The Fascist Tech Bro Takeover Is Here
https://www.theindex.media/the-fascist-tech-bro-takeover-is-here-2/

"Musk's $277 million campaign contribution secured him unprecedented access to the levers of #Government & cemented his grip on the #political machine... Musk's influence has infected every arm of Govt. And he is using his #wealth, his control of Twitter's husk, & his presence in the #Trump orbit to steer the country away from #democratic principles & toward oligarchic rule."

@SharkAttak A chief failure of the profit motive is that it cares not a whit where profit comes from.

If profit derived only from wealth as defined by Adam Smith ("the produce and labour of the nation"), that would be fine.

But profit is in fact an accounting artefact, not an economic one. That bit of equivocation is at the heart of a great deal of the apparent contradictions and fallacies of mainstream economics.

Profit is based on realised costs and revenues, which means that any trick which can be used to lower or offset / externalise costs, and to inflate or capture revenues, is a net gain to the business.

That's why "free market" entrepreneurs are not in fact in favour of free markets where they can secure higher profits by suppressing free markets. Whether that's through dumping toxic waste (physical or informational), fraud, slavery, labour oppression, tax avoidance, quashing or buying competitors, oppressing suppliers, inserting themselves as middlemen in trade (capturing both supplier and consumer surplus), monopolisation, regulatory capture, lobbying, or any of the other abuses.

Markets can be effective, but generally only where there is a balance of power between capital, labour, government, and common weal generally. If you read Smith closely you'll find that he's a champion of small scale commerce, but casts a jaundiced eye on monopolies (he doesn't use that word, but search for "engross" within Wealth and you'll find some mention), and those who can influence the State to their own interests (wool merchants get a call-out).

As best as I've been able to trace, it, the principles of cost accounting in the US were set out by Alexander Hamilton Church (and yes, related to that A.H.), see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton_Church.

There's a wonderful inquiry into cost accounting by Leo Tolstoy in, I think in What Is To Be Done, (sometimes "What Then Must We Do") a collection of essays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_to_Be_Done%3F_(Tolstoy) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/leo-tolstoy-what-is-to-be-done.

@Gotterdammerung

I'm pretty sure @pluralistic is aware of much of this but AHC may be of interest.

Fight fascism & Elon Musk by taking down Tesla
https://micahflee.com/fight-fascism-and-elon-musk-by-taking-down-tesla/

"On paper, #ElonMusk is the richest person in the world, but his money... resides in his stake in #Tesla, a wildly overvalued publicly traded company...

movement against Tesla... knocking billions of dollars off Musk's net worth and potentially even causing his #wealth – which honestly is a house of cards built on top of #fraud & over-hyped Tesla stock – to collapse."

Elon Musk’s Open Corruption Revealed in New FAA Plans

The Federal Aviation Administration is now going after one of Starlink’s main competitors.
https://newrepublic.com/post/192077/elon-musk-corruption-faa-starlink-verizon

"The #FAA is reportedly planning to ditch a $2.4 billion contract with #Verizon in favor of a deal with Elon Musk’s #Starlink.

The move would be a blatant favor to the #tech mogul... and further increase the #wealth and power of the [South African immigrant]"

@lordmatt In the US, #Christianity has been taken over by #ProsperityGospel and #MuscularChristianity. God blesses those who follow him with #Health and #Wealth and punishes #Heritics and #Apostates with #Poverty and #Disease. That's why #Evangelicals voted for #Trump: they believe he is blessed and chosen by God. And these fuckers are the source.

The debate reflects the inherent #conflict in the highly unusual arrangement of having the world’s foremost #business leader — & its richest person — actively working in the #WhiteHouse w/o having stepped aside from his business. Musk’s #wealth has surged since the election, in which he poured $277M into the election of #Trump & #Republican candidates, in part because #WallStreet expects his businesses to gain from the friendly policies of his new allies in Washington.