“Small comic based on the amazing words of Ursula K. Le Guin”.
SCOTUS just ruled that US presidents have the divine right of kings.
Hot take (not entirely serious):
Now that Presidents can’t be prosecuted for official acts that are crimes, Biden should enact Project 2025 EARLY give himself unitary executive power, and refuse to leave office.
This would either destroy the country, save the country, or force SCOTUS to reconsider their ruling.
Of course he could just deem the imbalance on SCOTUS a threat to national security, and write an official law saying that all major parties must be equally repressented by the judges on there (a one out, one in law).
That would also work, and run less risk of tearing the country apart.
That isn’t how p2025 works, but in theory…he could do something a lot like it. While it is better than the other guy, it would be a deeply fucked precedent…
From this day forward, every day that Biden doesn’t have the Republican judges killed is a betrayal of democracy.
He can’t because it was tossed to the lower court to be put on ice until the election decides how they should rule.
Not to be downer, but there are people literally thinking Donald Trump is the second coming of Christ.
If anything, I’m more concerned with folks like Jamie Dimon and Satya Nadella and Andy Jassy. People who have trillions of dollars of capital at their command exert immense influence over my quality of life. Arguably much more so than any king or high priest or even any American president.
We talk about Divine Right of Kings like its a thing that came and went, but consider how a guy like Elon Musk has accrued phenomenal amounts of wealth and authority. Consider how people see him. And how he sees himself. Its chilling to consider how much power some of these people wield and how blind we all are to their intentions.
I think you can be concerned by both. All these examples are of people that can exert and incredible amount of power through their respective means.
I read intense concern about the results of the next election, without seeing anything approaching the comparative concern for a private monopoly of real estate, a mass privatization of our postal and shipping system, or the horrifying prospect of a computerized administrative state run out of Microsoft’s digital basement.
If you want to talk about the Divine Right of Kings, it should be noted how much of that authority was accrued through mystifying the mechanisms of authority. The modern capitalist state reinvents mysticism through contracts, borders, and advanced technologies, while working towards the same fundamental ends.
Kings and Priests would have plotzed at the power afforded by a credit card company or mortgage lender or OS vendor over one of its clients. And yet these are powers we hand over to modern capitalist institutions without a second thought.
I appreciate the perspective but nothing here says we can’t be coscerbed by both positions (or all sides) of power.
I don’t want kings or monopolies, or either by any other name. No need to split hairs on it.
I would also argue that “we hand powers over to modern capitalist institutions without a second thought” is a pretty loaded sentence. Who’s doing that? Me? You? It’s not like someone asked us. Sounds pretty dismissive to assume people are acting outside of their better interest.
I don’t want kings or monopolies
Its not really a matter of what you want. These are systemic issues, not personal choices.
I would also argue that “we hand powers over to modern capitalist institutions without a second thought” is a pretty loaded sentence.
Its a consequence of growing up in a world that functions in a particular way. Adopting the tools of a society means putting out substantially less effort for survival than trying to cut across them. Ask any homeless vagrant how easy it is not to have a bank account or to get by without a job in a commercial business or state institution.
It’s not like someone asked us.
You work within the system because you fear the consequences of transgression. Nobody has to spell out why you can’t squat in an empty apartment room or wander through a grocery store grazing out of the produce section. You pay your credit card balance and your car note because you know what happens if you miss too many payments, not because some repo man or loan shark has to spell it out for you.
Sounds pretty dismissive to assume people are acting outside of their better interest.
When you’re under the gun, its in your best interest for the other guy not to pull the trigger.
I see you’re picking and choosing what to try and call out here, but you dont have any clear call to action. You’re just being obtuse. If I’m wrong, by all means, spell it out, but otherwise it’s not particularly helpful.
you dont have any clear call to action
There isn’t a clear path forward. It’s a complex problem that is made deliberately intractable by the people who benefit from the current system.
I read an interesting take on some site and it said that we are leaving Capitalism for Feudalism where the kings are now big Companies.
