A blame-the-system impulse
March 3, 2025 1:34 AM Subscribe
On the internet, where there’s no tone of voice or body language to send signals, using particularly evocative phrases is even more important than normal. Ugh, Capitalism and all its variations are a reliable way to give any statement that oomph, that hit of seriousness. It can signal that you’re one of the Good Guys, one of the people who gets it. from Ugh, Capitalism by Jeremiah Johnson [Infinite Scroll]
Author a case of nominative determinism? Eponysterical
posted by rubatan at 3:23 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]
posted by rubatan at 3:23 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]
"Jeremiah Johnson is a cofounder of the Center for New Liberalism and..." noooo thanks
posted by rhooke at 3:45 AM on March 3 [12 favorites]
posted by rhooke at 3:45 AM on March 3 [12 favorites]
We understand Jack Black to be a deeply unserious person when he rants about The Man, but vague complaints about capitalism are given the opposite treatment -
think about it
posted by HearHere at 3:46 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
think about it
posted by HearHere at 3:46 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
Ugh, Journalism.
posted by mmoncur at 3:51 AM on March 3 [11 favorites]
posted by mmoncur at 3:51 AM on March 3 [11 favorites]
“If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?“
posted by Robin Kestrel at 4:35 AM on March 3 [8 favorites]
posted by Robin Kestrel at 4:35 AM on March 3 [8 favorites]
Angry about a Thing:
“Here is a fact about the world. This fact is bad, and it’s bad that we haven’t fixed it with politics or policy. Ugh, Capitalism”...posted by daveliepmann at 4:39 AM on March 3 [5 favorites]
There’s almost never any attempt to explain why capitalism caused this. How is it a capitalist problem? There’s no effort to examine what specific chain of events is actually causing the problem. Would it exist under socialism, or some other system? Who knows! Easier to blame capitalism with a sort of vague rhetorical shrug and move on.
Could the problem actually be fixed in a capitalist system? The answer here is almost always yes. The problem our hero is mad about - whether it be the housing crisis, pollution, climate change, working conditions, etc - has virtually always been solved in some other country that the hero admires… which is also capitalist. Given that Ugh, Capitalism complaints almost always come from the left, this is usually an American commentator wanting the US to be more like Denmark. Which is a capitalist country with a somewhat larger welfare state.
You're right, JerJo. There's nothing to complain about here, no substantive critique to be made. Everything's perfectly fine. The best of all possible worlds and all that.
Christ, what an asshole.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 4:44 AM on March 3 [12 favorites]
Christ, what an asshole.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 4:44 AM on March 3 [12 favorites]
Hot civil war when? Is that what he's asking for?
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:50 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:50 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
posted by Jon_Evil at 4:52 AM on March 3 [4 favorites]
Given that Ugh, Capitalism complaints almost always come from the left, this is usually an American commentator wanting the US to be more like Denmark. Which is a capitalist country with a somewhat larger welfare state.
Of all of the moral and strategic failures of technocratic Democrats (or, more probably, bug-as-feature firewalling of their elite privilege from investigation or critique), the reading of broad, incoherent popular anxiety or distaste as a cause for pompous lecturing vs. opportunity has got to be at the top.
posted by reedbird_hill at 4:55 AM on March 3 [20 favorites]
Of all of the moral and strategic failures of technocratic Democrats (or, more probably, bug-as-feature firewalling of their elite privilege from investigation or critique), the reading of broad, incoherent popular anxiety or distaste as a cause for pompous lecturing vs. opportunity has got to be at the top.
posted by reedbird_hill at 4:55 AM on March 3 [20 favorites]
The US cabinet is worth more than $340 billion, the House is worth over $2.4 billion. An unelected not-even-head-of-a-department worth over $350 billion is slashing critical federal jobs left and right, harming the health, wealth and environment of everyone that's not a millionaire, with the aim to fire at least half of all workers with no regard for the US Constitution or the law. The next budget proposes a $4.5 thousand billion tax cut only for millionaires and billionaires, with slashed services and higher taxes for everyone else, proving the US government has been completely captured by the insanely wealthy to force as much money from ordinary people into their own pockets as possible, at the threat of jail if not compliant. All because they also own all the media, and their decades of blatant lies and propaganda have completely warped any understanding of what they're up to by most voters. UGGGGGH Capitalism.
Was that an "allowed" use do you think?
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 5:34 AM on March 3 [28 favorites]
Was that an "allowed" use do you think?
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 5:34 AM on March 3 [28 favorites]
Author a case of nominative determinism?
Trolls know how to pick their pseudonyms for their shitposts. Also their outward appearance. Just look at that manly, personally responsible author photo. The full image probably shows him picking himself up by his own bootstraps.
Canine cancer would still exist under socialism, as far as I can tell.
This over-privileged, worthless excuse for an asshole can't see the trees for the forest. Capitalism isn't (always) responsible for your dog getting cancer, but the economic system sure exacerbates personal misery by extracting as value as it can out of the experience.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:34 AM on March 3 [10 favorites]
Trolls know how to pick their pseudonyms for their shitposts. Also their outward appearance. Just look at that manly, personally responsible author photo. The full image probably shows him picking himself up by his own bootstraps.
Canine cancer would still exist under socialism, as far as I can tell.
This over-privileged, worthless excuse for an asshole can't see the trees for the forest. Capitalism isn't (always) responsible for your dog getting cancer, but the economic system sure exacerbates personal misery by extracting as value as it can out of the experience.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:34 AM on March 3 [10 favorites]
Could the problem actually be fixed in a capitalist system? The answer here is almost always yes.
Then fucking fix it already. You're the founder of a think-tank. Presumably you have the influence and connections to make much more of a difference than anyone ranting here on this internet forum. And yet here you are using your platform to scold us ordinary people for not understanding our problems and not appreciating that capitalism doesn't completely preclude solutions to those problems.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:46 AM on March 3 [12 favorites]
Then fucking fix it already. You're the founder of a think-tank. Presumably you have the influence and connections to make much more of a difference than anyone ranting here on this internet forum. And yet here you are using your platform to scold us ordinary people for not understanding our problems and not appreciating that capitalism doesn't completely preclude solutions to those problems.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:46 AM on March 3 [12 favorites]
Could the problem actually be fixed in a capitalist system? The answer here is almost always yes. The problem our hero is mad about - whether it be the housing crisis, pollution, climate change, working conditions, etc - has virtually always been solved in some other country that the hero admires… which is also capitalist.
I mean. It sounds like New Liberalism is just as blind and in love with the one-eyed man as old Liberalism. It's all been solved somewhere! All of it! By capitalism! He suggests Denmark, for example, where the sea levels aren't rising at all as a result of the relentless and deliberately obfuscated systematic extraction of resources for private wealth resulting from oh never mind. Still. At least privatisation there hasn't oh. Erm. Woohoo! Utopia exists because money!
