https://medium.com/@hrnews1/free-market-advocate-elon-musk-asks-for-u-s-government-to-put-tariffs-on-chinese-ev-imports-4e4cfcad39f0?sk=cf06ad8d7b6e422bba9c9bd20f46272f
Part of the free-market attitude though is that you should be allowed to buy policy, so in that regard it's consistent, you just have to account for corruption in the cost of doing business.
This is how all capitalist markets progress, which is why I get annoyed when folks try to talk about this as though it is hypocritical. There is nothing hypocritical about a capitalist attempting to stifle innovation and competition for the advancement of their own personal wealth. This is what capitalism is about.
I think that what you're saying is that actions of hypocrites cannot be considered hypocritical since it's their nature to be hypocrites. It's all a bit circular, isn't it?
I think that in the case of Mr. Musk, the issue is that he has been seen as an innovator not just as a capitalist for much of his time in the spotlight. For 2018 Musk, this declaration would have been hypocritical. For 2024 Musk, whatever, why are we still listening to this clown?
No, not quite. I’m saying musk has never believed in the free market in his life and has never argued in good faith. All of those wealthy types know exactly what they are doing. They publicly embrace a fake ideal of free market economics up until they no longer have to put up the facade.
I’m saying musk has never believed in the free market
Correct. No politican, economist or, indeed, capitalist "believes" in the (so-called) "free market" - they all know perfectly well that it's a fairy tale designed to justify them and their cronies parasitizing at everybody and everything else's expense. The regime that made Musk's billions possible - the Apartheid-regime - knew perfectly well that the "free market" was a big, fat lie all the way back in 1948. That's why they built all the public infrastructure that enriched white people's lives (including Elon's) while repressing the majority of South Africans into becoming the glorified indentured labour that made Elon's daddy rich.
It's no different than "hearts & minds," "spreading civilization" or Cinderella's glass slipper. They all know it and they have always all known it.
I’m saying musk has never believed in the free market in his life and has never argued in good faith.
isn't this the definition of hypocrisy?
I suppose you’re right, it is. I am not articulating myself properly here. Let me re-frame this.
Every time we chalk things up to a bad actor being hypocritical, we are taking our eye off of the ball. The problems we are facing are not individual actors that are simply acting hypocritical in the moment. We are, in reality, dealing with a much larger issue. The economic structure is filled with grifters, liars, and exploiters at the top because that is how it is best leveraged.
So when articles are written calling some billionaire a hypocrite, we are not accomplishing anything. I would argue it is largely a game of masturbatory whack-a-mole to make ourselves feel better, because we cannot fix this system with random callouts and the (extremely) rare removal of “bad apples.”
We are, in reality, dealing with a much larger issue.
Care to articulate how you'd describe it?
Much more than just capitalism, right? Like that, plus our entire culture, generations of propaganda and indoctrination. All of our power structures, political, financial, military, media, education.
Everything. Much larger issue is an understatement. How do we fix it?
I will say that I am no oracle, just one man. It is easy to perceive problems and very hard to prescribe solutions.
That being said, I can offer the following perspectives.
In order to fix these problems, we need to fight back through locally organized groups; tenant unions, renters unions, etc. Having the hard conversations with friends and family. Re-framing arguments and world views in terms of class rather than cancerous “red versus blue” politics. Showing up to peaceful protests while we can still participate in them. Pulling the levers of democracy given to us in local elections, and on the national stage, pulling the levers for the candidate that will not plunge us into immediate fascism as a stop gap. We need to do this now and with vigor to prevent the other potentials.
The alternative to action now, I’m afraid, will end in revolution attempts by a divided working class. This implies civil war where nothing is certain.
Yep, capitalism is at direct odds with competetive markets almost by definition.
"free" is the non-specific term tht they use rhetorically. "Competition" is the market feature that might theoretically benefit consumers in some circumstances - and they don't often include that word in their rhetoric.
It's always been about acquisition of market power, this is sort of opposite of a free market.
If any threat of consumer rights / anti-trust / labour rights or balancing of market power arises, their incentive is to acquire political power and influence to defend their power.
It was the same story in western Europe before industry and "capitalism", just the landed class monopolising land vs peasantry (and/or enslaved/indentured labour). Landowners monopolised all the votes and even when suffrage expanded it was usually top down. Until maybe 1789 when something else happened to the top.
Unfortunately I think many of the major progressive changes of the past (that benefit people in general rather than the elites - again in "the West") have mostly followed catastrophic events or political upheaval, or martyrdom.
Peasants revolts, black death, aftermath/stress of major wars, civil war, workers uprisings, race riots, 1929, ww2.
I guess the 1929 and all the FDR stuff and strengthened social policies in western Europe was all widely democratically backed (honourable mention to the banks' major incompetence , to hitler for being such a massive c*nt and a decent 50-or-so years of European imperial decline) .
So maybe there's some hope for the democratic or the MLK/Gandhi type approach - not that it worked out too well for those two individuals.
They believe in the "free market" insofar as the government being commodities to be bought.
The "Free Market" is a fantasy originally pushed by Think Tanks funded by the Koch Brothers.
All the great things we're told about The Free Market^TM^ only ever work in highly competitive markets with no barriers to entry were it's easy for any Jane, Jack or Joe to enter the Market and start competing with the rest: thinks like soap or teddy bears.
As soon as something as simple as Land-ownership gets involved (for example, for your store in a prime location) it stops being perfectly competitive and all of a sudden you get feedback loops were the more money somebody does the more money somebody is capable of doing, meaning that first mover advantage is close to unassailable (and what we see in the modern world is that the ones with the biggest first mover advantages inherited them).
