If Mort Divine ruled the world

[CiG]

I feel like I see most of your posts in this and related threads, and they're primarily directed against leftist rhetoric. You seem to dedicate more time to calling out leftists than the alt-right. That might be because you think that most media criticisms of the alt-right are misguided, but then that's not a neutral position; it's a political one. I believe you when you say you despise the alt-right as much as the antifa-left, but statistically you fall to a particular side.

Well right up until the Dodge Challenger of peace attack, it was overwhelmingly the far-left doing the most stupid shit. Before that rally, the alt-right were primarily a kind of intellectual Internet movement and to add to that, they (and Trump supporters more broadly) were often the victims of leftist violence.

This is like when you prefer to criticize Islam in the era of Islamic terrorism and then everybody just assumes you're a Christian, a Christian apologist or that you support Christianity.

Prefacing every opinion or criticism by saying all the other things you also oppose is obviously impractical and unreasonable.

Finally, Marxism is still a vastly misunderstood philosophy, largely because of social media. So every time I admit some fondness for Marxism, I lose argument points. Because addressing Marx's work seriously ~ stupidity.

It's as misunderstood as any other political ideology or theory and in some cases it is better understood than others. In fact, I think capitalism is more misunderstood given how mainstream it is and how linked to everyday life it is.

I feel that my posts are in measured response to anti-left content that I see on the board. Yes, I'm a leftist, that is true; but I have explicitly said that I don't condone antifa violence. My "defenses" of them, if they can be called that, are responses to the kinds of arguments I see levied on this forum.

But now we're meta-critically commenting on our own posts, which is a dangerous practice.

I have no idea why anybody would need to defend body-shaming or accusations of thuggery against Antifa. Especially when you can just watch the hours and hours of footage of Antifa on Youtube and see that they're hardly a force of physical prowess (they look like a bunch of Portland crust punk hipsters) and that they do indeed engage in thuggery. They attack women ffs.

 

[Einherjar86]

Well right up until the Dodge Challenger of peace attack, it was overwhelmingly the far-left doing the most stupid shit. Before that rally, the alt-right were primarily a kind of intellectual Internet movement and to add to that, they (and Trump supporters more broadly) were often the victims of leftist violence.

Why does criticism need to be restricted to physical violence?

This is like when you prefer to criticize Islam in the era of Islamic terrorism and then everybody just assumes you're a Christian, a Christian apologist or that you support Christianity.

Not exactly. I believe that you're not an alt-right apologist. I was simply commenting on post content, not on your personal beliefs.

Prefacing every opinion or criticism by saying all the other things you also oppose is obviously impractical and unreasonable.

Agreed--I've just admitted to not condoning leftist violence, and feel I shouldn't have to say that all the time.

It's as misunderstood as any other political ideology or theory and in some cases it is better understood than others. In fact, I think capitalism is more misunderstood given how mainstream it is and how linked to everyday life it is.

I don't think that's true, but I would agree that capitalism is widely misunderstood. Capitalism is at least experientially understood as a social form; but it's not a philosophy. It's a description of social organization.

Marxism is a philosophy that involves a form of social organization. Westerners have never experienced anything close to Marxism, and most of them haven't read any of Marx's writings.

I have no idea why anybody would need to defend body-shaming or accusations of thuggery against Antifa. Especially when you can just watch the hours and hours of footage of Antifa on Youtube and see that they're hardly a force of physical prowess (they look like a bunch of Portland crust punk hipsters) and that they do indeed engage in thuggery. They attack women ffs.

Again, my responses are typically directed at the kinds of arguments being made, which I usually find problematic in one way or another. It doesn't have to do with defending antifa, although it may come off as defensive, as you said.

To take an extreme analogy: someone could say that Hitler oversaw the execution of Jews because he's evil incarnate. I would have a problem with that argument, but that doesn't mean I'm defending Hitler.

 

[CiG]

Why does criticism need to be restricted to physical violence?

It doesn't. I'm just saying, before the alt-right physical violence, in my opinion the far-left were the ones doing the most amount of stupid shit. They still do the most amount of ridiculous shit.

Agreed--I've just admitted to not condoning leftist violence, and feel I shouldn't have to say that all the time.

I don't know that anybody here believes you ever did condone leftist violence, except maybe until you didn't come out against the whole punch a Nazi thing.

