Tag: Elon Musk

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free trade & free markets ideological culture

The Woke Mob’s Capitalism

climate justice, social justice, woke, wokeism

A prominent rating system has gone “woke.”

“Exxon is rated top ten best in world for environment, social & governance (ESG) by S&P 500,” Elon Musk tweeted a few weeks ago, “while Tesla” — the billionaire’s high-end electric car company — “didn’t make the list! ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.”

We could quibble. Is “phony” the right word? “Social justice” has always been slippery. It’s a “mirage,” explained Hayek, really just a stalking horse for power.

What Musk is objecting to, though, is worth thinking about. The ESG standard is supposed to mean something . . . based on objective criteria. The reasons to eject Tesla from its Top Ten and place Exxon at the pinnacle are laughably transparent. It’s a woke power grab. The leftist ideology has taken over another capitalist institution, the better to create . . .

What?

Socialism? Fascism?

Michael Rectenwald, in a fascinating essay, calls it “woke corporatism.” 

The plan is, he writes, to “establish a woke monopolistic cartel.” Musk’s company has been “subjected to the S in ESG — the ‘social’ or ‘social justice’ quotient.”

Musk, Rectenwald argues, “has been deemed a deplorable, and thus his company does not pass ‘social justice’ muster.” In other words, the putatively pro-inclusion folks are excluding him from the ranks of the favored.

And all because he wants free speech on a social media platform!

Laissez-faire grew out of economists’ objections to the grinding inefficiency and over-politicization of business. Adam Smith, back in 1776, called the pre-liberal, insider-based trade system “mercantilism.”

The leftist mob now pushes a neo-neo-mercantalism, mobocracy capitalism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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FYI re Musk

Elon Musk, Tesla, Twitter, law, Democrats, Republicans

“Tesla is building a hardcore litigation department where we directly initiate & execute lawsuits,” Elon Musk says in a recent tweet. “The team will report directly to me. Please send 3 to 5 bullet points describing evidence of exceptional ability.”

Now a major target of the commies and Democrats, Musk has good reason to seek expert legal assistance. Indeed, he prophesied his peril in an infamous tweet, and he prophesied correctly — leading to the de rigueur sex scandal . . . and another funny tweet.

But it’s not all seedy, partisan sturm und drang:

  • Musk knows how to make stuff, like electric cars and spaceships. Of course, other hugely successful entrepreneurs happen to be very bad politically, not the sort whose legal team you’d want to join if you’re a good guy. But . . .
  • Soon after Ukraine publicly asked Musk for Starlink satellites to help maintain communications in the wake of Russia’s invasion, Musk sent thousands to the country.
  • Musk has made a deal (not yet completed) to buy Twitter, avowedly motivated by the goal of liberating tweet speech. (The FCC recently contradicted reporting that it has pondered trying to block the purchase.)
  • He opposes subsidies for electric vehicles and favors more gas and oil production, which have been under assault by the Biden administration.
  • He can no longer abide the Democrats, the party of “division and hate.”

Musk’s record isn’t perfect. But chances are that the help he’s seeking will be used in a good cause. 

Just FYI — in case you’d like to boil down your resume to pursue this opportunity. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom international affairs too much government

The Population Implosion

Elon Musk

At the risk of turning Common Sense with Paul Jacob into Common Sense About Elon Musk, consider the second best thing about Musk’s Twitter preoccupation: his own tweets.

“At risk of stating the obvious, unless something changes to cause the birth rate to exceed the death rate, Japan will eventually cease to exist,” Musk posted on Saturday. “This would be a great loss for the world.”

A very significant observation, at odds with so much of the Official Narrative of Approved Subjects and Opinions.

Recognizing that depopulation is the big problem for the developed nations of the world, not over-population rubs up against most of what we’ve been told for years.

But it’s true.

Japan is not alone, here, in showing a demographic collapse. It’s merely the most advanced in population decline. Russia is in a bad way, and many European countries’ native populations are in zero population growth. The United States, too, is growing only because of immigration, legal and illegal.

Behind the numbers, though, is a disturbing reality: the instability of our welfare state policies. In America, and in most advanced nations, government-run social pension programs require a growing population to properly service. Yet, Social Security, by removing the need to have children as a natural safety net (where we beget offspring to help take care of us in old age), actually disincentivizes the population growth that might make the system sustainable.

