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The reason to write this version of the 1ac is that it has the best defense of safe harbor provisions, and the safe harbor is a really important approach against disadvantages to trademark liability.

Advantage evolution – there are at least big impacts to counterfeit pharmaceuticals and counterfeit pesticides. Probably other products as well. Money laundering also has other impacts – I didn’t have time to develop these further.

99% of the solvency advocates for this area of the topic recommend Congress – mainly because a safe harbor provision probably requires legislation. Campbell – the harms author – advocates almost exactly the plan, but she says it should be through legislation. Dong – the first court solvency card – does advocate the Court, but ALSO advocates Congress and thinks Congress is better (because it’s more likely to act, according to Dong). But in reality, there’s no reason the courts couldn’t do the aff – this was a problem created by the courts in the first place. Bernstein advocates the courts for both advantages – and he’s the most important solvency author by far.

The point is, once there’s a court politics DA, the Congress CP becomes a pretty strong argument because most advocates think Congress is better. Court politics DA’s are very bad arguments, but they’re a lot stronger if the CP solves the whole case. So don’t commit. There are some plausible answers to a Congress CP embedded within the 1ac, but fiat probably resolves most of them.

Contributory liability – this is a form of secondary liability that holds a third party liable for counterfeiting if they knew about trademark infringement on their platform and did nothing to stop it. Contributory liability applies to trademark counterfeiting now, but it depends on the standard of knowledge that courts apply to determine whether an online platform ‘knew’ infringement was occurring.

Specific knowledge – also called “contemporary knowledge” or “actual knowledge”. This is the current standard for determining contributory trademark liability. In the 2nd Circuit case Tiffany v. eBay (2010), the court held that eBay’s liability for counterfeit Tiffany products sold on its site required eBay to remove counterfeit listings that were reported to it, but that eBay had no further obligation to police its website, because it lacked specific knowledge of other counterfeiters.

Computing devices had been used in communications applications in USSR since the 1950s, with missile defence systems (M-40) communicating to remote terminals sending radar data over hundreds of kilometres away, and later the launch in 1972 of a data telecommunication network to serve the needs of the Russian Railways. By the early 1980s, the USSR began to use computer networks to connect with the world outside, testing connections with Australia and the United States. Further commercial networks appeared through the early 1990s. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation and other states inherited a vast network of telephone and data connections. Albeit not state of the art in a global sense, this network served as an initial backbone for the development of the Internet in post-Soviet countries, playing a major role in future network development in former Soviet countries and Eastern Europe.

The Soviet attitude towards communication technologies was described to be driven by telephony policy that was targeted along with other media policies, at the surveillance and maintenance of control through keeping the sector underdeveloped. The resulting concentration of access to media among the ruling elite, the nomenklatura (Vartanova, ), necessarily created an informational divide between the ruling caste and other castes. Still, digitisation and technological development was seen as scientific development rather than as a threat to the political status quo; although it allowed some development in the sector, it still limited connectivity with other countries.

The most extreme version of this techno-authoritarianism exists in Xinjiang, where the Chinese Communist Party is carrying out a brutal campaign of genocide and repression against the ethnic Uighur population. However, many of these tools are used nationwide. COVID-related measures have further enhanced the Chinese Communist Party’s control over citizen movements.

Unlike in the United States and other democratic societies, there are no legal constraints on the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to surveil its citizens. While China has passed a number of laws and regulations pertaining to cybersecurity, data, and artificial intelligence, the law serves a different purpose in China than in democratic states. Unlike the democratic concept of “rule of law,” where the law constrains even the government, China has a system of “rule by law.” The Chinese Communist Party stands above the law, and the law is a vehicle to aid the Party in governing.

4 Beijing calls foreign security concerns over Huawei “lame excuse[s]” and pure “politics.”4 At the same time, China expresses similar concerns domestically over the incorporation of foreign technology into its networks. Security is paramount for Xi, who has repeatedly declared that “without cyber security, there will be no national security.”5 Accordingly, he argues for adoption only of foreign technology that is “controllable” — while leaders at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) stress that foreign technology networks tend not to be “controllable.”6 China must therefore build its own networks that are both “independent and controllable.”7

5 Commercial and academic Chinese sources suggest that the international community’s security concerns over Chinese telecommunications might not be misplaced, and that Beijing might see telecommunications and other commercial networks as means to project offensive power globally. Xi presents IT as a key part of China’s military-civil fusion strategy: In 2018, he said that “military-civil fusion in cybersecurity and informatization is the key field and frontier field for military-civil fusion.”8 Downstream, Qin An, director of the China Institute of Cyberspace Strategy, argued in 2016 that “due to the highly monopolistic nature of information technology systems, it is unlikely that there will be two different systems for military and civilian use … it is particularly necessary [for China] to integrate military and civilian resources through a military-civil fusion system.”9

When digital technologies are installed in an organization, they interact with organizational and managerial characteristics, specifically with the strategy and the legacy of an organization, as well as with the resources, the processes, the values, and the culture of an organization (Dewan et al. ), without forgetting positive attitudes towards change and technology (Dery et al. ). All these organizational antecedents are integrated and interact with environmental antecedents and the characteristics of the country, the industry, and the consumers. These characteristics include the legal conditions and the infrastructure of a country, as well as its regulatory frameworks and interventions (Cortet et al. ), and the dynamics of an industry driven by technology, which includes the changing technological panorama of a country (Alos-Simo et al. ). The above in no way ensures the success of many digital transformations within firms. In a recent study, Witschel et al. () demonstrated that the innovation of the business model is an effective way of continuing to be competitive in the digital era. To do so, these authors defended the role that dynamic capabilities play in the innovation of the business model, as well as contextual factors, leadership and business mentalities. Moreover, Wen et al. () affirmed that manufacturing firms with greater viability are more adaptable to DT and tend to implement differentiated competitive strategies, for which reason they concluded that the effect of incentivizing innovation is greater for firms of higher viability. The antecedents of DT (digital orientation, digital intensity, and digital maturity) were also analyzed to understand their influence on the financial success of firms (Nasisri et al. 2022). These authors maintained that digital orientation and digital intensity in themselves contributed nothing to the financial success of firms; and digital maturity acted as a mediator between digital orientation and the financial success of firms, and between digital intensity and the financial success of firms. DT, therefore, presented important opportunities for firms, but also for entrepreneurs. In the case of digital entrepreneurship, Chatterjee et al. (2022) provided evidence that perceived utility, perceived ease of use, and willingness to introduce strong and significant changes all affected digital entrepreneurship.

