this mostly applies to the U.S. but also most of the western world:

As Marxists we know that most policy is driven by what capital allows or within the increasingly narrow range of acceptable discourse it allows within bourgeois dictatorship

Obviously it's not a conspiracy of ten guys in a secret room but a general consensus that develops from a chaotic web-like oligarchy of money peddlers, influencers, lackeys, billionaire puppetmasters, etc

But this really, really hurts Capital. they need the influx of cheap labor or face the real threat of forced degrowth. and we know every international-community-1 international-community-2 including russia-cool is trying to make it harder for people to be childless but short of forcing people to procreate at gunpoint..

  • so why allow this to become a bipartisan consensus (U.S.) instead of say throwing some scraps of social democratic programs?

  • or in Europe's case allowing these parties to come to power instead of reversing some neoliberal austerity?

Is this a case of anti-immigration just being easier to do vs. building resiliency into the system? i mean it's always easier to write laws crimializing stuff and throwing cops at a problem i suppose

Or something else?

  • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
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    edit-2
    2 months ago

    I don't even listen to the podcast, I was only made aware of this quote because a South African journalist I follow on Twitter reposted it and appears to be a fan of the podcast.

    But yes, a lot of his rants and quotes are very good.

      • LocalOaf [they/them, ze/hir]
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        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Hell of Presidents was soooo good imo

        Hell on Earth was good too but my relative lack of familiarity and the sheer scale and number of historical figures made it tough for me to keep straight