Reposted by @deequan.bsky.social
We've lived for so long with this mythology that sure, the wealthy can be cruel. But at least the cruelty has a point. Profit!
I'd like us to open our hearts to other possibilities.
Power doesn't just corrupt! It can also breed truly reality-distorting levels of incompetence.
![While finance split into two political factions, the Silicon Valley elite marched rightward in astonishing unity. For three decades, tech-entrepreneurs and private-financiers could “move fast and break things” without having to fear major, state-imposed repercussions. Having had it all-too easy, these apex predators’ decided that the Biden administration and the Democratic Party’s mounting anti-trust enforcement needed to be stopped. In that sense, their rallying around Trump’s flag is all about restoring the Obama-Trump antitrust status quo ante. Speaking of the anxiety felt by industry leaders, venture capitalist Marc Andreesen described signs of “social revolution” across both campuses and Silicon Valley, as “a rebirth of the New Left” radicalized the workforce.
Very clearly, companies are basically being hijacked to engines of social change, social revolution. The employee base is going feral. There were cases in the Trump [I] era where multiple companies I know felt like they were hours away from full-blown violent riots on their own campuses by their own employees.
Silicon Valley’s liberalism, it turns out, was a temporary phase linked to a now past maximum-liquidity, minimum-regulation period of US capitalism. Then Covid hit, and the government provided substantial transfers to workers, some of whom felt empowered to voice new demands. At the same time, the Biden administration’s most activist branch, Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission, directed its antitrust enforcement toward big tech. Add Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s tentative international coordination on corporate taxation and the Democratic President’s rhetorical support for union mobilization, and you can see why Andreesen experienced this as “a giant radicalizing moment” and spent enormous amounts of time on group chats promoting billionaire class consciousness.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hbpefio3f5csc44msmbgioxz/bafkreibzj7kmcox5qgx3facxmzvhzcdbfw6xmntvv3kww2hynin457i2uq)