In addition, a DT is shaped by the characteristics of the consumer, in particular, the demand of the digital consumer. Consumers place increasing trust in digital technologies throughout their daily lives and personal interactions (Brynjolfsson et al. ) and expect ubiquitous access to virtual resources (Benlian et al. ). Both the appearance of digital technologies and their diffusion have led to greater data availability (on these aspects, see Vial , p.123), which has in turn increased the importance of automated learning and the analysis of data for organizations (Weichert ). These data enable firms to offer services that better respond to the needs of their clients and to complete processes in more efficient ways for their own competitive advantage. Thus, some firms use social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to institute customer care operations and then use the data that are generated from these interactions to appeal to client sentiment in real time. Finally, the digital industrial transformation, known as the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0 implies a change of paradigm from a hyperconnected and centralized manufacturing ecosystem to a decentralized one (Li et al. ). Under Industry 4.0, intelligent physical objects, decentralized subsystems, and even human components are perfectly integrated within an interoperable, hyperconnected, and decentralized production system (see Hodapp and Hanelt 2022) that is capable of adapting in real time and in an autonomous manner to environmental change (Ardito et al. ; Sanchez et al. ). Khan and Javaid (2022) considered that the IoT was a critical component of Industry 4.0, which improved product manufacturing efficiency, because it was done with fewer errors and costs. Somohano-Rodiríguez et al. (2022), analyzing the role that enabling digital Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies played in SME innovations, found that strategic planning advanced I4.0 and that enabling Information and Communication digital technologies promoted innovation more intensely than enabling digital technologies for integration and advanced robotics. Bhatia and Kumar () analyzed the critical success factors of I4.0, highlighting “data governance” as the most critical factor.

Instead, we begin our analysis by looking at the broader global system in which knowledge and information operate: a settler-colonial system that extracts wealth, knowledge, and culture from economically marginalised communities and inequitably redistributes their economic fruits to the wealthiest and most powerful. This approach is in line with that activists and critical scholars have long made of open-access movements: that the central focus on liberty values ignores concerns about equality; that a  as a neutral landscape where every person can reap its riches ignores its real role in exploiting the labour and bodies of people of colour, women, people from the Global South, and the impoverished. We now know that the ‘public domaining’ of Indigenous knowledge about local flora and fauna, traditional medicines, folklore, or traditional cultural expressions has enabled Big Pharma to take Indigenous knowledge, transform it into IP, and become the exclusive owner of that knowledge: a phenomenon known as .

Abolitionist creativity also disagrees with an ideological belief that runs through some prominent segments of the open-access movements, namely that the system once worked well, but that ‘unfortunately, our IP regimes have from their original purposes’. For the colonised, for Indigenous Peoples whose collective knowledge has been ransacked, for communities forced into oppressive trade agreements (e.g. ), for the rising number of  working in global supply chains powered by intangibles, it is hard to see how the IP system ever worked for them – or what decades of reformist attempts inside IP law in the US have accomplished. For abolitionists, the system is not broken and in need of reform, tweaking, and tinkering. It is working as it was designed to work, as a settler-colonial legal and economic structure. And we are running out of time and of magical thinking waiting for public policy to somehow turn favourable in a corporate-dominated .

Imagine a world where no one goes to work, where all economic activities cease, and the global workforce takes an indefinite pause. It’s a scenario that might seem unimaginable, but exploring its potential consequences is very much thought-provoking.

In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the scenario of what would happen if everyone stopped working, both for a single day and for an extended period. We’ll cover the economic repercussions, the breakdown of the economic system, the role of money, workforce dynamics, the loss of , the rise of drug-related issues, the need for fundamental changes in the world system, food shortages, healthcare challenges, transportation problems, the impact on essential utilities like electricity and water supply, and the potential for a self-sufficient society based on agriculture and local production.

Venture into a bustling artery of any capitalist society and you're likely to find yourself enveloped by its palpable manifestations: shimmering advertisements seducing you with the promise of the latest commodities, financial institutions promising safe havens for your wealth, and corporations locked in fierce  for your patronage.

It's an undeniable reality that capitalism sculpts our tangible world. However, what about the intangible realms of our thoughts and emotions? A fresh wave of research is gradually uncovering the subtle yet profound ways in which capitalism shapes our cognitive processes, emotional responses, and behavioral patterns.

