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Hall of Famer [20518]
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How did Russia go from Commie to Hard Right...in 20 years?
Oct 16, 2019, 2:48 PM
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Every wonder how Russian went from a Communist nation to an oligarchy and arguably the furthest-right-wing government on the planet in just 20 short years?
The answer's actually pretty simple: big structures. Everybody likes to use the words "left and right" like there's some political spectrum but in actuality - as usual - the real world doesn't lend itself to such simplicity, though simple minds like to pretend it does.
In the real world, if you've got a nation organized as a Communist/Socialist nation with consolidated nationalized industries, if you privatize those industries you've created oligarchs, because somebody then owns them. Google "Gazprom" sometime...and you'll see why Putin - who uses Gazprom as his own private piggy bank - may in actuality be the world's richest man, with as much as $250 billion he stole from his country squirreled away in Western banks.
On the other hand, it's real easy to go the other way too. If you've got a country run by Robber Barons and their monopolies, if the peasants rise up and have themselves an October Revolution those giant monopolies the Robber Barons once owned easily lend themselves to being "nationalized", too, and all of a sudden instead of an iron-fisted oligarchy you've got yourself a socialist or even outright communist country, too. Instantly.
The reality is that politics isn't a flat spectrum. It's a circle. And far-left reactionaries and far-right radicals are not so dissimilar as they like to believe.
And let's end one stupid, utterly wrong assertion now: the modern GOP is hardly about "free market capitalism". It's all about oligarchy. Building monopolies. Actual free-market capitalism takes anti-trust regulation to ensure the free markets stay free by breaking up the monster companies that monopolize markets (and charge consumers whatever they want, because they can, while also paying workers whatever they want, because they also can!) into smaller companies that actually compete. It's hard to nationalize those...and counter-productive, because when you've got a humming free market, prices drop and wages spike. You nationalize that and you hurt a lot of people who are making a lot of money.
So in a fascinating sort of way, the same folks who are pushing so very passionately for Trump are also making a Bernie - or some other socialist - presidency down the road infinitely more likely.
If you want to keep America a capitalistic country, you've got to break up the monopolies...and promote actual small business again.
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Oculus Spirit [93608]
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I'm for breaking up Amazon and other global dominators.
Oct 16, 2019, 3:01 PM
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I'm OK with breaking up Walmart too. Imo, no one ever did more damage to small business than Walmart. I resent that Sam built the company with a banner of "MADE IN AMERICA," hanging above every door then the company turned to China for assistance in destroying mom and pop.
I am fully aware of the cycle nations endure from one end of the spectrum to the other. However, America is not nearly ready for such a radical swing. UE is low, wages are rising and the middle class is growing.
Run a socialist and we'll test my hypothesis.
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Hall of Famer [20518]
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Re: I'm for breaking up Amazon and other global dominators.
Oct 16, 2019, 3:22 PM
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I'm OK with breaking up Walmart too. Imo, no one ever did more damage to small business than Walmart. I resent that Sam built the company with a banner of "MADE IN AMERICA," hanging above every door then the company turned to China for assistance in destroying mom and pop.
I am fully aware of the cycle nations endure from one end of the spectrum to the other. However, America is not nearly ready for such a radical swing. UE is low, wages are rising and the middle class is growing.
Run a socialist and we'll test my hypothesis.
You act like what Trump is doing isn't some temporary sugar high that doesn't have an expiration date. It is. That's what happens when you dump trillions of dollars of stimulus into the strong economy he inherited from Obama and deficit spend like it's free. The "wonderful" economy you describe is ready to implode - manufacturing is flat, retail is flattening, mortgage lenders are right back to their old tricks and actually have less in reserve than they did in 2008 - a lot less! - and wages aren't rising, and anybody who insists they are isn't out there working. Wages have stayed flat for almost 50 years now...not coincidentally, about the time anti-trust laws in the USA started going out of vogue.
Talk to me again on the other side of the recession that's about to hit, and we'll see how many more Bernie fans there are out there. Which worries me. I intensely mislike big - I think small, fast, and hungry small companies are vastly better for both consumers and workers than either Robber Baron capitalism or the public dole.
All it takes for people to turn on Robber Baron capitalism is lean times. And they're coming. They always do. And then it's a short jaunt down the road to "nationalizing" those big giant greedy companies taking everybody's money...all for the public good, of course.
The government, IMHO, should never be a player on the game; they're just supposed to be the refs...the problem is, right now they're not even doing that; they're on the take from the big-money teams, letting them whump the stuffing out of the small fry by foul means as well as fair, and the outcome of the games is determined before the ball is ever snapped. That ain't competition...and it certainly ain't good for America.
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Oculus Spirit [93608]
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When was the last time government was just the refs?
Oct 16, 2019, 3:29 PM
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Clinton?
I completely understand your point and I agree.
