Photograph Source Spud of Inside Cable news – CC BY 2.0
Not a False Dichotomy: (Eco-)Socialism or Exterminist Capitalism
Antonio Gramsci would be impressed by the “liberal” Democratic Party broadcast network MSNBC, whose function is to advance the political hegemony of finance capital between drug, car, business consulting, insurance, and financial services commercials for affluent Baby Boomers.
Last Wednesday the discussion became spirited on an “expert panel” convened by MSDNC morning host Stephanie Ruhle, a former leading global derivatives trader. The topic that animated Ruhle and her guests was America’s need to “get over the false dichotomy between socialism and capitalism” and to focus instead on moving from an insufficiently regulated to a more properly controlled capitalism. The point, the MSDNC know-it-alls agreed, is not to transcend capitalism but to reform it – to “change the rules of capitalism” in Ruhle’s words. The goal for Ruhle and her fellow Wall Street reformers is to make capitalism work like it is supposedly supposed to: for the broad populace, the common good, and democracy, not just the wealthy Few like JPMorgan Chase’s billionaire CEO Jamie Dimon.
It’s nothing new. This has been the argument of capital’s liberal servants going back for a very long time. It’s always been false. Now it has become fatal for the species in an age of incipient ecological catastrophe that has emerged precisely from 500 years of, well,…