US Politics: Catch the big crook under the “Big Cone”

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Wouldn’t that at least imply a majority of people who operate businesses are opposed to Representative Democracy?  Can you demonstrate that?

It's fairly easy to show that large corporations have always been opposed to any kind of oversight. The opposition to "regulation" is precisely that: the idea that corporations should be free from collective oversight. "Pro-business" forces have always opposed laws protecting workers or consumers.

This was always well-understood on the intellectual side of things. Karl Polanyi wrote that "Inside and outside England, from Macaulay to Mises, from Spencer to Sumner, there was not a militant liberal who did not express his conviction that popular democracy was a danger to capitalism." Friedrich Hayek was viscerally opposed to democracy in his writings, which he described as potentially devolving into "plebiscitary dictatorship".
Why? Because "majority rule," by definition, may threaten (or at least weaken) the private property of the means of production. If the people want a say in how a factory is run (whether it pollutes, whether it's safe, whether its workers have decent working hours and salary, whether what it produces is useful to society and not harmful... ), by definition, they will limit the "economic freedom" of the entrepreneur.
So yes, it's a given that capitalism is opposed to democracy, which is why it has relentlessly attacked government and unions. And won.

And if you want more concrete examples, you can always look at what the Chicago Boys did in Chile.
Or what the US looks like today, really.

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Further, given that Capitalism is an economic not a political system

That's one of the biggest lies you were ever told. The very idea that economic systems are not political is absurd. Economic systems reflect value systems. Capitalism reflects value being given to individual economic liberty (that of the entrepreneur or that of the consumer) over the common good.
And that should be obvious by now because it's robbing future generations of everything. At this point in time, it's clear that our grandchildren will have nothing left. It's clear that this system is a dead end, because it no longer creates value in a sustainable way, assuming it ever did.

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

could you point to a command style economy that was or is successfully “Democratic”?

Depends what you mean by "democratic."
There have never been any successful large-scale democracies ; to put the bar this high is a kind of rhetorical fallacy, one that has been used (with great success) by pro-business forces. This doesn't mean that the democratic principle hasn't been put into practice in many countries. To some extent, it is the popular will that gave birth to regulations during the industrial revolution(s), to unions, to social programs... etc. Every success of regulated capitalism can be ascribed to some variation of the democratic principle, and capitalism has tried to resist pretty much every attempt at such regulation.
It's almost funny to read Marx describing the arguments used by capitalists in The Capital ; they haven't changed!
If you want successful democratic organizations, you look at cooperatives and unions. There are also countless examples of mixed economies with some degree of socialism or socialistic programs.

It is a testimony to the success of capitalist propaganda that people have become suspicious, not just of government, but of democracy itself. The modern State was such a danger to capitalism that it organized an elaborate intellectual attack on it, with incredible success. Nowhere was this attack more intense (and more well-funded) than in the US, and the perverse effects of this propaganda can easily be seen.
But on some level, the crucial victory is you asking such a question. Capitalism doesn't need to destroy the democratic principle to win, it only needs to make people suspicious of it. To suggest that government is the main threat to individual freedom - not economic forces - was a great way to prevent demoracy from making any further gains. Though it could be said (as Polanyi did) that the US constitution already put the economy beyond the reach of democracy, thus paving the way for what we have now.
We tend to call it neo-liberalism: the final submission of government to capitalism and the explicit rejection of the democratic principle in political discourse. Think about it: why have people been led to reject elections, either through abstention or accusations of fraud? What illusions have the media built, and what have they hidden? Was it all accidental, or have you witnessed a grand strategy being put in place to destroy resistance?
Rhetorical questions: of course it was in fact a strategy, and there are many writings to prove it, from the Powell memo to the writings of Bernays or Buchanan. Neo-liberalism is not just unregulated capitalism but radical capitalism. It has been called other things, like neo-feudalism or techno-feudalism, oligarchy or plutocracy. I'd even call this neo-aristocratism, because this twisted ideology does try to convince you that entrepreneurs are heroes who know better than the ignorant, stupid masses. It's a very old paradigm (Plato already sided with the aristocracy) ; what's new is that we now know for a fact, with absolute 100% certainty, beyond any kind of reasonable doubt, that our overlords, the elite, the aristocrats, the capitalists, the entrepreneurs... were never working for, and could never truly work for the common good. People like Bezos and Musk will never provide a solution to the problems human societies are facing because they are the problem.

