Laissez-faire Politics Thread - Praxis? I didn't play Deus Ex, sorry.

[Kara]

I listened to the Yang interview on Chapo. I liked it. It reminded me how good he is at eviscerating the modern economy without couching it in socialist anachronisms. Warren is someone else that can do this, Sanders unfortunately does not. I asked in jest if Will Menaker was going to say something stupid again, but this time it was Virgil during the discussion of taxes. Sad! Actually, this whole thing makes me lose respect for him. I thought he was like... the smartest guy on Chapo. Maybe that's still true but it turns out that's not nearly as smart as I thought.

I had flashbacks to being a baby leftist religiously listening to Thom Hartmann ca. 2008 / 2009 during the interview. Yang's general language was left liberal / aspiring champion of chaos social democracy, or even old school progressive. He wrapped it in relevant data from the present day, but it was still ultimately rooted in class-blind notions of justice and praise for small European ethnostates that contrary to what he seems to think, don't actually hold capital to account, and certainly not with a value-added tax.

He's a lot better than I thought he was, and I can see why young Millenial lumpenproletariat love him, but I don't think he's that fresh a mind without comparing him to the absolute shitshow of Democratic nominee hopefuls.

[toku]

https://twitter.com/markmackinnon/status/1152241649893945346

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/MikePrysner/status/1151941506451873799

 

[VomKriege]

https://twitter.com/markmackinnon/status/1152241649893945346

LONG
WAY
ROUND
THE DANGER ZONE

[VomKriege]

So you mean... YANG GANG ? 

[curly]

https://twitter.com/Convolutedname/status/1152209753650712577

Of all the strange ideological creatures roaming these lands Matt Stoller might be the strangest.

[shosta]

the "Late Imperialism" article on Monthly Review gave a very good rundown on the important Marxist and post-Marxist literature since Magdoff's The Age of Imperialism and I do want to take a tour through some of it. this one's first.

[benjipwns]

I guess John Smith would know a thing or two about imperialism

can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

come roll in all the riches all around you

[close]

[close]

[benjipwns]

i have many questions

[benjipwns]

Why should I read “Voluntaryist?”

The comic is worth reading for many reasons, but there is one reason that makes it stand out from any current main-stream production: It actually addresses government abuses. Many comics which have libertarian/anarchist themes only promote so subliminally. This comic series directly incorporates the growing abuses of government into its storyline to highlight the coming dystopian future in America and around the globe. The comic thus serves as an inspiration and warning to address the police state before it’s too late.

How does a hero fighting monsters, villains, and government, address “Voluntaryism?”

The promotion of voluntaryist values is a development of the series which is seen in the language of the main character and in the narratives. It comes across especially where the hero defends innocent people from being victimized for victimless activity.

what

[benjipwns]

 

[benjipwns]

TSA: Transportation Safety Administration. The government’s compliance branch for ensuring an obedient populace.

i'm out

[Mandark]

https://volcomic.com/universe-terminology/

GENERATIONS (Gs): A measure of power based on the average increase in human energy strength in each generation that lives in a world of Voluntaryist norms. When humans begin to maximize consent and minimize the initiation of violence, the evolution of human dexterity, healing, and abnormal abilities manifests. Within 10 generations (10G power), humans attain an average strength ability of peak human strength and a healing factor 10x the speed of the first generation.   This metric is also used to describe the ability level of super-human characters.

[benjipwns]

Voluntaryist Engagement: Code of Conduct

The Voluntaryists strive to maximize consent and minimize the initiation of violence. Because of this, they will do their best to not kill any enemy if they do not have to. However, they do not see killing in self defense as a moral or ethical harm in itself. A statist, whether human or transformed, who is attempting to use lethal force against the Voluntaryists or murder an innocent, is subject to lethal force. The Voluntaryists do not wish to create a culture of revenge though and, thus, will do their best to avoid engaging with defense or offense against humans that will likely lead to death.

