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American Kleptocracy: How Fears of Socialism and Fascism Hide Naked Theft
Kleptocracy -- now, there's a word I was taught
to associate with corrupt and exploitative governments that steal
ruthlessly and relentlessly from the people. It's a word, in fact,
that's usually applied to flawed or failed governments in Africa, Latin
America, or the nether regions of Asia. Such governments are typically
led by autocratic strong men who shower themselves and their cronies
with all the fruits of extracted wealth, whether stolen from the people
or squeezed from their country's natural resources. It's not a word
you're likely to see associated with a mature republic like the United
States led by disinterested public servants and regulated by
more-or-less transparent principles and processes.
In fact, when Americans today wish to critique or condemn their government, the typical epithets used are "socialism" or "fascism." When my conservative friends are upset, they send me emails with links to material about "ObamaCare" and the like. These generally warn of a future socialist takeover of the private realm by an intrusive, power-hungry government. When my progressive friends are upset, they send me emails with links pointing to an incipient fascist takeover of our public and private realms, led by that same intrusive, power-hungry government (and, I admit it, I'm hardly innocent when it comes to such "what if" scenarios).
What if, however, instead of looking at where our government might be headed, we took a closer look at where we are -- at the power-brokers who run or influence our government, at those who are profiting and prospering from it? These are, after all, the "winners" in our American world in terms of the power they wield and the wealth they acquire. And shouldn't we be looking as well at those Americans who are losing -- their jobs, their money, their homes, their healthcare, their access to a better way of life -- and asking why?
If we were to take an honest look at America's blasted landscape of "losers" and the far shinier, spiffier world of "winners," we'd have to admit that it wasn't signs of onrushing socialism or fascism that stood out, but of staggeringly self-aggrandizing greed and theft right in the here and now. We'd notice our public coffers being emptied to benefit major corporations and financial institutions working in close alliance with, and passing on remarkable sums of money to, the representatives of "the people." We'd see, in a word, kleptocracy on a scale to dazzle. We would suddenly see an almost magical disappearing act being performed, largely without comment, right before our eyes.
Of Red Herrings and Missing Pallets of Money
Think of socialism and fascism as the red herrings of this moment or, if you're an old time movie fan, as Hitchcockian MacGuffins -- in other words, riveting distractions. Conservatives and tea partiers fear invasive government regulation and excessive taxation, while railing against government takeovers -- even as corporate lobbyists write our public healthcare bills to favor private interests. Similarly, progressives rail against an emergent proto-fascist corps of private guns-for-hire, warrantless wiretapping, and the potential government-approved assassination of U.S. citizens, all sanctioned by a perpetual, and apparently open-ended, state of war.
Yet, if this is socialism, why are private health insurers the government's go-to guys for healthcare coverage? If this is fascism, why haven't the secret police rounded up tea partiers and progressive critics as well and sent them to the lager or the gulag?
Consider this: America is not now, nor has it often been, a hotbed of political radicalism. We have no substantial socialist or workers' party. (Unless you're deluded, please don't count the corporate-friendly "Democrat" party here.) We have no substantial fascist party. (Unless you're deluded, please don't count the cartoonish "tea partiers" here; these predominantly white, graying, and fairly affluent Americans seem most worried that the jackbooted thugs will be coming for them.)
What drives America today is, in fact, business -- just as was true in the days of Calvin Coolidge. But it's not the fair-minded "free enterprise" system touted in those freshly revised Texas guidelines for American history textbooks; rather, it's a rigged system of crony capitalism that increasingly ends in what, if we were looking at some other country, we would recognize as an unabashed kleptocracy.
Recall, if you care to, those pallets stacked with hundreds of millions of dollars that the Bush administration sent to Iraq and which, Houdini-like, simply disappeared. Think of the ever-rising cost of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, now in excess of a trillion dollars, and just whose pockets are full, thanks to them.
