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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023

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Seems the general thrust of the "market right" in the last twenty years has moved away from competition - and its reliance on taking consumer preference/sovereignty for granted - as particularly important and toward a greater reliance on human capital and realism about the gulf between what the best and brightest in Big Biz know vs. everyone else. You can see how this dovetails with "state capacity libertarianism" or a more holistic, body-politic-as-organism kind of mentality. A corporate noblesse oblige that is more concerned about rival states and national striving than petty consumer preferences. Big business and government allies as tastemakers, not taste-takers.

We don't even hear chatter anymore about the importance of small, nimble companies, as somehow inherently better incentivized by non-complacent thirst for profits and local knowledge. That's all out. Who can even talk about that when AI and its reliance on behemoth companies' data collection is all the rage?