5 million due to hunger

- 3 million from preventable disease

- the millions killed by 'friendly dictators' and their regimes, like Pinochet.

- the unrecorded deaths as a result of national or global depressions, bankruptcies and debt (don't know where to get the numbers for this though)

Capitalism is a global system at this point, apart from the odd hold-out like North Korea etc. A lot of the deaths from lack of clean water and disease are attributable to things like the privatisation of water supply in Bolivia:

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

Then we have Chiquita, Coca-Cola etc. hiring miltias to crack down on labour movements in Central and South America resulting in countless murders. How did they get away with it?

Most of the deaths caused by capitalism are due something called 'structural violence':

It refers to a form of violence wherein some social structure or social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs.

So, clean water, healthcare and access to medicine. Something that capitalism has failed spectacularly at.

If you're going to say the crony capitalism we have now isn't capitalism then that's as much a No True Scotsman fallacy as people who say true communism has never been tried.

What we have now is capitalism by the very definition of the word. The cronyism inherent in it isn't some transforming influence, it's part of the core.

I was going to write up a massive post but this guys seems to sum it up pretty well if you fancy a read:

https://www.quora.com/What-has-killed-more-people-communism-...

Ok then, what's your suggestion for fixing this or an alternative system?

The first step would be admitting that capitalism is far from perfect and that we should start looking to change it.

Of course, a sustained decades-long propaganda campaign has been waged to portray capitalism as not only 'the natural way' but also as being 'simply the only option', as if it is axiomtically good and natural.

Some have even tried to spin it as capitalism being a core part of the human condition, and fighting against it resulting in things like the millions dead under communist economic mismanagement.

I personally think you'd have to be a moron to believe that capitalism is the same as simple trade which humans have been doing for millenia, especially considering capitalism is a man-made economic concept that originated in the 1700's and has an actual dictionary definition; but it seems we are surrounded by the gullible.

I don't have an alternative system ready for you. I'm not a political scientist or a revolutionary. That doesn't mean I can't see when something isn't working for everybody and needs improvement.

The biggest disservice we have done to ourselves is to believe free-market fundamentalists like Hayek, Friedman, Thatcher ansd Reagan when they told us that there is simply no alternative.

Friedman's monetarism has been widely discredited as bullshit by now. It's time to question the rest of the neoliberal ideology.

Step 1: Full-on civil war and overthrowing the federal government. People are kidding themselves thinking it will demand anything less.

No need to speculate, just look at the past behavior of the era of the East India Trading Company and you’ll see that corporations have fought in wars, applied force, basically ran the Atlantic slave trade, etc.

yeah I thought I might drop in and make a well reasoned point in good faith. the shower of down-votes shows me I shouldn't have bothered (:

HN is a bit of an echo chamber, unfortunately.

Yeah, for a place with such a high concentration of smart folks, its more often than not, about the "feelz" on here...

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