I just don’t understand how they can be so shameless about it. For instance, one single paper on Phys. Rev. Lett. costs $35 without a subscription. $35 for a few pages of PDF; ~100% margin for the publisher and the publisher alone. (And the publisher here, APS, is not-for-profit.) Who the fuck came up with this kind of pricing?
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-b...
Then they wash themselves with philanthropy and everyone praises them. The masses are easy to steer and have no interest in the esoteric power structures or foreign worldviews of the absolute elite.
In all serious the idea that the West is not profoundly corrupt in its own way is ludicrous.
Were it all went wrong is not clear. I'd say probably the first Gulf War era was an inflection point but not a start.
Perhaps the Kennedy Assassination or the literal defenestration of former Secretary of Defense Forestal.