Comment by flohofwoe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by flohofwoe | Hacker News Reader

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I think the simplistic sort of thinking that capitalism and human rights are 'inseparable' from each other and can be 'exported' like Coca Cola or Blue Jeans is just a leftover from the Cold War. The reality is much more complicated unfortunately, together with the slowly growing realisation that the USA has quickly lost it's 'role model' status as the leader of the 'Free World' after the Cold War has ended.

The West needed 30 years to realize that (some are still working on this I think) because it thought that it had actually 'won' the Cold War through it's actions during the Cold War, when the reality was much more likely that the East had collapsed also without much 'help' from the West.

The countries on the 'losing side' in this battle of ideologies (like the Soviet Union and China) had adapted to this new reality much more quickly, both in different ways though, but none of them copied the 'obviously superior' model of the Free West.

Of course hindsight is 20/20, but sometimes I've got the impression that many people in the West still wear their rose-tinted Cold War glasses ;)

> Of course hindsight is 20/20, but sometimes I've got the impression that many people in the West still wear their rose-tinted Cold War glasses ;)

In the UK we haven't got past the rose-tinted WW2 glasses (especially those born from 1940-1970 who grew up with tales of WW2 as kids)

Considering the actions of these capitalist nations during Cold War it's pretty clear in retrospective that promoting human rights and democracy wasn't very high priority. Propping up dictators and terrorist don't seem very much in those lines.

America had to undergo a great amount of social change too before it came out the winner. With groups like the Black Panthers carrying around Mao's little red book, it seems to me that America had to (was forced to) become more inclusive to build allies and compete with the soviet union.

Dont you talk about black panthers in this manner.

In the minds of the people at the time Communism was such a great evil and afront to personal freedom, that "propping up dictators and terrorist" was seen as the lesser evil and preferable.

It's perhaps easy to forget now, but during the 30s, 40s, and 50s the face and "leader" of communism was Stalin – not exactly a friendly chap – and things like China's Great Leap Forward left over 20 million dead (mostly due to incompetence, not malice), and let's not forget Cambodia.

Details differ per care of course, but in quite a few cases all of this was done in the name of "freedom and democracy", which was perhaps not entirely unreasonable too. I'm not saying that it was the right thing to do (many other issues like national sovereignty etc. which come in to play), but I do think it's a bit more complex than your comment. I'm not sure if idly sitting by and doing nothing would have been that great of an option either.

There's a reason that communist symbolism and the like is considered taboo in many formerly communist Eastern European countries, somewhat akin to Nazi symbolism.

The US seems to be stuck in the 1950s, with much of the infrastructure and the attitudes in a similar state of stasis. The US however hasn't lost its role model status, despite embarrassments like Bush (unless your definition is different). The petrodollar is just as powerful as ever, the dollar is the most powerful currency still, and US hedgemony is just as powerful.

The US government is stagnated by politics and the current political culture focuses on screwing over the opposing party above all else. On the surface it seems like the grumpy old men in charge are just being stubborn and exercising their power to ensure their opponents lose, but if you look at the legislation that does get passed you start to see something very different.

Most of the legislation passed revolves around redistribution of wealth, and it's not taking from the rich and giving to the poor but quite the opposite. Any and all amassed wealth is being extracted from the poor and being given out to businesses in the form of lucrative contracts or, more recently, bailouts. The companies that receive this money promise that it's going to trickle down while they fill Golden Parachutes, perform stock buy backs, and find other ways to funnel that money to their wealthy share holders.

The message for decades was that the government was inefficient and wasteful, and that private business can do it better. We've all heard the stories of the $300 hammer. But when things are privatized things generally get worse. Fewer workers earning lower wages doing more work but the overall product is worse and it's usually not cheaper. Any and all reductions in cost are just converted into profit margin.

The US is being sucked dry and when there's nothing left, the globalist in charge will just up and move on.

I don't think it's that cut and dry. If people are being oppressed, why don't they leave? The innovations and benefits must outweigh the problems. I'm happy to be a US citizen, with excellent buying power.

What product is worst and more expensive that you have in mind?

> If people are being oppressed, why don't they leave?

It's not that easy. Assuming they can afford to leave, most cannot, the fact that they've lived their entire lives here and their whole support system resides here makes it hard. Many people aren't upwardly mobile, and things aren't bad enough to make them desperate.

> What product is worst and more expensive that you have in mind?

Privatized utilities. The pitch in the 90s was that you'd have a bunch of providers competing to offer lower rates and the result would be lower prices. The reality is that you pay a very high base fee (no longer subsidized in the rate), and then you pay a service fee to your provider. Most rates are promotional so once a year you shop around or call up your gas provider to negotiate like you would your ISP. Switching providers usually results in activation fees and other costs.

This works great for large consumers (e.g. factories, businesses) who pay lower overall rates but the poor suffer. An example, I used $1.76 in natural gas last month but my bill was $36. I paid more in taxes ($2.04) than I paid for the gas. People in my state pay $32 a month in fees for the privilege of being able to pay for gas. That's on top of the deposit people with poor credit have to put down.

Community owned ISPs seem to outperform privatized providers in terms of customer value, even if achieving sustainable cash flow can prove challenging.

-- https://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:34623859

-- https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/6611-report-municipal-f...

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