[Zorral]

9 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Thought experiment: what if the real war that’s going on in America isn’t conservatism vs liberalism/progressivism but rather capitalism vs democracy?

Quite a number of folks who pay attention have been on this all along.

Bernie Sanders: ‘Oligarchs run Russia. But guess what? They run the US as well’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/19/bernie-sanders-oligarchs-ok-angry-about-capitalism-interview

Quote

.... The driving narrative of the book is outrage at the obscene wealth inequalities in the world’s richest economy. One of the things that Biden had the temerity – in the Wall Street Journal’s view – to raise in his State of the Union address was a billionaire minimum tax, “because no billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a firefighter or a schoolteacher”. Under the proposed tax on annual gains in wealth, tech billionaire Elon Musk, for example, would have paid upwards of $20bn a year through the pandemic. Sanders would go further, but he concedes it’s a start. In his book he refers to America’s billionaires as oligarchs. He hopes the pejorative will finally start to catch on. ....

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

Scot I think you can treat the suggestion as meaning something in the ballpark of open oligarchy/kleptocracy/the intersection of the two with some old school feudalism thrown in for good measure.

I saw the recent case regarding Packers Sanitation Services using a significant amount of child labor got such a tiny penalty it's really just a green light for more widespread violations rather than a deterrent. When no managers/executives face personal consequences and the fine is less than 10 percent of the profit you made from using child labor instead of adult workers... Of course you're going to keep doing it.

So let's pencil in resurgent child labor to go with the dollop of feudalism.

If the SCOTUS invalidates all federal regulation… we could be looking at that…  

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Wouldn’t that at least imply a majority of people who operate businesses are opposed to Representative Democracy?  Can you demonstrate that?

 

Let's put that one back for a moment.

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Further, given that Capitalism is an economic not a political system could you point to a command style economy that was or is successfully “Democratic”?

Capitalism is a way of organizing society. What do we make our political choices based on in an election? A lot of time it's the economy, stupid.  to borrow a fairly successful campaign slogan from the US that often time gets repeated ad nauseam. That also now goes back to your first point. Democracy means (more or less) accepting to live in society, where the majority agrees on a set of rules to live by with a few unalienable rights (yeah, I borrowed that one, too for effect) granted to the individual. You can look at the US (and elsewhere) to see how the economy is using money to influence  fight the very rules it doesn't like. Mainly enviromental and product safety rules. The first person who says, but the free market will sort itself, knock your head with full force on your desk please. After you have done that, open an economics text book and read a bit further than the first 2-3 chapters. External costs. The companies have no interest in doing the right thing. The big fossil fuel companies have known for half a century, that they are destroying the planet (external costs), yet they have funded marketing campaigns to shape the democratic discourse in their favour. They are doing that by fairly open blackmail. If you pass laws to our dislike, we will go to other countries that pass laws in our image, and we will take a lot of jobs with us. Also, our political donations should mean, that our interest carries more weight than that of Greenpeace (or extinction rebellion, or last generation etc. pp.) This pretty much addresses your first point. The deep commitment of people operating business is also fairly open on display. Be it VW, Apple, Google utilizing labour   pardon, I mean reeducation camps in China in their manufacturing processes, or the use of child labour and sweat shops in the fashion industry. Now do tell me how deeply committed those companies are to a Representative Democracy. 

I mean, I could go on through different sectors, likesay farming. The use of  pesticides, the draining of soil. Deforestation. All things they shouldn't be doing. Yet, here we are.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

That's one of the biggest lies you were ever told. The very idea that economic systems are not political is absurd. Economic systems reflect value systems. Capitalism reflects value being given to individual economic liberty (that of the entrepreneur or that of the consumer) over the common good.

Of course there is overlap between economic systems and political systems.  But “capitalism” isn’t intended as a mechanism for governance of political life.  Hell it isn’t even a “designed” system it grew ad hoc and was merely described by Adam Smith.  And even Smith recognized the need for regulation of businesses by the State.

