I think there’s something importantly true about your comment, but let me start with the ways I disagree. Firstly, the more ways in which you’re power-seeking, the more defense mechanisms will apply to you. Conversely, if you’re credibly trying to do a pretty narrow and widely-accepted thing, then there will be less backlash. So Jane Street is power-seeking in the sense of trying to earn money, but they don’t have much of a cultural or political agenda, they’re not trying to mobilize a wider movement, and earning money is a very normal thing for companies to do, it makes them one of thousands of comparably-sized companies. (Though note that there is a lot of backlash against companies in general, which are perceived to have too much power. This leads a wide swathe of people, especially on the left, and especially in Europe, to want to greatly disempower companies because they don’t trust them.)
Meanwhile the Gates Foundation has a philanthropic agenda, but like most foundations tries to steer clear of wider political issues, and also IIRC tries to focus on pretty object-level and widely-agreed-to-be-good interventions. Even so, it’s widely distrusted and feared, and Gates has become a symbol of hated global elites, to the extent where there are all sorts of conspiracy theories about him. That’d be even worse if the foundation were more political.
Lastly, it seems a bit facile to say that everyone hates Goldman due to “perceived greed rather than power-seeking per se”. A key problem is that people think of the greed as manifesting through political capture, evading regulatory oversight, deception, etc. That’s part of why it’s harder to tar entrepreneurs as greedy: it’s just much clearer that their wealth was made in legitimate ways.
Now the sense in which I agree: I think that “gaining power triggers to defense mechanisms” is a good first pass, but also we definitely want a more mechanistic explanation of what the defense mechanisms are, what triggers them, etc—in particular so we don’t just end up throwing our hands in the air and concluding that doing anything is hopeless and scary. And I also agree that your list is a good start. So maybe I’d just want to add to it stuff like:
having a broad-ranging political agenda (that isn’t near-universally agreed to be good)
having non-transparent interactions with many other powerful actors
having open-ended scope to expand
And maybe a few others (open to more suggestions).
I think there’s something importantly true about your comment, but let me start with the ways I disagree. Firstly, the more ways in which you’re power-seeking, the more defense mechanisms will apply to you. Conversely, if you’re credibly trying to do a pretty narrow and widely-accepted thing, then there will be less backlash. So Jane Street is power-seeking in the sense of trying to earn money, but they don’t have much of a cultural or political agenda, they’re not trying to mobilize a wider movement, and earning money is a very normal thing for companies to do, it makes them one of thousands of comparably-sized companies. (Though note that there is a lot of backlash against companies in general, which are perceived to have too much power. This leads a wide swathe of people, especially on the left, and especially in Europe, to want to greatly disempower companies because they don’t trust them.)
Meanwhile the Gates Foundation has a philanthropic agenda, but like most foundations tries to steer clear of wider political issues, and also IIRC tries to focus on pretty object-level and widely-agreed-to-be-good interventions. Even so, it’s widely distrusted and feared, and Gates has become a symbol of hated global elites, to the extent where there are all sorts of conspiracy theories about him. That’d be even worse if the foundation were more political.
Lastly, it seems a bit facile to say that everyone hates Goldman due to “perceived greed rather than power-seeking per se”. A key problem is that people think of the greed as manifesting through political capture, evading regulatory oversight, deception, etc. That’s part of why it’s harder to tar entrepreneurs as greedy: it’s just much clearer that their wealth was made in legitimate ways.
Now the sense in which I agree: I think that “gaining power triggers to defense mechanisms” is a good first pass, but also we definitely want a more mechanistic explanation of what the defense mechanisms are, what triggers them, etc—in particular so we don’t just end up throwing our hands in the air and concluding that doing anything is hopeless and scary. And I also agree that your list is a good start. So maybe I’d just want to add to it stuff like:
having a broad-ranging political agenda (that isn’t near-universally agreed to be good)
having non-transparent interactions with many other powerful actors
having open-ended scope to expand
And maybe a few others (open to more suggestions).