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Thread of decodes for the day. Make sure you check out the [SUB] threads too!

More from For later read

Time once again to emphasize the differences between totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and fascism. They're often used as synonyms but they are different, although they do tend to lead to each other. Order one, and the other two are usually delivered soon enough.

Totalitarianism is best understood as the politicization of everything. Every facet of life is infused with political meaning... and subjected to political control. There is little room for privacy or individualism. Every word and deed is seen as a political action.

Totalitarianism does *not* require authoritarian government, although it usually leads to such. You can be totalitarian without having any real government power at all, enforcing your political will through mob actions and corporate power. Examples from recent history abound.

Totalitarianism is the easiest of the three deadly "isms" to slide into, because it can easily be disguised with claims of its good intentions. Totalitarians usually claim to be motivated by the Greater Good. They claim to represent the interests of sympathetic victims.

Totalitarians claim that society is unjust and must be corrected by force. Before they gain the power to become authoritarians, they often assert the right to use force outside of the law because the government is corrupt or serves the interests of their ideological enemies.

Vanessa Wills
@vcwills

We need to stop imagining the Jan 6 fascists are purely "brainwashed," misguided, etc. Neither are they guided by white supremacy *only*.

They are largely a vanguard of principled petty bourgeois reactionaries who oppose democracy whether in its mass/working-class or liberal bourgeois form. They have allies in the most conservative and reactionary corners of the "big" bourgeoisie.

They see through a funhouse mirror the hypocrisy of liberal bourgeois democracy (no, the electoral college is not "sacred" 🙄). They also vehemently abhor the capacity of true democracy—socialism—to liberate oppressed, exploited workers upon whom their precarious fortunes depend.

To the extent liberal bourgeois democracy engages mass politics and gives even a highly attenuated and mostly suppressed voice to the working masses, that section of the petty bourgeoisie which turns to fascism regards liberal democracy as a betrayal. Only capital should speak.

The woman who died attacking the Capitol Building was a small business owner from San Diego. Yes, her head was full of conspiracist nonsense but she didn't just invent that lockdowns and worker protections might save lives but hurt her bottom line.

Cory Doctorow #BLM
@doctorow

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread).

Inside: Planet Money on HP's myriad ripoffs; Strength in numbers; and more!

Archived at: https://t.co/esjoT3u5Gr

#Pluralistic

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On Feb 22, I'm delivering a keynote address for the NISO Plus conference, "The day of the comet: what trustbusting means for digital manipulation."

https://t.co/Z84xicXhGg

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Planet Money on HP's myriad ripoffs: Ink-stained wretches of the world, unite!

https://t.co/k5ASdVUrC2

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Back in November, I published an article for @EFF about @HP's latest printer-ink ripoff: after offering its customers a free-ink-for-life plan, it unilaterally switched them all to a $1/month-for-life plan.https://t.co/bsc73xPSuo

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— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) February 18, 2021

Strength in numbers: The crisis in accounting.

https://t.co/DjfAfHWpNN

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Accountancy is more likely to be mocked than celebrated (or condemned), but accountants, far more than poets, are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

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— Cory Doctorow #BLM (@doctorow) February 18, 2021

#15yrsago Bad Samaritan family won’t return found expensive camera https://t.co/Rn9E5R1gtV

#10yrsago What does Libyan revolution mean for https://t.co/Jz28qHVhrV? https://t.co/dN1e4MxU4r

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Jared Rubin
@jaredcrubin

Excited we finally have a draft of this paper, which attempts to provide a 'unifying theory' of the long economic divergence between the Middle East & Western Europe

As we see it, there are 3 recent theories that hit on important aspects of the divergence...

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New CEPR Discussion Paper - DP15802
Culture, Institutions & the Long Divergence @albertobisin @nyuniversity, Jared Rubin @jaredcrubin @ChapmanU, Avner Seror @SerorAvner @amseaixmars @univamu, Thierry Verdier @PSEinfo https://t.co/lhs6AJb7jE #CEPR_DE, #CEPR_EH, #CEPR_ITRE pic.twitter.com/FtMzAELljJ
— CEPR (@cepr_org) February 14, 2021

One set of theories focus on the legitimating power of Islam (Rubin, @prof_ahmetkuru, Platteau). This gave religious clerics greater power, which pulled political resources away form those encouraging economic development

But these theories leave some questions unanswered...
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Religious legitimacy is only effective if people
care what religious authorities dictate. Given the economic consequences, why do people remain religious, and thereby render religious legitimacy effective? Is religiosity a cause or a consequence of institutional arrangements?

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Another set of theories focus on the religious proscriptions of Islam, particular those associated with Islamic law (@timurkuran). These laws were appropriate for the setting they formed but had unforeseeable consequences and failed to change as economic circumstances changed

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There are unaddressed questions here, too

Muslim rulers must have understood that Islamic law carried proscriptions that hampered economic development. Why, then, did they continue to use Islamic institutions (like courts) that promoted inefficiencies?

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