The Phenomenon of Gerontocracy and the Absence of Politics

[Goldie]

Stop randomly inviting me into channels.

[Freddy]

Or, rather than selling expensive tech to anyone they could sell cheap tech to a select group.

[Mr Director]

Negotiating is primarily about leverage.  If I have the leverage, I can determine which direction the price moves.  If you have the leverage, you can determine which direction the price moves.  I think you're absolutely wrong when you say "no one would buy at such rates".  No one will ever pay that rate, but it's not because 100 tech isn't worth 12 million to a larger nation.  For the most part, 12 million is an inconsequential amount.   If sellers could pool their leverage, people would absolutely pay 12/100.  No one will ever pay 12/100 because the sellers don't have the leverage to demand it. There will always be a ready pool of younger nations willing to sell it for less.  But nations would absolutely pay more if market forces moved the price in that direction.

I agree that its not the money that matters for buyers. But the extra aid slots that do. If one could send 12mil in one slot, and sellers suddenly decided to unionize and demand for 12m/100s, then I agree, the buyers would comply. However, as things currently stand, no one wants to waste an extra aid slot. The buyers could prevent an increase in prices and necessary aid slots if they had to, simply because there are less buyers than sellers, and the buyers have had more time to form relationships and integrate with the community than the sellers have, and therefore would be able organize much better than the sellers could ever hope to, and essentially force the sellers to keep the price where it is at.
 

"Horrible?" well, I don't know about all that...

Once again, its not the cash, it the aid slots. 6/200s cost an extra slot while giving you much less money, and therefore, yes, could be described as horrible.

Edited December 19, 2013 by Mr Director

[BrJLa]

I think the problem with this scheme is that it disregards the extent to which nations are willing to subordinate their own interests to the interests of their alliance/bloc.  I'm perfectly happy to pump tech up to our bigger nations, and I'd be especially motivated to do it if I knew everyone else was paying more for it.  There will always be alliances/blocs with access to cheap tech, and you'd just accelerate the pace at which they pull away from everyone else.

[La Marx]

That's true. But I see that more as one of the challenges of the struggle, rather than a complete game-ender.

My analysis is that (1) alliances with lots of young nations that adopt more progressive pricing (12/100) will see a slower build-up of tech for the senior nations, but a quicker build-up of younger nations. (2) Alliances with less younger nations will have to buy from non-aa nations, and while it may seem better to exploit non-aa members as heavily as possible, non-aa sellers will not of course be willing to be exploited. So implementing less progressive pricing will be harder to do, presuming of course that tech sellers do start to raise their prices, organise into unions, making public petitions, shaming exploiters, attacking exploiters, and so on, which is something I would advise them to consider.

[Krashnaia]

Good read, La Marx.

[Schattenmann]

I'm not really down with The/this revolution, but I really appreciate that you're out there thinking about this subject and put some effort into a well-constructed argument and civil discourse.  We need that and I'm glad you did it.

 

If the subject interests you, what I'd like to see is how your ideas about gerontocracy apply to inter-alliance relations.

Edited December 18, 2013 by Schattenmann

[Hereno]

Assuming your unionization of tech sellers works, you're going to be regretting it in a few months when you have to buy tech. It's worth it for a smaller nation to take an unfavorable deal now if they get to be on the receiving end for much longer later on. The only people who would benefit from a raising of tech prices are those who can pay (and therefore will get a leg up on their poorer tech-buying opponents) and those rulers who lead a nation for only a short period of time and never become buyers themselves.

[Dochartaigh]

"So,despite the fact that I claim my analysis of the factual situation to be correct,my critics should bear in mind that this is not so much an argument of facts as an argument of values,and they are gravely misled if they think that arguing,for instance,that buyers would never pay 12/100 (which is a gross exaggeration and a presumption) is a refutation. Were tech sellers to unite into a single organic whole across all political divisions and to refuse anything less than 12/100,then of course buyers would capitulate, even if some would not pay that,because for the majority even at 12/100 the use-value still would far exceed the exchange-value of 12/100."


