Zompist Bboard Again

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:27 am

Once you have fascists in power, all this talk of "capitalists" ruling everything and getting their way on everything is out of date.

Just to run this point into the ground a little, here are the previous jobs of Trump's cabinet-level officers, plus immigration czar Miller:

politician - 10
official - 6
conervative activist - 4
businessman - 3
TV host - 1

BTW, the combined revenue of the companies the three ex-CEOs ran is about $5 billion.

You do realize that the MAGA movement is controlled by oligarchs like Peter Thiel and his cronies like Alex Karp, right? The political leadership is a PR team for the men behind the curtain.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:31 am You do realize that the MAGA movement is controlled by oligarchs like Peter Thiel and his cronies like Alex Karp, right? The political leadership is a PR team for the men behind the curtain.

Are you sure that (disgustingly evil) oligarchs like Peter Thiel aren't controlled by MAGA?

When they don't get their way, they distract the masses by proposing social conservatism

Which is what I said. They can't win with businessmen's votes, so they need something else.

The question is who's controlling whom. Just asserting that "oligarchs" are in control does not make it so. Under crony capitalism, capitalists lick the leader's boots, not vice versa.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:47 am Are you sure that (disgustingly evil) oligarchs like Peter Thiel aren't controlled by MAGA?

There are business leaders who sided with MAGA and are now not doing so well. However, if you look at a core company like Palantir, that makes its money by contracting for the US government in policing and military applications. This is the socially conservative industrial complex that supports the MAGA movement with its resources.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:47 am Which is what I said. They can't win with businessmen's votes, so they need something else.

The question is who's controlling whom. Just asserting that "oligarchs" are in control does not make it so. Under crony capitalism, capitalists lick the leader's boots, not vice versa.

It's true that leaders and masses wield different kinds of power. The power of the oligarchs is that they're the ones with the money and the megaphones. Even if you're right and power is now with the monster Thiel has created, that's fully compatible with my original point about capitalists herding society towards right-populism across the world.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 1:13 pm They could try to buy out all the ISPs. The ISPs already pulled a big move when the business leaders weren't openly fascist yet. Remember the net neutrality debate? IIRC the ISPs already allocate more bandwidth to big websites like Facebook. They could say that anyone other than Facebook and friends is Chinese by definition, and therefore racially Communist.

I agree, that's absurd.

Here's how I'd do it if I was evil and had the means: get people to develop the new protocol and roll it out with an announcement that it's a response to the increase in "AI" traffic online. People will switch as long as it's more convenient and there's no visible loss of freedoms; just look at Discord replacing IRC. Once enough human traffic has switched over, announce you're shutting down your legacy frontend and solely using your new protocol.

HTTP will never outright die (there's plenty of "legacy" protocols like Gopher which continue to exist in a state of undeath after they were replaced by HTTP) but it would show exponential decay as human traffic drops, smaller websites shut down or switch to the proprietary protocol of someone willing to accommodate them, and web hosts stop offering HTTP as an option.

Fore the record, I'm not generally against war or revolution, and I'm sorry if I gave that impression. But I think even in the context of wars or revolutions which you yourself are waging, you should try, as well as that is practically possible, to oppose specific instances of cruelty or injustice. You should very much not take a stance of "We're the ones doing these things, and we're right, and therefore, these things are right!"

And I stand by the position that no one, not even the oppressed, deserves to be always sided with. Everyone sometimes messes up. Yes, even the oppressed. And when you mess up, the right thing to do for other people is to disagree with or oppose you in that context.

rotting bones makes a good point about the differences between power in the larger society and in the state. I wonder how common that kind of thing is, though. In some modern societies, there are a few individual institutions which make a serious attempt to give preferential or at least equal treatment to groups which are generally treated badly by the larger society. But my impression is that historically, it was a lot more common to have societies where one bunch of people was clearly on top, and was pretty much always treated as on top, in every context. A lot of the fascist burning rage of our time seems to be about the fact that that's sometimes no longer the case.