You're clearly more pacifistic than most on here, to me anyway.

I don't think that's true, but I would agree that capitalism is widely misunderstood. Capitalism is at least experientially understood as a social form; but it's not a philosophy. It's a description of social organization.

Marxism is a philosophy that involves a form of social organization. Westerners have never experienced anything close to Marxism, and most of them haven't read any of Marx's writings.

When people go around complaining about capitalism and they're actually complaining about corporatism, thereby putting themselves in league with pro-capitalists who also complain about corporatism, yeah I'd say it's vastly misunderstood lol especially in the west.

We can argue about how misunderstood it is relative to Marxism of course, you're probably correct.

To take an extreme analogy: someone could say that Hitler oversaw the execution of Jews because he's evil incarnate. I would have a problem with that argument, but that doesn't mean I'm defending Hitler.

Yeah but that wouldn't be based on a difference of the interpretation of facts about Hitler and the Nazi regime, that would just be because you don't believe in the concepts of good and evil, yes?

 

[Einherjar86]

When people go around complaining about capitalism and they're actually complaining about corporatism, thereby putting themselves in league with pro-capitalists who also complain about corporatism, yeah I'd say it's vastly misunderstood lol especially in the west.

That's a misunderstanding that gets at a deeper truth, which is that capitalism establishes the ideological basis for corporatism. To me, complaining about corporatism while championing capitalism is kind of like praising the invention of the automobile and then saying how much you hate traffic jams. I don't enjoy being stuck in traffic, but the only way to end congestion completely is to get rid of all the cars.

Corporatism and protectionism are inevitable offshoots of a society that revolves around the virtue of capital accumulation. If capital is important, then wealthy centers of capital will pay to ensure that their capital is protected. That's capitalism at work, simply at the level of organizations rather than individuals; there's no difference in the basic function (it's a transaction--money for services). Liberal corporatism is part and parcel of capitalist development at this point in Western history. If there was no federal government to lobby, another centralized protectionist agency would arise in its place, and possibly one far less amenable to social/media oversight and regulation.

The corporatism we have in the West is not Marxist or communist in nature at all, but is definitively capitalist. And honestly, it's not something I have a problem with, aside from the inevitable side effects (which I believe can be mitigated). Although I don't like the term, I'd consider myself a structural functionalist of the post-Parsons variety, meaning I tend to see complexity as a good thing. Capitalism between organizations is an important component in technological, scientific, and intellectual development; and while I don't discount the possibility of something like a practicable Marxism, I tend to see it as a method of critical analysis rather than a utopian program.

That's a long way of saying I agree that capitalism is misunderstood, but part of that misunderstanding is--I think--the attempt to distinguish capitalism from liberal corporatism.

Yeah but that wouldn't be based on a difference of the interpretation of facts about Hitler and the Nazi regime, that would just be because you don't believe in the concepts of good and evil, yes?

Correct--that's my point. My problem often has to do with the method of argument, not with the facts of what Hitler did.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

Trump is Thor:

 

[Dak]

Because Trump wants Mar a Lago messed up.

 

[CiG]

That's a long way of saying I agree that capitalism is misunderstood, but part of that misunderstanding is--I think--the attempt to distinguish capitalism from liberal corporatism.

That was a very convoluted response. I understand that corporatism is a type of capitalism, but the pro-capitalists (libertarians, anarcho-capitalists and so on) don't mean that they support all capitalist off-shoots but rather a truly free market form of capitalism.

The problem I see is that people on one side blame everything on capitalism and call every single economic mode that generates capital; capitalism.

But of course, true communism or true socialism has never been tried. They never grant that same view to capitalism.

 

[Einherjar86]

That was a very convoluted response. I understand that corporatism is a type of capitalism, but the pro-capitalists (libertarians, anarcho-capitalists and so on) don't mean that they support all capitalist off-shoots but rather a truly free market form of capitalism.

"True" free markets don't exist. That's the grand illusion.

True free markets would be analogous to absolute free societal interaction--meaning people do whatever they want, and their actions conform to whatever they find to be socially acceptable. Of course, this isn't how our society works, nor should it be.

Even hypothetically speaking, as soon as you have free markets you will have platforms for political intervention. Free markets mean a demand for protectionism, and that's exactly what corporatism offers. If markets are free, then you'll have a space for governmental (or mercenary) organizations to emerge. Corporatism is the free market extended to complex systems, which means it appears un-free at the individual level. It's all about scale.

