Mohammad Mosaddegh was pronounced in the news reels included in this episode mos-a-deg was how Nixon pronounced it. Being unaware of how to pronounce Mosaddegh, and likely similar mispronouncing Chilean socialist Salvador Allende, is huge indicator that Heaton is not a leftist. It's reflexive for all leftists to point to Mosaddegh versus the Shah and Allende versus Pinochet as examples of the West abandoning democracy in lieu of market capitalism under authoritarian.
Democracy and nationalism has been at odds with market hegemony, and goes back to Saint Domingue/Haiti that human property exerted it's democratic rights and the global market committed to a capital strike against the recently the capital that liberated themselves to become individuals at the detriment of the owners/proto-capitalists of Europe. True democracy, decentralized political and economic power is more durable than the authoritarian/tyrannical but compliant governments of Pinochet, the Shah, or the bougeois of Saint Domingue.
Heaton you've made the argument in the past that Charles Dickinson wrote about the horrors of the industrial revolution which was counter to the rest of the English society that urbanized and were well fed, but in 1979 the Shah of Iran oversaw the same horrors and the result was an expected result of violent revolution. England distributed its violent revolutions across a century (Luddites, Charterists, Anarchists, Suffragists, etc) while Iran had the secret police that tamp down the democratic will that boiled over with the 1979 revolution. If we don't curtail the extremism of the market influences, we can expect similar violent results (Luigi Mangione, January 6th riots, George Floyd protests/riots, etc) in the US if we keep suppressing the popular will and pluralism in political, cultural, and economic spheres.
That’s a fascinating take! “The shah was bad because he was a market extremist .” I haven’t actually heard that. I think the shah was bad because he was an authoritarian with a brutal secret police. Authoritarianism and brutality are bad whether or not you like profits. Unrelated. Sean—did you comment on A) housing policy episodes or B) Scandinavian episodes? Would love to hear your thoughts on those.
Shah wasn't the market extremists, the CIA and MI6 were acting on behalf of market extremists and installed the Shah to impose an authoritarian regime. Market extremists abhor democracy, just as much as any totalitarian lefty dictator does, but when proxies for market extremism commit the equivalent atrocities that communists are guilty of market apologists excuse those atrocities because that's not supporting their ideology much like a tankie excusing communist atrocities.
A) Housing around the world, I think I commented over on Patreon, if not, tldr of my take is the diversity of housing solutions is what I think is ideal for all economic, political, and cultural problems - the more attempts at solving problems the better.
B) listened to the reindeer episode - no comments, enjoyed learning about something I would never have sought out to know anything about
Finland happiness episode, I think you might have something about their frequent use of saunas in that if they are just turning off their worries/meditating/in deep thought/praying/not looking at a screen/etc I would assume that would be beneficial to human mental health.
Socialism in Sweden, goes to my opinion that Sanders/AOC/Mamdani/et al are not now and never have been socialists but social democrats seeking to maintain a capitalist economy with robust welfare state and bright lines against inevitable market excesses like monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies, oligopsonies that I find are the goal for the self-identified market-centric individual.
Norway's big bucket of oil money, could have been the approach that US took for the last 150 years, often the land that most of the natural resources being developed was on federal land only acquired through the US government's taking by force, so the bulk of the wealth produced over that century and a half should have been distributed to the people and not accumulated by the few. Tea Pot Dome Scandal being obvious example of what I'm talking about, even if there was no self-dealing and bribery the wealth from federal land was never going to be given to the American people or benefit their interests. The US government is a monopsony in several sectors of the economy, yet it is forbidden to exercise its market advantages on behalf of the American people, while private enterprise is expected to never leave a penny on the negotiation table when their market advantages are just crony capitalism. Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is a demonstration of the state exerting advantages that would be contrary to the private enterprises' benefit, so private enterprise will ensure through lobbying and influence buying that they continue to rig the market and keep the state out of the market. I'm for more competition regardless of where that competition comes from and market centrics tend to be opposed to anything else but concentration of wealth in the hands of the few blessed and elected by the invisible hand, not allow state to compete with those predetermined few saved by "it's, economics 101, bro" faith.
Absolutely loved this episode. Great work 👏👏
…he gets back up?