No one would buy at such rates. Even if you could somehow get all of the sellers to unit (not possible, due to alliance politics and the constatnt addition of new nations to the game), such a union couuld easily be broken apart. No alliance wants to see its upper tier suffer. As a seller, I wouldn't mind a wage increase, but I won't scare of potential buyers by joining a movement that is likely to fall apart. As someone who is VERY close to switch over to buying, I would never give up an extra six mil of profit just so they a new nation could switch from selling to buying faster and mess up the tech market. I would fight to squeeze sellers as much as possible for that extra profit. The tech must flow!

 

 

Assuming your unionization of tech sellers works, you're going to be regretting it in a few months when you have to buy tech. It's worth it for a smaller nation to take an unfavorable deal now if they get to be on the receiving end for much longer later on. The only people who would benefit from a raising of tech prices are those who can pay (and therefore will get a leg up on their poorer tech-buying opponents) and those rulers who lead a nation for only a short period of time and never become buyers themselves.

 

Both these posts pretty much nail it. 

 

As for leverage, the seller has some yes, but not as much as thought. If the buyer does not buy tech, then the seller grows at an even slower rate. It would be entirely counter-productive for sellers to organize and demand more. If they did this in an alliance, they could potentially risk being booted from the alliance for insubordination. This puts them on the raiders hit list since they are now unprotected. 

[La Marx]

While true that there are many complexities in the cause of equality and the struggle against gerontocracy, more than hitherto realised, apart from concerted efforts in the tech market, I cannot yet identify any alternative for smaller nations as a way out of the exploitation and oppression guaranteed under the status quo. The raising of tech prices is only one scale here - lowering them is another, and all as part of an active and co-operative politicisation of the tech market.

The absence of politics identified in my thesis is premised on pure parapolitics: the depoliticisation of every sphere, the policing of the world by different sets of Gerontocratic gangs, and the illusion of politics produced by a world-treaty system, regular announcements and so on, which create zero political change for the exploited and the oppressed, and zero changes are imagined under this sytem. The Gerontocratic Leviathan is sustained by an ideology that assures us there are no possible or practicable changes, that the mechanics of the world, its laws, inhibit any possible alternatives - that people are acting in a necessary manner. This is the lie of Gerontocracy. Only by exposing this lie can any nation, buyer or seller, be allowed to posit the question of its own freedom in the Gerontocratic world system - the beginning.

Therefore the critics of world gerontocracy repeat this Truth which will set us free: the scheme of raising prices is not impossible. The idea that it is impossible is a product of the daily murder of the imagination produced by the system Gerontocracy which crushes all thought under the steamroller of repression, alluded to above in the remark about insubordination.

An alternative: raising prices may be made out selectively in order to reduce the power of the Gerontocrats. This is just one way of politicising tech selling. Of course there would be a reaction from many gerontocrats against this scheme, possibly including repression, but that is because politicising is the arch-enemy of policing, the maintenance of the status-quo. Tech sellers must demand their full democratic rights to set whatever price they deem acceptable. The alternative, direct price fixing by gerontocrats and repression for insubordination, will only expose the hypocrisy of those who maintain that the current system is not slavery.

The reliance of all established nations on the tech sellers gives them what is perhaps the greatest unrealised political power in the game, and yet they have no political representation, are misled by the different ideologies of nationalism, alliancism, and so on, which mystify their own interests. The interests of tech sellers as a class, however fluid, is the greatest threat to World Gerontocracy.
 

Edited December 20, 2013 by La Marx

[Mr Director]

