[The Immortal Goon]

@The Immortal Goon
So everyone is totalitarian? "Capitalism" and "liberal democracy" are also totalitarian?

Modern ideologies have moved to a point where this is quite viable, depending on how you define it.

Maybe the former is a kind of fascism or fascism is a kind of capitalism whichever suits your narrative. And maybe liberal democracy is a kind of communism and therefore also totalitarian. Is this what you are saying?

Totalitarian, thus far, we are using as an umbrella term that includes fascism, communism, capitalism, and liberal democracy.

If so then isn't that kind of answering my earlier question? That when talking with communists and fascists (on pofo for example) it always seems to devolve into the assumption that the only choice is between communism and fascism both of which are totalitarian by anyone's definition. So you are essentially affirming my speculation that totalitarianism is the only thing on the menu.

If we are to use these definitions. Which seem acceptable enough to me.

From the wiki article it is clear the concept was first used by nazis or fascists to describe fascism. Then later your mate Carr is using it to describe the Soviet system.

And then it mentions:

The concept became prominent in Western political discourse as a concept that highlights similarities between Fascist states and the Soviet Union.

While true, this does very little to define the term. Between these two instances, it had already been old news that the communists thought of fascism and capitalism as the same kind of totalitarianism; capitalists thought communists and fascists were the same kind of totalitarianism; and fascists thought that communists and capitalists were the same kind of totalitarianism. For instance:

A moralizing Philistine’s favorite method is the lumping of reaction’s conduct with that of revolution. He achieves success in this device through recourse to formal analogies. To him czarism and Bolshevism are twins. Twins are likewise discovered in fascism and communism. An inventory is compiled of the common features in Catholicism – or more specifically, Jesuitism – and Bolshevism. Hitler and Mussolini, utilizing from their side exactly the same method, disclose that liberalism, democracy, and Bolshevism represent merely different manifestations of one and the same evil. The conception that Stalinism and Trotskyism are “essentially” one and the same now enjoys the joint approval of liberals, democrats, devout Catholics, idealists, pragmatists, and anarchists. If the Stalinists are unable to adhere to this “People’s Front”, then it is only because they are accidentally occupied with the extermination of Trotskyists.

The fundamental feature of these approchements and similitudes lies in their completely ignoring the material foundation of the various currents, that is, their class nature and by that token their objective historical role. Instead they evaluate and classify different currents according to some external and secondary manifestation, most often according to their relation to one or another abstract principle which for the given classifier has a special professional value. Thus to the Roman pope Freemasons and Darwinists, Marxists and anarchists are twins because all of them sacrilegiously deny the immaculate conception. To Hitler, liberalism and Marxism are twins because they ignore “blood and honor”. To a democrat, fascism and Bolshevism are twins because they do not bow before universal suffrage. And so forth.

It seems Carr is exulting in the triumph of one kind of totalitarianism over another kind of totalitarianism. I guess if he were alive today he would be exulting in the success of Juche which is still pluckily defying "western imperialism" while the Soviets are dead and buried?

I see no reason to presume this. The citation I provided, from the same source Wiki pulls from, goes into more detail.

Nor do I see any reason to cxatorgize any of the mentioned ideologies as totalitarian and exclude the Juche.

What do you think of the 6 point anatomy of totalitarianism as given by Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski?

Elaborate guiding ideology.

Single mass party, typically led by a dictator.

System of terror, using such instruments as violence and secret police.

Monopoly on weapons.

Monopoly on the means of communication.

Central direction and control of the economy through state planning.

Does this more detailed and specific breakdown not at least create the possibility of non-totalitarian societies existing at least in theory?

1. Certainly every system with a guiding ideology has a guiding ideology. If we accept that capitalism is an elaborate guiding ideology, than I agree.

2. Capitalism historically has only allowed a mass capitalist party that does not veer from capitalist form, manner, and ideology. If not in funding and support, than by outright lies and assassination by the government. If we accept capitalism as totalitarian in this respect, then I agree.

3. As mentioned earlier, the US has a higher percentage of imprisoned citizens than anywhere else on the planet; and the UK are remembered as vile butchers in every place they've been (shown in pink and with the exception of most of the British Island itself). So if we accept that capitalism uses terror, such as violence and a secret police (see above) than I accept this definition.

4. Since the Soviet Union was heavily armed in order to fight the Russian Civil War, its best marksman in WWII were people that had practiced with rifles their entire lives, and even by the 80s 90% of the population outside of cities hunted, I'm not sure it would be accurate to say that the Soviet State had a monopoly on weapons. Hitler loosened gun restriction laws in Nazi Germany when taking powers, so it's difficult to give the fascists a monopoly on weapons; and with the exception of the US, every capitalist state keeps enforcing more and more control over weapons. This said, I don't think this is a worthwhile criteria.

