by Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker Blog
Oh – did you have one?
Well… we’re waiting.
But we will certainly be waiting in vain because the “best” US economic minds, journalists, professors and pundits got nuthin’. Even God’s gift to American society – CEOs and bankers – are hoping nobody calls on them for an answer.
This is an era of not just total economic disaster in the US but also an era of complete intellectual disaster. The chicken’s head has been cut off, yet the body (the American system/ideology, which is undoubtedly based upon capitalism-imperialism) still runs around.
I’ll skip to the end: whatever solution they come up with WILL DEFINITELY be some form of socialist-inspired policy… but the US will, true to form, remain totally untruthful about obvious truths (and thus mired in societal chaos).
The only solution to 50 million unemployed people is the redistribution of wealth downwards (first pillar of socialism) and the redistribution of political power downwards (second pillar of socialism); the latter is achieved via creating governmental institutions – staffed from all levels and sectors of society but especially at the upper management level – which establish the bureaucracy required to actually implement and sustain said redistributions intelligently, efficiently and in an egalitarian manner.
Those aren’t opinions but facts. Capitalists not having any solutions is another fact and not an opinion. These truths are so self-evident that I don’t even feel like arguing about it, so let’s argue about something else.
Why is the US talking about banning the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians but not the Minnesota Vikings or the Notre Dame Fighting Irish? It’s ok to have ethnic mascots, as long as that ethnicity has white-coloured skin? Seems rather inegalitarian to me, and bound to backfire into resentment and nihilism. And surely some sensitive hillbillies object to the Indiana Hoosiers, while the New York Mets (Metropolitans) clearly venerates urban citizens to an unfair degree. On this subject I constantly read the anti-non-White-mascot view, but nobody seems to analyse the intellectual weakness of their argument from a leftist point of view, and the reason for that is: the US economic and intellectual 1% sure as heck don’t want to talk about their total inability to deal with serious stuff, so they thrilled to talk instead about Cleveland’s smiling Chief Wahoo.
Easy solution: don’t decrease the number of “people” mascots but increase them. As an Iranian I’d love to see the Boston “Baluch” take the field, any field. Even a rink. After all, the Baluch are an ethnic tribe in the southeast who are certainly as tough as any Metropolitan. Truly, this is a socialist-inspired solution: venerate and protect ethnic identities equally one and all, and that’s why Armenians, Jews, Assyrians and Zoroastrians have guaranteed seats in Iranian parliament and affirmative action for the non-Han is all over China. The inequality of this latest identity politics battle is obvious to every American and only increases everyone’s stress level, but the only solution remains either to ban all ethnic mascots or make every ethnic tribe a mascot. Isn’t the latter more interesting and informative – had you ever even head of the Baluch until today? Both me and the kids would much rather see and could possibly learn a lot about Maoris, Zulus & Fighting Bretons than lame cardinals, dolphins and other totally unintimidating mascots (I’m looking at you, Utah Jazz).
What a nice, useless and rather immature diversion that was! Unfortunately for the US 1% I have solved this fake problem, so back to awful July 2020 reality:
France’s new prime minister/Macronian puppet has ruled out a second lockdown even if there is a second wave, saying that the economic and social cost was just too much. If you wouldn’t try something again, doesn’t that mean you rather wish you had never tried it at all? Europe’s economic chaos won’t become clear until they come back from vacation in September and things get back to “normal” – that will be the “economic 2nd wave” for the Western bloc, while the US part of that bloc is taking all their economic lumps in their still-ongoing first wave. Medically, the incredibly overweight, overstressed and governmentally-neglected US is also, predictably, having a longer first wave of Covid-19 than anyone else.
Cases are currently increasing in the entire southern half of the US, but deaths are not. This seems rather important, no? Check the chronometer – it is not April anymore: deaths are about 60% of what they were back then, proving times do change even if hysterical people do not. Check also those spring predictions: the Imperial College of London promised 100,000 deaths in non-Lockdown Sweden by June, but today there are only 5,500; incredibly, we still have London’s Daily Telegraph still quoting that discredited model as late on July 5th as though it was gospel. I would think that these realities – which are not “callous” but actually quite good news – should at least get a bit of discussion, but if you bring it up be prepared to have a single mother throw her shoe at you. Said Karens apparently have total confidence that the US can keep locking down into 2021 and that 75 million unemployed is no problem for the superbly-functioning US system?
Sure….
Again, the problem is that rabidly capitalist places like the US and UK have dismantled/never built the culture & bureaucracy needed to employ a nationwide lockdown – as I have said from the beginning: make the switch to socialism in economics and democracy and you can Lockdown all you want!
What’s that? I’m beating my head against the wall so it’s time for another diversion? Agreed: How about the Confederate flag controversy?
Here’s the thing: No Western nation, no matter how imperialist or fascist, has been asked to give up entirely the symbols of their past. Nobody is tearing down de Gaulle statues even though he was an imperialist who immediately bombed places like the Levant and Algeria after said peoples died en masse to save France from Germany. But the US South is being asked to entirely relinquish their past, and that’s just never going to fly because it’s unparalleled: it’s like asking Mongolia to give up Genghis Khan, whose success mainly rested not so much on fine horsemanship but upon his willingness to murder women and children en masse, and yet they built him the world’s biggest equestrian statue. No matter how big a Non-Mongolian Lives Matter movement gets – that’s not coming down.
While brutality and oppression did exist in 1864 the ideology of fascism simply did not, no matter how loudly a teenager incorrectly insists. The Confederate flag needs a socialist solution which respects the Southern US ethnic minority (which is exactly what they are), because eradicating the historic rebelliousness of the Confederate rebels will never be accepted by them.