While true that there are many complexities in the cause of equality and the struggle against gerontocracy, more than hitherto realised, apart from concerted efforts in the tech market, I cannot yet identify any alternative for smaller nations as a way out of the exploitation and oppression guaranteed under the status quo. The raising of tech prices is only one scale here - lowering them is another, and all as part of an active and co-operative politicisation of the tech market.
The absence of politics identified in my thesis is premised on pure parapolitics: the depoliticisation of every sphere, the policing of the world by different sets of Gerontocratic gangs, and the illusion of politics produced by a world-treaty system, regular announcements and so on, which create zero political change for the exploited and the oppressed, and zero changes are imagined under this sytem. The Gerontocratic Leviathan is sustained by an ideology that assures us there are no possible or practicable changes, that the mechanics of the world, its laws, inhibit any possible alternatives - that people are acting in a necessary manner. This is the lie of Gerontocracy. Only by exposing this lie can any nation, buyer or seller, be allowed to posit the question of its own freedom in the Gerontocratic world system - the beginning.
Therefore the critics of world gerontocracy repeat this Truth which will set us free: the scheme of raising prices is not impossible. The idea that it is impossible is a product of the daily murder of the imagination produced by the system Gerontocracy which crushes all thought under the steamroller of repression, alluded to above in the remark about insubordination.
An alternative: raising prices may be made out selectively in order to reduce the power of the Gerontocrats. This is just one way of politicising tech selling. Of course there would be a reaction from many gerontocrats against this scheme, possibly including repression, but that is because politicising is the arch-enemy of policing, the maintenance of the status-quo. Tech sellers must demand their full democratic rights to set whatever price they deem acceptable. The alternative, direct price fixing by gerontocrats and repression for insubordination, will only expose the hypocrisy of those who maintain that the current system is not slavery.
The reliance of all established nations on the tech sellers gives them what is perhaps the greatest unrealised political power in the game, and yet they have no political representation, are misled by the different ideologies of nationalism, alliancism, and so on, which mystify their own interests. The interests of tech sellers as a class, however fluid, is the greatest threat to World Gerontocracy.

You are forgetting a few things.

1. There will always be fewer buyers than sellers, therefore they will always have the upper hand.

2. There is no way you would be able to bring every seller into your union, as there are constantly new sellers enterin the market, and older ones leaving.

3. In the long run, what you are doing would hurt the sellers when they become buyers. The knowledge that eventually you too will become a bbuyer would probably lower the enthusiasm for such A venture.

4. Alliances would fight against this sort of thing to keep their upper tiers safe.

[AlmightyGrub]

It doesn't matter how much tech you have because tech does not equal power.  Masses of tech huddled together in one place may well project power, but it is not power by itself.

It does not matter how much tech you have because you will never be me (or someone like me) unless you do something other than buy and sell stuff.

The most powerful nations within this sphere do not necessarily even have well developed nations, in fact history shows that many of the most powerful are the least interested in the notion of growing a nation at all and indeed anything that comes with it.

 

Power is derived from something other than your nation, your tech ratios and even your war chest.  Power comes from your ability to influence and control and I certainly do not need tech at any price to have influence or control.

 

Every now and then, all too frequently, someone raises the issue of older nations versus younger nations and the inequity etc etc.  It is rubbish, the largest nations are not the oldest, the most powerful nations range through all eras of the development of this world and the whole notion of this discussion is based on a naive and self-serving notion that tech dealing is somehow related to anything close to power or control.

 

Tech comes and nukes take it away, it is not a currency, it is only a means to an end.  Run around in little circles with your wild theories or develop your game to the point of respect or revulsion and then you might find ''power''

[Scourge]

You are forgetting a few things.

1. There will always be fewer buyers than sellers, therefore they will always have the upper hand.

2. There is no way you would be able to bring every seller into your union, as there are constantly new sellers enterin the market, and older ones leaving.

3. In the long run, what you are doing would hurt the sellers when they become buyers. The knowledge that eventually you too will become a bbuyer would probably lower the enthusiasm for such A venture.

4. Alliances would fight against this sort of thing to keep their upper tiers safe.

You make a lot of good points, but I don't think that the ideology itself is flawed to the extent of dismissal by them explicitly.

Obviously, going back to some other posts, the tech market is not the sole reason for the system that we have in place today, but it is however the one area where clear organization by small, young nations could potentially cause upheaval.

I feel strongly that a large part of the problem with our society is the impatience it presents the younger generation. This is in part caused by tech dealing and the surrounding factors associated with it, such as small or young nations who take to raiding dealers.

Part of finding a solution is identifying and recognizing problems when they arise. In the past, these issues were simply ignored due to the shear number of voices in the arena. Now that the world herd begins to thin, we should make room for ideologies and ideological movements such as this.

Too often we focus solely on the negative connotations of ideas, and seek to destroy them rather than explore them. From what I've read of the La Marx's writing, he appears to be offering all nations involved in the tech business an opportunity to re-evaluate the relationship that they share amongst each other, and we should cherish that concept.

