The Irresistible Temptations of Centralized Power
The only "reform" that changes our lives in a fundamentally positive way is radical decentralization via distributing centralized power.
Presidents like to deal with the CEOs of corporate monopolies for self-evident reasons: Rather than engage in the tedious, contentious herding-of-cats in nimble, dynamic, competitive sectors, the Prez makes a deal with the monopoly CEO and the deal is imposed on everyone down the political, corporate, workplace hierarchy.
Centralized power makes a coup--a forced swap of leadership--meet the new boss, same as the old boss--easy. Financial coups are easier, too, with one central bank and one cartel of "too big to fail, too big to care" banks.
Centralized power offers many other Irresistible Temptations. Reformers love centralized power because if they can grab control of it, they can force-feed their glorious reforms (or profit-maximizing schemes) down everyone's throats whether they agree or not: it is against the law to complain about corporate/state monopolies controlling our lives, everyone must install a Flock camera in their bedroom, no one can criticize the Supreme Leader in private, everyone must wear approved Silly Hats in public, etc.
Oops, those reforms sound like an authoritarian, totalitarian state gone mad. Yes, precisely. All centralized power arrangements end up manifesting authoritarian, totalitarian extremes of madness, because that's the only possible outcome of centralizing power: petty dictators are soon running the asylum, and loving every minute of it. The patients, not so much.
We see this everywhere now, as monopolies are manifestations of centralized power. This is why I call the status quo Privatized Totalitarianism as privately owned and operated monopolies / cartels have the same headlock on us as state monopolies, and the two work together, as this serves the interests of both: you make the Silly Hats, and we mandate their use, and penalize anyone attempting to modify your software, app, device or Silly Hat to evade your monopoly chokehold. We both get rich exploiting the powerless peasantry, so what's not to like?
Politics now boils down to a Silly Hats slugfest over who gets control of the Privatized Totalitarianism casino. The only meaningful reform is to decentralize power by demolishing every monopoly and cartel and banning the aggregation of power. But what about "efficiency"? Yes, Privatized Totalitarianism is very "efficient"-- efficient at extraction, exploitation, surveillance, repression, propaganda, PR and social control mechanisms.
If the public can "vote with their feet" by moving to a different physical location but they're still living in the same cartel-monopoly economy wherever they move, their "liberty" is illusory. It's like changing cabins in the gulag: maybe this hut has fewer leaks and fewer fleas, but it's still in the gulag.
Just as what we're losing by using AI is invisible because we've lost the capacity to even see what's been lost, we've lost the capacity to see the systemic decay of the quality of our lives in the invisible gulag of Privatized Totalitarianism. So even as we thrill to some new novelty or tiny discount, we've lost the capacity to see what's been lost in the slow destruction of decentralized, competitive dynamism in favor of the profit-maximizing, sclerotic gulag we're all trapped in without even being aware that we're trapped, for the key to maintaining the kingdom is to foster the illusions of choice, liberty and competition while distracting us with ceaseless hype about new technologies, novelties and meaningless discounts as "competition" and "choice."
It's like looking at a row of different brand products and then reading the fine print to discover that they're all owned by the same corporation. That's Privatized Totalitarianism, well cloaked behind carefully maintained illusions of choice, liberty and competition.
And if you protest, it might get worse: "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further."
The only "reform" that changes our lives in a fundamentally positive way is radical decentralization via distributing centralized power. Everything else is just changing huts in the gulag and being delighted with the steady stream of absurd parodies of novelty: "New gruel, new taste, now with micro-plastics!"
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