5. In a capitalist country, the capitalists have the monopoly on the media.

Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich--that is the democracy of capitalist society. If we look more closely into the machinery of capitalist democracy, we see everywhere, in the “petty”--supposedly petty--details of the suffrage (residential qualifications, exclusion of women, etc.), in the technique of the representative institutions, in the actual obstacles to the right of assembly (public buildings are not for “paupers”!), in the purely capitalist organization of the daily press, etc., etc.,--we see restriction after restriction upon democracy. These restrictions, exceptions, exclusions, obstacles for the poor seem slight, especially in the eyes of one who has never known want himself and has never been inclose contact with the oppressed classes in their mass life (and nine out of 10, if not 99 out of 100, bourgeois publicists and politicians come under this category); but in their sum total these restrictions exclude and squeeze out the poor from politics, from active participation in democracy.

the Capitalist Business Insider mostly agrees.

The other two I'll concede as well. This is not a particularly good system to measure this by.

6. The fascists had as much directions and control of the economy during war time as the capitalist powers did. Arguably, the British had more (being something on the initial losing end).

Further, even if we go back to any ancient society, the state reserved there right to meddle with the economy in anyway it so pleased.

I do not think that this makes a good part of a definition for totalitarianism.

[SolarCross]

Modern ideologies have moved to a point where this is quite viable, depending on how you define it.

What modern ideologies? Apart from SJWism and Scientology there aren't any are there? I don't regard communism or fascism as modern, modern is a movable feast and times have changed, they are both old ideologies now.

Totalitarian, thus far, we are using as an umbrella term that includes fascism, communism, capitalism, and liberal democracy.

If we are to use these definitions. Which seem acceptable enough to me.

Carr draws a distinction between "individualism" and "totalitarianism"? Do you not agree with that? I just don't see the use in a word that literally means everything, a word that means everything would mean nothing. Would the word "alive" have any meaning if it also included dead things? What meaning would "wet" have if it must include dry things too?

1. Certainly every system with a guiding ideology has a guiding ideology. If we accept that capitalism is an elaborate guiding ideology, than I agree.

Is capitalism a guiding ideology? Isn't it just what civilians do to get by and get on? At what point does making some money to pay the bills become an ideology? Is taking care when crossing the road an ideology? How about dressing warmly in winter or eating out as a treat? I think we are really in trouble if not only does the word totalitarian mean everything and nothing but so also does the word ideology.

I think nationalism might be fairly called an ideology so to some extent every government does have that as a "guiding ideology" though that isn't necessarily followed by everyone or even by those in government, nor are there necessarily severe penalties just for unbelief. Christianity was once a guiding ideology for good part of Europe, it certainly could be a jealous ideology.

I guess a better distinction than "guiding ideology" would be how much peril are you in if you are an unbeliever in the guiding ideology. In a totalitarian society unbelief in the guiding ideology is fatal and something to be kept hidden for personal safety reasons. Islam is often totalitarian in this way, but general purpose nationalism usually or often isn't.

2. Capitalism historically has only allowed a mass capitalist party that does not veer from capitalist form, manner, and ideology. If not in funding and support, than by outright lies and assassination by the government. If we accept capitalism as totalitarian in this respect, then I agree.

See I don't see that, maybe under Augusto Pinochet's regime, which was a product of very particular threats to reason, that is so but in the UK or US or really most normal countries since forever there is not a "mass capitalist party", yes almost everyone just accepts that investing is a good thing to do and that it is a normal and good thing for civilians to do business within the bounds of law and convention but if that is a "mass capitalist party" then maybe it is also a "mass eating is good party" or "mass sleeping when tired is a good thing to do party". Usually what there is actually, is a number of competing nationalist parties, often times they are nationalist parties which lean on socialistic ideology to some extent. It seems really odd to think of the british labour party particularly during the 70s when they were all but shutting the whole country down as a wing of the mass capitalist party. Incongruous to say the least.

3. As mentioned earlier, the US has a higher percentage of imprisoned citizens than anywhere else on the planet; and the UK are remembered as vile butchers in every place they've been (shown in pink and with the exception of most of the British Island itself). So if we accept that capitalism uses terror, such as violence and a secret police (see above) than I accept this definition.

I don't think the point of three is just ordinary law enforcement. The people filling up US prisons are not political dissidents they are drug users, thieves, rapists and murderers. They are not moreover terrorised at least not in general or as a MO. Most inmates don't experience any terror and if they do mostly it is from other inmates rather than the authorities. I don't think that is a particularly rose tinted view either. My brother went to prison but he didn't go for thought crimes he went for slamming a brick into the face of someone who stole his cd-player. He quite liked being in prison too he certainly wasn't terrorised by the experience and he was never harmed. Something qualitatively different is going on with North Korean, USSR or GDR's ideological enforcement.

4. Since the Soviet Union was heavily armed in order to fight the Russian Civil War, its best marksman in WWII were people that had practiced with rifles their entire lives, and even by the 80s 90% of the population outside of cities hunted, I'm not sure it would be accurate to say that the Soviet State had a monopoly on weapons. Hitler loosened gun restriction laws in Nazi Germany when taking powers, so it's difficult to give the fascists a monopoly on weapons; and with the exception of the US, every capitalist state keeps enforcing more and more control over weapons. This said, I don't think this is a worthwhile criteria.

