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Silicon Valley Bosses Are Globalists, Not Libertarians (economist.com)
From a report via The Economist: In a recently published survey of 600 entrepreneurs and executives in Silicon Valley, conducted by David Broockman and Neil Malhotra of Stanford University and Gregory Ferenstein, a journalist, three-quarters of respondents said they supported Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election. But although technology-firm leaders hold views that in general hew much closer to Democratic positions than Republican ones, they are far from reliable partisan ideologues. As you might expect from captains of industry, Silicon Valley executives are much more likely to support free trade and to oppose government regulation of businesses than your average Democrat is. For example, just 30% of tech bosses believe that ride-hailing companies need to be regulated like the taxi industry, compared with 60% of Democrats.
Given their combination of socially liberal attitudes and a preference for free markets, you might call Silicon Valley executives libertarians. However, libertarians generally advocate shrinking the state as a share of the economy, which technology bosses resolutely do not. When asked if they "would like to live in a society where government does nothing except provide national defense and police protection, so that people could be left alone to earn whatever they could," just 24% agreed. In contrast, 68% of Republican donors concurred with that statement. Moreover, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are just as likely to favor redistributive economic policies, such as universal health care and higher taxes on the rich, as an average Democrat is. The outlook of our new robot-building overlords is far more communitarian than, say, the doctrines of Ayn Rand.
Given their combination of socially liberal attitudes and a preference for free markets, you might call Silicon Valley executives libertarians. However, libertarians generally advocate shrinking the state as a share of the economy, which technology bosses resolutely do not. When asked if they "would like to live in a society where government does nothing except provide national defense and police protection, so that people could be left alone to earn whatever they could," just 24% agreed. In contrast, 68% of Republican donors concurred with that statement. Moreover, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are just as likely to favor redistributive economic policies, such as universal health care and higher taxes on the rich, as an average Democrat is. The outlook of our new robot-building overlords is far more communitarian than, say, the doctrines of Ayn Rand.
It's actually more about selling their product to the entire world than cheap labor. Not saying cheap labor isn't part of it, but Apple can't continue selling more products year over year if they don't open to new markets. In the end that is what really matters.
Nationalism always results in war
Humanity always results in war. What do you think is going to happen when the global community tries to pressure Saudi Arabia into permitting gay marriage? They're going to say go to hell and what will the globalists do? There are only two choices, economic sanctions or military intervention.
LK
Or the 3rd option: wait it out. As global demand for oil drops (and prices along with it) Saudi cash reserves have taken a massive hit lately and they have increased taxes, cut oil subsidies, and cut wages/bonuses in the past year or 2. In a world where alternative fuels grow increasingly accessible the Saudi quality of life is becoming increasingly unsustainable. If the US, UK, and France were to cut off military imports to Saudi Arabia as well, the country could easily collapse in the next few decades.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
These things are not mutually exclusive at all. "Left" does not mean you want a communist central leadership. "Right" does not mean you want a fascist central leadership.
-I- want global coorperation for our global problems, and I want as much freedom as possible without destroying the world in exploding anarchy.
Do I need to explain this further? Labels mean nothing, as everyone has a different meaning attached to it.
True. Socialism is Communism-lite. The difference is merely in the degree. The (glorious) Collective is more important and trumps the Individual. And, as Karl Marx taught us, Socialism is merely a stepping stone to Communism.
No, he did not. He considered most of the socialists of his time to be dreamers and utopists who spent their time making up elaborate societies, but failed to consider how to get from the current status quo to the better society. In order to distance themselves from the dreamers and solidarize themselves with the workers movement who they saw as the vehicle of change, Marx and Engels opted to call themselves communists. But they saw socialism and communism as pretty much synonyms, which probably also explains why they called their theory for scientific socialism and not scientific communism.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head