I'm not going to pretend that Ugh Capitalism is necessarily a deep reflex, although, you know, have you seen Capitalism recently? But you'd expect a criticism based on "everyone is being shallow and doesn't understand stuff" to not be so waferously thin that it could be outsubstanced by a dimly-lit vacuum and outsmarted by room temperature. But here we are, eh.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 6:16 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]
I mean. It sounds like New Liberalism is just as blind and in love with the one-eyed man as old Liberalism. It's all been solved somewhere! All of it! By capitalism! He suggests Denmark, for example, where the sea levels aren't rising at all as a result of the relentless and deliberately obfuscated systematic extraction of resources for private wealth resulting from oh never mind. Still. At least privatisation there hasn't oh. Erm. Woohoo! Utopia exists because money!
I'm not going to pretend that Ugh Capitalism is necessarily a deep reflex, although, you know, have you seen Capitalism recently? But you'd expect a criticism based on "everyone is being shallow and doesn't understand stuff" to not be so waferously thin that it could be outsubstanced by a dimly-lit vacuum and outsmarted by room temperature. But here we are, eh.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 6:16 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]
Ron, in a democracy, solving a wicked problem sometimes involves challenging the pre-existing beliefs "ordinary people" (your term) have about how the problem works.
One good example is the housing crisis. That topic being significantly captured (IMO) by "ugh, capitalism!" level understanding encourages magical thinking instead of effective solutions.
posted by daveliepmann at 6:22 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
One good example is the housing crisis. That topic being significantly captured (IMO) by "ugh, capitalism!" level understanding encourages magical thinking instead of effective solutions.
posted by daveliepmann at 6:22 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
I don't disagree that Ugh Capitalism can encourage magical thinking, daveliepmann, but this is an article that literally just claimed global warming has been solved by capitalism. That level of misrepresentation makes magical thinking look like a fucking sorcerer's epiphany by comparison.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 6:26 AM on March 3 [9 favorites]
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 6:26 AM on March 3 [9 favorites]
His choice of pullquotes for "[best encapsulation of how socialism became culturally trendy and capitalism became our collective object of derision" is, uh, really something.
posted by Mayor West at 6:29 AM on March 3 [12 favorites]
Capitalism! It was important to hate it, even though it was how you got money. Slowly, slowly, she found herself moving toward a position so philosophical even Jesus couldn’t have held it: that she must hate capitalism while at the same time loving film montages set in department stores.Way back in the day, a rhetoric professor of mine was having trouble explaining the proper usage of "begs the question," because everyone (erroneously) assumes it takes an object as a secondary clause, e.g. "this begs the question of x." Nope, it actually means "this statement takes its intended conclusion as a given, rather than supporting it with evidence." If you're reading, Katherine, I've found your new example for demonstrating proper use of this device. It was important to hate [capitalism], even though it was how you got money.
posted by Mayor West at 6:29 AM on March 3 [12 favorites]
Who is this dumbass? Is this a comedy joke? Please don't post things like this on a Monday morning, this makes me want to roundhouse kick a baby. What the fuck!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:34 AM on March 3 [11 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:34 AM on March 3 [11 favorites]
Ron, in a democracy, solving a wicked problem sometimes involves challenging the pre-existing beliefs "ordinary people" (your term) have about how the problem works.
Except that ordinary people's preexisting beliefs are almost always along the lines of "it should be possible to have nice things" which people like this asshole then challenge by saying "no, you actually can't because Capitalism". That's the origin of Ugh, Capitalism right there--the continued insistence that the system can't provide the relief you're asking for and you should really shut up and stop asking for it.
Magical thinking only happens because people lack real-world examples to consider how a problem might be solved practically.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:47 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]
Except that ordinary people's preexisting beliefs are almost always along the lines of "it should be possible to have nice things" which people like this asshole then challenge by saying "no, you actually can't because Capitalism". That's the origin of Ugh, Capitalism right there--the continued insistence that the system can't provide the relief you're asking for and you should really shut up and stop asking for it.
Magical thinking only happens because people lack real-world examples to consider how a problem might be solved practically.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:47 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]
Oh, okay. I see this is from two years ago. It doesn't make its appearance here any more explicable, but it does explain his smug and maddening calm in the face of a country plunging into the apocalypse. We were, at that time, merely teetering on the edge of the cliff from which we would shortly plunge into the apocalypse. Maybe he thought a smart-assed little blog post would save us all? Well, it didn't. Maybe the next crisis will be something that can only be avoided by bowing to the wisdom of a snotty little twerp. I'll have this article bookmarked just in case!
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:50 AM on March 3 [5 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:50 AM on March 3 [5 favorites]
I didn't notice this was from two years ago. That makes the conclusion even more ironically ominous
It’s likely that as capitalism replaced The Man, some other boogeyman-societal-force will replace capitalism a few decades from now.posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:58 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
In a beautiful stroke of irony the internet is filled with merchandise for sale telling you that you don’t hate Mondays, you hate capitalism.Stop the presses, someone just discovered Bill Hicks.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:58 AM on March 3 [4 favorites]
Is this a comedy joke?
kfb, this is lowkey the funniest shit of the day
Like someone arriving at a carcrash and yelling "IS ANYONE INJURY HURT"
Thank you!
posted by ginger.beef at 7:00 AM on March 3 [5 favorites]
kfb, this is lowkey the funniest shit of the day
Like someone arriving at a carcrash and yelling "IS ANYONE INJURY HURT"
Thank you!
posted by ginger.beef at 7:00 AM on March 3 [5 favorites]
"That level of misrepresentation makes magical thinking look like a fucking sorcerer's epiphany by comparison."Substack is the grimoire of magical thinking.
posted by Kye at 7:11 AM on March 3 [5 favorites]
Maybe, crazy thought here, people are complaining about capitalism becusae it's failed them? I know, I know, it's probably just kids these days being all hip and following trends, it can't possibly be a deep structural problem with capitalism. Capitalism is always good. It's the peasants who are wrong.
My capitalist suggestion for today is to buy stock in your local pitchfork and torch provider.
posted by sotonohito at 7:39 AM on March 3 [7 favorites]
My capitalist suggestion for today is to buy stock in your local pitchfork and torch provider.
posted by sotonohito at 7:39 AM on March 3 [7 favorites]
I mean, the real question is "what is society for", and the answers basically divide into "making things at least pretty decent for everyone" and "leaving things awful for certain people so that other people can live extremely fancy lives".