I agree this the weakest criteria.

5. In a capitalist country, the capitalists have the monopoly on the media.

the Capitalist Business Insider mostly agrees.

The other two I'll concede as well. This is not a particularly good system to measure this by.

But in a capitalist society everyone is a capitalist because why the hell not? Those 6 private corporations at least are not 1 state corporation. Moreover they are publicly traded companies meaning they are owned by anyone who wants to throw some money at them, that's how they got that big. Besides that they are not a literal monopoly because besides there being 6 of them (hexoploy?) they don't have an exclusive legal right just popularity both with punters and investors. It isn't even a terrible thing for those companies not in the hexopoly because all they need is a some niche popularity and they can do as they please without fear of the secret police or the hexopoly. Facebook and twitter? Is it literally illegal to be outside the hexopoly? No, and that's the difference.

6. The fascists had as much directions and control of the economy during war time as the capitalist powers did. Arguably, the British had more (being something on the initial losing end).

Further, even if we go back to any ancient society, the state reserved there right to meddle with the economy in anyway it so pleased.

I do not think that this makes a good part of a definition for totalitarianism.

War time and other times of great emergency are not really defining for this. Sure in WW2 though not WW1 or any other of the UK's innumerable major conflicts the UK engaged, probably unnecessarily, in large scale quasi-communist or totalitarian monkeying around in the economy, including food rations and confiscating people's ironwork. We even had a black market in food! and what could be more of a hallmark of totalitarianism than that? But again emergency conditions are not defining. How are things done in peace time that is the question. What extent of civilian industry is permitted to exist outside the ownership and dominion of the governors and where there is interference what is the purpose of it? Is it for an ideological reason, insane lust for power or just a pragmatic reason. The UK's railways were created by the private sector and then nationalised but they were nationalised because the Army realised that trains were a great way to move masses of troops around and wanted to have it as a wartime asset. That's a pragmatic reason for state involvement not an ideological one. When planes and cars were invented the government realised they were better than railways and lost interest in owning the railways and so they were eventually sold off. Is that even conceivable in a genuinely totalitarian society?

[Hong Wu]

The usual system for the state interfering with the economy is that the state buys the land or assets for a "fair price" which in war time may include an IOU. This is called imminent domain in the US and I believe there's a similar system in China although land ownership there is complicated through leasing systems in various prefectures (you supposedly don't own the land at all to begin with, you have a 70 year lease on the land, although no one's 70 year lease has ever expired since the system was instituted at this time).

In the Chinese case, I suspect they will just make renewing the 70 year lease cost a nominal fee.

[The Immortal Goon]

What modern ideologies? Apart from SJWism and Scientology there aren't any are there? I don't regard communism or fascism as modern, modern is a movable feast and times have changed, they are both old ideologies now.

Do you think that if left alone on an island, people would automatically create a system of international fiat caputalism dependent upon interest and lending?

I suspect not.

Carr draws a distinction between "individualism" and "totalitarianism"? Do you not agree with that? I just don't see the use in a word that literally means everything, a word that means everything would mean nothing. Would the word "alive" have any meaning if it also included dead things? What meaning would "wet" have if it must include dry things too?

This is precisely why I have an issue with the word totalitarian. I don't disagree with Orwell that capitalism is totalitarian. Until very recently, not everybody accepted or liked it. In the pre-war world it was not unusual for the British, Americans, or French to send soldiers out to execute dissenting workers. Up until the present, dissenting voices have been systematically tortured by the big powers. Perhaps most prominently the French were making illegal deals behind everyone's back to get Iraqi oil, the British had long seen Iraqi oil as "vital" to their long term interests leading them to begin conspiring to beat the French to Iraqi oil; which meant covertly working with the United State to help take over Iraq and get that sweet oil. This meant working with the press to fabricate information in order to artificially create public support (how quickly rightwingers seem to forget that the New York Times was a hollow shill for the Bush administration's propaganda),

In Britain and the United States, this meant going to extra lengths to ensure that the public itself was culpable in the invasion. In Britain it meant getting Parliament's hands bloody in ways that didn't necessarily have to happen, in the US it meant having Tony Blair (who was identified with popular president Bill Clinton instead of unpopular president George Bush) announce that everything Bush said was right to a skeptical public, and both sides manipulating the media in order to manipulate the public for a war. The aftermath, as we know, has been perpetual wa, torture, death, and the oil fields.

This is a single example that we both lived through with many, many sources. Is this not draconian to have the press, the government, the military, the secret services, and everything else working for a secret end game?

Is capitalism a guiding ideology? Isn't it just what civilians do to get by and get on? At what point does making some money to pay the bills become an ideology? Is taking care when crossing the road an ideology? How about dressing warmly in winter or eating out as a treat? I think we are really in trouble if not only does the word totalitarian mean everything and nothing but so also does the word ideology.

