I actually like how I heard Hasan explain it once: billionaires’ wealth in China is similar to how farmers hold land there. All the land is owned by the government, but you can lease it and make money on it. Billionaires in China are merely holding onto some of the wealth of the nation. It ultimately belongs to the people and if the peoples’ representatives decide you should no longer hold it, you won’t have it anymore.
I hate how everyone buys into the myth of “the government budget should operate how a household budget operates”. It’s not the fact that it’s wrong that bothers me the most, what really bothers me is how it’s nearly impossible to explain why that analogy is bad. I read a whole book about MMT in part so I could explain why that analogy is wrong, and I still basically can’t do it well. When I try people just think I’m full of shit because the analogy is so easy to understand and the real explanation is not intuitive if you don’t have a solid grasp of economics (which is maybe 5% of the population at best, and most of those people, even liberals understand why the government isn’t like a company or a household).
(FWIW I’ve fallen back on the Keynesian “deficit in a recession and surplus in a boom” even though I don’t actually believe it. That seems to be something people can grasp better)
I mean, I would never say never (also wouldn’t bet on it happening).
The real job of the US president and the US government broadly is to manage the different factions of capital into a united front against the working class (both domestic and international). Finance capital, industrial capital, tech billionaires, etc. Get everyone on the same page and make sure every group is getting something out of it. It seems to me that Trump is just completely ignoring this part of the job and is favoring some bourgeois groups over others. Specifically, it seems to me that tech capital is running the show. Of course, there’s plenty of intersection between military contractors and tech billionaires. But the tech billionaires would be perfectly happy with a pared down military budget that still funneled even more money to the high tech sector i.e. Palantir, Boston Dynamics, et al. I also think that tech capital - in contrast to say finance or industrial capital - is perfectly happy to see US hegemony and maybe even the US state nearly evaporate as they believe they will still come out ahead in that scenario. Musk, Thiel, Andresson, and that group I believe want something like an AnCap USA; and in that world they will emerge on top. Those are the people Trump is listening to right now. They are ok gutting everything and funneling it back to billionaires because they think we’re in the “rip the copper wiring out and sell it” phase of capitalism. Entirely possible other members/groups of the bourgeoisie see it that way too - no way imperialist capitalism can be maintained given climate change, the rise of China, etc so just try to cash out now.
Inshallah
The only hope Europe has of breaking its subservience to the US is to not just make nice with Russia, but to totally embrace it. That is not likely to happen anytime soon, so Europe is just going to be America’s punching bag until they get it.
My social situation is almost eerily similar to OP’s, with a critical difference being that with one or two exceptions, my friends are either apolitical or center-right. Because we were friends since childhood, we have a whole range of shared interests and hobbies that have nothing to do with politics. Whenever there was political hostility between us, it was usually instigated by a couple shit-stirrers on the periphery of our friend group.
After a big row regarding Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples Day a few years ago, the bulk of the friend group decided “no political discussion” and when it comes up by the shit-stirrers, just ignore it.
And honestly, this “no politics” rule has worked out pretty well. Admittedly this is easier to do when you have a majority who are apolitical or aren’t really all that interested in discussing politics. Long way of saying, I really like your suggestions to OP, certainly better and healthier than the suggestions about “burn it all down and leave”.
Radhika Desai brought up a great point regarding this on the latest Geopolitical Economy podcast: civilian shipbuilding and military shipbuilding are complementary industries. China has both, the US only has one (military). Having both allows greater innovation and technological development as people and resources can move between both. What you may learn in civilian shipbuilding will have applications in military shipbuilding (or in more Marxist terms, practice helps build knowledge and understanding). If you only having military shipbuilding capabilities, in time you may very well lag behind other nations that have both (certain when you’re talking about the scale that China is at).
I’ve read more of Lenin’s writings recently and I’ve developed an even greater appreciation for his mind. The fact that this guy who had such a good knowledge of theory was also leading a revolution? It’s like if you had Michael Jordan on the court but he also possessed Phil Jackson’s knowledge of strategy and tactics and his ability to motivate a team.