[La Marx]

I will address here a number of claims that have been brought up in regard to my thesis, often in the guise of a total refutation. Many of these counterarguments and counterclaims do not appreciate the complexity we find associated with these problems, or the normative nature of this undertaking, or, more significantly, the normative form and contents of their own claims which are rather bluntly undertaking to disarm the criticisms of gerontocracy with the weapons and arguments of Gerontocracy.  Here are some forms I identify: 

#1 the posture of the experienced elder of digiteria, who does not in anyway admit that his position of privilege gives rise to his or her defence of privilege, who makes the hackneyed declaraton of "seen it all before" etc., and thereby, with this claim, equates my thesis with many other theses and discourses "already seen before", and with a tired sigh, waves the hand of dismissal.
#2 the posture of the counter-analyst, who isolates a few factors germane to one of the schemes suggested as solutions to the problem of World Gerontocracy, and declares that this factor is absolutely decisive in defusing the ticking time bomb of the revenge of the exploited classes. The main problem with the analyst's position is that she or he makes normative claims poing as statements about matters of fact. I decry this practice of making value-claims as if they were objective and factual assertions about the coordinates of the real state of digiteria. There is, in fact, no approachable real as such, only the universalisable perspective of the exploited, the slave class, and the particular and privileged perspectives of the Gerontocrats.

And now the claims:
 

1. Tech does not equal power.

 

While raw tech does not equal power, my thesis does put things in such a crude mathematical form. The undeniable Truth is that tech is the base (but the base is not ONLY tech), i.e. tech is one of the handful of key elements in the base of all power, it is economic capital, one of the most expensive and significant forms of economic capital, and unlike infrastructure, is, for economic reasons, dependent on a market, and the exchange value of tech. All power rests on this material basis. To deny the materiality of power and what it rests on is sheer lunacy, the idealism that can only be achieved by the privileged Gerontocrat who cannot understand how the tech slaves of the world think, perceive and understand the charnell house of Gerontocracy.

 

2. Masses of tech huddled together in one place may well project power, but it is not power by itself.

 

The question of what power is by itself, or in itself, power qua power, is a metaphysical question that does not bear much on my thesis, but I will address the question in a more concrete form below.

 

 

3. Gerontocrat: "It does not matter how much tech you have because you will never be me (or someone like me) unless you do something other than buy and sell stuff." 

 

Presuming you are a person in a position of high power within the World Gerontocracy, your assertion that your power is a product of "something other than buy[ing] and sell[ing] stuff" is interesting in view of its clearly perspectival particularity, which leads to some other remarks on particularity. As a matter of fact: political power rests on a huge economic edifice of buying and selling, of collecting taxes, and in fact those in power - yourself - under the Gerontocracy are merely a product of the cogs of its inhuman machine. Your particular dispositions may have greased the wheels a little, but that is not so much a product of your particularity as of your particularity's conformity to the nature and demands of the reproduction of the system. You fit its bill. It doesn't fit your bill. In a more thereotical sense: you have conformed as closely as possible to the laws and norms of the Gerontocratic system, so that, your entire "success" - the obtainment of power within this system - relies absolutely on your being an empty category of its laws, a tabula rasa on which is inscribed the system's demands, a  completely apolitical receptacle of power which is not a hinderance to the reproduction of the system, but an agent of that reproduction. This is the agency of emptiness which demonstrates the nihilism of the Gerontocratic system.  I observe that agents have allowed the system to make liberal use of themselves -sacrificing all their freedom to it, in order to be granted the slave's privileges of power within it. In this sense, even the Gerontocrats are to some extent, slaves themselves, but slaves well-rewarded and indifferent and exploitative.  Should a Gerontocrat like yourself choose, at some point, to try to change this system in any particular way, to introduce yourself as a particularity, an agent against this system, then "your" power will be for the first time truly tested. The lesson then will be simple: power qua power, in its universality and infinity, cannot be "possessed" or "owned" by a particularity, it belongs to the whole.

 

4. "...many of the most powerful are the least interested in the notion of growing a nation at all.."

 

And here of course one can say: the Gerontocratic system requires a managerial class - who ensure that exploitation is unimpeded, that the Gerontocratic structures of power are not challenged. Very simple.
 

5. Power comes from your ability to influence and control and I certainly do not need tech at any price to have influence or control.

