Hand in Glove Political Economy

I find this blog difficult to write. To be perfectly honest, I don not consider myslef a very politically or economically savvy person. I'm much more of a culture, history, society, psychology person.

But this reading was very enlightening. It's one thing to say that certain companies or organizations can manipulate governments into supporting their intersts, that the large financial gifts they can give influence politicians to be generous or sympathetic to their interests. It's quite another to have economic factions scrutinized and then put into perspective with political parties' agendas. For instance, "Democrats listen to consumer groups that equate traditional copyright with anti-consumer tendencies, but no Democrat can win the presidency without carrying New York and California, the two largest content-creating states. And there are large numbers of congressional Democrats from states
and districts with high tech aspirations that support strong IPR."(p.124-125) It reminds me that once again, geography does matter and that industry interests are mirrored in their regions, that interests do compete and conflict.

We talk about the tyranny of the rich, but we have failed to recognize the flexibility of America's nouveau rich scene - that as interests and technologies have changed over time, so have those who triumph the new come into conflict with the old. The hegemony, at its roots, is fragmented.

There's also been cynicism that our political parties are becoming too alike economically. Yet, this reading clearly shows the rivalries and party wooing that occurs in our political landscape. It reads almost like waves or cyclic contraction and expansion. I was reminded once again, that policy is in the hands of the government, which in itself, is a mass of goals and objectives that here align with some market interests, and there depart from that group.

An inflection point - Personal Network Platforms - concepts I find so hard to coalesce in my mind...