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How Are Big Capital and Political Power Colliding?

Poder Político, Facebook, Twitter, Censura, reclamos, cultura cancelación, El American

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I said in my previous column that because men are made of the dust of the ground and not of anything else, the great technological capitals that have emerged from disruptive innovation in reasonably free markets adopt the ideology of totalitarian socialism and bet on collusion with a socialist political power to perpetuate their positions of power in exchange for imposing a techno-totalitarianism analogous to that of Beijing.

We saw Big Tech and Big Capital as agents of agitation and propaganda, disinformation and censorship, supporting a press that abandoned its commitment to the facts to embrace the role of the supposed “citizen’s press,” committed against facts with the causes, feelings, hatred and resentment of the totalitarian left and its single political culture.

And precisely this has corrupted the electoral campaign of 2020, perhaps more than the alleged fraud which, in the absence of an investigation by competent institutions, would necessarily remain ‘alleged’ until the end of time. Half the country is convinced that the election was stolen, while the other half supports silence, censorship, persecution, and cancel culture, convincing them more, not less, regarding what they believe.

Tucker Carlson was right in rejecting the violence on Capitol Hill but without forgetting the much worse, bloody and prolonged violence that Democrats have refused and continue to refuse to condemn practiced by their far-left, and so let’s analyze how we view the tragedy that took place on Capitol Hill. I see it as a success by the left, perhaps accidental, but which will serve to justify the moral murder of Trump and a persecution of conservatives and dissidents which has just begun while the problem rests in the fact that “the political elites are disengaged.”

“Listen to us,” the people shout. “Shut up and obey,” their leaders respond. In the face of dissidence, the first instinct of illegitimate leadership is to crack down on the population, which always makes the country more volatile and dangerous. They don’t care about learning or listening because it’s a claim against them and their leadership, so they take drastic measures. It always ends badly. But that doesn’t mean they won’t try again. Of course they will, it’s their nature. That’s how we got here in the first place.

We saw people abandoning large technological social media companies that are committed to the totalitarian cancel culture. And the response has been that all the Big Tech -not just social media owners- are simultaneously attacking the competition.

Gab is under siege, and Parler has fallen, for now, or forever. Because, as expressed by its founder and president, the same night they were removed from all servers, their lawyers notified them that they would no longer represent them. The wide world of the global technology market, said the president of Parler, until now, nobody has dared to challenge the Silicon Valey cartel hosting Parler.

Big capital - Big tech - el american
“We already knew, expected the best and prepared for the worst. And the worst is just beginning.”

And the chilling thing is that their lawyers notify them that they will no longer represent them at the same time as they are under attack by the cartel. Why would they abandon the most important case of their careers, the one that was supposed to make them famous? It’s no less than taking on the Silicon Valey cartel in defense of contract enforcement, free competition and the very first amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Win or lose, it would have been the biggest case of their lives. And however we look at the implications of constitutional rights in relations between private parties – which under special privileges such as those granted to technology by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (and this without considering its closeness to political power) are not as private as the rest of the media – is inexplicable. And so one can assume the worst to come.

That’s why a Republican representative, in favor of the Parler, demanded that the big capital companies involved be investigated for conspiracy under the R.I.C.O. act. And if they go ahead with this with impunity, it will cease to seem so.

Conservatives are demanding the repeal of a whole section of one of the most interventionist pieces of legislation in force – in the name of the best objectives, it has to be said. But it far exceeds those objectives. And just the section that gives the Big Tech companies the privilege of being platforms for information and opinion without editorial responsibility – to which the press is subjected, without that preventing the First Amendment from protecting it. And that’s the way it has to be. Whether we like it or not.

Because the alternative is that of them. Censorship and cancellation – and there are many misinformed people who claim that this was asking for “more state regulation.” Not less. Former Congressman Ron Paul is cancelled on Facebook because of a column in which he denounced the collusion of big tech, big capital, and political power. And a good part of libertarians defend… Facebook.

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(Flickr)

If anything has the Silicon Valley cartel they are useful fools. Not just libertarians, which I take as an example to criticize first those closest to me. And from whom I would expect greater understanding of the implications of the collusion between big capital with mercantilist privileges, and socialist politicians with totalitarian ideology, who have come to power democratically.

Or so they say, and believes half a country. Even if the other half remains convinced of the contrary. And nothing and no one can convince them of anything else, especially in the midst of a growing collusion between big capital and political power, against republican democracy, and the free market.

And so it is as I write. When you, my conservative friend, read it, I fear you will be worse off. We knew that, we expected the best and we prepared for the worst. And the worst is just beginning.

Guillermo Rodríguez is a professor of Political Economy in the extension area of the Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences at Universidad Monteávila, in Caracas. A researcher at the Juan de Mariana Center and author of several books // Guillermo es profesor de Economía Política en el área de extensión de la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas de la Universidad Monteávila, en Caracas, investigador en el Centro Juan de Mariana y autor de varios libros

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