I mostly agree with most of zompist's points, but not with the one about how crony capitalism is barely capitalism. I've sometimes heard that claim from defenders of capitalism. And it sounds about as convincing as claims that most of what happened in the Soviet Union wasn't really Leninist to me.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:48 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 10:23 am And another one is that, no, no one should always be sided with, certainly not by the state. No, not even the oppressed. Everyone is sometimes wrong. Almost everyone is sometimes tempted to do bad and wrong or even cruel things. And no one should be sided with in those cases. Once you know that state power will always side with you, you've got a license to become a cruel, brutal, and unjust oppressor yourself.

How else would you ensure justice?

By siding, in each context, with whoever is being treated unjustly in that context.

Ketsuban wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 3:23 am

rotting bones wrote: ↑Sat Jun 13, 2026 1:13 pm They could try to buy out all the ISPs. The ISPs already pulled a big move when the business leaders weren't openly fascist yet. Remember the net neutrality debate? IIRC the ISPs already allocate more bandwidth to big websites like Facebook. They could say that anyone other than Facebook and friends is Chinese by definition, and therefore racially Communist.

I agree, that's absurd.

Here's how I'd do it if I was evil and had the means: get people to develop the new protocol and roll it out with an announcement that it's a response to the increase in "AI" traffic online. People will switch as long as it's more convenient and there's no visible loss of freedoms; just look at Discord replacing IRC. Once enough human traffic has switched over, announce you're shutting down your legacy frontend and solely using your new protocol.

HTTP will never outright die (there's plenty of "legacy" protocols like Gopher which continue to exist in a state of undeath after they were replaced by HTTP) but it would show exponential decay as human traffic drops, smaller websites shut down or switch to the proprietary protocol of someone willing to accommodate them, and web hosts stop offering HTTP as an option.

The thing is, they have realized they no longer need to be good at lying. These days, they just say whatever, and their thugs go to work. Remember what they said when they got rid of net neutrality? The Internet is a series of tubes. I don't understand why that's believable to anyone no matter how old they are. They are just forcing us to accept that whatever they say goes.

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 4:40 am I mostly agree with most of zompist's points

To be honest, I don't understand what humans find believable and why. It all looks random to me. The liberal disbelief of socialist points despite being repeatedly proven wrong for the entire duration of my life is one of the main reasons why I feel like the far left is necessary. E.g:

1. Liberals think capitalists can be enticed by letting them keep some profits. But they clearly can't. China also lets them keep some profits. Every country does, but they always want more.

2. Liberals say society is progressing. As far back as I can remember, the fresh, contemporary move this century has been pulling a fascism. I get the distinct feeling that West Bengal went fash and Bangladesh did not because West Bengal is more fresh, modern and 21st century than Bangladesh. (Sure, there was vote manipulation in West Bengal, but that level of vote manipulation wouldn't have helped in Bangladesh. The Islamists lost very badly there.)

3. Liberals say poverty is being eliminated. Poverty experts like Jason Hickel disagree. See articles like this: wrong link edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianLeft/com ... are_button

...

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 4:40 am By siding, in each context, with whoever is being treated unjustly in that context.

"Injustice" is just a word, unlike systemic oppression, which can be studied. Capitalists can argue that taking away their right to use their property as they see fit is unjust. They can point to a long line of Enlightenment philosophers from Locke onwards who agree. "Justice" is whatever people are used to, even if it destroys society. It's another name for tradition.

Honestly, I'm waiting for the day fascists just say, "blah blah blah <enter speech here>. Take no prisoners!"

Then their thugs charge the barricades, chanting, "ENTER. SPEECH. HERE. ENTER. SPEECH. HERE."

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 4:40 am I mostly agree with most of zompist's points, but not with the one about how crony capitalism is barely capitalism. I've sometimes heard that claim from defenders of capitalism. And it sounds about as convincing as claims that most of what happened in the Soviet Union wasn't really Leninist to me.

I don't think declarations that capitalism is Always Bad are any more useful or interesting than declarations that socialism is Always Bad. You have to make distinctions. Some forms of each are clearly bad, and came out of earlier forms that were not clearly bad. It's important to understand how that happened.

What's wrong with saying that the USSR wasn't Leninist after 1924? Founders can't keep posterity on the path they desire. It can certainly be argued that Lenin was bad, but Stalin was worse. Stalin doesn't magically make every form of communism bad. He certainly gives a bad name to authoritarian communism, but it's not ludicrous for a person to say they're a communist or Marxist but not authoritarian.

