Did I ever claim that capitalism is not authoritarian? I certainly consider it to be authoritarian >.<, and more specifically I consider the USA (varying by state and location) to be pretty authoritarian in a lot of ways, though they have decent press freedom (even if there are pretty severe issues with copyright and larger media conglomerates being owned by investment corpos), which is kind of an anomaly given many other things like drug laws and police militarisation and such :/ (many other things too)
I could go on a whole thing about hierarchy & subjugation, organisational structures, top-down coercion, incarceration, prescriptivism and more rigid societal role-setting (including micromanagement and control of personal behaviour in particular, and government promotion of a culture of snitching and general obedience), information suppression usually by more violent means, and centralised governance often associated with strong cults of personality, but this would take ages and I have other things to do.
These are all aspects of and related to authoritarianism and constitute a cluster of concepts I would consider a definition ., though lots overlap with each other nya, and I don't really feel like digging down rn to get an exact phrase.
It's more than just about distribution of resources (though that is an aspect often used to enable it and one of the reasons I consider universal access to certain things the bare minimum on the route to true liberation), and related to the degree to which systems and ideologies micromanage people and prescribe roles and behaviours for them, as well as the degree to which there is concrete and direct influence of people on social structures and consensus building, plus high transparency in decision making processes ., and the less coercion involved in anything the better (and if there is coercion, transparency, scrutinisability, and routes for avoiding poor outcomes (as well as consensus based methods to alter any use of such) reduce the authoritarianism). There's more but this is a start.
It's related to hierarchy and coercion, but it's not just that but also accountability, transparency, and consensus building without undue influence from smaller groups of individuals, plus lack of micromanagement and prescriptivistic roles and paths ;3. As well as encouraging people to think critically and come to their own conclusions (though this applies especially to people claiming to be "free thinkers" while parroting bullshit).
I could also talk about groups becoming a new ruling class while claiming to liberate, or several other aspects too.
more specifically I consider the USA (varying by state and location) to be pretty authoritarian in a lot of ways, though they have decent press freedom (even if there are pretty severe issues with copyright and larger media conglomerates being owned by investment corpos), which is kind of an anomaly given many other things like drug laws and police militarisation and such :/ (many other things too)
Damn, you're like 90% of the way there, but you still only see the trees.
US has no freedom of the press because all media is privately owned and even state media is privately financed. The entire 4th estate is literally just an appendage of the ruling class. Freedom of the press isn't private ownership of the press, it's independence and democratic oversight over the press, something that exists in no capacity in America.
US has no freedom of the press because all media is privately owned and even state media is privately financed. The entire 4th estate is literally just an appendage of the ruling class.
This is not the same as jailing "unapproved" journalists. The point is you can start your own paper/report/etc. without central approval of what you can and can't produce. The US is still a capitalist and authoritarian nation which causes some hindrances to this sometimes (see the recent police intimidation of that local newspaper), and makes it harder (but NOT impossible) to start things like coop newspapers.
Secondly, I generally don't buy into viewing people's and organisation's behaviour in this sort of way, at least not exclusively. It's too oversimplified and highly reductionist, even if I do think class is an important aspect of behaviour.
Refusing to acknowledge the differences doesn't mean they don't exist ., even if most are capitalist most of the time, they promote very different things and engage in different behaviours (and then there was that one Financial Times oped promoting the end of capitalism which was hilarious ;3, but it illustrates my point that these organisations are distinct).
It also provides more routes for important information about abuses of power to get out, which is the most important aspect even if capitalism does seriously get in the way of this due to private accumulation of media corpos.
Furthermore, the US generally doesn't censor social media most of the time, and in particular has very loose libel laws which make it harder for billionaires (other than the ones that own a specific social media platform) to shut people down, like JKRowling recently did to people calling her a TERF on twitter who live in the UK >.<
Freedom of the press isn't private ownership of the press, it's independence and democratic oversight over the press, something that exists in no capacity in America.
What I consider is "degrees of freedom". Private ownership of the press is somewhat more free because it isn't directly controlled by the government, but it is still much less free than autonomous and independent cooperatives or collectives or other groups taking part in the press, and capitalism also reduces the ability for journos to report on certain stuff in certain ways. The important aspect is that people can form new outlets autonomously and they usually can't get shut down easily .
The fewer outlets, the less "free" the press becomes, and the harder it is for new, independent outlets to form, the less "free" it becomes, and the more hierarchical each individual outlet becomes, the less "free" it becomes ;p (which is why private and especially capitalist ownership and class dynamics do have pretty significant issues of press freedom) - really the thing I value is information freedom and transparency, press freedom and universal access to an open and anonymous internet are means to that end.
This is not the same as jailing "unapproved" journalists. The point is you can start your own paper/report/etc. without central approval of what you can and can't produce.
Seriously, are you just going to ignore the history of the US jailing or straight up killing dissident journalists?
Snowden, Manning, and Assange are still going on.
Gary Webb was assassinated in recent memory along with dozens of other journalists covering protests and corruption.
