This transition isn't unique to Silicon Valley but rather is baked into the imperatives of libertarianism/liberalism itself. Once the fiction of gains for the broad working class cannot be upheld, the resulting unrest has to be quelled. At that point anyone in a position of influence has to either abandon liberalism (the economic side of it at the very least) or embrace authoritarianism.
The resulting unrest can only be suppressed by abandoning basic civil liberties, or by adopting New Deal style reforms. Either one amounts to an abandonment of libertarianism.
It seems like you lumped liberal and libertarian together, is that accurate? If so, why? Aren’t they quite different economic and political philosophies?
That split seems to have happened before I was born, a loong time ago, ;) Don’t they mean different things in Silicon Valley today, and wouldn’t both libertarians and liberals take issue with being lumped together today?
There was no such split in most countries, so internationally it is weird to differentiate the two. Liberals are right wing in most places (they want small government with low taxes).
Or put a slightly different way: libertarians were always lying about their noble anti-government ideas. They just hated the thought of the government helping women, minorities or the poor. And anything that threatened fossil fuel interests.
When they see the chance to seize the government and actively punish those groups they drop their fake ideals immediately.
> Or put a slightly different way: libertarians were always lying about their noble anti-government ideas. They just hated the thought of the government helping women, minorities or the poor. And anything that threatened fossil fuel interests.
This is an extremely lazy form of argument and isn't really worthy of HN.
