So much of the defense of capitalism is just the usual sophistry that passes for argument by Rightwingers. All that's different is the subject. In this case, the baseline argument is "You bought something; therefore, you cannot hate capitalism!" In other contexts, it's "Al Gore lives in a house; therefore, global warming is a hoax!" or "AOC wears decent clothes; therefore, she cannot represent people!"
This is why I have completely given up discussing any substantive issue with Rightwingers I know. It's like arguing with an obstinate child because every discussion comes down to "I know you are, but what am I?"
Considering how much effort has been spent making “socialism” a dirty word (and not just Fartboy’s “Nazis were socialists” stupidity) it’s kinda amazing we’re taking it back as an answer to the depredations of unregulated corporate capitalism. Maybe there’s hope for us yet. (Yeah, having a nice breakfast puts me in a Pollyanna mood.)
I indulged myself in the pleasure of re-reading the linked, 2010 column on the fire that destroyed a house because the owners didn't pay their $75/year fire insurance. The libertarian/conservatives all thought that this was mere just desserts and completely swell — yet felt the necessity of emphatically piling on to justify it. I thought these people prided themselves on their superior historical memories: Ben Franklin co-founded America's first volunteer fire department. It operated on a subscription basis, a beautifully capitalist, free-market system in which rival fire companies would not put out fires unless the homeowner subscribed to their particular company. And somehow, Americans felt the need to move away from a perfect free-market system and create municipal fire departments which protect everyone, and in the process, they invented Big Government. How could our forefathers have so carelessly strayed from the path of libertarian righteousness? Why don't our libertarian/conservative brethren ask why?
This is one reason why conspiracy theories appeal so much to the Right: we _had_ something like what they want, but we changed it─it _couldn't_ have been for a _good_ reason, so it must have been The Space Masons tempted us with sweet lies.
I’ve long thought that the demise of the Soviet Union had some unfortunate consequences for the Russians, of course, but also for those of us in the Land of the Free. It threw the political metabolism off-kilter: for one thing, we found ourselves obliged to consume domestically a lot of toxic rhetoric that had formerly been produced for export. A direr consequence was the withdrawal of a countervailing socioeconomic ethos which, however imperfectly(!) realized under the Soviets, represented a seductive alternative to the western model (a tipsy Brezhnev-era apparatchik one said to a visiting American, after acknowledging that Lenin might have been dismayed at what the USSR had become, “Nevertheless, the ideals *my* country has betrayed are nobler than the ideals *your* country has betrayed”), one our plutocrats instinctively feared, and the existence of which served in some measure to constrain them. With that spectre no longer haunting its dreams, Capital red in tooth and claw has behaved as we might have expected.
This is close to the point I was making in my "I Miss Russia" post -- that as long as the "worker's paradise" existed, the operators of Capitalism had to make the American alternative look good by granting workers pensions, salary raises, and unions; once there was no need to make it look good anymore, those things were taken away.
This may be a part of it, but never forget that the '80s under Reagan saw America turn to worshiping wealth and the wealthy. As middle-class fortunes declined (while plutocrats' fortunes REALLY began inflating), far too many of us began equating wealth with intellect, success with smarts, and money with virtue.
At the same time, something in the American psyche underwent a profound change. We used to look at our union-member neighbor and think "Wow! He's got good pay, vacations, health insurance, and a solid pension plan. I want those things!" By 1987, that became "Wow! He's got good pay, vacations, health insurance, and a solid pension plan. I don't have those things, and neither should he!"
It’s roots are also very Puritan: if you prosper it’s because you have God’s favor, and conversely if you have God’s favor you prosper monetarily. And, of course, the opposite is also true (and both sides of that Prosperity Gospel coin are abhorrent theologically).
Of course, that sort of resentment is supposed by some on the Right to be the root of all librulism, except directed at rich types we, for some reason, can't see as deserving every thin dime God or Darwin gave them.
Yes, as I like to put it, they used to at least _pretend_ to have some sympathy with The Lower Orders, and spread some good old State-backed land ownership around so that more of us would believe that the security of our owning a house depended on their being secure in owning ten mansions.
I suppose it's worth saying that they're defending capitalism against attacks that don't exist. No one is saying, "chuck the whole thing and do something else." They're saying, "no one person should be able to own more wealth than 100 million others put together." No one is saying, "nationalize everything." They're saying, "our health care system is psychotic and our way of living is destroying the planet."