The problem with capitalism is not that it involves capital, buying and selling, it's that it makes a world that is horrible for a lot of people and getting much worse. That's what people are on about. Whether there is a way to have a tightly leashed "capitalism" that doesn't do this is unresolved. But it could be resolved! Tightly leash capitalism and let's find out!
Affluent Democratic scolds don't get that what people are saying is "I think life should be at least okay for everyone and yet things are getting worse for the many so that the few can have more". They are not saying, "I have a platform-based ideology to implement". This is because affluent Democratic scolds don't have to worry about money. They are the few, getting more. Maybe they're not getting as much more as Elon Musk, but they are the people on the upside of capitalism.
IME, most people are somewhat ideology-agnostic, which is more good than bad even though it comes with a down side. Most people - leaving out Christian nationalists and Muskites - think that we should make the world work at least somewhat okay for everyone. They may hold this view in an inconsistent or bigoted way, but as a broad generality, when people understand others' suffering, they want to assist and fix it. The whole of the mainstream media ecosystem is designed to make others' suffering (or even our own!) look inevitable and deserved or else hide it entirely, and that is because most people do not, in fact, want other people to be immiserated when they have the chance to see those others as people. This puts most people at odds with Muskites and Christian nationalists (and Democratic scolds, because DSes are rich) hence our tidal wave of propaganda.
posted by Frowner at 7:57 AM on March 3 [19 favorites]
The problem with capitalism is not that it involves capital, buying and selling, it's that it makes a world that is horrible for a lot of people and getting much worse. That's what people are on about. Whether there is a way to have a tightly leashed "capitalism" that doesn't do this is unresolved. But it could be resolved! Tightly leash capitalism and let's find out!
Affluent Democratic scolds don't get that what people are saying is "I think life should be at least okay for everyone and yet things are getting worse for the many so that the few can have more". They are not saying, "I have a platform-based ideology to implement". This is because affluent Democratic scolds don't have to worry about money. They are the few, getting more. Maybe they're not getting as much more as Elon Musk, but they are the people on the upside of capitalism.
IME, most people are somewhat ideology-agnostic, which is more good than bad even though it comes with a down side. Most people - leaving out Christian nationalists and Muskites - think that we should make the world work at least somewhat okay for everyone. They may hold this view in an inconsistent or bigoted way, but as a broad generality, when people understand others' suffering, they want to assist and fix it. The whole of the mainstream media ecosystem is designed to make others' suffering (or even our own!) look inevitable and deserved or else hide it entirely, and that is because most people do not, in fact, want other people to be immiserated when they have the chance to see those others as people. This puts most people at odds with Muskites and Christian nationalists (and Democratic scolds, because DSes are rich) hence our tidal wave of propaganda.
posted by Frowner at 7:57 AM on March 3 [19 favorites]
Easier to blame late stage capitalism, completely blind to the irony that people have been talking about ‘late capitalism’ for around 100 years. Late capitalism was a term before your grandparents were born and there will still be people talking about it when your grandchildren are old.
Well yeah duh. Because these old-timey critiques offer a solution to the problems that have arisen under a Capitalist society, problems that many people understand are cruel, unfair, hostile, exploitative, violent, and unable to sustain all of humanity and the planet in the face of climate change and societal instability. We don't know if Socialism, Anarchism, and other takes on Communism will solve these problems because instituting them have been suppressed by governments at the behest of capitalists. As long as these critiques and their solutions continue to offer a model of a better world - a world in which all (hopefully) people and our planet can thrive, not just a few - we will continue to talk about it and try to put it into practice.
[insert terse insult in summation here]
posted by yumegari at 8:15 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
Well yeah duh. Because these old-timey critiques offer a solution to the problems that have arisen under a Capitalist society, problems that many people understand are cruel, unfair, hostile, exploitative, violent, and unable to sustain all of humanity and the planet in the face of climate change and societal instability. We don't know if Socialism, Anarchism, and other takes on Communism will solve these problems because instituting them have been suppressed by governments at the behest of capitalists. As long as these critiques and their solutions continue to offer a model of a better world - a world in which all (hopefully) people and our planet can thrive, not just a few - we will continue to talk about it and try to put it into practice.
[insert terse insult in summation here]
posted by yumegari at 8:15 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
There's 28 comments, so I'll assume the lovely people here have already called this piece everything I'd call it. The kernel of truth is that people saying "capitalism bad" sometimes haven't thought about the issue more deeply than that. That doesn't mean it's not true of course, which substack writer #2,347 doesn't seem interested in considering.
I'll contribute by pointing out that Jack Black's character in School of Rock isn't supposed to be a whiny puerile loser. He's meant to be comedic, but the events of the movie -- and it's not really a complex movie -- broadly validate his thesis that Rock 'n' Roll is a force for good in the world.
posted by jy4m at 8:32 AM on March 3 [12 favorites]
I'll contribute by pointing out that Jack Black's character in School of Rock isn't supposed to be a whiny puerile loser. He's meant to be comedic, but the events of the movie -- and it's not really a complex movie -- broadly validate his thesis that Rock 'n' Roll is a force for good in the world.
posted by jy4m at 8:32 AM on March 3 [12 favorites]
I am obviously no economist. But as an ex-european, every European country is a hybrid of capitalism and socialism. E.g. public healthcare, welfare payments for children, the sick, and the disabled, public sector jobs to manage various public goods (parks, transport networks, telecoms networks, power networks, clean water etc), government investment in national security from defence to steel production and subsidising farmers, environment protection and investment (subsidies for green tech etc), even price controls on essential goods and services, such as the capping of domestic energy bills due to Russian invading Ukraine. All of this is directed by government, nominally for the public good - all of that is socialism in action.
The USA has some of these systems too of course - claiming they are simply part of regulation of capitalism is IMO false, we're seeing what happens in the US even WITH regulation when the capitalists are fully in charge and have also captured the court system with like minded thinkers along with the executive, legislative and public media - they don't matter a damn if they can't/won't be enforced.
Socialism is provision by the government for the public good. Capitalism is the accumulation of wealth via the market, providing services at a markup. Some things, like public healthcare or transport networks are much more efficiently funded by a socialist system where people pay in according to their ability and they're provisioned for all. Capitalism is at least theoretically more flexible at providing services that not all need but some desire, and allocating scarce resources based upon effort involved.
The fundamental problem in capitalist democracies is when socialist public welfare systems become captured by the capitalists, such that market regulation, true information (needed for proper market functioning), and the gathering and disbursement of public funds all become changed to service the most wealthy instead of to the needy; nor is the US the only example of this becoming a major problem, though it is by far the furthest down that road.