If you want to know the true state of our government and where it's heading, follow the money (if you can) and remain vigilant: our kleptocratic Houdinis are hard at work, seeking to make yet more money vanish from your pockets -- and reappear in theirs.
From Each According to His Gullibility -- To Each According to His Greed
Never has the old adage my father used to repeat to me -- "the rich get richer and the poor poorer" -- seemed fresher or truer. If you want confirmation of just where we are today, for instance, consider this passage from a recent piece by Tony Judt:
In 2005, 21.2 percent of U.S. national income accrued to just 1 percent of earners. Contrast 1968, when the CEO of General Motors took home, in pay and benefits, about sixty-six times the amount paid to a typical GM worker. Today the CEO of Wal-Mart earns nine hundred times the wages of his average employee. Indeed, the wealth of the Wal-Mart founder's family in 2005 was estimated at about the same ($90 billion) as that of the bottom 40 percent of the U.S. population: 120 million people.
Wealth concentration is only one aspect of our increasingly kleptocratic system. War profiteering by corporations (however well disguised as heartfelt support for our heroic warfighters) is another. Meanwhile, retired senior military officers typically line up to cash in on the kleptocratic equivalent of welfare, peddling their "expertise" in return for impressive corporate and Pentagon payouts that supplement their six-figure pensions. Even that putative champion of the Carhartt-wearing common folk, Sarah Palin, pocketed a cool $12 million last year without putting the slightest dent in her populist bona fides.
Based on such stories, now legion, perhaps we should rewrite George Orwell's famous tagline from Animal Farm as: All animals are equal, but a few are so much more equal than others.
And who are those "more equal" citizens? Certainly, major corporations, which now enjoy a kind of political citizenship and the largesse of a federal government eager to rescue them from their financial mistakes, especially when they're judged "too big to fail." In raiding the U.S. Treasury, big banks and investment firms, shamelessly ready to jack up executive pay and bonuses even after accepting billions in taxpayer-funded bailouts, arguably outgun militarized multinationals in the conquest of the public realm and the extraction of our wealth for their benefit.
Such kleptocratic outfits are, of course, abetted by thousands of lobbyists and by politicians who thrive off corporate campaign contributions. Indeed, many of our more prominent public servants have proved expert at spinning through the revolving door into the private sector. Even ex-politicians who prefer to be seen as sympathetic to the little guy like former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt eagerly cash in.
I'm Shocked, Shocked, to Find Profiteering Going on Here
An old Roman maxim enjoins us to "let justice be done, though the heavens fall." Within our kleptocracy, the prevailing attitude is an insouciant "We'll get ours, though the heavens fall." This mindset marks the decline of our polity. A spirit of shared sacrifice, dismissed as hopelessly naïve, has been replaced by a form of tribalized privatization in which insiders find ways to profit no matter what.
Is it any surprise then that, in seeking to export our form of government to Iraq and Afghanistan, we've produced not two model democracies, but two emerging kleptocracies, fueled respectively by oil and opium?
When we confront corruption in Iraq or Afghanistan, are we not like the police chief in the classic movie Casablanca who is shocked, shocked to find gambling going on at Rick's Café, even as he accepts his winnings?
Why then do we bother to feign shock when Iraqi and Afghan elites, a tiny minority, seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the majority?
Shouldn't we be flattered? Imitation, after all, is the sincerest form of flattery. Isn't it?
114 Comments so far
Show AllIt wasn't hundreds of millions on those pallets but
between 7 to 15 billion. We will never know the exact
amount because apparently the Democrats got some of that
kickback money toooooooooooo.
The first step is to get everybody on the same page in terms of simply defining socialism and fascism:
1) Socialism is the Robin Hood model where government takes resources from the wealthy and workers and equally (theoretically, anyway) distributes resources among the wealthy, the workers and the impoverished.
2) Fascism is the reverse Robin Hood model where government takes from the workers, hands most of it over to the wealthy and maybe tosses a crumb or two to the workers and the impoverished.
