Randy Wray reposts an article about sociopathic capitalists outdoing Bolsheviks.
Same idea - gang power - just operating on a completely different level. Pointlessly.
"The whole sordid experience reminds one of a Soviet-era story."If J&J Sixpack, Russian or US, love their children, then they really must make the effort to understand this story.
I've heard people born in the old Soviet system say that they realized by age 12 that their whole culture was insane. Everyone knew it. It was in-your-face repression, despite unparalleled levels of STEM education.
It turns out that USA culture is now also insane. Just on a different level, that most plebes haven't even caught on to.
So it also turns out that it's not the little things in life that give one pleasure, in capitalism it's the BIG things ... especially those things that the victims don't even catch on to.* :(
I'm now wondering if some of the key differences between Russian & US culture are that:
a) formerly well-educated Russians knew from day 1 that they were being totally screwed;
b) ill-educated Americans (given a few iPhones, t-shirts & basketball shoes, junk food & soap; oh, and endless re-runs of IQ-depleting tv) are totally unaware that they're being totally screwed, impersonally & indirectly.Either way, it's now past time for further cultural evolution.
What we have now has sunk to Sociopath Capitalism. For when you don't care enough to ever tell the victim what hit them.
A sociopath, by any other name, stinks as depressingly.
So what is Capitalism? That myth that we can all be Aristocrats. Just on different levels. And what is orthodox economics? Well, it's just recipes & justifications for exactly HOW we can sink to that level.
This is no surprise.. For every step in evolution, there are parallel steps in de-evolution. In biology, we call that Phenotypic Persistence. Others call it Institutional Momentum. It's the same thing as people who enslave their kids & grandchildren ... instead of getting out of their way. It's an evolutionary dead-end. Dead Culture Walking.
* You'd have to have heard a certain form of old Soviet jokes to really get this irony. They had jokes saying that joy (or relief) comes only from seeing others suffer (more than you) in "little" ways, that may not look at all little to Westerners.
2 comments:
The post that Randy put up is actually by Jeff Sachs.
As far as the USSR, it's not all that different from the US. The reason is that the foundation of both is utopian — left and right libertarianism. Both systems were hijacked by a ruling class that captured the state. The difference is that it was just a bit more obvious in the USSR because most of the people were clearly not in the ruling class whereas in the US a great many have been convinced that they are and the poor consider themselves millionaire who are temporarily embarrassed. The reason this worked in the US as well it did was the post-WWII outcome favoring the US and the culture of the New Deal that was a temporary respite from the drinking inequality of economic liberalism.
I could go on for the rest of the day with comparisons but the essence of the matter is that Soviet people were told that they had to continue to sacrifice in order to create a government powerful enough to resist the intentions of the West that were just an extension of the intentions of the Nazis, and they would not have been wrong in believing this. Did that justify the repression and the double economic standard? In the end, history shows that it did not.
Something very similar is afoot in the US, which should be obvious to anyone who read MeCoy's article to which I linked yesterday. While the US takes the game of being the beacon of freedom, the reality is that it has just taken over the agenda of the British imperialists and extended it through technological innovation. The objectives is the same, permanent global hegemony.
So Americans are told a just-so story justifying the necessary to accomplish this objective, on one hand, creating permanent enemies that justify the need for endless war and being on a wartime footing, just as in the old USSR (except for the USSR the threat was real), and on the other hand, talking up bringing greater freedom and prosperity to the world. Interesting to, that the propaganda machine is now sewing the story that it is actually revanchist Russia that expanding through force rather than the US. You've probably all seen the cartoon of how Russia is "advancing" toward all the US bases that are surrounding it. Of course, it is the US bases that have been moving closer and closer and encircling Russia.
It worked in both system as long as, first, people believed the story, and secondly, things didn't get bad enough for people to become outraged and rise up angry. The US has just been more successful in pulling this off — so far. But now the game is becoming more and more obvious.
Oh, and if you have any doubts about Americans' stupidity, watch this short video. It's hilariously outrageous. While it is snark, the people being interviewed don't realize it.
https://youtu.be/CNr5czZKEdk
Bill Black's awesome follow-up
"Geithner’s gospel: adoration of & devoted service to the world’s most fraudulent bankers"
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2015/06/geithners-ghost-writer-and-the-parable-of-the-river-of-risk.html
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