Thread by @besf0rt

It's Not "Crony Capitalism", It's Capitalism.
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A Thread.

this is the first of many little threads i'll do on capitalism and its related issues like climate change, corruption, racism, imperialism, dishonest PR, philosophical inconsistencies, & other topics

pls share & like this if you like this format
also feel free to give feedback

this thread has three parts and how they add to the notion of "crony capitalism"

1. Finance
2. Climate Change
3. Politics

Finance:
"financialization" is one framing to conceal the root causes which are the capitalist mode of organizing the economy. it's not "finance" that is responsible all the evils, financial institutions just act in accord with the capitalist logic of exploitation

economists, media figures, & other opinion leaders often like to argue that finance is like a cancer, that it just needs to be removed in order to "restore" productive capitalism which is supposedly based on the "real" economy. speculation is the true evil, not industry, & so on

but finance is not like a removable sickness, it's like the central nervous system that permeates all business activity. finance is a function of capitalism; yes, financial institutions have a special role to play, but all major corporations engage in financial activity

furthermore, financial institutions (banks, hedge funds, etc.) fulfill a crucial role that hinges on capitalist production: they facilitate mergers and acquisitions, provide funding, exchanges of financial securities, & so on. remove just them, and they'll inevitably return

Climate Change:
"green capitalism" is another framing that suggests that it's not rly capitalism that is at fault, but its lack of focus on renewable energy. no amount to shifting towards renewable energy will suffice unless we deal with the fundamentals of our economic system.

various scientific groups like the IPCC have been telling us for years that what it takes to prevent the climate catastrophe is massive change to the way we produce & consume. these go beyond a different investment strategy or an emphasis on "green technology"

what they tell us is that we need to massively scale back on unsustainable industries & supply chains. but, to prevent an economic collapse, this requires a fundamental change in how the way we allocate labor and how to do distribute income

we'd need to get rid of "unnecessary" business sectors like the arms industry. to prevent massive unemployment, we'd need to shorten the workweek & raise wages.i.e.: shifting income from capital to labor,diverting productivity gains to more leisure time &not to capitalist pockets

but this goes way beyond what our political establishment is telling us. here again, it is capitalism that is the root issue, letting incremental market solutions co-opt real solutions to not compromise the profits of large corporations and their investors

shifting to renewables does nothing if we keep growing the economy (which mainly benefits & maintains capital).it's as if you want to lose weight, but you constantly increase the calories you take in, but the quality of calories is marginally better.that's not how you lose weight

Politics:
maybe the biggest problem with the idea of "crony capitalism" is the notion that it's the politicians, or the government, that is corrupt; if we just got rid of corruption, everything would be fine. there are several problems with this.

first of all, corruption is not something you can just vote out. it is deeply entrenched within the state structure and its intertwined connections to business. you ameliorate the problem by implementing new laws on disclosing funding, etc, but this only scratches the surface

secondly, there isn't just "explicit" corruption, there is implicit, systemic corruption through the manufacturing of consent. 6 conglomerates control 90% of news media in the US, public opinion is corrupted by capital. so voters are already influenced from the outset

but, most importantly, even if you got rid of corruption, the true lie of mainstream economics is that it is distinct from politics, that our everyday life - our material subsistence - is "neutral", "apolitical"

democracy is reduced to "electoral democracy", not true democracy, which would involve democracy of the workplace, where we spend a significant amount of our lives. how can we claim that we live in a democracy when we spend 8 & more hrs of our days in a monarchy?

how can we say that we live in a democracy where a handful of people own as much as half of humanity? how can we say that we live in a democratic society when less than 200 people control the vast majority of global assets?

so no, getting rid of corruption is not enough, to have a true democracy is to extend the political world into the economic world, to democratize production, to own the world democratically

people who argue for a "nicer capitalism" have little understanding of how capitalism, as long as it exists, becomes worse and worse, swallowing nature, politics, and all aspects of life until everything is turned into capital. there is no "enlightened capitalism"

the "enlightened capitalism" frame is the establishment's attempt to undermine our frustration with a system by acknowledging that "while it's not perfect, at the core it's good". it's nothing new, they do this with everything else, the vietnam war, the war on terror, etc

in order to get rid of "financialization", in order to solve climate change, and to realize true democracy, it's not enough to to make capitalism less "crony", it takes going beyond capitalism.

pls let me know if you liked this thread :) any feedback is appreciated ❤️

also sry for the few typos and some grammatical errors i just spotted :( i will be better in the future