It’s quite simple: just add a small Christian cross to differentiate to differentiate this new flag from the previous Confederate flag. Or add a huge cross and color it black to give slavery even more prominence – that gives the rare Black Cross of Texas flag. Christianity unites Southern Whites and Blacks, after all. This also shows that the Confederate flag is not the same as before and has been given a moral updating – that’s progress, not eradication from history, and furthers the goal of modern patriotic unity. Furthermore, from a socialist point of view there simply MUST be a way to separate White Southerners from slavery – poor whites were powerless class victims, of course – because castigating all Southern Whites is patently unfair and obviously fake-leftist identity politics. Of course, denying the primacy of class and claiming instead that skin color/ethnicity is more important is what capitalist-imperialists always do.
Another diversion and faux problem capably solved with a bit of socialist unity and modernity! Well, I admit that adding a Christian cross is a rather Islamic Socialist solution and not an Atheistic Socialist one, but to hell with them.
Ok, capitalism does indeed have a solution to 50 million jobless – massive domestic suffering combined with massive foreign deaths. Let’s examine the latter:
Can we crank up the war machine? Sorry, the US has too many allies now – Germany and Japan are part of a Western bloc that is totally governed by a colluding bankocracy and 1% which is totally united against their socialist-inspired enemies; but those enemies (China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela) have become too strong to fight; they couldn’t beat the Muslims, Vietnamese or Koreans, so they’re no longer candidates for opponents; who in Black Lives Matter will agree to be drafted to go fight some new, fabricated opponent in Africa? Anyway, the Pentagon is already the world’s biggest employer, so you mean crank it up even more? Thus, there is no militaristic solution – no WWIII for their Great Depression II.
Now let’s examine the former:
Can we take any more lands from Indians? Sorry – frontier done run out.
Can we steal any Black people’s wages? Sorry – that’s no longer a thing.
Can we debt enslave the average White Trash? Sorry – they are paying back their credit card debt at record rates, they are so scared about the future.
No, there is no capitalist solution to 50 million unemployed people. The true capitalist solution is massive suffering until things get so very, very bad that said things have no choice but to start to work out again, finally (i.e., following unregulated market forces).
There is, however, the old standby: “socialise the losses of the rich but keep calling it capitalism”. This worked out great for the 1% in 2008 and it’s working out just fine now… but it ain’t capitalism, and you are 1) dumber than a box of rocks, 2) fanatically indoctrinated to hate socialism, or 3) can’t be bothered to learn basic political definitions if you think that bailing out the 1% with taxpayer money/newly-printed money is somehow still capitalism.
But do a Google news search: even though socialism is the only economic and political ideology which can provide a solution to 50 million jobless people there are painfully few news articles discussing socialism, with the majority of them frantically warning against it. You can’t only blame Google’s anti-socialist algorithms for that.
You see now why this article was half stupid diversions? That’s the way America likes it… or, rather, that is what they are forced to like.
I originally planned to have this article’s headline to be, “Hey dummy: Capitalism has no answer for 50 million jobless people”. For those who still have faith that capitalism does have an answer – let’s just end it here.
*********************************
Corona contrarianism? How about some corona common sense? Here is my list of articles published regarding the corona crisis.
Capitalist-imperialist West stays home over corona – they grew a conscience? – March 22, 2020
Corona meds in every pot & a People’s QE: the Trumpian populism they hoped for? – March 23, 2020
A day’s diary from a US CEO during the Corona crisis (satire) March 23, 2020
– March 25, 2020
Tough times need vanguard parties – are ‘social media users’ the West’s? –
March 26, 2020
If Germany rejects Corona bonds they must quit the Eurozone – March 30,
2020
Landlord class: Waive or donate rent-profits now or fear the Cultural Revolution – March 31, 2020
Corona repeating 9/11 & Y2K hysterias? Both saw huge economic overreactions – April 1, 2020
(A Soviet?) Superman: Red Son – the new socialist film to watch on lockdown – April 2, 2020
Corona rewrites capitalist bust-chronology & proves: It’s the nation-state, stupid – April 3, 2020
Condensing the data leaves no doubt: Fear corona-economy more than the virus – April 5, 2020
‘We’re Going Wrong’: The West’s middling, middle-class corona response – April 10, 2020
Why does the UK have an ‘army’ of volunteers but the US has a shortage? – April 12, 2020
No buybacks allowed or dared? Then wave goodbye to Western stock market gains – April 13, 2020
Pity post-corona Millennials… if they don’t openly push socialism – April 14, 2020
No, the dollar will only strengthen post-corona, as usual: it’s a crisis, after all – April 16, 2020
Same 2008 QE playbook, but the Eurozone will kick off Western chaos not the US – April 18, 2020
We’re giving up our civil liberties. Fine, but to which type of state? – April 20,
2020
Coronavirus – Macron’s savior. A ‘united Europe’ – France’s murderer – April 22, 2020
The same 12-year itch: Will banks loan down QE money this time? – April 26,
2020
The end of globalisation won’t be televised, despite the hopes of the Western 99% (2/2) – April 27, 2020
What would it take for proponents to say: ‘The Great Lockdown was wrong’? – April 28, 2020
ZeroHedge, a response to Mr. Littlejohn & the future of dollar dominance – April 30, 2020
Given Western history, is it the ‘Great Segregation’ and not the ‘Great Lockdown’? – May 2, 2020
The Western 1% colluded to start WWI – is the Great Lockdown also a conspiracy? – May 4, 2020
May 17: The date the Great Lockdown must end or Everything Bubble 2 pops – May 6, 2020
Reading Piketty: Does corona delay the Greens’ fake-leftist, sure-to-fail victory? – May 8, 2020
Picturing the media campaign needed to get the US back to work – May 11, 2020
Scarce jobs + revenue desperation = sure Western stagflation post-corona – May 13, 2020
France’s nurses march – are they now deplorable Michiganders to fake-leftists? – May 15, 2020
Why haven’t we called it ‘QE 5’ yet? And why we must call it ‘QE 2.1’ instead – May 16, 2020
‘Take your stinking paws off me, you damned, dirty public servant!’ That’s Orwell? – May 17, 2021
The Great Lockdown: The political apex of US single Moms & Western matriarchy? May 21, 2021
I was wrong on corona – by not pushing for a US Cultural Revolution immediately – May 25, 2021
August 1: when the unemployment runs out and a new era of US labor battles begin – May 28, 2021
Corona proving the loser of the Cold War was both the USSR & the USA – May 30, 2021
Rebellions across the US: Why worry? Just ask Dr. Fauci to tell us what to do – June 2, 2021
Protesting, corona-conscience, a good dole: the US is doing things it can’t & it’s chaos – June 3, 2021
Why do Westerners assume all African-Americans are leftists? – June 5, 2020
The US as Sal’s Pizzeria: When to ‘Do The Right Thing’ is looting – June 6, 2020
The problem with the various ‘Fiat is all the problem!’ (FIATP) crowds – June 9, 2020
Politicisation of Great Lockdown result of ‘TINA’ economic ignorance & censorship – June 14, 2020
Trump’s only hope: buying re-election with populist jobless benefits – June, 16 2020
US national media is useless – so tell me the good local news sources? – July 4, 2020
Hamilton movie: central banker worship & proof the US has no left – July 8, 2020
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of the books ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’ and the NEW ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’.
