This is how all capitalist markets progress, which is why I get annoyed when folks try to talk about this as though it is hypocritical. There is nothing hypocritical about a capitalist attempting to stifle innovation and competition for the advancement of their own personal wealth. This is what capitalism is about.
I think that what you’re saying is that actions of hypocrites cannot be considered hypocritical since it’s their nature to be hypocrites. It’s all a bit circular, isn’t it?
I think that in the case of Mr. Musk, the issue is that he has been seen as an innovator not just as a capitalist for much of his time in the spotlight. For 2018 Musk, this declaration would have been hypocritical. For 2024 Musk, whatever, why are we still listening to this clown?
No, not quite. I’m saying musk has never believed in the free market in his life and has never argued in good faith. All of those wealthy types know exactly what they are doing. They publicly embrace a fake ideal of free market economics up until they no longer have to put up the facade.
I’m saying musk has never believed in the free market
Correct. No politican, economist or, indeed, capitalist “believes” in the (so-called) “free market” - they all know perfectly well that it’s a fairy tale designed to justify them and their cronies parasitizing at everybody and everything else’s expense. The regime that made Musk’s billions possible - the Apartheid-regime - knew perfectly well that the “free market” was a big, fat lie all the way back in 1948. That’s why they built all the public infrastructure that enriched white people’s lives (including Elon’s) while repressing the majority of South Africans into becoming the glorified indentured labour that made Elon’s daddy rich.
It’s no different than “hearts & minds,” “spreading civilization” or Cinderella’s glass slipper. They all know it and they have always all known it.
I suppose you’re right, it is. I am not articulating myself properly here. Let me re-frame this.
Every time we chalk things up to a bad actor being hypocritical, we are taking our eye off of the ball. The problems we are facing are not individual actors that are simply acting hypocritical in the moment. We are, in reality, dealing with a much larger issue. The economic structure is filled with grifters, liars, and exploiters at the top because that is how it is best leveraged.
So when articles are written calling some billionaire a hypocrite, we are not accomplishing anything. I would argue it is largely a game of masturbatory whack-a-mole to make ourselves feel better, because we cannot fix this system with random callouts and the (extremely) rare removal of “bad apples.”
We are, in reality, dealing with a much larger issue.
Care to articulate how you’d describe it?
Much more than just capitalism, right? Like that, plus our entire culture, generations of propaganda and indoctrination. All of our power structures, political, financial, military, media, education.
Everything. Much larger issue is an understatement. How do we fix it?
I will say that I am no oracle, just one man. It is easy to perceive problems and very hard to prescribe solutions.
That being said, I can offer the following perspectives.
We have lost control of our leaders to the wealthy. We do get to vote, but we do not get to vote for a working class person. In order to be elected into the high offices you need a lot of money and influence. This money is provided largely by the wealthy who have a shared interest in filtering us little people out of the process entirely.
People (the masses) always have absolute power, but power must be shaped and directed for progress. Currently, a lack of class consciousness and the constant bombardment of propaganda to our televisions, our phones, etc, is ruining us. We also have no presence on the national stage via political party, as stated earlier, which exacerbates the directionless nature.
Capitalism is largely unregulated in any way that matters, and has gotten us into a sustained feedback loop of the above points.
In order to fix these problems, we need to fight back through locally organized groups; tenant unions, renters unions, etc. Having the hard conversations with friends and family. Re-framing arguments and world views in terms of class rather than cancerous “red versus blue” politics. Showing up to peaceful protests while we can still participate in them. Pulling the levers of democracy given to us in local elections, and on the national stage, pulling the levers for the candidate that will not plunge us into immediate fascism as a stop gap. We need to do this now and with vigor to prevent the other potentials.
The alternative to action now, I’m afraid, will end in revolution attempts by a divided working class. This implies civil war where nothing is certain.
Part of the free-market attitude though is that you should be allowed to buy policy, so in that regard it’s consistent, you just have to account for corruption in the cost of doing business.
I don’t mind bashing Musk for a second, but as far as I know China follows a startup mentality with electric cars - the government supports the industry so they can sell cars below their actual price, and once they killed all their competition they can increase.