Based on those two definitions (that anybody with an IQ of 90 plus can understand) the US government slipped into fascist territory during the Reagan era, continued to become more fascist since then, and and is now reaching the point where the top 1% control a greater % of the wealth than they have in 234 years of US history.
Great definitions, Ray, I definitely concur. However, we are for sure slipping into Fascism rather than holding at some centrist middle ground as Mr. Astore asserts. His point, though, that we should be more concerned about what is happening right now, the "Kleptocracy" as he puts it, is a good one. Both right- and left- wingers should be fighting against the theft and impoverishment of the middle class and the looting of America, no matter who is doing it.
Definition No. 1 is the oddest definition of "Socialism" I've ever heard.
What you are describing is not socialism, but one of the ways the Liberal Capitalist state had to adjust, for a while, to defuse the threat of Socialism. With that threat gone, the various adjustments were or are being dropped per the neoloberal model.
Socialism is defined as the ownership, control of, and the profiting from, economic production solely by those work in that production, not someone who accrues wealth merely through ownership of capital or property. Under real suocialism, there would be no state wealth redstribution, becssue the state would be too busy withering away.
I am repeating myself a bit here, but please go here:
http://www.counterpunch.com/jacobs04072010.html
How do we rebel against this intolerable situation? Some people advocate tax revolts but that will result in some folks being jailed. I think I have a better idea - a bill revolt- people just refuse to pay their credit card, mortgage, car loans, etc. What are they going to do, you can't go to jail for indebtedness. At the very least, it will clog the courts into infinity. As to our "credit ratings", the same people who pass judgment on us rated toxic shit derivitives AAA. If this doesn't work there's always the good old-fashioned general strike. I know that none of this will happen (I'm gutless too) but they can never take away our ability to dream.
According to Charles Hugh Smith's weblog, this is starting to occur. People have quit paying the mortgage and continue to live in the house. They do seem to be paying their credit cards as the banks can revoke these quite easily, but not with the mortgages though.
I agree with this train of thought. If the idea would become more widespread or "available", there could be a greater chance of it being acted out. I believe that it would work and have stated the same train of thought, probably less artfully than you have, but you are not alone in thinking it; therefore, neither am I and it would be the start of a movement.
Lord knows we need to actually start a movement.
Many of us who have added comments here over the years have often used the term "kleptocracy" to describe the US system. Let us hope it catches on.
Our first kleptocrat was George Washington. He single-handedly started the French-Indian War by disobeying orders. The war he personally started spilled over to Europe to become the Seven Years War. When the campaign was over, Washington and William Byrd III persuaded General Braddock to overlook British law and award the territory seized (approximately the state of West Virginia) to the two of them, his commanding officers, instead of dividing among the soldiers. Because this territory was the only value obtained from the war, the crown raised taxes on the colony to pay for the war, bleeding the public for Washington's get-rich-quick scheme.
As president, Washington appointed the first presidential commission to examine the causes of the Whiskey Rebellion. Somehow the commissioners failed to notice that Washington had a conflict of interest in the Whiskey Tax because he owned the largest distillery in the United States.
"He single-handedly started the French-Indian War by disobeying orders. "
I never knew this,. What orders did he disobey? Thanks.
Washington was ordered to observe the position of the French and Indians. Instead he attacked and was obliged to build Fort Necessity to hold his position.
I've never seen any specific detail about such an order strictly to only observe as you seem to imply. And ordinarily, a commander is obliged to use his discretion as circumstances dictate, especially when deployed so far from his commander's headquarters. If so, Washington's attack would not be considered "disobedient".
Is there any documantation as to the specific orders written, presumably by Lieutenant Governor of colonial Virginia Robert Dinwiddie? I sort of doubt the disobedience by Washington, as it is widely thought that Dunwiddie's actions precipitated the war and Washington was acting at his behest. And if you have any favorite authors who chronicled these events, as I am interested in this part of history. Thanks.
