According to the standard account, capitalism—whatever your criticisms of it—is synonymous with freedom. Other systems, we are told, necessitate central plan...
Who fucks cares about monopolies. Capitalist competition produces monopolies. That's not the Left's struggle. Antitrust is inherently a capitalist endeavor. I get so tired of this "anti-corporate" whinging that the "left" will go on and on about, as if it's somehow Leftist discourse. And worst of all, they have no solutions for it except VOTE
Since you are all lapping up this garbage like hogs, here is a reading guide for you.
The problem is not the corporation.
The problem is not the monopoly.
The problem is not a lack of competition.
The problem is not that large corporations have "gobbled up" small- and medium-sized businesses [We must secure the existence of our people and a future for small businesses.]
The problem is not that my consumer choices of eyeglasses or piss beers are produced by some subsidiary of some subsidiary of an oligopolist
The problem is not monopsony
The problem is not that workers can't afford to "take several months off" and to waste searching for a nobler capitalist employer to sell labor to on better terms 😡
The problem is not corporate capture of government regulators to allow you more bathroom breaks or ban your boss subbing to your OnlyFans
The problem is not that you don't have "dUe PrOcEsS" when your boss chooses to fire you "like a feudal lord"
The problem is NOT -- let me be crystal clear -- NOT a lack of anti-monopoly or antitrust regulation or the "SIZE" of a corporation
The problem is not "Corporate Power"
The problem is not that workers don't have seats on the corporate board
The problem is not that it's a "lie" that our markets are free, or that our markets are "dominated by massive firms" (fuck free markets, all my homies hate free markets)
The problem is not FOR THE LOVE OF GOD that there are only two companies to make staplers! Not even that 5 "control" food. Or that 2 "dominate" retail. Or that
4 corporations "control" home internet. Not even that only one "dominates" books!
The problem is not a lack of "free competition"
The problem is not that the "status quo is monopoly control" -- that is the inescapable outcome of capitalist "free competition" you fucking lib. That is explicitly the whole point of it! To be the best and push everyone else into bankruptcy so you can be king of the mountain!
The problem isn't the monopolists "perched" at the "top of the market"
When corporations do bad and terrible things: Facebook censors you ("who can stop them?"), Amazon won't sell your book, the drug company raises drug price... "that's it, it's done." 🥺🥺
YES ZEPHYR PLEASE TELL ME MORE ABOUT HOW WE ARE POWERLESS AS A CLASS TO DO ANYTHING AT ALL
The "problem at the heart of our system" is 100% absolutely NOT a lack of bourgeois democracy because our elected officials are concerned about "government intrusion"! Jesus Christ this is just pathetic.
I'm Zephyr Teachout, a fucking lib who didn't speak one single word that would raise class consciousness in this pro-capitalist masterclass.
In conclusion, "You don't have much of a choice at all!" Thanks for coming to my Gravel Talk.
The problem is exactly one thing: THE CAPITALIST OWNERSHIP AND MODE OF PRODUCTION!
Nothing, not a single word of anything she said in this video would lead you to that conclusion!
So not only did she fail to offer any kind of solutions or even a punchlines, she never even got around to explaining the problem!
The thesis of this video is "We are in a late phase of capitalism dominated by corporate monopolies. The large corporations [not the capitalism itself] in this monopolistic form creates a long list of problems. The soution is to use the bourgeois state and antitrust regulations to regress the capitalism to a more atavistic phase where the corprations are smaller and more numerous, THEN the free markets and competition will solve these problems because capitalism fundamentally works."
That thesis is bad and wrong in every conceivable way.
But don't take my word for it, Richard "Big D." Wolff did a whole episode on Monopoly and Competition, and how it's pointless for the Leftists to entertain this antitrust wheel-spinning.
Y'all please, watch it, then revisit Teachout's video. Watch it before you downbear me into oblivion. I am honestly just disappointed and frustrated at this presistent misperception of "anti-corporate" and antitrust as leftist. It is at best left-liberalism, rooted in the "social contract" fantasy. Not scientific sociaism, with materialist analysis, with class struggle.
