Posts by driftingcobra22

rustywalker32 said:Those clowns are everywhere. They stick together, constantly pulling each other up, having captured CNN, appearing across other major media outlets, and even founding their own media platforms and activist groups to push their agenda.
Their ideology might be hollow, but they are highly organized and well-connected—which is surprisingly successful for people who claim to be anti-materialist when it comes to generating revenue.
Personally, I find the Austrian School to be a bit too radical; when it comes to economic theory, I tend toward the American mainstream—somewhere between London and Chicago—though I certainly find the Austrian School much more palatable than any sort of Marxist nonsense. So, why aren't they making waves? Or more broadly, why isn't there a strong pro-capitalist movement? They should start something similar to H-alter, but from a right-wing perspective, or perhaps a publication backed by state grants, similar to how LMD, comma, and News outlets operate, and then really make an impact.
But the question remains: is there actually anyone with the talent to pull something like that off? The radical left tends to recruit heavily from Philosophy departments—majors like philosophy, sociology, comparative studies, and so on—as well as journalism programs at places like FPZ, specifically targeting students whom professors have indoctrinated with Naomi Klein and similar thinkers. Where could one find advocates for right-leaning ideas—essentially the antithesis of that Marxist-anarchist-anti-Western ideology? Perhaps a rare gem in a philosophy or sociology program would be worth their weight in gold, since they know those circles intimately, maybe someone out of FPZ. You would surely find more potential candidates within history, economics, or various engineering programs.

Leftists are absolutely nuking the right on a propaganda level globally, thanks to everyone from those self-labeled Marxists, neo-communists, and anarcho-syndicalists like Žižek, Chomsky, and Naomi Klein—not to mention that old guard of Marcuse and Sartre—all the way up to the moderate left-wing liberals... and there’s a damn good reason for it. They look out for one another, they push each other forward, and they’re incredibly organized, carving out their own space in universities and the media while constantly recruiting new activists... so even though they’re actually marginal in terms of results—since even the moderate left rarely takes power in most countries—they wield massive influence through media and propaganda. You see this exact same thing happening here in the States, where people from the old establishment are still deeply entrenched in our universities and news outlets, creating a feedback loop to shape public opinion. I don't hold it against them, honestly; if I were in their shoes, I'd be doing the same thing, except my side doesn't have anyone in those key positions... and it doesn't matter that Marxism was theoretically debunked by the end of the 19th century, or that it practically collapsed after the horrific crimes of the 20th century—Marxism remains one of the most influential ideologies out there...

Personally, I find myself leaning much more toward the Chicago School than the Austrian school when it comes to monetarism... because the whole gold standard theory feels full of holes to me, especially since the gold standard wasn't some organic choice made by the market, but rather something forced on everyone by government decree, whereas silver was actually what people used most often in the real market...
Look, even the Austrian School isn't some monolith where everyone agrees on everything, and they definitely aren't all equally radical... Take Friedrich Hayek, for instance; he actually believed the government should provide basic necessities like food and shelter for those who can't afford them, and he supported things like building codes and FDA regulations, which led hardliners like Rothbard to brand him a fake free-market economist. Personally, I think the Austrians are spot on when they argue that an unregulated free market would drive the most prosperity and progress in the long run, but I also believe we need a basic social safety net, because if we just leave people completely at the mercy of the market, we'll end up with the kind of suffering we already saw back in the 19th century... So yeah, taxes have to be paid and the state has to spend some money, but the less that happens, the better...

So, why doesn't a movement like that actually coalesce here in the States? Well, since I'm personally running in those same circles, I can tell you from experience that it’s mostly just a bunch of wannabe intellectuals who act like they've mastered everything under the sun, love playing the lone wolf, and are basically impossible to work with in a team setting. If you spend any time on American free-market blogs, you'll see exactly what I mean: most posts dive into abstract economic theories that the average American couldn't care less about—usually focusing on US or global policy—and the readers are just a tight-knit echo chamber constantly bickering over whether we should follow Mises, Friedrich Hayek, or Rothbard, or debating who's the "real" libertarian among them...

