The Screen Actors Guild Strike: American Capitalism Is Inherently Unbalanced

On July 14, 2023, Hollywood actors joined the writers in going on strike against the studios, which had changed the business model in ways, according to the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), that were leaving the vast majority of actors out financially. At the time, AI (artificial intelligence) was the red-hot buzzword, promising unheard of advances but also baleful clouds on the horizon. The president of SAG sounded the alarm on not only the threat of AI given the studios' new business models predicated on ubiquitous streaming and digital technology, but also the more long-standing and ingrained American corporate system of Capitalism wherein upper managements get away with not sharing the surplus of corporate wealth due to an inherent or institutional conflict of interest. Indeed, Fran Drescher, the president of SAG, was not far from calling into question the taken-for-granted assumption in Capitalism that residual profits should go to stockholders exclusive. Questioning that default (as well as claiming that CEOs get to set their own compensation by controlling their respective boards of directors) would have made Drescher's announcement of a strike truly revolutionary. She was so close. 

The full essay is at SAG Strike

Turkey's President Enables Euroskeptic Ideologues

The European Union is not a military alliance, like NATO or the ancient Spartan League. Nor is the E.U. merely a free-trade agreement like NAFTA. In terms of the history of federalism, the E.U. instantiates “modern federalism,” wherein governmental sovereignty is split between federal and state levels, rather than confederalism, wherein all such sovereignty is retained by the states. Both the U.S. and E.U. instantiate modern federal systems, although ironically the U.S. was originally a confederal system of sovereign states. In likening the E.U. to NATA in 2023, President Erdogan of Turkey unwittingly committed a category mistake. This in turn weakened his attempt to leverage his power in approving Sweden as a country in NATO with his demand that the E.U. admit Turkey as a state. 

The full essay is at "Turkey's President Enables Euroskeptic Ideologues."