Gee, I thought this was 'common knowledge' - about Washington starting the 7 Years War, etc. I didn't hear about Dunwiddie being involved... guess it depends on whose 'history' you read...
"I thought this was 'common knowledge' - about Washington starting the 7 Years War, etc."
ClassAct said that Washington disobeyed orders. Whose orders would they have been, if it was Washington who was the one who started it? Washington wasn't acting on his own, he was directed by the British government, and it would appear that it was Dunwiddie specifically who ordered him into the Ohio territory.
"guess it depends on whose 'history' you read"
What spedific book(s) would you suggest that would support your understanding, particularly that Washington started it independently of the British and disobeyed orders contrary to what is commonly available? Thanks.
I suggest you read various summaries on the internet - I know it's not the best source, but they all seem to agree that the Seven Years War was sparked by the incident near what was then Fort Dequesne, at the strategic junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. The young Virginian that sparked the incident was indeed George Washington.
"I suggest you read various summaries on the internet - I know it's not the best source, "
I have already. Can you suggest any specifically?
"The young Virginian that sparked the incident was indeed George Washington."
But further reading shows in all cases that I've seen that he was under orders from Dunwiddie, a British official. It's right there in the Wikipedia article, as well as the references listed there, among others references, all say the same thing. *None* of them mention his disobeying orders, *none* of them mention his working on his own. He was working at the behest of the British government. They all say that. If you can please provide a reference to the contrary. Else it appears that you folks are mistaken.
Here's a typical example of what I see:
"http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/"
"c.belanger/QuebecHistory/encyclopedia/"
"GeorgeWashington-FrenchandIndianWars.htm"
Split to avoid the CD cutoff effect.
"If this is fascism, why haven't the secret police rounded up tea partiers and progressive critics as well and sent them to the lager or the gulag?" Because there is no real need-- they have gotten their way without much of political problem. If there were or if in the near future there is a need they will but they will not come for the critics from the right who are so easily copted they can be made into allies-- they will come after the "socialistic" left-- as fascist movements in the past have.
Anybody who was at the 1999 battle of Seattle (WTO)would not agree that "police have not rounded up progressive critics". I recall parts of downtown Seattle looking like the Bolshevik revolution scenes in Doctor Zhivago...fires burning in the street, mounted police with swords, humvees full of goons with assault rifles and mace...it was UGLY.
In 2008 a US Army Battalion dedicated to "domestic incidents" was stationed at a base in upstate New York. I believe this is the first time the US has dedicated a battle group for this purpose. This battalion will make the battle of Seattle look like dress rehearsal.
Seattle was one of only a handful of battles and arrests in the last few years. The violent reactions to protest, the jailings of leftists are surgical. They are meant to intimidate thousands who might be thinking of demonstrating. Because resistance is sporadic, police actions are few and far between, especially compared with the number of "ordinary" jailings of African Americans and poor men. Most of the control is soft-control, through lies, dumbing down the media, fear and distractions. The organized basis of the left had already been largely destroyed through Cointelpro's skillful multi-faceted activity against the left and community movements, FBI destruction of unions, and our own passivity and immaturity. After many of the real leaders were killed or in jail, fake leaders were anointed to give a steam valve for frustrations, and then to contain that frustration without building effective channels for popular resistance.
There are few signs of powerful resistance to corporate kleptocracy within the US. Anger, and better understanding are growing. But organized and effective resistance that must be put down by force, not really.
Many of the legal protections against sweeps and summary executions have been removed, in particular habeas corpus (invalidated by the simple act of dubbing someone a terrorist), making roundups something that could be "on the table" for the future.
Joe
I don't quite understand the difference between capitalism and kleptocracy. Isn't theft, greed, cronyism, etc. the way the system is supposed to work? Didn't even Adam Smith recognize this? ("People of the same trade seldom meet together...")