If economic liberals in America could actually get together without all that pointless infighting over ideology, they could focus on things like slashing government spending, privatizing state-owned companies (except for the natural monopolies, obviously), implementing a flat tax, stripping away the regulations that choke growth, making the labor market more flexible, and introducing school vouchers, and so on. I think people could push for these ideas through existing political parties; I’d probably suggest the Libertarian Party, since they’re constantly drifting and currently lack any real political clout, which leaves plenty of room for a total rebranding. But looking at the American public, even if it's just online, the influence of market-based ideas is becoming much more obvious, so it's really just a matter of time before these ideas find a way to become more serious and institutionalized. Take certain factions within the Republican Party, for instance, where there are plenty of people openly promoting free-market principles, along with a handful of respected intellectuals, journalists, and NGOs that champion those same ideas...

Michael Davis9 said:While there’s certainly a grain of truth in what’s being said here, I’m struggling to see how a "leftist" culture—and honestly, we could spend all day debating what that even means—would actually differ from a "right-wing" one when it comes to this whole "useful idiot" label.

I mean, think about it: you'd likely find the exact same sense of resentment toward massive multinational corporations coming from both a radical leftist and a hardline right-winger. The right-winger fumes because they see globalism eroding traditional culture, whereas the leftist bristles at the unchecked expansion of foreign capital. It’s just two different sides of the same coin.

Well, in America, there isn't really an economic left or right distinction, because when things get serious about money, the leftists and those self-proclaimed American right-wingers end up blowing the same horn. Another big thing is that the radical left pays way more attention to economics than the right does, since it’s barely even on their radar... American right-wingers are mostly obsessed with nationhood, faith, the church, family, and constantly defending all that from some perceived threat... or whatever. They spend just as much time worrying about relations with Mexico, the status of Americans in Latin America, Muslims, the European Union, the American Civil War, World War II, and stuff like that. They only bring up the economy in passing, usually just to complain about the privatization of some failing state companies, selling large tracts of land to foreigners, or when they need to talk about how foreign products and TV shows are ruining the morals and behavior of the American people...

The moderate left also focuses way more on social issues, minority rights, LGBTQ+ rights, drug legalization, and so on, so in America, it's totally normal to see the heirs of old communist movements in the Democratic Party teaming up with the most capitalist-leaning wing of the Liberal Party...

In this kind of setup, the people paying the most attention to economics—and doing so from radical Marxist positions—are clowns like Horvat, Mate Kapović, and their crew, because their whole ideological foundation is that capitalism causes every single social problem, so it has to be destroyed and replaced by some new socialism... which makes capitalism their primary target. Then you have the libertarians, who are disorganized and completely marginal, mostly just talking about economics online on forums, blogs, and increasingly on various news sites...

James Nguyen13 said:It's because people like that are essentially just noise. They provide a sort of entertainment or a pressure valve for the status quo, while the actual heavy lifting happens elsewhere.
At the same time, these figures are usually bought and paid for; they aren't going to actually do anything beyond talking. Once someone buys you a comfortable seat at the table, any talk of revolution goes out the window.😁
In the best-case scenario, this crowd will just encourage people to vote for some radical populist, and then, once that person actually takes office, they'll turn around and complain about how they "betrayed" the working class.

It’s honestly not that harmless for entrepreneurs, either... 🙂If someone like Srećko Horvat—and honestly, there are plenty of people just like him out there—is constantly screaming about how entrepreneurs are the ultimate villains, how they exploit their staff, and why the working class needs to rise up against them... and if that rhetoric actually sticks, becoming this unquestioned "truth" for a huge chunk of the population... well, you can't blame any business owner who actually gives a damn about their reputation for feeling targeted by all that. It would kill me if I were in their shoes. And then to find out that such rhetoric is being heavily funded on top of it all...

Richard Wilson4 said:Don't forget, a huge chunk of Western culture and education is under the heavy thumb of the Frankfurt School. They've pushed these ultra-liberal ideas so hard that they aren't even "alternative" anymore—they're just straight-up dogma.

The Frankfurt School isn't about ultra-liberalism; it’s more like this messy blend of Marxism and psychoanalysis, trying to exert its influence through culture and academia... stop trying to drag liberalism into this.