You're correct, but this video isn't made for people like you who are already some form of Marxist. (I'm guessing here) It's made to be a pipeline to further left ideas. Of course actual Marxist :RIchard-D-Wolff: will have a much better and way more correct take than some law professor on a Gravel institute video, but it doesn't mean the video is entirely useless. It's trying to push left leaning ideas out there, and maybe get some apolitical folks or libs to think a bit more. Yes it's usefulness is very limited, but it's better that it exists and makes videos than nothing being out there.
There's something to be said about driving people down a path that capitalist propaganda isn't as full of thought terminating cliches and using the contradictions there to radicalize. I still think it's important to at least acknowledge that monopoly formation is a natural consequence of capitalism though.
Yeah that's the usefulness of the video and the Gravel institute in general. That's why it's good for them to make these types of videos rather than there being nothing out there. Would it be a lot cooler if the videos were Marxism 101? Maybe, but I don't think it would have anywhere near the same outreach due to all the propaganda our there. That's why I said it's more of a pipeline to get left leaning ideas out there
I mean, scroll down and look at the comments just in chapo.chat. Did no one upbearing these posts not pick up on any of these criticisms? Do we need to have a struggle session about how this "anti-corporate" agitation is pro-capitalist fakery?
I agree with this take. You can’t open up with the full class consciousness at once. The best you can do at first is stuff like this and raising questions in a libs mind, like “Why DOES insulin have to cost so much?” And “Why DO so few corporations control so much?”. Looking at their future guests they have Zizek scheduled. I would not be surprised if the heat comes slowly and they progressively get more and more leftist. I like this format, because it’s easily digestible and raises valid points without saying anything that would instantly turn someone’s brain off because it sounds like communism. Ease them in, ya know?
But look at how many people are lapping it up as wholesome anti-capitalism. The YT comments, on twitter. The miseducation here isn't benign, imo. This is teaching things that we will have to re-educate people on. The worst part is, it didn't have to be this way all. I am mostly scratching my head, because I can't find anyone making any kind of critique. I mean, I don't wanna drag the Gravel Teens, or Teachout. And maybe no one else does, either. I surely can't have been the only person to watch and get like more and more irritated because every take was either wrong or bad, and then the plane never landed. It just ended on "welp, nothing to be done about it!"
I don't think you need a lib->marxist pipeline. The marxism is more coherent than liberalism, just start with that.
Yeah I'm not lapping this up, I'm excited because libs will and if Gravel is worth their salt they'll steadily turn up the heat and drop in some radical stuff time to time as a treat, this is the point
Cool, maybe next they can make some videos to get the worker-chuds into National Bolshevism and then steadily turn up the heat and drop in some radical stuff from time to time as a treat, Eventually, we can get them to wean them over to regular Bolshevism. And then it's just straight shot to ML. Before you know well have Maoist chuds very cool idea we just teach people harmful ideaology along the way what could possibly go wrong.
so you just became a communist one day all of a sudden huh? no transitionary period where your beliefs slid further left as you explored and learned more?
Not watch videos telling me capitalism is great, except those pesky corporations are too darn big. That's not really sliding left, it's sliding to the center.
All respect comrade but most people completely shut down when you say “means of production” and other tropes. We are working against generational propaganda which tells people to reflexively dismiss traditional anticapitalist academic analysis. We have to hit the cracks that have formed. This is the point of the video.
You are upset because you inferred that the implied solution is capitalistic. It’s a 5 minute video. It’s an introduction and anti propaganda. It doesn’t need solutions and it certainly wasn’t explicitly capitalist.
In the end you are correct, Wolff’s videos are the perfect supplement to this starting point. Democracy in the workplace, debunking capitalism=freedom, etc. That was the point.
You don't have to say "means of production" to communicate marxist ideas. The whole point is to have a working-class movement, you're suggesting "well you can't talk to workers about marxism, you'll scare them off!" It's pretty easy to communicate ideas that promote class consciousness in plain language, which Teachout assidiously avoided doing. The "boss makes a dollar, I make a dime" stuff is an easier sell than the liberal, technocratic regulation stuff. But she does it becase her politics are anti-marxist. She thinks there can be a left-liberal coalition around an anti-corporate, anti-corruption agenda, which necessarily means a cross-class coalition -- so her avoidance of class struggle language is intentional. I think that's bad politics for the left. We should try to build the working-class movement, not compromise our agitprop to be inoffensive to bourgeois liberals.
