| All of that history is relevant, and contrary to your assumptions about my political beliefs I don't disagree with any of that. In fact I'd say it goes back further than that. Perhaps even to WWI when actual leftist movements in the US (actual socialism, not the center-right but socially liberal thing that we consider "leftist" today). https://truthout.org/articles/absence-of-universal-health-ca... Or if you want to take it even further back than that, one could even argue that the American version of Christianity that got entangled in capitalism was also responsible: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/three-cheers-socialism It's actually not a specific narrative or the only cause of blame, it's actually just one facet of the larger narrative you're describing. In the recent history of the entrentched political power and wealth hoarding of Silicon Valley, the last decade is very relevant to our current situation. The Obama administration let many mergers and acqusitions happen that we today recognize were monopolistic and anticompetitive. They were mainly allowed to take place because of the deregulation and forces of inequality you mention, but also because of the corrupt relationships that the Obama administration had with many key SV people, especially Google. The main thing that changed is that the concept of "Big Tech" became politically unpopular because we're now paying the price for those regulatory failures. It's the same forces at work that allowed SBF's crypto scamming to fester because of their coziness with the crypto industry while they chased fundraising dollars. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/06/crypto-industry-exe... It goes without saying that the Republicans are even more guilty of this type of corruption, just with different people writing the checks. I'll admit that I feel more compelled to call out the democrats for this type of behavior, not only because it's such a letdown for me personally but also because if we expect that democrats are suddenly going to do an about-face on regulatory policy from just one administration ago, with many of the same players involved now as then, accountability is necessary. It sounds like we actually agree on a lot more than you might assume, but just like you're pointing out with there being a larger narrative, this is a systemic issue that transcends partisanship. |