Hacker News Reader

Comment by pitaj | Hacker News Reader

History shows that the "fundamental change to power relations" is just a shift from moneyed interests to political/bureaucratic interests. Which is worse because while moneyed interests have power money can buy, political/bureaucratic interests have the power of state coercion.

"They will go as far as to kill people for this" is rich coming from someone preaching Marxism, for which millions have been murdered.

View on HN

How is the government worse than the corporation or billionaire for coercion?

Libertarians always try to convince us that the corporate boot tastes so much better than the governmental one, but they both taste like leather to me and I at least have a say, however small, on the government.

Not in any communist society I've ever heard of.

[flagged]

How do Indians feel about rule under the British East India Company from the 17th-19th centuries?

This is a ridiculous oversimplification of complex historical processes. The biggest change to power relations by far were the bourgeois revolutions, which ostensibly shifted "political/bureaucratic" interests to "moneyed interests," which is quite literally the opposite of what you're saying. At any rate, the dichotomy is completely misleading since "moneyed" interests and "political/bureaucratic" interests are not at all mutually exclusive; in reality, they are virtually synonymous within the capitalist system. Also the notion that "moneyed" interests do not possess the power of state coercion must be some kind of perverse joke. Do you not even have a cursory knowledge of history? There are so many instances of money equating to state coercion that it's mind boggling anyone would say this with a straight face. Do you not know what a pinkerton is? Are you not paying attention to what the current president is doing both domestically and overseas? The idea that any advocate of capitalism would get on their high horse and moralize about Marxism is pathetic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com