And it's not merely inferred, she says it explicity at one point, "Without anti-monopoly regulations to restrict their size..." That's a pro-capitalist "solution" to keep capitalism on life support.
Wolff's video is not a "starting point", it's an explicit refutation. Teachout's methods are wrong and propogating them is counter-productive, because they convince people there are things you can to fix capitalism.
Thank you for writing this comrade! Worse, as I mentioned before, this video is extremely ineffective at thinking from the perspectives of chuds. They believe people should starve without work! Saying it's between working or starving is meaningless to them, they agree
Who fucks cares about monopolies. Capitalist competition produces monopolies. That's not the Left's struggle. Antitrust is inherently a capitalist endeavor. I get so tired of this "anti-corporate" whinging that the "left" will go on and on about, as if it's somehow Leftist discourse. And worst of all, they have no solutions for it except VOTE
Since you are all lapping up this garbage like hogs, here is a reading guide for you.
YES ZEPHYR PLEASE TELL ME MORE ABOUT HOW WE ARE POWERLESS AS A CLASS TO DO ANYTHING AT ALL
I'm Zephyr Teachout, a fucking lib who didn't speak one single word that would raise class consciousness in this pro-capitalist masterclass.
In conclusion, "You don't have much of a choice at all!" Thanks for coming to my Gravel Talk.
The problem is exactly one thing: THE CAPITALIST OWNERSHIP AND MODE OF PRODUCTION!
Nothing, not a single word of anything she said in this video would lead you to that conclusion!
So not only did she fail to offer any kind of solutions or even a punchlines, she never even got around to explaining the problem!
The thesis of this video is "We are in a late phase of capitalism dominated by corporate monopolies. The large corporations [not the capitalism itself] in this monopolistic form creates a long list of problems. The soution is to use the bourgeois state and antitrust regulations to regress the capitalism to a more atavistic phase where the corprations are smaller and more numerous, THEN the free markets and competition will solve these problems because capitalism fundamentally works."
That thesis is bad and wrong in every conceivable way.
But don't take my word for it, Richard "Big D." Wolff did a whole episode on Monopoly and Competition, and how it's pointless for the Leftists to entertain this antitrust wheel-spinning.
Y'all please, watch it, then revisit Teachout's video. Watch it before you downbear me into oblivion. I am honestly just disappointed and frustrated at this presistent misperception of "anti-corporate" and antitrust as leftist. It is at best left-liberalism, rooted in the "social contract" fantasy. Not scientific sociaism, with materialist analysis, with class struggle.
Watch this one, gets right to the point: Wolff Responds: Monopoly is NOT the Problem; Capitalism is
This is one a more thorough presentation: Economic Update: Competition & Monopoly In Capitalism
You're correct, but this video isn't made for people like you who are already some form of Marxist. (I'm guessing here) It's made to be a pipeline to further left ideas. Of course actual Marxist :RIchard-D-Wolff: will have a much better and way more correct take than some law professor on a Gravel institute video, but it doesn't mean the video is entirely useless. It's trying to push left leaning ideas out there, and maybe get some apolitical folks or libs to think a bit more. Yes it's usefulness is very limited, but it's better that it exists and makes videos than nothing being out there.
There's something to be said about driving people down a path that capitalist propaganda isn't as full of thought terminating cliches and using the contradictions there to radicalize. I still think it's important to at least acknowledge that monopoly formation is a natural consequence of capitalism though.
Yeah that's the usefulness of the video and the Gravel institute in general. That's why it's good for them to make these types of videos rather than there being nothing out there. Would it be a lot cooler if the videos were Marxism 101? Maybe, but I don't think it would have anywhere near the same outreach due to all the propaganda our there. That's why I said it's more of a pipeline to get left leaning ideas out there
I mean, scroll down and look at the comments just in chapo.chat. Did no one upbearing these posts not pick up on any of these criticisms? Do we need to have a struggle session about how this "anti-corporate" agitation is pro-capitalist fakery?
