“Eat the Rich” memes spread, but is it a political movement?

[StrangePackage]

Socialism is of course the answer.

I know you think you're being sarcastic.

I also don't think you know what socialism is. But you are afraid of it, because you've been told to be.

Everyone is afraid of socialism until they need help.

 

[lawtig02]

We should be making computer chips at home, and a populist movement would’ve had that happen long before 2021, IMO.

How?

 

[Callatoroy]

This had potential, but a swing and a miss on the execution unfortunately. 3/10.

It was a solid 8.5. Not my fault the russian judge has no sense of humor.

 

[StrangePackage]

It was a solid 8.5. Not my fault the russian judge has no sense of humor.

If that's what you think of as a solid 8.5, your wife has my undying sympathy.

 

[finesse]

It was a solid 8.5. Not my fault the russian judge has no sense of humor.

Then your side shouldn't have hired him.

 

[Callatoroy]

I know you think you're being sarcastic.

I also don't think you know what socialism is. But you are afraid of it, because you've been told to be.

Everyone is afraid of socialism until they need help.

Because it has such a rich and successful history. Anything, literally anything that dumbs down innovation and de-incentivises people to work hard and be imaginative is a losing system. That includes everything from education to business. That concept is so simple that literally elementary students can grasp it in its basic form.

 

[Callatoroy]

If that's what you think of as a solid 8.5, your wife has my undying sympathy.

As she should. Having to live live with an 8 just isn't the same.

 

[Paine]

How?

Well, take it in context with the rest of my answer. Populism in the United States is a movement dedicated to average, working people making decisions about how the economy should be run.

Let’s think back to a time when the U.S. actually had a lot of good paying manufacturing jobs. The decision to ship those jobs overseas wasn’t made by the people working in the factory, that’s for sure.

Having chip manufacturing in the United States is a net positive for working Americans because it creates good paying jobs (despite the automation, which would also be good for workers under worker control) and creates a domestic supply of chips.

I can’t say for sure whether an economy controlled by the people working it would create this though, that’s why I said it’s my opinion. We can look at what happened under our current system, however. That is, we went decades without significant investment in domestic chip manufacturing because the economic system was controlled by immediate profit motives. It took a global pandemic and burgeoning left-wing populist movement to force the hand on chips.

Even still, the chip package passed by our liberal government was just a massive giveaway to the profitable companies who dominate the industry. A populist chip plan would be much different.

This is tangential to the rest of the post, which I hope you’ll address.

 

[finesse]

Because it has such a rich and successful history. Anything, literally anything that dumbs down innovation and de-incentivises people to work hard and be imaginative is a losing system. That includes everything from education to business. That concept is so simple that literally elementary students can grasp it in its basic form.

Then why doesn't it bother you that education is the modern Republican party's greatest enemy? If people had seen through all the misinformation. Trump would not have won. He rode to victory on the less educated, the misguided and the people that use them.

 

[Callatoroy]

Ok, I'll take this on.

1. The reaction to Mangione is a good case study. I have no sympathy for UHC. Brian Thompson may have been a terrible person. But the embrace of Mangione as some kind of populist hero is extremely disturbing to me. Violence begets violence, and it almost never begets anything other than more violence.

2. I'll pose a question to you -- what did you think about the CHIPS Act? That might be the most anti-populist bill passed by a Dem-controlled Congress in recent memory. It will use taxpayer dollars to support an industry that is highly automated and unlikely to reinvest much capital in American communities. It may even have the effect of increasing the cost of "necessities" like phones and cars for working class Americans. But in my view, it's one of the most important bills passed under Biden's stewardship. Would a populist-controlled Dem Party support legislation like that?

3. I've written about this on here in the past, but in my view, populism can only be supportive of democracy in social structures characterized by relatively high levels of trust and low levels of partisanship. Scandanavian countries, for example, can employ populist policies to great effect. Same with Switzerland. In countries with relatively low levels of social trust and high levels of partisanship, populism is far more likely to lead to authoritarianism. It's easy to remember that Hitler came to power based largely on populist rhetoric, but so did Lenin. And I don't see any way you could argue that the US circa 2024 is more socially aligned with Denmark or Switzerland than it is with 1934 Germany.

You are leaving out a couple of important variables when trying to compare the US to european countries that I think makes those comparables moot, both in 1934 and today. 1) european countries didn't, and don't have our level of racial diversity. That can't be overlooked in your discussion and is one of the things that makes it almost impossible to compare the US to europe today. It has a tremendous impact on our society. And 2) the existing governmental structures in europe (germany) in 1934 vs the US structure is also relevant to your discussion as it makes any comparison tenuous.

 

[Callatoroy]

Then why doesn't it bother you that education is the modern Republican party's greatest enemy? If people had seen through all the misinformation. Trump would not have won. He rode to victory on the less educated, the misguided and the people that use them.

education is not. there was a tremendous amount of misinformation coming from the left. I would make the same argument back to you.

 

[finesse]

education is not. there was a tremendous amount of misinformation coming from the left. I would make the same argument back to you.

But you'd be wrong. Look who Trump won with. The so called Christian Right, the high school educated and the rich grifters.

 

[lawtig02]

Well, take it in context with the rest of my answer. Populism in the United States is a movement dedicated to average, working people making decisions about how the economy should be run.

Let’s think back to a time when the U.S. actually had a lot of good paying manufacturing jobs. The decision to ship those jobs overseas wasn’t made by the people working in the factory, that’s for sure.

