Excellent framing of how technocracy masks power dynamics. The point about workers administering scarcity on the frontlines is something that doesn't get nearly enough attention in these debates. I worked retail for a few years and seeing customers put items back at checkout was def one of those moments that made me realize the system was way deeper than just "prices going up." When the crsis gets reframed as one of control rather than costs, it opens up totally different solutions that challenge existing power structures instead of just managing them better.
Thanks for another superb post. This may be your best yet. Adam Schiff is precisely the sort of technocrat who paved the way for Donald Trump. Sadly, the so-called liberals believe their own b.s. It has been very very good to them.
Great point…. But it’s not just the liberal class that relies on this kind of technocratic solutions. Conservative elites like Dick Cheney, Romney and Rumsfeld were all smart corporate leaders that were well connected to lobbyists and brought forth tax based solutions that didn’t really help people directly. Even now they are putting forward solutions like HSAs for affordable healthcare rather than a more progressive approach like Medicare for all!
When I was young, there was public housing. It had been done badly; often old neighborhood blocks of houses were torn down to create it, there was no community input into what was needed/wanted (in fact, it often destroyed authentic communities) and it was generally very large buildings. The buildings were costly to maintain and the will to do so wasn't there, so elevators didn't work, plumbing leaked, etc. Plus, those large buildings and empty hallways were easy targets for crime. And any sort of "community" was impossible. There was a solution that would have involved tearing down those large buildings and replacing them with human-size buildings, creating tenant organizations, creating agency and decision-making ability and community on the part of the people who lived in public housing, etc. But that would have been expensive (and somehow there is never money for things like this, despite the money that goes into "defense"), plus it would have taken control away from the experts who would actually have to deal with the tenants on a day-to-day basis and listen to their concerns. So the solution, instead, was to privatize, to set up Section 8. The way Section 8 works, people get vouchers and only have to pay 1/4 their income (or something like that) for rent, but then the government subsidizes the landlord so that he/she/they gets "market rate" for the housing. But, of course, no one is checking to make sure that that housing is even up to code, so the result is that landlords are getting paid market rate to provide substandard housing.
could you define liberal/liberal class in the context of this article? There are so many definitions of the word these days, which are often opposite in meaning. Thanks.
Here’s to falling back into accord with our true human nature.
"The human Rights of Women are among those uncountable and naturally unalienable Rights of the Formation Document of this shared American Republic & Declaratory Charter of Our Natural Rights, which guarantees forever the Equal Station it entitles both Women and Men to."
Below is a reaffirmation & redeclaration by men of the Republic that the abovesaid is the Supreme Law of these Lands, which is in Full Force with Legal Effect to this day—For the reunification of our Country as one People against tyranny of all forms:
Perhaps the world needs to find a nonviolent route to rights based government of the people by the people for all the people as the singularity approaches and suggests noone ever need 'work' at all within the next generation .
But in the meantime there is an 'affordability problem in the real basic meaning of the word which must solved without making thr richer causers of the problem richer.
It ain't what you do its the way that you do it. Reset the paradigm
Also its awful to see the few $s it would take to solve that problem in greed ridden USA whilst women and men, all over the less 'developed' world, who could live happily on $10 a day are left to rape, murder and torture added to by the destruction of tiny (token but currently so important in the absense of fair distribution) aid programmes destroyed to buy more arms from the various military industrial complexes. And the raw materials to make these weapons of mass destruction are effectively given to the rich arms industry ( or simply have the material stolen for them ) often with the help of local corrupt entities, sponsored by people close to politcal apparatchiks like Schiff et al. to make those weapons of mass destruction most of which sit useless too complex to maintain.
Money is the problem and capitalism the main vehicle. Capitalism = capital. Socialism = social/society.
I agree that “affordability” can be used to depoliticize power, but I’m not sure it can be skipped. In mass democratic politics, relieving immediate material pain is often how you earn the mandate to then confront ownership and control.
That said, I share the concern that centrist Democrats who don’t challenge neoliberal political economy will stop at affordability or co-opt it. The task then becomes pushing beyond bare minimum relief toward power.
I've pretty much convinced myself that affordability is not the problem. People are richer than they ever have been. So that leaves two options: people are stupid, or there's some other problem (and therefore some other set of solutions). The former is not actionable in a democracy, so by transcendental deduction we must embrace the latter. But then I *really* have very little idea where to even start thinking about this. I've been attracted to the idea that the problem is spiritual in nature; but what does that mean, and what can be done about it? I have no idea. You say that problem is one of control; that also seems plausible, but again the solutions are not obvious to me. Is it just a revival of unionization? A change (what?) in the structure of government? Again, I have no idea.