All this to say, to compare Lenin to Trump - even if it’s by some MAGA communist who has no idea what they are doing - is offensive to me on a personal level.
Literally Trotsky’s godson, but yeah Hudson is great regardless.
While I agree with the sentiments about Northern Africa and the Sahel countries as most likely, India is my “dark horse” choice. Yes, BJP and fascism is a big problem. But I think along other metrics, it appears that the conditions seem to be matching up. Recently there were those farmer protests that seemed to have a heavy communist influence that were like the largest protests in human history (I recall something like 200 million people participated in the protest). There’s quite a ways to go but I would not be surprised to see India go communist in this century.
I was just thinking the other day, should I ever happen to contract cancer the first thing I’m gonna do is see what kind of treatment is available in China. It really seems to me that in recent years China has become the global leader in cutting edge medical treatments, even if we don’t hear about it much in the west.
I was under the impression that KSA was intentionally blocking food imports which was leading to famine conditions. I am admittedly not as familiar with the war between KSA and Ansarallah as I am with what is happening in Gaza, so I am open to correction if I’m wrong.
Just read The Dispossessed instead. It describes an anarcho-communist society but is achingly beautiful literature because LeGuin is an incredible writer.
In fact, one must assume that China’s threat to US warships will be even greater than what the Houthis are able to do.
Whoa, what brilliant military insight this sage geopolitical analyst possesses. China - a nation of 1.4 billion people that has unparalleled productive capacities and is nearly America’s peer in military tech - MIGHT pose a bigger threat to US warships than a (very based) small, relatively impoverished country that was until recently the victim of a decade-long genocidal war.
No. It wouldn’t apply to, for example, African Americans; whose ancestors were brought to this country by force and can hardly be said to have benefitted from the original stealing of the land.
Settlement involves the forcible appropriation of land (and the ethnic cleansing that involves), then removing all the indigenousness of that land and making it “your own”. What this creates is a settler class that enjoys in perpetuity the fruits of that appropriation.
White people in the US are settlers. Because it was white Europeans who stole the land and committed genocide. This settlement created an entire social strata that benefitted from this appropriation. And the benefits accrue to successive generations of white people. I saw a stat somewhere that said ~25% of all wealth in the US today can be traced to the Homestead Act, which excluded black and indigenous people.
Look, I’m a settler. I’m also middle class / labor aristocrat. This is simply a material fact. But none of that means I cannot devote my life to breaking the system that allows settler colonialism, white supremacy, and capitalism to persist. The history of communism is littered with class traitors and others who recognized the privileges they had and sought their destruction.
More or less someone who takes land away from an indigenous population and treats it as their own, OR the descendants of those who did so long as there is a material benefit received by the settler’s descendants.
But of course this definition leaves gray areas; even situation is different as the material situation is different.
I think this is a reasonable take. And while I’m not going to pretend like this situation doesn’t present a problem for the Iran-Hezbollah supply line, I think that a fractured Syria probably means those supply lines can still be maintained. The Zionist entity will probably try and control as much of the Syria/Lebanon border as possible, but I think that will only serve to align more domestic Syrian forces against them.
I think determining who is a settler is like our Marxist definitions of class - it’s not meant to categorize every single person into a category, its only meant to describe a group that doesn’t have firm boundaries. White people in the US are settlers. The fact that who is “white” has a very fuzzy and fluid definition doesn’t take away from being able to identify a group (white people) and classify them as settlers.
By any definition, I’m white. I’m a settler. That doesn’t mean I should just take myself out of the game and stop organizing. But that does mean I should be aware of my own privilege and be careful to check my own assumptions and thought. And when my non-white comrades call me out on something, I am 100% going to really take what they say to heart.
Any person celebrating this verdict is a white supremacist, guaranteed
Since have some libs who waltzed in here, here’s Qiao Collective’s reading list for the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 in case they want to actually try and learn something.