Having chip manufacturing in the United States is a net positive for working Americans because it creates good paying jobs (despite the automation, which would also be good for workers under worker control) and creates a domestic supply of chips.

I can’t say for sure whether an economy controlled by the people working it would create this though, that’s why I said it’s my opinion. We can look at what happened under our current system, however. That is, we went decades without significant investment in domestic chip manufacturing because the economic system was controlled by immediate profit motives. It took a global pandemic and burgeoning left-wing populist movement to force the hand on chips.

This is tangential to the rest of the post, which I hope you’ll address.

I don't think it's tangential at all. I cannot imagine an alternative history in which the chip manufacturing that is largely concentrated in Taiwan today would instead be concentrated in the US because the "people working in the factory" wanted that to be the case. The only way that would happen, absent the economic incentives afforded by legislation like the CHIPS Act, would be direct government command over economic decision-making, Which gets us back to the Lenin example. I'm just not going to agree with you that model would be better for America. And when America suffers, working class America suffers the most of all.

As for the rest of your post, I'm not in any way arguing working class Americans are too stupid to make their own economic decisions. I do think modern day America is a social experiment in disinformation, and especially economic disinformation, targeted to working class America to convince them to vote against their best interests. Dems have a lot of work to do in figuring out how to counter this disinformation. Even if that somehow proves to be successful, I'm not confident our social trust can be rebuilt. And absent at least a modicum of social trust, I just don't see how a populist model can lead to more democracy rather than more authoritarianism. If nothing else, modern day populism, both right and left, has demonstrated a lack of confidence in experience and expertise. Experience sometimes gets it wrong. Experts sometimes get it wrong. But I'm siding with the experienced experts 100 times out of 100 over the people who are making decisions based on what they're thinking and feeling in the moment.

 

[Paine]

I don't think it's tangential at all. I cannot imagine an alternative history in which the chip manufacturing that is largely concentrated in Taiwan today would instead be concentrated in the US because the "people working in the factory" wanted that to be the case. The only way that would happen, absent the economic incentives afforded by legislation like the CHIPS Act, would be direct government command over economic decision-making, Which gets us back to the Lenin example. I'm just not going to agree with you that model would be better for America. And when America suffers, working class America suffers the most of all.

As for the rest of your post, I'm not in any way arguing working class Americans are too stupid to make their own economic decisions. I do think modern day America is a social experiment in disinformation, and especially economic disinformation, targeted to working class America to convince them to vote against their best interests. Dems have a lot of work to do in figuring out how to counter this disinformation. Even if that somehow proves to be successful, I'm not confident our social trust can be rebuilt. And absent at least a modicum of social trust, I just don't see how a populist model can lead to more democracy rather than more authoritarianism. If nothing else, modern day populism, both right and left, has demonstrated a lack of confidence in experience and expertise. Experience sometimes gets it wrong. Experts sometimes get it wrong. But I'm siding with the experienced experts 100 times out of 100 over the people who are making decisions based on what they're thinking and feeling in the moment.

Why is chip manufacturing concentrated in China and Taiwan today?

Regarding experience and expertise, you’re actively disparaging the experience and expertise of workers in this post while claiming that you don’t think they’re too stupid to make their own economic decisions. Left wing populists deride experts and expertise when they try to dress up their expertise as being above the fray of criticism, which happens quite often in America.

Once again, conflating left wing populism with right wing demagoguery services no one other than the ruling class. Words have meaning.

 

[lawtig02]

You are leaving out a couple of important variables when trying to compare the US to european countries that I think makes those comparables moot, both in 1934 and today. 1) european countries didn't, and don't have our level of racial diversity. That can't be overlooked in your discussion and is one of the things that makes it almost impossible to compare the US to europe today. It has a tremendous impact on our society. And 2) the existing governmental structures in europe (germany) in 1934 vs the US structure is also relevant to your discussion as it makes any comparison tenuous.

Can you elaborate a bit on how our racial diversity impacts our society with respect to the economic issues we're discussing here?

 

[Callatoroy]

Anywhere it’s legal to write bestselling books?

And set up foundations to get large donations from entities outside of the US.

 

[4heels4evr]

By the way, eat the rich has been around long before the UHC killing. Young(er) people have been saying it since at least 2015. This isn’t a new thing. And from my experience, the sentiment tends to hold across ideological/partisan lines among young people. We’ve been radicalized but nothing has set it completely off yet.

French Revolution???

 

[Callatoroy]

Can you elaborate a bit on how our racial diversity impacts our society with respect to the economic issues we're discussing here?

I'm not trying to be obtuse but I'm not sure I follow your question. Its in every facet of our society in ways that other societies don't have to deal with.

 

[lawtig02]

Why is chip manufacturing concentrated in China and Taiwan today?

1. Natural resources
2. Economic incentives (which are largely legislative/authoritarian policy)
3. Relatively free trade among international trade partners

How would any of that be different with a more populist approach? Explain to me how we get more chip manufacturing in the US without incentivizing legislation like the CHIPS Act. I want to help working class Americans. I just can't figure out how your positions will make that happen.

 

[lawtig02]

I'm not trying to be obtuse but I'm not sure I follow your question. Its in every facet of our society in ways that other societies don't have to deal with.

That doesn't answer the question. How does our racial diversity impact the economic issues we're discussing in this thread?