Tweet

scientism

7 Mar, 9 tweets, 2 min read

If you look at the US 'empire' as a network of institutions, you can understand 'democratization' and 'state-building' through this lens. The goal is to create a political environment where US-affiliated institutions can gain entry and then to ensure that they set the agenda.

Liberal democracy requires a set of private institutions to function. These present themselves as 'independent' but actually form a network centered on a handful of unaccountable elites. The US seeks to 'spread democracy' because this is the ideal for spreading US influence.

Under liberal democracy, the goal is to create a 'vibrant civil society', which is just to gain entry for and establish the dominance of institutions that will represent US interests. These are either directly owned and controlled by the US or by US-friendly local elites.

This is why the US promotes a specific form of democratic ideal - multiparty elections - and doesn't recognize alternatives. This is the political form that is most perfected for control by obscure private interests. It's a way to colonize a country without being overt about it.

The principles of liberalism all correspond to means of extending US imperialism. 'Free markets' = access for US corporations. 'Free speech' = access for US media, think tanks, etc. 'Academic freedom' = teach US ('Western') ideas. Etc.

The are alternative ways of addressing issues of political participation, public discourse, etc, but the US has specifically settled on a set that always leads to capture of the media, politics, and academia by private interests where the US itself has a huge incumbent advantage.

It's not really possible to separate politics and economics here and it's not possible to abstract the issue and talk about 'global capitalism' rather than 'US empire'. All of these institutions work together, regardless of whether they're for-profit or non-profit.

There's no capitalism without state power and there's no global capitalism without some state at its core, using coercion and war to ensure other states enforce the right laws, allow access to the right institutions, etc, so it can all mesh together. It's a form of empire.

One of the big mistakes people make is in thinking that the US (and the West) 'at least' has democracy, free speech, etc, and is therefore still more morally respectable than 'the rest'. This is not the case. There's a network of elite institutions and A LOT of propaganda.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @mr_scientism

scientism

@mr_scientism

6 Mar

People talk about global 'influence' like its something magical, but if a country has economic power, politicians in smaller countries are going to take its side, and those people are going to rely on talking points it supplies. This is what America has, nothing else.

America's global influence works kind of like a sales organization. It has representatives all over the world, in both the public and private sector. They try to push whatever America is selling. The US media, think tanks, etc, supply the arguments or scripts they use.

The US has largely enjoyed a uncontested territory of influence since the fall of the USSR. America peddlers dominate global politics. But we already see the signs that this is changing, increasingly they're becoming more desperate and turning to more underhanded practices.

Read 4 tweets

scientism

@mr_scientism

8 Jan

There’s essentially three categories of ‘moral code’ in modern society and each is adopted based on the adherent’s relationship to the legal system. The dominant one is essentially a set of heuristics for staying out of trouble if you’re middle-class: don’t lie, cheat, steal.

If your relationship to the legal system is dominated by being policed or experiencing the court system ‘from below’, for whatever reason, then the moral code is a set of heuristics for staying out of trouble given those circumstances: most importantly, ‘don’t snitch’.

If you’re rich and have good access to the legal system, then you don’t really need a ‘moral code’ as such, you just consult a lawyer directly. You can afford to conform to the ‘word of the law’ rather than rely on heuristics.

Read 4 tweets

scientism

@mr_scientism

5 Jan

'Soft power' is more a matter of personnel than skill. America's 'soft power' comes from the presence of its apologists in other countries, who repeat its message, attack its enemies, etc. This has two important consequences: (1) it's adversarial; (2) it can decline rapidly.

'Soft power' is adversarial because it's about getting your view of events heard over others, but if your position becomes increasingly practically untenable (as your power declines), then your advocates increasingly just become loudmouthed liabilities.

This is why 'soft power' can decline rapidly: as other forms of (relative) power decline, your advocates around the world become liabilities to their hosts rather than assets. All that has to happen then, for a widespread collapse, is for those countries to switch personnel.

Read 4 tweets

scientism

@mr_scientism

2 Dec 20

I've been saying for a long time that censorship will get stronger as US relative power declines, since the West has less overt censorship solely because it is hegemonic, and that has obviously been happening. But Western propaganda is also getting cruder for the same reason.

Since it's getting easier for other countries to tell their own stories, both because of declining US relative power and lower costs of entry, it's no longer possible for the US and allies to rely on being the world's de facto source of truth. The result is cruder narratives.

Given these dynamics, the obvious play for countries like China and Russia is to push the message that the US and its allies aren't exceptional. They aren't especially free or trustworthy. They're just regular countries. This is now difficult to counter without proving the point.

Read 4 tweets

scientism

@mr_scientism

18 Nov 20

Under capitalism, society is organized into what you might call ‘consumption brigades’. These are various organized hobbies, fandoms, lifestyles, etc, that people can subscribe to. Membership of one often predicts likelihood of membership of another, forming clusters.

Consumption is highly organized under capitalism, usually at the ‘industry’ level (e.g., video games) but sometimes individual enterprises operate their own ‘consumption brigades’ (Apple, Disney-Marvel, etc). Products are often updated annually or released according to schedule.

Much attention is given to advertising, but the real work is done in the magazines, websites, YouTube channels, etc, that serve each consumption brigade. The ‘informed‘ consumer regularly gorges himself on such materials in order to know what purchases he should be making.

Read 8 tweets

scientism

@mr_scientism

17 Sep 20

The most important question in economics is why the nation-state isn’t just organized as one big, administered enterprise (i.e., a form of state socialism). The usual answers take ‘the market’ to be normative and talk about ‘inefficiencies’, but this is misguided.

You can flip the issue around and avoid taking ‘the market’ as the default: every economy would be one big, administered enterprise; the convoluted structure we call the ‘market economy’ appears due to ‘state intervention’; specifically laws of property, trust, etc.

The ‘varieties of capitalism’ are actually varieties of (state) socialism. Different countries have more or less convoluted administrative structures (i.e., further from default managerialism) depending the degree to which policy has been informed by the discipline of economics.

Read 4 tweets

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!