The government could also 100 percent fund battery research; Put a government owned company out there to make a floor in the market (5 person hatchback with minimum amenities); Give us more than 7,500 in EV rebates on a select few models; Change CAFE standards so bigger isn’t automatically better; etc…
There’s a lot we could do. We instead chose the most reductive and protectionist route possible. And even then Volvo (Owned by Greely) says they may be able to get a refund on the entire tariff because of the other models they produce in the US.
Definitely need more subsidies or grants for domestic research. Though I don’t see the government owned company idea working mainly due to how capitalism is implemented here. The government tends to not directly compete with private entities.
Fully agree with clamping down (via higher taxes or something similar) on the giant vehicles and the loopholes they can abuse today.
Oh yeah, Americans would riot before buying basic goods from the government. Still it’s something that would be legal and is an option. Even floating the idea seriously could cause the auto makers to remember how to make those minimum amenity hatchbacks.
We have 10 trillion dollars more GDP. If China wants to declare open season on EV’s there’s no reason we can’t beat them at this game. This policy is meant purely to prevent our auto industry from having to innovate like a competitive market would force. Nope we’re going to have 50k E-SUVs that spy on us and fall apart. And we’ll like it. Because they also passed legislation in my state to ban the sale of new gas cars in 6 years. And the mass transit system is. not. ready.
I see a bunch of people freaking out over EVs, panicking about spying or being disabled remotely. But the newer ICE cars are, AFAICT, the same thing. I just want everyone worried about this 1984 shit to not be burying their heads in the sand. I’m worried about it also. We should organize against it. (I guess the person I responded to didn’t think ICE cars are any better, after all. But it did seem so at first.)
Yeah, buy used for now, but I’d like to stop the practice entirely. Otherwise they can just wait it out as more and more old cars are totaled or unmaintainable.
Have you seen the reports from China about their EVs? If it’s about falling appart, they’re far ahead of anything any western manufacturers could produce lol
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Free markets for me but not for thee
This is how all capitalist markets progress, which is why I get annoyed when folks try to talk about this as though it is hypocritical. There is nothing hypocritical about a capitalist attempting to stifle innovation and competition for the advancement of their own personal wealth. This is what capitalism is about.
I think that what you’re saying is that actions of hypocrites cannot be considered hypocritical since it’s their nature to be hypocrites. It’s all a bit circular, isn’t it?
I think that in the case of Mr. Musk, the issue is that he has been seen as an innovator not just as a capitalist for much of his time in the spotlight. For 2018 Musk, this declaration would have been hypocritical. For 2024 Musk, whatever, why are we still listening to this clown?
No, not quite. I’m saying musk has never believed in the free market in his life and has never argued in good faith. All of those wealthy types know exactly what they are doing. They publicly embrace a fake ideal of free market economics up until they no longer have to put up the facade.
Correct. No politican, economist or, indeed, capitalist “believes” in the (so-called) “free market” - they all know perfectly well that it’s a fairy tale designed to justify them and their cronies parasitizing at everybody and everything else’s expense. The regime that made Musk’s billions possible - the Apartheid-regime - knew perfectly well that the “free market” was a big, fat lie all the way back in 1948. That’s why they built all the public infrastructure that enriched white people’s lives (including Elon’s) while repressing the majority of South Africans into becoming the glorified indentured labour that made Elon’s daddy rich.
It’s no different than “hearts & minds,” “spreading civilization” or Cinderella’s glass slipper. They all know it and they have always all known it.
isn’t this the definition of hypocrisy?
I suppose you’re right, it is. I am not articulating myself properly here. Let me re-frame this.
Every time we chalk things up to a bad actor being hypocritical, we are taking our eye off of the ball. The problems we are facing are not individual actors that are simply acting hypocritical in the moment. We are, in reality, dealing with a much larger issue. The economic structure is filled with grifters, liars, and exploiters at the top because that is how it is best leveraged.
So when articles are written calling some billionaire a hypocrite, we are not accomplishing anything. I would argue it is largely a game of masturbatory whack-a-mole to make ourselves feel better, because we cannot fix this system with random callouts and the (extremely) rare removal of “bad apples.”
Care to articulate how you’d describe it?
Much more than just capitalism, right? Like that, plus our entire culture, generations of propaganda and indoctrination. All of our power structures, political, financial, military, media, education.