As to your other point please demonstrate a Marxist State that hasn’t degraded into a keleptocarcy?  Perhaps all large human states have this tendency to degrade into kleptocracies as they age regardless of the principles they purport to espouse?

[Zorral]

Please show us that the US isn't a kleptocracy?  As they say Money Walks as well as Talks.  And lordessa, it sure does.  Just look at the meat packing industry's ignoring child labor law, and when busted, what happened to them?  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  This is where we are Scott.  Can't even shut down or prosecute big tech and media when it collaborates with foreign nationalists to bring down the government.

Hmmmmm....

This Supreme Court Case Could Decide The Future Of The Internet As We Know It
For the first time ever, the court will hear arguments over Section 230, the internet’s “Magna Carta.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/section-230-supreme-court_n_63e3ba9ce4b0c8e3fc88d2dd

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Please show us that the US isn't a kleptocracy?  As they say Money Walks as well as Talks.  And lordessa, it sure does.  Just look at the meat packing industry's ignoring child labor law, and when busted, what happened to them?  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  This is where we are Scott.  Can't even shut down or prosecute big tech and media when it collaborates with foreign nationalists to bring down the government.

I didn’t claim the US isn’t a Keleptocracy.  In fact my point above asks if that’s where all other States end up as well.  

One thing that people do tend to forget is that Corporations, all of them, exist and have legal protections at the sufferance of the State.  The State has the power, right now to remove those legal protections.  The keleptocractic part is why the State will not act.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Partly.

The other part is that democracy depends on some level to free access to (relevant) information to make an informed decision to arrive at one of the better outcomes. 

Capitalism: information is a valuable product. So who controls the information, controls the public discourse. If you now think of Faux News and OAN and feel a bit uneasy, then better don't look at Diabeteshill, or Musk.

This is distinctively Orwelllian. 

But even before the arrival of the aforementioned monsters, the PR game was strong. 

[Rippounet]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Of course there is overlap between economic systems and political systems.  But “capitalism” isn’t intended as a mechanism for governance of political life.

Controling and managing production and labor is not political to you?

Where did you get this idea that these themes should be excluded from political life?
 

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Hell it isn’t even a “designed” system it grew ad hoc and was merely described by Adam Smith.

Come on Scot, you know better than that.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

13 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Come on Scot, you know better than that.

Are you really attempting to suggest Adam Smith “created” capitalism the way Marx and Engels attempted to create theirs?

[Rippounet]

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

As to your other point please demonstrate a Marxist State that hasn’t degraded into a kleptocracy?

Did I support a "Marxist State" (whatever that's supposed to be) today or ever?
Is the Soviet Union -or another Marxist-Leninist state- the first alternative that comes to your mind whenever someone attacks capitalism?

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Perhaps all large human states have this tendency to degrade into kleptocracies as they age regardless of the principles they purport to espouse?

Perhaps. But then, I never said "large human states" were necessarily a good idea.

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

One thing that people do tend to forget is that Corporations, all of them, exist and have legal protections at the sufferance of the State.  The State has the power, right now to remove those legal protections.  The kleptocratic part is why the State will not act.

That and ideology.

57 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Are you really attempting to suggest Adam Smith “created” capitalism the way Marx and Engels attempted to create theirs?

No, I'm suggesting large-scale socio-economic systems do not just "grow" and are then "merely described."
BTW, where did Marx and Engels describe their ideal state already?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Did I support a "Marxist State" (whatever that's supposed to be) today or ever?
Is the Soviet Union -or another Marxist-Leninist state- the first alternative that comes to your mind whenever someone attacks capitalism?

Perhaps. But then, I never said "large human states" were necessarily a good idea.

That and ideology.

No, I'm suggesting large-scale socio-economic systems do not just "grow" and are then "merely described."
BTW, where did Marx and Engels describe their ideal state already?

At the end of Das Kapital where they talk about the progress of history from barberism to feudalism to capitalism to socialism to communism to utopia…

[Rippounet]

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

At the end of Das Kapital where they talk about the progress of history from barberism to feudalism to capitalism to socialism to communism to utopia…

No. Marx wrote very little about a "Marxist State" because he wanted to abolish the state ; he only described a set of measures to be implemented during a "political transition period," the famous "dictatorship of the proletariat."
He didn't write that theory of history with 6 stages. Engels was the one who truly formulated historical materialism (possibly under his supervision), but Engels did not describe an intermediary stage between capitalism and communism, that was Lenin.

