Biden delivers Right to Repair via executive order
End of the line for John Deere’s asshole lobbyists.
Right to Repair is a no-brainer. You — not manufacturers — should have the right to decide whom you trust to fix your stuff, even (especially) when that stuff is “smart” and an unscrupulous repair could create unquantifiable “cyber-risk.”
And yet…dozens of state R2R bills were defeated in 2018, thanks to an unholy coalition of Big Ag, Big Tech, and consumer electronics monopolists like Wahl. That supervillain gang reassembled to fight and kill still more bills in 2020/1.
https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/26/nixing-the-fix/#r2r
It’s part of the long trend in which all levels of government make policy based on what serves the interests of the rich and powerful, not the people they serve.
2014’s “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” (Cambirdge University Pree) quantifies this phenomenon:
“Economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial…