Capitalism is an ideology. It's why it needed to be explained and defended in the first place. For instance, Adam Smith goes over the governments in Europe needing to be persuaded to adopt capitalism:

Such as they were, however, those arguments convinced the people to whom they were addressed. They were addressed by merchants to parliaments and to the councils of princes, to nobles and to country gentlemen, by those who were supposed to understand trade to those who were conscious to themselves that they knew nothing about the matter. That foreign trade enriched the country, experience demonstrated to the nobles and country gentlemen as well as to the merchants; but how, or in what manner, none of them well knew. The merchants knew perfectly in what manner it enriched themselves. It was their business to know it. But to know in what manner it enriched the country was no part of their business. This subject never came into their consideration but when they had occasion to apply to their country for some change in the laws relating to foreign trade. It then became necessary to say something about the beneficial effects of foreign trade, and the manner in which those effects were obstructed by the laws as they then stood. To the judges who were to decide the business it appeared a most satisfactory account of the matter, when they were told that foreign trade brought money into the country, but that the laws in question hindered it from bringing so much as it otherwise would do. Those arguments therefore produced the wished-for effect. The prohibition of exporting gold and silver was in France and England confined to the coin of those respective countries. The exportation of foreign coin and of bullion was made free.

For a Marxist, of course, this is merely step one in a complete transformation of these societies. By conceding to the merchants that went to the courts demanding a new system, the merchants became formally far more powerful and this ultimately signed the death warrants for the feudal regimes themselves. For not much longer would these merchants, growing ever more powerful, feel the need to push the government to enact capitalist ideology--they would become the government pushing capitalist ideology.

In short, capitalism isn't simply another word for "trade." Capitalism is entire mode of production. If you were a 12th century peasant you would not be able to conceptualize not kneeling to your landlord as he owned the land and you were essentially part of the land. The table you ate at was part of the land, your children would be part of that land, just as your great grandparents were. Everything you owned would be part of this basic truth. It would, in your eyes, be an unbroken line of items that you were part of extending forever with the land. Breaking a cup would be like breaking a family heirloom.

We have changed this exchange. Breaking a cup means that it's your cup to break. You have a personal and individual ownership of it (while freeing in some ways, this alienates you as an individual from the object--you feel no responsibility for it as you would have under feudalism; just as the child in China that made the cup is alienated from its own work). You don't kneel to the landlord, you make an exchange of capital as you are no longer part of the land, nor is the landlord, it has been converted into an economic item.

This is not to promote feudalism, quite the contrary. But it is to contrast how different means of productions promote different ideologies and ways of understanding the world around us.

I think nationalism might be fairly called an ideology so to some extent every government does have that as a "guiding ideology" though that isn't necessarily followed by everyone or even by those in government, nor are there necessarily severe penalties just for unbelief. Christianity was once a guiding ideology for good part of Europe, it certainly could be a jealous ideology.

And the church ceased to be a major ideology when feudalism became more redundant. Just as there was no reason to kneel to the landlord, it became increasingly less important to kneel at the alter. Capitalism, while liberating from feudalism in many ways, is also alienating. And this affects how one may conceptualize God as well.

I guess a better distinction than "guiding ideology" would be how much peril are you in if you are an unbeliever in the guiding ideology. In a totalitarian society unbelief in the guiding ideology is fatal and something to be kept hidden for personal safety reasons. Islam is often totalitarian in this way, but general purpose nationalism usually or often isn't.

Historically not believing in capitalism was a death sentence. Here's Ludlow after the military finished killing every man, woman, and child that questioned the profit motive:



That's, of course, not to mention any number of atrocities from the genocide of the Native Americans, to the Belgian Congo, Putomayo Indians, the Opium Wars, and on and on.

In the first world we can say that the murders have mostly stopped from at least the 1970s when the most prominent Marxists were assasinated



Since then the secret policies have been better about stopping such movements from occurring at all.

See I don't see that, maybe under Augusto Pinochet's regime, which was a product of very particular threats to reason, that is so but in the UK or US or really most normal countries since forever there is not a "mass capitalist party", yes almost everyone just accepts that investing is a good thing to do and that it is a normal and good thing for civilians to do business within the bounds of law and convention but if that is a "mass capitalist party" then maybe it is also a "mass eating is good party" or "mass sleeping when tired is a good thing to do party". Usually what there is actually, is a number of competing nationalist parties, often times they are nationalist parties which lean on socialistic ideology to some extent. It seems really odd to think of the british labour party particularly during the 70s when they were all but shutting the whole country down as a wing of the mass capitalist party. Incongruous to say the least.

Every party in the US, UK, or France, accept capitalism. This is a condition for entry. There may be an occasional outlier allowed, but do not delude yourself into thinking that another Red Scare isn't possible should any of these outliers gain momentum.

I don't think the point of three is just ordinary law enforcement. The people filling up US prisons are not political dissidents they are drug users, thieves, rapists and murderers. They are not moreover terrorised at least not in general or as a MO. Most inmates don't experience any terror and if they do mostly it is from other inmates rather than the authorities. I don't think that is a particularly rose tinted view either. My brother went to prison but he didn't go for thought crimes he went for slamming a brick into the face of someone who stole his cd-player. He quite liked being in prison too he certainly wasn't terrorised by the experience and he was never harmed. Something qualitatively different is going on with North Korean, USSR or GDR's ideological enforcement.