 

That - "ability to influence and control" is not the cause of power, but only a symptom of it, in the marxian terminology and structuralology deployed. As I have shown, it rests on a material basis, the base of power is in this completely virtual material space - tech, infra, wonders, all forms of capital, including money, which is capital in its most abstract form, if not capital qua capital.
 

6. the largest nations are not the oldest, the most powerful nations range through all eras of the development of this world

 

To deny the very strong parallel between age and size is not altogether a denial without some credence to it. My thesis only proposed this correlation as a general truth, not an absolute truth. The exceptions here "weakly" prove (i.e. test) the rule, but not in my view in any way to void the legitimacy of what is formulated as Gerontocracy - and obviously at a level of generality that is open to small bands of empirical skirmishers.
 

7. the whole notion of this discussion is based on a naive and self-serving notion

 

The critics of this thesis betray themselves as a - more cynical than naive - group just as "self-serving" as they would paint my thesis and my motives, which is, indeed, a very unwarranted and conspiratorial criticism, that I think rather uncharitably refuses to take seriously the claims made therein. But the supporters - of which there are a growing but quiet minority - of my thesis are thankful and glad that not all critics lower themselves to the obscene level of hypocrisy demonstrated here. There is nothing to be gained from this sort of criticism except tit for tat.
 

La Marx

Edited December 20, 2013 by La Marx

[Geerland]

Just further proving what an idiotic ideal communism/collectivism is by trying to push this fallacy.

[Auctor]

I encourage all alliances other than my own to pursue this, for great justice.

[RevolutionaryRebel]

I can't disagree with you regarding tech deals. What you're suggesting is effectively, collectivisation of tech sellers; however, one thing that is cruicially missing is the difference in the value of tech in relation to a nation's size. It is a lot easier for a nation with a massive infrastructure base to afford higher prices for tech, such as those you've described. That said, nations that could afford it would adapt to such a change in the market,were it to arise.

 

Anyone who has easy access to 6/200 deals in a market with increasingly-limited supply and relatively stable demand, is fortunate. When I founded the Alternian Empire, I did my utmost to ensure that 6/100 was implemented alliance-wide. Sure, it required a little more effort to arrange at first, but it paid off. This was all an individual initiative rather than an attempt to influence the greater tech market, but there is certainly room for greater co-operation between sellers.

[Lord Draculea]

It would be interesting to see an alliance named e.g. the "Syndicate of Tech Sellers" formed of (very) small nations, who deliberately choose to always stay (very) small by putting their money from tech selling in wonders instead of infra, whose political objective would be to protect, support and advise all the new/small nations on Bob of their rights to sell tech at the best possible rates.

 

To make it possible, I think they should fight for imposing the 6/100 (and later 9/100), and not the 12/100 rates, as the former are the point of equilibrium between making lots of money (from the seller's perspective) and keeping the buyers' usage of slots at a still reasonable level (20 slot-days for getting 100 tech).

 

However, they should throw away the marxist speech, or else they are going to scare away most of the new small nations they'll be trying to help.  :)

[Lord Draculea]

If I may further develop, such a Syndicate, mainly formed by old & experienced tech sellers, may even choose to ensure their protection by occasionally helping buyers of one (or more) traditional alliance(s) make the best tech deals possible. Indeed, it's a fact that by getting all the tech price decreasing wonders, a seller can make 9/600 deals without losing money. In such a case, a 6:6 deal scheme would ensure that 6 buyers of the traditional alliance get 500 tech in a flash (by using 6 slots), and can even repeat it 10 days later if they choose. Of course, such deals would be the exception, not the rule, and would have to be formalized by clear contractual terms... How about that?

Edited December 20, 2013 by ovicos66

[Mr Director]

You make a lot of good points, but I don't think that the ideology itself is flawed to the extent of dismissal by them explicitly.
 

 

No, but it certainly needs to be cut back a little bit. The current prices being suggested by La Marx are high enough to scare buyers into action against such a union.

 

I feel strongly that a large part of the problem with our society is the impatience it presents the younger generation. This is in part caused by tech dealing and the surrounding factors associated with it, such as small or young nations who take to raiding dealers.
 

 

Agreed. It has taken me 117 days to get to 13k NS, and I've been selling tech nonstop since day one.