In which I explain what I meant by my comment to  from Doug Johnson. I commented, "If the word is not the thing, how do you evaluate the sentence 'Dragons are green?'" It's probably foundational for semiotics that the word is a sign or symbol, and in some way stands for or represents something else. This separation allows us to meaningfully use words like 'red' without particularly worrying about the reality of whatever they represent. But the question of whether essence implies existence shaped much of 20th century philosophy. What do you say about the meaning of words that represent or refer to things that don't exist? If the meaning of the word 'dragon' does not depend on representation of or reference to dragons - since there are no dragons - then where does it get its meaning? You might say that 'dragon' is just a fictional example, that we don't need to worry about its meaning, it's just metaphorical. But what about a sentence like (to use Bertrand Russell's famous example) "Brakeless trains are dangerous." It's not fiction, it is, moreover, true, and known to be true, and yet (by virtue of that very fact!) there are no brakeless trains. So, while it's simple and appealing to say, "The symbol is NOT the thing symbolized; the word is NOT the thing; the map is NOT the territory it stands for," there are important senses in which it's not true. In some important senses, the thing is the thing symbolized. When we talk about 'tiger' we are in fact talking about the concept 'tiger', which is just what is contained in the word 'tiger', and not about things in the world at all. When we talk about 'the tiger' we are (Russell would say) making two claims: that there is a thing that exists, and that it is an instance of this concept we call 'tiger'. All the referring happens in the word 'the', not the word 'tiger'. You might think, this is all meaningless babble. Who cares? But it has a direct and immediate impact on how we think about learning. On the simple picture, you just show people some tigers (or trains, or dragons) and they learn about them. Or (since that's very inconvenient) you simply give them a series of propositions about tigers, trains and dragons ("dragons are green", "tigers are orange", etc.) and that teaches you about the world. Except - it doesn't. It teaches you about language. Most of what we learn about in school is language, not reality. Math - science - these are all disciplines of language. In a very real sense, a traditional (text-based, languages lased) education is an education based on fiction. Very useful fiction, to be sure, since most other people are willing participants in that fiction, and it helps us do useful things. But it renders us unusually vulnerable to propaganda and media, since we can convince people of some reality merely through the use of words - actual evidence or experience is not required. We buy into beliefs like 'the world is described by numbers', 'if it can't be measured it can't be managed' and other variations on the old positivist principle of meaningfulness. Most of the work in late 20th century philosophy goes to show that meaning and truth are embedded in the representational system - that, in other words, the word is the thing the word describes, the map is the terrain (if you don't believe me, try walking across an international border). van Fraassen on how explanations in science are descriptive mostly of our expectations. Derrida on how the meaning of the word is based largely on the range of alternative possible words that could be used. Quine on how translations are based on guesses (or what he called 'analytic hypotheses'). None of this implies that there is no reality, that there is no physical world, that there is no experience. Of course there is a great deal of all three. It's just that the supposedly privileged connection between word and reality - the one represented by 'The symbol is NOT the thing symbolized' - is an illusion. And that these representational and referential systems are elaborate fictions. This is not new knowledge. It is very old knowledge. And as the Taoists used to say, knowing that these distinctions we find in language represent our interpretations of the world, represent our projections onto the world, is very powerful. Very enlightening. Because it frees us from the absolutes we believed ruled us with an iron grip. What people thought were right and wrong, for example (which is why we can make sense of how something that was once 'right' - slavery, say - is now 'wrong'). What people thought were plants or animals. Sentient or senseless. Planets or non-planets. This is not an endorsement of relativism. It is merely the assertion that what is represented in language is fiction. If we rely solely on language - solely on what were told - then anything can be true. Look what happens to viewers of Fox News! What it tells us is that we cannot rely on words, on language, on mathematics, on representational systems. We have to, in our own lives, appeal to our own experiences, our own connection with the world itself. The Taoists would say we have to connect to 'The Way' - the ineffable reality behind human descriptions. But it's not an appeal to the mystical. It's an appeal to the world that lies beyond our descriptions of the world. In an important sense, then, I want to say that semiotics is wrong. Not in the sense that it is descriptively false - for no doubt there is a truth (or, as experience shows, many, many truths) in semiotic accounts of meaning and representation. But rather, that semiotics as epistemology, or even ontology, are false. That there is no actual relation of reference or representation, only (within the referential or representative system) a fiction of one. In a sense, we're at the same position today that Descartes was at in 1616 when he said, "I entirely abandoned the study of letters." At that time, knowledge, philosophy and science were in the hands of the Scholastics, who understood the world through finer and finer distinctions and relations between the categories. Descartes descided - and proved, through his sceptical argument - that theirs was a world of fiction, that we would not understand the nature of reality by dividing things over and over again into increasingly arbitrary categories. Descartes (and his contemporaries, for this was a broad social movement) derived an analytical method of dividing the world into parts, and using mathematics, not qualities, to represent this fundamental nature. Now we understand that mathematics is yet another kind of language. We understand that merely measuring the world is to produce a kind of fiction. Though, to be sure, there are many Scholastics in today's world who are like the doctors of medieval times, shuffling their figures in finer and finer dimensions to articulate very precisely one fiction after another. And now a lot of people are pointing to networks or connections (etc) as the new underlying description of reality. But we ought to know by now that networks, too, are a form of fiction, that they are our imposition of this or that order on our perceptions, experiences and reality. When we teach, while it is our job to ensure that our students are well versed in the fictions of the day, for they'll need them in order to socialize and make a living, it is our obligation to ensure that our students are not entrapped by these fictions, that they have it within themselves to touch their own reality, their own physicality, their own experience experience.

Humanity seems to have been thrown into a ‘perfect storm’ of several huge challenges such as global warming, accelerating extinction of species, the corona pandemic and uncontrollable migration streams caused by fossil fuel emissions, overexploitation of natural resources, extreme weather, viruses, and ethnic and religious conflicts. On top of this, there are even signs that liberal democracy is in crisis, far from the days when it was proclaimed irreversibly hegemonic [1]. The challenges mentioned are, by many scientists, some world leaders and a broader audience, considered existential threats in need of urgent action, that is ‘securitization’ [2]. As the causes, effects and adequate reactions upon these threats are contested, there are no given solutions how to ‘de-securitize’ them, neither one by one, no less together. In other words, it is ultimately a question of how government and governance configurations globally, at various levels and settings, choose to decide on the road forward. Although world leaders in the Global North have been desperately fertilizing their economies with heaps of money to recover the still largely fossil-dependent ‘Great Acceleration’, there are in this ‘critical juncture’ also windows of opportunity to enter new paths. How do urban public institutions and actors in market and civil society respond to these crises? Do they only try to reinvent old ideas and practices, or do they search for healthier, more sustainable, democratic and just ways of handling major threats and risks?