I wouldn't characterize this article as even vaguely erudite. I'm not a political science scholar (or a Marxist), yet I think he's missed out on some cogent readings in Marxism and fascism. As a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) who has taught at military academies, I am not surprised that Astore doesn't have a problem with the militarism in American society. Of all the institutions in American society, doctors, lawyers, teachers, bankers, journalists, politicians, the military ranks consistently the highest by far of any profession (http://www.gallup.com/poll/1597/confidence-institutions.aspx). For what exactly? And on what basis does the public have this perception?
Scholarly definitions of fascism typically define it as a set of characteristics. In different flavors of fascism different characteristics will be emphasized. America does have gulags. We do have disappeared citizens. Just because the jackbooted thugs don't routinely roust grandpa off Elm Street doesn't mean that we don't have a fascist state that fits El Duce's definition. It just means that public perception management is very successful here. Thanks in great part to men like William Astore.
In the end labels matter little. Yet, as our country spends half it's annual budget on the armed offense, is occupying two countries, has military bases in most countries around the globe, imprisons more of it's populace than any other country, please don't equate a rational appraisal of the american psyche as tea-party-like delusion. We love our guns, and our guys with guns.
"I don't quite understand the difference between capitalism and kleptocracy. Isn't theft, greed, cronyism, etc. the way the system is supposed to work? Didn't even Adam Smith recognize this?"
You're right, in a way. Smith recognized that the capitalist theory of economics could not be relied upon, alone and unregulated, to provide the totality of its own moral guidance and constraints in the public interest. Except in the very narrow context of fiduciary responsibilities, capitalism is essentially amoral. In the absence of a stringent regulatory framework and enforcement to protect the commonweal, it does, therefore, tend to become indistinguishable from unfettered greed and "kleptocracy" as you suggest.
In other words, there is a very strong tendency for capitalist forces to overwhelm ALL constraints (whether societal, competitive, or otherwise) and thus to defeat the very benefits that capitalism is alleged to provide. Whether the capitalist label remains truely valid under those distorted circumstances is largely a semantic issue. But, regardless of what else it may be called, it's definitely "The American Way." :^)
Capitalism needs the rule of law to function, just like any other economic system. Kleptocracy operates in violation of law. Without decent laws that are enforced effectively, capitalism, or any other economic system, e.g. socialism, communism, etc.), will not function properly and will degenerate into kleptocracy.
To say that we have kleptocracy in this country is to say that the rule of law has been weakened to the extent that lawless behavior now drives our economy from the top down.
And, yes, it pretty much does!
OYE
" the rule of law has been weakened to the extent that lawless behavior now drives our economy from the top down"
That's right.
*Comment deleted by site administrators for violating our Comment Policy*
see: http://www.commondreams.org/comment-policy
This couldn't have been said better:
"What drives America today is, in fact, business -- just as was true in the days of Calvin Coolidge. But it's not the fair-minded "free enterprise" system touted in those freshly revised Texas guidelines for American history textbooks; rather, it's a rigged system of crony capitalism that increasingly ends in what, if we were looking at some other country, we would recognize as an unabashed kleptocracy".
And the President holds them up as "Savvy businessmen" no less. Wall Street is a Casino and the House is crooked. I generally accept the "half a-loaf" philosophy of Mr. Obama, preferring to err on the side of caution, but this puts "the medicine where the misery is". Here is where Courage must be shown. The Outlaws have taken over the town and now run the bank.
If the outlaws just ran the bank it wouldn't be so bad...they also run City Hall including courts, jails....
Homo Erectus of the four by four empirePie April 21st, 2010
I am just another economic man.
I pack ‘self interest’ just like Uncle Sam;
the non entity within the man,
to ride the gravy train non stop
and chug the bonus, opaque and frothy
while playing flush false flagged hands
more fleshy than invisible.