For the most part at the moment, this is true enough. This said, it wasn't all that long ago that Suffregettes were being forcefed in prison, Maxwell was building concentration camps for suspected Irish thought crimes, and the military was moving into Wales to sort through miners that may have gotten any ideas. Because they won at the moment doesn't necessarily mean that they're incapable of doing the same thing over again. Nor does it mean that the acceptance of cultural hegemony at the moment wasn't, at least in part, manufactured.

The 1950s and 60s in the Soviet Union was a lot calmer and contended than it was in the United States, for instance. It didn't stop American police from beating blacks, or the FBI from trying to force King to kill himself, or the Soviets from looking down their noses at such methods (even though they had used methods similar to make their relative peace at the time).

why the hell not? Those 6 private corporations at least are not 1 state corporation. Moreover they are publicly traded companies meaning they are owned by anyone who wants to throw some money at them, that's how they got that big. Besides that they are not a literal monopoly because besides there being 6 of them (hexoploy?) they don't have an exclusive legal right just popularity both with punters and investors. It isn't even a terrible thing for those companies not in the hexopoly because all they need is a some niche popularity and they can do as they please without fear of the secret police or the hexopoly. Facebook and twitter? Is it literally illegal to be outside the hexopoly? No, and that's the difference.

Like the government, it has a certain ideological requirement for entry. Freedom of Speech is theoretically open to everyone, but is my freedom of speech the same as Rupert Murdoch's? Let us assume I buy stock in Fox News. Does that mean that my share grants me the same freedom of speech as Rupert Murdoch? It most certainly does not.

Freedom of Speech is theoretical, which is why rightwingers confuse consequences to their actions by private individuals as an infringement on free speech. Free Speech is not an absence of consequences, nor is it blubbering about whatever is on your mind. Freedom of Speech includes the ability to use it, which only the wealthy have in any substantial form. And even then, as Trump is making clear, it's something that can be revoked if need be.

War time and other times of great emergency are not really defining for this. Sure in WW2 though not WW1 or any other of the UK's innumerable major conflicts the UK engaged, probably unnecessarily, in large scale quasi-communist or totalitarian monkeying around in the economy, including food rations and confiscating people's ironwork. We even had a black market in food! and what could be more of a hallmark of totalitarianism than that? But again emergency conditions are not defining. How are things done in peace time that is the question. What extent of civilian industry is permitted to exist outside the ownership and dominion of the governors and where there is interference what is the purpose of it? Is it for an ideological reason, insane lust for power or just a pragmatic reason. The UK's railways were created by the private sector and then nationalised but they were nationalised because the Army realised that trains were a great way to move masses of troops around and wanted to have it as a wartime asset. That's a pragmatic reason for state involvement not an ideological one. When planes and cars were invented the government realised they were better than railways and lost interest in owning the railways and so they were eventually sold off. Is that even conceivable in a genuinely totalitarian society?

The issue is less that it isn't happening now as much as it can be converted to that at any time it's convenient. If I were in North Korea, just because the police weren't arresting me at that moment doesn't mean that they can't simply decide to do it later.

[SolarCross]

Do you think that if left alone on an island, people would automatically create a system of international fiat caputalism dependent upon interest and lending?

I suspect not.

Isn't that exactly what happened though? Not that I am saying it is automatic, inventions aren't automatic, but "international fiat capitalism dependent upon interest and lending" was created and was created by people for people. Agriculture was an invention too is that also ideology?

This is precisely why I have an issue with the word totalitarian. I don't disagree with Orwell that capitalism is totalitarian. Until very recently, not everybody accepted or liked it. In the pre-war world it was not unusual for the British, Americans, or French to send soldiers out to execute dissenting workers. Up until the present, dissenting voices have been systematically tortured by the big powers. Perhaps most prominently the French were making illegal deals behind everyone's back to get Iraqi oil, the British had long seen Iraqi oil as "vital" to their long term interests leading them to begin conspiring to beat the French to Iraqi oil; which meant covertly working with the United State to help take over Iraq and get that sweet oil. This meant working with the press to fabricate information in order to artificially create public support (how quickly rightwingers seem to forget that the New York Times was a hollow shill for the Bush administration's propaganda),

In Britain and the United States, this meant going to extra lengths to ensure that the public itself was culpable in the invasion. In Britain it meant getting Parliament's hands bloody in ways that didn't necessarily have to happen, in the US it meant having Tony Blair (who was identified with popular president Bill Clinton instead of unpopular president George Bush) announce that everything Bush said was right to a skeptical public, and both sides manipulating the media in order to manipulate the public for a war. The aftermath, as we know, has been perpetual wa, torture, death, and the oil fields.

This is a single example that we both lived through with many, many sources. Is this not draconian to have the press, the government, the military, the secret services, and everything else working for a secret end game?