The Voluntaryists do keep in mind though that they do not know the full extent of their own powers or the extent of the enemy’s willingness to push the offensive envelope. Because of this, the Voluntaryists are willing to put forward highly destructive tactics if the enemy’s offense requires it.

[Mandark]

I'll buy an issue if it features the voluntaryist squad getting wrecked by Rene Boucher.

[benjipwns]

i'm most offended by AnarCat, i don't know if i can ever forgive this

[Kara]

The anprim is a furry who self-identifies as an anPRIMAL.

[Kara]

Is writing a comic about acts of god transforming beings into superheroes an unintentional undermining of the non-aggression principle (what is more coercive than an indifferent act of god?) or is it the apotheosis of lolbertarian / ancap thought wherein all should be subject to the whims of deterministic events we cannot possibly comprehend like genetics, parenting, socioeconomic factors.

[benjipwns]

AnarCat

AnarManimal!

[toku]

[Kara]

Oldie but a goodie.

Unrelated: I kind of can't believe that things are so bad that Vox essentially runs piece after piece about how incomprehensibly inept everything is.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/19/20699366/interest-rates-unemployment-globalization-minimum-wage-deficit

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2019/7/19/20698355/health-insurance-scam-united-cigna-aetna-southwest

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/7/22/20703858/live-nation-ticket-resale-scheme-metallica-billboard-report

[team filler]

[shosta]

Li Peng died. I wonder if that will trigger anything

[shosta]

I wonder if there's like a Chinese version of Gulag Archipelago dedicated to our system sometimes.

That would be pretty hypocritical, like Americans constantly pointing to the Gulag Archipelago during the great American crime wave.

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[close]

[Kara]

I just finished a job where I was hired to examine a joint Indian-AmeriKKKan venture (which was both humbling and illuminating for myriad reasons) for a company who could then take that information to a real specialist to save money / know what they were talking about and the Indian government puts out a handy ~80 page booklet that's basically *Troy McClure voice* "So you want to open a business in India?"

Anyway, there's a section in there about tax treaties. In that section they say something to the effect of, "here's a snapshot of tax rates with certain key jurisdictions under treaties that have been signed," and show a table of ranks tax rates.

On that table you've got:

-the U.S. (go off, king)
-Mauritius (wait, what? I guess it is the [culturally, if not geographically] closest pretend country that's a tax haven...)
-Singapore (OK, starting to detect a pattern here)
-the Netherlands (yup, definitely a pattern!)

It's not that I don't know that """""""""development""""""""" of the semi-periphery is just large-scale tax fraud against people who need the tax funds the most, but seeing it so cynically broadcast in a government publication was, well, disabusing.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

They use the word cess in legal and government documents. Yet another crime of the British Empire that will go unpunished.

[close]

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/Jacob_Brogan/status/1153831905600557062

[shosta]

"Empire" is several orders of magnitude more postmodern than was written on the tin and is taking me through Foucault and Deleuze 

[Crash Dummy]

I just finished a job where I was hired to examine a joint Indian-AmeriKKKan venture (which was both humbling and illuminating for myriad reasons) for a company who could then take that information to a real specialist to save money / know what they were talking about and the Indian government puts out a handy ~80 page booklet that's basically *Troy McClure voice* "So you want to open a business in India?"

Anyway, there's a section in there about tax treaties. In that section they say something to the effect of, "here's a snapshot of tax rates with certain key jurisdictions under treaties that have been signed," and show a table of ranks tax rates.

On that table you've got:

-the U.S. (go off, king)
-Mauritius (wait, what? I guess it is the [culturally, if not geographically] closest pretend country that's a tax haven...)
-Singapore (OK, starting to detect a pattern here)
-the Netherlands (yup, definitely a pattern!)

It's not that I don't know that """""""""development""""""""" of the semi-periphery is just large-scale tax fraud against people who need the tax funds the most, but seeing it so cynically broadcast in a government publication was, well, disabusing.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

They use the word cess in legal and government documents. Yet another crime of the British Empire that will go unpunished.

