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No, no, no! I'm sorry, but I can not comment on the article: when I reach the third paragraph, I am outraged intellectually.

What is described in the first two paragraphs can't be defined as follows:
This, of course, is the Conservative Utopia, the kind of society that every Conservative intellectual yearns for, and contemplates with saliva dripping from their lips. It's called "Communism."

That is not called communism, nor it is the form of society, by which every conservative intellectual sighs. From there, I can not keep commenting. I do not deny that it actually occurs. I do not deny that Western companies take advantage of the "offshoring". But that is called differently.

Sorry. Excuse me.

by PerCLupi on Thu Jun 21st, 2012 at 12:25:20 PM EST
Much of the first paragraphs is modeled on the Foxxom factory for (among others) Apple products. Some parts like
You are an employee in a factory. You have no union... you have no notion of how workers could challenge or influence anything... your work shifts occupy most of your time awake. If you are injured on the job, or exposure to pollutants renders you incapable of working, you are simply thrown out without compensation. You earn a pittance... you could not afford to buy [products you produce]. Not that you care. All you are concerned with is keeping this "good" job, which is actually one of the coveted ones... The corporation incurred very low costs, and constructed it in record time. There were no environmental inquiries, no tedious legal barriers, and no annoying regulations to worry about... Whatever the Corporation needs to thrive is provided by an omnipotent State... It controls all communications, chooses who will be educated and who will not... A small "middle class" of technical professionals, managers [has] access to a much more pleasant lifestyle, shops in shopping malls, goes to amusement parks... You have no access to any of these privileges and you don't expect to ever have, though you main­tain a dim hope that your "good" job will enable you to keep your family from sinking back into the squalor of your native village. Anyway, you have little to compare with...

increasingly apply to Western corporate practices anywhere, even in the US - especially if convict labour is taken into account.

A few bits look like ignorant lies:

Your employer monitors and controls every aspect of your personal life... You are unmarried, and will remain so...

... The events of the previous generation were so horrible, that your parents won't even talk about them.

And then we have this:
Communism is an ultra-conservative ideology promoting exploitation, slavery, and genocide. 

If any thinking of how to reduce exploitation leads to more exploitation, what hope is there? The described problems with Brahmins and other conservative aristocrats were considered by Marxists and such long time ago - with quite similar conclusions.

It is more interesting when Chomsky calls Lenin a conservative or a reactionary, in this video.

The author is more onto something with this:

What really does damage is the solid core of wealthy and powerful people who drive the Conservative agenda in our society. These are not "true believers," but cynical, cold, calculating experts, who know where their interests lie. They create an atmosphere of ideological fait accompli in the major institutions of our society, whether business, industry, education, civil service, or government. They have built an enormous stock of glib assertions and formulae, with which they can move any institution in the direction they want... 

... When protesters take aristocratic claims at face value, and imagine that they are fighting against "free market capitalism," or some such nonsense, instead of against ordinary, historically tried-and-true aristocracy, they profoundly misunderstand the nature of power...

...the Communist Party is seen as just another corporation, a constituent part of the Market ... All you have to do is add "Inc." to the end of "Communist Party"...

...The industrialists of the early Industrial revolution claimed to be new, as well, rising through work and intelligence to challenge the old landed gentry. But the first thing they did when they got rich was to marry into that landed gentry, and their children inherited palaces and champagne frolics ... The same is true of the current global aristocracy, which can point to a handful of genuine industrial or business creators among their number, but largely consists of mere thugs, financial swindlers, and titled parasites...


What is apparently happening is that the elites are able to play with any ideology (libertarian, communist, "liberal", whatever) to secure their privileges and cash flows. Maybe the aristocratic class had lost some control in the 20th century (thanks to the Marx manifesto, most likely), but now the traditions of rich dominance are back with vengeance.
by das monde on Fri Jun 22nd, 2012 at 05:45:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]
What is apparently happening is that the elites are able to play with any ideology (libertarian, communist, "liberal", whatever) to secure their privileges and cash flows.

Yes, of course. This is the point of the article.

Both right and left are too easily manipulated with tokenism and dog whistles.

The only useful measure of progress is to look carefully at the relationships between all parties. If the relationships are authoritarian or oppressive and the social structure is rigid and layered, there is no progress.

The label on the tin is irrelevant.

As is the fact that 'communism' has often been associated with authoritarianism in practice. There have been too many psychotic despots in too many communist states to pretend otherwise. (This is irrespective of the West's own love of despotism in its vassal states.)

Socialism - especially Scandinavian Socialism - has a much better empirical record.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sat Jun 23rd, 2012 at 11:24:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
To my reading, the point of the article goes like this

Communism is, as we know, an absolute evil. The current dreadful developments (in economy, politics), is nothing but Communism, even if it is presented as Conservatism.

I do not think that the message of the article is particularly useful. It closes understandings that are often cheaply dismissed as communism/socialism.

Generally speaking, I would not say the political spectrum is easy to manipulate. But the current elites became very good in manipulating political labels, and having all politicians in their pockets. They just dominate and own all politics. Their power is that overwhelming though not blatantly, I guess.

Communism, as demonstrated in the 20th century, deserves most of the stereotypical contempt. But increasingly, my suspicion is... the whole project (starting with Lenin, Stalin, Mao) was to demonstrate how terrible the communist ideas are. Yes, the intellectual implication of conspiracy is very unattractive. But when even Chomsky says that Lenin was an anti-labour reactionary even within Russia, those theories that the Russian 1917 revolution (and then the rise of Hitler, World War II - the basic history of the 20th century) was a well financed sham loose quite a bit of ridiculity. So you had those terrible revolutions in Russia (that was not capitalist yet) then China (still backward and stagnating) and some other insignificant countries - but the West Europe and the North America were effectively scared of that. After the WWII, there were a few decades of rather egalitarian social settings, and the Scandinavian models looked exemplary. But then possibly synthetic consequential events started again: stagflation of the 70s, "successes" of the Chicago economic model in Latin America, break down of the Soviet Union. My working look of the last USSR decades became this: the Party was actually working for material hunger and nihilism of the population, demonstration of central planning inefficiencies, all for the benefit of Western (and then later global) intellectual scorn. Excuse me for this shameless paranoia - I just have most fun with it.

My recommendation would be: We know little how key socialist ideas may work. The scientific method (based on Popper's falsifiability) is problematic to apply - especially if large scale efforts were made to counterfeit and obscure empirical evidence, particularly in economics. I wish Important People were more relaxed about allowing variation in social-economic policies - but they know their own drill.

by das monde on Sat Jun 23rd, 2012 at 12:31:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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