“The only solution to 50 million unemployed people is the redistribution of wealth downwards (first pillar of socialism) and the redistribution of political power downwards (second pillar of socialism); the latter is achieved via creating governmental institutions – staffed from all levels and sectors of society but especially at the upper management level – which establish the bureaucracy required to actually implement and sustain said redistributions intelligently, efficiently and in an egalitarian manner.”
Some Feynman were of the view that religion is belief and science doubt.
Perhaps you should remember that the first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
UK sit….virus cost 135 b so far 2 trillion debt now. Billions wasted on track trace not working..overpriced PPE….60000 jobs last week…shopping centres some going bankrupt….many high streets not back to anyway normal shopping numbers…PM and others say office workers should return to their expensive blocks and spend in coffee shops restaurants…..many want to stay as home workers and bosses do not want to pay big rents hence comm. property values could be affected as so much is digital networking now . Less commuters…less money for trains buses and metro systems. UK relies a lot on booze and barf cultures….pampering and indulgence services and suchlike miriads of therapies for everything and holidays. Not seen much support for industries eg Rolls Royce workerz early retirement only one example. Been big changes in shopping habits anyways …more internet…so v. has just accelerated it maybe turning it all upside down. To me it seems that UK is fast following the USA style of economy and attempted solutions….and maybe fast catching up with disaster. All knock on effects pensions savings etc.
So much of small and heavy machinery is purchased from abroad….trains.. building demolition machines….lorries etc etc. Not sure what is left in UK except JCB.
Big big heavy and heaving sighs…..ruination?
Plus another 260000 redundant soon from high st shops….councils who invested in commercial property etc to fund social services fear their income is going to drop by nearly 650 million too…expect lots of special care cuts…….
Further info
In a bleak new assessment, the government’s OBR watchdog warned tax rises and spending cuts – potentially as much as 7p on the basic rate of income tax – are inevitable as it poured cold water on hopes of a ‘V-shaped’ bounceback from coronavirus.
It said GDP will fall by up to 14 per cent this year, the worst recession in 300 years, with national debt bigger than the whole economy. Underlining the scale of the hit, government liabilities will be £710billion more than previously expected by 2023-4. That is equivalent to nearly £11,000 for every man, woman and child in the UK.
Output might not return to last year’s level until the end of 2024, according to the estimates. Accounting for inflation, the country will still be 6 per cent poorer in 2025 in the gloomiest outcome.
Meanwhile, unemployment could peak at 13 per cent in the first quarter of 2021 – which would mean more than four million people on the dole queue. That would be significantly worse than the 11.9 per cent jobless rate from 1984, and the highest since modern records began in the 1970s. The ‘central’ forecast is that 15 per cent of the 9.4million furloughed jobs will be lost.
Etc etc
Office for budgetary responsibity.
Sorry, Ramin, we already know that “capitalism” has no answer to 50 million jobless people because there is no such thing as true capitalism in the USA and never has been. As you said, it’s always been socialism for the 1% and dog-eat-dog for everyone else. There was never some halcyon time of simple farmers and tradesmen engaging in pure capitalism in the USA. It was always about stealing land from native Americans and mining it until it was ruined. Then, moving on, stealing some more land, and finally pillaging the whole planet of its resources and grabbing all you could get from actual working people.
The current COVID-19 plandemic is cover for the latest corporate bankster looting of the US treasury to the tune of at least $7 trillion and putting it on the tab of the working class. We have absolutely no say in how this heist is being carried out because both major parties are beholden to same ultra-rich, ultra-powerful and ultra-inhuman entities.
This, again, from Peter Koenig explains it all. Why don’t you read it before writing your next essay.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/global-reset-unplugged/5716178
Atlanta Braves?
You might like this?
https://twitter.com/HenryMakow/status/1281949258640437253?s=20
newsflash:
Capitalism doesn’t need at least 100+ million workers anymore, due to automation. That is what the fake Corona virus epidemic is all about.
Capitalist would really prefer those 100+ million workers go away and die. And they will, sooner than later.
Capitalism doesn’t need “consumers” anymore, nor it needs “workers”; it is functioning perfectly fine by buying each other’s bonds and stocks. This is how Apple recently get boots in its stock price: some company is Switzerland bough a bunch of Apple stock, sending it sky high.
This has been known for a few years now.
Socialism is hopeless. What I’d like to see is every family self-sufficient on its own land.
traducteur said:
“What I’d like to see is every family self-sufficient on its own land.”
Up until the world’s population is locked down and snooped upon 24/7, even harried in their bathrooms due to quotas on toilet paper, globalists will continue to hate ABUNDANT ENERGY.
Energy limitation through eco propaganda, CAGW propaganda … is their dreamed for control mechanism, even down to a quota on toilet paper.
Abundant energy has been around since the most eminent physicist Alvin Weinberg gifted it to the world in the 1950’s. The administration told him to go fly a kite.
Abundant energy is the agent of change: abundance in searching out and gathering primary materials, abundance of water, food, shelter and no monkey-conflict over resources.
