Understanding The Apologists of Empire
"It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism"?
In Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher cites Frederic Jameson and Slavoj Žižek as the origin of this quote.
@adventurecapitalist_hh
The complex causal web of social interaction operates continually. Events don't start when I punch you in the nose. There are many reasons I punched you in the nose, even if we both can't think of any at the time.
There are many reasons why Anglo-Saxon-financialized-fossil-fueled-unfettered-global Capitalism helped the United States, Europe, and its vassal States become incredibly wealthy.
Institutions that govern social relationships are mighty and exist to extend and maintain a particular constituency's power.
Throw a dart at a historical timeline and marvel at powerful institutions and the narratives that legitimize them in the minds of ordinary people.
He who controls the narrative controls the spice. Or, He who wields the narrative wields the essence of societal perception. Sophistry, rhetoric, jargon, media, memes, etc., are all tools of persuasion, propaganda, marketing, and public relations, and all are tied into an intimate, lucrative business ecosystem now known as communications.
All powerful institutions take advantage of stories and ordinary people's gullible nature. Most of us want to believe. We want to trust.
From birth, we are immersed in narratives that eventually become so deeply ingrained that they often go unnoticed. We don't merely accept them; they shape our reality.
True believers don't interrogate things from various perspectives; they are confident they possess the absolute truth.
The first step in understanding different ways of viewing "reality," in this case, social relationships, is to actively seek different perspectives across social, political, and economic domains of inquiry.
Engaging with unfamiliar ideas takes more work than most of us are willing to invest. There are many psychological reasons for this that I won't go into here.
Most of us could be more meta regarding our thinking. We don't think about why we have this or that opinion; we know our opinions are correct.
The introduction music to this lecture is truly majestic.
Yesterday, a friend shared a lecture series by Sarah C. Paine, a historian, author, and professor of strategy and policy at the U.S. Naval War College on the Vietnam War. He mentioned that he thought I might find it interesting and that he learned some new things from the lecture. He's a boomer, and knowing him, my first reaction was that he hadn't learned anything new; he's been steeped in this way of thinking since he was eating Hostess Cupcakes and watching The Fred Flinstones on T.V. in his parent's living room. He may have learned an interesting factoid he wasn't hitherto aware of, but the broad strokes of U.S. historical apologetics in defense of Capital, to a large degree, constitute the crux of his worldview.
We are all biased and find it easy to discover and engage with information that confirms our beliefs. Of course, internet search algorithms help reinforce our biases and preconceptions.
As an exercise, I want to share some content most people have probably yet to engage with and invite you to compare and contrast the perspectives of these people. Then, read Noah Smith's interview with Sarah C. Paine and see if you can intuit the assumptions in her rhetoric and apologetics. If so, can you find anything of value within these other authors' narratives? Can their ideas help you imagine different approaches to social relationships and geopolitics?
In other words, can you see what millions of critics of the U.S. Empire are on about? Do they have anything legitimate to say, or is it just that, as I like to say, the World is not yet American enough? Or, more accurately, those heterodox folks need to understand how great it is to serve Capital.
"Shut the fuck up and go shopping, or better yet, order something from Amazon and be amazed when the autonomous drone delivers it to your front porch. Buy an electric car with a premium subscription to its Autonomous Features™ software package, and get excited by all the "free" updates. Get the latest iPhone that uses GeniusAi™ that can make your own Hollywood movie for you out of images you take with your smartphone and your BioSig Voice™ prompts."
Above all, know in your heart that global heating due to the omnicidal heat engine we know as fossil capitalism, the diminishment of biodiversity, the insect apocalypse, atmospheric rivers, the slowing AMOC, the pollution of our oceans, the plastic waste catastrophe, the destruction of our soil, the crisis in our diminishing supplies of oil and gas, and water, proxy wars, the neocolonial extraction of materials from developing nations, inequality (in the sense of the wealth disparity between those who can take advantage of 'capital on capital' returns and those who can not) addiction, the mental health crisis, the education crisis, poverty, hunger, shallow materialism, and so on are not problems at all but opportunities for heroic, brilliant, individualistic entrepreneurs (those who understand monopoly power) and institutions of Capital to profit from.
Our institutions and business leaders will save us if it's profitable. In other words, the market is the One God Cap™ with your best interests at heart, and if you go against HIM™ (His Imminent Money), you will be crushed. Following the rules-based order and enjoying the good life is better than suffering The Market's wrath. Eventually, technology will allow everyone on Earth to live like a refugee, sorry, I mean an American. So keep the faith, World.
