Category: Politics
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Why the Democrats Will Never Love You
Luxury is a game of pretend, that’s why it isn’t joy. It’s a person looking over at the heap of vegetables that have been harvested and smiling while pretending they don’t see the army of slaves behind it. Joy is knowing that no one suffered to produce what you have, no one was ignored, because…
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Protest and the Construction of Power
The surest sign that a protest is effective is if the military opens fire on it. I want to explain why this is. Of course, I’m considering both “protest” and “effective” in a narrow sense here but I think the general point is understandable on its face: as a challenge to the government, a protest’s…
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Thoughts on the Critique of the Gotha Programme
I wanted to talk about the Critique of the Gotha Programme because I feel it has relevance to our current situation where the left is in the political wilderness. The Gotha Programme’s aims, in the eyes of Marx, were to sand down the edges of the socialist movement such that it would not seem so…
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Whipping Ourselves and Weeping
This broad tendency among the Western left, from the end of the French Revolution to the present day, is fueled by an impulse towards self-flagellation. The question then is: why does the left feel the need to lash itself in penance? This is not a thorough study but I have been thinking about this for…
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The Democrats Hate You
I know that it is easier to talk about what the Biden administration is doing by acting as if they are making mistakes, but we all know better and I think it would be good if we stopped pretending. Biden and his mob want the American president to openly be a dictator. That’s what it…
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What Is Capitalism?
What is the point of all this? The point is to be able to come to some sort of understanding of what capitalism means so we can understand the political implications and effects it has. We tend to be presented with capitalism as only partly political because it is so strongly associated with money. Because…
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What Happens When a Country Defaults?
If a ruler wants to get something done, they need to give orders. Personally, there are four types of orders: suggestions, directions, requests, and purchases. On a society-wide mechanistic level, these become two types: decrees (orders without the expectation of repayment, which includes suggestions and directions) and requisitions (orders with the expectation of repayment, which…
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What Is Divine Kingship?
It’s obvious that this includes two historical concepts — the divine right of kings in Europe and the mandate of heaven in China (and nearby regions) — but what else does it include and what does it not include? I live in the United States of America, a country whose population is officially about 70%…
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Technology of Authority
This is the theory of a theory, a pre-theory. Capitalism is not simply an economic system or mode of production, it is a method of establishing domination: a technology of authority. It is the more or less direct successor of divine kingship. When the European revolutions of the 19th century had destroyed divine kingship, at…
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Palestine, Resistance, and Ressentiment
When trying to make sense of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, few among the supporters of Israel concede that Hamas had anything in mind but trying to kill Jews. The goals of the Palestinian people are always attributed to a hatred of Jews. Why is this?