In this era of the internet generation, the use of information and communication technology (ICT) has greatly increased. This growth has resulted in the emergence of a knowledge-based society that provides various facilities (for the public) to perform certain activities and processes in a much more transparent, efficient, and smooth manner. The advancement of ICT and the unification of the electronic media and resources in the services sector helped to promote a knowledge-based society on a large scale. Therefore, today, electronic media are being used in almost every field in the world, and concepts like e-governance, e-government, e-education, e-payments, e-transfer, etc. have emerged in global society. Governments benefited from these electronic media as well, allowing them to carry out their activities and processes in a more efficient and transparent manner. So, concepts like e-government and e-governance have emerged and are being utilized to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of government processes and functions. Because the terms "government" and "governance" are both related and work to provide facilities to the common public, these terms are often used interchangeably.

E-governance and e-government are often used interchangeably, and many people consider them to be the same concept, but in reality, these two terms are quite different from each other. The concept of e-government is related to the functioning and processes of the government by implementing ICT. The use of electronic media provides great benefits, like governments adopting electronic media to perform their duties to improve their performance. It ensures transparency and efficiency in various operations. It provides easy access to information for the common public and increases communication between the people and governments. Further, it also ensures the increased participation of the citizens in various government operations. Therefore, the quality of public service is also ensured.

Our project examined the role of smartphones mainly in relation to their consequences for older people and for health. We frequently came across instances where the demographic we focused upon, often people in their 50s to 70s, had elderly parents, in their 90s, who were now frail and needed considerable care. These circumstances provided clear demonstrations of the capacity of smartphones to develop care. In several fieldsites when someone is gravely ill, it seems that today, often the first response of family and friends is to create a WhatsApp group to organise their care. Another part of our project examined the use of smartphones in expressing care over distance for people living far from their parent or the patient. Projects examined the use of visual elements to express affection and consideration such as short health videos through WeChat in China or using stickers through LINE in Japan (Wang and Haapio-Kirk 2021), as a complement to the etiquettes and formality of face-to-face encounters. Another example came from research in a low- income settlement in Kampala, Uganda, that examined the use of mobile money in assisting older people who had remained in the villages and were now faced with health problems (Hawkins forthcoming). We summarised these findings as creating a condition of ‘Care Transcending Distance’ (Miller et al. 2021: 241–244). For example, the researcher in Brazil sometimes sim- ply didn’t know whether a grandmother was referring to the grandchild that lived in Sao Paulo or the one living in New York (Duque 2022). The way the grandmother talked about communicating with them by WhatsApp was just the same.¶ Precisely how people used WhatsApp groups to monitor and care for older people would vary. In Yaoundé, Cameroon Awondo reported how retired people are closely monitored by their children, a practice which may either involve having them live with the children, who can thereby keep a better eye on them (avoir un oeil sur eux), or instead, involve following them in very active family WhatsApp groups where one or two children often play a sentinel role. In all these examples, the obligations of kinship are given manifest form by a smartphone app. Such cases make it relatively easy for governments to claim that the development of contact tracing apps on smartphones is itself an expression of care. For example, Japan had already developed a system of phone messages to alert people to impending emergencies such as tsunamis and earthquakes (Haapio-Kirk forthcoming). All of this suggests that quite apart from contact tracing apps, there were many ways in which the smartphone had been adopted and adapted as an instrument of care

While we once watched television on just a few channels, we now have thousands of movies and shows available on demand. An algorithm that runs behind your favorite streaming platform can help you decide what to watch next by suggesting shows that are similar to others you've watched. But algorithms are also helping with more serious decisions, such as those that come with hiring employees and investing in startups, according to Harvard Business Review, or even identifying cancer, as Nature points out.¶ Just as a robot can handle dull or dangerous tasks in a factory, computers can handle the tedious aspects of decision-making, freeing up humans to use their intuition, creativity and emotional intelligence to innovate. For instance, instead of having a physician search through thousands of CT scans to find early markers of cancer, an algorithm could do the research, giving time back to the physician for more complex decision-making, such as determining the proper course of treatment for their patient.¶ Likewise, mathematical equations are also being used to speed processes, simplify functions and enable greater human innovation in the defense industry.

