"This is one important aspect of a broader process of state transformation. The US government - like other governments - has increasingly contracted out many tasks that used to be core parts of state functioning to the private sector. This may or may not create greater efficiencies, depending (accounts vary). Undeniably, it hollows out state capacity and the capacity of the state to function independent of contractors. Governments find themselves increasingly incapable of carrying out even very basic functions without the help of private sector actors." Excellent insight.
My take? It's corporatism with a twist, an example of where whatever authority remains in USA society exists in splintered form. A telling quote from Mussolini gave me the reference to 'corporatism': “Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” Your notes about the difficulty of any post-Trump administration 'disentangling' these ties nails a reality often ignored. Who will end up on top in that struggle? It won't be the individual citizen; that's a given because gradually, unthinkingly, we have given away our rights and authority in this transition.
That's by design. The reichwing has been promoting "small government" since even before 1980, but it was 1980 where it all started to come to fruition.
"I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." -Grover Norquist, 2001
Minor technical suggestion/complaint: if you manually use asterisks one has to scroll down & then find one's way back to where it was to read the footnote. If you use substack's automated footnote function, you can click down and then back to where you were—and you often don't even have to, since just hovering over the footnote number will show the text of the note if it's not too long. Much better reading experience. Just a thought.
It would be nice if substack's footnote functionality to allow us to choose a marker. As of now, it forces us to use numbers. Not really that big of a deal, but it can be annoying, especially if you want more than one marker to point to the same footnote, which substack also doesn't allow.
These — sometimes, or partly accidental — billionaires are as stupid as the rest of us (as history has amply illustrated), so even without ketamine, they cannot be expected to make wise, scenario-driven choices in this.
IMO, just threatening to force a company to supply what you want for government purposes is problematic. Already, we have blocked Chinese vendors because of the belief that Chinese corporations operate under the eye of the government. Are Chinese products spying on us? Will the Chinese government demand that the products do what they want? Are there back doors? Can the government "throw the switch" to disable or change a product's operation? Kaspersky's AV software was banned from all government computers because of fears over who really controls the company.
Clearly, any other government will now see the US as operating in the same way. Tech companies are global suppliers as far as they are able. They have already had the US government pressure EU countries not to make laws that handicap their full control over operations and value extraction, and even to try to force EU nations to buy more of their technology. (There is already concern about the inroads Palantir has made into the UK's NHS and MOD with their products. Recall the problem of the difficulty in returning an RAF F-35 stranded in India to flight.) After the Greenland debacle, this can only make US tech companies more nervous about their global profits, as the EU hastens its drive to source tech from EU companies. In the last week, I have seen 2 media articles about escaping from the clutches of US big technology by opting for less predatory corporate offerings, (and risky products outside of user control).
All this makes US products and services increasingly risky to use and therefore home-sourced products and services more preferable. So, US military and civilian tech products and services start to lose global market share. A self-reinforcing feedback loop of decline.
I do think there's a bit of a flip side to all of this: all of these principles have every reason to use all of their power to ensure that a Democratic administration is never in position to turn these tools against them.
Well Done! All of us have digital avarars in some private or government data storage. Privacy does not exist if you buy sell or use digital internet platforms or have your data entered into any database.
"This is one important aspect of a broader process of state transformation. The US government - like other governments - has increasingly contracted out many tasks that used to be core parts of state functioning to the private sector. This may or may not create greater efficiencies, depending (accounts vary). Undeniably, it hollows out state capacity and the capacity of the state to function independent of contractors. Governments find themselves increasingly incapable of carrying out even very basic functions without the help of private sector actors." Excellent insight.
My take? It's corporatism with a twist, an example of where whatever authority remains in USA society exists in splintered form. A telling quote from Mussolini gave me the reference to 'corporatism': “Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” Your notes about the difficulty of any post-Trump administration 'disentangling' these ties nails a reality often ignored. Who will end up on top in that struggle? It won't be the individual citizen; that's a given because gradually, unthinkingly, we have given away our rights and authority in this transition.
https://tjelliott.substack.com/p/testing-assumptions-our-problems-with-authority-part-ii
That's by design. The reichwing has been promoting "small government" since even before 1980, but it was 1980 where it all started to come to fruition.
"I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." -Grover Norquist, 2001
"Governments find themselves increasingly incapable of carrying out even very basic functions without the help of private sector actors."
Is that because of a fundamental shift in technology or because governments were misled by the free-markets-are-always-more-efficient ideology?
Definitely the latter. While it's true there's a fundamental shift in technology, the free markets efficiency ideology has been with us since 1980.
Superb post, as always.
Minor technical suggestion/complaint: if you manually use asterisks one has to scroll down & then find one's way back to where it was to read the footnote. If you use substack's automated footnote function, you can click down and then back to where you were—and you often don't even have to, since just hovering over the footnote number will show the text of the note if it's not too long. Much better reading experience. Just a thought.
It would be nice if substack's footnote functionality to allow us to choose a marker. As of now, it forces us to use numbers. Not really that big of a deal, but it can be annoying, especially if you want more than one marker to point to the same footnote, which substack also doesn't allow.
Agreed.
These — sometimes, or partly accidental — billionaires are as stupid as the rest of us (as history has amply illustrated), so even without ketamine, they cannot be expected to make wise, scenario-driven choices in this.
And with Ketamine (and Ecstasy and Magic Mushrooms), they can make spectacularly dumb decisions - the Tesla Optimus robot being a perfect example.
IMO, just threatening to force a company to supply what you want for government purposes is problematic. Already, we have blocked Chinese vendors because of the belief that Chinese corporations operate under the eye of the government. Are Chinese products spying on us? Will the Chinese government demand that the products do what they want? Are there back doors? Can the government "throw the switch" to disable or change a product's operation? Kaspersky's AV software was banned from all government computers because of fears over who really controls the company.
Clearly, any other government will now see the US as operating in the same way. Tech companies are global suppliers as far as they are able. They have already had the US government pressure EU countries not to make laws that handicap their full control over operations and value extraction, and even to try to force EU nations to buy more of their technology. (There is already concern about the inroads Palantir has made into the UK's NHS and MOD with their products. Recall the problem of the difficulty in returning an RAF F-35 stranded in India to flight.) After the Greenland debacle, this can only make US tech companies more nervous about their global profits, as the EU hastens its drive to source tech from EU companies. In the last week, I have seen 2 media articles about escaping from the clutches of US big technology by opting for less predatory corporate offerings, (and risky products outside of user control).
All this makes US products and services increasingly risky to use and therefore home-sourced products and services more preferable. So, US military and civilian tech products and services start to lose global market share. A self-reinforcing feedback loop of decline.
I do think there's a bit of a flip side to all of this: all of these principles have every reason to use all of their power to ensure that a Democratic administration is never in position to turn these tools against them.
The Greeks have a word for it, much clearer than the opaque Latin-derived "unitary executive" - MONARCHY.
Well Done! All of us have digital avarars in some private or government data storage. Privacy does not exist if you buy sell or use digital internet platforms or have your data entered into any database.
It sounds like both Trumpkopf and the billionaire tech oligarchs are walking a tightrope. May they all fall off and face plant on the ground below.