Excellent framing of how technocracy masks power dynamics. The point about workers administering scarcity on the frontlines is something that doesn't get nearly enough attention in these debates. I worked retail for a few years and seeing customers put items back at checkout was def one of those moments that made me realize the system was way deeper than just "prices going up." When the crsis gets reframed as one of control rather than costs, it opens up totally different solutions that challenge existing power structures instead of just managing them better.
Thanks for another superb post. This may be your best yet. Adam Schiff is precisely the sort of technocrat who paved the way for Donald Trump. Sadly, the so-called liberals believe their own b.s. It has been very very good to them.
Thanks, Bonnie!
Great point…. But it’s not just the liberal class that relies on this kind of technocratic solutions. Conservative elites like Dick Cheney, Romney and Rumsfeld were all smart corporate leaders that were well connected to lobbyists and brought forth tax based solutions that didn’t really help people directly. Even now they are putting forward solutions like HSAs for affordable healthcare rather than a more progressive approach like Medicare for all!
When I was young, there was public housing. It had been done badly; often old neighborhood blocks of houses were torn down to create it, there was no community input into what was needed/wanted (in fact, it often destroyed authentic communities) and it was generally very large buildings. The buildings were costly to maintain and the will to do so wasn't there, so elevators didn't work, plumbing leaked, etc. Plus, those large buildings and empty hallways were easy targets for crime. And any sort of "community" was impossible. There was a solution that would have involved tearing down those large buildings and replacing them with human-size buildings, creating tenant organizations, creating agency and decision-making ability and community on the part of the people who lived in public housing, etc. But that would have been expensive (and somehow there is never money for things like this, despite the money that goes into "defense"), plus it would have taken control away from the experts who would actually have to deal with the tenants on a day-to-day basis and listen to their concerns. So the solution, instead, was to privatize, to set up Section 8. The way Section 8 works, people get vouchers and only have to pay 1/4 their income (or something like that) for rent, but then the government subsidizes the landlord so that he/she/they gets "market rate" for the housing. But, of course, no one is checking to make sure that that housing is even up to code, so the result is that landlords are getting paid market rate to provide substandard housing.
could you define liberal/liberal class in the context of this article? There are so many definitions of the word these days, which are often opposite in meaning. Thanks.
Here’s to falling back into accord with our true human nature.
"The human Rights of Women are among those uncountable and naturally unalienable Rights of the Formation Document of this shared American Republic & Declaratory Charter of Our Natural Rights, which guarantees forever the Equal Station it entitles both Women and Men to."
Below is a reaffirmation & redeclaration by men of the Republic that the abovesaid is the Supreme Law of these Lands, which is in Full Force with Legal Effect to this day—For the reunification of our Country as one People against tyranny of all forms:
https://republia.substack.com/p/for-the-preservation-of-freedom-and
Perhaps the world needs to find a nonviolent route to rights based government of the people by the people for all the people as the singularity approaches and suggests noone ever need 'work' at all within the next generation .
But in the meantime there is an 'affordability problem in the real basic meaning of the word which must solved without making thr richer causers of the problem richer.
It ain't what you do its the way that you do it. Reset the paradigm
Also its awful to see the few $s it would take to solve that problem in greed ridden USA whilst women and men, all over the less 'developed' world, who could live happily on $10 a day are left to rape, murder and torture added to by the destruction of tiny (token but currently so important in the absense of fair distribution) aid programmes destroyed to buy more arms from the various military industrial complexes. And the raw materials to make these weapons of mass destruction are effectively given to the rich arms industry ( or simply have the material stolen for them ) often with the help of local corrupt entities, sponsored by people close to politcal apparatchiks like Schiff et al. to make those weapons of mass destruction most of which sit useless too complex to maintain.
Money is the problem and capitalism the main vehicle. Capitalism = capital. Socialism = social/society.
Whose side are you on?
I agree that “affordability” can be used to depoliticize power, but I’m not sure it can be skipped. In mass democratic politics, relieving immediate material pain is often how you earn the mandate to then confront ownership and control.
That said, I share the concern that centrist Democrats who don’t challenge neoliberal political economy will stop at affordability or co-opt it. The task then becomes pushing beyond bare minimum relief toward power.
I've pretty much convinced myself that affordability is not the problem. People are richer than they ever have been. So that leaves two options: people are stupid, or there's some other problem (and therefore some other set of solutions). The former is not actionable in a democracy, so by transcendental deduction we must embrace the latter. But then I *really* have very little idea where to even start thinking about this. I've been attracted to the idea that the problem is spiritual in nature; but what does that mean, and what can be done about it? I have no idea. You say that problem is one of control; that also seems plausible, but again the solutions are not obvious to me. Is it just a revival of unionization? A change (what?) in the structure of government? Again, I have no idea.
Clearly this is a very helpful comment.