Abracadabra! (We just destroyed capitalism)

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Jack Graham

Jack Graham writes and podcasts about culture and politics from a Gothic Marxist-Humanist perspective. He co-hosts the I Don't Speak German podcast with Daniel Harper. Support Jack on Patreon.

6 Comments

  1. Jarl
    November 17, 2017 @ 10:25 am

    Why can’t these people just build cites at the bottom of the ocean like in the good old days?

    Reply

  2. Austin G Loomis
    November 17, 2017 @ 2:45 pm

    Dwight Lee, in the Koch-sponsored course on “Common Sense Economics”, makes the economics-as-religion point at least as directly:

    The charge that sways juries and offends public sensitivities, and helps explain the large awards, is that greedy corporations sacrifice human lives to increase their profits. Is this charge true? Of course it is. But this isn’t a criticism of corporations; rather it is a reflection of the proper functioning of a market economy. Corporations routinely sacrifice the lives of some of their customers to increase profits, and we are all better off because they do. That’s right, we are lucky to live in an economy that allows corporations to increase profits by intentionally selling products less safe than could be produced. The desirability of sacrificing lives for profits may not be as comforting as milk, cookies and a bedtime story, but it follows directly from a reality we cannot wish away.

    This is not a common-sense economist explain common-sense economics; this is an Aztec priest explaining that the sun would go out if Tezcatlipoca didn’t get his regular snack of human hearts. We should be glad to be ground under the Jagganath wheels of the great god Market. Praise God. Give thanks. Think “rationally”. Be “free”.

    Reply

    • Froborr
      November 17, 2017 @ 4:21 pm

      “WE are all better off because THEY are sacrificed.”

      The cry of every bigot. “They” may be POC, LGBT people, women, the poor, or (very often) all of the above, but it’s all the same.

      Reply

    • Gavin Burrows
      November 17, 2017 @ 6:19 pm

      You may be right that it was Dwight Lee who said that. But I’m still picturing a speech ballon round that quote with a tail leading to Lex Luthor’s mouth.

      Reply

  3. Froborr
    November 17, 2017 @ 4:19 pm

    Is there any doubt that the reactionary powerhouses of dogma and influence thus created have far more pull on policy than what goes on in the Humanities departments where Feminist literature professors ask students to consider the post-colonial ramifications of Wuthering Heights?

    Case in point: I studied English at (scare chord) George Mason University, class of ’04. Course topics included learning close reading from a Toni Morrison expert who also taught me the importance of recognizing my own privilege; the revolutionary potential of the fantastic, and especially children’s literature; and how the people who wanted to make the Internet a marketplace destroyed its vast potential as a medium for communication and community-building. As far as I know, two of those professors are still there; the other was quite elderly and has since retired.

    Reply

    • Jack Graham
      November 17, 2017 @ 5:11 pm

      I hope I didn’t seem to be either dismissing what goes on in English departments or implying that the reactionary penetration of of GMU’s economics department means that the entire university is worthless.

      Reply

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