[close]

depending on the business model and states involved within india, there's a good chance that they'll get you on the gst side if you manage to structure yourself to minimise your etr and direct tax/wht bill, and even then it looks like many countries are adopting beps from the oecd

[Kara]

TIL Arthur Koestler was a "Jews are Khazars" guy. Like 200 Years Together I'm sure his The Thirteenth Tribe has fallen out of the discourse by simple oversight. It happens to the best of us!

[team filler]

[Kara]

His judgment of men was profound. He early saw through the flamboyance and exhibitionism of Trotsky, who fooled the world, and especially America. The whole ill-bred and insulting attitude of Liberals in the U.S. today began with our naive acceptance of Trotsky’s magnificent lying propaganda, which he carried around the world. Against it, Stalin stood like a rock and moved neither right nor left, as he continued to advance toward a real socialism instead of the sham Trotsky offered.

War, war never changes...

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1153988582492782592

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1153989295407009793

so did she get her print copy signed?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

do you think Trump would sign it for her?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[close]

[Kara]

I kind of feel bad laughing at the one with the copy of the book. She seems genuinely excited about this bourgeois electoral bullshit.

[benjipwns]

Do you think the dude's banged them all, I say 2/5, maybe a little under the shirt action from a third.

I always heard (from multiple sources) that GOP side of the aisle is if you wanna get lots of "casual" sex that gets you in trouble with your bosses because the drama is spreading throughout the intern pool and tearing the offices apart.

Major state level government is so quaint and quiet in comparison.

[Kara]

When my sibling took their meds they were a Republican intern for awhile but I'm not going to ask them about that.

[benjipwns]

At the very least, Stalin was a more more talented poet than Lenin, whose sole contribution to the world of verse appears to have been an ode dedicated to the village where he spent his Siberian exile. It starts like this:

In Shushensjoe, in the foothills of Mount Sayan...

And then stops. Eight words in.

Good. A revolutionary has no time for poetry which does not advance the revolution.

[Kara]

Stalin's first revolutionary name was a character in a book.

[Kara]

I have a lot of disposable income, OK.

[bluemax]

Do you think the dude's banged them all, I say 2/5, maybe a little under the shirt action from a third.

I always heard (from multiple sources) that GOP side of the aisle is if you wanna get lots of "casual" sex that gets you in trouble with your bosses because the drama is spreading throughout the intern pool and tearing the offices apart.

Major state level government is so quaint and quiet in comparison.

There was an article last year about how young people who work in the Trump administration can't get laid in DC.

[benjipwns]

Well, of course not, it's more like a monastery of National Conservatism thinkers, I'm talking about the regular Republican Party here.

[Kara]

Also the understanding of 'judeo-christian' as a selective white nationalist ethnic bloc rather than an anti-islamic ideological bloc is new to me. I strongly associate white nationalism of any stripe with antisemitism, would be interested in seeing a more academic breakdown of this.

The reason why this didn't scan with you is because it's bullshit. (Caught up on my eps today.)

Adam took a line of play (whiteness is a malleable concept) and stretched it out way beyond its capabilities when he made that claim. The first guest essentially invalidated it when she talked about how she was thought of as white until people dug up that she had a Jewish grandparent. He didn't even offer any evidence, he just said it like it was fact and proceeded from there. Seek truth from facts, Adam.

BTW, I read that cursed Churchill speech or whatever about Zionism you posted about awhile back. Of all the people outside Russia that asshole has no excuse whatsoever for praising Denikin for being a friend to the Jews in 1920.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/Linkthehero2/status/1144268747018051584

[OnlyRegret]

Also the understanding of 'judeo-christian' as a selective white nationalist ethnic bloc rather than an anti-islamic ideological bloc is new to me. I strongly associate white nationalism of any stripe with antisemitism, would be interested in seeing a more academic breakdown of this.

The reason why this didn't scan with you is because it's bullshit. (Caught up on my eps today.)

Adam took a line of play (whiteness is a malleable concept) and stretched it out way beyond its capabilities when he made that claim. The first guest essentially invalidated it when she talked about how she was thought of as white until people dug up that she had a Jewish grandparent. He didn't even offer any evidence, he just said it like it was fact and proceeded from there. Seek truth from facts, Adam.