I agree with this take. You can’t open up with the full class consciousness at once. The best you can do at first is stuff like this and raising questions in a libs mind, like “Why DOES insulin have to cost so much?” And “Why DO so few corporations control so much?”. Looking at their future guests they have Zizek scheduled. I would not be surprised if the heat comes slowly and they progressively get more and more leftist. I like this format, because it’s easily digestible and raises valid points without saying anything that would instantly turn someone’s brain off because it sounds like communism. Ease them in, ya know?
But look at how many people are lapping it up as wholesome anti-capitalism. The YT comments, on twitter. The miseducation here isn't benign, imo. This is teaching things that we will have to re-educate people on. The worst part is, it didn't have to be this way all. I am mostly scratching my head, because I can't find anyone making any kind of critique. I mean, I don't wanna drag the Gravel Teens, or Teachout. And maybe no one else does, either. I surely can't have been the only person to watch and get like more and more irritated because every take was either wrong or bad, and then the plane never landed. It just ended on "welp, nothing to be done about it!"
I don't think you need a lib->marxist pipeline. The marxism is more coherent than liberalism, just start with that.
Yeah I'm not lapping this up, I'm excited because libs will and if Gravel is worth their salt they'll steadily turn up the heat and drop in some radical stuff time to time as a treat, this is the point
To better educate liberals in liberal theory that directly opposes marxism? That seems counter-productive.
You must meet the workers where they are, not where you want them to be bucko
Cool, maybe next they can make some videos to get the worker-chuds into National Bolshevism and then steadily turn up the heat and drop in some radical stuff from time to time as a treat, Eventually, we can get them to wean them over to regular Bolshevism. And then it's just straight shot to ML. Before you know well have Maoist chuds very cool idea we just teach people harmful ideaology along the way what could possibly go wrong.
this is for libs not for chuds, no?
don't really know. the website just says they want to compete with PragerU but "from the Left"
if the strategy is to target libs with lib content, doesn't seem like you are accomplishing much, a lib to radlib pipeline
so you just became a communist one day all of a sudden huh? no transitionary period where your beliefs slid further left as you explored and learned more?
Not watch videos telling me capitalism is great, except those pesky corporations are too darn big. That's not really sliding left, it's sliding to the center.
All respect comrade but most people completely shut down when you say “means of production” and other tropes. We are working against generational propaganda which tells people to reflexively dismiss traditional anticapitalist academic analysis. We have to hit the cracks that have formed. This is the point of the video.
You are upset because you inferred that the implied solution is capitalistic. It’s a 5 minute video. It’s an introduction and anti propaganda. It doesn’t need solutions and it certainly wasn’t explicitly capitalist.
In the end you are correct, Wolff’s videos are the perfect supplement to this starting point. Democracy in the workplace, debunking capitalism=freedom, etc. That was the point.
You don't have to say "means of production" to communicate marxist ideas. The whole point is to have a working-class movement, you're suggesting "well you can't talk to workers about marxism, you'll scare them off!" It's pretty easy to communicate ideas that promote class consciousness in plain language, which Teachout assidiously avoided doing. The "boss makes a dollar, I make a dime" stuff is an easier sell than the liberal, technocratic regulation stuff. But she does it becase her politics are anti-marxist. She thinks there can be a left-liberal coalition around an anti-corporate, anti-corruption agenda, which necessarily means a cross-class coalition -- so her avoidance of class struggle language is intentional. I think that's bad politics for the left. We should try to build the working-class movement, not compromise our agitprop to be inoffensive to bourgeois liberals.
And it's not merely inferred, she says it explicity at one point, "Without anti-monopoly regulations to restrict their size..." That's a pro-capitalist "solution" to keep capitalism on life support.
Wolff's video is not a "starting point", it's an explicit refutation. Teachout's methods are wrong and propogating them is counter-productive, because they convince people there are things you can to fix capitalism.
Thank you for writing this comrade! Worse, as I mentioned before, this video is extremely ineffective at thinking from the perspectives of chuds. They believe people should starve without work! Saying it's between working or starving is meaningless to them, they agree
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