So when the brethren defend capitalism per se (however ineptly) against what they imply are existential threats, could we be witnessing a bit of projection? After all, they're right-wing, which means authoritarian, which means absolutists. In their all-or-nothing, Manichean unconscious, maybe they believe that capitalism's undeniable flaws mean it should be extirpated for good.
David Graeber in Debt points out that capitalism, even before it was identified as such, has been obsessed with its own imminent end. Part of its illusion, its myth, is a finite period of operation to prevent infinite future means and so do away with scarcity and rationing. "Because if there's no end to it, there's absolutely no reason not to generate credit - that is, future money - infinitely." Maybe this is the psychological context for these projections and fears.
George Will this very morn did a column on socialism where he claims that the younguns "haven't thought it through" and believe that "socialism" mainly means "being more sociable with each other". Typical "grandpa knows better than you" bullshit, in other words.
Ha! Well, I tend to think that socialism DOES mean being more sociable with each other. It's one of the main reasons I'll be grabbing a pitchfork when we hit the tipping point -- to encourage the Rugged Individuals to lighten the fuck up. Socialism's "We're all in it together" feels a lot better to me than "I'll be safe when the oceans boil, I can afford a bunker."
"...enabling them to listen to a library of music that they could carry in their pocket. The iPhone appeared in 2007, just in time to turbocharge their teenage social life"
Sure, and the Great Library appeared in 300 BC, enabling me to read any book ever, and denim appeared in 1873 -- just in time to turbocharge my teenage social life. So I guess I want to speak Classical Greek and work in a copper mine.
Lovely read, plus the comments make me laugh out loud and remember a lot I've had to set aside because of having to focus on meaningless work for pointless growth, like a cancerous sellout in the huddle of teamed refuse, yearning to buy freedom.
So much of the defense of capitalism is just the usual sophistry that passes for argument by Rightwingers. All that's different is the subject. In this case, the baseline argument is "You bought something; therefore, you cannot hate capitalism!" In other contexts, it's "Al Gore lives in a house; therefore, global warming is a hoax!" or "AOC wears decent clothes; therefore, she cannot represent people!"
This is why I have completely given up discussing any substantive issue with Rightwingers I know. It's like arguing with an obstinate child because every discussion comes down to "I know you are, but what am I?"
I know three obstinate children who can argue quite persuasively, but then I trained them myself.
Considering how much effort has been spent making “socialism” a dirty word (and not just Fartboy’s “Nazis were socialists” stupidity) it’s kinda amazing we’re taking it back as an answer to the depredations of unregulated corporate capitalism. Maybe there’s hope for us yet. (Yeah, having a nice breakfast puts me in a Pollyanna mood.)
I indulged myself in the pleasure of re-reading the linked, 2010 column on the fire that destroyed a house because the owners didn't pay their $75/year fire insurance. The libertarian/conservatives all thought that this was mere just desserts and completely swell — yet felt the necessity of emphatically piling on to justify it. I thought these people prided themselves on their superior historical memories: Ben Franklin co-founded America's first volunteer fire department. It operated on a subscription basis, a beautifully capitalist, free-market system in which rival fire companies would not put out fires unless the homeowner subscribed to their particular company. And somehow, Americans felt the need to move away from a perfect free-market system and create municipal fire departments which protect everyone, and in the process, they invented Big Government. How could our forefathers have so carelessly strayed from the path of libertarian righteousness? Why don't our libertarian/conservative brethren ask why?
This is one reason why conspiracy theories appeal so much to the Right: we _had_ something like what they want, but we changed it─it _couldn't_ have been for a _good_ reason, so it must have been The Space Masons tempted us with sweet lies.
The Space Masons ... damn, not a day goes by I don’t find yet another PERFECT name for a band.
I’ve long thought that the demise of the Soviet Union had some unfortunate consequences for the Russians, of course, but also for those of us in the Land of the Free. It threw the political metabolism off-kilter: for one thing, we found ourselves obliged to consume domestically a lot of toxic rhetoric that had formerly been produced for export. A direr consequence was the withdrawal of a countervailing socioeconomic ethos which, however imperfectly(!) realized under the Soviets, represented a seductive alternative to the western model (a tipsy Brezhnev-era apparatchik one said to a visiting American, after acknowledging that Lenin might have been dismayed at what the USSR had become, “Nevertheless, the ideals *my* country has betrayed are nobler than the ideals *your* country has betrayed”), one our plutocrats instinctively feared, and the existence of which served in some measure to constrain them. With that spectre no longer haunting its dreams, Capital red in tooth and claw has behaved as we might have expected.
