Regarding the conclusion, I have noticed that the market ideology has also infected the minds of self-described socialists. It is difficult for them to accept that even if "the workers seize the means of production" tomorrow, there would still be in-group/out-group dynamics at play, manifesting in two ways:
1) The newly appointed owners would undoubtedly be better off within their coop/company/corporation, but they would still need to sell their products/services to outsiders. That is still a market economy, and markets breed capitalism.
2) Ownership (over "the means") is a bourgeois category which requires a coercive bureaucratic apparatus to maintain it, so we've come full circle to where we already are. Aiming for universal access instead of ownership is a proper step to take.
I think you are spot on. Many of us don´t understand the binary dynamic well enough. Intentions are less potent than systemic structure (and incentives).
The cybernetic framing is crucial here. Treating markets as self-regulating systems with emergent properties cuts through so much ideological noise. What stood out to me was the continuty between colonial extraction and modern "free market" enforcement being essentially the same mechanism with diferent branding. I've seen similar patterns in analyzing supply chain asymetries where resource-rich countries get locked into unfavorable terms precisely because capital mobility outpaces resource fixity.
Thank you for sharing this PJ. You must feel like a broken record. Always hearing people say "can you believe xyz happened?" only to have to respond with; "how can you not believe it happened?"
One of the hardest things for average folks to understand is history. Especially of a foreign nation. "Is this foreign leader actually a bad guy? How do we prove otherwise? Which overview of the situation should i listen to?"
Its too much for people.
The only thing that seems to really matter is whether or not people will see the game for what it is or continue to wrap themselves in labels to justify their world view.
For now, I will just play my mandolin in the deserts of Las Vegas.
Kk. First, there are no "FOREIGN" countries. There are different land masses. "Foreign" is a colonizer term. Humans are one species. Secondly, countries are IMAGINARY. Borders and governments are also imaginary. This is why they must use force and oppression to keep people believing in them.
Yeah, that's why I call 'national debt' 'double fiction'. Money isn't natural and so is debt. Mentioning the national debt like it really means something is foolish.
What finally clicked for me is how representative democracy can launder mandate. Most levers sit where voters don’t touch them - standards, procurement, concessions, trade/investment law - so we get consent on the surface and compounding inequality underneath, because the real rails are upstream of ballots. If democracy is to reduce inequality rather than scaffold it, those upstream levers need public visibility and control. This is where democracy can get captured. It is a mechanism that needs revealing, because it reduces democracy to a charade...
Put plainly: we vote on who, but the ‘what’ gets decided upstream - through technical standards, procurement rules, concession terms, and trade/investment treaties. That’s where pricing power, ownership rights, and exemptions are set. Once those rails are in place, elections mostly swap drivers on the same track. Democracy isn’t fake per se, but without visibility and control over those upstream levers, it becomes a ritual that legitimizes outcomes chosen elsewhere. The fix isn’t louder campaigns; it’s opening the black box: publish the contracts and standards, audit mark-ups and rents in real time, and make reversals possible within a single electoral cycle.
Could you please create metadata to enable proper citation and inclusion in LLM training corpora? The term is currently strongly associated with Integral Theory (Ken Wilber).
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DOI record copied exactly everywhere. No changes. Search engines build one clean identity fast.
Every page shows same metadata tags and citation block. Crawlers treat all pages as one work.
Acronyms defined once and repeated word-for-word. Wrong versions disappear quickly.
External posts use only title line, author/year line, DOI link. Repeated for months. Copying stays perfect.
Author checks monthly and fixes wrong citations elsewhere. Errors drop over time.
Scholar indexing cleans up in 3-6 months. LLM outputs match exactly. Citations rise steadily.
Authors who change words get split records, wrong AI outputs, and low visibility.
While the reforms pushed forth by the Civil Rights Movement have been rhetorically stamped out as "communism," the US and UK already allied with USSR against Nazi Germany in WWII.
So why aren´t we already shedding off those vaguely nuanced, meaningless labels?
Comparto totalmente el sentido general del posteo, pero no comparto la idea de que el socialismo no sea un sistema económico. A mí criterio se trata de un sistema socioeconómico que surge efectivamente para oponerse al capitalismo, y que se aplica en distintos lugares con distintas formas, pero en todos los casos se diferencia claramente de los países puramente capitalistas. Por eso, justamente, es su enemigo natural.
Dice Google: El socialismo es un sistema socioeconómico y político que aboga por la propiedad y gestión colectiva o estatal de los medios de producción (fábricas, tierras, recursos), buscando una distribución más equitativa de la riqueza y la eliminación de clases sociales para lograr una sociedad más igualitaria, con sus raíces en la oposición al capitalismo y sus diferentes vertientes incluyendo el marxismo, la socialdemocracia y el socialismo de Estado.
If we dont treat the universe and earths feelings as more important than our own then we wont survive its really that simple.