These retired truly philanthropic CEO’s and CTO’s are building it WITHIN 6 YEARS for Indonesia: http://thorconpower.com/
… provided the president is not assassinated or corrupted.
Perhaps globalists have given a pass to Indonesia on this, calculating they need the energy to run AI and roboticized 10G “smart cities” and that within 6 years, useless eaters will be locked down and herded into pack and stack dystopian cities.
So yes, give us our land back and as a final act before dissolution, let the UN find a spot for statists religious worshippers to collect. The rest of us will live free.
Solar and battery storage gives you energy independence. Bitcoin gives you financial sovereignty, the internet gives you knowledge abundance. Source enough land and you can produce your own food.
That’s just another variety of socialism…
(‘Agrarian anarcho-communism’: Tolstoy, Winstanley etc).
THERE you go! The solution has always lain in this direction. We will return to this, humbled and grateful to our good Lord, who has brought us out of the belly of the beast (Fatima, Akita prophecies).
Capitalism: a fake reality, as fake as the fake Corona virus.
“In Moscow there is Communism: in New York Capitalism. It is all the same as a thesis and anti-thesis. Analyze both. Moscow is subjective Communism, but Capitalism – objective – State Capitalism. New York: Capitalism subjective, but Communism objective. A personal synthesis, truth: the Financial International, the Capitalist-Communist one. “They.”
(Rakovsky, a colleague of Trotsky in “The Red Symphony”.)
Capitalism, liberalism, communism, socialism, coronavirus, climate change etc.. are the mere instruments of the Globalist Mafia to further their goal of total world domination. All governments pretending to take them at face value are betraying their own people and openly declaring their submission and servility to that Khazarian mafia controlling their central banks.
The problem I’ve always seen with socialism is the corruption and ineptitude of the bureaucracy, solve that and its a better option than capitalism. Likewise capitalism can work as long as the greed is limited and much of the population also benefits, seems though that those days are long past. Regardless I much prefer reading an old time leftist, I can’t stomach the current fake ones that call themselves ironically progressive.
You listen to me Mazaheri – I am NOT putting up with a Non-Mongolian Lives Matter movement! Black lives do matter, but NMLs? The jury is still out.
Haha, good article!
If the goal is depopulation, capitalism should NOT have an answer to 50M new unemployed. Unemployed people off themselves with drugs, alcohol and suicide. Sometimes they off others in desperation, which is also consistent with the goal.
Excellent observations. Some thoughts for future musings.
50+ million American “workers” have almost no incentive to return to very unsatisfactory “service” sector jobs-often multiple part time jobs-for little pay and no benefits. For many,this is the first taste of novelty and “leisure” they have had in their lifetimes.Why on earth would they be in a hurry to return to the former existence? They certainly DO NOT-as a whole-sympathize with the sufferings and losses of the owner class-whether small business or giant corporation. Some are happy to see the bosses suffer.
Therefore their willing collaboration with the “little pandemic that wasn’t” can be seen as a protest against a mind-numbing, futile kind of existence which would have confounded even Maslow and his concept of a “hierarchy of needs.” Many of this class react with violence toward those who suggest an end to the fraudulent “lockdowns,” and cling with ferocity to their newfound “freedom” (from enslavement if not from worry).
This class is merely a tool, as are the blacks. No “answer,” no “solution” is sought and none will be forthcoming for either.
IMO they could come up with jobs but they won’t, not because they are capitalists but because they are stupid. Already people have been doing a lot of useless jobs, they can just make more of those. If there’s not enough food, shelter and infrastructure they can hire people to make those things. It’s more about the moral and intellectual qualities of the individuals constituting the ruling class than their choice of mantra — ‘communism’ or ‘capitalism’ or ‘islamism’ etc.
Redistributing wealth downwards would be a clever move. However, unsustainable resource usage and overpopulation aren’t going to be solved by any amount of egalitarianism between humans. Egalitarian thinkers, at least in the US, tend to want to raise the living standards of the poor instead of making everyone poor; but that is precisely what’s impossible due to the extreme resource demands of middle and upper class lifestyles.
We need leaders who understand the limits to growth and that some plants and animals are superior to some humans. Xi Jinping, for example, is much more disgusting than any cockroach I’ve found. Humanist industrial socialism and humanist industrial Capitalism are both causing mass pollution, mass extinction, and factory farming. Until the tyranny of the ruling species comes to an end, the world will be profoundly unwell. The animals and their guardian angels must be constantly praying against us.
“Xi Jinping for example, is much more disgusting than any cockroach I’ve found.”
I find Ramin socialist ideology harping to be puerile and simplistic absolutism to say the least. But “species self loathing” of the type you purvey???
It is Empire Ideology To The Core!
I’ll take Xi raising hundreds of millions out of poverty, despite the formidable obstacles China has faced, over your type of despairing and murderous species hatred (instilled in you by the brainwashing of the oligarchy not 1%….but roughly 0.001% BTW) all day long…and so should any self-respecting Chinese….OR even the 50 million unemployed Americans Ramin purports to care about (does that really come through to YOU (pl)???) which you clearly have a simpler solution for:
DROP DEAD!
Or…for the species as a whole…I infer from your unhappy handle that perhaps your more gradual. more “humane” recommendation would be:
“Sodomize and suck each other off…….unto Species Oblivion.”
NO??? Or did I get that right????
As for the 50 million Americans on the oligarchic scrap heap you see even less use for than yourself, they could indeed have a better future………..BUT ONLY after the elimination of what the oligarchy has poisoned your mind with: MALTHUSIANISM….and Cultural Pessimism……in a word Corruption……posturing as some sort of “wokeness”.
Of the NATO organization Club of Rome’s “LIMITS” variety you have been taken in by.
At least Ramin does not have that FEUDAL oligarchy suicidal poison in his brain.
The problem with him is that if he did embrace it, he would call its oppostion “capitalism”…like he does everything else..in his simplistic world view ……….instead of its correct appellation:
Technocratic Corporatist (FASCIST) Neo-FEUDALISM.