So shake my hand
I am just another economic man
rational like comrade DuskO
who winks at my inner predator
Homo economicus man
Homo Erectus of the four by four
dumber and glummer than before
And, we wonder why Americans are so confused and divided? The MSM - part of the 'corptocracy', as it were, bandies about so many "ISMS" that most folks can't tell the real left from the real right.....or, what any of it means. (this is one result of the purposeful dumbing down of our education system, starting back in the '80's; an uneducated populous is more easily duped)
Not to worry though, Dec. 21, 2012 is only about 2 years away,
...the Earth will explode, the Rapture will happen and gold will rain down from the skies! HAH!
from the article:
[A spirit of shared sacrifice, dismissed as hopelessly naïve, has been replaced by a form of tribalized privatization in which insiders find ways to profit no matter what.
Is it any surprise then that, in seeking to export our form of government to Iraq and Afghanistan, we've produced not two model democracies, but two emerging kleptocracies, fueled respectively by oil and opium?]
Does the author believe we were 'seeking to export our form of government'?
His own premise, the first sentence above, appears to anticipate and support oil and opium profiteering, but, in the following sentence, he doesn't see them as the reasons for the invasions? Confusing...
In the economic rationality of capitalism, theft is more efficient than production. But an economy based on looting eventually runs out of people and things to loot because it is economically irrational to create wealth if others are going to loot it. That is why our capitalism tends towards imperialism, in order to find new people and new places to loot. But the world is round, and eventually there is nothing new to loot. The sooner this system crashes, the better for all of us.
That's why the Nazis looted the Jews - they had all the money, property, businesses, valuable art work, diamonds, etc. And they weren't big on sharing with others of different religion... at least not the kleptocratic Jews. But they also hated the ones who offered 'socialism' - like many Americans, they equated that with Stalin and communism...
fixcongressfirst.org
This article argues powerfully for the need for campaign finance reform. But that's only a start toward reclaiming our democracy.
What is "democracy"? Please define. Did we ever have it?
I like this article. It elaborates on the constant frustration I feel with the "socialist" and "fascist" dialogues taking place around me continuously. At the same time, I think that Astore is wrong in believing that we have no strong fascist party. It's a matter of labels. The Demopublicans and the Republicrats, lobbied into shape by the corporatocracy, are in "we do what we want" mode, and I can barely stomach the responses I get from my elected people when I write to them on issues. He is wrong also in thinking that our government doesn't round people up and make them disappear. If it hasn't happened to him, it doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Our activities abroad are also telling. There's been much news this week about the Mexican military marching on its own people, funded by the USA. The real "cartels" in Mexico are Walmart, Monsanto, Coca Cola and Cargill, not the "narcos".
The Capitalists don't fear "Socialists" and incrementalists and Laborites and so forth.
They just coopt them and engineer Capitalism with social welfare if they have to.
In short:
Bernstein/enough time = Tony Blair.
Capitalism with social welfare is NOT Socialism.
Check out the Swedish film Du levande if you have any doubt.
Corporatism with a few bought off labor unions mouthing leftish slogans while supporting war and imperialism is NOT Socialism.
Got it?
What do they fear then?
Who cares what the Capitalists fear as long as they are liquidated.
>Corporatism with a few bought off labor unions mouthing leftish slogans while >supporting war and imperialism is NOT Socialism.
>Got it?
Got it I've been living the worst example for a decade now SEIU! phony leftists if there ever were. Andy Stern wouldn't know a union if it marched over him, the collaborationist scum. so also the UAW and Teamsteers.
If we are to have a rivival of Unionism as socialism how many would know and embrace it? Most would throw rocks and take up arms. Mind-Poisoned by are Capitalist/Borg Queen leaders as we are.
>^^<
interesting...education, indeed...
what has been the suggested 'next step' following such a revelation?
Our politicians are thieves and our country is a travesty. From greed to torture to slaughtering civilians to supporting dictators and apartheid states like Israel...this country is a living crime, and the people who run it are some of the worst criminals in the history of the world.