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Hall of Famer [20518]
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Re: When was the last time government was just the refs?
Oct 16, 2019, 3:44 PM
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I dunno. I wasn't a big Clinton fan. Clinton balanced the budget - the last time anyone managed that - but he did absolutely nothing, and at times less than nothing, to stop the trend of corporate consolidation.
Big companies were playing both sides of the fence at that point, and Democrats were every bit as much in the hip pocket of the lobbyists as Republicans were. Clinton wasn't any kind of real progressive, any more than Joe Biden is; he had his hand out every bit as much as the next politician.
We - and it's a collective "we", both sides of the aisle, up and down - got complacent, got away from anti-trust enforcement, let our politicians stuff their pockets, and big business did its slow creep on America. And now it's using our politicians as sock puppets, and the notion that America is a true democracy at the moment is a bit of a bad joke.
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CU Medallion [56005]
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It's more of a square than a circle, right?
Oct 16, 2019, 3:05 PM
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All-In [28802]
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Interesting, but I think you're too focused on economics
Oct 16, 2019, 4:15 PM
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Not everything is economics, even if economics are important. You seem to take for granted that an "oligarchy" is right wing without even considering the cultural and social factors that make a government or society right-wing. Yes, it's probably true that inequality and centralization of wealth begets can beget a strong left-wing reaction, including socialism. In the same way, suppression of economic activity in the interest of equality can beget a strong pro-capitalism, pro-business reaction. Consider "capitalism with Chinese characteristics," though, and you can see that not all oligarchy need be "right wing."
Russia has long been driven by its self-image as an Asiatic empire either in opposition to the West, or as the world's savior from soulless, liberal, rationalistic, anti-Christian modernism. This dates back the Russian Orthodox belief that Moscow should be the new Rome and that the Catholic Pope was a kind of anti-Christ. Even if many Russians are not Orthodox believers, many feel united in a spiritual struggle against liberalism, as defined by the market economics and social license of the west.
I'm also not sure that "the modern GOP" is all about "oligarchy" and "building monopolies," seeing as how it's currently in a populist mood that's favorable to breaking up the big tech companies and tariffs. And free-market economists have not generally thought that breakup of monopolies by governments was a good idea. For instance, while Milton Friedman believed monopolies and oligopolies were bad things, he believed they resulted from government regulation and were best dealt with through free trade.
Finally, I think the current socialistic reaction to capitalism is less about monopoly power than it is about a sort of psychological inequality that's most tangible in personal economic insecurity.
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Hall of Famer [20518]
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Re: Interesting, but I think you're too focused on economics
Oct 16, 2019, 5:14 PM
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Great post, and great points.
I myself was really fascinated, for instance, with this video tour through China's version of Silicon Valley, Shenzhen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcrfk6OoZIw
Technically China's Communist, but you can see nothing orients on any kind of simple axis. Big tech companies? Entrepenuers? In a communist system?
Wut?
So yeah, it's never simple.
I don't know that I agree about Russia, though. Russian does have Russian Orthodox roots, granted, and that's re-emerged (heavily) since the atheistic lid Communism imposed was popped - Putin's even "born-again", which is ironic for a former KGB officer turned strongman dictator. But they were still officially atheist for almost 90 years so their faith isn't exactly devout. You also said..."united in a spiritual struggle against liberalism"...what that really translates into is xenophobia.
Russians, by and large, hate everybody.
Probably not their fault - Russia's been invaded and invaded some more over its history, from every which direction. And frankly, they've been abused throughout history by their leaders since time immemorial, and their reflex reaction is to just hang their head and take it, and like abused children, they're kind of bitter. Whereas America was built on rebelliousness, brash optimism, inclusiveness, progress, hope for a better tomorrow. Russia's national psyche is rather...different. To be honest, in this knee-jerk populist swell I see infecting us today, I see a lot of Russian DNA all over it. There's a reason you can't distinguish between Alt-Right sites and sites generated by affiliates of Russia's Internet Reseatch Agency troll farm; it's the same durn message, and definitely the same mentality.
Also...as far as "breaking up big tech", just wait. I never thought that would last and it won't. The reason you hear it right now is basically because the big tech giants tend to lean leftist at the moment because they're all still fairly new and young and hip, but now that they've become established power structures they're already trending right in a hurry and the "break up big tech" mutters you're hearing from the GOP is going away even faster. Once Citizen United came down it basically became legal for big business to buy the foghorns direct and the GOP stopped even paying lip service to that tired old adage that "small business is the lifeblood of America."
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All-In [48078]
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Re: How did Russia go from Commie to Hard Right...in 20 years?
Oct 16, 2019, 4:17 PM
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They have always been conservative.
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Oculus Spirit [93608]
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Hard right Marxist?***
Oct 16, 2019, 4:29 PM
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Hall of Famer [20518]
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Heisman Winner [137789]
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