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Suzanne White's avatar

Sometimes I wonder if certain entrepreneurs have not only a love of money but, even more, an obsession with winning. Some go so far as to need to humiliate their ‘opponents’. Certainly this is a characteristic of trump. I think perhaps we need to be more aware of the psychological hold that the ego has with people whose need to dominate is an end in itself.

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Andrei Petrovitch's avatar

I think this is it. At this point, it’s not about the money, but about the game of power.

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Mark Mansour's avatar

This is indeed all about domination. A great strategy. Impoverish your customers.

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Sally V's avatar

Really quite brilliant. You are unique among so many in communicating all this stuff in “accessible” bites that really track. My single point of confusion in this essay is how you fit MAGA and C-Nationalists into the matrix of the pre-revolutionary coalition. I suppose you mean they are as volatile & irrational as any other sub-group, but from a different angle. And that it won’t matter much when the match is lit because, as you say, the Mob(s) will not quibble over details…

Love the section: [the oligarchs are rejecting even gentle management…]

“not because it threatens their core interests, but because it threatens their total dominance.

Not because it would impoverish them, but because it would make them merely very rich rather than obscenely rich.

Not because it would eliminate capitalism, but because it would make capitalism serve something other than pure wealth accumulation.”

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Pat Barrett's avatar

A masterpiece. "The capitalists will sell you the rope to hang themselves with." Talking with an old guy about WW II experiences as a frogman, I thought, "Mr. Republican." At one point he leaned back, lean, bronzed from golf, shock of white hair, and announced, "I don't know what your politics are...." oh, oh, Mr. Republican, "... but if it weren't for Roosevelt this country would have gone Communist." Holy Moley! Who will save us now?

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Cindy's avatar

What everyone else said. Brilliant. Thank you

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ARW's avatar

Great post. Lays it all out so clearly. Thank you!

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Charley Ice's avatar

Another thoroughgoing dissection of a foolishly sacrosanct set of ideas. Excellent and thank you! I think we're all for enterprise, but private property is not sanctioned by divine right. The sooner we get this, the sooner we'll start making real progress. Like everything else in the universe, private property has its place - a home should be your "castle", with guaranteed tenure and privileges of privacy (within the law). Beyond that, the prime directive is community well-being, environmental well-being. Full stop. Together, we are the stewards of well-being, and should not surrender a whit to wealth or corporate property, or private property other than one's domicile.

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Frank Moore's avatar

You once again demonstrate that you’re the intellectual for our times, par excellence. Your critique of the libertarian and oligarchic elite is spot on. What drives me insane is how those that were direct beneficiaries of FDR’s New Deal turned their back on the Democratic Party because they just couldn’t stand sharing the fruits of the grand bargain that saved capitalism with women and minorities. Instead, they threw their lot in with the very persons you describe and elevated them to positions of power that will put the final nail in their coffins. Racism and sexism are more powerful than self-preservation.

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J Wilson's avatar

Halfway through reading “Abundance,” a thoughtful new book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. You’re right, Mike. Its pages are filled with their sensible and reasonable policy ideas to improve capitalism, to perhaps rescue capitalism from its current egregiously destructive excesses. And yet, as you so well explain, the anti-leftist reactionaries want none of it. The reactionaries are high on their ideology of unregulated capitalism, of unfettered power and wealth. They are like addicts who cannot resist another hit, who arrogantly consume the next hit that kills them…

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Sally Gordon-Mark's avatar

Excellent!

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Charley Ice's avatar

I'm reminded of debates we had at Berkeley in the late 60s: "Are you radical or revolutionary?" Radicals understand things to their root; revolutionaries parse the path of risk-taking. We obviously need both, but more importantly, we need a-political communitarians to shoulder the tasks of delivering the daily bread... That's everyone.

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Tim Fearnside's avatar

Yes, and even if they “win,” they will lose. It takes a large middle class with sufficient disposable income to keep the assembly lines rolling for all but the most basic goods. Flour and toilet paper won’t won’t sustain their collective empires.

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Ben's avatar

Spot on. It was never about the best economic system but the least worst. The New Deal hit the sweet spot and we fucking blew when that architecture was steadily dismantled.

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Zibon Wakboj's avatar

I'm a bit confused by your warnings for the anti-left. Do you want to return to the slow grind of titrated wealth building from the grist of human potential? Shouldn't we be preparing ourselves for the huge, inevitable changes on the horizon?

I agree that the irony of this moment is seductive. The look of glee on every Republican house member's face after Jeffries finished his denouciation of their project and their guy retorted with "Hogwash!" was portentously eerie. But our project must abandon the mirroring glee of our foretelling. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us.

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John O’Neil's avatar

In the "deal" approach to life, "deal" means victory. Where you get what you want, and your adversary gets nothing. That is a good "deal" in the current parlance. Everytime I hear the President mention "deals" it's like a hot poker in my ribs.

Of course, that's just hyperbole.

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Pat Wood's avatar

Hits the nail on the head.

Evidently, The egomaniac/brainiac elites have never opened a history book.

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Mark Mansour's avatar

You made so many trenchant points I hardly know where to begin. They are asking for a revolution and they will get one unless they realize what they are doing.

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