Biden isn't the imperial rot, just like Trump wasn't the imperial rot. They are merely symptoms. The very system of bureaucracy, policy making, and enforcement is the imperial rot. You could take out Biden and put in AOC and it wouldn't matter. It likely wouldn't have mattered, other than to the careers of a bunch of campaigning insiders, if Bernie got in. The gears and logic of empire run irrespective of the spectacle of the presidency, and that is what the left should be pointing out, not who happens to be strapped to the wheel this year and how much they are drooling.
Again, no. Individual capitalists and Republican politicians didn't want Trump in, but capital, by and large, didn't care. You are mistaking capital for individual people, capital for capitalists. Capital gutted the regulatory apparatuses regardless. And it didn't affect the gears and logic of empire in the slightest, Trump still did the drone strikes, sanctions, and black ops that all presidents do. Hell, they even prevented him from actually pulling out of Afghanistan, which is something he very nearly did, but again, it didn't and doesn't matter because Afghanistan in the big picture of empire and capital expansion doesn't matter, especially with the mess we left there.
What matters to capital is competing against China, which is arguably a war that we have already lost, and the flailing of the elites is them attempting to continue military hegemony even as our economic hegemony begins it's decline. And yes, the gears occasionally shake, but by my count the U.S. still controls the majority of the globe militarily, we are still the ones sending weapons to Ukraine and patrolling the South China seas. It is only when war comes to the U.S. that I will say that the gears of empire have shuddered to a halt, otherwise everything else is shock doctrine and even blowback is in our favor.
Yeah, it's almost as if all aspects of the spectacle of electoral politics, including the media apparatus occurs and is completely disconnected from the mechanisms of capital accumulation. Both leftwing and right-wing media are capital, but so is Trump, which was proven by the policy decisions he made, none of which were friendly to the other team, which is labor. The media weren't even really against him other than rhetorically, they were giving him so much free air time and he was fantastic for ratings!
Capital doesn't only rely on stability. It mostly relies on periods of stability with periods of disruption. The only part that changes is what group of capitalists maintains their reins during those periods of disruption. (Which is what Milton Friedman says drives innovation, but I completely disagree with that, unless you just mean innovations of grift). Labor also requires stability in order to organize the large groups of people necessary to create and enforce it's theoretical hegemony, but it also relies on disruption to cause material needs stop being met to create solidarity. The creation of the Soviets was directly tied to centuries of peasants staying in their singular communities decimated by war, while strong unions were made by a generation of proletarian workers, again decimated by war, being in the same industries as their parents. Things are going to likely need to get far worse before they get better.
The rate of profit hit rock bottom in the 70's and has been bouncing around, with a few exceptions (tech bubbles and expropriation) since then. The senile U.S. president is simply an indication that the actual politics of capital does not require the active participation of the electoral wing of the executive branch.
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Biden isn't the imperial rot, just like Trump wasn't the imperial rot. They are merely symptoms. The very system of bureaucracy, policy making, and enforcement is the imperial rot. You could take out Biden and put in AOC and it wouldn't matter. It likely wouldn't have mattered, other than to the careers of a bunch of campaigning insiders, if Bernie got in. The gears and logic of empire run irrespective of the spectacle of the presidency, and that is what the left should be pointing out, not who happens to be strapped to the wheel this year and how much they are drooling.
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Again, no. Individual capitalists and Republican politicians didn't want Trump in, but capital, by and large, didn't care. You are mistaking capital for individual people, capital for capitalists. Capital gutted the regulatory apparatuses regardless. And it didn't affect the gears and logic of empire in the slightest, Trump still did the drone strikes, sanctions, and black ops that all presidents do. Hell, they even prevented him from actually pulling out of Afghanistan, which is something he very nearly did, but again, it didn't and doesn't matter because Afghanistan in the big picture of empire and capital expansion doesn't matter, especially with the mess we left there.
What matters to capital is competing against China, which is arguably a war that we have already lost, and the flailing of the elites is them attempting to continue military hegemony even as our economic hegemony begins it's decline. And yes, the gears occasionally shake, but by my count the U.S. still controls the majority of the globe militarily, we are still the ones sending weapons to Ukraine and patrolling the South China seas. It is only when war comes to the U.S. that I will say that the gears of empire have shuddered to a halt, otherwise everything else is shock doctrine and even blowback is in our favor.
deleted by creator
Yeah, it's almost as if all aspects of the spectacle of electoral politics, including the media apparatus occurs and is completely disconnected from the mechanisms of capital accumulation. Both leftwing and right-wing media are capital, but so is Trump, which was proven by the policy decisions he made, none of which were friendly to the other team, which is labor. The media weren't even really against him other than rhetorically, they were giving him so much free air time and he was fantastic for ratings!
Capital doesn't only rely on stability. It mostly relies on periods of stability with periods of disruption. The only part that changes is what group of capitalists maintains their reins during those periods of disruption. (Which is what Milton Friedman says drives innovation, but I completely disagree with that, unless you just mean innovations of grift). Labor also requires stability in order to organize the large groups of people necessary to create and enforce it's theoretical hegemony, but it also relies on disruption to cause material needs stop being met to create solidarity. The creation of the Soviets was directly tied to centuries of peasants staying in their singular communities decimated by war, while strong unions were made by a generation of proletarian workers, again decimated by war, being in the same industries as their parents. Things are going to likely need to get far worse before they get better.
The rate of profit hit rock bottom in the 70's and has been bouncing around, with a few exceptions (tech bubbles and expropriation) since then. The senile U.S. president is simply an indication that the actual politics of capital does not require the active participation of the electoral wing of the executive branch.