Latin America faces numerous challenges to achieve inclusive, long-term development with political stability. These are institutional, political, social, cultural, and economic challenges. All are interrelated, but the cornerstone is the economy.¶ The current economic stagnation in the region since 2014, which institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) have defined as the “second lost decade” (2014/2023), has become the turning point for a development model that has reached its ceiling after the end of the boom time (the Golden Decade, 2003-2013). Latin America has been living for ten years amid stagnation or weak economic expansion (2013, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023) and crisis (2016, 2017 and 2020) with the only exception of 2021, an atypical year due to the rebound effect after the pandemic recession of the previous year. Latin America needs to grow at around 5% to absorb social demands and achieve growth with development and thus avoid the trap of middle-income countries. And that goal is far off at present: the IMF estimates that the average regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for Latin America and the Caribbean will grow 2% this year, after 2.3% last year and 2.5% in 2025.¶ Colombian economist José Antonio Ocampo notes, “Average annual growth remained slightly below 0.9% during 2014-2023, worse than the 1.3% rate of the 1980s. However, GDP per capita is projected to be slightly higher in 2023 than in 2013, due to slower population growth. In contrast, it was not until 1994 that the region’s GDP per capita returned to its 1980 level. Latin America therefore has a serious growth problem.”¶ A new lost decade¶ This second lost decade has brought to light a set of structural problems that have been weighing down Latin American countries since 2013 and even earlier: a dysfunctional economic and political model that does not guarantee long-term economic growth, nor sustainable and inclusive development, nor has it been accompanied by an effective state and efficient public administrations when it comes to implementing public policies favorable to vulnerable sectors and capable of channeling the demands of the emerging middle classes.¶ Among the effects of this second lost decade is the increase in the malaise of societies, linked to this weak economic expansion and social deterioration. For instance, increased insecurity, poverty, inequality, and, above all, the vulnerability of the middle classes, which has given rise to a permanent punishment vote for the management of the ruling classes — toward those in power — and, in some cases, has translated into a vote supporting anti-system options.¶ In the last decade, various authors such as the Peruvian Alberto Vergara have tried to reflect on “what” and “why” of what is happening to the citizenry. They agree that the Latin American malaise, which has a long historical tradition, has been exacerbated and has increased. The clash has become more evident: between a citizenry with growing expectations that ends up being disappointed by states that claim to be republican and efficient but that daily disappoint that promise. This is because they are not only inefficient but also far removed from the problems of the citizenry. These are weak democracies with low institutionalization, “half-way republics”.¶ The consequences of stagnation¶ This is a dynamic that feeds back on itself because the new governments are born with a weakness that conditions their capacity for action: their political weakness has been the dominant feature of Latin American executives since 2015, which has prevented them from carrying out indispensable structural reforms to link the countries of the region to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, make regional economies more competitive and channel the frustration of expectations. Moreover, this institutional weakness has been fueled by strong fragmentation and high polarization, which have increased the problems in reaching state agreements.¶ This situation has led to the inability of governments to implement reform processes, and to the growing disaffection of the citizenry, who end up voting as a punishment vote or in favor of elements outside the system at the next ballot box. The parties that win elections usually do so after forming negative coalitions. They gather a more conjunctural and borrowed vote than real adhesions, with little support in fragmented and polarized Parliaments, with reduced capacity to reach consensus. They do not have the patience, very limited, of societies hit by a decade of low or no growth (even decrease), increase in poverty, and deterioration of opportunities for improvement.¶ Peru, which has gone from growing at a Chinese pace to flirting with crisis and stagnation, is an example of this situation. In fact, the rating agency S&P Global Ratings has just downgraded its long-term sovereign rating from “BBB” to “BBB-” due to the political uncertainty that limits economic growth. This downgrade implies a risk for Peru because, in the event of a subsequent downgrade, it would lose its investment grade rating and move to a speculative grade. S&P points out that “a fragmented Congress and the government’s limited political capital” weigh on the confidence of private investors and represent an opportunity cost for growth, which “limits Peru’s ability to rebuild fiscal space”.¶ The challenges of democracy¶ To survive in this third decade of the 21st century, democracies face numerous challenges: the first is to design a new social contract. A new pact that will make states more effective in implementing public policies to solve the most pressing problems of citizens in social (education, health, security, and transportation), economic (investment in human and physical capital), and political (electoral and party reforms, greater citizen representation and participation, streamlining government policies, etc.) areas. Democratic institutionality has lost its appeal because it does not solve the problems closest to the citizenry, who are inclined to vote against governments (“punishment vote for the ruling parties”) or for alternatives that are far removed from respect for democratic institutionality.¶ The current crisis of democracies is due to a long period of paralysis and low growth. As long as the region does not find the path towards a high, sustained and inclusive GDP expansion, democratic institutionality will be delegitimized in the face of a citizenry that prefers to listen to other siren songs. In fact, the breeding ground for this situation is the increase in poverty and, above all, social inequality, which generates social frustration, disaffection toward institutions, and political polarization. As the 2023 Latinobarómetro Report shows, support for authoritarian regimes has increased slightly since 2010, and in particular, indifference to the type of regime has risen by 12 points in line with the worsening of the regional economy and expectations of personal and intergenerational improvement. Support for democracy, on the other hand, has fallen from 63% in 2010 to the current 48%.¶ Without resuming high, long-term, and inclusive growth, the paradise of development is unattainable for Latin American countries. And even worse: the survival of democracy is at stake.

Just as enough tiny droplets of water slowly fill a bucket, the growth of small businesses fills the U.S. economy. Big corporations might get a lot of attention when it comes to creating jobs, but small businesses employ more people and are more resilient when times get tough. Before coming up with something innovative that propelled them into growth, all big businesses once started out small. Not only are small businesses driving the U.S. economy, but they also keep the American dream alive.¶ According to the U.S. Small Business Association (SBA), small businesses of 500 employees or fewer make up 99.9% of all U.S. businesses and 99.7% of firms with paid employees. Of the new jobs created between 1995 and 2020, small businesses accounted for 62%—12.7 million compared to 7.9 million by large enterprises. A 2019 SBA report found that small businesses accounted for 44% of U.S. economic activity. Without small businesses, the American economy and workforce would be a pretty wild landscape to imagine.¶ Not only do small businesses provide more jobs, they also bring careers and opportunities. Successful small businesses put money back into their local community through paychecks and taxes, which can support the creation of new small businesses and improve local public services. No matter how small it starts—one, two, five, 10 employees—within that town, the city or the county, your small business creates new economies where once there was nothing.¶ Small businesses are also better able to focus more energy on their customers and their needs, which can make them more adaptable to change in times of economic uncertainty. A global health crisis may have rocked the economy, but the formation of new U.S. businesses intending to hire employees rose to historic peaks in 2021, with nearly 1.4 million applications by September and over 400,000 more than at the same point in 2019. When tough times for big businesses lead to layoffs, small businesses become an opportunity.¶ To become big, all businesses once started out small. In 1978, when the track-and-field coach and his former student who founded Blue Ribbon Sports by making running shoes with a waffle iron changed their company name to Nike, they never imagined it would become the massive multinational corporation that it is today. The two high school friends and devoted computer tinkerers who ended up founding their own software company in 1975 under the name Microsoft could never have expected how large their once small business venture would soon become.¶ Small businesses grow because they draw innovation, attracting talent that brings inventions or new solutions to old ways of doing business that larger corporations have less flexibility to incorporate. This is why big companies today want to acquire small businesses, for their innovators. Apple and Google may be known for their innovation, but they also buy up small startups with innovative new technology to boost this development.¶ Big businesses and even big government projects depend on small businesses as subcontractors, vendors and customers. Federal bills focusing on new jobs to come out of a recession talk a lot about building bridges and freeways, but less about the small businesses across the country that bid for these contracts and carry them out. No matter where you find significant economic development, small businesses are behind it.¶ Small Businesses: The American Dream¶ The opportunity for people to found, run or work for small businesses is the pathway to achieving the American dream. It creates an environment of mythical energy where desires are fulfilled and innovation is at its peak. Creating small businesses, becoming profitable and hiring people to share in those economic gains is what makes this country free. Foreigners who lack those same opportunities in their own country come to America seeking their own dream—and I should know: I’m one of them.¶ Because of their importance, big business campaigns should consider their ability to support small businesses, therefore encouraging thriving economies. A strong economy supports both big and small businesses, but no society can thrive without the presence of small businesses. Corporations are reliant on small businesses to allow them to continue to succeed. By helping your neighbor, you ultimately are helping yourself (and your business). Businesses, in particular, should consider supporting small businesses by, for example:¶ • Sourcing ingredients for your restaurant from local farmers.¶ • Selling small businesses' products in your storefront.¶ • Sharing social media posts from small businesses.¶ Small businesses are everywhere, but everyone in the U.S. has the right to create their own from the ground up, as well as the necessary access to the technology, investors, loans and government support to help out. This well-developed support system attracts a huge pool of dreamers: immigrants with the hopes of achieving their lifelong goals, creating something new and finding success. For them, arriving here is like diving into a crystal-clear pool of opportunity—they can see it and go after it. Small businesses make this possible.¶ While government aid is necessary to continue supporting small business growth, so is consumer support. Inexpensive products delivered to your home from Amazon are nice, but also consider supporting small businesses. Don’t be so quick to judge and leave negative reviews because of one bad day. Instead, make an effort to put money back into the main drivers of our economy and look to them for employment opportunities to help them keep their doors open. The more we encourage small businesses, the longer we keep the American dream alive.

