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[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Given the current rivers of small-business bankruptcy and closures, I’d say that we’ve achieved at least an Eastern European level of mercantile oligarchy. A true monarchy is still a few years off, I grant you.

There are also rivers of dynamic problem solving creating new businesses and products. Capital might be streaming in different directions these days, but that is the great thing about liberal markets - they can adapt. (Tradesmen in my area are really high demand, and their small businesses are thriving. Lumber and gardening supply stores of all sizes are also crushing it, along with weed delivery operations. Capitalism #1!)

This little hiccup won't be the end of American ingenuity, but fear and cynicism will always be mopey and dour handmaidens of change. Don't let negativity be a prison for your mind, brother.

I do envy your optimism. But I think you’ll find that Master Bezos does not approve of your thoughts, pleb.

How is Bezos' wealth a threat to my liberty? His company provides me convenience, saves me money, and allows me more free-time by streamlining purchasing. Access to just about any book ever written or translated into English helps encourage my free thinking, not hinder it, and no amount of Bezos' personal wealth is a threat to that. Our interests our aligned - he wants to sell and I want to buy.

[SuburbanFarmer]

There are also rivers of dynamic problem solving creating new businesses and products. Capital might be streaming in different directions these days, but that is the great thing about liberal markets - they can adapt. (Tradesmen in my area are really high demand, and their small businesses are thriving. Lumber and gardening supply stores of all sizes are also crushing it, along with weed delivery operations. Capitalism #1!)

This little hiccup won't be the end of American ingenuity, but fear and cynicism will always be mopey and dour handmaidens of change. Don't let negativity be a prison for your mind, brother.

I do envy your optimism. But I think you’ll find that Master Bezos does not approve of your thoughts, pleb.

How is Bezos' wealth a threat to my liberty? His company provides me convenience, saves me money, and allows me more free-time by streamlining purchasing. Access to just about any book ever written or translated into English helps encourage my free thinking, not hinder it, and no amount of Bezos' personal wealth is a threat to that. Our interests our aligned - he wants to sell and I want to buy.

Silly pleb. He’s paid and protected by your tax dollars. Along with every other mega-conglomerate ‘job creator’.

You can innovate all you want, but don’t approach the estates, or you will be subdued, citizen.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

I do envy your optimism. But I think you’ll find that Master Bezos does not approve of your thoughts, pleb.

How is Bezos' wealth a threat to my liberty? His company provides me convenience, saves me money, and allows me more free-time by streamlining purchasing. Access to just about any book ever written or translated into English helps encourage my free thinking, not hinder it, and no amount of Bezos' personal wealth is a threat to that. Our interests our aligned - he wants to sell and I want to buy.

Silly pleb. He’s paid and protected by your tax dollars. Along with every other mega-conglomerate ‘job creator’.

You can innovate all you want, but don’t approach the estates, or you will be subdued, citizen.

Give me one concrete example of how my liberty is threatened by Amazon before launching into your paranoid anti-capitalist conspiracies.

[SuburbanFarmer]

How is Bezos' wealth a threat to my liberty? His company provides me convenience, saves me money, and allows me more free-time by streamlining purchasing. Access to just about any book ever written or translated into English helps encourage my free thinking, not hinder it, and no amount of Bezos' personal wealth is a threat to that. Our interests our aligned - he wants to sell and I want to buy.

Silly pleb. He’s paid and protected by your tax dollars. Along with every other mega-conglomerate ‘job creator’.

You can innovate all you want, but don’t approach the estates, or you will be subdued, citizen.

Give me one concrete example of how my liberty is threatened by Amazon before launching into your paranoid anti-capitalist conspiracies.

Not anti-capitalist by any means. Anti crony-capitalist, and anti-monopolistic, certainly.

Your liberty is dependent on your wealth. Your wealth is taken by the government and distributed both directly to ConglomoMax (“subsidies”), and to an assortment of agencies who waste it, and use the rest to make sure that ConglomoMax isn’t threatened in any way by uppity plebs like yourself (“intellectual property”, “patent extension”, “licensing”, “Tax subsidy”, “preferred financing”, bailouts, etc).

Now go dig a better ditch around your hovel, lest the Master get crass and thump you.

