GOOD.

Then again who wants to bet they don't mean the end of capitalism just that we regress into techno peonage and serfdom?

  • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Been reading Charles Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States ( amazon | ARR! ) and frankly I can't help but think if it hadn't been for the existence of the USSR holding capitalism at bay, there's no way in hell the world would have lasted this long. The Framers were very open about their intentions of preventing the poor majority from rising up and taking control of the government from the rich minority. Now that the USSR is gone and capitalism is ripping the mask off more and more, it's been a real trip to read shit like:

    The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from, and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. - Madison, 1788

    And know that some assholes 200+ years ago have likely doomed humanity to extinction.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I don't think you can put James Madison on the line for all of humanity. There have been a few other people involved, both before and since.

      He might be one of the bigger dominos that eventually burn out European peoples in North America, though.

      • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Oh, it was far from just him. It was all those fuckers. But if the USSR hadn't been around , we'd likely never gotten the New Deal, the US would have probably gone full mask off colonial in the third world (rather than the already murderous, yet low-key, jakarta style), and who knows how much farther down the hole we'd be.

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          The USSR was the first major successful socialist uprising, but its success heavily polarized surrounding regions on nationalist grounds.

          I don't think its fair to say Lenin grabbing control of Moscow in '17 dictated all of history to follow, because Lenin's success also produced an enormous Red Scare backlash that crushed Communist movements by leveraging fear of foreigners.

          Certainly, Lenin didn't inhibit the rise of Calvin Coolidge and Henry Hoover in the States. Nor did he forestall German, French, Italian, Spanish, and British fascists from taking their own country's reins. He did little to stop Tojo's rampage through Korea and China. He didn't interrupt the century of humiliation Africa has endured.

          What he, and later Stalin, did was execute a roadmap for a socialist uprising in a western(ish) nation that nobody else could emulate.

          Its very possible that the deteriorating conditions of the early 20th century could have produced a better module than Lenin's. Maybe Huey Long or Rosa Luxemburg had the magic bullet and we just never got to see them fire it.

          • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I don’t think you can put James Madison on the line for all of humanity. There have been a few other people involved, both before and since.

            I don’t think its fair to say Lenin grabbing control of Moscow in '17 dictated all of history to follow,

            Respectfully, please stop putting words in my mouth?🤷‍♂️

              • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
                ·
                2 years ago

                Nothing personal, comrade, just the point I was originally trying to allude to is if this economist thinks we're gonna save capitalism and the world with price controls, good fucking luck, because in the US the system was pretty openly designed to prevent that and the force necessary to make them do it seems pretty far over the horizon.