United States Politics Thread 47

[alice]

I think it is right that Trump wants to do away with it;

A very minor nitpick: do you mean "... it's right to say that ..."?

[Ares Land]

I think it is right that Trump wants to do away with it;

A very minor nitpick: do you mean "... it's right to say that ..."?

Ah, yes, of course; that’s what I meant.

[zompist]

'Liberalism' has different meanings, which is what is confusing things here. It has the meaning that malloc is using, i.e. multi-party representative democracy, constitutional limits on state power, rule of law, capitalism, etc., which is a perfectly valid meaning and is probably the most broadly held and least confusing one. Here in the US (and also in Canada) it has a different meaning that is basically social democracy in its modern-day 'kinder, gentler capitalism' sense. However, it can also in the US and Canada refer to cultural liberalism (also, confusingly, sometimes called 'social liberalism', even though that properly refers to the previous), with an emphasis on individual freedom with regard to cultural norms.

Linguistically, the profusion of senses is very interesting; politically it's annoying. To the above I'd add that "liberal" is now generally used as a meaningless despective. Conservatives use it to mean "woke", i.e. something they don't understand but don't like. The media use it for "left", i.e. one side of that continuum. Progressives used to use it to mean themselves, the leftward portion of the Democratic party. Far leftists use it to mean "centrist", i.e. the rightward portion of the Democrats.

[Travis B.]

Linguistically, the profusion of senses is very interesting; politically it's annoying. To the above I'd add that "liberal" is now generally used as a meaningless despective. Conservatives use it to mean "woke", i.e. something they don't understand but don't like. The media use it for "left", i.e. one side of that continuum. Progressives used to use it to mean themselves, the leftward portion of the Democratic party. Far leftists use it to mean "centrist", i.e. the rightward portion of the Democrats.

Yes, that is all true. I remember when I was a teenage anarchist I would use "liberal" as a general derogatory term for those left of center who were deemed as insufficiently committed to the class war.

[Raphael]

I remember when I was a teenage anarchist I would use "liberal" as a general derogatory term for those left of center who were deemed as insufficiently committed to the class war.

Oh, arguably, "liberals" in the oldest sense of the word - in the sense that it still has where I'm from - are very much committed to the class war. That is, on the side of the rich.

[bradrn]

I remember when I was a teenage anarchist I would use "liberal" as a general derogatory term for those left of center who were deemed as insufficiently committed to the class war.

Oh, arguably, "liberals" in the oldest sense of the word - in the sense that it still has where I'm from - are very much committed to the class war. That is, on the side of the rich.

Oh? I always thought the oldest sense of ‘liberal’ was that relating to, as the French say, liberté, égalité et fraternité.

[Raphael]

I remember when I was a teenage anarchist I would use "liberal" as a general derogatory term for those left of center who were deemed as insufficiently committed to the class war.

Oh, arguably, "liberals" in the oldest sense of the word - in the sense that it still has where I'm from - are very much committed to the class war. That is, on the side of the rich.

Oh? I always thought the oldest sense of ‘liberal’ was that relating to, as the French say, liberté, égalité et fraternité.

Repeating, once again, my somewhat tongue-in-cheek take on the matter:

Yes. There are many definitions of "liberalism"; especially Americans and Europeans differ here from each other.

In the beginning, there were times and places when politics, or at least the parts of politics that were treated as important, were about the struggle for power between the old land-owning aristocracy and the newly emergent class of merchants and factory owners. In those days, people who supported the interests of the former were called "conservatives", and people who supported the interests of the latter were called "liberals".

Then, many years, some linguistic shifts, and the occasional firing squad later, in some places, the word "liberal" had ended up meaning "people who support the interests of merchants and factory owners and the like", and in some other places, the same word had ended up meaning "whoever is the main group opposed to the conservatives at any given moment." And so the LORD had confounded their language, that they did not understand one another's speech.

And then there are some of the more wanker-ish types in some parts of the Left, who know very well that they live in times and places where the word has the second meaning, but pretend to know for sure that it always has the first meaning anyway.

[Ares Land]

An endless source of cross-language confusion is that by libéral in French, we practically mean 'libertarian'. You can say ultra-libéral instead if you really want to stress the point.

Of course to French people all Americans are libertarians, except maybe for Howard Zinn.

I see 'liberal', in American English, as a synonym of Democrat. Not very rigorous but TBH it seems to work 99% of the time.

[malloc]

Just to clarify things then, I have been using "liberal" in the historical and international sense rather than the idiosyncratic American sense. Think the metric system versus feet and pounds.

[zompist]

I also agree. but i don't think no one claimed that the old deal, the new deal, and the reaganite deal are the exact same. what they also aren't is like totally different systems. they look very different, and are, until you compare them with actually different economic-political systems, such as the system of the ussr, or of china, or of the french ancien regime, or colonial haiti. it's like different breeds of horse, you know? sure, a percheron isn't the same as a racing preblood, but they're both horses in a way that a turtle isn't.