The US actively supports Saudi Arabia that liquidated journalists like no other country.
During the bombing of Yugoslavia the US killed hundreds of Yougoslavian journalists when they openly targeted the offices of newspapers and television stations.
The price of starting a paper in the US is also absolutely prohibitive. With the primary mode of funding being advertisment. A funding vector that is just pure open conflict of interest.
And sure you can start your own, but how long until the local sheriff decides you're not worth keeping alive and just kills you because you're exposing their corruption?
really the thing I value is information freedom and transparency, press freedom and universal access to an open and anonymous internet are means to that end.
I can understand that, but an open and anonymous Internet does not exist and never will, that's the whole reason Snowden is in exile, he revealed that and they don't like the story. We also don't have universal access to the Internet as ISPs are all privately owned and you need to pony up a rent to use it.
And if you really value freedom and transparency, the US is in fact the opposite. I focused mainly on recent instances of journalist suppression in just the US, but the Yougoslavian instance isn't uncommon. The US will target media offices in countries it attacks. The first goal is to cut off the flow of information, and not replace it with "free press and truth", but American propaganda.
I do not think the US does good things in countries it invades and fucks up. I'm not unaware, seriously. That was not my point and you kind of shifted the conversation away from what I axtually said.
I don't really get how that's off topic when your were claiming that the US doesn't jail journalists or censor media and I presented you with journalists that have been killed or jailed and media that is censored.
There's a difference between concentrated and diffuse spectacle and the US is the poster child of allowing managed dissent. The Financial Times isn't exercising free press because they had one article about the end of capitalism, because the private editorial board still signed off on that. The investors allowed it, and the advertisers probably used it to sell generators or guns.
Mass media is an amazing tool for censorship that appears to be freedom. Other countries have adopted similar strategies too. Though most still have big state media outlets that they directly control like BBC, ABC, RT, SCMP, CGTN, etc. But the state control of those outlets has less bearing on their legitimacy than their dedication to upholding the interests of their respective countries ruling class.
There really just isn't any world in which the US could be considered to have free press in any way and using the US as an example of a place that has "more free press" is total nonsense unless you mean "incredibly expensive press that the ruling cost is allowed to buy and own".
All that text and you couldn't give a real world example? Name one revolution that overthrew a brutal gov and didn't resort to "authoritarianism" in your opinion.
There isn't one because anti-authoritarianism is made up by capitalists to trick people who don't have ideological guidance from wanting a different economic system.
"Non-authoritarianism" just means rule by capital, and I hope one day the well meaning people that are here are able to come to that realization as well, just like many others have.
After you fight and win a revolution, how do you protect your new state from being crushed or invaded? Look what happened to Allende, Lumumba, Aidit, Árbenz, etc.
Did I ever claim that capitalism is not authoritarian? I certainly consider it to be authoritarian >.<, and more specifically I consider the USA (varying by state and location) to be pretty authoritarian in a lot of ways, though they have decent press freedom (even if there are pretty severe issues with copyright and larger media conglomerates being owned by investment corpos), which is kind of an anomaly given many other things like drug laws and police militarisation and such :/ (many other things too)
I could go on a whole thing about hierarchy & subjugation, organisational structures, top-down coercion, incarceration, prescriptivism and more rigid societal role-setting (including micromanagement and control of personal behaviour in particular, and government promotion of a culture of snitching and general obedience), information suppression usually by more violent means, and centralised governance often associated with strong cults of personality, but this would take ages and I have other things to do.
These are all aspects of and related to authoritarianism and constitute a cluster of concepts I would consider a definition ., though lots overlap with each other nya, and I don't really feel like digging down rn to get an exact phrase.
It's more than just about distribution of resources (though that is an aspect often used to enable it and one of the reasons I consider universal access to certain things the bare minimum on the route to true liberation), and related to the degree to which systems and ideologies micromanage people and prescribe roles and behaviours for them, as well as the degree to which there is concrete and direct influence of people on social structures and consensus building, plus high transparency in decision making processes ., and the less coercion involved in anything the better (and if there is coercion, transparency, scrutinisability, and routes for avoiding poor outcomes (as well as consensus based methods to alter any use of such) reduce the authoritarianism). There's more but this is a start.
It's related to hierarchy and coercion, but it's not just that but also accountability, transparency, and consensus building without undue influence from smaller groups of individuals, plus lack of micromanagement and prescriptivistic roles and paths ;3. As well as encouraging people to think critically and come to their own conclusions (though this applies especially to people claiming to be "free thinkers" while parroting bullshit).
I could also talk about groups becoming a new ruling class while claiming to liberate, or several other aspects too.
Damn, you're like 90% of the way there, but you still only see the trees.
US has no freedom of the press because all media is privately owned and even state media is privately financed. The entire 4th estate is literally just an appendage of the ruling class. Freedom of the press isn't private ownership of the press, it's independence and democratic oversight over the press, something that exists in no capacity in America.