Small businesses face unique challenges when it comes to advertising. With limited resources and fierce competition, it's crucial for them to find effective ways to promote their products or services. Advertising plays a pivotal role in creating brand awareness and reaching target customers, laying the foundation for a successful venture.¶ There are numerous advertising strategies that small businesses can implement to maximize their reach and generate leads. From local marketing techniques to digital channels, the key lies in understanding the target audience and choosing the right platform for promotion. By leveraging innovative tools and resources, small businesses can overcome their constraints and unlock their growth potential.¶ In today's fast-paced digital era, staying current with the latest trends and technologies is essential for small businesses to stay ahead of the curve. By adapting to the ever-changing landscape and constantly refining their advertising strategies, they can foster long-term success and drive sustainable growth in their respective industries.¶ Advertising is a powerful tool that plays a vital role in promoting a small business. It helps create brand awareness, generate leads, and ultimately drive sales and growth. By implementing effective advertising strategies, small businesses can reach their target audience and establish a strong market presence.¶ One key aspect of successful advertising is understanding the customer journey. This involves knowing when and where to engage potential customers, as well as tailoring your messaging to their needs and preferences. Creating a customer-centric approach can greatly improve the impact of your advertising campaigns.¶ There are various advertising channels to choose from, each with its own unique set of benefits and drawbacks. Examples include digital ads, like using Amazon Ads for increased visibility and traction, and traditional forms of advertising, such as print, radio, and television ads. It's essential to test different channels and methods to determine what works best for your unique business objectives.¶ An integral component of effective advertising is crafting a strong message that resonates with your audience. This includes having a clear call to action, like asking potential customers to sign up for a newsletter or visit a specific webpage. Further, it's important to be consistent in your branding and messaging to establish a cohesive identity across all advertising channels.¶ Another valuable strategy for small businesses is utilizing cold-email outreach to showcase your work, land clients, and boost profits. As illustrated by successful entrepreneurs, well-crafted cold-emails can help your business stand out and make lasting connections.¶ In short, understanding the principles of advertising is crucial for small businesses looking to make a mark in their respective industries. By focusing on customer needs, choosing the right channels, crafting compelling messages, and maintaining brand consistency, your advertising efforts are more likely to yield positive results.¶

