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Hmm I didn’t know Max Weber helped draft the Weimar constitution. Case that the Weimar analogy is misguided.
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You don’t need Weimar to explain the appeal of immigration restriction, tariffs, and a culture war directed against a “globalist” elite — not to mention the loosest monetary policy in American history. Why I disagree with @sullydish on "Weimerica": bloomberg.com/opinion/articl
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Ferguson’s argument rests on several distinctions: 1. Weimar constitution was wildly different 2. Weimar elites supported Hitler, unlike Trump 3. Most German adults were WW1 vets, most US ones are not 4. The economy was way worse 5. Hitler had global military ambitions
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I think most people don’t make the analogy in such precise structural terms but a broader mood. Both countries, for different reasons, and via different paths, were vulnerable to far-right populism. The effect is also different because tech to achieve goals is better.
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You don’t need hundreds of deaths in the streets when social death/reputational assassinations have similar results. You don’t need to launch an industrial world war against the world if you can fight an institutional war against global institutions that matter way more.
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I’ve been wondering lately if people overindex on the death count as the kpi of political conflict severity. From a humanitarian perspective 10x more deaths may be 10x more tragic, but from a political effectiveness perspective, one viral death on social media = 100 1930s deaths
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In a way “human life” is like the gold standard of moral currency. We’re no longer on it. We’re in sort of Breton Woods weird hybrid stage of gold+dollar. Gold = human life, dollar = fiat institutional capital base of global orgs. And we may get off gold standard entirely.
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By which I don’t mean human life will become worthless. It will just become a precious hedge commodity like gold today, but with no special status. It will allow us to gauge seriousness of low-fatality crises properly. It will make humane euthanasia laws politically viable.
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I think this is right, but it actually dovetails with Fergusson's argument. The German people were suffering in the interwar period far more than Americans are today & that suffering was imposed intentionally on them by France & Britain. Americans' economic suffering is the 1/
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Not to mention all the pharma profits that come from extending people’s lives despite quality of life being intolerable — and the societal pressure to “fight” for every last one of those tormented last days.