Just as monopolies distort or break the free market, oligarchies taking over the media, government and regulatory bodies leads to fraud, abuse and an accelerating feedback loop where the wealthiest (particularly in assets) have the most power, which gives them even more money and profit from rentierism, which gives them even more power and even more money, concentrating in an absolutely tiny percentage of the people. Breaking that loop ultimately has to come from prizing the fingers of the super wealthy capitalists off the levers of power and reinstating democratic control of the socialist welfare systems, including taxing the buggers to reduce their wealth and thus power. Doing that - once they've already taken over - without guillotines (or Luigis) is left as an exercise for the reader.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 8:37 AM on March 3 [7 favorites]
The USA has some of these systems too of course - claiming they are simply part of regulation of capitalism is IMO false, we're seeing what happens in the US even WITH regulation when the capitalists are fully in charge and have also captured the court system with like minded thinkers along with the executive, legislative and public media - they don't matter a damn if they can't/won't be enforced.
Socialism is provision by the government for the public good. Capitalism is the accumulation of wealth via the market, providing services at a markup. Some things, like public healthcare or transport networks are much more efficiently funded by a socialist system where people pay in according to their ability and they're provisioned for all. Capitalism is at least theoretically more flexible at providing services that not all need but some desire, and allocating scarce resources based upon effort involved.
The fundamental problem in capitalist democracies is when socialist public welfare systems become captured by the capitalists, such that market regulation, true information (needed for proper market functioning), and the gathering and disbursement of public funds all become changed to service the most wealthy instead of to the needy; nor is the US the only example of this becoming a major problem, though it is by far the furthest down that road.
Just as monopolies distort or break the free market, oligarchies taking over the media, government and regulatory bodies leads to fraud, abuse and an accelerating feedback loop where the wealthiest (particularly in assets) have the most power, which gives them even more money and profit from rentierism, which gives them even more power and even more money, concentrating in an absolutely tiny percentage of the people. Breaking that loop ultimately has to come from prizing the fingers of the super wealthy capitalists off the levers of power and reinstating democratic control of the socialist welfare systems, including taxing the buggers to reduce their wealth and thus power. Doing that - once they've already taken over - without guillotines (or Luigis) is left as an exercise for the reader.
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 8:37 AM on March 3 [7 favorites]
Halloween Jack, or maybe they discovered Mister Gotcha.
posted by BCMagee at 8:56 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]
posted by BCMagee at 8:56 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]
The original article hits like a pillow as criticism. Capitalism doesn't concretely exist as a theory to dismiss and pretending it is also an economic failure usually confuses it for mercantilism, the model that communism was theorized to evolve from. But capitalism is also a form of anarchy that cultures in different social stages have tried to tame along the way, especially under communism when it was a universal prohibition that brought the state down from corruption at the highest levels. Today, modern pirates use cryptocurrency to promote libertarian capitalism, which needs its own money supply to work in theory (gold being scarce) but the last guy that bought a pizza with bitcoin famously spent tens of billions in current US dollars. Socialism has the same problem as libertarianism, which is that just because there is an -ism, it doesn't point to one system, nor does it exist beyond a working proof. What typically ends up working is a stew that offends purists, especially those who conflate social ideals with morality control, since childhood.
posted by Brian B. at 9:13 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 9:13 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]
i had this whole thing typed up about how essentially everything people have been describing as "socialism" in this thread falls more naturally under the rubric of social liberalism, but then i deleted it all because i was being far too spiky at commenters who don't deserve spikiness. but in any case: state actions that are taken to moderate the excesses of capitalism while still maintaining the private ownership of productive property are properly understood as social liberalism rather than socialism. state interventions in the market — including relatively radical ones like the institution of price controls on certain commodities — aren't socialist in any meaningful way unless the state itself takes up ownership of productive property.
as such demanding that the state establish or reëstablish social welfare measures isn't a demand for socialism. it's a demand for social liberalism, a much different beast. diligently keeping an eye on the difference between socialism/socialism-inflected measures (state ownership, not state investment in but state ownership of, critical industries) and social liberalism (welfare systems, market and workplace regulations in the nominal interest of the public good, even relatively radical-seeming regulations like state mandated price controls) may seem fussy, but it is quite important to do in any conversation wherein people are trying to get serious thinking done. if you accidentally tuck all the concepts of social liberalism under the socialist blanket, you inevitably end up accidentally claiming that anything short of transferring the formal monopoly on the use of legitimate violence from the state to private capitalists is understood as somehow related to socialism.
note well that the capitalist system is itself predicated on the state maintaining its monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, and on the state using that monopoly to regulate commodity markets. when that monopoly is transferred to private capitalists the resulting system is no longer capitalism but instead something else. i will leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine a name for the "something else" alluded to at the end of the previous sentence.
posted by Sperry Topsider at 9:32 AM on March 3 [6 favorites]
as such demanding that the state establish or reëstablish social welfare measures isn't a demand for socialism. it's a demand for social liberalism, a much different beast. diligently keeping an eye on the difference between socialism/socialism-inflected measures (state ownership, not state investment in but state ownership of, critical industries) and social liberalism (welfare systems, market and workplace regulations in the nominal interest of the public good, even relatively radical-seeming regulations like state mandated price controls) may seem fussy, but it is quite important to do in any conversation wherein people are trying to get serious thinking done. if you accidentally tuck all the concepts of social liberalism under the socialist blanket, you inevitably end up accidentally claiming that anything short of transferring the formal monopoly on the use of legitimate violence from the state to private capitalists is understood as somehow related to socialism.
note well that the capitalist system is itself predicated on the state maintaining its monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, and on the state using that monopoly to regulate commodity markets. when that monopoly is transferred to private capitalists the resulting system is no longer capitalism but instead something else. i will leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine a name for the "something else" alluded to at the end of the previous sentence.
posted by Sperry Topsider at 9:32 AM on March 3 [6 favorites]
METAFILTER: a stew that offends purists, especially those who conflate social ideals with morality control, since childhood.
posted by philip-random at 9:39 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 9:39 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]
Canine cancer would still exist under socialism, as far as I can tell.