BTW, I read that cursed Churchill speech or whatever about Zionism you posted about awhile back. Of all the people outside Russia that asshole has no excuse whatsoever for praising Denikin for being a friend to the Jews in 1920.

racial classification of jews always goes over my head

[benjipwns]

no no I wasn't saying for Bible reasons, for cultural reasons, Israel has long been promoted as an American ally, so America First rubs off on it, similar to the UK's treatment now (ala Iraq) versus the first hundred some years of the country

they don't necessarily like Jews, and if they saw the actual population of Israel they'd like it even less for being so brown, but they like the concept of "Israel", especially as an American ally against the Muslims/Arabs/etc. it's "Western Civilization"

especially as a formative idea for people during a time when Nazism was especially bad for its actions in the Holocaust; you can attempt to ward it off by creating a "good Jew" exception of something like "but I support Israel"

American neo-Nazism/American First-ism/etc. and nationalism in general has adopted the strong American component of "solving the problem by sending it away" (ala Liberia) that the New World is founded in and in that they sometimes say Jews should go live in Israel and stay out of America/Europe/etc. as the culture was undermined their willingness to support genocide or other ethnic cleansing type actions by suggesting a "clean" deportation can be done; the realism of this policy has no bearing as much as a wall is supposed to solve a "problem" dominated by visa overstays, people are culturally tuned to not immediately turn to shutting down all immigration and deporting everyone in Fortress America if they can be offered a "nicer" solution, that's why the mythology of a CRISIS is essential to undermining that... cultural moderating factor

if pushed, of course the exceptions go away

[OnlyRegret]

PCA clustering of likeness tends to place Ashkenazis very close to Southern Italians.
Disqualifying them from being white is just emulating Nazism. Otherwise Ashkenazis, and some Levantine groups look "white" to me, as opposed to the Middle Eastern vibe.

[OnlyRegret]

Yes, that's isn't contradictory to what I'm saying. At a point in time East Europe and South Europe weren't white. And in my view above, some people outside of Europe would fall into the category of "white".
Am I parsing this wrong, since it seems to not line up with what I said. I meant that WN are vehement on disqualifying Jews from any definition of whiteness due to them literally being neo-nazis, not that any other party is partaking in nazi emulation.

[Kara]

They're automating away Mandark's job. :'( We're screwed without universal basic income.

https://twitter.com/bobby/status/1155196344715415552

[Kara]

[Kara]

I feel so attacked as a Slav and as a terminal Russophile.

[benjipwns]

I get that there's a nonsensical connect the dots arc of euro-american value hegemony to some greater historically blind judeo-christian values idea stemming from israeli allyship from the american state, i just agree with Kara that the notion of jewishness still doesnt fit neatly to whiteness. We've seen this with slavs and in the past, irish people or italians etc, but i don't see it ever fully making the leap since us white nationalism historically draws on antisemitism from a bunch of different sources;

oh, I didn't want to make that insinuation (and I didn't listen to whatever podcast) just to note that American versions of these groups have historical cultural factors that creates this seemingly paradox that European groups tends to discard

I could have saved a lot of idiocy by perhaps constructing it as a "the enemy (Israel, nominally Western) of my enemy (Muslim hordes) is my temporary acquaintance, and plus they're staying over there and we've gotta focus on the lesser races here at home"

[benjipwns]

nobody is allowed to take any of my attempts at explaining the Jewish Exception and the Proud American Cultural Tendencies Towards Israel out of context or else this will be the posts that finally prevent from holding office, as you know they'll use their secretive massive funding for skin crawling networks to smear and destroy I, who are simply, a simple dispassionate AnarCat

[shosta]

Bad news, Kara. Someone is out here stealing Jason Hickel's shtick and submitting it to Current Affairs under the fake name "Roge Karma" (more like Rogue Karma).