This is close to the point I was making in my "I Miss Russia" post -- that as long as the "worker's paradise" existed, the operators of Capitalism had to make the American alternative look good by granting workers pensions, salary raises, and unions; once there was no need to make it look good anymore, those things were taken away.
This may be a part of it, but never forget that the '80s under Reagan saw America turn to worshiping wealth and the wealthy. As middle-class fortunes declined (while plutocrats' fortunes REALLY began inflating), far too many of us began equating wealth with intellect, success with smarts, and money with virtue.
At the same time, something in the American psyche underwent a profound change. We used to look at our union-member neighbor and think "Wow! He's got good pay, vacations, health insurance, and a solid pension plan. I want those things!" By 1987, that became "Wow! He's got good pay, vacations, health insurance, and a solid pension plan. I don't have those things, and neither should he!"
"This may be a part of it, but never forget that the '80s under Reagan saw America turn to worshiping wealth and the wealthy. . . "
Money is a powerful gentleman (Poderoso Caballero es Don Dinero) http://www.poesia-inter.net/fq03015.htm
Francisco de Quevedo, 1573
It’s roots are also very Puritan: if you prosper it’s because you have God’s favor, and conversely if you have God’s favor you prosper monetarily. And, of course, the opposite is also true (and both sides of that Prosperity Gospel coin are abhorrent theologically).
Of course, that sort of resentment is supposed by some on the Right to be the root of all librulism, except directed at rich types we, for some reason, can't see as deserving every thin dime God or Darwin gave them.
Yes, as I like to put it, they used to at least _pretend_ to have some sympathy with The Lower Orders, and spread some good old State-backed land ownership around so that more of us would believe that the security of our owning a house depended on their being secure in owning ten mansions.
I suppose it's worth saying that they're defending capitalism against attacks that don't exist. No one is saying, "chuck the whole thing and do something else." They're saying, "no one person should be able to own more wealth than 100 million others put together." No one is saying, "nationalize everything." They're saying, "our health care system is psychotic and our way of living is destroying the planet."
So when the brethren defend capitalism per se (however ineptly) against what they imply are existential threats, could we be witnessing a bit of projection? After all, they're right-wing, which means authoritarian, which means absolutists. In their all-or-nothing, Manichean unconscious, maybe they believe that capitalism's undeniable flaws mean it should be extirpated for good.
No one is saying, "chuck the whole thing an do something else." I am.
David Graeber in Debt points out that capitalism, even before it was identified as such, has been obsessed with its own imminent end. Part of its illusion, its myth, is a finite period of operation to prevent infinite future means and so do away with scarcity and rationing. "Because if there's no end to it, there's absolutely no reason not to generate credit - that is, future money - infinitely." Maybe this is the psychological context for these projections and fears.
George Will this very morn did a column on socialism where he claims that the younguns "haven't thought it through" and believe that "socialism" mainly means "being more sociable with each other". Typical "grandpa knows better than you" bullshit, in other words.
George Will! Slowly I turned...
Ha! Well, I tend to think that socialism DOES mean being more sociable with each other. It's one of the main reasons I'll be grabbing a pitchfork when we hit the tipping point -- to encourage the Rugged Individuals to lighten the fuck up. Socialism's "We're all in it together" feels a lot better to me than "I'll be safe when the oceans boil, I can afford a bunker."
Awesome! Pitchfork grabbing! I'll bring the torches!
Nah. He really fears "socialism" means "I might get arrested for stealing that briefing book back in 1980."
(Never was the metaphor "(S)train at a gnat and swallow a camel" more appropriate for an essay.)
"...enabling them to listen to a library of music that they could carry in their pocket. The iPhone appeared in 2007, just in time to turbocharge their teenage social life"
Sure, and the Great Library appeared in 300 BC, enabling me to read any book ever, and denim appeared in 1873 -- just in time to turbocharge my teenage social life. So I guess I want to speak Classical Greek and work in a copper mine.
That’s what I think, and you can’t Ptolemy otherwise!
You're living in denial, monk!
Lovely read, plus the comments make me laugh out loud and remember a lot I've had to set aside because of having to focus on meaningless work for pointless growth, like a cancerous sellout in the huddle of teamed refuse, yearning to buy freedom.