Soviet versus Neoliberal
The prejudice of false equivalences
I heard a decent talk the other day at the UK Institute for Arts and ideas. the speaker was presenting a thesis that the soviet regime was basically the same as neoliberalism. both a form of technocratic (false) utopianism. We can bureaucrat our way to prosperity, peace and justice, and emancipation.
Thank goodness though it was only a “Youtube Short”. (Don’t get me started, soundbites cannot form a valid critique ok, and yes, I am half of my life a blatant hypocrite.)
It is a good “In Your Face” talk for normies. They might as well hear an opinion that the Soviets were little better than today’s Neoliberals (Callaghan, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Trudeau, Reagan, Clinton, Blair, Obama, all the damn rest, all of them, all colours.)
But hells bells. By even forgetful functor equivalence the differences are so stark this lady is is not really helping. Not all nightmares are created equally. I could go on all day about this, and honestly I’ve already forgotten the first three of my counters to her talk. (Reminder from five seconds ago: I do not object to her thesis entirely as a shock treatment.) I will limit myself to a couple of remarks.
Motives matter, at least to people like me. One motive for the Soviet regime was elimination of landlords and rentiers, and giving power to the peasantry. A noble sort of idea. So they ballsed it up entirely (even if we generously grant they were sincere.) Doesn’t matter. The failure was a lesson. I’m not here to defend the bastards.
The motive for Neoliberalism was to technocratically eliminate the scourge of fascism. This was the ostensible foundational motive for the Mont Pelerin Society, and all the pile of horseshyte think tanks and propaganda vehicles that followed. (Sure, they might have been low key fash themselves, but a low key fash can always claim to want to avoid actual fascism.) It is far more evil and insidious than the Soviet regime. The problem is that these neoliberals (mainly economists and ideological Marxian capitalists (not a contradiction in terms)) were stupid people, and they did not study history closely enough to know that their political economy style (austerity for the poor, if I may be permitted a gross simplification) is a seed for fascism, not a cure.
So there is little equivalence if we form a proper unforgetful functor. The functor does not exist (a mapping from characteristics of one category to another).
One little puzzler: you may ask, if Neoliberalism breeds fascism, how some in 40 years of Neoliberal Order we have not seen a new fascist regime?
To answer this, I would argue “Just open your eyes a bit!” Fascism is all around us, and does not have to be a political party in power to be effective in Its social destruction. Also there is a lot of anti-fascist activity around you, just look. It suppresses the bastards. But despite Neoliberalism.
That’s my last two points for today. It is thoroughly despite Neoliberalism that we have managed to suppress a whole shyte-load of fascism from surfacing in worse forms than it already has in recent decades.
It is thoroughly despite Neoliberalism that living standards for the Median person have risen pretty dramatically. Productivity gains do gain for someone. You’d want to know why only the upper quartile, right? (Read Bill Mitchell’s Reclaiming the State. Or click here if you are not a reader.)
((Remember on your keyboard [Shift + >] is speed up by +25%. Bill always talks so slowly even a central banker can follow.))
These “despites” are, in my view, testament to the magnificence of the human spirit. But I would rather not have my children and their children tested in this manner. They are weak test of our spirit. Because they are so obvious. It is a much more severe test to resist Krispy Kreme donuts. (Metaphor alert!, you know what I mean.)