Defenders of global capitalism are obsessed with this story. It has been the focus of Bill Gates tweets, Dylan Matthews Vox columns, and even a self-congratulatory movie about American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks. Silicon Valley futurist guru Yuval Noah Harari dreams about it during his meditation retreats, Thomas Friedman thinks he discovered it while waiting for one of his imaginary friends, and Effective Altruists across the world repeat it to themselves under their breath as they walk into their soulless Wall Street offices (to do the Most Good They Possibly Can). Steven Pinker even did humanity the great service of taking 600 pages to make the very same argument (don’t worry, it’s a quick read—a good chunk simply consists of charts showing the arrow of good things going up and the arrow of bad things going down).

This obsession makes complete sense. After all, if taken seriously, the “Don’t Worry, Everything is Better now” or DWEIB (pronounced “dweeb”) narrative is perhaps the most compelling defense of global capitalism out there. Sure, the wealthiest individuals might own a grossly disproportionate amount of global wealth, the rules may be rigged in favor of the rich, and hundreds of millions may continue to live without their basic needs met, but the DWEIBs (shorthand for those who promote the DWEIB narrative)  are quick to point out that the system that produced these conditions has done more for the poor than any other. Global capitalism may not be perfect but the benefits it brings—namely, eradicating poverty as we know it—far outweighs its costs.

That unrepenting acronym

Increasingly, even self-identified progressives are beginning to accept this narrative. The author who penned the “Land of Plenty” paragraph may be one of the last people you expect: Dutch journalist Rutger Bregman—the same Rutger Bregman who made headlines when he told the elite at Davos that they need to start paying their fair share of taxes, and then flayed Tucker Carlson over his phony populism. 

On the surface, Bregman seems like a typical leftist. He is an avowed social democrat, bashes professions like consulting and banking, and argues for policies like a universal basic income, open borders and a 15-hour workweek. But, like many who have claimed the mantle of the left in recent years, something is off about Bregman. He believes the greatest challenge of our time is not unjust and exploitative system but a lack of imagination. He advocates for big, bold ideas, not simply because they will make the world more just but because they will make politics less boring. He speaks about the importance of “innovation,” “meritocracy,” and “cut[ting] the nanny state” while terms like “class conflict,” “distribution of power” and “structural violence” rarely, if ever,  enter his political vocabulary.

Bregman, in other words, is the exception that proves the rule: When you believe that our existing economic system has brought with it unprecedented prosperity for all, then a view of politics as class conflict and collective struggle falls by the wayside—the only radicalism that remains is a radicalism of imagination.

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[close]

[shosta]

Worse yet, to reach the $7.40 per day level Woodward shows that GDP would have to be 175 times its current level, at which point the average global income would be $1.3 million/year. In other words, under our current economic system, the average income would have to be over a million dollars per year just so that the poor could live on $7.40 per day.

reading these arguments again reminded me of something a great forum poster once said

enjoy your future! 

[Oblivion]

https://twitter.com/my2k/status/1154957423779561472

[Kara]

On the surface, Bregman seems like a typical leftist. He is an avowed social democrat

*looks around to make sure Bismarck is still gone* What a cursed string of words.

[shosta]

Kara's posts whenever social democracy comes up:

[Kara]

You were not kidding about this plagiarizing Jason Hickel, Dmitri Dmitriyevich.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I remember an interesting Ha-Joon Chang talk where he spoke about the supposed decline of manufacturing in core economies. (A large portion of the companies I work with are domestic manufacturers.) The value of the manufacturing sector has declined in those countries because that's what mass production does, but he claimed the only core economy that actually lost a manufacturing sector was the UK. Big ups to the Tories for loving austerity that much.

[close]

[shosta]

Link? I still need to read Kicking Away the Ladder.

You were not kidding about this plagiarizing Jason Hickel, Dmitri Dmitriyevich.

I mean he cites the material but those of us that have read the original content can plainly see he just flat out copied the structure of the arguments

if you're going to do that, why link people to the stuff you plagiarized nearly verbatim

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/jackryanamazon/status/1155152471041273858