Weakly-regulated capitalism IS contributing to canine cancer rates, because all of the following are profitable and "free market capitalists" are loath to regulate the people/companies that make them or enforce existing laws against them: highly-processed pet food, home and garden pesticides, and puppy mills that freely crossbreed for appearance and not health. Not only that, this type of causality is both diffuse and the result of many different parties (corporation employees, corporation shareholders, politicians, and most importantly exhausted and broke pet owners) being entrained in a system where unregulated capitalism is the bedrock and they are compelled to act both for and against their own self-interest... leading to a very reasonable and actually quite nuanced reaction of "ugh, capitalism" from people who know why, who know they're complicit, and know there's very little they can personally do about it.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 9:39 AM on March 3 [11 favorites]
Weakly-regulated capitalism IS contributing to canine cancer rates, because all of the following are profitable and "free market capitalists" are loath to regulate the people/companies that make them or enforce existing laws against them: highly-processed pet food, home and garden pesticides, and puppy mills that freely crossbreed for appearance and not health. Not only that, this type of causality is both diffuse and the result of many different parties (corporation employees, corporation shareholders, politicians, and most importantly exhausted and broke pet owners) being entrained in a system where unregulated capitalism is the bedrock and they are compelled to act both for and against their own self-interest... leading to a very reasonable and actually quite nuanced reaction of "ugh, capitalism" from people who know why, who know they're complicit, and know there's very little they can personally do about it.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 9:39 AM on March 3 [11 favorites]
Generally speaking, people who think they have located a social ill that is not, at the very least, made worse by capitalism, are just not looking hard enough.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:42 AM on March 3 [5 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:42 AM on March 3 [5 favorites]
I mean, is this line of thinking anything but a simple lack of human compassion? Someone is suffering and verbalizing that suffering in a manner that the writer finds distasteful and rather than responding to the situation with concern and curiosity, the writer responds with an "well, actually capitalism has lead to the greatest creation of wealth the world has ever known . . ." I mean, is it really any deeper than that?
Now, if I'm being my better self I can understand the writer's response to hearing pain by chiding it and correcting it as itself a form of suffering. He is unconsciously working hard to block awareness of another human being's plight because he likely has the unacknowledged/unconscious belief that there is no way to address the other person's pain (either emotionally or materially/politically). Basically this guy and presumably a lot of liberals who share his politics and stance towards unsophisticated or distasteful expressions of pain don't have a lot of emotional bravery or true conviction in their stated beliefs. I mean, if capitalism or the status quo is so amazing then certainly it can handle a serious consideration of the opinions and experiences of those who claim to be negatively affected by it? But their stance is always just "shut up hippie" (or whoever they're finding annoying in the moment).
posted by flamk at 9:43 AM on March 3 [5 favorites]
Now, if I'm being my better self I can understand the writer's response to hearing pain by chiding it and correcting it as itself a form of suffering. He is unconsciously working hard to block awareness of another human being's plight because he likely has the unacknowledged/unconscious belief that there is no way to address the other person's pain (either emotionally or materially/politically). Basically this guy and presumably a lot of liberals who share his politics and stance towards unsophisticated or distasteful expressions of pain don't have a lot of emotional bravery or true conviction in their stated beliefs. I mean, if capitalism or the status quo is so amazing then certainly it can handle a serious consideration of the opinions and experiences of those who claim to be negatively affected by it? But their stance is always just "shut up hippie" (or whoever they're finding annoying in the moment).
posted by flamk at 9:43 AM on March 3 [5 favorites]
... and ummm, yeah whatever, there's nothing particularly wrong with Capitalism that can't be countered by a strong sense of social democracy, effective taxation, and when necessary, eating the fucking rich.
posted by philip-random at 9:45 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 9:45 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
Is this a comedy joke
I dunno, given the sudden explosion of non-comedy jokes all over the place, I think we need a special qualifier at the moment, like the way the US apparently needs the phrase "space aliens"
posted by Jon Mitchell at 9:45 AM on March 3 [4 favorites]
I dunno, given the sudden explosion of non-comedy jokes all over the place, I think we need a special qualifier at the moment, like the way the US apparently needs the phrase "space aliens"
posted by Jon Mitchell at 9:45 AM on March 3 [4 favorites]
if you accidentally tuck all the concepts of social liberalism under the socialist blanket, you inevitably end up accidentally claiming that anything short of transferring the formal monopoly on the use of legitimate violence from the state to private capitalists is understood as somehow socialist.
And I'd note that's precisely what conservatives have been doing for the past forty years, and "ugh, capitalism" is a natural reaction to that behavior. If they're going to disingenuously deny any nuance in the conversation because it suits them to brand even the smallest attempt at market regulation as the devil's own marxism, then why not paint capitalism with similar broad strokes?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:50 AM on March 3 [8 favorites]
And I'd note that's precisely what conservatives have been doing for the past forty years, and "ugh, capitalism" is a natural reaction to that behavior. If they're going to disingenuously deny any nuance in the conversation because it suits them to brand even the smallest attempt at market regulation as the devil's own marxism, then why not paint capitalism with similar broad strokes?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:50 AM on March 3 [8 favorites]
'Ugh, capitalism' could be more correctly written 'ugh, whatever this thing is whose proponents are calling capitalism, but which appears to be corporatist fascism', without making Grossman any less essential.
I also think there's a discussion to be had about the difference between thingists, people who think thing is important and useful and should be used more, and thingismists, who are only interested in architecting and policing thingism's system of thought. The discussion might resonate with that earlier thread about Zizians.
Finally it's illegal to talk about annoying purists without linking to this. Or at least, it's illegal in my future regime.
posted by BCMagee at 10:15 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
I also think there's a discussion to be had about the difference between thingists, people who think thing is important and useful and should be used more, and thingismists, who are only interested in architecting and policing thingism's system of thought. The discussion might resonate with that earlier thread about Zizians.
Finally it's illegal to talk about annoying purists without linking to this. Or at least, it's illegal in my future regime.
posted by BCMagee at 10:15 AM on March 3 [2 favorites]
The piece read like that sober guy who thinks he's an intellectual because he's arguing with drunks.
Buried in the footnotes is this gem:
I sort of envy Johnson's oblivion and misunderstanding to reach his conclusion that "grief is hard" because Petersen just doesn't like the WASPy work ethic. Imagine a life where loss and grief are mere intellectual things. Johnson just doesn't seem to be able to relate to this grief, doesn't seem to understand it at even a superficial level and so feels free to bend into something that fits his conclusion, just because "sometimes life imitates art."
This essay isn't art, and we are talking about death. But Johnson didn't just keep the canine cancer bit, he directly shit on Petersen because he felt that making his rhetorical point was more important.
posted by zenon at 10:18 AM on March 3 [11 favorites]
Buried in the footnotes is this gem:
In a very odd coincidence, Anne Helen Petersen’s dog died the day before I published this. She wrote a very thoughtful post about it, but still couldn’t resist taking a shot at the ‘White Christian Protestant Work Ethic’ as the reason grief is hard. Not blaming capitalism, but certainly something similar. I wrote the dog metaphor more than a week ago, but sometimes life imitates art.It's like he read Petersen's piece and just didn't understand that the piece ended by thanking her audience for the time and space they gave her to grieve her loss. Petersen's social expectation is that she must remain productive, that the "Protestant Work Ethic that demands the sublimation of grief", and she is thankful she didn't lose her job and was able to grieve.