Now you are seemingly using "totalitarian" to describe any ordinary self-interested shenanigans. From the purity of a Christian moral vantage all those shenanigans you described might well be a moral bad but that doesn't make them totalitarian. The meaning is more specific than just naughtiness in general. At this point you are inches away from calling drug abuse, loud drunken singing whilst people are sleeping and failing to put the toilet seat down after taking a male style pee examples of totalitarianism.

Capitalism is an ideology. It's why it needed to be explained and defended in the first place. For instance, Adam Smith goes over the governments in Europe needing to be persuaded to adopt capitalism:

My mechanic needed to explain to me why I should have the rear brake pads and discs changed on my car today. So I guess motor maintenance is an ideology now, good to know.

For a Marxist, of course, this is merely step one in a complete transformation of these societies. By conceding to the merchants that went to the courts demanding a new system, the merchants became formally far more powerful and this ultimately signed the death warrants for the feudal regimes themselves. For not much longer would these merchants, growing ever more powerful, feel the need to push the government to enact capitalist ideology--they would become the government pushing capitalist ideology.

In short, capitalism isn't simply another word for "trade." Capitalism is entire mode of production. If you were a 12th century peasant you would not be able to conceptualize not kneeling to your landlord as he owned the land and you were essentially part of the land. The table you ate at was part of the land, your children would be part of that land, just as your great grandparents were. Everything you owned would be part of this basic truth. It would, in your eyes, be an unbroken line of items that you were part of extending forever with the land. Breaking a cup would be like breaking a family heirloom.

We have changed this exchange. Breaking a cup means that it's your cup to break. You have a personal and individual ownership of it (while freeing in some ways, this alienates you as an individual from the object--you feel no responsibility for it as you would have under feudalism; just as the child in China that made the cup is alienated from its own work). You don't kneel to the landlord, you make an exchange of capital as you are no longer part of the land, nor is the landlord, it has been converted into an economic item.

This is not to promote feudalism, quite the contrary. But it is to contrast how different means of productions promote different ideologies and ways of understanding the world around us.

And the church ceased to be a major ideology when feudalism became more redundant. Just as there was no reason to kneel to the landlord, it became increasingly less important to kneel at the alter. Capitalism, while liberating from feudalism in many ways, is also alienating. And this affects how one may conceptualize God as well.

Well I have debunked the laughable marxist plagarism of the whig theory of history and the silly 19th century mythologising of the so-called fuedalism which I have also debunked elsewhere. It would be tedious to have to repeat myself.

Historically not believing in capitalism was a death sentence. Here's Ludlow after the military finished killing every man, woman, and child that questioned the profit motive:

Except they weren't killed for "not believing in capitalism", they were killed in the course of an escalating disagreement over terms. I doubt very much the miners failed to believe in capitalism when pay day came around.

That's, of course, not to mention any number of atrocities from the genocide of the Native Americans, to the Belgian Congo, Putomayo Indians, the Opium Wars, and on and on.

Conflicts of interest erupting into violence is snafu. Apparently capitalism is a synonym for human (and animal!) nature now. I suppose foxes and rabbits are capitalists now?

In the first world we can say that the murders have mostly stopped from at least the 1970s when the most prominent Marxists were assasinated



Since then the secret policies have been better about stopping such movements from occurring at all.

Marxists are idiots but they are not killed for being idiots but for criminal or subversive activity. So far you are an idiot morning, noon and night on the internet without anyone gunning you down. Start activily presenting a threat to the national interest and yeah things will go south for you, big surprise. So it would also be if you were some other kind of idiot subversive like the unabomber or the oklahoma bomber. Is it totalitarian for a government to neutralise real security threats? If so then every government and basically every living thing that cared for its continued existence is a totalitarian and we are back to totalitarian meaning everything and nothing.

Every party in the US, UK, or France, accept capitalism. This is a condition for entry. There may be an occasional outlier allowed, but do not delude yourself into thinking that another Red Scare isn't possible should any of these outliers gain momentum.

It isn't a condition, and some don't, literally there are occasionally bona fide loonies with ideological difficulties with reality who somehow succeed in getting elected, ie: Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders. They accept "capitalism" only to the extent that they are just self-aware enough to realise that sometimes there are not enough idiots out there to vote for idiots who come out against normal things for no rational reason at all, and because they prefer to be elected rather than not elected they lie by ommission to get that sweet, sweet public salary, expense account and platform that would otherwise be denied them if they revealed the full extent of their idoicy to too many voters.

It would be just fine if idiots like these were disqualified from running for office, just as any other criminal, traitor, mental incompent or imbecile should be disqualified but as it is there aren't generally any such regulations for that, more's the pity. The issue here is a lack of totalitarianism

For the most part at the moment, this is true enough. This said, it wasn't all that long ago that Suffregettes were being forcefed in prison, Maxwell was building concentration camps for suspected Irish thought crimes, and the military was moving into Wales to sort through miners that may have gotten any ideas. Because they won at the moment doesn't necessarily mean that they're incapable of doing the same thing over again. Nor does it mean that the acceptance of cultural hegemony at the moment wasn't, at least in part, manufactured.