Mohammad Mosaddegh was pronounced in the news reels included in this episode mos-a-deg was how Nixon pronounced it. Being unaware of how to pronounce Mosaddegh, and likely similar mispronouncing Chilean socialist Salvador Allende, is huge indicator that Heaton is not a leftist. It's reflexive for all leftists to point to Mosaddegh versus the Shah and Allende versus Pinochet as examples of the West abandoning democracy in lieu of market capitalism under authoritarian.
Democracy and nationalism has been at odds with market hegemony, and goes back to Saint Domingue/Haiti that human property exerted it's democratic rights and the global market committed to a capital strike against the recently the capital that liberated themselves to become individuals at the detriment of the owners/proto-capitalists of Europe. True democracy, decentralized political and economic power is more durable than the authoritarian/tyrannical but compliant governments of Pinochet, the Shah, or the bougeois of Saint Domingue.
Heaton you've made the argument in the past that Charles Dickinson wrote about the horrors of the industrial revolution which was counter to the rest of the English society that urbanized and were well fed, but in 1979 the Shah of Iran oversaw the same horrors and the result was an expected result of violent revolution. England distributed its violent revolutions across a century (Luddites, Charterists, Anarchists, Suffragists, etc) while Iran had the secret police that tamp down the democratic will that boiled over with the 1979 revolution. If we don't curtail the extremism of the market influences, we can expect similar violent results (Luigi Mangione, January 6th riots, George Floyd protests/riots, etc) in the US if we keep suppressing the popular will and pluralism in political, cultural, and economic spheres.
That’s a fascinating take! “The shah was bad because he was a market extremist .” I haven’t actually heard that. I think the shah was bad because he was an authoritarian with a brutal secret police. Authoritarianism and brutality are bad whether or not you like profits. Unrelated. Sean—did you comment on A) housing policy episodes or B) Scandinavian episodes? Would love to hear your thoughts on those.
Shah wasn't the market extremists, the CIA and MI6 were acting on behalf of market extremists and installed the Shah to impose an authoritarian regime. Market extremists abhor democracy, just as much as any totalitarian lefty dictator does, but when proxies for market extremism commit the equivalent atrocities that communists are guilty of market apologists excuse those atrocities because that's not supporting their ideology much like a tankie excusing communist atrocities.
A) Housing around the world, I think I commented over on Patreon, if not, tldr of my take is the diversity of housing solutions is what I think is ideal for all economic, political, and cultural problems - the more attempts at solving problems the better.
B) listened to the reindeer episode - no comments, enjoyed learning about something I would never have sought out to know anything about
Finland happiness episode, I think you might have something about their frequent use of saunas in that if they are just turning off their worries/meditating/in deep thought/praying/not looking at a screen/etc I would assume that would be beneficial to human mental health.
Socialism in Sweden, goes to my opinion that Sanders/AOC/Mamdani/et al are not now and never have been socialists but social democrats seeking to maintain a capitalist economy with robust welfare state and bright lines against inevitable market excesses like monopolies, oligopolies, monopsonies, oligopsonies that I find are the goal for the self-identified market-centric individual.
Norway's big bucket of oil money, could have been the approach that US took for the last 150 years, often the land that most of the natural resources being developed was on federal land only acquired through the US government's taking by force, so the bulk of the wealth produced over that century and a half should have been distributed to the people and not accumulated by the few. Tea Pot Dome Scandal being obvious example of what I'm talking about, even if there was no self-dealing and bribery the wealth from federal land was never going to be given to the American people or benefit their interests. The US government is a monopsony in several sectors of the economy, yet it is forbidden to exercise its market advantages on behalf of the American people, while private enterprise is expected to never leave a penny on the negotiation table when their market advantages are just crony capitalism. Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is a demonstration of the state exerting advantages that would be contrary to the private enterprises' benefit, so private enterprise will ensure through lobbying and influence buying that they continue to rig the market and keep the state out of the market. I'm for more competition regardless of where that competition comes from and market centrics tend to be opposed to anything else but concentration of wealth in the hands of the few blessed and elected by the invisible hand, not allow state to compete with those predetermined few saved by "it's, economics 101, bro" faith.