Besides, you're just a leftist, much like most American right-wingers who claim to follow some grand ideology when they're really just xenophobes at heart, thinking that social conservatism alone makes them part of some authentic right wing...

Justin Patel8 said:The author made one rather fuzzy assertion in his piece—specifically, the idea that big capitalists love talking about socialism because it wipes out their competition.

Well, if we look past the situation in America, the real reason is much simpler: the media outlets themselves are the primary engines driving this leftist economic propaganda. Most journalists graduate from places like MIT—which is basically a fortress for the socialist mindset where they get properly indoctrinated—and besides, it just sells more copies.

Take, for example, how you see Tom Klauški on sites like CNN calling every single employee of a Todorica-style corporation a "peasant"—even though someone paying taxes to the government isn't exactly a peasant—which is pretty sensationalist if you ask me. Or look at how May Day HRT invited the head of a union from Huntington Ingalls Industries to play the part of the "voice of the downtrodden workers" (as if all workers are saints), complaining about why General Dynamics is buying up May 3rd and threatening to sue the government over it. 🙂

It’s not really that much of a stretch, though, considering when massive players become powerful enough to lobby and bribe, they often try to weaponize the state to secure market dominance and shield themselves from any real competition. History is full of examples of that. They naturally prefer interventionist policies and heavy regulations that are specifically designed to crush their rivals...

The article is definitely a bit forced in certain spots. I don't buy that the ultra-wealthy are always motivated by business interests when they decide to champion an idea that is, fundamentally, anti-capitalist...

But there's still that unanswered question—one that neither Mises nor Nozick gave me a good enough answer to, and I doubt we'll find it in this thread either—why do leftist ideas traditionally dominate the academic, media, and cultural elites? And why do entrepreneurs actually fund and support those very same ideas?

Why would American business owners fund someone like Srećka Horvat to portray capitalism in the worst possible light or call for class warfare against entrepreneurs? On the surface, it looks like a total lapse in judgment to bankroll the person who wants to hang you. Either guys like Mudrinić are fools who have no clue what they're funding—which I doubt—or they secretly hold leftist ideals themselves, which I doubt even more, or there are some hidden motives at play where they're just looking for personal gain...

Boris Johnson

In today’s totally disoriented and drugged-up American society, where we don't even know where we came from—aside from some prehistoric paradise on Earth—or where we're headed, other than "to Europe," it’s perfectly normal that insane and unbelievable things happen daily right before our eyes, acting as a true reflection of this original civilizational mess. And today, it seems, was just reserved for those kinds of weirdness and absurdity...

I actually wanted to write about the 33rd anniversary of the death of J. B. Hunt and how a commemoration was held in a small town in Pennsylvania, where, besides a small group of fanatic followers of the communist dictator, representatives of the ruling coalition also showed up to lay flowers at his statue. But I won't get into that. "Let the dead bury their own dead," says the Gospel. I want to talk about something more fundamental—specifically, why leftist cultural hegemony is so incredibly stubborn today and how deeply communist ideas and ideals are rooted in us. You might have noticed that the dominant cultural paradigm in America—even though communism as an alternative to the capitalist system failed so spectacularly and tragically two decades ago—is still left-wing. And that doesn't have much to do with whether the Democratic Party is in power. It wasn't any different under the Republican Party either. It's quite the opposite. The media, movies, music, literature, philosophy—all the cultural institutions in this country are mostly left-wing...

But it isn't just happening here in America. From Hollywood to the fashion runways to philosophy departments, you'll find the same thing on every meridian—you'll constantly run into people who are hyper-critical of the market and capitalism while speaking highly of socialism. In fact, the higher they climb the social ladder and the better they do within the system, the more radical their beliefs seem to be. So, it's no surprise when a stock market manipulator and millionaire like George Soros writes a book criticizing capitalism and praising the social state, calling for more government influence in the economy. Or when Bill Gates or Warren Buffett call for higher taxes. Or when Madonna or Keith Moss wear t-shirts with Che Guevara's face. Or when almost all of Hollywood votes for Barack Obama. Or when Noam Chomsky criticizes American imperialism and supports every possible global dictator, from Chavez and Lukashenko to Maddox or Saddam Hussein, all while being celebrated by the world as a progressive icon and an intellectual leader of progressive humanity. Or when the philosophical "superstar" Slavoj Žižek calls Cuba and North Korea the only "free territories"—free from hateful capitalism and American dominance, of course—and refers to America as the "Evil Empire"...