When will people around the World ever learn? Europe still struggles with whether they are a "union" of sovereign States or whether the E.U. is simply a vassal of U.S.-managed Global Capital.
Sarah C. Paine works for the Empire, The Rules-Based Order, Western Imperialism, Neo-Colonialism, GlobeCap, the plutocrats, the oligarchs, the M.I.C., academia, neoliberals—whatever you want to call the conglomeration of institutions designed to serve business-as-usual. She is raising the alarm, hoping the shallow-minded ideologues running The Wester World™ will be able to pull out of a nose dive in the way F.D.R. saved Capitalism from itself. And remember, these days, a crisis is usually profitable to the Players. There are no longer Knights in armor ready to put their lives on the line to serve the great cause; leaders in the West these days use other people's lives as fodder for their crusades. Other people's money and lives (OPM, OPL) were the most magnificent innovations concerning the realm of social relationships of modern modernity. The leaders of The West™ won't heed the constant warnings about the fall of The West™ because narcissistic, greedy leaders can never see the forest for the trees. They are all blind drunk on the Koolaide (a Liberal education).
Reality always wins. Extinction is the rule, not the exception. Empires always fall.
One must learn to compare and contrast the perspectives of intelligent people who have spent a lifetime studying a domain and avoid getting caught up in the reasonableness of their arguments. Logical and reasonable ideological beliefs can still lead to destruction; they can still be immoral and wrong.
Our global order is an omnicidal heat engine that will not stop heating up. Folks like me who grew up on the Koolaide think we know what's best for the World, but consider this: the rest of the World will never be American enough, but not for lack of trying or for lack of the U.S. Empire's inability to bludgeon the World into becoming Disney Land. It will never be American enough because America is sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Empires always fall due to internal threats, over-extending their territories of control, contradictions, and the destruction of trust. To understand these things, you have to widen your point of view a bit and learn about other people’s thoughts (OPT). Pick up something other than a pint of Koolaide and chug it.
American Culture influences how America wages war. How did American culture become what it is today?
One must understand why America meddles in every nation's business. America has always been primarily concerned with big business. From the founders to the Robber Barons, to the Fordists, and Silicon Valley.
We can talk about how other nations behave, but remember one thing: America is the TOP GUN, so if there are problems in the World, America must take responsibility for its part in creating the World's problems, and it should fix what it has broken.
American corporations leverage labor arbitrage in China by agreeing to send Capital and technology to China to manufacture goods that will be sold at a relatively cheap price at Walmart to American service workers. When China takes that Capital and technology and becomes competitive, America decides to bomb them into submission because, you know, Uncle Sam can't compete.
“They’re really strong now. It’s unfair!”
The Boss never competes. The Boss can make the rules and break the rules. The Boss is a law unto himself and expects his tribute!
Maritime and Continental power structures are primarily interested in wealth and power, and both use, in some cases, different mechanisms to exploit and control resources. One is not ethically or morally better than the other. The Roman, Persian, Portuguese, Dutch, British, Belgian, Japanese, Soviet, and American empires, etc., sought to extract wealth from others primarily for the "ruling" class, the "Players," as I like to refer to them, who controlled their institutions. Whether you are happy to be able to buy a plastic lawnmower at Walmart that will work for a year before it winds up in a landfill is not the point. You may be "happy" to gamble your gig-economy wages on a UFC™ fight, but it doesn't change what the structured institutions are concerned with, and it's not Freedom and Democracy™.
#ProfitsFirst™
We have a vast body of literature interrogating the motives and incentives of social relationships.
The Omnicidal Heat Engine (Freedom and Democracy™) is busy making garbage, war, and poison to realize financialized capital gains for the ruling class or the super-rich folks; call the Players what you will. We in the WEIRD North are so indoctrinated in the ideologies of these institutions that we can't imagine any other way of doing things. Most people never even think about how their institutions work. They are happy to throw away their plastic vacuum cleaner and buy a new one if they have enough money.
If the World has problems that are of dire concern during a Republican or Democrat (The Party™) regime in the United States, one must ask oneself, why? Each side has had many opportunities to improve things, yet, year after year, all sides have been saying that the World is a mess and that only our side can fix it. The fact is there is only one side: Global Capital™. You are a winner if you are a Player.
The plebs and proles focus on WOKE™ this and S.J.W.™ that while the Players pick their pockets. The money flows towards money; it never trickles down to ordinary people. People get the minimum to keep the system going, even if the minimum is a MacMansion in the suburbs with a three-car garage and a Starbucks coffee every morning before work. Or, perhaps, UBI™.
