Kinda stoned- so pardon the lack of paragraph formatting. I’ve been listening to the Power Broker audiobook during my commute (on chapter 9- no spoilers! lol) and the descriptions of how power (typically via extractive industries and international exploitation and slavery) was stolen, distributed and hoarded among the robber barons is incredible. And their contempt for and violence against the lower classes through private (later incorporated into municipal) police forces. None of this is really a hot take or anything - but it’s just been providing a lot of good historical context on the development of early power systems and how many have expanded or at least maintained that same power (eg railroads, JP Morgan, etc). As a part of history I feel like it really illustrates the ineffectiveness of reform, and how blatantly the illusion of democracy has been used as a protective shield for the bourgeoisie. Idk just wild that the US is so whipped into being revolutionary action averse lol (myself included). Like that’s literally all been done within the past 100 years, and all of those people have had “names and addresses”, but how has there not been anything done by the public at large. Reform seems to be the perfect palliative requiring the absolute bare minimum effort and risk, and as long as the mass media says things are working and the public is kept in shallow opposition, everyone is kept “fat and happy”. It’s visible that absolute abolition of these systems of powers is the bare minimum of what must be done. Reform just allows one to feel contented while nothing ever happens.