andrewducker | Interesting Links for 02-10-2021

Crossposts: https://andrewducker.livejournal.com/4093647.html

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That probably should have been their early warning signal that they were not pursuing the ideal of socialism? ("Collective ownership, yes... but not by your kind.") I figure most people didn't figure it out until they realized that there was still a caste of haves and have-nots, that the common citizen still didn't have any real influence on decisions or goals, and elite figures were still absorbing wealth and power from the system. Similarly, one warning in the USA was when the Democratic National Committee argued in court that they are under no obligation to democratically choose their own candidate. *ding*ding*ding*

An institution should be reclassified by observers when it stops acting in accordance with its own defined terms. USSR wasn't socialist. DNC isn't democratic. And neither is the USA any more.

Now, the really interesting bit from my perspective is that this corruption could be a common failure mode (a corruption, not a culmination) of liberal government. How is a democratic machine corrupted into an authoritarian machine? Does any system with layers of representation have the same fault because of its increasingly concentrated and isolated decision authority? More importantly, how do its citizens wrest control back to a liberal framework from within the corrupt system? "Sure, you can vote... from among the people and platforms that we approve."

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Interesting Links for 02-10-2021

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