To discourage New Yorkers from voting for Zohran Mamdani, the Wall Street Journal published ten op-eds in a single week casting him in a negative light.
One of the first points made is that the public doesn’t support disruption. No shit, I don’t think people supported the suffragettes’ disruption, but that got women their rights.
Some might argue that violence against property is different from violence against people, and property violence against corporations is different from say burning down the home of an individual. We disagree. The modern corporation’s functional logic is to pool resources from shareholders (both individuals and institutional investors such as pension funds) and use them to run a business. Eventually, violence against corporations is an attack on the livelihood and financial security of people whose assets the corporation manages.
Won’t someone please think of the poor shareholders!
The risk-return trade-off is a part of the bargain shareholders strike with corporations. And if shareholders consider corporate actions or inaction to be harmful, they can use economic and legal mechanisms such as shareholders’ vote or even divest.
One problem with this, the shareholders make money from harmful actions, and activelyencouragethem.
What if property violence against corporations hurts the livelihood of impoverished communities? There is widespread poverty in many fossil fuel communities. They often view climate change as an elite issue favored by a predominantly urban climate movement. Might these communities view violence against fossil fuel infrastructure as an attack on their livelihood—on their very existence?
Even lesser actions such as transportation disruption can invite a backlash from affected parties. Consider the incident in London in 2019: “as XR began a second two-week mass mobilization in London, one local branch staged an action in Canning Town, a predominantly Black and Asian working-class neighborhood, in which several XR members clambered onto a subway car, preventing the train from leaving. Commuters dragged the protesters down onto the platform and beat them.”
These points show nothing except that the writer didn’t read the book. The XR train protest was severly critised by the author, and the author addresses poorer people who depend on fossil fuels.
This is all very fitting, because the author of the book calls forbes a billionaire rag in the book.
Listening to the FT’s podcast Swamp Notes was infuriating. I get who your audience is, but if you’re going to have the guy from the center right think tank on and the establishment technocratic reporter talking with him, at least have some progressive on to defend his views.
The worst part is how they infantalize him and his views.
Even more sad, its more of an apsirationally, i see myself as a rich business person, oriented propoganda.
Its for wannabes and the low to mid level management crowd, small business owners who like to pretend they understand economics beyond ‘underpay my workers’.
WSJ readers are basically the people who watch SqwuakBox and Jim Cramer…
Actually clever rich people may read the WSJ from time to time, but they’re gonna be spending more time reading esoteric industry specific journals, following the actual appearances and conferences of the people who the WSJ writes about, to make actual investment and business strategies with.
WSJ is just rich people propaganda.
Same as Economist and Financial Times
And forbes.
Actually, forbes is so bad I want to mention this article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/prakashdolsak/2023/05/01/why-blowing-up-pipelines-will-not-solve-the-climate-crisis/?ctpv=searchpage
It’s clearly written by a guy who didn’t read the book.
One of the first points made is that the public doesn’t support disruption. No shit, I don’t think people supported the suffragettes’ disruption, but that got women their rights.
Won’t someone please think of the poor shareholders!
One problem with this, the shareholders make money from harmful actions, and actively encourage them.
These points show nothing except that the writer didn’t read the book. The XR train protest was severly critised by the author, and the author addresses poorer people who depend on fossil fuels.
This is all very fitting, because the author of the book calls forbes a billionaire rag in the book.
Listening to the FT’s podcast Swamp Notes was infuriating. I get who your audience is, but if you’re going to have the guy from the center right think tank on and the establishment technocratic reporter talking with him, at least have some progressive on to defend his views.
The worst part is how they infantalize him and his views.
Even more sad, its more of an apsirationally, i see myself as a rich business person, oriented propoganda.
Its for wannabes and the low to mid level management crowd, small business owners who like to pretend they understand economics beyond ‘underpay my workers’.
WSJ readers are basically the people who watch SqwuakBox and Jim Cramer…
Actually clever rich people may read the WSJ from time to time, but they’re gonna be spending more time reading esoteric industry specific journals, following the actual appearances and conferences of the people who the WSJ writes about, to make actual investment and business strategies with.