Do you object to the term "state capitalism" for what the USSR ended up as? I think it's pretty accurate in the sense that when the state takes over everything, it acts like the worst sort of capitalist. Still, it lacks most of the redeeming features of the better types of capitalism: competition, the rule of law, popular accountability, actual trade unionism, freedom to oppose the government, an inclusive rather than extractive economy, etc.

Crony capitalism is about the same, except that the people who own everything are the army, or the leader's clan or family, or a set of carefully watched oligarchs who bow down to the leader. In return they get the lack of competition, lack of worker power, lack of popular power, and extractive powers of state capitalism.

Neither are the same as Babylonian capitalism, or medieval capitalism, or 1700s British capitalism, or 1900s American laissez-faire, or Rooseveltian liberalism, or Reagan-style plutocracy, or French dirigisme, or Nordic capitalism. Erasing all the differences is no more helpful than erasing the differences between different forms of socialism, communism, or anarchism.

Now, some of these forms tend to lead to others. But "tend" does not mean "is the same as". Poisons can lead to death, unless you apply an antidote. Political antidotes do exist.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 5:28 am Liberals

Jesus, this is the universal codeword for "I've stopped thinking and just want to put people into bins."

As far back as I can remember

Maybe that's the problem. Since only you exist in the world, and you are the only real socialist, and history began when you were born, no one else's ideas matter.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 5:28 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 4:40 am I mostly agree with most of zompist's points

To be honest, I don't understand what humans find believable and why. It all looks random to me. The liberal disbelief of socialist points despite being repeatedly proven wrong for the entire duration of my life is one of the main reasons why I feel like the far left is necessary. E.g:

Ah, the problem is, the far left has exactly the same problem, or even worse. Far-left activists seem increasingly unable to recognize when they're wrong, even when faced with clear evidence that they're wrong.
Now, their hearts are generally in the right place and they may be generally right 80% of the time; but who wants to be led by people who seem utterly convinced they have the correct view on everything?
To make things worse, each activist -- naturally enough -- is 100% certain they're correct; so on top of the dogmatism you get incessant internal fights.

I'm not sure whom you're addressing, rotting bones.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 5:28 am
To be honest, I don't understand what humans find believable and why. It all looks random to me. The liberal disbelief of socialist points despite being repeatedly proven wrong for the entire duration of my life is one of the main reasons why I feel like the far left is necessary. E.g:

1. Liberals think capitalists can be enticed by letting them keep some profits. But they clearly can't. China also lets them keep some profits. Every country does, but they always want more.

I don't disagree with you here at all. Not sure what makes you think I would.

2. Liberals say society is progressing. As far back as I can remember, the fresh, contemporary move this century has been pulling a fascism. I get the distinct feeling that West Bengal went fash and Bangladesh did not because West Bengal is more fresh, modern and 21st century than Bangladesh. (Sure, there was vote manipulation in West Bengal, but that level of vote manipulation wouldn't have helped in Bangladesh. The Islamists lost very badly there.)

I think that in the couple of centuries before the 1980s, society did progress in all kinds of ways. I'm pretty damn glad that I don't have to live in ancien régime Europe. From the 1980s to the 2010s, society progressed in some ways but regressed in some others, and I myself would never deny that it regressed in some ways during that time. Today, it's mainly moving backwards, and again, I myself would never deny that.

3. Liberals say poverty is being eliminated. Poverty experts like Jason Hickel disagree. See articles like this: wrong link edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianLeft/com ... are_button

I don't really know enough about this matter to form an opinion about it.

"Injustice" is just a word, unlike systemic oppression, which can be studied. Capitalists can argue that taking away their right to use their property as they see fit is unjust. They can point to a long line of Enlightenment philosophers from Locke onwards who agree. "Justice" is whatever people are used to, even if it destroys society. It's another name for tradition.

No, a lot of people call the things they are used to "injustice" and call for "justice" when they mean forms of change which they think would improve things. Yes, capitalists can abuse the word "justice" for their purposes. But if we would have to stop using every word once capitalists start abusing it for their purposes, we wouldn't have many words left.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 6:06 am

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 4:40 am I mostly agree with most of zompist's points, but not with the one about how crony capitalism is barely capitalism. I've sometimes heard that claim from defenders of capitalism. And it sounds about as convincing as claims that most of what happened in the Soviet Union wasn't really Leninist to me.

