It’s not even that markets are an arm of the state. It’s worse than that. The state is an arm of the markets. And since markets have become deeply oligarchical, the state is an arm of the oligarchy.
The entirety of mainstream coverage of Sunak is about his ethnicity. This game never seems to get old. How anybody can see this as something special in 2022 is beyond me.
They keep talking about that because they assume it’s what the plebes care about.
They haven’t talked to the plebes in a very long time. They could update their assumptions by spending an hour in my local ghetto walmart, where nobody but nobody gives more than a half-second’s thought to anybody’s racial makeup. It’s just not that interesting anymore.
I think it’s both. There are people who have been duped into seeing this fake diversity as significant. The moment our Dean started making us read “anti-racist” books, I told people “ah, severe budget cuts are coming. Let’s prepare for massive firings.” Everybody waved me off. They saw absolutely no connection and thought the “anti-racist” books existed without any connection to austerity. We are now seeing I was completely right.
Actually, I think ethnicity is important in this case if you consider the long historical relationship between Britain and India as well as Britain’s need for allies post Brexit.
Interestingly (or maybe not 😉 ), his ethnicity is mentioned only in passing in mainstream UK coverage – the focus there is on the need to unite the Conservative Party and on his policies (esp. how they differ from Liz Truss’). As you say, I think it is not seen as all that special in the UK in 2022: there have been many non-white people in powerful positions in the UK in recent years, and this is just a natural extension of that. I agree that US coverage has focused on his ethnicity to a disappointing degree.
There’s nothing new about that. This was an argument for why socialism is a requirement for democracy since either the state is owned by capital or capital is owned by the state.
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Speaking of which, Bad Kitty has a brilliant plain-English explanation of neoliberalism up on his substack today:
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/cantillioning-the-playing-field-in
With cat memes and everything 🙂 I was not familiar with Cantillion, but he seems like a bright fellow.
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It’s not even that markets are an arm of the state. It’s worse than that. The state is an arm of the markets. And since markets have become deeply oligarchical, the state is an arm of the oligarchy.
The entirety of mainstream coverage of Sunak is about his ethnicity. This game never seems to get old. How anybody can see this as something special in 2022 is beyond me.
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They keep talking about that because they assume it’s what the plebes care about.
They haven’t talked to the plebes in a very long time. They could update their assumptions by spending an hour in my local ghetto walmart, where nobody but nobody gives more than a half-second’s thought to anybody’s racial makeup. It’s just not that interesting anymore.
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” keep talking about that because they assume it’s what the plebes care about”
I thought they keep talking about it to ward off criticism…
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Could be. Could be.
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I think it’s both. There are people who have been duped into seeing this fake diversity as significant. The moment our Dean started making us read “anti-racist” books, I told people “ah, severe budget cuts are coming. Let’s prepare for massive firings.” Everybody waved me off. They saw absolutely no connection and thought the “anti-racist” books existed without any connection to austerity. We are now seeing I was completely right.
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Actually, I think ethnicity is important in this case if you consider the long historical relationship between Britain and India as well as Britain’s need for allies post Brexit.
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Interestingly (or maybe not 😉 ), his ethnicity is mentioned only in passing in mainstream UK coverage – the focus there is on the need to unite the Conservative Party and on his policies (esp. how they differ from Liz Truss’). As you say, I think it is not seen as all that special in the UK in 2022: there have been many non-white people in powerful positions in the UK in recent years, and this is just a natural extension of that. I agree that US coverage has focused on his ethnicity to a disappointing degree.
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There’s nothing new about that. This was an argument for why socialism is a requirement for democracy since either the state is owned by capital or capital is owned by the state.
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If he crashes and fails like Truss, Boris is waiting with open arms, Britain
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I’m wondering if Boris plans a comeback when the election draws near.
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I’m wondering if Boris plans a comeback when the election draws near.
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