It is generally not the case that anyone is imprisoned for ideas alone but for translating (sometimes stupid) ideas into actions which are annoying, criminal or a serious security threat.

But I'll concede that the same goes for the authorities sometimes, sometimes they translate their own ideas into actions which are physically harmful. It definitely can cut both ways and when it does maybe that is a little bit of a totalitarian slip showing.

Let's say totalitarianism isn't an alien disease, it is a human one, to which no one is entirely immune however is it still not the case that some are more prone to it than others? I think the key to the propensity to totalitarianism lies in number one in the 6 points of totalitarianism "guiding ideology". All the other points are more or less consequent on the first. If the ideology is just pragmatism then there is a low probablity of totalitarianism emerging from it because most people are sane and can readily accept realistic beliefs even while they may want to haggle over the terms but the more unrealistic the ideology is then the more enforcement is required to make people accept it, this ideological enforcement is what makes the totalitarianism. This is why communism is doomed to a totalitarian path, because it is a false, as in untruthful / unrealistic, ideology so people in general will only accept it under (extreme) duress. Juche and fascism may also be so also.

On aspect of this unrealism that is highly associated with the classic totalitarian ideologies such as communism, juche and fascsim is the perverse inversion of the "state" versus the "person". For the totalitarian the state is higher in rank than the person, but the state is just property, real estate, corporate name, etc such things are by a natural, realistic reckoning lower in rank than a person (any person). Persons can own property but property cannot own persons. This perversion of civil presumption is profoundly jarring to the human soul or mind and it is this that provokes dissent and thus disobedience and thus the totalitarian ideological enforcement in response.

[The Immortal Goon]

Isn't that exactly what happened though? Not that I am saying it is automatic, inventions aren't automatic, but "international fiat capitalism dependent upon interest and lending" was created and was created by people for people. Agriculture was an invention too is that also ideology?

States built upon communist ideology happened too. Would you say that they are not ideological?

Feudalism happened too. Would you not say that there's an ideological component to it?

So did Fascism. If something that happened makes it unable to be an ideology, than we aren't really discussing anything.

Now you are seemingly using "totalitarian" to describe any ordinary self-interested shenanigans. From the purity of a Christian moral vantage all those shenanigans you described might well be a moral bad but that doesn't make them totalitarian. The meaning is more specific than just naughtiness in general. At this point you are inches away from calling drug abuse, loud drunken singing whilst people are sleeping and failing to put the toilet seat down after taking a male style pee examples of totalitarianism.

I didn't use this example as "any ordinary self-interested shenanigans." It was a perspective that was created on high and forced upon all levels of society, most of which (like the NYT) happily capitulated and everyone that didn't had to capitulate at the barrel of a gun or be ruthlessly tortured.

My mechanic needed to explain to me why I should have the rear brake pads and discs changed on my car today. So I guess motor maintenance is an ideology now, good to know.

This has nothing to do with a historical instance, described by Adam Smith himself, in which merchants proposed the construction of a capitalist ideology to be applied to governments. Who am I to bring up facts and citations when you can throw in a non-secuatar about what you feel like something should mean?

Well I have debunked the laughable marxist plagarism of the whig theory of history and the silly 19th century mythologising of the so-called fuedalism which I have also debunked elsewhere. It would be tedious to have to repeat myself.

Just because you have special feelings about your abilities does not make it a reality.

Except they weren't killed for "not believing in capitalism", they were killed in the course of an escalating disagreement over terms. I doubt very much the miners failed to believe in capitalism when pay day came around.

I'm sure that will be of some comfort to the socialist labor leaders that were massacred. In my neck of the woods alone, here's two well massacres (1, 2)

Conflicts of interest erupting into violence is snafu. Apparently capitalism is a synonym for human (and animal!) nature now. I suppose foxes and rabbits are capitalists now?

I'm not the one saying that people trapped on an island would come up with capitalism as some natural state of being, you are.

But this is your response to me pointing out that capitalists have killed non-capitalist people like Africans and Native Americans. Which is, of course, something that cannot be denied.

Marxists are idiots but they are not killed for being idiots but for criminal or subversive activity. So far you are an idiot morning, noon and night on the internet without anyone gunning you down.

This idiot is apparently hurting your previous victim-feelings.

And I never claimed that anyone was going to gun me down. I explained, with citations, an example of how capitalism constrained speech for those that did not have the money to distribute said speech.

Start activily presenting a threat to the national interest and yeah things will go south for you, big surprise. So it would also be if you were some other kind of idiot subversive like the unabomber or the oklahoma bomber. Is it totalitarian for a government to neutralise real security threats? If so then every government and basically every living thing that cared for its continued existence is a totalitarian and we are back to totalitarian meaning everything and nothing.

Or we are at the Carr definition that when a society reaches a certain amount of control it naturally becomes totalitarian. Which I can live with. You seem intent on finding a definition that will have some kind of set-up that specifically excludes your favored system. I am not so vain as to demand the same.