Defining capitalism as free markets is all well and good, but it's beholden to an eighteenth-century vision of individual entrepreneurship and innovation that simply isn't tenable anymore.

But of course, true communism or true socialism has never been tried. They never grant that same view to capitalism.

Sure "they" do!

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quot...ns-on-global-democratic-uprisings-and-the-new

First of all, we've never had capitalism, so it can't end. We have some variety of state capitalism. If you fly on an airplane, you're basically flying in a modified bomber. If you buy drugs, the basic research was done under public funding and support. The high-tech system is permeated with internal controls, government subsidies. And if you look at what are supposed to be the growing alternatives, China is another form of state capitalism...

That's Noam Chomsky.

 

[CiG]

Noam Chomsky is hardly representative of the modern anti-capitalist movement. He recently came down hard on Antifa which I really appreciated as it's what so many other people have been saying for so long by now, that Antifa actively creates reactionaries on the right and poisons the well of the left.

"True" free markets don't exist. That's the grand illusion.

True free markets would be analogous to absolute free societal interaction--meaning people do whatever they want, and their actions conform to whatever they find to be socially acceptable. Of course, this isn't how our society works, nor should it be.

Even hypothetically speaking, as soon as you have free markets you will have platforms for political intervention. Free markets mean a demand for protectionism, and that's exactly what corporatism offers. Corporatism is the free market extended to complex systems, which means it appears un-free at the individual level. It's all about scale.

Defining capitalism as free markets is all well and good, but it's beholden to an eighteenth-century vision of individual entrepreneurship and innovation that simply isn't tenable anymore.

Of course truly free markets don't exist. I've never pretended that libertarianism wasn't a kind of utopian vision, which is why I've always felt a bit apprehensive about favouring the ideology myself as it just isn't realistic.

However, like most things, it's not so much about reaching 100% [insert idea here] but rather getting as close to it as is possible and I'm not sure anybody could deny that in every single country, the closer it moves towards a free market capitalism, the more it flourishes and develops. I don't know of any place that improved as a whole by moving away from free market capitalism.

 

[Einherjar86]

Well, America flourished by moving toward corporatism. Trying to approximate eighteenth-century visions of free market liberalism is a recipe for disunion and disaster.

And Chomsky is indicative of a large percentage of general academic leftism. You're focusing on the antifa fringe, it seems to me.

 

[CiG]

Chomsky is indicative of a large percentage of general academic leftism. You're focusing on the antifa fringe, it seems to me.

I'm focusing on the youth movements like the Occupy movement, BLM, Antifa, the Bernie Sanders supporter base etc, rather than crusty old leftists taking up space as they desperately attempt to remain relevant to the younger people they hope to influence.

Well, America flourished by moving toward corporatism. Trying to approximate eighteenth-century visions of free market liberalism is a recipe for disunion and disaster.

So you say, but I'm not quite sure I agree. Furthermore, the nature of corporatism has left so many people feeling disenchanted and disenfranchised with America that it will probably blow up in the country's face.

The far-left and far-right movements can basically both be attributed to the track record of corporatism in America.

 

[Einherjar86]

Corporatism has been the implicit tendency in America since the late-eighteenth century, when it was in nascent but acknowledged form (Alexander Hamilton explicitly advocated it in 1791). It grew in importance with the development of the railroads, and by the twentieth century was the lay of the land. The increase in corporatist policies and practices is almost directly parallel with the cultivation of massive industries in America.

Yes, individuals have felt left behind because of this, and it might blow up in the country's face. Part of the reason for this is that America promotes a set of conflicting values when it comes to the economy: corporatist organization on one hand and liberal individualism on the other. Our cultural ideology is still that of economic individualism, among both democrats and republicans, but it's not a good description of how the country's economy has actually developed. It's the angle of "folk politics," and it's still how politicians try to connect with their base--it's how Sanders connected, and it's how Trump connected. It's not how Clinton tried to connect, and she alienated people because of it. Ironically, her view of (post)modern economic complexity and organization is probably more accurate than either Sander's or Trump's. People don't like to think of themselves as part of systems, but we are--we need to try and see that as a potentially good thing, as long as we don't ignore those who feel abandoned or alienated.

