I don’t think a lack of access to clean water, malaria, and a lack of access to basic health care are “social costs” of capitalism, as the end of this piece seems to insinuate.

You could argue the mosquitos are worse because of irrigation, and I could argue they wouldn’t have been born without the irrigation.

Yes, some resources have been despoiled by an energy industry, and yes, we know our history.

I assume you have some grand, metropolitan vision for what Africa could have been without the colonialism of Christianity and Islam(fuckers got Spain) or why else throw in Gates?

To paraphrase, why is capitalism at fault for a lack of development in the location relevant to the closing of this article?

Yawn. Charles you used to be a good writer man PLEASE stop being so fucking lazy. PLEASE.

Sorry, what? Hard to follow anything when one is dead. DEAD do you hear?

I was reading something else. "The store manager identified Eyman based on his phone number, payment method and his name in the store’s loyalty system -- " and right there was when I died.

Fucking loyalty points, Tim? LOYALTY?! You're a murderer, Tim Eyman. You killed me. You left me rolling on the ground, gasping for my last breath, holding my sides and looking back on a wicked, wicked life, praying God forgives me for laughing at the meanness of the tiny little man with the tiny little name. Every penny counts, right, Tim? Loyalty system.

Murderer.

Well, this would explain the new breed of trolls around these parts.

Oh, and Charles: iirc, the opposite of doublplusgood is ungood.

Seattle isn’t the capitol of anything.

CM, I have always enjoyed your posts. Good weekend, Sir!

I would neither try nor want to untangle this fruit salad of words and ideas. But, if this is the kind of muddled and pseudo intellectual thinking that Marxists are pushing right now, and one were running for president, I would, for the first time in my life, considering voting for a republican.

"Before this conflict—essentially between democracy and Amazon..."

Our City Council voted 9-0 to pass the head tax. Tens of thousands of Seattle's registered voters signed Referendum petitions to put it on the ballot, after which the Council voted to repeal it. Democracy won, an out-of-touch City Council lost, and now a majority of Council Members who were up for re-election this year have decided to get jobs elsewhere.

It was a conflict between an out-of-touch political elite and the citizens of they claimed to represent. We citizens -- and our democracy -- won. Get over it.

@10 Going from winning a propaganda battle orchestrated by business and corporate media to expecting us getting over Amazon and co paying no federal taxes is one libertarian fantasy too far.

Still amazed at this hot take that Amazon blew it somehow. Imagine an episode of The Bachelor where he gets roofied, wakes up in bed next to the craziest freak contestant, chews his own arm off and jumps thru the window to GTFO, and is then told he "blew it".

Well AOC is already planning on spending the $3 billion they saved! Whoops!

@12 the day you start arguing for a business revenue tax, I'll start giving credence to your affirmations

in the meantime, much opposition to the tax was due to the instrumentalization of homelessness and drug epidemics by the xenophobic rightwing. The alliance of business forces and Trumpism becomes more and more apparent as it is clear the so-called centrists (Schultz et al) would vote for him before allowing a genuinely progressive presidency.

The tax wasn't prefect but it was something that Seattle could do in the context of regressive Washington state and federal tax laws. You chose the status quo.

How can Charles lead a paragraph saying Seattle avoided the worst of recessions by it's own Keynesian systems (high wages) and then end the paragraph with some blather of neoliberalism ruling Seattle.

Evidence of one thing, provided by the writer, is ignored for the sake of the theme, however misguided.

@14: Bitter much?

“in the meantime, much opposition to the tax was due to the instrumentalization of homelessness and drug epidemics by the xenophobic rightwing.”

While The Stranger threw it down the Memory Hole, union-represented iron workers did indeed drown Sawant’s lecture at them with the chant, “No head tax!” Xenophobic right-wingers all, those union-represented tradespersons?

“The alliance of business forces and Trumpism ...”

Yeah, in a city where Trump got 1/11th the vote Hilary did, the EHT was repealed by “Trumpism.” If you wanted to make yourself look sadly desperate, that was a great way of doing it.

@16 You are reacting as if I hit the bullseyes. Indeed, everybody here knows you are both one of those holding a Trumpian discourse about the homeless (repeated warnings about germ propagating homeless folks, constant harping about homeless camps for any reason, etc) and one of the main cheerleader against a business tax levied to provide affordable housing.

Oh, this should be fun.

Go on, tensor, name one single tax you're in favor of.

Thanks Charles. Keep rocking the boat. All the toadyism by the city government to corporate powers and its allies must not be ignored. It is truly a fiefdom and led by a corporate, police state mayor to control us peasants. They will kick you when you are down. Example - the handling of those without decent shelter in this city of many who are sick, mentally ill and the working poor.
Recently, when members of the Black community asked that the police contract not be approved the majority of city council voted for it. Classism and racism and phony progressives are very much active here.

A couple of rich guys doing stupid things does not make Seattle the capital of neoliberalism.

Seattle is only the capital of the emotionally and mentally unstable liberals looking for Never Land. More mind altering drugs in that state than anywhere else in the world. Pathetic state.

@17: "You are reacting as if I hit the bullseyes."

You had targets tattooed on your feet?!? :-)

You are reacting as if I had asked you a question you couldn't answer -- and you knew it. Specifically, this question: "Xenophobic right-wingers all, those union-represented tradespersons?"

Please do try harder this time.

@18: I voted for both school levies last Tuesday.

You're right: this is fun! Thanks for playing, and better luck next time!

Charles - this has been going on for more than 15 years. (Probably since Nickels was in office). Neoliberals have dominated the conversation during Obama's entire presidency run. I'd say that WTO was probably the last bastion of hope for this city to maintain its liberal roots, but those days are long gone and those tech firms have used everything locals voted for years to set up shop here for a long time. My advice to you being a 5th generation seattelite... I'm sure with your success you've had the $$ to relocate. I can't stand the people those companies have attracted to move here and I'm sure you don't like them either lol.