Sunday, January 6, 2019

A Facebook Experience in the Age of Trump

As I have stated many times, it rarely makes sense to have a revolution unless the masses want to move in the direction of liberty.

They don't need a deep understanding of the PPS but they do need to have a strong belief in "live and let live." That is sadly missing at present. You would expect this failing from the central planning-inclined left but not necessarily on the right. In the age of Trump, however, the right is moving in the direction of increased interventionism.


 I make this point in my post, The Dangerous Emergence of the Neoright in the Era of Trump.

I would define the neoright as being those amongst the masses and second-hand barkers who attempt to reflect what they think Trump's views are.

They are anti-immigrant, in favor of a border wall and hate the media and Democrats. Outside of this, they have no foundational grounding. On any other issue, they can shift and throw free market non-interventionism under the bus if it suits that moment's shifting agenda, That's why we see neorightists easily take anti-free market positions. See, Ann Coulter's willingness to call for a wealth tax on the rich and Tucker Carlson's hate of many, non-crony, consumer-oriented, American big businesses.

It is just bad out there with Trump being the most significant figure on the right.

At the post, POLLS: Americans Warming to Socialism over Capitalism, commenter Sui-Juris reports:
 It's very disconcerting to see the antipathy against Capitalism growing in this country---even on the Right. Until yesterday, I belonged to a Facebook discussion group ("The American Conservative" which, judging from their website, I thought was very paleo-conservative / Old Right conservative). I posted Target Liberty's article from the other day, criticizing Tucker Carlson's anti-Capitalist/anti-Free-enterprise stance, and commented on how both Right and Left seem to be competing to embrace Populist attitudes of antipathy toward Capitalism and free markets. 
Boy, was I attacked! I couldn't believe how many people conflate Capitalism with Corporativism / Crony-capitalism! I was accused of siding with "the Power Elite," and of worshiping Gordon Gecko and greed...and of being of the same type and character as those "who destroyed this country." I was even mocked for such truisms as "capitalist entrepreneurs take risks," and informed by these scolds that capitalists exploit everyone, earn nothing, and risk nothing. (I even learned that suburbs and strip-malls are "soulless" and are evidence of capitalism's decay).
-RW 

5 comments:

  1. I have touted for a number of years that we are living in the world of Idiocracy and now when I reference it I get nothing but agreement.

    It clearly demonstrates the overwhelming success of the indoctrination of the populace in the last few decades and the loss of discernment and common sense.

    TIme to start printing out the Corporativism is not Capitalism t-shirts

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  2. The right has only mouthed support for capitalism, but when in power have always been big taxers and corporatists. If you think this is new under Trump, you've been asleep for decades.

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    1. Or you have a reading comprehension problem and you complete miss my point.

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  3. It seems that perfectly suitable words and phrases are continually being appropriated by the Left and the Right: e.g., the pilfering long ago of "Liberal" (and reportedly some Neo-cons have started calling themselves "Classical Liberals"---!); and now the word "Capitalism" has attracted a crippling taint.
    What to do? Adopt a substitute for "Capitalism"---? Henry Hazlitt suggests that "Free Enterprise" is a less off-putting and more inviting substitute, in his book "The Conquest of Poverty" (1973):

    "[Our system of division of labor, freedom of exchange, and economic cooperation]...is now known either as Free Enterprise or as Capitalism, according as men wish to honor or disparage it."

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