I don't think declarations that capitalism is Always Bad are any more useful or interesting than declarations that socialism is Always Bad. You have to make distinctions.

I'm almost always for making distinctions, and I wasn't refusing to make distinctions in the quote you replied to. I was just being sceptical of No True Scotsman arguments.

That said, I find it hard to think of any good forms of capitalism. "Less bad" ones clearly do exist, though.

Some forms of each are clearly bad, and came out of earlier forms that were not clearly bad. It's important to understand how that happened.

Not much disagreement there. I'd say a starting point for explanations might be "If the way things are run involves some people having a lot of money, but they have reasons to believe that they would have a lot more money if things would be run in a worse way, then these people have both a motive to try to make things worse, and the money to get to work on that."

What's wrong with saying that the USSR wasn't Leninist after 1924? Founders can't keep posterity on the path they desire. It can certainly be argued that Lenin was bad, but Stalin was worse.

Again, I'm sceptical of No True Scotsman arguments.

Stalin doesn't magically make every form of communism bad.

I'm not saying he does. He does, however, IMNSHO, make forms of communism advocated by Soviet fanboys and fangirls and fanenbys bad.

He certainly gives a bad name to authoritarian communism, but it's not ludicrous for a person to say they're a communist or Marxist but not authoritarian.

I'm not saying it is. If, some day, someone like that should show up here...

Do you object to the term "state capitalism" for what the USSR ended up as? I think it's pretty accurate in the sense that when the state takes over everything, it acts like the worst sort of capitalist.

My main problem with that term is that it seems to be mainly used by people who want to criticize the Soviet Union, which is all fine and nice and good of them, but who want to maintain capitalism as the single villain of a single villain ideology. I'm no fan of single villain ideologies.

Still, it lacks most of the redeeming features of the better types of capitalism: competition, the rule of law, popular accountability, actual trade unionism, freedom to oppose the government, an inclusive rather than extractive economy, etc.

Crony capitalism is about the same, except that the people who own everything are the army, or the leader's clan or family, or a set of carefully watched oligarchs who bow down to the leader. In return they get the lack of competition, lack of worker power, lack of popular power, and extractive powers of state capitalism.

Neither are the same as Babylonian capitalism, or medieval capitalism, or 1700s British capitalism, or 1900s American laissez-faire, or Rooseveltian liberalism, or Reagan-style plutocracy, or French dirigisme, or Nordic capitalism. Erasing all the differences is no more helpful than erasing the differences between different forms of socialism, communism, or anarchism.

Now, some of these forms tend to lead to others. But "tend" does not mean "is the same as". Poisons can lead to death, unless you apply an antidote. Political antidotes do exist.

Not much disagreement here, though I still think it doesn't make sense to describe crony capitalism as not really capitalism. FWIW, among versions that you call "crony capitalism", I'd still distinguish between the Trumpian version and the last-few-decades-before-Trump version. I'd say the last-few-decades-before-Trump version is a good deal more capitalist friendly.

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 9:59 am
Ah, the problem is, the far left has exactly the same problem, or even worse. Far-left activists seem increasingly unable to recognize when they're wrong, even when faced with clear evidence that they're wrong.
Now, their hearts are generally in the right place and they may be generally right 80% of the time; but who wants to be led by people who seem utterly convinced they have the correct view on everything?

So much this.

To make things worse, each activist -- naturally enough -- is 100% certain they're correct; so on top of the dogmatism you get incessant internal fights.

Yes, I kind of have the following theory on in-fighting on the Left (sounds like you partly agree with it):

In countries that are not currently ruled by far left movements, there are usually relatively few people on the Left who are the type who would march in lockstep with anyone. However, unfortunately, there are a lot more people on the Left who think that they're entitled to everyone else marching in lockstep with them. And then, they look around themselves and see that almost no one is marching in lockstep with them. And that, in turn, makes them very angry at all the people who they think should march in lockstep with them, but who aren't. Cue vicious attacks...