Black-and-white thinking is a pitfall at both ends of the horseshoe. You want Your Side to be "totally different" from the Bad Side, so differences within each side don't matter, by Torconian Fiat. This is not political science, it's preserving 1848 Karl Marx in formaldehyde.

Look, capitalism and socialism collided at high speed, as in a particle accelerator, and fragmented and mixed. You know what social democracy is? It's capitalism mixed with socialism. Large parts of the economy are run by the government: up to 57% in France and Finland. That includes the US, at 38%. And what's Dengism? It's capitalism mixed with socialism. China's government expenditure % of GDP is actually lower, 33%.

That's just one dimension. Another is democracy vs. authoritarianism— the real difference between France and China. Here the Good Side/Bad Side ideologues have a real party, justifying the atrocities on their end of the horseshoe by pointing at the other side. To the rest of us they do not look "totally different" at all; they are the pigs and humans melting together at the end of Animal Farm.

Yet another is direct worker control vs. ownership by outsiders— owners or the state. Here there sadly hasn't been much progress, but I'd note that actual experiments are possible only in democratic countries. You can even create one in the US— e.g. farmer-owned CHS, with $39 billion in revenues and half a million participating farmers. Unions and worker representation on boards are also steps in the right direction. Authoritarian regimes suppress anything they can't control.

Perhaps we need a dimension of fragmentation vs. monopoly. Or just a continuum of inequality, like GINI. Piketty has shown that 19th century Europe was far more stratified than the US. That shouldn't be a huge surprise, but it gets lost when ideology forces you to always put the US on the Bad Side.

Finally there's rich vs poor countries. If you look at charts of government expenditures as % of GDP, they're lower in the global south; that is not an ideological choice, but the result of practical constraints. (In Marxist terms, there's still too much feudalism there, so it's hardly a pure battle between capitalism and socialism.)

Also... don't tell a linguist that your high-level categories are sacrosanct, writ by the finger of God. They're human inventions, to be discarded when they are no longer useful. "Liberal democracy" isn't even really an economic term, but a political term— it more or less characterized one side in the Cold War; it was and is pretty useless for analyzing changes or differences within that bloc. Quite a few Third World nations are now "liberal democracies", but not politically aligned with the US or Europe.

A lot of people have wanted these dimensions to cling together, but there are outliers that don't, so that insistence doesn't hold up.

[malloc]

Also... don't tell a linguist that your high-level categories are sacrosanct, writ by the finger of God. They're human inventions, to be discarded when they are no longer useful. "Liberal democracy" isn't even really an economic term, but a political term— it more or less characterized one side in the Cold War; it was and is pretty useless for analyzing changes or differences within that bloc. Quite a few Third World nations are now "liberal democracies", but not politically aligned with the US or Europe.

Sure although I would still consider the concept of liberal democracy quite useful as something distinct from fascism, absolute monarchy, theocracy, one-party "communism", and whatever else. It really does represent a distinct approach to politics independent of the specific policies of any given administration. Concepts like multi-party democracy and constitutional limits on state power are not the default state of politics but rather deliberate innovations that required intense struggle to achieve. Unfortunately they are also under heavy assault from people who understand just how easily they can crumble if not actively defended.

[bradrn]

Unfortunately they are also under heavy assault from people who understand just how easily they can crumble if not actively defended.

Correct, which is why so many people are actively defending them.

[zompist]

"Liberal democracy" isn't even really an economic term, but a political term— it more or less characterized one side in the Cold War; it was and is pretty useless for analyzing changes or differences within that bloc.

Sure although I would still consider the concept of liberal democracy quite useful as something distinct from fascism, absolute monarchy, theocracy, one-party "communism",

Which are all authoritarian. If that's the difference you're interested in, why not just say so?

Unfortunately they are also under heavy assault from people who understand just how easily they can crumble if not actively defended.

Yes, which is why we were warned two hundred years ago that freedom had to be defended by "eternal vigilance".

You seem to think that the US was happy and dumb for the last 200 years, until Trump came along, that those "active defenses" didn't exist. Are things dire today? Sure, but there has always been a fight, and it's always seemed dire. I'd also remind you that what the fash want to bring back, like white supremacy and male supremacy, is what the country had until very recently.

[jcb]

An interesting video about America's new economic model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FZy1lBNykA

But I don't understand his point about AI.

Tech will have done to intellectual property what private equity firms had done to Toys R Us.

Thoughts? Is there a way to explain this better?

[zompist]

An interesting video about America's new economic model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FZy1lBNykA

But I don't understand his point about AI.

Tech will have done to intellectual property what private equity firms had done to Toys R Us.

Thoughts? Is there a way to explain this better?

I looked at the transcript (not gonna watch a 40 minute video just for a post). He uses Toys R Us as an example of a company bought, ruined, and stripped of its assets-- this was big in the early 2000s for some reason. It's a real problem: merely making money is not enough for investors, they only like supercharged growth.

