Over the Christmas break, I fell into a rabbit hole and read a whole lot of papers on the link between behavioural economics, social psychology, and geopolitics.
'the political leaning of CEOs influences a company’s corporate social responsibility actions. CEOs direct company resources to their pet projects and decide which corporate social responsibility actions are worth their while'
It's clear which political leaning the linked study rewards. However, since then (the study is from 2013) those guys have:
Hired DEI offiziere making corporate life miserable, fired people for wrong think, debanked people for wrong think, hired incompetent newbies because of their race, sex or sexual orientation, wrote up ridiculous mission statements ('our values'...meh), pushed autonomous thinkers out of the company (people like that don’t want to work there), helped create a media surveillance state, helped fire up climate hysteria, supported the push for energy insecurity, took knees during the height of BLM, und so weiter und so fort.
Today, under the most liberal regimes the west has known so far, students, teachers, colleagues rat on each other like we haven’t seen for a long time.
Long time..? Wait, i should write up STASI now. There, that's that. And no state repression needed, the behaviour is completely voluntary. And its entire guiding philosophy is Liberal with a very big L. Or can we narrow it down to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx2Un8SVn0g
Anyway, progressives are clearly literally bad for your mental and physical health. While shareholders' returns... When you talk of giving:
'a CEO too much power, he or she will eventually abuse the power to enrich themselves or take on too many risks and may cost the company and its shareholders dearly.'
The same 2013 study says:
'liberal CEOs will emphasize CSR (corporate social responsibility) even when recent financial performance is low, whereas conservative CEOs will pursue CSR initiatives only as performance allows.'
Dutch p funds have lost hundreds of B the past couple of years because of their virtue signalling (also know as 'good' intentions).
Speaking of good intentions, at least somewhat related:
Master signaller Zoran Mamdani, just weeks in office, decided to break with what every previous mayor did during serious winter weather: he did NOT have the cops force the homeless into shelters (there's a lot of violence there so many choose to stay outside).
He had the cops ASK the homeless to come to shelters. How socially responsible. That's the liberal way, isn't it?
So a dozen froze to death.
The cold weather wasn't such a surprise for NYC, it happens every year.
But those deaths would not have occurred under more 'authoritarian' mayors...
The same happened in Amsterdam in the late 70s and 80s. https://youtu.be/JVugD0mTnJU?t=13 Thousands of NL and European junkies swarmed the city because the quality of heroin was so high (little repression = good quality at a good price). As parts of the city became no go areas and citizens were desperate, the holier than thou liberal city council refused to allow the cops to take action. Junkies were victims, they were sick people. And they were. So sick they were dying.
But the entire liberal strategy rested on voluntary decisions. By the junkies. Who were out of this world (i grew up there as a child, and played next to used syringes and human turds - I must admit: growing up in streets littered with dog turds i could not help being impressed and somewhat intrigued by the size of these human-made monsters).
So thousands died.
No liberal from those days ever publicly took responsibility for the results of their 'good' intentions.
Being liberal is good enough. You just march on and adapt to the times as they change.
The problem is that progressives wánt that empire (and they'll grant little freedom to non progs).
But they're not prepared to fight for it themselves. They prefer the people they despise the most - the right - to do that.
Which fool is going to sign up for that?
PS Brussels is building out its empire: this fall new laws will be introduced to surveil soc media and chat. To combat paedophiles they say, while police forces have said that those are not so dumb to share material online, that's mostly done by usb.
If the EU succeeds they'll end online anonymity. Digital currency, digital passports and digital health profiles are also coming up.
"Political economy or economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life" -- Alfred Marshall, 1890
Much of your (excellent) essay touches upon the Peter Principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle . "Rising to the level of one's own incompetence" is *not* oxymoronic. The Peter Principle’s power isn’t just in the individual rise-and-fall story, but in how organizations reward the appearance of certainty over the substance of insight.
I am an living example of that: I was a very competent analyst, research director, and fund manager, but but lacked the political instinct, diplomacy, and self-assured ruthlessness needed to scale the highest ranks. Only the good die young.
I am in the same boat. I made it to management in previous jobs, hated it and was bad at it. Today, I am an analyst and in charge of a small team. Perfect environment for me to excel, but it required insight and the ability to take a pay cut when I switched jobs.
Glorious write up.
'from Washington to Westminster, and from Beijing to Berlin.'
Hey, where's Brussels?