I sort of envy Johnson's oblivion and misunderstanding to reach his conclusion that "grief is hard" because Petersen just doesn't like the WASPy work ethic. Imagine a life where loss and grief are mere intellectual things. Johnson just doesn't seem to be able to relate to this grief, doesn't seem to understand it at even a superficial level and so feels free to bend into something that fits his conclusion, just because "sometimes life imitates art."
This essay isn't art, and we are talking about death. But Johnson didn't just keep the canine cancer bit, he directly shit on Petersen because he felt that making his rhetorical point was more important.
posted by zenon at 10:18 AM on March 3 [11 favorites]
as such demanding that the state establish or reëstablish social welfare measures isn't a demand for socialism. it's a demand for social liberalism, a much different beast. diligently keeping an eye on the difference between socialism/socialism-inflected measures (state ownership, not state investment in but state ownership of, critical industries) and social liberalism (welfare systems, market and workplace regulations in the nominal interest of the public good, even relatively radical-seeming regulations like state mandated price controls) may seem fussy, but it is quite important to do in any conversation wherein people are trying to get serious thinking done.
Fair enough, As i said, I'm no economist. In the UK, I can think of several state-owned areas that have been privatised in my life time - British Gas (and relatedly, the electric national grid and several power generation companies), and British Rail spring to mind as part of the divestment of state ownership under Thatcher. All three have been terrible deals for british consumers in basic terms. Electricity and gas prices as of 2019, i.e. pre covid and ukraine, went up - electric by 1/3, gas by 1/2 in real terms. They have both roughly doubled since, leading to a real crisis for low-income families with a lack of social tariff, and even direct market intervention - the aforemention price caps - were an expensive business as the government paid the difference direct to the energy companies. Meanwhile, fossil fuel profits in private hands have absolutely soared. Of note, several of the 'last mile' distribution companies are substantially owned by other european state-owned energy companies, e.g. EDF, and they make good profits out of it.
British Rail definitely had its issues, but I don't think anyone who's actually had to use the train network in the last 30 years thinks privatization has been a success. They're very expensive, often delayed, sometimes dirty, and often very crowded. Several train operating companies have had to walk away from contracts, and others will return when their contracts are up due to Labour legislation. Railtrack, the private company that ownership of the physical infastructure other than trains was transferred to got itself into serious financial difficulty and had to be rescued by government taking ownership again under Network Rail.
British Telecom was more successful in private hands with chinese walls and strict regulation, but again, has had to have huge subsidies of public money to upgrade our ancient copper network, and prices for phone and broadband rise above inflation every single year and have for years; returning it to public ownership eventually, as many are across Europe seems a distinct possibility.
In all three cases, socialism was abandoned for private ownership, to the detriment of the public. A bunch of shareholders did very well out of it though; some of them pension funds, a lot of them middle eastern oil firms or offshore venture capital investment firms.
The last example is the privatization of the water system. Anyone who's read the British news headlines for the last couple of years will be under no illusion that that has lead to massive outflows of sewage into public waterways, poor service, and soaring real-terms bills (the latest round has just been approved by the regulator, and mine are going up 20% in a couple of months) because a lot of the money that was supposed to be invested in infrastructure improvements has instead gone to dividends to large investors, to the tune of £85 billion extracted since privatization.
The NHS remains a public-owned and operated service, and it has saved my own life and my wife's at no direct cost. We look at americans paying $20,000 just to give birth with outright bafflement or incredulity. Is the NHS under-invested to pay for the rising costs of an aging population, and struggling with the impact of social care underfunding (bed blocking etc)? Sure, and it needs more, and losing a ton of EU staff due to Brexit sucked. But it is an incredibly loved British institution, and it's pretty damn socialist.
The Labour party was popular under Corbyn - but not popular enough, as socialism and unions have become a dirty words thanks to Murdoch et al - running on a widescale program of retaking ownership of public services back into public hands. They've scaled that back a lot, but it's ongoing, and still popular - as long as you don't actually call it socialism.
Much of the EU never sold off their state-owned industries, and are far better off for it IMO - the increased costs of energy falling on consumers were overall far less for state-owned companies. Open to counter examples of course!
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 10:52 AM on March 3 [9 favorites]
Fair enough, As i said, I'm no economist. In the UK, I can think of several state-owned areas that have been privatised in my life time - British Gas (and relatedly, the electric national grid and several power generation companies), and British Rail spring to mind as part of the divestment of state ownership under Thatcher. All three have been terrible deals for british consumers in basic terms. Electricity and gas prices as of 2019, i.e. pre covid and ukraine, went up - electric by 1/3, gas by 1/2 in real terms. They have both roughly doubled since, leading to a real crisis for low-income families with a lack of social tariff, and even direct market intervention - the aforemention price caps - were an expensive business as the government paid the difference direct to the energy companies. Meanwhile, fossil fuel profits in private hands have absolutely soared. Of note, several of the 'last mile' distribution companies are substantially owned by other european state-owned energy companies, e.g. EDF, and they make good profits out of it.
British Rail definitely had its issues, but I don't think anyone who's actually had to use the train network in the last 30 years thinks privatization has been a success. They're very expensive, often delayed, sometimes dirty, and often very crowded. Several train operating companies have had to walk away from contracts, and others will return when their contracts are up due to Labour legislation. Railtrack, the private company that ownership of the physical infastructure other than trains was transferred to got itself into serious financial difficulty and had to be rescued by government taking ownership again under Network Rail.
British Telecom was more successful in private hands with chinese walls and strict regulation, but again, has had to have huge subsidies of public money to upgrade our ancient copper network, and prices for phone and broadband rise above inflation every single year and have for years; returning it to public ownership eventually, as many are across Europe seems a distinct possibility.
In all three cases, socialism was abandoned for private ownership, to the detriment of the public. A bunch of shareholders did very well out of it though; some of them pension funds, a lot of them middle eastern oil firms or offshore venture capital investment firms.
The last example is the privatization of the water system. Anyone who's read the British news headlines for the last couple of years will be under no illusion that that has lead to massive outflows of sewage into public waterways, poor service, and soaring real-terms bills (the latest round has just been approved by the regulator, and mine are going up 20% in a couple of months) because a lot of the money that was supposed to be invested in infrastructure improvements has instead gone to dividends to large investors, to the tune of £85 billion extracted since privatization.
The NHS remains a public-owned and operated service, and it has saved my own life and my wife's at no direct cost. We look at americans paying $20,000 just to give birth with outright bafflement or incredulity. Is the NHS under-invested to pay for the rising costs of an aging population, and struggling with the impact of social care underfunding (bed blocking etc)? Sure, and it needs more, and losing a ton of EU staff due to Brexit sucked. But it is an incredibly loved British institution, and it's pretty damn socialist.