 Elon Musk did not offer a fix. But by pointing to a very real problem, he’s done us a great service, speaking simple truth instead of propaganda.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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A Failure of Trust

Elon Musk, Twitter, free speech

Why is the Federal Trade Communication threatening to investigate Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter?

The FTC is reportedly reviewing the Tesla CEO’s takeover of the forum and will soon decide whether to conduct an anti-trust probe of the transaction.

Musk hasn’t been entirely clear about his plans for Twitter now that he is on the verge of acquiring it. But we can expect that this avowed free speech absolutist will do his best to ensure that tweet-speech is much more open than it has been. He won’t label every statement he dislikes as “hate speech” or “misinformation” and forthwith expunge it.

And this, I’m pretty sure, is the problem.

Certainly, no new “monopoly” is in the offing. It’s not as if we lack social-media alternatives to Twitter — or that Musk already owns the alternatives. His other gigs pertain to electric cars, tunnels, and space flight.

The problem must be that government officials, too, expect that Musk will be a much better friend of unfettered speech than the previous Twitter insiders.

Officials expect — but also fear — that his Twitter won’t routinely terminate the speech of persons who dispute “official” doctrines about COVID-19, elections, or what have you.

To fear the prospect of a Musk-run Twitter is to fear open debate — debates that are unavoidable and should be welcome if we value citizen control of government.

But of course, those who seek to control us worry: if the people do not agree with them about what is and is not a fact, what is and is not the highest moral and political value, they might not stay in power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies

Homeland Censorship Board

Elon Musk, Twitter, free speech, censorship, First Amendment

We’re in a twilight zone beyond mere “mission creep” now. 

Two months ago, creeps at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created a new censorship board, secret until its existence was revealed in congressional testimony.

This disinformatively named Disinformation Governance Board is headed by an open critic of the First Amendment, Nina Jankowicz. The purpose of the amendment being to protect freedom of speech and other rights from governmental assault, the new board and its director are especially alarming.

The DHS was formed after 9/11 to protect national security and combat terrorism, a form of politically motivated violence. And whatever the exact definition of “terrorism” should be, we can at least agree that arguing about the origins and issues of elections, pandemics, or Russian invasions doesn’t qualify. The bitterest clashing over facts is just speech, unless part and parcel of criminal acts.

But the purpose of the Disinformation Board is to combat and “address this threat” of election disinformation.

Merriam-Webster defines “disinformation” as “false information deliberately and often covertly spread” to “influence public opinion or obscure the truth.”

The First Amendment protects dishonest and mistaken honest speech, not just infallible honest speech. But by “disinformation,” foes of freedom of speech often mean “any speech we dispute.”

If the government can repress any speech that it chooses to label “disinformation,” that portends the end of freedom of speech. 

The very existence of the Disinformation Board warrants a lawsuit on First Amendment grounds.

And since disinformation was coined to designate, specifically, government-concocted and distributed misinformation — a term of art in the “intelligence” and propaganda biz, called dezinformatsiya by Stalin  — it is especially rich to see the current administration apply it directly against the people.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Musk’s Twitter’s Must-Do’s

Elon Musk, scream, Twitter, censorship

Twitter is selling itself to billionaire Elon Musk “for an estimated $44 billion.”

Since deals sometimes fall through at the last second, the sale may yet be thwarted. For example, the government could try to foul things up — objecting, perhaps, to the possibility that if Mr. Musk takes over, obnoxious repression of speech would be dealt a grievous blow.

So, fingers crossed. But say Musk now has Twitter. What next?

Well, Elon Musk should stick to his stated free-speech absolutism. He should unfetter speech on Twitter. He is already being pressured to keep banning “misinformation,” i.e., disagreement with people who certainly don’t want their own alleged misinformation to be censored, only their opponents’.

Others want “hurtful” speech — impassioned polemics and invectives by their adversaries — to be squelched.

Musk has said that Twitter should “just be very cautious” about imposing any bans and suspensions. This is vague. Does it not imply the wrong kind of wiggle room for dealing with controversy? Musk must make no attempt to fine-tune Twitter’s speech to appease the censor faction, for this tribe cannot be satisfied until all with whom they disagree are silenced.

Twitter requires massive, sweeping, immediate changes, including restoring the banned or suspended accounts of all users kicked off for “misinformation” and the like.

Ban terrorists and others calling for — or facilitating — criminal actions. That’s it.

Current Twitter employees who try to sabotage the more free-wheeling policies should be unceremoniously shown the door.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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