If you look at the measures proposed in Chapter II of the Manifesto, you can get the impression that Marx is in favor of a -temporary- strong state under the dictatorship of the proletariat, but in his Draft for a Communist Confession of Faith he describes it as "[...] a system in which all these branches of production are operated by society as a whole – that is, for the common account, according to a common plan, and with the participation of all members of society. It will, in other words, abolish competition and replace it with association."
Many additional elements are to be found in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, which I find rather vague.
The 10 key Marxist measures are a mixed bag. You might think that abolition of all rights of inheritance (n°3) is super-radical, but there was also "A Heavy Progressive or Graduated Income Tax" (n°2), free education for all children and abolition of child labor (n°10), or nationalized communication and transportation systems (n°6).
Hardly the terrifying revolutionary you've been tought to fear I'll daresay.

I think what you ascribe to Marx is really Leninism: the intermediary stage, the strong state (to prevent a counterrevolution), the centralization, the allmighty Communist Party... etc.
I know it is common for US conservatives to argue that Marxism could only lead to Leninism and Stalinism and to consider it one unique ideology. I personally don't believe that, if only because I grew up in a country that had implemented about a third of the measures of the Communist Manifesto, and it fucking worked.
Plus, I believe Marxist thought also leads to Murray Bookchin's Communalism, i.e. small-scale federated collectives, which can prevent kleptocracy.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

No. Marx wrote very little about a "Marxist State" because he wanted to abolish the state ; he only described a set of measures to be implemented during a "political transition period," the famous "dictatorship of the proletariat."
He didn't write that theory of history with 6 stages. Engels was the one who truly formulated historical materialism (possibly under his supervision), but Engels did not describe an intermediary stage between capitalism and communism, that was Lenin.

If you look at the measures proposed in Chapter II of the Manifesto, you can get the impression that Marx is in favor of a -temporary- strong state under the dictatorship of the proletariat, but in his Draft for a Communist Confession of Faith he describes it as "[...] a system in which all these branches of production are operated by society as a whole – that is, for the common account, according to a common plan, and with the participation of all members of society. It will, in other words, abolish competition and replace it with association."
Many additional elements are to be found in his Critique of the Gotha Programme, which I find rather vague.
The 10 key Marxist measures are a mixed bag. You might think that abolition of all rights of inheritance (n°3) is super-radical, but there was also "A Heavy Progressive or Graduated Income Tax" (n°2), free education for all children and abolition of child labor (n°10), or nationalized communication and transportation systems (n°6).
Hardly the terrifying revolutionary you've been tought to fear I'll daresay.

I think what you ascribe to Marx is really Leninism: the intermediary stage, the strong state (to prevent a counterrevolution), the centralization, the allmighty Communist Party... etc.
I know it is common for US conservatives to argue that Marxism could only lead to Leninism and Stalinism and to consider it one unique ideology. I personally don't believe that, if only because I grew up in a country that had implemented about a third of the measures of the Communist Manifesto, and it fucking worked.
Plus, I believe Marxist thought also leads to Murray Bookchin's Communalism, i.e. small-scale federated collectives, which can prevent kleptocracy.

 

Show me a Marxist state that has moved beyond the State… if you can’t when will that happen?  Or are you partaking of the “no true Scotsman fallacy”.

[Rippounet]

13 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Show me a Marxist state that has moved beyond the State… if you can’t when will that happen?

Possibly when people take the time to read and understand what other people have written to have an honest conversation instead of rushing to score meaningless rhetorical points.

So, not today, nor any time soon, obviously.

[Zorral]

7 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

One thing that people do tend to forget is that Corporations, all of them, exist and have legal protections at the sufferance of the State.  The State has the power, right now to remove those legal protections.  The keleptocractic part is why the State will not act.

