#personalism — Public Fediverse posts

Goddard and Newman On Resource-Hoarding Hyper-Elites

Stacie E. Goddard and Abraham Newman urge us to take off our “Westphalian blinders” if we are to make sense of the bullying, extortion, and belligerence that now passes for US foreign policy.

Their paper on “neo-royalist cliques” addresses a theme I’ve discussed from time to time on this blog: “a return to the ‘patrimonial’ state, with rational-legal bureaucracies displaced by personalized rule and ‘extra-legal’ sovereignty.”

Goddard and Newman see patrimonial or personalist rule not only dominating US domestic politics but also extending to international affairs — to the re-ordering of “the whole world.”

I’m not crazy about the term “neo-royalist,” and even Goddard and Newman are careful to qualify:

We use “neo”-royalism to describe this order because, while it recalls pre-sixteenth-century European dynastic systems, this is not necessarily the return of kings and divine right. Instead, it is an international system structured by a small group of hyper-elites who use modern economic and military interdependencies to extract material and status resources for themselves.

What’s more convincing is their focus on “networks”:

neo-royalism…centers on ruling cliques, networks of political, capital, and military elites devoted to individual sovereigns [or personalist rulers], seeking to generate durable material and status hierarchies based on the extraction of financial and cultural tributes.

Where they say “cliques” we could just as well say “gangs.” It’s a world re-ordered by lawless bands of resource-hoarding hyper-elites and their hangers on, marauders and plunderers, serving and being served by the personalist ruler. Should they prevail, the state will be corrupted beyond redemption, serving only to give them cover, distribute favors to friends, and punish enemies — which is anyone who doesn’t pay tribute when demanded.

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"Because the discontent of the people is not strong enough to get to the bottom of things, to the point of wanting to regain the powers they had lost, each election brings back the same hope: that of a government that would finally serve those who elected it."

Bernard Charbonneau, in "L'État" (1949)

#vote #politics #elections #bureaucracy #technocracy #conformism #progress #personalism #State #sovereignty #quote #quotes #ecology #environmentalism #YourParty #parties

‘The people do not exercise power. Instead they cast a vote in the ballot box, a kind of magical operation by which they ensure a freedom that is no longer present in their daily actions. Political life comes forward as resignation.’

Bernard Charbonneau in L'État (1949)

#quote #quotes #vote #politics #elections #bureaucracy #technocracy #conformism #progress #personalism #State #sovereignty

Here I am slowly spining a yarn of Bernard Charbonneau 🧶

#development #revolution #conformism #progress #personalism #State #nationState #anarchism #anarchy #technoCriticism #technique #bureaucracy #technocracy #industry #economy #capitalism #spectacle #property #ecology #ecologists #environmentalism #environmentalists #goodLiving #city #rurality #historyOfIdeas #philosophy #politics #vote #elections #Charbonneau #BernardCharbonneau #longThread #yarn

Here I am slowly spining a yarn of Bernard Charbonneau 🧶

#development #revolution #conformism #progress #personalism #State #nationState #anarchism #anarchy #technoCriticism #technique #bureaucracy #technocracy #industry #economy #capitalism #spectacle #property #ecology #ecologists #environmentalism #environmentalists #goodLiving #city #rurality #historyOfIdeas #philosophy #politics #vote #elections #Charbonneau #BernardCharbonneau #longThread #yarn

Here I am slowly spining a yarn of Bernard Charbonneau 🧶

#development #revolution #conformism #progress #personalism #State #nationState #anarchism #anarchy #technoCriticism #technique #bureaucracy #technocracy #industry #economy #capitalism #spectacle #property #ecology #ecologists #environmentalism #environmentalists #goodLiving #city #rurality #historyOfIdeas #philosophy #politics #vote #elections #Charbonneau #BernardCharbonneau #longThread #yarn

Here I am slowly spining a yarn of Bernard Charbonneau 🧶

#development #revolution #conformism #progress #personalism #State #nationState #anarchism #anarchy #technoCriticism #technique #bureaucracy #technocracy #industry #economy #capitalism #spectacle #property #ecology #ecologists #environmentalism #environmentalists #goodLiving #city #rurality #historyOfIdeas #philosophy #politics #vote #elections #Charbonneau #BernardCharbonneau #longThread #yarn

