Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Wealth Redistribution and a Moral Imperative

roachboy · 10-14-2008, 06:02 PM

maybe the overall policy orientation of american-style capitalism is entirely dysfunctional. maybe it parks people.
maybe people get parked because nitwit conceptions of what socialism is prevents the folk who steer the system from doing anything else.
maybe this collapse of the "moral" into capitalist relations is a self-fulfilling logic: folk who are excluded for structural reasons end up being blamed for the effects of structure so that structure can be disappeared, like a political dissident in the chile of the 1970s. which was also an american production.
maybe the primary obstacle to american empire is the ways of thinking that have been disseminated within the empire in order to make empire seem a fact of nature rather than a political formation.
perhaps the paranoid mode of ideological governance is a circle.

i am pleased to see the "free market" ideology, and its ultra-right variant in anarcho-conservative "libertarian" thinking being pulverized by events unfolding in the world.
nothing good comes of it, not even for the ideologues who carry shit for this way of thinking: the folk who benefit do not in the main believe, otherwise they would not benefit as they do. a world of chumps presents itself, and in a world of chumps who think themselves other than chumps, the only sane move is to take what you can get and get out. "these idiots cannot run a coherent system. they don't even see that there is one."

then i wonder: how do folk believe this stuff? where does it come from? how is it possible for example to erase the history of actually existing capitalism--which is only a coherent social system--that is the dominant mode of production at the scale we now are accumstomed to thinking about--after 1870. capitalism as a dominant mode of production has been remarkably unstable--depression in the 1870s, depression in the 1890s...world war...depression in the 1920s and into the 1930s--world war. the only period of relative stability followed world war 2, and the institutional configuration that enabled it would be seen by most libertarian types as socialist. what i don't get is the 1970s-early 80s period, during which a conservative movement took shape bent in part of dismantling what they apparently never understood. but the system of production had already outstripped them, as had the patterns of ownership--so they were perhaps in a reactive mode but at the same time understood that something Different was taking shape but had not idea what to do. they were like the egyptians in the way hegel talks about them: they "knew there was a riddle" but couldn't get distance enough on it to see it as a riddle, so they were stuck repeating it. but that cannot be right---more reasonable is to assume that the transition away from nation-states which was already underway in the 1970s posed problems that the right could not really work out, so the best move was to privatize as much as possible in order to reduce political risk in general---in the interim, they could naturalize the notion of nation---almost knowing that it was of limited functionality for a limited time--so the main thing was to reduce risk and get out.

it's always seemed to me that conservative ideology was something produced in the interests of a group which was not the group being addressed by the ideology. like there was something patronizing about it. but as it acquired traction and so acquired social power, a faction within the right that actually believed this shit rose to prominence--but it kept that patronizing quality to it, so that can't be right. more consistent would be to think that shills had been put forward. but that's a paranoid avenue to go down. it leads to conspiracy. but conspiracy isn't necessary.

but still, the sense that conservative economic ideology has this nihilist streak to it that is not at all present in what it says, but shows up when you think about what it says against the background of the history that lead up to their saying it. this is not the same as adam smith or ricardo. but i only really know about them from marx. maybe that's true for you too.

10-14-2008, 06:02 PM	#33 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	maybe the overall policy orientation of american-style capitalism is entirely dysfunctional. maybe it parks people. maybe people get parked because nitwit conceptions of what socialism is prevents the folk who steer the system from doing anything else. maybe this collapse of the "moral" into capitalist relations is a self-fulfilling logic: folk who are excluded for structural reasons end up being blamed for the effects of structure so that structure can be disappeared, like a political dissident in the chile of the 1970s. which was also an american production. maybe the primary obstacle to american empire is the ways of thinking that have been disseminated within the empire in order to make empire seem a fact of nature rather than a political formation. perhaps the paranoid mode of ideological governance is a circle. i am pleased to see the "free market" ideology, and its ultra-right variant in anarcho-conservative "libertarian" thinking being pulverized by events unfolding in the world. nothing good comes of it, not even for the ideologues who carry shit for this way of thinking: the folk who benefit do not in the main believe, otherwise they would not benefit as they do. a world of chumps presents itself, and in a world of chumps who think themselves other than chumps, the only sane move is to take what you can get and get out. "these idiots cannot run a coherent system. they don't even see that there is one." then i wonder: how do folk believe this stuff? where does it come from? how is it possible for example to erase the history of actually existing capitalism--which is only a coherent social system--that is the dominant mode of production at the scale we now are accumstomed to thinking about--after 1870. capitalism as a dominant mode of production has been remarkably unstable--depression in the 1870s, depression in the 1890s...world war...depression in the 1920s and into the 1930s--world war. the only period of relative stability followed world war 2, and the institutional configuration that enabled it would be seen by most libertarian types as socialist. what i don't get is the 1970s-early 80s period, during which a conservative movement took shape bent in part of dismantling what they apparently never understood. but the system of production had already outstripped them, as had the patterns of ownership--so they were perhaps in a reactive mode but at the same time understood that something Different was taking shape but had not idea what to do. they were like the egyptians in the way hegel talks about them: they "knew there was a riddle" but couldn't get distance enough on it to see it as a riddle, so they were stuck repeating it. but that cannot be right---more reasonable is to assume that the transition away from nation-states which was already underway in the 1970s posed problems that the right could not really work out, so the best move was to privatize as much as possible in order to reduce political risk in general---in the interim, they could naturalize the notion of nation---almost knowing that it was of limited functionality for a limited time--so the main thing was to reduce risk and get out. it's always seemed to me that conservative ideology was something produced in the interests of a group which was not the group being addressed by the ideology. like there was something patronizing about it. but as it acquired traction and so acquired social power, a faction within the right that actually believed this shit rose to prominence--but it kept that patronizing quality to it, so that can't be right. more consistent would be to think that shills had been put forward. but that's a paranoid avenue to go down. it leads to conspiracy. but conspiracy isn't necessary. but still, the sense that conservative economic ideology has this nihilist streak to it that is not at all present in what it says, but shows up when you think about what it says against the background of the history that lead up to their saying it. this is not the same as adam smith or ricardo. but i only really know about them from marx. maybe that's true for you too. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 10-14-2008 at 06:06 PM..