Except when the state doesn't have the power to do that, because it is far too weak to do anything but be a figurehead, brandname -- shoot, in Russia it can't even field/fund a state army, but is asking independent corporate warlord contractors to do it.  We started doing the same damned thing with the invasions of Iraq an Iran.  It was the financial power of states to outspend cities and other coalitions such as the Hansa League that actually pushed the creation of the modern European state-nation in the first place.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Except when the state doesn't have the power to do that, because it is far too weak to do anything but be a figurehead, brandname -- shoot, in Russia it can't even field/fund a state army, but is asking independent corporate warlord contractors to do it.  We started doing the same damned thing with the invasions of Iraq an Iran.  It was the financial power of states to outspend cities and other coalitions such as the Hansa League that actually pushed the creation of the modern European state-nation in the first place.

It does.  Corporations are created by filings with the State.  There is no way to create a corporation or LLC that doesn’t require assent from the State. If assent is necessary… it can be withdrawn.  Again, the Kleptocratic aspect is how Corporations use political power to prevent this type of response from the State.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

17 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Possibly when people take the time to read and understand what other people have written to have an honest conversation instead of rushing to score meaningless rhetorical points.

So, not today, nor any time soon, obviously.

As respectfully as possible… that’s a dodge.  You know I find your POV interesting and well thought out even if I disagree.  There is no example of any State attempting to apply Marxist philosophy ever getting beyond the strong state “dictatorship of the proletariat” model.  

The oligarchy created by that model never gives up power… or is replaced by another State.  Marx and Engels criticisms of Capitalism are spot on.  But their predictions of what will happen have never come to the fruition they predict.

[Rippounet]

33 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The oligarchy created by that model never gives up power… or is replaced by another State.  Marx and Engels criticisms of Capitalism are spot on.  But their predictions of what will happen have never come to the fruition they predict.

I never said otherwise. I use Marxism for its critique of capitalism, not because I believe in the inevitability of the Marxist revolution. I very deliberately referred to Murray Bookchin to make it clear that I was not a believer.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think it's time for me to log out and finish Andreas Malm's How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire.

 

[ants]

On 2/18/2023 at 2:52 AM, Zorral said:

That information can be gained in other ways, particularly from autopsy, which would be performed in such cases. 

All an autopsy tells you is whether she was pregnant. It gives no indication on whether she was aware of it (assuming its early days anyway).  

On 2/18/2023 at 2:52 AM, Zorral said:

Moreover, there is no way to prove the woman did think she was pregnant, unless she left a written record, a text, had spoken about her suspicions to a friend or anyone else. 

Despite it being digital there is no more guarantee every single individual woman will be always paying attention, any more than every single woman is always paying attention to her cycles w/o digital prompting. Many things get in the way, if one is actually living a life with jobs, travel, money troubles, other kids, final exams, a dissertation to write.

No, unless there was some particular feature clicked or something, there wouldn't be. It also wouldn't be proof if she did know that she told her partner. However, it would be circumstantial evidence that it was known. The app owners might be able to inform the prosecution if the app had been accessed, which would be further circumstantial evidence. 

Which, short of her having a diary, telling a third party or the partner confessing, is likely to be what you're relying on. So this information would strengthen the prosecution's case. 

On 2/18/2023 at 2:52 AM, Zorral said:

As per usual this kind of thing dramatizes how little most men know about women and what it is to have these cycles -- much less even reproduction, contraception, pregnancy, childbirth, and child rearing -- much less women's sexuality and what satisfies them!  

Such an argument in no way justifies having all women surveilled and all women's personal health data available to any and all, not even to law enforcement, because making such interpolations is not provable physical evidence that she told her boyfriend she was pregnant so he killed her.

I think you don't seem to be willing to see what you don't agree with. You've created a strawman that this is the equivalent to having all woman surveilled. The law that was blocked would have changed the status quo; can you show where your claimed actions are happening in states where abortion is legal? Do you have any evidence that the lack of this protective law is creating a raft of law enforcement accessing this information, or leading to women being surveilled? 

..

And can I ask, what is the difference here between this app and medical information that a male has had a vasectomy, or a STD, or a particular blood type? From a legal, private information perspective accessible to law enforcement with a search warrant? 

From what I can see the only reason to put this information on a special pedestal is due to the abortion debate, and in that context it makes absolutely sense given the positions staked out by both parties that Democrats & progressives would want the law, and Republicans would block it. Coming back to my original point, the fact the Republicans did so is hardly surprising or a major (or even minor) extension of their current position.