The piece gets into that in extensive detail that you should totally go read, but the long and short of it is that even those without capital and moats still have the power of writing law, and we need to exercise that early and often to redistribute capital before its concentration leads to legislative capture.

In other words, the obligations of those without Capital is to write laws that demand the benefits of Capital be shared with all.

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glitchc 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Counterpoint: Lobbies, fund-raising and SuperPACs. Those without capital lack the influence that those with capital possess with lawmakers.

	▲	smallmancontrov 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Double Insulation was dire in the early 20th century as well. It works great for self-serving elite politics until, to stretch the analogy, the voltage gets high enough. Then it breaks down.

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achierius 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> before its concentration leads to legislative capture

This already happened

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smallmancontrov 16 hours ago | parent [-]

We fixed it before and we can fix it again. We need another Roosevelt.

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skyberrys 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I wouldn't rely on a single human being to fix this kind of issue. It's only solvable through massive collaboration and communication among those who want to fix it.

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pear01 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is not the history of politics.

Movements that ignore the need for a charismatic leader fail, often spectacularly. It's why for example occupy wallstreet was such a laughable failure. Who was its leader? Is the human megaphone a species of "massive collaboration and communication"? Can you name me one leader from that movement who was nationally recognized as such?

Strong leaders are always required. Such people reduce the cost of messaging and communication which would otherwise be insurmountable to cohere a movement and actually make change. You don't elect a mob. Find leaders you trust and spread your conviction without apology. Roosevelt was not Roosevelt until after his works were done. We don't need some amorphous "massive collaboration and communication" we need to elect leaders who will fight for what we believe. So many of your friends, family and neighbors are willing to elect sell-out leaders. You could start there, that is if you actually want to fix the problem rather than invent new ones.

	▲	cheesecompiler 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> It's why for example occupy wallstreet was such a laughable failure. This claim is enormous. I would instead argue that the movement lacked cohesiveness because it basically complained about too large a set of (correctly identified as interconnected) issues and lost momentum because the surface was too large. That said, I agree w your point about a face being important. Even in software, where tech can speak for itself, we see this heavily: Torvalds, Matsumoto, van Rossum, Jobs,

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smallmancontrov 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

...which is typically done by building a movement around a leader who represents the values a movement wants to achieve.

FDR is a good example of an American leader who made substantive, wildly successful, left-leaning policy changes that ushered in decades of prosperity and (in part) last to this very day despite facing heavy opposition from the business elite of the time. They even tried to coup him!

At the time, the long term trends were dire for the American left. Double insulation was strong and getting stronger. Then the Great Depression hit. Around the world, populists and radicals were elected to office, and one way or another they changed things. In America, we managed our reform process without trying to conquer the world and without starving millions. Not Hitler, not Stalin. Roosevelt. I think that's a worthy goal to aim for again this time around.

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skyberrys 15 hours ago | parent [-]

Perhaps I mean to ask a question then, how did FDR manage to become such a widely heard leader back then with so many less ways for people to talk together? Did it make a bigger difference that he had to exist as someone people spoke to other people about? Shouldn't it be easier to find these leaders with so much more access to everyone nowadays?

	▲	smallmancontrov 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Communication friction is only one cost of running a campaign among many, so the structure of parties and campaigns and primary / general elections has largely remained the same. Even if the technological barriers went away, I suspect the human factors would still hold up the structure because only so many people are willing to spend years of their life building legitimacy and promoting a political platform and each voter is only willing to spend a certain amount of time participating and choosing.

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metalliqaz 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Exactly how that may have played out in the last century could be explained by many, many chains of causes and effects. But it wasn't a great leader that made it happen. At the bottom of everything, I believe it was this:

Decades of Famine, Pestilence, War, and Death destroyed not only capital but huge swaths of the labor pool. With labor at a premium, it became more valuable and power shifted.

I think that without a similar apocalypse, it will not happen again.

	▲	smallmancontrov 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, economic disaster is the driver (tangential: a lump-of-labor supply shock was not the transmission mechanism), but big political movements always happen from the pieces lying around. Everyone can feel that a disaster of one form or another is coming. We need to make sure the right pieces are lying around.

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georgemcbay 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> before its concentration leads to legislative capture.

Oops! 16 years too late, at least here in the USA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC

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jMyles 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> those without capital and moats still have the power of writing law

If the divide is over who can write code and who can write statutes enforced by the state, it's obvious that the latter is the one that requires capital and moats, while the former does not.

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rmah 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sounds like a good way to ensure less capital in total.

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hackyhacky 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> even those without capital and moats still have the power of writing law,

In the country where I live, politicians pass laws to serve their corporate donors, not the voters. This results in regulatory capture, as the law works to protect the already-entrenched players. Democracy is just another institution co-opted by money.

I don't see any realistic way to use democracy to get out of this.

	▲	0x4e 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Especially with the way “the law” works now-a-days: Donors, lobbyists, and ring kissers driving what’s instituted.