10/12/2023, 00:58 Three Tuesday Thoughts - Apex’s Notes

Three Tuesday Thoughts

Voting and Rights, Abstract Grievances vs Real Policy, Rent-Seeking and
Bullshit Jobs

APEX
18 JAN 2022

14 Share

Where do rights come from?

Part one will be a brief musing, because I saw this ridiculous idea spammed far too
often yesterday:

The right to vote is the basis for every other right. Without the right to vote, you have
nothing.

This is, of course, utter nonsense. In fact, it is perhaps the perfect distillation of a
brainworm that far too many have: the confusion of abstract principle with concrete
reality.

Understand something: your right to vote grows from the barrel of a gun. Your
right to bear arms does not stem from the ballot box. At the bottom of every "right"
is the threat of violence to back it up.

Democracy and voting are proclaimed and supported by elites throughout political
parties, the media, tech companies, etc. because these are the entities who control
the flow of information to you. Democracy provides them a system specifically
designed to maximize their power: manipulate the people and have them legitimize
your interests through voting.

Remember: When consent is a precondition for authority, those with power will
learn to manipulate people into giving consent.

Making a more minimal argument: Democracy, as practiced at scale by most

developed countries, is nothing more than laundered oligarchy.

https://apexsnotes.substack.com/p/three-tuesday-thoughts?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2 1/4
10/12/2023, 00:58 Three Tuesday Thoughts - Apex’s Notes

"True Democracy," the platonic ideal of a system where everyone has an equal say in
governance, etc etc, can only be approached through material strength, not through
voting rights acts. Of what use is your right to vote if it is contingent on a powerful
elite not revoking or overriding it?

Of what use is “democracy” when our democratically elected representatives don’t

seem to be at all responsive to the wishes of the people who elected them? The
process of governance is less important than the substance of governance. A monarch
who feels attached to the people and is responsive to our wishes is superior to a
democracy with representatives that do not care about us beyond our votes and
donations.

Grievances and Action

Rather than attempting to pass a right to vote bill which will do next to nothing as
neither party aims to do much of anything to deal with the real problems to face, why
don't we focus on, ya know, the real problems we face?

The problem, as I've explained before, is that we have entered into a world of
institutional impotence, reinforced by spineless and pathetic politicians. In the face
of this institutional impotence, rather than attempting to engage in a controlled
demolition of the bureaucracies that can't get their act together (USPS, various 3-
letter agencies, the list just keeps going on), we just get endless circles of signaling
BS.

And so we get calls for "freedom", or to end "inequality", or to "empower" some

privileged class. At no point do we have concrete goals. The metrics we measure
society by are abstract, aggregate ones, and these are useless. I do not care about
them.

I do not care about "freedom" or "empowerment" or "equality." I care about what

percentage of Americans can afford a $1000 emergency expense. I care about what
percentage of Americans are eating healthy food. I care about what percentage of
Americans can quit their job without fear of starvation. I care about how many
hours of work a week it takes to raise a family. I care about how many Americans
feel that their work is fulfilling.

The Value of Actual Production

https://apexsnotes.substack.com/p/three-tuesday-thoughts?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2 2/4
10/12/2023, 00:58 Three Tuesday Thoughts - Apex’s Notes

And when it comes to work, I want to distinguish between actual production and
rent-seeking.

Our economy has, for the past 30+ years it seems, been engaged in perhaps the
single greatest experiment of financial misallocation in human history. Instead of
investing in real production, we are focused instead on pumping up asset values
and engaging in endless rent-seeking.

This is, of course, a pervasive issue in recent American capitalism, and one that I am
certainly not the first to acknowledge.

So, I want to lay out a basic framework for what one earns/deserves. In other words,
regardless of my actual compensation, how much value have I actually created (and
therefore may be justified in capturing)? I will delve into this in more depth in my
next post, but the basics will go out here.

One is justified in capturing as compensation any and all value that they actually
create. Any compensation in excess of created value is unjustified, and reflects a
rent.

There is a big difference in me taking a forest that used to be open to all, putting up a
basic fence around it, and charging people to enter. I have done nothing to engage in
upkeep or improvement. The money I charge others comes from my position not my
contribution. Herein lies the difference between rent and value-creation.

This is an extremely important distinction, and one that leads to a series of radical
policy conclusions. I will be exploring some in the coming days.

If you enjoyed, join the email list. And if you would like to support my work, consider
a paid subscription.

(Thumbnail source: Pinterest)

14 Likes

Comments

https://apexsnotes.substack.com/p/three-tuesday-thoughts?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2 3/4
10/12/2023, 00:58 Three Tuesday Thoughts - Apex’s Notes

Write a comment...

© 2023 Apex ∙ Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice

Substack is the home for great writing

https://apexsnotes.substack.com/p/three-tuesday-thoughts?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2 4/4