Broligarchy does not build civilization(not-a-tech-bro.ghost.io)
not-a-tech-bro.ghost.io
Broligarchy does not build civilization
https://not-a-tech-bro.ghost.io/broligarchy-does-not-build-civilization/
32 comments
Most of human history has entirely been driven by broligarcy.
I'm not even really seeing the short term gains here. It seems like despite making grandiose claims, the administration and the "broligarchs" are relying on cheap political wins ("owning the libs/woke") to placate their base in place of even pretending to accomplish anything that helps their constituents. This honestly surprised me. I'm not a fan of the MAGA set but I genuinely expected there to be some upsides here and not just an immediate private equity style looting frenzy
The short term gains are things like $TRUMP bringing in a huge amount of money for insiders. The long term gains are things like firing the FEC, enabling erosion of voter rights.
The supporters aren't really in this for the money, they're in it for the blood. I don't know if that will change once some crisis forces gas prices up.
The supporters aren't really in this for the money, they're in it for the blood. I don't know if that will change once some crisis forces gas prices up.
I read that as a preemptive counter against any argument involving upsides; even if they are there (possibly only for or in the eyes of some of the beholders), the division and abuse of power are a(n immediate) problem (and that's putting it lightly).
You don't believe their stated assertions that e.g. they are genuinely disturbed by the size of public borrowing and the growing debt and are taking what they see as desperate measures?
Nope, it’s a lie: https://coloradonewsline.com/2025/02/12/repub/u-s-house-gop-...
All previous R governments have talked the same and increased the debt.
I expect this one to do the same, and expand the deficit to make big tax cuts. The Liz Truss budget.
I expect this one to do the same, and expand the deficit to make big tax cuts. The Liz Truss budget.
And all previous D governments, no?
The point is that Congress is the one responsible for indebting the US, and it's both parties that are responsible. The Executive can only do so much to correct this, and even if Musk's claim of saving $2T turns out to be true, that still isn't even nearly enough to stem the tide of spending that has bankrupted the US.
The point is that Congress is the one responsible for indebting the US, and it's both parties that are responsible. The Executive can only do so much to correct this, and even if Musk's claim of saving $2T turns out to be true, that still isn't even nearly enough to stem the tide of spending that has bankrupted the US.
Under Clinton the US was running a surplus. When Bush came in he passed huge tax cuts and turned it into a deficit instead.
The dotcom boom was popping just as Clinton was leaving office. Clinton also lifted the legal restrictions (he signed the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act of 1933) that would have prevented the banking / mortgage crisis of 2008.
Yea TBH you're not gonna sell me on a president past Kennedy looking out for the US taxpayer or the economy in aggregate. Neoliberalism is one of the worst kinds of parasitic meme
This whole framing is nonsense. The US is the reserve currency of the world, and its influence in both economic and soft power has had massive ROI for the entire economy for decades. There is no other government that plays this role in the global economy, and it's a ridiculously advantageous one. The fact that a balance sheet shows the sum of the investments to achieve and maintain that as a deficit is not a reason to freak out, this is a drastic misunderstanding of how nation-scale economics work that comes from people who are only familiar with household and business budgets
But if we were concerned about the budget, contractors are drastically more expensive than federal agencies and are much more dubious in their value proposition for the state or the public. It's just that the people involved made their fortunes on cushy government contracts and corporate welfare, so they won't go after it. The whole "fiscal conservatism" concept has always been a massive grift and this is the most blatant and obvious it's ever been
And you're absolutely right in saying that the Democrats are on the same grift, as their strategy has shifted to triangulation in the last 40 years, though the economic shocks they tend to produce over this insanity are generally smaller. The fact is, neoliberal economics has failed to produce widespread domestic prosperity, was likely an attempt to loot modern economies for an oligarch class from the beginning, and people keep accepting doubling down on these policies because they've been systematically misinformed about economic cause and effect through trite little analogies
But if we were concerned about the budget, contractors are drastically more expensive than federal agencies and are much more dubious in their value proposition for the state or the public. It's just that the people involved made their fortunes on cushy government contracts and corporate welfare, so they won't go after it. The whole "fiscal conservatism" concept has always been a massive grift and this is the most blatant and obvious it's ever been
And you're absolutely right in saying that the Democrats are on the same grift, as their strategy has shifted to triangulation in the last 40 years, though the economic shocks they tend to produce over this insanity are generally smaller. The fact is, neoliberal economics has failed to produce widespread domestic prosperity, was likely an attempt to loot modern economies for an oligarch class from the beginning, and people keep accepting doubling down on these policies because they've been systematically misinformed about economic cause and effect through trite little analogies
What measures do you suggest to take things in a different direction?