Everything. Much larger issue is an understatement. How do we fix it?
I will say that I am no oracle, just one man. It is easy to perceive problems and very hard to prescribe solutions.
That being said, I can offer the following perspectives.
In order to fix these problems, we need to fight back through locally organized groups; tenant unions, renters unions, etc. Having the hard conversations with friends and family. Re-framing arguments and world views in terms of class rather than cancerous “red versus blue” politics. Showing up to peaceful protests while we can still participate in them. Pulling the levers of democracy given to us in local elections, and on the national stage, pulling the levers for the candidate that will not plunge us into immediate fascism as a stop gap. We need to do this now and with vigor to prevent the other potentials.
The alternative to action now, I’m afraid, will end in revolution attempts by a divided working class. This implies civil war where nothing is certain.
“Businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves.” – Milton Friedman
This is why he wants 25% of tesla so badly
Part of the free-market attitude though is that you should be allowed to buy policy, so in that regard it’s consistent, you just have to account for corruption in the cost of doing business.
'Mericuh fuck yeah!
I don’t mind bashing Musk for a second, but as far as I know China follows a startup mentality with electric cars - the government supports the industry so they can sell cars below their actual price, and once they killed all their competition they can increase.
There’s no fair winning against this policy
That’s free market, alright.
And the US supports the oil and gas industry. The government supports the industry so they can sell gas below its actual price.
I would think that the winning move would be to impose enough tariffs to offset the foreign government subsidies, yet still promote some competition.
The government could also 100 percent fund battery research; Put a government owned company out there to make a floor in the market (5 person hatchback with minimum amenities); Give us more than 7,500 in EV rebates on a select few models; Change CAFE standards so bigger isn’t automatically better; etc…
There’s a lot we could do. We instead chose the most reductive and protectionist route possible. And even then Volvo (Owned by Greely) says they may be able to get a refund on the entire tariff because of the other models they produce in the US.
Definitely need more subsidies or grants for domestic research. Though I don’t see the government owned company idea working mainly due to how capitalism is implemented here. The government tends to not directly compete with private entities.
Fully agree with clamping down (via higher taxes or something similar) on the giant vehicles and the loopholes they can abuse today.
Oh yeah, Americans would riot before buying basic goods from the government. Still it’s something that would be legal and is an option. Even floating the idea seriously could cause the auto makers to remember how to make those minimum amenity hatchbacks.
So they’re just like Uber. Why didn’t they put a 100% tax on them?
We have 10 trillion dollars more GDP. If China wants to declare open season on EV’s there’s no reason we can’t beat them at this game. This policy is meant purely to prevent our auto industry from having to innovate like a competitive market would force. Nope we’re going to have 50k E-SUVs that spy on us and fall apart. And we’ll like it. Because they also passed legislation in my state to ban the sale of new gas cars in 6 years. And the mass transit system is. not. ready.
You seem to think the ICE cars are not spying on you nor falling apart.
2014 Kangoo begs to differ (no options, except the brown color).
We got one, it’s pretty much unkillable. We even used it to gather wood.
AFAIK every ICE car model has some cutoff year after which they have added spy tech. You do have to buy used to not be spied upon. Mozilla did a page on Renault here: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/renault/
I see a bunch of people freaking out over EVs, panicking about spying or being disabled remotely. But the newer ICE cars are, AFAICT, the same thing. I just want everyone worried about this 1984 shit to not be burying their heads in the sand. I’m worried about it also. We should organize against it. (I guess the person I responded to didn’t think ICE cars are any better, after all. But it did seem so at first.)
Yeah, buy used for now, but I’d like to stop the practice entirely. Otherwise they can just wait it out as more and more old cars are totaled or unmaintainable.
No, I’m under no illusions. I’m just not happy at the lack of competition.
Have you seen the reports from China about their EVs? If it’s about falling appart, they’re far ahead of anything any western manufacturers could produce lol
“One rule for me, another for thee.”
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An asshole can be right. China is anti competitive and actively undermining democracies.
Our ev manufacturers need to be put under pressure, but not by fascist regimes and their exploitation of the earth and people.
Yeah, tariffs aren’t going to help Tesla at this point but yeah, he’s still a hypocritical jackass.
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