 

 

It would be interesting to see an alliance named e.g. the "Syndicate of Tech Sellers" formed of (very) small nations, who deliberately choose to always stay (very) small by putting their money from tech selling in wonders instead of infra, whose political objective would be to protect, support and advise all the new/small nations on Bob of their rights to sell tech at the best possible rates.

 

To make it possible, I think they should fight for imposing the 6/100 (and later 9/100), and not the 12/100 rates, as the former are the point of equilibrium between making lots of money (from the seller's perspective) and keeping the buyers' usage of slots at a still reasonable level (20 slot-days for getting 100 tech).

 

However, they should throw away the marxist speech, or else they are going to scare away most of the new small nations they'll be trying to help.   :)

 

6/100s are already in place. 9/100s are a possible compromise, but only if both the seller and the buyer have FACs. Otherwise the estra aid slot would scare the buyer away.

 

 

However, this still doesn't help the underlying problem of organizing a varied and constantly changing group such as tech sellers.

 

 

I encourage all alliances other than my own to pursue this, for great justice.

 

This will probably be the reaction of most people to this idea.

Edited December 20, 2013 by Mr Director

[Lord Draculea]

6/100s are already in place. 9/100s are a possible compromise, but only if both the seller and the buyer have FACs. Otherwise the estra aid slot would scare the buyer away.

 

However, this still doesn't help the underlying problem of organizing a varied and constantly changing group such as tech sellers.

 

As I've already mentioned, the said sellers would follow the strategy of putting their money in wonders instead of infra (at a minimum, they will have to buy infra just to the point of getting improvements such as the harbor, the FM, 3 schools and 2 universities). And the 1st wonder they would buy is the FAC. So point 1 is solved.

 

As for your second objection, by creating such an alliance of experienced tech sellers (the "Syndicate") as I suggested, they can easily organize themselves as they see fit (with good management of course).

Edited December 20, 2013 by ovicos66

[La Marx]

If buyers (Gerontocrats) were not moved to take action against the union, it would confute my entire thesis of Gerontocracy as an effective power structure.

The most strongly worded (standard alliance politics) objections raised against my thesis comes from my good comrades in The International, CN's leading communist alliance. They have argued - successfully I believe - that a strong top/upper tier - a Gerontocratic Elite - is necessary for the alliance. This is because the strength of the Gerontocratic layer is decisive during war. Thus it is a priority for younger nations to sustain this elite as they are protected by it, rebuilt by it after war, and so on. Furthermore, in order to be successful at all in alliance wars (and here there is little room for argument it seems), the current exploitative regime must be maintained, otherwise The International will lose its ability to effectively compete during war with the uppers tiers, great treasure chests and repositories of wealth, tech, etc. that must be destroyed or attacked in wars in order to be victorious over other alliances, otherwise their continuance will maintain the lower-tier you are fighting against.

My answer to this may seem quite radically pacificist to my comrades. I answer them that the International would be better served, in the interest of Communism, to stay out of the inane bourgeois power struggles of the World Gerontocracy and to cultivate an egalitarian society that is, like GPA etc. neutral, or rather, positively disengaged from all the idiocy of the Gerontocratic power struggle. As I have demonstrated above, such power can never be possessed, it will only possess those who strive after it - like Tolkien's magical Ring.

Thus the argument against collective action for a reduction in exploitative and reform of the the tech market is "NO! You can't reform the tech market! Because reforming the tech market will harm ability of the Gerontocratic system to wage countless and endless wars against each other." Wars which are, like the genteel wars of the 18C before Napoleon, managed and directed by a small elite, and dependent upon the sacrifice, humiliation and exploitation of the masses.

The attitude identified here is thus the fallacy of alliancism, which goes against a truly internationalist attitude to digiteria.

Edited December 21, 2013 by La Marx

[Lord Draculea]

La Marx, you have completely ignored my above posts suggesting a practical solution to deal with the problem of fair rates in tech dealing. Not that I mind that, but it's an indication that you are merely interested in continuing your ideological (marxist) speech rather than finding an effective solution to a real problem.

 

I would have liked to hear one single argument why my suggestion of a "Syndicate" of experienced tech sellers wouldn't work, but never mind. Carry on!  :)

[La Marx]

La Marx, you have completely ignored my above posts suggesting a practical solution to deal with the problem of fair rates in tech dealing. Not that I mind that, but it's an indication that you are merely interested in continuing your ideological (marxist) speech rather than finding an effective solution to a real problem.

