He’s an anticapitalist who wrote some incredible literature. I even had 3 pints with him once at a pub. Is he still alive? what’s he up to?

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6 points

I read an interview with him awhile back. He seems to be on the tip that there is no grand conspiracy of evildoers guiding the world to their nefarious ends, calling the world “rudderless” instead. I would say that’s somewhat true given the anarchic rivalry between corporations, etc., but I would implicate and nominate the transnational capitalist class as the problem. Not so much “rudderless” as a class trying to enclose and accumulate as much as possible

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I truly despise the “anarchic capital” type argument, conspiring in their class interests is the default for the ruling class. They go to the same schools, eat the same food, frequent the same places, have the same interests, talk about the same things, so of course they are united in their class war.

In general, liberals like to think there is “competition” in the world, whether between firms or between (western mainstream) parties, but fail to see they are on the same fucking team.

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4 points

Right. I didn’t mean to imply that there was a level playing field of competition for everyone. I just meant that the constraining forces of the market impel the capitalists to always seek more shortcuts to profit, out of fear of being eaten up by the bigger capitalist. Even if the first capitalist claims to be a good, ethical person who wouldn’t downsize, offshore, cut wages, or automate, those market forces will change that attitude quickly

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My comment wasn’t meant to challenge what you were saying, just adding on my own rant, but I agree with you. I would add that the preferred arrangement for capitalists in our modern era is oligopoly, where they can coordinate (not fix) prices to fatten their profits and don’t need to worry about one purchasing the other. There is definitely a kind of ruthless competition between large firms and smaller ones, but between the large firms, they seem to get along quite well.

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