The Labour party was popular under Corbyn - but not popular enough, as socialism and unions have become a dirty words thanks to Murdoch et al - running on a widescale program of retaking ownership of public services back into public hands. They've scaled that back a lot, but it's ongoing, and still popular - as long as you don't actually call it socialism.
Much of the EU never sold off their state-owned industries, and are far better off for it IMO - the increased costs of energy falling on consumers were overall far less for state-owned companies. Open to counter examples of course!
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 10:52 AM on March 3 [9 favorites]
Johnson's article is pretty weak sauce, although as others in the thread have observed, there's a kernel of truth to what he's saying—and it points toward the opposite of his conclusions. The way we talk about capitalism—the "rhetoric of economics," to use D. McCloskey's term—is fully in line with Adam Smith's seemingly agentless and irresistible "invisible hand." But there were economic phenomena before capitalism, and there will be economic phenomena after capitalism: the fact that people with power concentrated their economic resources to leverage that power in various ancient societies does not make them capitalists, any more than the presence of markets made ancient societies capitalist. Marxian and heterodox economists have been making this point for a long time. J. K. Gibson-Graham describes a "shift. . . from an understanding of the economy as something that can be transformed, or at least managed (by people, the state, the IMF), to something that governs society" (New Keywords, "Economy" 96). According to Gibson-Graham, this shift relies upon "a hegemonic move through which representations of economy have slipped from their locations in discourse and landed 'on the ground,' in the 'real,' not just separate from but outside of society" (A Postcapitalist Politics 53), to the point where "the term economy now denotes "a force to be reckoned with outside of politics and society, located both above as a mystical abstraction, and below as the grounded bottom line" (Gibson-Graham New Keywords "Economy" 94). Gibson-Graham, Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff describe "the operations of a discourse that places capitalism at the defining center of economic identity. All other forms of production are seen as opposite (and therefore deficient), complementary, the same as, or contained within capitalism; they are measured against a capitalist norm" (13), and conclude that "to the extent that the economy has been taken from us—represented as removed from the forces of social and discursive construction—it becomes important and urgent to take it back, not as a homogenous and unified level, sphere, or system, but as a discursive terrain" (2).
posted by vitia at 12:00 PM on March 3 [7 favorites]
posted by vitia at 12:00 PM on March 3 [7 favorites]
For those interested in Gibson-Graham's work, communityeconomies.org is a solid place to start.
posted by vitia at 12:03 PM on March 3 [4 favorites]
posted by vitia at 12:03 PM on March 3 [4 favorites]
Yes, it’s very important for americans to have a way to signal they are a gOod AMeriKenz.
posted by lastobelus at 12:19 PM on March 3 [1 favorite]
posted by lastobelus at 12:19 PM on March 3 [1 favorite]
I missed the memo but it must be Dick Monday again
2 Johnsons on the FP and a literal dick post
Friday better be.. labiaful or somesuch
posted by ginger.beef at 12:29 PM on March 3 [4 favorites]
2 Johnsons on the FP and a literal dick post
Friday better be.. labiaful or somesuch
posted by ginger.beef at 12:29 PM on March 3 [4 favorites]
Related, an old essay from Leszek Kolakowski that came to my attention during the previous Trump admin. (Taken from a blog, because old academic essays are hard to find): “How to be a Conservative-Liberal-Socialist”
posted by Going To Maine at 12:45 PM on March 3 [2 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 12:45 PM on March 3 [2 favorites]
(The idea that people on the left are arbitrarily blaming capitalism for wealth disparity without having a particularly formed critique and as a fashion statement without any real investment in changing the system seems pretty noncontroversial to me. It also seems noncontroversial that the right has taken to fetishizing capitalism without any discourse about the nature of the system.)
posted by Going To Maine at 12:55 PM on March 3 [4 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 12:55 PM on March 3 [4 favorites]
it's somewhat fair to blame capitalism for wealth disparity but what annoys me is when people blame stuff on capitalism that is equally explained by evil not having yet been eliminated from the hearts of men, and probably will persist under whatever socialist or feudalist future comes next
like, people who blame literally everything on profit motives, with the implication that humans will simply become angels once profit has been eliminated. no! things are harder than that!
posted by BungaDunga at 1:04 PM on March 3 [6 favorites]
like, people who blame literally everything on profit motives, with the implication that humans will simply become angels once profit has been eliminated. no! things are harder than that!
posted by BungaDunga at 1:04 PM on March 3 [6 favorites]
You mean I need to have a well-formed critique and demonstrate an investment in reforming the system just to provocatively express my frustration in a simple and easily relatable way?
It's no wonder we're always losing the messaging war.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:14 PM on March 3 [5 favorites]
It's no wonder we're always losing the messaging war.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:14 PM on March 3 [5 favorites]
Capitalism may not make men evil, but it sure does make evil easier
posted by lefty lucky cat at 1:20 PM on March 3 [7 favorites]
posted by lefty lucky cat at 1:20 PM on March 3 [7 favorites]
Yeah, there's a reason people call it "capitalism" rather than "marketism" or "profitism," but Marx's critique has been so dumbed-down and mainstreamed that a lot of us have lost sight of how the "capital" in "capitalism" works. Billionaires and Marxists agree that the proper functioning of capital under capitalism is to facilitate the ever-increasing efficiency of separating surplus time from people who need to sell their labor—but they tend to have different attitudes toward it. (In that one group calls it "appropriation" and the other group calls it "productivity".)
The insight that Ernest Mandel and other theorists of "late capitalism" offer, particularly Resnick and Wolff, comes from a reading of Capital volume 2 wherein one sees the processes of appropriation of value as defining one's relationship to capital. If you're a capitalist, you want to appropriate the value of your worker's wage labor by buying and selling in market transactions and enterprises—but that appropriation hides all the non-market forms of the appropriation of value that constitute economic activity, such as caring labor, gift transactions, theft, barter, appropriation of the value of one's own labor through learning or art, alternative currencies, co-ops, activities that rely on the power structures of feudalism (i.e., housework) and enslavement (i.e., prison labor), and so on. "Capitalism" as the epoch or general name for the widespread economic system that we use to describe what's been going on since late C18 is not the same as "capitalism" as a precise economic descriptor for types of enterprise, activity, and transaction.
posted by vitia at 1:33 PM on March 3 [3 favorites]
The insight that Ernest Mandel and other theorists of "late capitalism" offer, particularly Resnick and Wolff, comes from a reading of Capital volume 2 wherein one sees the processes of appropriation of value as defining one's relationship to capital. If you're a capitalist, you want to appropriate the value of your worker's wage labor by buying and selling in market transactions and enterprises—but that appropriation hides all the non-market forms of the appropriation of value that constitute economic activity, such as caring labor, gift transactions, theft, barter, appropriation of the value of one's own labor through learning or art, alternative currencies, co-ops, activities that rely on the power structures of feudalism (i.e., housework) and enslavement (i.e., prison labor), and so on. "Capitalism" as the epoch or general name for the widespread economic system that we use to describe what's been going on since late C18 is not the same as "capitalism" as a precise economic descriptor for types of enterprise, activity, and transaction.
posted by vitia at 1:33 PM on March 3 [3 favorites]
Ctrl-F any actual understanding of why people hate late capitalism... huh, nada.