Now, about those unemployed:
Could Socialism employ them??? YES! As it employed scores of millions in industrializing Russia and China. If you can forgive those worse than cockroaches masses and their Party Leaders.
Could FASCISM employ them? Absolutely, if it were NOT of the feudal genocidal variety but rather of the Reich Constructing NAZI variety seen 1933 -1939….with huge injections of CAPITAL from London and Wall Street.
Could Capitalism employ them? YES. once again! BUT HOW?
ANS: Just have the 50 million come to their senses politically and vote for a program of nation building starting with EQUALLING the modernization standards in infrastructure (especially high speed rail) currently being built out in China….instead of quickly or slowly committing suicide of the type you seem to have NO problem with.
“Xi Jinping, for example, is much more disgusting than any cockroach I’ve found.”
Point taken. Western anti-authoritarians correctly sense the danger of losing their imperialist privilege, courtesy of able, foreign leaderships who have the wits, the spine, and the moral stature to bring about the change needed. China, Russia, Iran, the DPRK etc. are not hated by Western “progressives” for any other reason.
Bro:
“The problem with him is that if he did embrace it, he would call its oppostion “capitalism”…like he does everything else..in his simplistic world view ……….instead of its correct appellation:
Technocratic Corporatist (FASCIST) Neo-FEUDALISM”
I live in France under Macron so I’m constantly writing about technocracy, and I write about the West so I write a ton about corporate fascism.
As far as neo-feudalism: I’m just not as sold on that definition as others are, but I don’t think it’s bad – it has the virtue of being accessible to the average Westerner’s mentality/historicity. Pushing that type of a redux is kind of lazy and inevitably forces round pegs into square holes, but it is definitely backward-focused and uninspiring, two things socialism is not – “neo-feudalism” is just a warning and contains no solutions.
I’ll admit to “harping” about socialism but I have a good reason: there’s just SO LITTLE discussion about it in the English language. And yet there is no Third Way any more than you can add a third to yin and yang. Your solution – “vote for a program of nation building” (which broadly enriches the masses and not the aristocracy, I assume) – is totally predicated upon socialist concepts, you just don’t want to call it that openly.
I’m not some sort of radical anarchist who hates capitalism and denies it a single virtue – that would be absolutist, simplistic and clearly incorrect – but US capitalism certainly has no answer to 50 million jobless. The West is in the middle of this huge crisis and won’t even discuss half of the socioeconomic spectrum – what’s there to talk about with them but the semi-nonsense issues I wrote about here? So I think you’ll find we both totally agree: I didn’t want to spend another whole article harping on socialism either! I mean: what’s the point?
But I’ll get my mojo back with a bit of rest….
Ramin:
Words are limiting….especially since they have different meanings, emotional associations and such to different people. Which is why it is extremely challenging to even hear each other…..much less work together cooperatively.
If that’s what you mean (working together co-operatively) by “socialism”….I’m all for it. But I would call it the “Harmony of Interests” that the Irish American father- son team of American System Economists Mathew Carey and Henry C Carey espoused.
You might call the father a “socialist” but most Americans wouldn’t. That’s all.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/journalism-and-publishing-biographies/mathew-carey
from the above link:
“By the time he was twenty-four Mathew Carey had been condemned by the British House of Commons for his outspoken defense of Irish Catholics and jailed for publishing criticism of Parliament. Born in Dublin on 28 January 1760, Carey fled to France, where a priest introduced the young printer to Benjamin Franklin.”
AND you could very possibly like him! Especially if you could time travel and compare notes on your times in France! LOL
Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it.
Always interesting to read your comments – thank you. And I’ll check out the link.
Since the Confederate flag looks quite similar to railroad crossing signs, I wonder how long it takes someone to complain railroad crossings are racist?
A correction: deaths in the US are about 20% of the peak now, not 60%. Even given the ridiculously padded death figures.
A better solution than your suggestion was: don’t follow the Socialist/Communist /China ‘solution’ in the first place. The whole World would be hugely better off, if we had simply ignored the second coming of the Black Death. If you look at total deaths in the US … the only reliable, non-political statistic there is, you will see that nothing unusual was happening this Winter … until the ‘lockdown’, then deaths shot up in a completely unnatural way, and then down almost as quickly. Why? The lockdowns themselves killed huge numbers of the elderly/sick, particularly in nursing homes. This pattern was repeated in many countries. Whatever stage of the epidemic they were, once the lockdowns began, deaths shot up. Now, in the US (and presumably elsewhere) death are falling well below even the low baseline for Summer deaths. In fact, deaths will be lower than they have been in decades. Why? We killed off all the vulnerable people who were going to die sometime before the end of the year. We simply accelerated their deaths.
Our problem is not Capitalism, it is crony Capitalism. This entire fiasco is driven by the desire to make trillions by the big Pharma Companies (there are only 5 in the World now). The other problem is the frailty of the Western psyche these days. Any sort of ‘perceived’ risk is intolerable. Actually killing many more people because you are scared is idiotic, but oh so typical of a panic.
“Our problem is not Capitalism, it is crony Capitalism. ”
Thank you: Correct, as far as you go, in a comment short of writing a whole another article, Steve.
I would add: And NO “ism” , including the author’s pet ideology is any slam dunk solution.
However a portion of the solution is that which he throws out with the bath water in his “Capitalism is Evil, Socialism is Heaven on Earth” ideological worldview in his previous stab at being a non-musical attending “musical reviewer”…contained in this webpage:
https://larouchepac.com/credit-system
….which gives the broad overview unpalatable not only to the ideological handicaps of the Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Occasional Cortex…”Left”…….but ALSO……. probably still at this moment in time (but not necessarily forever) to the vast majority of the American “populist” and shallow “free trade” dupes of Adam Smith and Andrew Jackson among the “conservative” (they’re trying…but their shallowness of thought and discernment also causes them to throw out with the bath water that wealth of ideas that they ought better conserve!) “Right”:
What grows and absorbs the hopeless “forgotten man and woman” into the labor force is that which is fostered, irrigated with the waters of National Credit, first…..but NOT alone:
Excerpt from the above webpage…….:
. In 1789-1801 first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton oversaw the revolutionary transformation of the young republic’s war debt into guaranteed-return internal improvement investments, and later, under the guiding hand of President John Quincy Adams and Nicolas Biddle the rapid construction of new roadways and canals which opened up the North American continent for development was facilitated by the founding of the 2nd National Bank throughout the 1820s.”