Kind of. American Proletarians have a unique position of enjoying the benefits of a super-exploited class of domestic immigrants paid lower wages via threat of deportation, and Imperialistic hegemony, but are also enslaved by vast amounts of debt. This is very different from standard Capitalism, but not quite feudalism. It depresses the revolutionary potential of the American Proletariat for as long as Imperialism is the status quo.
I don’t really fit in that well here at times because I don’t consider Capitalism as having anything to do with governance. Capitalism is a market system that uses competition to drive efficiency of creation of satisfaction of needs and luxuries both. If your democratic system of laws is being leveraged by highly efficient non-state entities, then you should really fix that shit, but fixing it doesn’t require abolishing private property nor would that end corruption.
Kings never went away, they just changed to a different form and name to remain accepted in society, as the ones with the crowns ended up in the gallows.
This isn’t good historical analysis. The feudal class society, with its aristocracy, church and peasants, was highly rigid in terms of class mobility. Peasants stayed peasants and aristocrats stayed aristocrats. The current dominant class, the capitalist owners, exert their power not by god-given rights over the population, but by legal control of the means of production. The current exploited class, the workers, aren’t tied to a lord anymore and pay tributes in kind on exchange for land and protection, but instead are “free” to work where they want for a payment in cash, and unable for the most part to have ownership of the means of production they themselves work.
Kings have disappeared, classes in society haven’t
Up until the last part I thought your point was going to be “but now we have class mobility”. Yeah, we don’t 😫 freedom is an illusion for the most part, but a convenient one
I read the comic and was like “didn’t Le Guin say something similar” than I read the subtitle and apparently, I was right
The comic’s author should have add the proper quote.
I mean that’s the rub right? Enlightenment liberalism clawed its way out of the corpse of feudalism. Marx assumed communism would do the same thing to the corpse of capitalism. So far he’s just been wrong, at least in terms of the revolutionary/vanguardism model. That’s why there’s been an entire century of revision to that model to incorporate more democratic forward values. It’s just you average internet leftist refuses to acknowledge this, because the fan service isn’t as good.
Part of the problem is that, while Marx writes well regarding the economic flaws of capitalism, he isn’t as good at writing about the politics of change.
When induced by the body politic, we see that some of the economic surplus can be reallocated to the workers provided there is political pressure. It can come in the form of state backed rights, progressive taxation, and even direct welfare payments.
It probably isn’t the perfect system Marx envisioned, but enlightened liberalism is able to make subtle shifts over time in a way that absolute monarchies can’t.
What problems are there with the solutions he gives? Welfare Capitalism solves none of the problems with Capitalism Marx describes.
In what manner has Marx been wrong? Where in the history of Marxism has democracy not been core to the central ideas of it, especially when compared to Capitalism?
Divine right of kings lasted for a long long long time, and caused the deaths of untold millions
Millions of deaths compared to what alternative? The difficulty with attributing causes in history is that we have no ability to conduct controlled experiments.
“Listen, the Crusades seemed bad, sure. And the Mongolian hordes did kill a lot of people. And maybe the globe spanning feudal industrialization of Victorian Era England leading headlong into a pair of World Wars decimated whole continents. But hear me out. Maybe coulda been worse?”
If you’re going to propose a communist paradise as an alternative to human-sacrificing Bronze Age god-kings, I’m going to call you out as being a little bit unrealistic. Government isn’t just an idea, it’s a technology, and it relies on other technologies (communication, record-keeping, organization) to function.
The kinship networks of pre-agrarian indigenous groups worked just fine when everyone knew each other. Where things started getting difficult is when agriculture paved the way for population explosions.
If you’re going to propose a communist paradise as an alternative
Claiming that paradise is preferable to purgatory is not the same thing as knowing the road out of hell.
The kinship networks of pre-agrarian indigenous groups worked just fine when everyone knew each other.
One of the most effective methods for instituting an enduring state of capitalist exploitation is alienating you from your neighbors.
