Holy shit.
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@peterbrown From there you get the VLSI Oops, the resulting gold rush, displaced incumbents (or at least incumbents with rivals), and the semblance of innovation. The problem is the only actual innovation was to create a global panopticon, and suddenly the administrative possibilities, stuck on quill-pen-and-ledger for millennia, change. Which means the kind of state you can have changes, and the whole progression has been toward extraction.
@peterbrown All wealth arises from work and if you want to be really rich you have to capture the work of others, which means the whole progression of the norms of enclosure (which are functionally a selection pressure; the better you are at this, the greater your relative success, and that includes "my culture colonizes effectively so children born to it eat better") is about "how much of this person's life span can I structurally compel them to use for my purposes?"
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@peterbrown All wealth arises from work and if you want to be really rich you have to capture the work of others, which means the whole progression of the norms of enclosure (which are functionally a selection pressure; the better you are at this, the greater your relative success, and that includes "my culture colonizes effectively so children born to it eat better") is about "how much of this person's life span can I structurally compel them to use for my purposes?"
@peterbrown It's not precisely slavery; or at least, it doesn't have the chattel aspects. It's just really hard to do anything but the stuff that surrenders your lifespan to another's purposes, because the penalties for non-compliance are death by exposure or starvation.
And this really gets going as an identifiable, post-aristocractic-autocracy stultification thing, with the Pirate Kingdom of Elizabeth I and just kept rolling on selective advantage thereafter.
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Holy shit.
Hungary’s New Leader Reveals Viktor Orbán Was Paying CPAC
Magyar noted that his government will be investigating Orbán’s expenditures, and will no longer finance CPAC or other right-wing institutions abroad.
https://newrepublic.com/post/209035/hungary-prime-minister-victor-orban-paying-cpac
@cstross
Them: "American conservativism is a legitimate political movement advancing sincerely-held, patriotic American ideals and is not at all a front for pro-Russian foreign operatives trying to destabilize our country."News story: "The [former, pro-Putin] Hungarian government has been bankrolling the Conservative Political Action Conference for years."
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Holy shit.
Hungary’s New Leader Reveals Viktor Orbán Was Paying CPAC
Magyar noted that his government will be investigating Orbán’s expenditures, and will no longer finance CPAC or other right-wing institutions abroad.
https://newrepublic.com/post/209035/hungary-prime-minister-victor-orban-paying-cpac
@cstross There have been rumors in the U.S. about Saudi money paying for various organizations also, podcasters, etc. Making millionaires dependent on outside money like might explain not only why there are more rich people, but why they behave like they do, politically. This CPAC funding might lend some credence to those rumors.
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@cstross
Them: "American conservativism is a legitimate political movement advancing sincerely-held, patriotic American ideals and is not at all a front for pro-Russian foreign operatives trying to destabilize our country."News story: "The [former, pro-Putin] Hungarian government has been bankrolling the Conservative Political Action Conference for years."
@msbellows @cstross Meanwhile @ CPAC America. Everyone is whistling and pretending they have no clue what he's talking about.
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@peterbrown It's not precisely slavery; or at least, it doesn't have the chattel aspects. It's just really hard to do anything but the stuff that surrenders your lifespan to another's purposes, because the penalties for non-compliance are death by exposure or starvation.
And this really gets going as an identifiable, post-aristocractic-autocracy stultification thing, with the Pirate Kingdom of Elizabeth I and just kept rolling on selective advantage thereafter.
@graydon @darkling @cstross “all wealth arises from work” - yes, but once there is a feudal overlord, they take their cut.
My point was that pre-feudalism it more resembled a patriarchy or a team. If you supported another member, it was because you wanted to not because you were forced to.
But post feudalism there is an obligatory trickle-up. -
@cstross
Them: "American conservativism is a legitimate political movement advancing sincerely-held, patriotic American ideals and is not at all a front for pro-Russian foreign operatives trying to destabilize our country."News story: "The [former, pro-Putin] Hungarian government has been bankrolling the Conservative Political Action Conference for years."
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@graydon @darkling @cstross “all wealth arises from work” - yes, but once there is a feudal overlord, they take their cut.
My point was that pre-feudalism it more resembled a patriarchy or a team. If you supported another member, it was because you wanted to not because you were forced to.
But post feudalism there is an obligatory trickle-up.@peterbrown Pre-feudalism we could have the Divine Augustus or Sargon of Akkad! lots of direct taxes before the feudal period.
The thing I'd consider unusual about feudal taxes would be a combination of hierarchy-by-public-oaths (effectively contracts) and the change from a gift culture setup (the king gives you stuff, including land tenure, for service) and the creation of permanent land tenure by Christianity. (Can't give a temporary gift to an eternal god.)
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@peterbrown Pre-feudalism we could have the Divine Augustus or Sargon of Akkad! lots of direct taxes before the feudal period.
The thing I'd consider unusual about feudal taxes would be a combination of hierarchy-by-public-oaths (effectively contracts) and the change from a gift culture setup (the king gives you stuff, including land tenure, for service) and the creation of permanent land tenure by Christianity. (Can't give a temporary gift to an eternal god.)
@graydon @darkling @cstross yes, well I can’t vouch for other countries, but in Scotland that occurred in the beginning of the 12th century. And from that point you can see a steady unstoppable growth of wealth both in the nobility and the church (who were also feudal overlords).
 Hence my comment that it’s the beginning of trickle up economies. -
@graydon @darkling @cstross yes, well I can’t vouch for other countries, but in Scotland that occurred in the beginning of the 12th century. And from that point you can see a steady unstoppable growth of wealth both in the nobility and the church (who were also feudal overlords).
 Hence my comment that it’s the beginning of trickle up economies.@peterbrown I think that's more bookland/charter land (=permanent tenure for entities smaller than a sovereign, aka it's not a gift economy where the king rewards service but it all resets when anyone involved dies) rather than feudalism as such; feudalism works pretty well, and arguably better, pre-bookland.
And, yes, growth of wealth because this is the invention of private property. It's enclosure zero, the idea that land is a thing you can own. (As distinct from hold.)
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@cstross @militant_dilettante When AfD was formed, it was not a nazi party. Its founders were ordoliberal* economists whose idea was to withdraw Germany from the eurozone to alleviate the Greek debt crisis. (As a € state, Greece could no longer kill debt by devaluing the drachma. AfD figured German withdrawal would effectively devalue the euro.)
1/nI'm UK/Kanadian - I don't have a dog in that fight, but I'm still worried how many countries in the 'west' are sliding to the right. It doesn't really matter what the origins of the AfD were, but what they are right now. You know as well as I do how many far rights there are in europe and the americas.
I find it very worrying for my kids and grandkids. -
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