The apologetic rhetoric in the Sarah C. Paine interview sticks out like a pilum in a raccoon or pink hair on an old lady. I can't miss it. But for the average Koolaide-binging wan-a-be Capitalist (Pro-Player), Ms. Paine’s expert analysis sounds entirely correct and obvious.
"Gosh, I really learned something from her understanding of how things work. W.O.W.!"
Congratulations, you have "learned" what you already know.
If the United States (Capital) "lost" the Vietnam War, it's not the United States' fault. It's the people the United States put in power, their very own corrupt savage's fault. Uncle Sam will never contemplate what might have corrupted the savages. One sees this repeatedly from Iraq and Iran to Central America and South America to Lybia and Syria, to Indonesia and The Philippines, across the globe. But in the end, Capital always wins, and people get crushed. We call the pitfalls of the process of bringing progress and Freedom and Democracy™ to “The Third World,” a.k.a, BRICS, things like collateral damage or externalities.
ALL THE BEST, ARGENTINA! We’ll never have to cry for you again.
Capital does not care about "the people." People are a means to acquire wealth and power. In general, you won't be able to understand this if you are too weak or too comfortable, but if circumstances get bad enough, these things might dawn on you. "Goodness gracious, I had an epiphany!" Until then, we’ll simply think of these unfortunate setbacks or circumstances as The Wrath of HIM™.
U.S. leaders are not interested in Freedom and Democracy™. Liberty and democracy are marketing memes. (Most people don't know the difference between license, liberty, and freedom.) U.S. leaders are concerned with their careers with wealth and power, fitting in, and status.
A vast amount of literature from various domains of inquiry discusses our tendency to indulge in the seven deadly sins. Christian Zionists and people who want a White, Christian Etho-State and not Bible advocates, scholars, or much interested in the Beatitudes of Jesus Christ; instead, they are super-fans of The USA™.
Our socioeconomic system is unsustainable and will end badly. Most of us will keep drinking the Koolaide while the ship sinks. We will feel better about ourselves if we believe.
It's not our fault; it's their fault. Just keep saying that to yourself and let the chips fall where they may. The kids will pick them up and do whatever they can with them.
But if you want to get more in tune with reality, when you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: “I am not that smart. I am not yet wise. I am a fucking idiot.” Then, learn something new.
Or not. It doesn't really matter. People in your circle probably agree with your inherited/conditioned point of view, so you are in the best of all possible worlds. Enjoy the day. Be your best self through vanity projects and keep up with business as usual.
The Challenge
Here is your assignment. Should you accept this challenge, you will be better informed about how our World works than ninety percent of people alive today: this is not to say that you will have an exhaustive understanding, not even close, but it might inspire you to keep growing your knowledge of these complex affairs without finding the effort too taxing, painful or annoying.
Remember that these suggestions are off the top of my head and hardly scratch the surface of the complex topic of social relationships across time and various historical contexts or the complexities of current events.
Books:
The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom by James Burnham
Vulture Capitalism by Grace Blakeley
Paper:
Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism by Fredric Jameson
Nor should the break in question be thought of as a purely cultural affair: indeed, theories of the postmodern—whether celebratory or couched in the language of moral revulsion and denunciation—bear a strong family resemblance to all those more ambitious sociological generalizations which, at much the same time, bring us the news of the arrival and inauguration of a whole new type of society, most famously baptized ‘post-industrial society’ (Daniel Bell), but often also designated consumer society, media society, information society, electronic society or ‘high tech’, and the like. Such theories have the obvious ideological mission of demonstrating, to their own relief, that the new social formation in question no longer obeys the laws of classical capitalism, namely the primacy of industrial production and the omnipresence of class struggle. The Marxist tradition has therefore resisted them with vehemence, with the signal exception of the economist Ernest Mandel, whose book Late Capitalism sets out not merely to anatomize the historic originality of this new society (which he sees as a third stage or moment in the evolution of capital), but also to demonstrate that it is, if anything, a purer stage of capitalism than any of the moments that preceded it. I will return to this argument later; suffice it for the moment to emphasize a point I have defended in greater detail elsewhere*, namely that every position on postmodernism in culture— whether apologia or stigmatization—is also at one and the same time, and necessarily, an implicitly or explicitly political stance on the nature of multinational capitalism today.
