Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

People, generally with legitimate grievances, forget too easily that the "crony" of "crony capitalism" indicates an intimate bond, and with whom that bond is implied.

My issue with socialism as a response to crony capitalism is pretty simply that I don't trust institutions that misuse their power already to do less of that when they have more of it

This can be said of both the corporate interests and the government entities that have engaged in this, but only one of these can compel your cooperation via threat of property confiscation, imprisonment or death, and I think that's a pretty good reason to empower it cautiously

FWIW, I have a pretty good opinion of someone like Bernie Sanders, who I genuinely believe is motivated by an admirable vision and would be extremely difficult to buy out personally. But I don't think he understands power well enough to avoid being ultimately sidelined by it

I also have *really* positive opinions about a number of successful founders and business owners, and I readily admit that I think it'd be an absolute travesty to dismantle the capital that's funding new ideas much more cost-effectively than institutional academic spending

In case "absolute travesty" isn't clear enough, I think eviscerating private capital thoroughly enough would have the potential to not only plunge us into sustained economic catastrophe but also to create what would be aptly called a new intellectual Dark Age