[C-Mag]

:popcorn

[Martin Hash]

I'm not. I have been trying to argue that aristocracy and elitism are, on balance, good for personal liberty. It has, so far, not been a popular position.

The most efficient & effective forms of government are Enlightened Tyranny & Benevolent Dictators, it's just that the adjectives have to hold.

p.s. I'm available if you need one?

I've got one: An oligarchy is an aristocracy that has stopped being aristocratic.

All you have to do is admit that somebody else knows better than you about what you want. Like I said, I'm available. Who is more qualified? (That's a real question.)

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

Silly pleb. He’s paid and protected by your tax dollars. Along with every other mega-conglomerate ‘job creator’.

You can innovate all you want, but don’t approach the estates, or you will be subdued, citizen.

Give me one concrete example of how my liberty is threatened by Amazon before launching into your paranoid anti-capitalist conspiracies.

Not anti-capitalist by any means. Anti crony-capitalist, and anti-monopolistic, certainly.

Your liberty is dependent on your wealth. Your wealth is taken by the government and distributed both directly to ConglomoMax (“subsidies”), and to an assortment of agencies who waste it, and use the rest to make sure that ConglomoMax isn’t threatened in any way by uppity plebs like yourself (“intellectual property”, “patent extension”, “licensing”, “Tax subsidy”, “preferred financing”, bailouts, etc).

Now go dig a better ditch around your hovel, lest the Master get crass and thump you.

Liberty being dependent on "wealth" is a claim you are making with out justifying. Wealth is an incredibly abstract concept.

In our crony-capitalist system I need very few resources to have maximum liberty. Resources that I can obtain with less and less work, and that stretch further and further every decade. To that extent, I currently have all the wealth I require for liberty, irrespective of Amazon's shareholder value. In fact, it is likely that Amazon's value helps me to maximize the value of my personal wealth.

Whatever ConglomoMax is doing with their tax subsidies is increasing my convenience, access to goods, and free time to enjoy them - so I wouldn't call them wasted. How have corporate bailouts negatively impacted my liberty?

So, again, how does Bezos' wealth in any way limit my liberty?

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

The most efficient & effective forms of government are Enlightened Tyranny & Benevolent Dictators, it's just that the adjectives have to hold.

p.s. I'm available if you need one?

I've got one: An oligarchy is an aristocracy that has stopped being aristocratic.

All you have to do is admit that somebody else knows better than you about what you want. Like I said, I'm available. Who is more qualified? (That's a real question.)

It is unlikely someone else knows better than me what I want. It is possible someone else knows better how I can get it. I try to always remain open to suggestions.

[kybkh]

I still think you are missing my point.

Slavery enabled the revolution which enabled the creation of the USA which means slavery was a good thing to the extent it enabled the overthrow of a ruling class determined by birth.

Dude, you could make that argument about all of human history. When was there a time without slaves? When was there cultural advancement without slaves, for heaven's sake? How many wars were fought just to get slaves so that the conquerors could benefit those subservient to them? My goodness, change the definition only a tiny bit, and you're a slave. People working Minimum Wage are the serfs of the day. Many folks provide sex for money, kids even. Many people are at the beck & call of someone, all the time, with little leisure for themselves. Slaves are fucking everywhere.

I may be the only non-slave posting here.

That is the argument I make when less intelligent people discuss the "original sin", but when I am talking to a more nuanced audience, I try to offer an original thought or two. I would say every "revolution" brings about new barriers to advancement. I am just not as positive as you seem to be that if America did not have a gentry class, the USA would still have come about and the gentry class in America was almost solely slave owners and that by having the amount of time to dedicate to crafting such a nation could not have been accomplished by a less wealthy class of people.

And you keep avoiding the great wealth slave owners dedicated to the revolution. Without such wealth, could the N Americans have created such a well armed militia to field?

[kybkh]

I get the feeling you think I am critiquing our founding and that is not my purpose which is why I say "original sin".

I mean, they were humans trying to survive as we all are, doing what they found to be natural as we all do.

Imagining the development of America without the great agricultural wealth generated in the early, short span of time is hard to do. As it is hard to imagine what America would be like if we had not destroy unimaginable amounts of wealth during the Civil War.