In the US you have freedom to purchase the press
This is not the same as jailing "unapproved" journalists. The point is you can start your own paper/report/etc. without central approval of what you can and can't produce. The US is still a capitalist and authoritarian nation which causes some hindrances to this sometimes (see the recent police intimidation of that local newspaper), and makes it harder (but NOT impossible) to start things like coop newspapers.
Secondly, I generally don't buy into viewing people's and organisation's behaviour in this sort of way, at least not exclusively. It's too oversimplified and highly reductionist, even if I do think class is an important aspect of behaviour.
Refusing to acknowledge the differences doesn't mean they don't exist ., even if most are capitalist most of the time, they promote very different things and engage in different behaviours (and then there was that one Financial Times oped promoting the end of capitalism which was hilarious ;3, but it illustrates my point that these organisations are distinct).
It also provides more routes for important information about abuses of power to get out, which is the most important aspect even if capitalism does seriously get in the way of this due to private accumulation of media corpos.
Furthermore, the US generally doesn't censor social media most of the time, and in particular has very loose libel laws which make it harder for billionaires (other than the ones that own a specific social media platform) to shut people down, like JKRowling recently did to people calling her a TERF on twitter who live in the UK >.<
What I consider is "degrees of freedom". Private ownership of the press is somewhat more free because it isn't directly controlled by the government, but it is still much less free than autonomous and independent cooperatives or collectives or other groups taking part in the press, and capitalism also reduces the ability for journos to report on certain stuff in certain ways. The important aspect is that people can form new outlets autonomously and they usually can't get shut down easily .
The fewer outlets, the less "free" the press becomes, and the harder it is for new, independent outlets to form, the less "free" it becomes, and the more hierarchical each individual outlet becomes, the less "free" it becomes ;p (which is why private and especially capitalist ownership and class dynamics do have pretty significant issues of press freedom) - really the thing I value is information freedom and transparency, press freedom and universal access to an open and anonymous internet are means to that end.
Seriously, are you just going to ignore the history of the US jailing or straight up killing dissident journalists?
Snowden, Manning, and Assange are still going on.
Gary Webb was assassinated in recent memory along with dozens of other journalists covering protests and corruption.
The US actively supports Saudi Arabia that liquidated journalists like no other country.
During the bombing of Yugoslavia the US killed hundreds of Yougoslavian journalists when they openly targeted the offices of newspapers and television stations.
The price of starting a paper in the US is also absolutely prohibitive. With the primary mode of funding being advertisment. A funding vector that is just pure open conflict of interest.
And sure you can start your own, but how long until the local sheriff decides you're not worth keeping alive and just kills you because you're exposing their corruption?
I can understand that, but an open and anonymous Internet does not exist and never will, that's the whole reason Snowden is in exile, he revealed that and they don't like the story. We also don't have universal access to the Internet as ISPs are all privately owned and you need to pony up a rent to use it.
And if you really value freedom and transparency, the US is in fact the opposite. I focused mainly on recent instances of journalist suppression in just the US, but the Yougoslavian instance isn't uncommon. The US will target media offices in countries it attacks. The first goal is to cut off the flow of information, and not replace it with "free press and truth", but American propaganda.
I do not think the US does good things in countries it invades and fucks up. I'm not unaware, seriously. That was not my point and you kind of shifted the conversation away from what I axtually said.
I don't really get how that's off topic when your were claiming that the US doesn't jail journalists or censor media and I presented you with journalists that have been killed or jailed and media that is censored.
There's a difference between concentrated and diffuse spectacle and the US is the poster child of allowing managed dissent. The Financial Times isn't exercising free press because they had one article about the end of capitalism, because the private editorial board still signed off on that. The investors allowed it, and the advertisers probably used it to sell generators or guns.
Mass media is an amazing tool for censorship that appears to be freedom. Other countries have adopted similar strategies too. Though most still have big state media outlets that they directly control like BBC, ABC, RT, SCMP, CGTN, etc. But the state control of those outlets has less bearing on their legitimacy than their dedication to upholding the interests of their respective countries ruling class.
There really just isn't any world in which the US could be considered to have free press in any way and using the US as an example of a place that has "more free press" is total nonsense unless you mean "incredibly expensive press that the ruling cost is allowed to buy and own".
Some people want to live in a system other than capitalism. There's nothing wrong with that.
??? So do I
Then you're going to have to get over whatever your "authority" issue is. How do you think things work when capital isn't dictating everything.
All that text and you couldn't give a real world example? Name one revolution that overthrew a brutal gov and didn't resort to "authoritarianism" in your opinion.
There isn't one because anti-authoritarianism is made up by capitalists to trick people who don't have ideological guidance from wanting a different economic system.
"Non-authoritarianism" just means rule by capital, and I hope one day the well meaning people that are here are able to come to that realization as well, just like many others have.
deleted by creator
After you fight and win a revolution, how do you protect your new state from being crushed or invaded? Look what happened to Allende, Lumumba, Aidit, Árbenz, etc.