It isn't a condition, and some don't, literally there are occasionally bona fide loonies with ideological difficulties with reality who somehow succeed in getting elected, ie: Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders.

Both Corbyn and Sanders are capitalists. They just think there should be certain government restrictions on market forces. This is, of course, delusional as it's a complete denial of the fact that the government itself is a reflection of capitalism.

They accept "capitalism" only to the extent that they are just self-aware enough to realise that sometimes there are not enough idiots out there to vote for idiots who come out against normal things for no rational reason at all, and because they prefer to be elected rather than not elected they lie by ommission to get that sweet, sweet public salary, expense account and platform that would otherwise be denied them if they revealed the full extent of their idoicy to too many voters.

You seem obsessed with calling everyone that you disagree with an idiot. I'll remind you that you have yet to provide a single fact, shred of evidence, link, citation, or logical deduction aside from explaining how you feel.

There is plenty that you might have been able to dig into, for instance your assumption that their motivations are gaining a public salary (which they both already have). But instead you are reduced to writing that you feel like this is the root cause.

This is not persuasive to anyone except for yourself. But I do understand that part of this process is explaining to yourself how you feel about an issue.

It would be just fine if idiots like these were disqualified from running for office, just as any other criminal, traitor, mental incompent or imbecile should be disqualified but as it is there aren't generally any such regulations for that, more's the pity. The issue here is a lack of totalitarianism

As you imply, if they were effective and actually not capitalist, they would be shot:

a threat to the national interest and yeah things will go south for you, big surprise.

It is generally not the case that anyone is imprisoned for ideas alone but for translating (sometimes stupid) ideas into actions which are annoying, criminal or a serious security threat.

Indeed. But even North Korea hasn't devised a system where they can monitor actual thoughts. The best they can do is take action for the translation of these sometimes stupid ideas into actions which are annoying, criminal or a serious security threat.

Let's say totalitarianism isn't an alien disease, it is a human one, to which no one is entirely immune however is it still not the case that some are more prone to it than others? I think the key to the propensity to totalitarianism lies in number one in the 6 points of totalitarianism "guiding ideology". All the other points are more or less consequent on the first. If the ideology is just pragmatism then there is a low probablity of totalitarianism emerging from it because most people are sane and can readily accept realistic beliefs even while they may want to haggle over the terms but the more unrealistic the ideology is then the more enforcement is required to make people accept it, this ideological enforcement is what makes the totalitarianism. This is why communism is doomed to a totalitarian path, because it is a false, as in untruthful / unrealistic, ideology so people in general will only accept it under (extreme) duress. Juche and fascism may also be so also.

You come to this conclusion because you reject history. I have an example, from a source you should seemingly trust (Adam Smith) in him explaining how capitalist ideology was something that had to be adopted by states in order to enforce, and you wave it away as convenient for you.

I can point out countless genocides, famines, imprisonments, executions, and assassinations through the ages to enforce the market. These are, again, shrugged off as inconvenient for your argument.

On aspect of this unrealism that is highly associated with the classic totalitarian ideologies such as communism, juche and fascsim is the perverse inversion of the "state" versus the "person". For the totalitarian the state is higher in rank than the person, but the state is just property, real estate, corporate name, etc such things are by a natural, realistic reckoning lower in rank than a person (any person). Persons can own property but property cannot own persons. This perversion of civil presumption is profoundly jarring to the human soul or mind and it is this that provokes dissent and thus disobedience and thus the totalitarian ideological enforcement in response.

Again, this is something that I'm sure the Native Americans would be very surprised to learn. The individual is allowed to do whatever he or she wants in a capitalist (communist, Juche, or fascist) ideology until—as you yourself said—the actions result in:

a threat to the national interest and yeah things will go south for you, big surprise.

Is this not the same? And again, the Soviet Union through [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Soviet_Union_(1964–82)#Stabilization]the Brezhnev era was quite calm[/url]. [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_(1954–1968)]The United States looked like a fucking mess[/url]. As did the UK. And France.

This is not to say that everything was perfect in the Soviet Union as it wasn't. But if we are to use these qualifiers you're laying out, then the capitalist powers were totalitarian and the Soviet Union wasn't.

I make no such claims.

[SolarCross]

@The Immortal Goon
Would you think it dreadfully droll of me to paraphrase your claim that capitalism is totalitarianism as "freedom is slavery"?

[The Immortal Goon]

@The Immortal Goon
Would you think it dreadfully droll of me to paraphrase your claim that capitalism is totalitarianism as "freedom is slavery"?

What I feel about it is, of course, completely irrelevant. Though I might point out that the author of those words thought that capitalism was totalitarian, and that this takes us back to the beginning of our discussion.

[SolarCross]

What I feel about it is, of course, completely irrelevant. Though I might point out that the author of those words thought that capitalism was totalitarian, and that this takes us back to the beginning of our discussion.

If so he was another idiot. At some point something has to not be totalitarianism or it is everything and nothing, but I already said that, so around and around we go again. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree as they say.