The billionaires of today are unusually aggressive in their hoarding of cultural and technological influence, according to Mordecai Kurz, a Stanford economist whose research connects monopoly power with political and economic inequality.
It’s the buzzword du jour, hoarding is. And, of course, if we take more of their money off them then they’ll have less of this technological influence to hoard, right?
an extreme version of a pattern that has repeated itself since industrialization: technological power concentrating in the hands of a few, which is eroding democracy.
Oh, and that appeal to the ultimate virtue, democracy. Got your buzzword bingo cards ready, Lads?
Tech giants use the force of their largely unregulated social media networks
Oh yes, so we should have censorship in order to preserve democracy.
“[Social meda] activity is profitable, and sometimes you generate activity by creating falsehoods, which are not good for democracy,”
We must control what is said in order to eliminate falsehoods.
“We want capitalism to support democracy. Capitalism has to become more humane. It has to be more regulated. And in democracy, we don’t leave anybody behind,” he said.
Heavily regulated, publicly contrrolled, capitalism. Whjy is it all these people who insist we must fight fascism end up designing fascism all over again?
I think JuliaM said it the other day.
True Fascism has never been tried.
Is Hoarding the new prepping ?
I wonder how long I can live on a diet of tinned beans n’ sossages in the cupboard under the stairs.
Don’t worry. Mad Ed Mlliband will help you find out.
In that case, I would also need an inexhaustible supply of toothpicks to cook the individual beans over a candle.
Ed will make you recycle them.
You’re gong to have to come out from time to time with your sandwiches and flask of tea to watch those schoolgirls exercising, Otto.
Lawrentiy Beria had the right idea. He would pick girls out from the Politburo podium.
Er (mumbles) I used to do that from the stage… mind you, EB was much more successful.
Anyway, Norman. if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly.
“Father Hackett has reminded me that it’s a warm day outside, so you won’t be needing your tracksuit tops.”
“We must control what is said in order to eliminate falsehoods.”
Translation: We must have control of the media to push our narrative. If alternate and dissenting opinions are allowed to be heard then the narrative will be subject to question or even ridicule.
What they don’t seem to realise is that once people break out of the mainstream media echo chamber, they are not going to go back, no matter how much .gov attempts to force them with disinformation regulations and VPN registration requirements.
It’s like the Online Safety Act. Do you imagine there are LESS teenage boys looking at pornography because of it?
Fewer looking at less, or even, looking at it less. Pendantry is important.
The teenage boys might be individually smaller?!
It stunts your growth, or so they used to say.
Fortunately, I’m an MSP’s office manager, not her speech writer.
The fewer/less thing is a “rule” invented in 1770 that doesn’t reflect how English speakers used the words in the past. Alfred the Great used “less” with a countable noun bank in 888 (in modern English “With less words or with more, whether we may prove it”) and Alexander Pope had no problem with it (Priam “loses in less than eight Days the best of his Army, and a great Number of virtuous Sons”) which as far as I’m concerned is pretty definitive that it’s fine. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003775.html
Pedantry even…
Heresy. Burn him.
Dates to the glorious day Polly Toynbee called Tim a “pendant”.
Crucifixion ain’t good enough…
Probably not JEJ’s finest hour and twenty-five minutes.
tl;dr:” The Left is losing control of the Narrative and we’re panicking!”
“And in democracy, we don’t leave anybody behind,” he said”
And what if the demos votes to leave people behind?
Ah, it wouldn’t be “Real Democracy”TM then.
Their side has been caught out good ‘n’ proper, allegedly, so now they need to project.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/23/politics/what-to-know-criminal-case-southern-poverty-law-center
A massive story of international importance.
Not covered by the Telegraph, nominally our most serious daily newspaper, but it has been covered by the Guardian, albeit that it is running interference.
I think our problem is that we are too parochial.
What happens in the States is a blueprint, for good or evil, for what has happened and will happen here.
We should pay more attention.
The SPLC very quickly got into the scams after it was founded. There aren’t more charges going back further likely because it would be too hard to prove in court, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t more.
They were never doing what they said they were doing.
Hm, hoarding. It’s all a bit kulakish innit.
The effort to control social media is the most pernicious thing confronting normal people.
With social media controlled, they would have got away with the Covid bullshit, and Trump would have stood no chance.
The corollary of this is that the eradication, obliteration, destruction, of the left’s mainstream media propaganda mouthpieces is the biggest and most urgent task facing normal people.
They did get away with the Covid bullshit. It has emboldened them. They imprisoned people for letting off steam online over the brutal slaughter of little girls. They got away with that, too. Controlled and uncontrolled mass immigration, Pakistani rape gangs . . .
I don’t know whether they’re going to get away with stifling the internet but the odds sure look in their favour.
I meant got away without anyone knowing about it, but yep.
That said, enquiries are progressing in the States with Ron Johnson and others, and CIA whistleblowers in Congress etc.
It is beyond important that the GOP wins the midterms, for the future – genuinely – of mankind. Mad but true.
Capitalism – or rather, people being able to decide themselves, trading in a free market – is democracy.
Mordecai Kurz. Evidently, yet another on that long line of self-hating, ultimately self-destructive, progressive/lefty “intellectual” Jews. Portnoy seems to have had an awful lot to complain about.
This fact needs to be hammered into Guardianistas:
Racial and cultural self-loathing was invented by Jews.
So capitalism has been concentrating power in the hands of the few? Presumably this means we should return to thr good old pre-capitalism days when all the power was consolidated under the control of the King?
The reality is that capitalism has done the exact opposite of consolidating power. It has spread it around.