Terms like “capitalist hellscape” and “end-stage capitalism” have become so commonplace in discourse that they’re even used by people for whom the current economy is anything but a hellscape. A few months back, when the value of cryptocurrency plummeted, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase responded by abruptly canceling hundreds of job offers. This was big news in the tech space, since Coinbase had been poaching employees from big-name firms like Meta, Amazon, and Google by offering them staggering salaries. The woulda-been hires were understandably upset, and a bunch of them complained to Vice’s Motherboard about their shabby treatment: One hire said he had been offered more than $300,000—double what he was making at his current company, and an amount he described as “life-changing money.” He felt he couldn’t turn it down. “We just live in this fun capitalist hellscape where you kind of have to say yes,” he said. Have to? Or want to? If you are pulling in six figures for a job that consists of doing whatever in front of a computer, and someone offers you even more money to do the same thing, you aren’t being forced into bondage. The Coinbase guys are not holding a gun to your head and forcing you to eat the catered lunch they bring in every Friday. You aren’t one of those workers of the world who are being told to unite and cast off their chains, because you don’t have chains. You’re living a life of luxury unimaginable to the vast majority of humans who have ever been born. But us highly educated white-collar types can’t admit that life is sweet, at least not publicly, and maybe not even to ourselves. We’re expected to feel a certain amount of existential dread over climate change or the general state of the world. If you don’t profess at least a low level sense of anxiety every waking minute of your doomscrolling life, you’re either heartless or brainwashed. It used to be that you were supposed to feel guilty because you were a sinner, but while sin (and religion in general) is out, guilt is very very much still in—only it’s the kind of guilt that doesn’t compel you to pay any price. You just have to feel a bit bad for a little while, then you can go back to taking pics of that locally sourced tasting menu you are doing for your friend’s birthday. It’s a pretty good deal, once you think about it. What has emerged from this directionless, meaningless guilt is a knee-jerk style of anti-capitalism. It’s not quite what I would call political, although it’s sometimes linked to socialist-ish politicians like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. You’ve probably seen examples of it in your feeds, in articles from lefty news outlets, and maybe in real life. It’s not so much a coherent ideology as a feeling that great faceless forces are pushing down upon us all the time. This feeling isn’t wrong. The particular strain of capitalism we’re living under is absurd and vicious. Power has been concentrated in a handful of monopolistic corporations, which in turn pass the majority of their profits to an ultra-elite class of CEOs and investors. These vultures overheat the planet, degrade the environment, exploit workers, crack down on labor unions, and bend governments to their will, all in the name of maximizing shareholder value. But scratch a self-professed “anti-capitalist” and often what you find is not revolutionary fervor but something more mundane. When someone says I am being ground between the gears of the capitalist machine, they sometimes mean “I don’t like my job.” That’s basically what the Zoomer “anti-work ethos” comes down to, described in this Vox article as not a rejection of capitalism or work but a rejection of lousy jobs. For all the talk about waves of employees quitting during “the Great Resignation,” people were mostly just moving on to jobs with better hours and pay, taking advantage of the leverage workers have over employers in this time of low unemployment. And don’t get me started on “quiet quitting,” which is apparently a term Generation Z uses because it believes it has invented “slacking off at work.” Sometimes, anti-capitalism is just a stand-in for wanting different consumer choices. A Refinery29 article titled “Is It Possible To Be Anti-Capitalist And Love Fashion? It’s Complicated” eventually comes around to describing a trend of small businesses making high-quality, long-lasting clothes. One such brand, Selkie, sells dresses for upward of $300—which sounds more like a subset of consumers choosing to spend their money in different ways, rather than a rebellion against capitalism. I should emphasize that all of this is fine. It’s fine to buy expensive clothes that will last a long time. It’s fine to spend money at union businesses or Black-owned businesses or local non-chain stores as an expression of your values. It’s fine to quit your job because you hate it. It’s fine to not try super hard. It’s fine (if not great) to make $300,000 a year doing God knows what for Coinbase. But none of this amounts to radical politics, or really any kind of politics. Articles about anti-capitalism inevitably gesture toward how phony a lot of this stuff is. In the middle of a piece about the commodification of anti-capitalism, this Refinery29 author pauses to admit her own complicity in (waves hands vaguely) this whole thing: “As a Kiwi who’s currently living in London, I’m not proud to admit that during the city’s four-month lockdown, I personally contributed to Jeff Bezos’ wealth by paying £7.99 a month to have products delivered to my doorstep via Amazon Prime. I also had meals delivered via Deliveroo, for which I paid a further £7.99 per month to have the delivery fee wiped. It seems millennials like me want to change the world without changing anything about the way we live our lives.” The piece should have ended there, but maybe out of a desire to not call out the readers as hypocrites, the writer continues: “But living in a consumeristic, individualistic culture means living with contradictions.” To which I say, sure, whatever gets you through the day. But also, if you find Amazon Prime and Deliveroo to be such useful services that you’re paying for them despite sorta hating yourself, maybe the takeaway is that modern capitalism is working out pretty well for you and you are not any kind of anti-capitalist at all? It’s worth thinking about what a genuine rejection of capitalism would look like. It could mean working on behalf of a radical left-wing political candidate or organization. It could mean living on a commune or practicing freeganism. It would probably mean giving up some of the comforts that modern capitalism affords the upper classes, which is why not a lot of us in practice choose to reject capitalism. It’s much, much easier to bemoan the capitalist hellscape than to look in the mirror and find the hellscape looking back at you.