In contrast to a monarchy, where people cannot choose their leader, in capitalism people can choose from which company they buy, or even create their own.
As another person already pointed out, these are obviously two different categories.
The question then is, why do people choose the way they do, both when buying and when running a company? To me it seems, they don’t because of some external pressure (like monarchy requires).
The point can be summed up as a question: Why don’t people run (more) non-capitalist services and productions, and why don’t they prefer them when looking to satisfy their demand?
These non-capitalist things exist, it’s certainly possible. But as far as I know, they are all very niche. Like a communal kitchen, some solidary agriculture or housing project. Heck, entire villages of this kind exist.
So the alternative is there, but it requires actual commitment and work. I don’t see how capitalism could be abolished in an armed uprising (in contrast to monarchy). But it can be replaced by alternative projects. Partially. Why are they so small and few?
♫ monopoly duopoly oligopoly cartel ♫
♪ anti-trust, pork barrel, propaganda lobbying ♪
♫ economies of scale, information asymmetry, regulatory capture and personal responsibility ♫
♪ unions, pinkertons, labor theory of value and the CIA ♪
♫ rent seeking, georgism, tax incentive, scarcity ♫
♪ free trade, minimum wage, petrodollar and the MIC ♪
♫ we didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world’s been turning ♫
provided as is, no warranty in regard to serving any particular rhyme or meter, express or implied, consult a licensed physician before attempting to sing along
This is my personal opinion without any real evidence than my experience and knowledge of what I read somewhere:
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People are stupid and lazy mostly. The education is going down for most industrial countries. Changing habits is stressful and avoided if possible.
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Manipulation works. Media and advertisements successfully change people behaviour without them noticing. If you put enough money into a campaign people think they are responsible for your co2 emissions.
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As long as you don’t drive people too fast and too deep into an existential crisis they will tolerate a lot!
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The system is rigged. People who are honest and social are pushed down. While greedy and lying people are being pushed on top.
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Why are people stupid and lazy? Is this a new thing? Why are conditions worsening?
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Correct.
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Correct.
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Kinda vibes-based but strikes the target. It’s less that lying is encouraged, but that profit drives the system and money greases its wheels. Follow the dollar.
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The question then is, why do people choose the way they do, both when buying and when running a company? To me it seems, they don’t because of some external pressure (like monarchy requires).
The ideas that people have are shaped by their Material Conditions, and people generally act in their best interests. People will buy what is available in the market, and Capitalists work to accumulate more and more money in an M-C-M’ circuit.
The point can be summed up as a question: Why don’t people run (more) non-capitalist services and productions, and why don’t they prefer them when looking to satisfy their demand?
These are 2 questions.
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People generally don’t run Socialist services as frequently because in the framework of Capitalism, it is excessively difficult to gain the Capital necessary to start one, and furthermore the people with access to Capital continue to act in their own interests and accumulate more profit off of ownership.
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People do not care where their commodities come from, largely, as they work for their income and thus their access is limited by the money they have.
These non-capitalist things exist, it’s certainly possible. But as far as I know, they are all very niche. Like a communal kitchen, some solidary agriculture or housing project. Heck, entire villages of this kind exist.
This is known as Mutual Aid, which is a big cornerstone of Anarchism. The issue is that Anarchism generally relies on individuals making the right decisions due to their horizontal structures and has issues with scaling horizontally. These structures tend to have great success locally, such as Food Not Bombs feeding people, but without strong organization scaling becomes difficult and action becomes unfocused.
So the alternative is there, but it requires actual commitment and work. I don’t see how capitalism could be abolished in an armed uprising (in contrast to monarchy). But it can be replaced by alternative projects. Partially. Why are they so small and few?
Why don’t you think Capitalism could be abolished via revolution? It’s been done before.
Secondly, it is not simply capable of being replaced entirely via parallel systems because that depends on individuals outcompeting the immense resources of the Bourgeoisie. It’s certainly possible at a local level, but at a state level takes enourmous power and unity.
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Read Marx, everyone.