One red-herring in this article is the idea of "kleptocracy". A more insightful analysis might have pointed out the the systematic accrual of excess wealth by one layer of society at the expense of another is called "capitalism". There the earnest analysis can begin.
The popular media induced polarities of "socialism" and "fascism" to which Astore refers are just a more extreme version the kubuki theater produced by the Democrats and Republicans. The tea-baggers can't grok that capitalism is the problem because they have been successfully propagandized to equate "freedom" with "free market (capitalism)". Whereas the liberals can't see the critique of capitalism, because, they would have to own up to their culpability and acceptance of oppressive economic structures from which they benefit.
If you want to get rid problems caused by capitalism (e.g. "kleptocracy"), you have to get rid of capitalism and develop a democratic society (both economic and political democracy). Socialism is the antidote to capitalism.
"Antidote"?
Depends on how you define "Socialism".
The Fabians were using that word toward eventually what they have got, Tony Blair and Labor and a stab at second class imperialism with some pretty inferior social welfare.
Or Sweden or Norway or Erhard's Germany--Capitalism with social welfare, often called "Socialism".
Tito did it better.
Was that what was really behind the Clinton and NATO attack on Yugoslavia?
Was that another factor in the attack on the Ba'ath in Iraq?
They had to excise even the remnant or the hint lest proles might get ideas?
Eugene Costa wrote:
> "Antidote"?
>
> Depends on how you define "Socialism".
I define socialism as worker/democratic control of the means of production. I do not mean a Stalinist centrally planned economy. Nor I do mean "social democracy" a la Sweeden et. al.
That's nice.
And I suppose the Capitalists are just going to hand it over to you if you say pretty please?
Or perhaps you will just vote yourselves in at the polls?
Or you will talk them into it perhaps?
You seem a bit ignorant of Lenin, merely by the way, going directly to Stalin, not going through Go, not collecting $200, and not getting out of jail free.
May I ask a theoretical question perhaps--how do you define "means of production" in a post-industrial economy like the US?
Hi Eugene,
> And I suppose the Capitalists are just going to hand it over to you if you say pretty please?
>
> Or perhaps you will just vote yourselves in at the polls?
Heh. I think you are making some assumptions. No, I do not believe that the capitalist class will just hand things over to us. Even if we ask nicely. :-) As in the past, they will resort to violence. Getting rid of capitalism will probably end up being messy.
> You seem a bit ignorant of Lenin, merely by the way, going directly to Stalin, no
> It going through Go, not collecting $200, and not getting out of jail free
I am not working chronologically along the lines of M-L theoretical development. I brought up Stalin because on a website like Common Dreams, Stalinism is what many people equate with socialism or communism. As for Lenin, I think he has a lot to say which is very relevant to current US imperialism.
> May I ask a theoretical question perhaps--how do you define "means of
> production" in a post-industrial economy like the US?
This is a question I've been thinking about lately. I think for socialism to be viable in the US, we would have to bring the "means of production" back to the US. This may well be the basis of an organizing strategy for socialists in the US. We would have to do it smarter and in a more ecological manner than just a blind re-industrialization of the US. I can't give a fuller answer at this point. How about you?
"These comments are sure to be promptly known by fifty or sixty people; a large number given the times in which we live and the gravity of the matters under discussion. But then, of course, in some circles I am considered to be an authority. It must also be borne in mind that a good half of this elite that will be interested will consist of people who devote themselves to maintaining the spectacular system of domination, and the other half of people who persist in doing quite the opposite. Having, then, to take account of readers who are both attentive and diversely influential, I obviously cannot speak with complete freedom. Above all, I must take care not to instruct just anybody."
Guy Debord
"Means of production in a post-industrial society" - stick a seed potato in the ground. Plant a tomato. Some cannabis, if you can.