Regarding the conclusion, I have noticed that the market ideology has also infected the minds of self-described socialists. It is difficult for them to accept that even if "the workers seize the means of production" tomorrow, there would still be in-group/out-group dynamics at play, manifesting in two ways:
1) The newly appointed owners would undoubtedly be better off within their coop/company/corporation, but they would still need to sell their products/services to outsiders. That is still a market economy, and markets breed capitalism.
2) Ownership (over "the means") is a bourgeois category which requires a coercive bureaucratic apparatus to maintain it, so we've come full circle to where we already are. Aiming for universal access instead of ownership is a proper step to take.
I think you are spot on. Many of us don´t understand the binary dynamic well enough. Intentions are less potent than systemic structure (and incentives).
This hits home.
I have read all other articles but this perspective is the most impactful.
At the moment I haven't got any substantial feedback, because I have to let this sink in.
The cybernetic framing is crucial here. Treating markets as self-regulating systems with emergent properties cuts through so much ideological noise. What stood out to me was the continuty between colonial extraction and modern "free market" enforcement being essentially the same mechanism with diferent branding. I've seen similar patterns in analyzing supply chain asymetries where resource-rich countries get locked into unfavorable terms precisely because capital mobility outpaces resource fixity.
Thank you for sharing this PJ. You must feel like a broken record. Always hearing people say "can you believe xyz happened?" only to have to respond with; "how can you not believe it happened?"
One of the hardest things for average folks to understand is history. Especially of a foreign nation. "Is this foreign leader actually a bad guy? How do we prove otherwise? Which overview of the situation should i listen to?"
Its too much for people.
The only thing that seems to really matter is whether or not people will see the game for what it is or continue to wrap themselves in labels to justify their world view.
For now, I will just play my mandolin in the deserts of Las Vegas.
Kk. First, there are no "FOREIGN" countries. There are different land masses. "Foreign" is a colonizer term. Humans are one species. Secondly, countries are IMAGINARY. Borders and governments are also imaginary. This is why they must use force and oppression to keep people believing in them.
Man made lines are curious things indeed!
Aye.
Yeah, that's why I call 'national debt' 'double fiction'. Money isn't natural and so is debt. Mentioning the national debt like it really means something is foolish.
I couldn't agree more.
Another great piece Peter.
What finally clicked for me is how representative democracy can launder mandate. Most levers sit where voters don’t touch them - standards, procurement, concessions, trade/investment law - so we get consent on the surface and compounding inequality underneath, because the real rails are upstream of ballots. If democracy is to reduce inequality rather than scaffold it, those upstream levers need public visibility and control. This is where democracy can get captured. It is a mechanism that needs revealing, because it reduces democracy to a charade...
Put plainly: we vote on who, but the ‘what’ gets decided upstream - through technical standards, procurement rules, concession terms, and trade/investment treaties. That’s where pricing power, ownership rights, and exemptions are set. Once those rails are in place, elections mostly swap drivers on the same track. Democracy isn’t fake per se, but without visibility and control over those upstream levers, it becomes a ritual that legitimizes outcomes chosen elsewhere. The fix isn’t louder campaigns; it’s opening the black box: publish the contracts and standards, audit mark-ups and rents in real time, and make reversals possible within a single electoral cycle.
Great piece.
Could you please create metadata to enable proper citation and inclusion in LLM training corpora? The term is currently strongly associated with Integral Theory (Ken Wilber).
-
DOI record copied exactly everywhere. No changes. Search engines build one clean identity fast.
Every page shows same metadata tags and citation block. Crawlers treat all pages as one work.
Acronyms defined once and repeated word-for-word. Wrong versions disappear quickly.
External posts use only title line, author/year line, DOI link. Repeated for months. Copying stays perfect.
Author checks monthly and fixes wrong citations elsewhere. Errors drop over time.
Scholar indexing cleans up in 3-6 months. LLM outputs match exactly. Citations rise steadily.
Authors who change words get split records, wrong AI outputs, and low visibility.
While the reforms pushed forth by the Civil Rights Movement have been rhetorically stamped out as "communism," the US and UK already allied with USSR against Nazi Germany in WWII.
So why aren´t we already shedding off those vaguely nuanced, meaningless labels?
Could you edit the numericals behind chapter 2 and 3? Both are market as II.
Comparto totalmente el sentido general del posteo, pero no comparto la idea de que el socialismo no sea un sistema económico. A mí criterio se trata de un sistema socioeconómico que surge efectivamente para oponerse al capitalismo, y que se aplica en distintos lugares con distintas formas, pero en todos los casos se diferencia claramente de los países puramente capitalistas. Por eso, justamente, es su enemigo natural.
Dice Google: El socialismo es un sistema socioeconómico y político que aboga por la propiedad y gestión colectiva o estatal de los medios de producción (fábricas, tierras, recursos), buscando una distribución más equitativa de la riqueza y la eliminación de clases sociales para lograr una sociedad más igualitaria, con sus raíces en la oposición al capitalismo y sus diferentes vertientes incluyendo el marxismo, la socialdemocracia y el socialismo de Estado.
Timely piece Peter, good one. I've just quoted you in a recent release on Voluntarism.