Hands down the best piece ever published on the Commonplace Substack. The author has done a masterful job making very astute and likely accurate observations. My only nit is with Friedman and not the author, I’ve seen plenty of people make hugely irrational money decisions, including me!!!
It will be interesting to observe the attitudes of the Brahmin left as AI diminishes their employment prospects. How and when will the political parties react to the emerging economic realities?
I enjoy reading Ruy Teixeira. That said, you're also seeing what buying too deep into a political ideology gets you. He's skipping over the role of segregation, denying millions of people anything close to the full benefit of "social democracy".
This is when you're going to think I'm just talking about America. See the thing about segregation in Europe was that the colored people were never really allowed to come to Europe. Other then a handful of Asians, Africans and south Americans, the vast majority of the colonial subjects would never set foot in Europe. Back in those colonies, there were very strict race codes and whites only spaces.
The elites back then were willing to grant more rights and spend more of the state's treasure on their own populations as long as they could keep exploiting "others". In many ways, the ever increasing use of free trade and mass immigration is a return to the old feudal order. The Brahmin class he's talking about are more like the whites in the old south that struggled to catch on to how segregation was ultimately screwing them over as well. In fact the southern working class whites only thought they were doing good because the wretched state of blacks in the south.
Same thing is happening with a lot of these college educated professionals that are deep in debt and struggling to survive in the expensive cities they can find work in. They are only doing good relative to the illegal immigrants and asylum seekers that can be used and abused by employers and landlords. Yet like those old whites in the south, they are kept distracted by an ever shifting mix of race, sex, and environmentalism(a replacement religion for many).
This is a reoccurring human failing. It's a lot easier to see it, if you remember that you're a human rather then a Democrat, Republican, Labor, Tory, Socialist, or any of the other political parties.
Thank you for your analysis of where the left has gone. However, as I understand, social democracy, I do see it as a move from capitalism to socialism, which is essentially redistribution and a welfare state. These are things that I think that the Democrats have pursued.
and despite some consolidations that had occurred at the begging of those three decades, the USA remained a fairly federated place. We didnt even get to most the way to the centralization of banking/finance/monetary mattes until just about when your timeline ends (73)
If Democrats go back to being the party of what is left of the middle class (not upper) and the working class and working poor, you will be taking care of within those groups of what are considered “marginalized groups”, including single mothers. These are the folks struggling to make ends meet.
What an extraordinary article. Everyone who's come this far should share it far and wide. I've put it up on my X account and tagged a TON of people. I'm more blocked than admired, however... (grumpy old fart has low people skills...)
Hands down the best piece ever published on the Commonplace Substack. The author has done a masterful job making very astute and likely accurate observations. My only nit is with Friedman and not the author, I’ve seen plenty of people make hugely irrational money decisions, including me!!!
I've been waiting a long time for someone to write this article. Brilliant!
Very good writeup. Disagree with some details but broadly well written, well thought out.
It will be interesting to observe the attitudes of the Brahmin left as AI diminishes their employment prospects. How and when will the political parties react to the emerging economic realities?
I enjoy reading Ruy Teixeira. That said, you're also seeing what buying too deep into a political ideology gets you. He's skipping over the role of segregation, denying millions of people anything close to the full benefit of "social democracy".
This is when you're going to think I'm just talking about America. See the thing about segregation in Europe was that the colored people were never really allowed to come to Europe. Other then a handful of Asians, Africans and south Americans, the vast majority of the colonial subjects would never set foot in Europe. Back in those colonies, there were very strict race codes and whites only spaces.
The elites back then were willing to grant more rights and spend more of the state's treasure on their own populations as long as they could keep exploiting "others". In many ways, the ever increasing use of free trade and mass immigration is a return to the old feudal order. The Brahmin class he's talking about are more like the whites in the old south that struggled to catch on to how segregation was ultimately screwing them over as well. In fact the southern working class whites only thought they were doing good because the wretched state of blacks in the south.
Same thing is happening with a lot of these college educated professionals that are deep in debt and struggling to survive in the expensive cities they can find work in. They are only doing good relative to the illegal immigrants and asylum seekers that can be used and abused by employers and landlords. Yet like those old whites in the south, they are kept distracted by an ever shifting mix of race, sex, and environmentalism(a replacement religion for many).
This is a reoccurring human failing. It's a lot easier to see it, if you remember that you're a human rather then a Democrat, Republican, Labor, Tory, Socialist, or any of the other political parties.
Thank you for your analysis of where the left has gone. However, as I understand, social democracy, I do see it as a move from capitalism to socialism, which is essentially redistribution and a welfare state. These are things that I think that the Democrats have pursued.
and despite some consolidations that had occurred at the begging of those three decades, the USA remained a fairly federated place. We didnt even get to most the way to the centralization of banking/finance/monetary mattes until just about when your timeline ends (73)
If Democrats go back to being the party of what is left of the middle class (not upper) and the working class and working poor, you will be taking care of within those groups of what are considered “marginalized groups”, including single mothers. These are the folks struggling to make ends meet.
What an extraordinary article. Everyone who's come this far should share it far and wide. I've put it up on my X account and tagged a TON of people. I'm more blocked than admired, however... (grumpy old fart has low people skills...)
Bidenism failed. We need much stronger medicine