This (excellent) article doing the rounds is basically the wonky economics version of the premium mediocre argumenthttps://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/11/the-real-class-war/ …
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"In contrast, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign more explicitly appeals to the professional class, both in form and content....yet her rise is still likely to strain a Democratic machine heavily reliant on billionaire funders."
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"modern conservatism has opposed the professional managerial class that came to dominate business and government in the mid-twentieth century. Despite often shrill rhetoric ...conservatives could never reduce its size or importance in the modern economy."
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"At the same time, conservatives sought to build their own new class by setting up parallel institutions in academia, media, law, policy planning, and so on...But institutions built on ideological conformity inevitably tend to ossify.
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"The conservative institutions became as detached and self-referential as the “postmodern” academy they criticize, and they long ago ceased to have any significant influence on broader elite discourse."
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"Today, their main offering to new recruits is the chance to someday apply for affirmative action for conservatives." <-- especially pronounced and effective in law given scotus control and resulting effect on supply chain.
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"As working-class jobs have become more precarious and demeaning, professional jobs have become more meaningless and depressing... Anthropologist David Graeber has defined an entire category of “bullshit jobs” Join the gig economy bullshitjobbers!
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"The purposelessness of many professional careers in the capital accumulation economy starkly contrasts with the growing number of unaddressed needs in the public sector."
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"Conservative donor gatherings are somehow even more pathetic. Most of the attendees are there only because they are not smart enough to recognize that the Democratic Party offers a far more effective reputation laundering service."
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"What is remarkable about today’s oligarchy is not its ruthlessness but its pettiness and purposelessness. An all-consuming megalomania might at least produce some great art as a side-effect. But this collection of mediocrities cannot even do that."
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"future historians of American collapse will find something truly exceptional: capitalism without competence and feudalism without nobility."
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fin this was a good read. As close as I've seen anyone come to clearly stating the core problem of the Great Weirding.
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The most important insight I got out of this was how Warren and Sanders each solve one half of the problem but make the other half intractable. In predictive terms the paradox results in: Sanders could win the election, but probably not the nomination. Warren other way around
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I think the tldr is: the laboring class is politically still potent but economically a deadweight loss and everybody (including they themselves) knows it and has acknowledged it. The professional class still thinks it has a shot at resurrection.
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So on the narrow question of winning POTUS, the right candidate would be a mix of Obama and Trump: promise hope to the elites and the chance to bloody a few noses to the laboring class. The paradox being they want to bloody the noses of the class looking for hope.
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One solution: run for POTUS on campaign promise of a Purge, but where elites get free guns, and if they survive, they get UBI and climate action. The masses get to mount the heads of any elites they take down on spikes. 0.1% capital winners will be parked in orbit during Purge
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End of conversation
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