Here are some easy ones off the cuff: Kill a massive amount of wasteful private contracts. Remove the entire means-testing bureaucracy from every social program. Put more funding into stuff that actually gets ROI, like the IRS, the FTC, and the CFPB. Don't shoot ourselves in the foot by killing massively beneficial soft-power investments like USAID. That one in particular is essentially handing the mantle of cultural and economic hegemony to China on a silver platter. Maybe you don't believe America should be a hegemonic empire from a moral perspective, but it's hard to argue that it's not a beneficial position
The agenda here is just very clearly not efficiency, but cronyism, enabling autocratic control, and culture war vendettas. It really takes willful ignorance to think this is going to be good for the country overall. It will mostly be good for Elon Musk and his buddies, and maybe only in the short term
More broadly, I'd like to see the US return to a state of regulating finance and enforcing anti-trust in a sane manner. The boom-bust cycle and total crackdown on labor and consumer protection has turned the domestic economy into a casino that impoverishes the vast majority of its citizens, and the effect of bailing out this corrupt financier class every time they crash massive sectors of the economy has been the destruction of the real economy, an enduring public distrust of the government, and a class of insulated plutocrats who have been shielded from the consequences of their mistakes, believe themselves untouchable, and have now orchestrated a total takeover of the political process. We had economic stability before, and it was looted by the greed of our financial and industrial sectors.
Of course this all seems like a pipe dream. Those guys won. They have assumed control and they don't have to give a fuck what people on some forum say about them
The agenda here is just very clearly not efficiency, but cronyism, enabling autocratic control, and culture war vendettas. It really takes willful ignorance to think this is going to be good for the country overall. It will mostly be good for Elon Musk and his buddies, and maybe only in the short term
More broadly, I'd like to see the US return to a state of regulating finance and enforcing anti-trust in a sane manner. The boom-bust cycle and total crackdown on labor and consumer protection has turned the domestic economy into a casino that impoverishes the vast majority of its citizens, and the effect of bailing out this corrupt financier class every time they crash massive sectors of the economy has been the destruction of the real economy, an enduring public distrust of the government, and a class of insulated plutocrats who have been shielded from the consequences of their mistakes, believe themselves untouchable, and have now orchestrated a total takeover of the political process. We had economic stability before, and it was looted by the greed of our financial and industrial sectors.
Of course this all seems like a pipe dream. Those guys won. They have assumed control and they don't have to give a fuck what people on some forum say about them
Congress found $2.7 trillion (with a T) in improper payments from Medicaid and Medicare over the last 20 years. This was Congress, not even DOGE, at work (finally), and the yelling and screaming is still over "you can't look at that data!"
They can, they should, and there needs to be an actual clean up, not a "we're totally doing it, honest, Scout's honor!" like we've seen from the last 30 years worth of administrations (and yes, I know who's included in that span :) ).
They can, they should, and there needs to be an actual clean up, not a "we're totally doing it, honest, Scout's honor!" like we've seen from the last 30 years worth of administrations (and yes, I know who's included in that span :) ).
Trump added $8.4T to the national deficit as a president during (mostly) good times. Biden added $4.3T to the national deficit as a president during challenging times.
Hardly bankrupt, but: none of this is going to make a difference without cutting into the big pie of military spending which is pork-barreled to individual constituencies. Or the large amount spent on retirees because they're an important class of voters who have no employment income. Or putting up taxes.
There's no excuse for repeating this. It takes seconds to see where the money actually goes:
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
That agrees with me: "Top 10 Spending by Category and Agency" top 3 are social security, defence, medicare. Then there's an explanation that social security is in the "mandatory" category.
Not even remotely. Same line since at least Reagan, never been honest, never will be. It doesn't even make sense. It's relying on laypeople not understanding the economics at play. Hell, going after stuff like the CFPB that are deeply revenue-positive and not things like DoD contractors makes this claim ridiculous on its face
Also, even if it was believable, that's not an upside, it's a claim of ideological justification. An upside needs to be an action they've actually done that has actual tangible benefits
Also, even if it was believable, that's not an upside, it's a claim of ideological justification. An upside needs to be an action they've actually done that has actual tangible benefits
I think the pattern leading up to this situation anywhere in the world is the accumulation of power.
A society that is able to spread power as much as possible is more resilient in the long run.