>>>Was that what was really behind the Clinton and NATO attack on Yugoslavia?<<<
No, not nearly.
You confuse Tito's Yugoslavia with Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia and Montenegro union - a remnant of former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Ever since Tito's death in 1980, military/political leadership of Serbia worked on disolution of Yugoslavia and building of Greater Serbia in its stead. Milosevic was national-socialist -- a full-blooded nazi, in short. Clinton bombed Serbia not because of its ostensibly socialist regime, but because of overblown and destabilizing hegemony of Serbia, and to move NATO's influence closer to Russia's borders.
Otherwise, I agree: Tito did it better - much better.
If Serbia had such grand plans, than how where far more Serbians displaced by ethnic cleansing - in Croatia, Bosnia-Hezgovna and now Kosovo, than any other ethnic group?
Tjudman of Croatia was qite a thug too, but for some reason he was considered a "good guy" by the US.
If Germany had such grand plans in WWII, then how were Germans ethnically cleansed from many a European country?
Yes, Tudjman was a thug, too.
The United States is a fascist country, not necessarily in the way a great number of its citizens think and act or even 'vote', of course, but in its larger raison d'etre and the functioning of all of its political and corporate systems, and a significant number of its social and cultural systems.
Money and militarism and masculinity are more important than people and felicity in the United States. The children are being subjected to rampant, systemic abuse in nutrition, education, health-care. It is a crime against humanity. Women are still, in the year 2010, being denied full citizenship and full voice and full security. The country rots, rots, rots from within. Yet it persists in bringing death, destruction, ignorance and religious wars to the rest of the world, which it regards as universally inferior and exploitable.
I like Mr Astore's article, too, it's right on in its characterization. The United States is not a 'mature' republic, though; if it ever was, it has descended into a kind of severely diseased, post-mature or dangerously immature second childhood. The acceptance on the part of the greater majority of the population of the current state of affairs is the first evidence that the fascism is entrenched. The population is mostly deluded about the history, nature, purpose, definition of their country. They believe and support ideas about the U.S. which are false or no longer exist, if they ever did. If the people of the United States actually, decisively understood how to embody and express their 'democracy' and their 'republic', and how to manifest what they claim when they sport these bullshit bumper stickers with puerile, infantile crap like 'power of pride', blathering on with their distorted ideas of 'patriotism', they would have stopped the coup d'etat of 2000. They would have gone so far as to threaten Washington with fire and violence if Washington and the gang of pimps on the 'Supreme' Court had tried to proceed with the installation of Bush and company. The fact that the people did precisely nothing to avert this destruction of their precious 'democracy' testifies to the abject and dangerous level of real and systemic ignorance and mind-control and cowardice which are the new hallmarks of the average American. A stuation exists in America which has been developing for a long time, and given real and nasty teeth in the last thirty years by the likes of the son-of-a-whore Reagan. The sanctification of this imbecile is more evidence of the nature of the problem in the United States.
And as I have mentioned many times before, quoting a theatre review of a couple of years back in the New York Times, there is a very real problem, on the ground and in the institutions, with the "dangerously limited ways Americans have codified masculinity."
The United States is not a socialist country. Yet. The right-wing, 'tea-party' mob now foaming at their ignorant mouths about socialism are in for a nasty surprise. The United States will complete its current destruction of itself unless it embraces some forms or functions or even rudimentary strains of socialism. The present reality demonstrates unequivocally that the present system is purpose-built to destroy itself as it feeds upon the country and people who have allowed it to come into being.
Yes, the U.S. is a kleptocracy. But the theft is not merely, or even most importantly economic. It is the theft of the rights, security and health of people. It is the stealing - of the spotlight of relevance, prominence in public discourse and simple honouring from the feminine. It is the absolute theft of the childrens' happiness and future.
It is a theft which is imposing a Herculean struggle upon the next generations to reclaim some human dignity and survival out of the most incredible mess history has ever seen.