Hacker News Reader

Comment by andrekandre | Hacker News Reader

> because Google is rich, they are Better. The teeming masses of the unwashed must be yolked by their betters. Left to their own devices, the public would destroy themselves and it is the responsibility of Google and other gigacorps to create culture in order to preserve civilization

(probably an unpopular opinion, but...) sounds like neoliberalism

View on HN

Really? It is almost the textbook definition of Conservatism. Not like 'Republicans are conservative', but the political science sort of Conservatism that ruled the world for centuries, the ideology that supports monarchies, dictatorships, theocracies, etc. The belief that the rights of the state (or church or similar) are primary, that some people are 'special' in a way that destines them to lead while the majority are destined to follow because they are constitutionally incapable of anything else. A refutation of that was the meaning of "all men are created equal" in the Declaration of Independence which was the first official codification of Liberalism. Liberalism then conquered the world, but I imagine there's nothing absolute in place that would prevent it from re-emerging.

well, neoliberalism is a weird thing because it means different things to different people, but wikipedia puts it thusly[1]:

> economic liberalization policies such as privatization, austerity, deregulation, free trade and reductions in government spending in order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society

basically how “gigacorps” rule society and public needs to be lead by private institution because they can’t rule themselves fits very much (in my opinion) with neoliberal thinking... and in more modern times neoliberal thinking very much has an anti-democratic and more capital-centered (or you could say elitist) orientation...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

[edit] just to be clear, what i mean to say is that neoliberalism shouldn’t be confused with classical liberalism even if they have similar origins, with neoliberalism being more closer to the conservative ideal economically (not socially per se)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com