 

[rms]

if we're using Hamilton's On Manufacturing, wouldn't it be more fair to suggest he was pro-bank rather than pro-corporation?

 

[Einherjar86]

Maybe? I don't know honestly, I haven't read that text; Hamilton was in favor of the government supporting new and developing industries, which is why I mentioned him. Strictly speaking, pro-bank could still qualify as a form of corporatism, if one places emphasis on the bank as the unit of social organization. A corporation isn't necessarily a multinational conglomerate; small local businesses, including banks, can also be corporations.

Additionally, non-corporate businesses can benefit from corporatism, depending on the distribution of government support.

 

[rms]

Oh, it's a short read by Hamilton that basically establishes our interest based and pro-bank economic system that facilitated the rise and dominance of the U.S. (and the survival, in the short term -- along with Washington squashing the Whiskey Rebellion if memory serves)

https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Favor-Government-Constitution-American/dp/0195374169

there's a great book I read that argues this and really persuasive argument

 

[HamburgerBoy]

When people talk of "corporatism", they aren't talking about the existence of hundreds of thousands of LLCs operated by a handful of people, who tend to participate in the public process as individual voters. It is almost always understood to mean the consolidation of major business forces to influence public policy, which in turn almost never results in more efficient market outcomes. The correlation between market growth and corporatism is akin to the correlation between mammalian abundance and mosquito abundance.

 

[Einherjar86]

Oh, it's a short read by Hamilton that basically establishes our interest based and pro-bank economic system that facilitated the rise and dominance of the U.S. (and the survival, in the short term -- along with Washington squashing the Whiskey Rebellion if memory serves)

https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Favor-Government-Constitution-American/dp/0195374169

there's a great book I read that argues this and really persuasive argument

Cool, I'll look into it if/when I have time.

When people talk of "corporatism", they aren't talking about the existence of hundreds of thousands of LLCs operated by a handful of people, who tend to participate in the public process as individual voters. It is almost always understood to mean the consolidation of major business forces to influence public policy, which in turn almost never results in more efficient market outcomes. The correlation between market growth and corporatism is akin to the correlation between mammalian abundance and mosquito abundance.

I agree--or, as I said above, the correlation between the abundance of cars and the abundance of traffic jams.

But the traffic jams are a necessary component of everyone getting to work, albeit maybe not always on time. I would say that corporatism has contributed to a lot of grief and woe, but is also inextricable from many of the large-scale advancements since World War II, including the emergence of global telecommunications (which involved cooperation between academia, corporate businesses, and the military) and the development of modern aviation.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I'd agree that large corporations are/were needed for certain large-scale applications, though the extent to which those corporations holding power over government helped said applications is questionable. Airlines were notably inefficient and expensive until Carter privatized them, likely partially inspired by Southwest Airlines being able to outskirt corporatist interstate regulations. Telecoms are more complicated in that for much of their history they relied on using large amounts of public land to connect potential customers, and that most cities don't wan't to dig up sidewalks every few months for a new competitor, but that's more a consequence of the first-to-market advantage than being able to form because of corporatism.

 

[Dak]

Well, America flourished by moving toward corporatism. Trying to approximate eighteenth-century visions of free market liberalism is a recipe for disunion and disaster.

But corporatism seems to also be an ingredient in a recipe for disunion. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing.

And Chomsky is indicative of a large percentage of general academic leftism. You're focusing on the antifa fringe, it seems to me.

I don't buy this anymore. Chomsky is of a dying breed, and academic leftism is significantly represented by those in social sciences, gender studies, and "fine arts", all of whom are much more likely to sympathize with Antifa and read an ignorant intellectual troglodyte like Coates than care what Chomsky has to say about anything. Coates' latest wall of mostly incoherent but certainly jingoistic/copy-pasted-from-every-liberal-pundit screed might have taken the cake, but of course it only serves to justify the self-righteous indignation/flagellation expressed by virtue signaling Bobos.

 

[Einherjar86]

But corporatism seems to also be an ingredient in a recipe for disunion. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing.

Well, I definitely agree that it's not a unifying concept.

I don't buy this anymore. Chomsky is of a dying breed, and academic leftism is significantly represented by those in social sciences, gender studies, and "fine arts"

Actually, plenty of academics in history, philosophy, English, political science, the natural sciences, etc. etc. lean left. But their leftism isn't sexy.