…contains that genius “baby” which Ramin threw out with the bath water in his Miranda review article……with the kernel of the baby accomplishment in bold.
It could be called “Capitalist”….as in industrial nation building capitalism……however to call it “Imperialist” is an ignorant slander.
One only has to take some time and review the remainder of program for development of ALL areas of the world……including Persia, the Middle East, Africa, China, Russia, and Ibero-America……… to disabuse yourselves who hold that knee-jerk prejudice. For the contrary evidence is available by navigating from the home page to any particular area of the world……… that one may desire to check up on.
Ramin opens his article with:
“Oh – did you have one?
Well… we’re waiting.”
ANS: Yes, I do.
AND: Yes, those people….and some among the policy making people…….. who know them quite well in Russia and in China ….also do!
It’s just that bringing about such a Golden Age of Peace and Development is not so simple and immediate a task as can be accomplished by posturing from the Populist Soap-Box of ANY “ISM”
Every area of the world has its own national cultural identity full of differing strengths and weaknesses that have to be taken into account.
The idea that America and the “capitalist” experience of millions of its farmers, tradesmen, entrepreneurs, educators of the past and present ………have ZERO positive to offer the world………. is JUST as absurd as the idea that Russian Science before 1917 and after 1917 can be disregarded because they are “just a bunch of communists at heart”.
“in his previous stab at being a non-musical attending “musical reviewer””
I hope you checked out the videos I posted in the comments section, LOL: Celine Dion schooling Pavarotti in how to sing pop is rather telling – all opera singers have is mucho volume and mucho vibrato…. The Bo Diddley doing opera – in a song titled “I don’t like you”, LOL – is a rare find.
“It could be called “Capitalist”….as in industrial nation building capitalism……however to call it “Imperialist” is an ignorant slander.”
But it’s not slander, but fact. We can credit the achievements of the US founding fathers all we want but we would be mistaken to not add in their huge mistake-buffers/bottom line-padders: stolen Black wages and the manna from heaven which was stolen (via war) frontier resources. Imperialism is not an insult to be thrown at people/cultures but a policy as real as Obamacare. It’s just going to lead to bad math if we take these variables out of the equation; trying to replicate those solutions in 2020 without those variables is going to produce results which are not as successful. Hearing “imperialism” and rolling one’s eyes or getting insulted or saying “move on, that’s boring” is like removing a chunk of the periodic table and doing chemistry.
“It’s just that bringing about such a Golden Age of Peace and Development is not so simple and immediate a task as can be accomplished by posturing from the Populist Soap-Box of ANY “ISM””
Meh, everything can be classified into an “ism” – some people just chafe at this reality and strive for independence and originality. Thus, disliking “isms” is really a question of taste and personality, but I’m no totalitarian: both are needed to make the yin and yang swirl. But I’ll side with Confucius when we’re talking about politics: we order things into high and low because some things are especially important, such as the poverty of 50 million jobless.
So capitalism, socialism, imperialism, Confucianism – these are all things we can put into a box. Then we can take the high things out of said box and use them, and return the low things back to said box. The American “’capitalist’ experience of millions of its farmers, tradesmen, entrepreneurs, educators of the past and present” have high things we can use, certainly, but they need to open up some of those boxes (which they have kept sealed under penalty of imprisonment) in order to find ideas for 50 million jobless.
I believe this whole discussion would make a lot more sense to a lot more people if we clarified our definitions a little more. Free enterprise is considered the driving virtue of capitalism. Capitalists want you to think that capitalism and Free enterprise are one and the same. Ergo – suspect mal-definition. The truth of the matter is that one can be successful in free enterprise without being a capitalist. Hence definitions matter. Capitalism is, in an important respect, the enemy of free enterprise. Because it takes the human freedom out of the enterprise and twists it into obedience to a mass fetish. Capitalism is a fetish. Marx knew that and saw capitalism as an evil false religion wherein people make “capital” the highest and supreme value (make a religion! ) and then politically enthrone their self created divinity construct. This is exactly what the British did. It is the spiritual rape of a civilization. And being a good Christian Marx called it for what it was.
Capitalism is a mass worshipping of a false god, and the capitalists can open about it, in their own guarded way. Their god has now attained fetishistic power over the culture and become an autonomous totalitarian driver – It is a genuine spiritual problem of how we evaluate our social relations. So in the argument between capitalism and socialism Karl Marx is asking the Christian question; where do you place your highest valuation, money or your true self? And what is to rule?
‘…affirmative action for the non-Han is all over China…’
Leaving aside the fact that ‘Han’ is a ridiculous construct, do you really believe that China protects its minorities; Inner Mongolians, Uighur, Tibetans? What about the Manchu?; China’s ‘affirmative action’ has affirmed them into extinction. I understand the need for a socialist refuge somewhere, but China ain’t it.
“it’s like asking Mongolia to give up Genghis Khan, whose success mainly rested not so much on fine horsemanship but upon his willingness to murder women and children en masse, and yet they built him the world’s biggest equestrian statue. No matter how big a Non-Mongolian Lives Matter movement gets – that’s not coming down.”
Haha, and BINGO!
“Non-Mongolian Lives Matter” is an excellent slogan as well as starting point for a “Human Rights” shitstorm enabling the West to solve its own unemployment problem entirely. Every drooling slob with a brain full of MSM garbage can be instantly promoted to a “jurist”. The only problem here is, of course, the payment, the perks, and the sops needed to entertain this totally unproductive apparatus. Will there be enough compliant stooges abroad to service the obscene lawsuits?