Here I am slowly spining a yarn of Bernard Charbonneau 🧶

#development #revolution #conformism #progress #personalism #State #nationState #anarchism #anarchy #technoCriticism #technique #bureaucracy #technocracy #industry #economy #capitalism #spectacle #property #ecology #ecologists #environmentalism #environmentalists #goodLiving #city #rurality #historyOfIdeas #philosophy #politics #vote #elections #Charbonneau #BernardCharbonneau #longThread #yarn

Where lawful corporate governance ends and the personalist regime begins

I embarrassed myself when, back in January, I asked whether wind energy investors had standing to sue the Trump administration over a presidential memorandum pausing all federal approvals for wind power development. I was suffering at the time from the delusion — common to most writers, I suppose — that readers would respond or at least consider the point. Instead, crickets. I guess it was what the experts would call a dumb question, which wouldn’t be the first one I’ve asked and won’t be the last, or it just wasn’t the sort of thing that grabs people’s attention nowadays. (I would never claim to have my finger on the popular pulse.) In any case, it was a failed bid.

I was, however, on to something. I just didn’t know what, but now I think I have a slightly better idea. It’s not only that Trump’s Quixotic madness about windmills has been on full display ever since; “adverse market development in the US,” as an Ørsted executive euphemistically puts it, has interrupted big projects like Empire Wind and sent wind energy stocks plummeting. It’s also that Trump continues to assert his (unlawful) prerogative to control and extort companies, whole industries, and markets.

Acting arbitrarily, corruptly (witness the Paramount or Tim Cook bribes), and with undisguised prejudice, Trump is trying to replace the invisible hand that we were supposed to believe was at work in the free market with his own bruised, rotting Chaos Monkey paw.

He has reserved for his regime a “golden share” as a condition for approving deals (auguring “a ‘meaningful shift’ in America’s approach to capital markets,” as a writer in the FT delicately puts it), spooked investors by calling unflattering economic data rigged, imposed import and export taxes with unfair exemptions for cronies and flatterers, arrogated to himself powers reserved for boards (witness the call, last week, for the CEO of Intel to step down), and repeatedly offended shareholder rights and prerogatives.

L’actionnaire c’est moi, or something like that, and though boards have gotten very good at ignoring ordinary investors, they are hardly known for standing up to this kind of political pressure. As for CEOs, they have shown that they are all too ready to capitulate and collude.

This non-stop chaos, oafish meddling, and strong-arm interference may at times look clownish, but it will have serious consequences. Sure, it creates “uncertainty” (the rhetorical fig leaf the business press uses when the Chaos Monkey exposes himself), and of course it will lead to misallocation of capital. But that’s hardly the main trouble.

It marks the spot where lawful corporate governance (such as we knew it) ends and the personalist regime begins.

Greg Ip, with whom I usually disagree, appears to make a fair point when he calls this “State Capitalism with American Characteristics,” but I would prefer State Capitalism with Coherent Industrial Policy to to what we actually have, and Ip’s label doesn’t quite capture the personalist element: L’etat c’est moi donc l’actionnaire c’est moi, or something like that.

Let’s just say that it looks like we are heading for — or perhaps we are already in the throes of — a full-blown governance crisis. It may already be too late to push back, but it sure would be nice to see boards and big institutional investors try.

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#AAPL #DNNGY #INTC #PARA #autocracy #capitalMarkets #corpgov #corporateGovernance #corruption #cronyism #freeMarkets #kakistocracy #kleptocracy #liberty #personalism #personalistRegime #ruleOfLaw #shareholderRights

George Bourne, Presbyterian minster, on slave-holding pastors. Afraid to share the texts; anything said is an edited mockery. They have no pity for the enslaved persons, whom they have sold for a pair of sandals.

There is power in access to original texts.

What aspects of doctrine would slaveholders fear getting into the hands of their slaves? Are you teaching those aspects as well?

#christian #remnantchurch #spreadthegospel #politics #personalism

William Paley, Anglican minister and apologist, talks on locally relevant preaching, based on Jesus having different messages for different people: hypocrisy, resurrection, sectarian hate, “comprehensive benevolence”, Jewish orthodoxy.

How many “preach locally” on all of these? Benevolence up there with resurrection??? Do you remain silent if you have a good ally on one of these but is in left field on your least favorite?

#christian #godislife #personalism #dispensational #communityimpact