One thing that immediately came to mind when reading this is Hélène Landemore’s new book Politics without Politicians. She provides numerous examples - both recent and historical - of governing by lot.
As your essay went further it made me think of what President Trump is offering banks and financial institutions early access to “market moving” messages on Truth Social - obviously for a fee. It’s an example of altered transparency as we move further into plutocracy. It makes me wonder if this is what Plato envisioned…
The Platonic juxtaposition has become platonic. This is a wordplay I’ve wanted to explore and now that you’ve brought the idea to the forefront of my mind, maybe I will. This manipulation of life and language is precisely the proximity of where we find ourselves.
Josh, thank you for your ongoing participation in what I consider to be engaging conduct.
Landemore’s Politics without Politicians reminds me that randomness can be a form of equality — a civic mechanism to dissolve hierarchy. Trump’s obvious monetization of “market‑moving” transparency inverts that principle: access becomes privilege, and information itself becomes currency.
Yes, Josh, the juxtaposition is almost Platonic — democracy’s promise of shared insight transfigured into oligarchic control.
What Landemore frames as the democratization of chance, Trump reframes as the capitalization of knowledge. Both reveal how governance oscillates between ‘openness and enclosure’, between ‘the agora and the vault’. What a Russian ‘Operative’ won’t do?
One thing that immediately came to mind when reading this is Hélène Landemore’s new book Politics without Politicians. She provides numerous examples - both recent and historical - of governing by lot.
As your essay went further it made me think of what President Trump is offering banks and financial institutions early access to “market moving” messages on Truth Social - obviously for a fee. It’s an example of altered transparency as we move further into plutocracy. It makes me wonder if this is what Plato envisioned…
The Platonic juxtaposition has become platonic. This is a wordplay I’ve wanted to explore and now that you’ve brought the idea to the forefront of my mind, maybe I will. This manipulation of life and language is precisely the proximity of where we find ourselves.
Sunday, July 19, 2026 FIFA Final & 15:00EST
Dear Josh,
Josh, thank you for your ongoing participation in what I consider to be engaging conduct.
Landemore’s Politics without Politicians reminds me that randomness can be a form of equality — a civic mechanism to dissolve hierarchy. Trump’s obvious monetization of “market‑moving” transparency inverts that principle: access becomes privilege, and information itself becomes currency.
Yes, Josh, the juxtaposition is almost Platonic — democracy’s promise of shared insight transfigured into oligarchic control.
What Landemore frames as the democratization of chance, Trump reframes as the capitalization of knowledge. Both reveal how governance oscillates between ‘openness and enclosure’, between ‘the agora and the vault’. What a Russian ‘Operative’ won’t do?
—Simply Richard