Many critics of capitalism have given up trying to claim capitalism makes people poorer. Faced with so many obvious gains in the standard of living, and in reducing poverty worldwide, markets have won the economic debate over whether or not capitalism is the path to material riches. But the doctrinaire anti-capitalists have other strategies. They’ve now branched out into blaming capitalism for a host of other social, ecological, and psychological ills. Sometimes, the tactic is to blame capitalism for destroying the earth. Other times, it’s to claim that capitalism, in spite of the material plenty it delivers, makes us miserable. For example, George Monbiot, columnist at The Guardian blames pro-capitalist ideology for making people, sad, lonely, and unhealthy. Writers cite polls claiming people in richer countries — i.e., more capitalistic ones — are more miserable than people elsewhere. Holly Baxter at The Independent suggests capitalism is the reason elderly people are now so lonely and isolated: capitalism makes us more concerned with buying things than with visiting poor, dying Aunt Ethel. Claim: Capitalism Wants Us to Be Sad, Needy Consumers And it’s all by design, it seems. According to Monbiot and other critics of “neoliberalism” — by which they just mean anything resembling a market system — the capitalist ideology is designed to isolate us, and turn us into soulless consumers. This then paves the way for an endless cycle of misery and consumption. For a more academic phrasing of this idea, we could consult Ankita Singh’s article “Capitalism, Consumerism, and Popular Culture” which examines how capitalism creates a downward cycle of despair. This persistent unhappiness, Singh explains, “is caused [by] the sense of alienation one feels in today’s urban corporate culture.” Consequently, consumers attempt to “compensate” for their capitalism-caused “emptiness” by “indulg[ing] in inanimate objects offered by the consumerist culture.” At this point, all that is left for the capitalists to do is to tell us what products to buy. And fortunately for the capitalists, Singh tells us: “The power of advertising is such that it can create a demand where none exists, of a commodity which is not needed.”1 Much of this general concept can be traced back to Marxist psychologist Erich Fromm, who in Escape from Freedom (1941) wrote: In capitalism economic activity, success, material gains, become ends in themselves. It becomes man’s fate to contribute to the growth of the economic system, to amass capital, not for purposes of his own happiness or salvation, but as an end in itself. That is, through capitalism and its propagandists (i.e., advertisers) human beings are reduced to “a cog in the vast economic machine” who no longer pursues his own happiness, but only serves the interests of “capitalism.” There are a couple of problems with this theory, though. One is that a capitalist economy does not rely on endless consumption to sustain itself. The second is that advertising doesn’t work the way many assume it does. Capitalism Doesn’t Cause Consumerism For starters, it is not the case that the capitalist system is built on consumption or that it requires us to mortgage our future in order to buy ever-larger amounts of consumer goods. After all, it is for a good reason that capitalism has historically been much associated with misers — the quintessential literary example being Ebenezer Scrooge — who shunned consumerism. Saving (i.e., deferred spending) is every bit as essential to capitalism as is consumption. It is governments and their central banks, not markets, that seek to maximize consumption always and everywhere. Moreover, saving and investment are key ingredients in increasing wages, growing the capital stock, and increasing future consumption. In a market economy, many firms, such as retirement funds and banks, directly profit from more saving and investment. Spending every last dime on another trinket or bauble is not a recipe for robust capitalism. How Advertisers Are Supposedly Making Us Miserable At this point, the purveyor of the capitalism-makes-you-sad theory could still insist: “sure, maybe capitalism overall doesn’t require us to relentlessly consume. But certainly there’s a portion of the capitalist system, such as toy sellers and auto makers, who need us to consume. And to get us to do so, they use advertising designed to keep us hoping we can fill that hole in our souls with just one more trip to the mall.” There’s a (small) kernel of truth to this. Many capitalists do indeed want us to buy consumer goods, without much regard to the consequences to each consumer personally. In hopes of getting us to spend, they employ advertising. And advertising often promotes feelings of inadequacy to get us to consume more. This particular kind of advertising was developed at least as early as the nineteenth century. It was then perfected in the 1920s. Typical examples of the formula include: Why be ugly ... when you can use Zenith Cold Cream? Why be fat ... when you can take Acme Diet Pills? This formula was so widespread by the 1920s and 1930s, in fact, that Sigmund Freud joked the “boldest and most successful piece of American publicity” would be an ad using the phrase “Why live if you can be buried for ten dollars?”2 Nowadays, a lot of modern advertising is more nuanced and less in-your-face than this formula. Modern advertising often appeals to humor. Nevertheless, advertisers nowadays still rely on the strategy of presenting consumption as a sort of self-improvement. They offer a glimpse of a life of better looking people, more luxurious cars, and more fulfilling friendships. It’s the life you might have if you only consume the right products and services. But do people actually believe what advertisers tell them? Clearly, people don’t buy everything advertisers tell them to. If they did, as Ludwig von Mises noted, candle makers could convince us to abandon light bulbs with a few ad campaigns. Indeed, studies conducted to determine the effectiveness of ads have never been conclusive. A 1931 consumer survey revealed the “only 5 percent of the public believed any of the more obviously outrageous claims made by ads.” Only 37 percent believed any ads at all.3 A 2013 survey concluded only 21 percent of consumers agreed “ads are somewhat accurate.” 21 percent also said they will even “refuse to purchase products due to brand advertising.” Some might claim this is only survey data, and thus questionable. But then there are countless cases in which ad campaigns failed to achieve results. A 2015 study from the University of Texas, for example, showed alcohol ads have increased 400 percent over the past forty years. Meanwhile, per capita alcohol consumption has gone down. Yes, advertising can be helpful in promoting a certain brand. But it hasn’t been shown to increase a person’s overall spending. So, it seems people don’t spend more just because capitalists tell them to. And its unclear that many even believe what ads have to say. If this is the case, it’s hard to see how “capitalism” has succeeded in its nefarious plan to make us miserable consumers, assuaging our loneliness with another round of mindless spending. Are We More Miserable than Our Forebears? In spite of the unconvincing reasoning behind the capitalism-makes-you-sad narrative, many continue to find it plausible. This is largely because many people remain convinced that people were happier — or at least had an easier time — in the past. Certainly, there’s no statistical data to support this. Those happiness measurements we sometimes read about in the popular media (such as this one) are usually based on totally subjective self-reported survey data and offer absolutely no means of comparing the present with the past. Attempts to systematically asses “happiness” in the past were virtually nonexistent. Quality-of-life indicators reconstructed from the past (such as working hours, living space, life expectancy, and homicide rates) don’t often make the era of our grandparents or great-grandparents look especially wonderful. The nineteenth century — an era before modern methods of mass marketing and mass consumption — wasn’t an era of carefree indifference to the requirements of daily work and toil. The poverty of the “good old days” was not exactly a source of personal fulfillment and contentment. But perhaps we need to look deeper into the past? On this, Murray Rothbard suggests the imagined Golden Age before capitalism existed. It was, according to the myth, an era of “Happy Craftsmen and Happy Peasants” who had a “sense of belonging” and all were “sure of his station in life.” No one suspected he ought to be buying a new car or a new bedroom set. No such options were available at all. Was living in poverty with no access to advertisements or capitalism the real key to happiness? Rothbard is skeptical and notes that people — should they really want to flee capitalism — are largely free to pursue this supposedly happier type of living in communes like the utopians or hippies of old. He concludes: Not only has almost no one abandoned modern society to return to a happy, integrated life of fixed poverty, but those few intellectuals who did form communal Utopias of one sort or another during the nineteenth century abandoned these attempts very quickly. And perhaps the most conspicuous non withdrawers from society are those very critics who use our modern “alienated” mass communications to denounce modern society. It’s comforting to think there is some time or place in which human beings were not troubled by feelings of unhappiness, emptiness, or inadequacy. It’s unclear, however, where or when this place has existed. In the mean time, few seem willing to give up their modern amenities to investigate first-hand.