The government of the USA, which is controlled by the descendants of the Bolsheviks, has destroyed the economy. Big Business wanted to eliminate all competition. Now, you are going to have your Socialism Mr Mazaheri. Your dream will come about and the USA will become a basket case like Argentina, Venezuela, Iran and so many other countries.
“Don’t Cry for me Argentina/America”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/armstrongeconomics101/economics/dont-cry-for-me-america/
”Descendants of the Bolsheviks”, what utter crap. The Bolsheviks showed how a feudal, poor country could be transformed into a scientific, cultural, and industrial powerhouse within 30 years despite Western genocidal violence and ditto nuclear blackmail. And all that without any imperialist exploitation.
Sorry, but the truth of the matter is that the US government hasn’t changed at all. It’s exactly the same kind of oppressors, genocidalists, and self-worshippers it has always been composed of. Your alleged ”basket cases” are gaining momentum; the US is crumbling. That’s what usually happens when resistance to Empire begins to bite.
According to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s sources, around 60 million Christians were killed by the Bolsheviks in the USSR. During the Great Purge, 106,000 priests were killed. Originally, the leaders of the Bolsheviks were almost all Jews.
I guess you and I have have different ideas about the value of human lives.
Make that Avogadro’s number, and we are in full agreement about the stats.
Russia is very much a Christian country and still venerates Lenin and Stalin. Regarding our different ideas about the value of human lives, suffice it to say that I tend to care more about real lives as opposed to fictitious ones. Solzhenitsyn was peddling horror stories for money.
“Solzhenitsyn was peddling horror stories for money.”
Presumably that is why he disappeared from the media when he revealed the role of the Jews in Russia’s history in his book “Two Hundred Years Together”
“real lives as opposed to fictitious ones”
If the Bolshevik/Jews had not massacred so many, the population of Russia would be 300 million today. Demographics don’t tell lies but Zionists do.
If only it WAS Capitalism; it’s open, unapologetic and brazen Fascism by any meaningful definition of the word (merger or collusion of private and State interests; State subordinate to business) which I would offer is at least half the problem here in the West.
Russia and China have long since identified it as such, though neither rarely state it outright.
Not publicly anyway, though there are examples.
Normally competent, if presently nameless analysts, observers and commentators insist on employing the polite euphemism Capitalism to obfuscate, sanitize or otherwise elide the problem of Fascism, and in so doing, only serve to sideline any productive efforts, analytical or performative, towards a solution, which, given the widespread and relentless deployment of precisely this incorrect designation (“Capitalism”), gives the appearance of willful denial or deliberate self-sabotage as a way to avoid confronting the distasteful, widespread and largely institutional practice itself (Fascism); it’s like trying address a heroin user’s addiction by calling it alcoholism.
-In the immortal words of a wry Englishman whose name escapes me just now: “It’s not gonna work, you Burke!”
And though I’ve pointed out this somewhat rather GLARINGLY OBVIOUS discrepancy more times and in more ways and places than I care to count, I’ve YET to provoke a satisfactory, let alone coherent response or explanation, and therefore cannot account for what seems like the deliberate narrative deployment of this substitution, but I can certainly attest to the fact that the obfuscation itself has done little, if anything, to alleviate it’s perpetuation, destructive effects and/or incontestably self-reinforcing consequences (please to see: the above article).
Nussiminen,
“Solzhenitsyn was peddling horror stories.”
I don’t know about that, Bro. Have you visited Solovetsky Islands and the Skete at the top of Sekirnaya Gora? Have you seen the 365 wooden steps that ascend Sekirnaya Gora? Methinks you haven’t. If you are so in doubt maybe we’ll travel travel there together and then I will tie you up around a log stump and let that log stump roll down those 365 steps and see how long it takes before your moanin’ stops. However, there are now only 267 steps after a grant from the Norwegian Gov’t had renovated the decrepit staircase. Of course, I will do you no harm, honestly! Having renounced my US Citizenship and receiving Citizenship of the Russian Federation a few years back, gave me a chance to visit Solovetsky Islands and see first hand what Solzhenitsyn spoke of in his Gulag Archipelago. Please be careful what you say, my Russian friends also read the Saker Blog.
I re-iterate without apologies: Solzhenitsyn peddled horror stories for money (and fame). You read his litterature — mind the spelling — and went to see some places he refers to. Now, what in Heaven’s name does that prove other than that there is indeed a place called Sekirnaya Gora and that there also is a place called the Solovetsky Islands? Are there any museums/memorials out there? Think not, since otherwise you could have referred to them instead of resorting to violent Pindo bluster. National trait is a real characteristic, mind you.
As to your ”Russian friends”, are they Navalny supporters? And, if so, why should I watch my tongue because of these un-Russian crackpots?
Even Solzhenitsyn gave up on the West and its Russian converts eventually, siding instead with Putin.
Nussiminen,
Well, I see that my well-intentioned observation ruffled your feathers a bit. If I have made you feel uneasy, then I apologize. In re to Museums in Solovki, yes, the Solovetsky Islands are a museum themselves and at the main Monastery there is a whole exposition with artefacts, films, and eyewitness accounts to the horror of what happened in Solovki.
My friends and I bitterly oppose the US lackey Navalny since he wants to see a return of the Yeltsin Years. Furthermore, I proudly voted for the package of Amendments to the Constitution on the 1st of July which came into force on the 4th of July. Russia became free on the 4th of July, free from the US written Constitution promulgated by Yeltsin. America descended into deeper chaos and “unfreedom” on the 4th of July. Solzhenitsyn gave up on America because She lived and lives on Lies.
Furthermore, The repressive tolerance that is ravaging the US, where minorities(LGBT, Antifa,BLM and so on) are controlling Society in the US and Europe and making it insufferable to live in the West. The German-born American philosopher Herbert Marcuse wrote a book entitled “Repressive Tolerance.” The seeds have been sown and have matured and now they are bearing fruit, a very evil fruit which poison all who eat of it.
