Absurd, idiotic headline. Apart from being pure slander of the Soviets, the whole premise vulgarizes socialist economic theory and what economic planning even means. The more i read from Varoufakis the more i’m beginning to think he’s really a moron.
He thinks he’s so clever coming up with these comparisons, with nebulous concepts like “neofeudalism”, as if he’s just discovered something completely new that no one discovered before, when all it is, is just monopoly capitalism. All to avoid applying a good old fashioned Marxist analysis which is more than enough to explain these phenomena without resorting to estoteric theories about a new “feudalism”.
The more you read him and others like him the more you start noticing the conspicuous, Marxism-shaped hole in their analysis. Because of course we can’t be seen to be talking in Marxist terminology and applying dialectical analysis can we? That wouldn’t be respectable, our liberal academic peers would call us names…
The result of this Marxism-phobia is that he has to vomit up onto the page sentences like:
So, just as the Soviet Union generated one kind of feudalism in the name of socialism and human emancipation, today, Silicon Valley is generating another kind of feudalism — technofeudalism, I have called it — in the name of capitalism and free markets.
No, you pretentious wannabe, the Soviet Union was not “feudalism” and neither is monopoly capitalism.
Idk why anyone ever thought this guy, who is clearly an anti-communist radlib, had anything intelligent to say.
I’m wondering if more cryptolibs are because of intent or lack of education?
Good question. I would argue that a lot of people are libs in their heart because its their whole identity. There is such a huge variety of issues where liberalism creeps in. Asking someone who has lived like this for 30+ yrs to pretty much accept that they have been living a lie and unnecessary took responsibility for everything is probably very dangerous. If you break an identity like that, it may become life threatening. Thats why I think that we all hold some lib thoughts here and there and some are dedicated at eradicating such thoughts in themselves at any cost and others think they need to be marxists because its what is expected of them or it helps them atm. And even worse, some might think they are the former but their subconcious will make them the latter at the earliest chance.
Just a bunch of thoughts though. Feel free to work with them.
Ego death is real and most people will fight the collapse of their identity as if it’s a physical threat, maybe harder. There is a point where that becomes inevitable, for a great many of us. That would be the place to introduce Marxist ideas, I think. But forcing the subject too soon will almost certainly be counterproductive and more than a betrayal to communism, a betrayal of the individual.
I’m a little sleepy, yesterday was long and exhausting, but I finally took melatonin to get to sleep; I’ve never heard of a melatonin hangover, so I guess I either slept too much or not enough.
Good point. i recently witnessed someone living through a cruel breakup and they broke down. dialectical materialism helped a little but liberalisms foothold was very strong.
With liberal tendencies I catch with my own thinking, I shudder to think how many I don’t catch.
Yeah, same. I often catch others and self crit over it a lot. But i think its the devotion to find and eradicate it that counts in the end. Progressivism (so to speak) knows no end. Otherwise it becomes conservatism.
I try to view it as a marathon, not a sprint. I hope you give yourself some grace and compassion when you self-crit. You deserve and are worthy of the same care and compassion you extend to others.
Thank you very much. :) same goes for you of course.
And for the reader! Please be kind to yourself while growing.
Thank you, my friend! It goes for all of us!