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 10:51 am Yes, I kind of have the following theory on in-fighting on the Left (sounds like you partly agree with it):

In countries that are not currently ruled by far left movements, there are usually relatively few people on the Left who are the type who would march in lockstep with anyone. However, unfortunately, there are a lot more people on the Left who think that they're entitled to everyone else marching in lockstep with them. And then, they look around themselves and see that almost no one is marching in lockstep with them. And that, in turn, makes them very angry at all the people who they think should march in lockstep with them, but who aren't. Cue vicious attacks...

I think that's essentially right, yes. Additionally, and at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old codger, social media as they exist right now rewardaggression, which does compound the problem.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 12:18 am

Torco wrote: ↑Mon Jun 08, 2026 12:36 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sat Jun 06, 2026 10:57 am Fundamentally, what is needed is a way of baking socialism into the system without privileging a Party in power. One way of doing this is by bringing about direct worker ownership and self-management of capital while legally entrenching it (e.g. making it very illegal to attempt to dispossess workers of their capital, including by legislative action, at a constitutional level). Then rightists can be legally prosecuted for attempting to 'turn back the clock' without handing a Party absolute power.

wouldn't that be nice. i'm not convinced you can do it, but it'd absolutely be much better than single-party rule. I don't think it can work because, well... *points vaguely at world*

If you think the paths by which people are drawn to right-wing politics are multifarious and ever-changing, then you do need a tyrannical entity to shut down new paths as they arise. Personally, I don't think capitalists are particularly creative. Movies depict them as geniuses, but that's just 21st century psychosis, the chiller equivalent of Musk buying Twitter and using it as his personal loudspeaker. The reason people support capitalism are all like... jobs, salaries, etc. If you provide socialist alternatives to those, capitalists will have their hands tied. They can't even topple a rickety, poverty-stricken state like Iran which can barely control its own citizens.

I don't think they're particularly creative or competent either -though they're also not all bozos- but they don't really have to be. they employ many millions of people in the endeavor to retain power: a lot of jobs boil down to ensuring capitalist retain power, and a lot of those millions of people *are* creative and competent.

Meanwhile, what about the latest Iran-related developments? Sounds to me like, 1) there's a tentative deal (which is effectively a crushing defeat for the USA), but 2) part of the deal is that Israel is supposed to end their war in Lebanon, and 3) Israel has absolutely no plans to end their war in Lebanon? In that case, does that mean that 4) the deal is dead before it has even taken effect?

We should be marketing socialism as economic democracy rather than as "giving people stuff" as our adversaries like to paint socialism. People can understand the idea of having democratic control of their own workplaces, and democracy is good, right? Whereas letting our enemies paint socialism as "giving people stuff" allows them to then question where that stuff will come from.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:05 pm We should be marketing socialism as economic democracy rather than as "giving people stuff" as our adversaries like to paint socialism. People can understand the idea of having democratic control of their own workplaces, and democracy is good, right? Whereas letting our enemies paint socialism as "giving people stuff" allows them to then question where that stuff will come from.

More or less agree. Ideally, we could be marketing socialism as "economic freedom", because for most people, that's what it is, but that term is unfortunately too strongly associated with right-wing economic policies in most people's minds.

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 1:57 pm Meanwhile, what about the latest Iran-related developments? Sounds to me like, 1) there's a tentative deal (which is effectively a crushing defeat for the USA), but 2) part of the deal is that Israel is supposed to end their war in Lebanon, and 3) Israel has absolutely no plans to end their war in Lebanon? In that case, does that mean that 4) the deal is dead before it has even taken effect?

Trump made a peace deal with Iran! Not even Obama did that! Checkmate, liberals!

Seriously, I'd be surprised if it lasts the intended 60 days. What is Trump going to be able to do to Israel to make them behave? What happens when Trump's supporters realise that the main result of the war is that the Iranian regime is in a much better position than it was beforehand, and the USA has gained virtually nothing?

alice wrote: ↑Mon Jun 15, 2026 2:56 pm What is Trump going to be able to do to Israel to make them behave?

That might depend on what, exactly, you mean by the phrase "able to do". And on timespans.

What happens when Trump's supporters realise that the main result of the war is that the Iranian regime is in a much better position than it was beforehand, and the USA has gained virtually nothing?

His supporters won't ever realize that, but everyone else might.