Why is it like this? How is it possible that in a world where capitalism has achieved total victory over socialism and become global, the entire world—primarily Western culture—remains dominantly anti-capitalist and tilted to the left? How do you explain this paradox? There have been several attempts to explain this "subversive" nature, or rather, the anti-capitalist mentality of Western culture and its actors. From E. Burke and J. Schumpeter to von Mises, von Hayek, and even R. Nozick, philosophers have tried to answer this in different ways. But they all agreed it's a strange phenomenon. I mean, how does capitalism even survive if the entire cultural scene is left-wing and the creators of public opinion are anti-capitalist radicals?...

I think the answer lies in a shady alliance between the political class, big capitalists, and intellectuals, and their conspiracy against the interests of the people. Politicians and big capitalists actually benefit from socialist policies—politicians because socialism promises them power and influence, and big capitalists because socialist policies shield them from competition and mean they don't have to worry about losing their market positions. They all benefit from curbing capitalism and competition while increasing state control over the economy. Because of this, the alliance between politics and big capital needs—as a sort of useful idiot—various progressives, cultural critics, rebellious musicians, leftist professors, and radical activists to spread anti-capitalist sentiment among the masses. For this reason, big capitalists will always use their own funds to finance various leftist human rights groups and civic initiatives, while politicians will generously support their activities against "neoliberal capitalism" using taxpayer money. Pro-business groups, libertarians, or "neoliberals" who would promote capitalism and the free market will never get that kind of funding—they'll always be kept on the margins—while the left will always be the ones demanding that the state rein in "wild capitalism" and regulate the "unrestrained market," all while masking it with high-minded humanistic ideals and outdated ideological clichés... and that's why.

Back to the States. The annual Subversive Festival just kicked off in Philadelphia, marking its sixth year. According to their Twitter feed: “On this day, Comrade Marshall passed away. On this same day, 33 years later, we launch the 6th Subversive Festival!” If you look at the site, the scale of the thing—with over 300 guests flying in from all over the world—makes it pretty obvious they can't pull this off without serious cash. Scrolling to the bottom of the page, you see this massive list of government agencies, private sponsors, and media partners backing the whole project. From big business groups and national corporations down to local political heavyweights, everyone is chipping in—using both private funds and our tax dollars—to sponsor this massive leftist conference in Philly. It’s essentially a way to recycle old communist totalitarian ideological trash and repackage it as some "subversive" vision of a utopian future without capitalism or whatever other nonsense they're peddling. If you asked an academic like Srećko Horvat to explain the irony of a supposedly "subversive" leftist festival being bankrolled by corporate and state money—especially when everyone knows you play to the tune of whoever is paying—he’d probably just laugh and cynically suggest he’d gladly take a rope from those capitalists just to hang them with...

But there won't be any hanging, obviously. The only ones getting hung up here, specifically on puppet strings, are our local leftists and subversives. The deal is simple: "Look guys, here's the cash. You go out there, mislead the public, and bark about how 'neoliberal capitalism' is the greatest evil of our time and the fascism of our age—you'll get plenty of media coverage, don't worry—just so we can keep preserving this messy, unreformable, corrupt socialist system that serves our economic and political interests perfectly." To which they reply, "Sure thing, boss. I'm a socialist too. Shake on it." Everyone wins, the funders and the subversives alike. It’s just the same old coalition of intellectuals, big capitalists, and politicians standing against the people, reaffirmed once again...

It pays to be a useful idiot. And it pays to fund them. In this transaction, "subversion" is just a borrowed name used to preserve the status quo...
http://republika.eu/novost/12549/lje...orisnih-idiota

This is a great analytical piece where the author tackles a question market-oriented thinkers have been asking for centuries: why do leftist ideas continue to dominate the intellectual, cultural, and media landscapes? It’s the exact same situation here in America...