When can i vote out the Empress of Germany's thinly veiled European Empire? (The French are going to take it down though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AT7AJScZdA )
'the political leaning of CEOs influences a company’s corporate social responsibility actions. CEOs direct company resources to their pet projects and decide which corporate social responsibility actions are worth their while'
It's clear which political leaning the linked study rewards. However, since then (the study is from 2013) those guys have:
Hired DEI offiziere making corporate life miserable, fired people for wrong think, debanked people for wrong think, hired incompetent newbies because of their race, sex or sexual orientation, wrote up ridiculous mission statements ('our values'...meh), pushed autonomous thinkers out of the company (people like that don’t want to work there), helped create a media surveillance state, helped fire up climate hysteria, supported the push for energy insecurity, took knees during the height of BLM, und so weiter und so fort.
We've ventured so far away from that promising moment when David Hasselhoff took down the Berlin wall all by himself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ2Sgd9sc0M
Today, under the most liberal regimes the west has known so far, students, teachers, colleagues rat on each other like we haven’t seen for a long time.
Long time..? Wait, i should write up STASI now. There, that's that. And no state repression needed, the behaviour is completely voluntary. And its entire guiding philosophy is Liberal with a very big L. Or can we narrow it down to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx2Un8SVn0g
Anyway, progressives are clearly literally bad for your mental and physical health. While shareholders' returns... When you talk of giving:
'a CEO too much power, he or she will eventually abuse the power to enrich themselves or take on too many risks and may cost the company and its shareholders dearly.'
The same 2013 study says:
'liberal CEOs will emphasize CSR (corporate social responsibility) even when recent financial performance is low, whereas conservative CEOs will pursue CSR initiatives only as performance allows.'
Dutch p funds have lost hundreds of B the past couple of years because of their virtue signalling (also know as 'good' intentions).
Speaking of good intentions, at least somewhat related:
Master signaller Zoran Mamdani, just weeks in office, decided to break with what every previous mayor did during serious winter weather: he did NOT have the cops force the homeless into shelters (there's a lot of violence there so many choose to stay outside).
He had the cops ASK the homeless to come to shelters. How socially responsible. That's the liberal way, isn't it?
So a dozen froze to death.
The cold weather wasn't such a surprise for NYC, it happens every year.
But those deaths would not have occurred under more 'authoritarian' mayors...
The same happened in Amsterdam in the late 70s and 80s. https://youtu.be/JVugD0mTnJU?t=13 Thousands of NL and European junkies swarmed the city because the quality of heroin was so high (little repression = good quality at a good price). As parts of the city became no go areas and citizens were desperate, the holier than thou liberal city council refused to allow the cops to take action. Junkies were victims, they were sick people. And they were. So sick they were dying.
But the entire liberal strategy rested on voluntary decisions. By the junkies. Who were out of this world (i grew up there as a child, and played next to used syringes and human turds - I must admit: growing up in streets littered with dog turds i could not help being impressed and somewhat intrigued by the size of these human-made monsters).
So thousands died.
No liberal from those days ever publicly took responsibility for the results of their 'good' intentions.
Being liberal is good enough. You just march on and adapt to the times as they change.
If you actually cared about the security and prosperity of Europe, you'd actually want a European empire.
The problem is that progressives wánt that empire (and they'll grant little freedom to non progs).
But they're not prepared to fight for it themselves. They prefer the people they despise the most - the right - to do that.
Which fool is going to sign up for that?
PS Brussels is building out its empire: this fall new laws will be introduced to surveil soc media and chat. To combat paedophiles they say, while police forces have said that those are not so dumb to share material online, that's mostly done by usb.
If the EU succeeds they'll end online anonymity. Digital currency, digital passports and digital health profiles are also coming up.
*eye roll*
If you hate it so much, why aren't you emigrating?
Eye roll...
Honestly?
Sigh...
What makes you think i'm not looking at getting out? My parents are old and i'm their back up for all sorts of things. When they're gone so am i.
Get out after they go, then. But where else do you believe is better?
US, Japan, Israel, Argentina.
"Political economy or economics is a study of mankind in the ordinary business of life" -- Alfred Marshall, 1890
Much of your (excellent) essay touches upon the Peter Principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle . "Rising to the level of one's own incompetence" is *not* oxymoronic. The Peter Principle’s power isn’t just in the individual rise-and-fall story, but in how organizations reward the appearance of certainty over the substance of insight.
I am an living example of that: I was a very competent analyst, research director, and fund manager, but but lacked the political instinct, diplomacy, and self-assured ruthlessness needed to scale the highest ranks. Only the good die young.
I am in the same boat. I made it to management in previous jobs, hated it and was bad at it. Today, I am an analyst and in charge of a small team. Perfect environment for me to excel, but it required insight and the ability to take a pay cut when I switched jobs.
Excellent summary, @joachim.
Thank you.
I will share it widely and I look forward to reading more on the topic.