When the first explanation he comes up with is "status", it's clear that he not only has no case, but he's going to rely on precisely the attitude— unserious smugness— that he thinks he's condemning.
posted by zompist at 2:09 PM on March 3 [5 favorites]
When the first explanation he comes up with is "status", it's clear that he not only has no case, but he's going to rely on precisely the attitude— unserious smugness— that he thinks he's condemning.
posted by zompist at 2:09 PM on March 3 [5 favorites]
Finally! The hearty defense of exploitative economic policy that our world desperately needs!
Do you know what i blame this hilariously on the nose parody of an off the cuff barely glanced at the blog post top thread favorite snaffling mefi comment on?
posted by Sebmojo at 3:04 PM on March 3 [7 favorites]
Do you know what i blame this hilariously on the nose parody of an off the cuff barely glanced at the blog post top thread favorite snaffling mefi comment on?
posted by Sebmojo at 3:04 PM on March 3 [7 favorites]
This is a terrible and sophomoric article. Hopefully this guy is just a random self-promoter and doesn’t have more than a couple dozen readers, because it’s just bollocks upon bollocks.
posted by caviar2d2 at 3:30 PM on March 4
posted by caviar2d2 at 3:30 PM on March 4
Ctrl-F any actual understanding of why people hate late capitalism… huh, nada.
I mean, the central argument of the article is that most popular press references to “late capitalism” are generally style-driven comments that use “late-capitalism” as synecdoche for “the unfair status quo”, so… yes? I would personally be interested in more popular-press analysis of this, but I am a pedant and bad at messaging so probably shouldn’t be trusted.
At least in the case of the radicchio article, radicchio is considered “only semi-jokingly” by a small farmer to be a tool for dismantling late-stage capitalism because you’d be supporting small farmers. But there’s no reason big farms wouldn’t start having radicchio if it gets popular, making it a tool of capitalism, so it’s not exactly a tool for anything but re-orienting the market and (at the moment) for supporting a local biz. Which, great, but it’s pretty obviously a joking aside. However, if we can't have joking asides I’m not sure what the point of protesting the status quo is, so…
posted by Going To Maine at 11:00 AM on March 5 [1 favorite]
I mean, the central argument of the article is that most popular press references to “late capitalism” are generally style-driven comments that use “late-capitalism” as synecdoche for “the unfair status quo”, so… yes? I would personally be interested in more popular-press analysis of this, but I am a pedant and bad at messaging so probably shouldn’t be trusted.
At least in the case of the radicchio article, radicchio is considered “only semi-jokingly” by a small farmer to be a tool for dismantling late-stage capitalism because you’d be supporting small farmers. But there’s no reason big farms wouldn’t start having radicchio if it gets popular, making it a tool of capitalism, so it’s not exactly a tool for anything but re-orienting the market and (at the moment) for supporting a local biz. Which, great, but it’s pretty obviously a joking aside. However, if we can't have joking asides I’m not sure what the point of protesting the status quo is, so…
posted by Going To Maine at 11:00 AM on March 5 [1 favorite]
Also adjacent:
“‘If men would behave decently the world would be decent’ is not such a platitude as it sounds.”
— George Orwell, “Charles Dickens”
posted by Going To Maine at 12:25 PM on March 5 [4 favorites]
“‘If men would behave decently the world would be decent’ is not such a platitude as it sounds.”
— George Orwell, “Charles Dickens”
posted by Going To Maine at 12:25 PM on March 5 [4 favorites]
"Capitalism" is a problematic term because you can't ever get someone who advocates for the status quo to admit to a definition of it, see the first paragraph of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
it's further problematized by the fact that the most well-known opponents of capitalism actually had a high regard of it (thought it was the most advanced development of civilization up to that point) and one could make the case that the greatest accomplishment of Communism in the USSR and China was starving peasants and feeding back the profits to invest in industrialization, nuclear weapons, and such. (... and today people admire China for being willing to invest in public transportation and its economic dynamism in that it is capable of coming up with new social networks and innovative products)
The "system" as it is doesn't want to have a name because it really wants to be that thing that "there is no alternative" to to quote Margaret Thatcher. It has elements of markets, individualism, finance capital, and periphery-core organization, at the very least but if you take the long view you realize markets have been around as long around as people have lived in towns, and even if most of us are colonized with a merchant mindset, certainly some people had that mindset in ancient Rome, such as probably the Corinthians that Paul wrote that letter to.
posted by devonianfarm at 2:56 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
it's further problematized by the fact that the most well-known opponents of capitalism actually had a high regard of it (thought it was the most advanced development of civilization up to that point) and one could make the case that the greatest accomplishment of Communism in the USSR and China was starving peasants and feeding back the profits to invest in industrialization, nuclear weapons, and such. (... and today people admire China for being willing to invest in public transportation and its economic dynamism in that it is capable of coming up with new social networks and innovative products)
The "system" as it is doesn't want to have a name because it really wants to be that thing that "there is no alternative" to to quote Margaret Thatcher. It has elements of markets, individualism, finance capital, and periphery-core organization, at the very least but if you take the long view you realize markets have been around as long around as people have lived in towns, and even if most of us are colonized with a merchant mindset, certainly some people had that mindset in ancient Rome, such as probably the Corinthians that Paul wrote that letter to.
posted by devonianfarm at 2:56 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]
Devonianfarm, you offer some good analysis with those links, but you seem to imply that the validity of economics is about declared intentions and not about bad outcomes to avoid. It could be that this is the main disagreement between any two observers.
posted by Brian B. at 10:36 AM on March 16
posted by Brian B. at 10:36 AM on March 16
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Perhaps the phrase is actually a response to the system of exploiting the global working class to create a handful of obscenely wealthy men who are currently leading the world into an inescapable abyss, but, no, the author's right. It's just vibes.
posted by papayaninja at 3:20 AM on March 3 [30 favorites]