How to maintain a wide spread dispersion of power? I have no idea.
A society that is able to spread power as much as possible is more resilient in the long run.
How to maintain a wide spread dispersion of power? I have no idea.
My theory is that (in current society) this starts with spreading money. That's not trivial either but it feels at least a bit more tangible to me.
The post doesn't make specific claims but as a non-American observer (and without taking a position here) the major changes planned/in progress seem to be DOGE, deportations and tariffs. The proponents claim all of these are for the benefit of working-class Americans and not the elites.
Without addressing that it's hard to see what this post actually adds to the conversation. It makes vague assertions against parties unnamed that Business is not the Way to Run a Civilisation. Those that see a clear and urgent need to reduce spending, immigration and globalisation will not be moved one iota by this because it will not make sense to them. They believe they are already saving civilisation.
Without addressing that it's hard to see what this post actually adds to the conversation. It makes vague assertions against parties unnamed that Business is not the Way to Run a Civilisation. Those that see a clear and urgent need to reduce spending, immigration and globalisation will not be moved one iota by this because it will not make sense to them. They believe they are already saving civilisation.
the major changes planned by DOGE are gutting the US FedGov in ways that allow the hyper-wealthy access to everything without restraint. e.g. hitting the Dept of Tresury, annihilating all of the Inspector General positions, removing oversight and regulatory groups, etc.
some of those hyper-wealthy happen to be the Russian president + Chinese + Israeli + Saudi, et al, and would love to see NATO split apart and the US economy sputter. They are, arguably, the strongest of the hyper-wealthy vying for influence but not the only ones, though they are likely the most successful.
deportations and tariffs exist to serve as a distraction, or as a way to further the above to points.
some of those hyper-wealthy happen to be the Russian president + Chinese + Israeli + Saudi, et al, and would love to see NATO split apart and the US economy sputter. They are, arguably, the strongest of the hyper-wealthy vying for influence but not the only ones, though they are likely the most successful.
deportations and tariffs exist to serve as a distraction, or as a way to further the above to points.
It would be nice to declassify vaccination trials data. Perhaps this "broligarchy" could take a spin on them. Old guards and their "zero evidence of lab leak" is very old.
The reads like some AI broth broken out by Brosidon, King of the Brocean.
As a Western Europe based, peace loving, tolerant, introvert software dev I'm highly worried by what's happening in the world but at the same time feel totally powerless (I admit to be - for now - selfish enough to not be willing to jeopardise my family and career above this worry).
The frustrating thing is that there must be so many 'of us' and I can't help but think 'we' should organize. Not sure if this (blog) could be a starting point for that?
The frustrating thing is that there must be so many 'of us' and I can't help but think 'we' should organize. Not sure if this (blog) could be a starting point for that?
Organize locally.
I cannot stress this enough: for those of us not in the US, do not get sucked into the circus, focus on addressing the same forces locally where you can more easily make a difference.
I cannot stress this enough: for those of us not in the US, do not get sucked into the circus, focus on addressing the same forces locally where you can more easily make a difference.
And you don't even have to organize. Just participate in the world. Go to improv classes, or play PnP RPGs, maybe in a bar or something. Go to a sport club, learn new things. Don't despair, and don't get caught in the circus. Do the best you can to avoid consuming too much, especially avoid solitary consumption. The organization will come organically.
no, it won't.
no one just accidentally turns into a political action campaign. esp. the glued-to-the-phone 2025 bourgeoisie tech worker.
like I don't want my DnD session to turn into a revolutionary committee; I'm just here to cast spells and eat pretzels, man. Ditto for other places -- there is a right time and right place, and most of the time it's neither.
you need to make a choice to get involved and organized
no one just accidentally turns into a political action campaign. esp. the glued-to-the-phone 2025 bourgeoisie tech worker.
like I don't want my DnD session to turn into a revolutionary committee; I'm just here to cast spells and eat pretzels, man. Ditto for other places -- there is a right time and right place, and most of the time it's neither.
you need to make a choice to get involved and organized
> It may feel like we have more freedom if some of us are successful. But that's a myopic view. We are not free. It is more like an addiction. Genuine freedom can happen only if it is available to everyone.
>If we truly are to be a society of people who live on this planet together – a civilization - we must take care of each other.
Sublimated trotskyism on full display.
>If we truly are to be a society of people who live on this planet together – a civilization - we must take care of each other.
Sublimated trotskyism on full display.
That has nothing to do with Trotskyism. It’s not even a Marxist view.