“The Japanese Empire” Book ReviewChapter 4, on the transition from a maritime to a continental security paradigm, is the most important in the book and does an excellent job isolating factors such as the external environment and the loss of strategic cohesion caused by the death of the Meiji oligarchs. Yet this pivotal chapter also tosses in state Shintoism as an ideological driver without connecting it to the core theme of the demise of maritime strategy (Imperial Navy ships were also blessed by Shinto priests, for example). The Japanese Empire is on very strong footing when unpacking the structural and material drivers of Japanese grand strategy, but somewhat less so when trying to account for ideational factors.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Humanitarian Empire: The Red Cross in Japan, 1877-1945
Read Caitlin Johnstone
Read Indrajit (Indi) Samarajiva
Read Fictitious Capital — Explainers on energy, finance, and geopolitics to understand the base layer of our World.
Geopolitical Economy Report — The Geopolitical Economy Report is an independent news outlet dedicated to producing investigative journalism and original analysis to understand the changing world.
I had a business in Shanghai in 1999, near the U.S. consulate. I witnessed political action from TGI Fridays and near the consulate protesting the bombing. At the time, I told my Chinese colleagues that it was an accident because there were no good reasons for the United States to do such a thing.
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While visiting Serbia, China's President Xi Jinping condemned the US and NATO for bombing Beijing's embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1999. Ben Norton discusses why Washington launched the attack and lied about it. Then, Ben analyzes China-Serbia relations and the Belt and Road Initiative.
Don’t be afraid of ideas you are not familiar with. You need to know how the other side thinks.
Aleksandr Dugin is the most famous political philosopher in Russia. His ideas are considered so dangerous the Ukrainian government murdered his daughter, and Amazon won’t sell his books. We talked to him in Moscow.
Žižek argues that you have to know Kant to understand Hegel. Žižek often refers to Kant as the "vanishing mediator" for Hegel.
And now! The Interview You’ve All Been Waiting For…
Interview: Sarah C. Paine with Noah Smith
S.P.: A maritime power can, if necessary, defend itself primarily by sea, while a continental power cannot. This relates to geography: an island power like Britain can be invaded only by crossing the sea, whereas France, which also has a long coast facing the open ocean, has an equally long border facing Germany and the Low Countries. Both France and Germany have repeatedly invaded across that border and so require armies to defend it. Regardless of whether they buy large navies, their geographic positions are continental because of this landward vulnerability.
Historically, the great civilizations of Eurasia were all continental empires. Maritime empires came later. The former focused on expansion into contiguous territories, while the latter focused on the expansion of trade. For the latter the territory was secondary to the trade—they took territories that produced the products traded or that served as bases en route to the trade. Maritime empires, such as the Dutch Republic, were interested in maintaining a system of universal international laws so that all could trade in safety. Hugo Grotius, the founding father of international law, was a citizen of the Dutch Republic. Continental empires focused on carving the world up into spheres of influence, each a legal world unto itself, and often fighting to expand at each other’s expense.
The Industrial Revolution upended empires of both types by producing compounded growth. Maritime empires, already focused on trade, were far better positioned to adapt to this change than were continental empires bent on dominating territory. Moreover the advent of nationalism that gradually spread globally, starting in revolutionary France and the Napoleonic Wars, made the costs of empire unsustainable as dominated peoples resisted. Maritime empires eventually figured out that negotiating common rules for interaction was far more wealth producing than hanging on to hostile territories.
The rules-based international order took off after World War II. After the conspicuous failure of World War I to stabilize Europe, the conscripts of that war, whose adulthood had been spent navigating the Great Depression, rose to strategic leadership positions in the Second World War. Their solution to world war and global depression was institution building on a global scale including the UN, the International Monetary Fund, NATO, and the predecessor institutions of the European Union (the European Economic Community) and the World Trade Organization (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). They built strong institutions to create forums to hash out problems verbally rather than to fight them out militarily.
This emerging global order is fundamentally maritime because the oceans are the world’s original global network potentially connecting everyone to everything. In 2020, an article from the Center for International Maritime Security suggested a 66-70-80-90-99 rule highlighting that 66 percent of global wealth comes from or not far from the sea, 70 percent of the globe is oceanic, 80 percent of its population is coastal, 90 percent of goods arrive by sea, and 99 percent of digital traffic goes by submarine cable.1 This reflects the change in the currency of power from land to commerce. The incoming global maritime order focuses on compounding wealth by minimizing transaction costs, while the outgoing order of competing, wealth-destroying, continental empires focused on undermining each other. The old system destroyed wealth, the new one creates it. Read On…
We might as well have a socialist perspective on dreaded cultural Marxism.