Respectfully submitted,
Tikhon Bogomolv
Ramin, et al
With all due respect…
Communism doesn’t work because of human greed and the absence of a reliable and adequate system of reward for endeavour.
Socialism doesn’t work because of human greed and the fact that sooner rather than later you run out of other people’s money.
Neither does Capitalism because of…wait for it…grrrr…human greed.
UNLESS of course it has the following foundations and has massive and constant vigilance to maintain these basic fundamentals.
#1 It is backed up by a functioning democratic process …has fair elections and checks that can validate results…negates the influence of financial lobby
#2 It has free speech and independent media
#3 Has an informed and educated population
#4 There is a strong underlying element of socialism built in to support the people that in any society genuinely can’t make it without state support.
The US meets not a single one of these criteria. As such it does not practice capitalism by any stretch of the imagination. Just the obscene size of the MIC renders the model highly socialist since all military activity and its influence that runs so deep into the economy and GDP is by definition socialist.
It gets worse…much of the rest of the economy is in essence reverse or inverse socialism because the system is really just an obscene blend of bankster/cronyism whose network diverts trillions of dollars directly into its own pockets and far out of the reach of the masses. The inevitable end result is extreme neo-feudalism that grows ever more bloated and grotesque by the day to the stage that social revolution is now both imminent and necessary. To endeavour to label this broken system Capitalism is completely farcical.
Talking of farcical, so too is the Presidential election process when it comes to defining or labeling Socialist and Capitalist candidates. Not a single candidate in this original year’s line-up was Capitalist by any stretch of the imagination. Sanders is no more socialist than the Orange Crested Buffoon… in fact, you could argue that this idiot is more socialist even than Sanders. In reality, he is one of the most extreme examples of snouts in the trough reverse socialists ever to set foot on the planet.
Perhaps the most profoundly tragic reality of this pantomime is that if you happen to be even a moderately socialist candidate [in the classic sense of the term] then you do not stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever getting your foot in the door of the big old house.
If on the other hand, you happen to be a rabid unabashed hog-trough feasting reverse socialist then you are 90% there already. If you are a compulsive liar that’s a huge leg up too.
YCHMTSU
Col
That’s an evil empire :
1. Slavery all over the world.
2. Corporatocracy
3. Rothschild’s banksters and lobbying groups aka the 1% against we the people (99%)
4. Pyramidal structure (the all seeing eye at the top)
5. and so on..add yourself
“Well, I admit that adding a Christian cross is a rather Islamic Socialist solution and not an Atheistic Socialist one, but to hell with them”
A quick note with one foot already fixed tightly to the doorstep to the hell hereafter:
The idea to make use of a latent religious-cultural background, to help unify a nation of low educated masses in need of direction that don’t go against self interest, common moral guidelines for the better immediate future and to stop the infighting among bottom feeder 90%… future might work,
I could buy into that, really ,whatever works even if first some would need to apply a great deal of pretending, maybe later like the outcome..
But from where we stand, would we not risk some other group to wake the dogs starting to remember/fantasize then torches in h and agree at some point how Christianity in the Area of the World the title of the article seems to look at , was a helpful tool in dehumanizing non-Christians , convert then enslave them? Away with Christianity and their symbols?
If my comment is worthy of your answer I would be very interested to learn.
Ramin Mazaheri, your article reveals the non – robotic hero ! Ray of sunshine… fear of censorship, terror of suppression and denial of peoples existence, these are the curse of our time, inhibiting freedom of expression, questions, discussion – put your face mask on or we’ll knife you from behind .
I forgot to mention fear of death – the Covid fiasco, ‘lest we forget’ the reason for wearing a mask…
Sure, others may not agree with our own personal views and opinions… That’s OK too, because we are not a bunch of pre-programmed zombies.. Often, that is where real learning takes place…
800 Emirates pilots were recently made redundant, three committed suicide the same day. Sure, people will say, it happens all the time, but the biggest downer is the sudden, heart stopping reality of the denial of existence, of individual worth. Keep writing – courage !
” but the only solution remains either to ban all ethnic mascots or make every ethnic tribe a mascot. Isn’t the latter more interesting and informative ”
Well, I’ve been saying for forever that the solution to the “statue” “issue” is not to pull down statues, but to put up more. It is a bit weird that Trump proposes a new statue park of American heroes.
First I choked, then I thought—maybe not such a bad idea!
When I heard Trump’s idea of the heroes, I choked again.
HOwever, the garden of statues might be a very good locus to hammer out who, actually, belongs in the Garden and who does not. I wonder how large the Garden is planned to be. Actually, the Garden could be considered to encompass the whole USA—USA qua heroes statue garden.
Katherine
What I believe must be done is a different approach to both the traditional capitalist and socialist prevailing ideologies, and that is to have a national homesteaders act. America needs to start elevating the individuals and families rights over both government nd private sector institutions, in which one could say that the disease is more one of institutionalizattion, whether it comes from the public or private sector, it has a parastic effect on the individual and the family. All answers to all problems are met with institutional answers that serve the institution at the expense of and to the detriment of both the individual and the family. The individuals and families are forced to pay for and receive tremendously expensive services from public and private institutions, which erodes the well being of the individuals and families.
Federal, state, and local governments own 2/3 of the land in America. The majority of American jobs are now in the service sector. If the governments were to grant homes to people, it would significantly reduce their cost of living, and increase their independence, as well as overall security. In America, the sovereign are We The People, not We The Governments, or We The Corporations, or We The Bankers. This national homestead act would also assist employers because turnover would be much lower, which would reduce their cost and increase their productivity. It would also eliminate pressure on employers to keep increasing prices, in order to keep increasing wages, and could also have a containment effect of keeping a check on inflation for that reason.
We need to start thinking outside the box, and leave the paradigms and parameters that have been indoctrinated into us as the only available choices.
Obviously, many would be employed in the construction of homes, and we must bring manufacturing back to America from China, and this would enable us to do that.