It's their past but it might well be our future. I work in higher ed and the same kind of despondency and game playing described in this article is going on right now. I hate it, my boss hates, but we feel trapped by the system.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/20....

Second comment is good.

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When an authoritarian regime approaches its final crisis, but before its actual collapse, a mysterious rupture often takes place. All of a sudden, people know the game is up: they simply cease to be afraid. It isn’t just that the regime loses its legitimacy: its exercise of power is now perceived as a panic reaction, a gesture of impotence.

I believe the American people are coming around to the conclusion that our Government is taking authoritarian stances basically from the cradle to the grave.

Ponzi, no they're not (waking up in the US as a whole). You read too many doomer message boards.

We've got a ways to go.

We were in Moscow and Chita (southeastern Siberia) in 1999. Grey, bleak faces. Didn't know what to do with themselves now that the .gov didn't pay them to work. Many still went to work anyways without being paid because they didn't know what else to do.

They were lost without 'Uncle Joe'.

This was the part of the article that stood out to me...

Adam Curtis Blog wrote..

To Limonov this was a disaster, because from his experience of America he was convinced that American capitalism was no different from Soviet totalitarianism. It was just more subtle in its forms of oppression.

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They were lost without 'Uncle Joe'.

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This was the part of the article that stood out to me...
To Limonov this was a disaster, because from his experience of America he was convinced that American capitalism was no different from Soviet totalitarianism. It was just more subtle in its forms of oppression.

I'm not expert on the soviet union, but my perception was that they lost their religion (state communism). Their leaders obviously didn't believe in it anymore, yet they kept shouting the same empty slogans. They saw the daily corruption and decay all while being told that their religion is one true path.

For a lot of people capitalism, free trade, America, and some version of Christianity was our religion. I cheered the walmarts moving into my town and offering great prices. It didn't bother me that it put all the local merchants under and all the people they employees. Worse it replaced business who had a stake in the local community with one that only cared about getting people to consume as much Chinese crap as possible. The town is now full of drug addicts and section 8 scum bags. I can't go into walmart after 11 for fear of being attacked by some high scumbag or a gang banger looking for an easy mark.

Our consumer system is just as empty as the soviet socialist one was. Corrupt people everywhere, law is for the little people, families and communities being destroyed left and right all in exchange for some cheep Chinese junk.

Capitalism isn't a system. It's the lack of a system. It's people doing what they naturally would do if unfettered.

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Capitalism isn't a system. It's the lack of a system. It's people doing what they naturally would do if unfettered.

I used to believe that but I always wondered: Why am I not capitalistic with my friends and family? I don't buy in sell things with them. I don't use barter. I do gifts and counter gifts. And I certainly don't make loans with interest. Is a nameless unknown merchant more likely to rip me off than a merchant I know? Relationships are the norm.

And often the natural thing for people to do is to steal what you have instead of paying for it.

I read a book recently called: Debt: The First 5,000 Years. It takes you through the history of Debt and economic systems that have existed for the last 5000 years. Gift and counter gift giving seems to be the norm for most of history. Such a system doesn't work for larger societies but it doesn't seem that todays normal exchange systems are 100% wired in. It was a fascinating book. The author does appear to be a Marxist and he was a big part of the OWS movement so take it with a grain of salt.

I spent quite a bit of time reading the article and watching the videos.....

Didn't get anything out of it, but that's just me.

Russia is a morally bankrupt society that cant get its head around the fact that life is not a zero sum game. They have always looked to Europe for salvation and their only hope is if its proximity to Poland and Ukraine will drag it into the 21st century.

BTW, the punk "music" was self fulfilling god awful - a pity when all one has to resort to is nihilism.

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Why am I not capitalistic with my friends and family? I don't buy in sell things with them. I don't use barter.

Capitalism simply means private ownership. And yes you do employ it with your friends and family. Do you take out your gun and force them to spend half the day cleaning the floor? Or do you respect that they own their own things and their time and labor. That is capitalism.

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Gift and counter gift giving seems to be the norm for most of history.

This is just retarded double speak. Ask yourself what it means.

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Gift and counter gift giving seems to be the norm for most of history.

Sounds like "trading".

"Gift and counter gift giving seems to be the norm for most of history.


This is just retarded double speak. Ask yourself what it means."

Seems clear to me.

If someone gives you a gift, for most of history and in most societies, you are expected to return the favor so that there is no net gain to either party.

That's how it is in China, in fact giving someone something usually puts them on the back foot and makes them beholden to you, so they give you something as soon as possible.

In that, they do it within minutes or hours so that they don't owe you anything.

Giving a gift is seen as a means of forcing someone to owe you something, a favor, influence, etc.

Exactly Ben. That is called a market. Calling it 'gift and counter gift' is a lie intended to deceive. The point above was I am not a capitalist, I'm not greedy. I don't 'buy' things - I just gift them. I'm not an evil trader. The whole anti-capitalist spiel rests on these attempts to deceive and relies on people not understanding money is simply a medium of exchange.