The Free Market^TM^ is really just an ideological excuse from neoliberals to convince people that the power of the vote should be indirectly weakenned (sure, you can vote, but the State, which is controlled by voters' elected representatives, can't regulate or otherwise "intervene in the market", so de facto the vote loses most of its power) so that the Power of Money can do whatever it wants because "the Free Market knows best". Dig through the technochratic pseudo-Economic mumbo-jumbo and what you find is a ideology to weaken Democracy and replace it by Oligarchy.
That's why you work to make sure that there is competition. I'm pretty sure it shouldn't come as a shock that a EV manufacturer doesn't want to have to compete.
I agree that's it's a "hate the game, not the player". The issue is how much influence he could have to steer the market to favor his product vs. the competition. It's happened so many times in history where the better product fails because they can't play the game like the inferior company.
To quote "Pirates of Silicon Valley":
Steve Jobs: We're better than you are! We have better stuff.
Bill Gates: You don't get it, Steve. That doesn't matter!
So is it fair for the consumer for big companies to be able to influence the game itself and not just play within the same rules? I'd say no.
I don’t think you’re really addressing my comment, which is just a criticism of how folks write about these “hypocrisies.”
Of course it’s not fair; that’s the entire foundational pillar on which capitalism rests. I’m not saying “hate the game, not the player”. Rather I’m saying the game is bullshit and the player should have his balls kicked with steel toed boot repeatedly.
Ok, what do you suggest? There isn't any alternatives. You can just ignore the opinion of some billionaire and be done with it.
I don't mind bashing Musk for a second, but as far as I know China follows a startup mentality with electric cars - the government supports the industry so they can sell cars below their actual price, and once they killed all their competition they can increase.
There's no fair winning against this policy
We have 10 trillion dollars more GDP. If China wants to declare open season on EV's there's no reason we can't beat them at this game. This policy is meant purely to prevent our auto industry from having to innovate like a competitive market would force. Nope we're going to have 50k E-SUVs that spy on us and fall apart. And we'll like it. Because they also passed legislation in my state to ban the sale of new gas cars in 6 years. And the mass transit system is. not. ready.
But is the Kangoo in the same price category as the EVs that spy on us? Is it even released at a time when major corporations spying on everyone is so normalized like it is today? I think both of these being no would explain why that car is so nice, simple, and reliable.
AFAIK every ICE car model has some cutoff year after which they have added spy tech. You do have to buy used to not be spied upon. Mozilla did a page on Renault here: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/renault/
I see a bunch of people freaking out over EVs, panicking about spying or being disabled remotely. But the newer ICE cars are, AFAICT, the same thing. I just want everyone worried about this 1984 shit to not be burying their heads in the sand. I'm worried about it also. We should organize against it. (I guess the person I responded to didn't think ICE cars are any better, after all. But it did seem so at first.)
Yeah, buy used for now, but I'd like to stop the practice entirely. Otherwise they can just wait it out as more and more old cars are totaled or unmaintainable.
Have you seen the reports from China about their EVs? If it's about falling appart, they're far ahead of anything any western manufacturers could produce lol
I would think that the winning move would be to impose enough tariffs to offset the foreign government subsidies, yet still promote some competition.
The government could also 100 percent fund battery research; Put a government owned company out there to make a floor in the market (5 person hatchback with minimum amenities); Give us more than 7,500 in EV rebates on a select few models; Change CAFE standards so bigger isn't automatically better; etc...
There's a lot we could do. We instead chose the most reductive and protectionist route possible. And even then Volvo (Owned by Greely) says they may be able to get a refund on the entire tariff because of the other models they produce in the US.
Definitely need more subsidies or grants for domestic research. Though I don’t see the government owned company idea working mainly due to how capitalism is implemented here. The government tends to not directly compete with private entities.
Fully agree with clamping down (via higher taxes or something similar) on the giant vehicles and the loopholes they can abuse today.
Oh yeah, Americans would riot before buying basic goods from the government. Still it's something that would be legal and is an option. Even floating the idea seriously could cause the auto makers to remember how to make those minimum amenity hatchbacks.
And the US supports the oil and gas industry. The government supports the industry so they can sell gas below its actual price.
Like that time a US state subsidised Tesla with a billion dollar factory in exchange for jobs most of which were never delivered. I bet in China at least they would expect their grant deal to be fulfilled.
I'm not trying to advocate for China, just pointing out how much of Tesla's current position is the result of hand outs (see; carbon credits)
"Businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves." -- Milton Friedman
Welp that's if for me then, I'm against tariffs on the cheap shit chinese ev's. Anything that piece of shit wants is bad for us.
I understand the sentiment but that logic isn’t a great way to reliably get you closer to truth.
An asshole can be right. China is anti competitive and actively undermining democracies.
Our ev manufacturers need to be put under pressure, but not by fascist regimes and their exploitation of the earth and people.
Yeah, tariffs aren't going to help Tesla at this point but yeah, he's still a hypocritical jackass.
Even ignoring all his crazy stances, he's the CEO of an American EV company! What the fuck what would you expect him to say!?
Tesla has both a gigafactory and a Supercharger factory in mainland China. Any semi-competent CEO would recognize that publicly advocating for tariffs on China would have a good chance of backfiring. China could easily turn around and slap 100% tariffs on everything coming out of those two factories in retaliation.
I think the ask is to just pick a lane.
Nobody had a gun to his head demanding him to espouse his commitment to an unregulated free market. He made these broad statements of his own volition.
Now, when he's championing the exact opposite... What?
For people who believed, rightly or wrongly that he had any value-baded stances, they have to accept that they don't exist.
That's what these doofuses are upset about: that the xth richest person in the world is only out for themselves. There is no deeper truth.
He has no need for integrity or consistency. Just like every other fascism-aligned clown choosing or inventing whichever rules they like for each situation.
You mean the CEO of a company wants no competition? Heresay!
It does make a clicky headline though