I think he's saying that the same over-financialized investment sector is going to ruin "intellectual property". You can make a very good case that AI is a bubble-- Ed Zitron has been going on about this for years now.

The "intellectual property" angle is weird though. It's romantic, almost charming, to be concerned about authors and artists; it also has nothing to do with the billions being invested in AI. There are about 50,000 authors in the US; the average book sells about 1000 copies. That is a tiny market. AI is not going to take it all over, and if it did, it's peanuts to investors.

There are something like 4 million people involved in software development-- and they're all paid far more than authors. That's the sort of market AI investors want to take over. (I'm skeptical that it'll actually happen; there are signs that CEOs are having second thoughts, especially now that AI companies are charging quite a bit more.)

[jcb]

The "intellectual property" angle is weird though. It's romantic, almost charming, to be concerned about authors and artists; it also has nothing to do with the billions being invested in AI. There are about 50,000 authors in the US; the average book sells about 1000 copies. That is a tiny market. AI is not going to take it all over, and if it did, it's peanuts to investors.

The creator of the video, Benn Jordan, is a published musician, so that's probably where his interest in intellectual property comes from.

I think he's saying that the same over-financialized investment sector is going to ruin "intellectual property". You can make a very good case that AI is a bubble-- Ed Zitron has been going on about this for years now.

I do think it's a bubble, but I think Jordan is trying to say that it's more than a bubble, that it's trying to be a new middle man that people will be forced to use (and pay for) to access information, but I don't see how. If it doesn't add anything of value, wouldn't it be economical for the company that is selling access to information to stop using it?

[zompist]

I do think it's a bubble, but I think Jordan is trying to say that it's more than a bubble, that it's trying to be a new middle man that people will be forced to use (and pay for) to access information, but I don't see how. If it doesn't add anything of value, wouldn't it be economical for the company that is selling access to information to stop using it?

No one is making money on AI, except the chip-makers. And since the AI vendors sell at a loss, and have been flogging the product for years, it's not likely to make money. But the idea is this:

1. Convince CEOs to fire all their workers and use AI instead, at absurdly low prices.
2. Make sure you're one of only 3 or so companies offering AI. Hopefully get Congress to make laws ensuring this.
3. Somehow this doesn't crash the economy. But no matter, tell everyone there is no alternative.
4. When all the CEOs are hooked, jack up the prices.
5. Profit.

Pretty much every stage of this is questionable. AI doesn't work that well; you cannot monopolize AI; there isn't some huge need for AI that people don't already see; jacking up the price to cover costs will make the business model implode. Again, the idea is to make people not ask questions.

You can use the Chinese system DeepSeek for far cheaper today. Or roll your own: it's quite possible to get an open-source AI that will run on your PC. There is no good reason for AI to be a near-monopoly like Facebook or Youtube.

As for "adding anything of value", it depends on who you ask. In general the more subject matter experience you have, the less you're satisfied with AI. Bad coders love AI, because it produces a lot of stuff, some of it works OK, and they didn't care about UI or efficiency or maintainability anyway. A lot of devs have found that that AI doesn't save much time, because it will make a mess of things and that'll take more time to sort out than it saved. Yet others really think it helps them.

BTW, though I've blamed stupid CEOS on this topic for years, there are signs that some of them are starting the question the AI orthodoxy. This article, for instance, where execs at two big companies are questioning whether AI is actually making them money.

[malloc]

Yes, which is why we were warned two hundred years ago that freedom had to be defended by "eternal vigilance".

You seem to think that the US was happy and dumb for the last 200 years, until Trump came along, that those "active defenses" didn't exist. Are things dire today? Sure, but there has always been a fight, and it's always seemed dire. I'd also remind you that what the fash want to bring back, like white supremacy and male supremacy, is what the country had until very recently.

Sure but it feels like things are crumbling in ways they previously weren't. Has the US ever been this close to collapsing into dictatorship?

[Travis B.]

BTW, though I've blamed stupid CEOS on this topic for years, there are signs that some of them are starting the question the AI orthodoxy. This article, for instance, where execs at two big companies are questioning whether AI is actually making them money.

I have been hearing that some CEO's are coming to realize that simply paying humans is in the long run cheaper than spending money on tokens now that enshittification is setting in.

[jcb]

The "intellectual property" angle is weird though. It's romantic, almost charming, to be concerned about authors and artists; it also has nothing to do with the billions being invested in AI. There are about 50,000 authors in the US; the average book sells about 1000 copies. That is a tiny market. AI is not going to take it all over, and if it did, it's peanuts to investors.

Another thought: In the video, he shows some AI tools/services that claim to be able to write music and books, so at least somebody is already trying to take over this market with AI.

I could see a possibility that AI music predominates, but I really doubt that such a thing is possible for books. Part of the joy of reading a book is talking about it and sharing the experience with other people. Everybody getting their own slightly different version of Harry Potter (or totally different series entirely) would destroy the contiguity of the universe and break the shared experience.