Helen Cox Richardson notes that accusation of socialism have been levied by the owner class as far back is the antebellum plantations, arguing the working class are not stakeholders and even basic infrastructure such as roads, schools and libraries were blasphemous.
The red scare started as early as Wilson, as soon as the Red Army beat the White. Wilson petitioned the league of nations to embargo the USSR simply because the ideology was a threat to capital driven industry.
I think the US public needs to deliberate if our intention is to be a public-serving government that holds everyone equal under law and values human rights over property rights. Or, if our intentions are for something else.
Right now the federal government is captured by a movement that does the opposite, with a propaganda machine propping up pro-business (anti-person) ideology, using socialism and communism as scare words.
We’re seeing the end result of this as corporations have captured regulatory bodies, they are left to govern themselves as top-down feifdoms, and the working class is left choking on data center fumes, monitored by mass surveillance and unable to afford fuel and food at the same time.
(We’re also seeing the US state, representing the US public to the international community, getting played by its national rivals, and our military misused and abused.)
Even when it benefits businesses to support the working class (and increase productivity, therefore profitability) businesses fall down, driven by the owner class’ pure resentment of their own workforce. (This is what drives the AI dream of full automation.) To business, the economy is for them, and if they can shut out the workforce to languish on their own and starve, no sleep will be lost over the tragedy.
So the people of the US, if they don’t want this outcome, need to consciously and deliberately choose to create a society that serves the people unconditionally in favor of the businesses. The public-serving infrastructure, the social safety nets, the investment into education and liberal arts, the clear establishment and enforcement of civil rights, the regulatory institutions that protect workers and consumers from the neglect and antagonism of the owner class, all follow naturally.
And that said, it means we are going to have to take business influence on government and excess hoarding of wealth extremely seriously.
And the end result may look a lot like socialism or communism, whether or not we’re working towards adopting either specific ideology.
The intentions of the corporate class, the (captured) government class, and the plutocratic class are all about world domination while, yes, including notions of liberty, freedom and representation in their propaganda rhetoric. (Or at least using them as buzzwords. I’m not sure if the typical MAGA knows what liberty or freedom is.)
But this is the reason we need to organize at the grassroots level. The goal I suggest in the US is organizing twelve million Americans under a common manifesto. It’s tricky: we’d need some legal and government scholars to write it up and make it accessible to the public (and annotate it so that they understand it).
The thing is, the US seemed to (more or less) be trying to do this in the postwar economy (that is, post WWII), in which business was tightly regulated, unions were strong, the owner class was taxed heavily, and antitrust enforcement was robust. It started deteriorating in the 1970s (right around when we went off the gold standard, and Lewis Powell wrote his (now notorious) memorandum. Jerry Falwell discovered the single-issue voter, the southern strategy became full on dog-whistle racism, and Reagan won in a landslide (with a little help from Iran). The economy went K-shaped, and corruption in government increased exponentially from there.
I think most Americans want the US to be a pluralistic liberal democracy. Some people might be so sheltered as to believe it already is. (Looking at you, Kavanaugh.) But maybe we need to commit to the notion that is is what we want, but isn’t there right now, and is in stark jeopardy of never being able to become it ever again (without the US turning into another thing, another iteration of society).
How to make it happen is well beyond my pay grade, but I might be able to find language that is effective for a mission statement.
I like what you have to say and I do think there is a way forward. We have to convince the wealthy to relent by offering them something worthwhile to trade for their wealth for. Perhaps social status or some scheme that works for them on a basic psychological level.
There are going to be winners and losers in every policy decision, the trick is making it palatable for the loserss. This is ultimately what must be decided for the current wealthy class. Ideally it should be mostly voluntary with minimal coercion. It will require new thinking outside our current common paradigms.
Helen Cox Richardson notes that accusation of socialism have been levied by the owner class as far back is the antebellum plantations, arguing the working class are not stakeholders and even basic infrastructure such as roads, schools and libraries were blasphemous.
The red scare started as early as Wilson, as soon as the Red Army beat the White. Wilson petitioned the league of nations to embargo the USSR simply because the ideology was a threat to capital driven industry.
I think the US public needs to deliberate if our intention is to be a public-serving government that holds everyone equal under law and values human rights over property rights. Or, if our intentions are for something else.
Right now the federal government is captured by a movement that does the opposite, with a propaganda machine propping up pro-business (anti-person) ideology, using socialism and communism as scare words.
We’re seeing the end result of this as corporations have captured regulatory bodies, they are left to govern themselves as top-down feifdoms, and the working class is left choking on data center fumes, monitored by mass surveillance and unable to afford fuel and food at the same time.
(We’re also seeing the US state, representing the US public to the international community, getting played by its national rivals, and our military misused and abused.)
Even when it benefits businesses to support the working class (and increase productivity, therefore profitability) businesses fall down, driven by the owner class’ pure resentment of their own workforce. (This is what drives the AI dream of full automation.) To business, the economy is for them, and if they can shut out the workforce to languish on their own and starve, no sleep will be lost over the tragedy.
So the people of the US, if they don’t want this outcome, need to consciously and deliberately choose to create a society that serves the people unconditionally in favor of the businesses. The public-serving infrastructure, the social safety nets, the investment into education and liberal arts, the clear establishment and enforcement of civil rights, the regulatory institutions that protect workers and consumers from the neglect and antagonism of the owner class, all follow naturally.
And that said, it means we are going to have to take business influence on government and excess hoarding of wealth extremely seriously.
And the end result may look a lot like socialism or communism, whether or not we’re working towards adopting either specific ideology.
Our intentions are for something else, but we will use the propaganda of liberty, freedom, and representation to try and convince people otherwise.
The intentions of the corporate class, the (captured) government class, and the plutocratic class are all about world domination while, yes, including notions of liberty, freedom and representation in their propaganda rhetoric. (Or at least using them as buzzwords. I’m not sure if the typical MAGA knows what liberty or freedom is.)
But this is the reason we need to organize at the grassroots level. The goal I suggest in the US is organizing twelve million Americans under a common manifesto. It’s tricky: we’d need some legal and government scholars to write it up and make it accessible to the public (and annotate it so that they understand it).
The thing is, the US seemed to (more or less) be trying to do this in the postwar economy (that is, post WWII), in which business was tightly regulated, unions were strong, the owner class was taxed heavily, and antitrust enforcement was robust. It started deteriorating in the 1970s (right around when we went off the gold standard, and Lewis Powell wrote his (now notorious) memorandum. Jerry Falwell discovered the single-issue voter, the southern strategy became full on dog-whistle racism, and Reagan won in a landslide (with a little help from Iran). The economy went K-shaped, and corruption in government increased exponentially from there.
I think most Americans want the US to be a pluralistic liberal democracy. Some people might be so sheltered as to believe it already is. (Looking at you, Kavanaugh.) But maybe we need to commit to the notion that is is what we want, but isn’t there right now, and is in stark jeopardy of never being able to become it ever again (without the US turning into another thing, another iteration of society).
How to make it happen is well beyond my pay grade, but I might be able to find language that is effective for a mission statement.
I like what you have to say and I do think there is a way forward. We have to convince the wealthy to relent by offering them something worthwhile to trade for their wealth for. Perhaps social status or some scheme that works for them on a basic psychological level.
There are going to be winners and losers in every policy decision, the trick is making it palatable for the loserss. This is ultimately what must be decided for the current wealthy class. Ideally it should be mostly voluntary with minimal coercion. It will require new thinking outside our current common paradigms.