Anthony S. on Substack: "Educated guess: The elites running governments are expecting the same tactics to continue working, as if they can continue to control the information system. An effort that is aided and validated by eager partners like academic institutions and think tanks. This is why they pre…"

Educated guess: The elites running governments are expecting the same tactics to continue working, as if they can continue to control the information system. An effort that is aided and validated by eager partners like academic institutions and think tanks.

This is why they press the pedal on defending against mis- and disinformation. If you can convince enough of the voting population that they are being manipulated by malign forces, and that you are supplying the truth, then the plan is that they will contnue to trust you.

But the tactics have stopped working at the scale needed because the information system is too rich, the state actors are too obvious, and the personal finances are not at a level where the citizens are willing to trust technocrats. And telling people, “Actually, the economy is doing great,” isn’t turning that ship around. It’s transparent in its attempt to manipulate.

That’s what has changed, I think, the most over the past 10 years. People can see the attempt at creating and manipulating narratives. And scolding those people as “populist” may hold currency within elite circles, but it’s not going to earn the consensus that politicians like John Kerry say they need to govern.

“eugyppius,” my critics will say, “you are being very naive.” (My critics love to call me naive.) “The elites want to deindustrialise Europe. They don’t care if it makes people mad. They want to import a new client class. They don’t care if it inflames the populist opposition.” Even were I to grant these arguments, I would find them insufficient. It’s no good to pursue a programme of deindustrialisation (assuming that that goal makes sense for anyone) if you end up getting thrown out of office before it can be realised. It’s no good to import clients from the developing world if you create a populist opposition that disempowers you before these clients can yield any meaningful political dividends.

eugyppius

Dec 18

6:12 PM