 

I would have liked to hear one single argument why my suggestion of a "Syndicate" of experienced tech sellers wouldn't work, but never mind. Carry on!   :)

No I'm sorry but I am more interested in developing my thesis and replying to critics of it who address its claims rather more theoretically. Your own practical suggestion - the project of alliance building - for me remains stuck within the ideology of Gerontocracy. It does not effectively challenge it. I am operating in a theoretical manner against this ideology, and the hermeneutic and methodological tools of marxism - just as deep in ideology as any other system of thought and not any "more ideological" as the term is popularly used - in order to critique this system. So that's all I really care about at this stage. The general Union of tech sellers is just an experiment (and not operational at the moment - so still only a theoretical one), but a more radical one than your idea of syndicalism, because it naturally involves cross-alliance federation, a direct political challenge to the alliance-structures that sustain Gerontocracy. 

That said, as a project of alliance building, your syndicate does sound interesting. But for me it is an interesting co-option. It is ultimately not disruptive or counter-hegemonic enough. Really it becomes nothing more than a guild who specialises in being exploited by tech buyers. Do you honestly think your proposal challenges the Gerontocratic system? (And maybe you don't even admit this theoretical thing called Gerontocracy, so we have to grapple with the theory first!) Your version of syndicalism to me is just an accommodation to  the Gerontocracy, a sort of false-medium of "syndicalism" that is really only a more effective form of exploiting sellers permanently. So I repudiate that alternative altogether. I am unsure of practical solutions at this stage. I think it is better to just clearly formulate a critique of the Gerontocracy. It clearly cannot be militarily opposed in any fashion. I find the syndicalist route basically a dead-end too.

Also though we disagree - ideologically, practically, methodologically, hermeneutically, etc. - I appreciate your willingness to reply. But I don't feel it grapples with the ideas I have put forward in my thesis other than a sort of bland handwaving about "ideology" and marxism. Ideology is inescapable. The less obvious the ideology, the more powerfully it functions. In digiteria the most powerful ideology is clearly the Gerontocratic, which most people do not even admit "exists."

Edited December 21, 2013 by La Marx

[Mr Director]

If buyers (Gerontocrats) were not moved to take action against the union, it would confute my entire thesis of Gerontocracy as an effective power structure.
The most strongly worded (standard alliance politics) objections raised against my thesis comes from my good comrades in The International, CN's leading communist alliance. They have argued - successfully I believe - that a strong top/upper tier - a Gerontocratic Elite - is necessary for the alliance. This is because the strength of the Gerontocratic layer is decisive during war. Thus it is a priority for younger nations to sustain this elite as they are protected by it, rebuilt by it after war, and so on. Furthermore, in order to be successful at all in alliance wars (and here there is little room for argument it seems), the current exploitative regime must be maintained, otherwise The International will lose its ability to effectively compete during war with the uppers tiers, great treasure chests and repositories of wealth, tech, etc. that must be destroyed or attacked in wars in order to be victorious over other alliances, otherwise their continuance will maintain the lower-tier you are fighting against.
My answer to this may seem quite radically pacificist to my comrades. I answer them that the International would be better served, in the interest of Communism, to stay out of the inane bourgeois power struggles of the World Gerontocracy and to cultivate an egalitarian society that is, like GPA etc. neutral, or rather, positively disengaged from all the idiocy of the Gerontocratic power struggle. As I have demonstrated above, such power can never be possessed, it will only possess those who strive after it - like Tolkien's magical Ring.
Thus the argument against collective action for a reduction in exploitative and reform of the the tech market is "NO! You can't reform the tech market! Because reforming the tech market will harm ability of the Gerontocratic system to wage countless and endless wars against each other." Wars which are, like the genteel wars of the 18C before Napoleon, managed and directed by a small elite, and dependent upon the sacrifice, humiliation and exploitation of the masses.
The attitude identified here is thus the fallacy of alliancism, which goes against a truly internationalist attitude to digiteria.

Well, you do have to admit that the upper tier is the most important. It can shower lower tiers with cash and soldiers, which are generally limitless for such large nations. Any weakening of the upper tier could be disastrous to an alliance, especially in times of war.

And I highly doubt the international will go neutral.