Ames gets it
Illuminating comment from Mark Ames on Twitter.

In a discussion of the gig economy, mostly about insecurity and medical costs, Ames says:

I remember when neoliberal shock therapy destroyed Russia's once-thriving "creative class"—writers, journalists, actors, artists, along with teachers, doctors —- how American-Anglo journalists hectored them with endless sermons about "the market knows best".

Neoliberal shock therapy = Soros.

We don't like to acknowledge that the Soviet system was good for real inventors and writers, especially after Stalin died. Stalin was brutal and erratic. His successors were rule-loving bureaucrats, and the rules they enforced were good for real creators.

Science education was excellent and free. Health care was free. Scientists and writers were treated with respect. Genuine innovation was valued in school and in work. Tech industries were NOT OFFSHORED, so engineers and technicians had secure JOBS. The whole system was biased toward improving and respecting human skills. Opposing the regime got you in trouble, but opposing the regime is not a duty. It's a meaningless assertion of meaningless "rights".

Putting it another way, opposing the regime is not a form of MAKING. Real creative people are driven to MAKE paintings or machines or houses. Opposing is a form of BREAKING. The people who are driven to oppose are BREAKERS. Our system mainly supports BREAKING. Our copyright system is made for Disney, so the biggest company can sue others to death. Our stock market is made for Goldman, so the nastiest thieves and blackmailers can kill everyone who isn't Goldman. Our patent system enables the biggest company to sue small inventors to death. Our feminist movement and hippie movement and Birchers and jazz and rock-n-roll and Antifa and Alt-Right are all sponsored and organized by CIA, to keep the whole society BROKEN.

Solzhenitsyn proved the point. He went overboard with dissent, got in trouble, and CIA recruited him for propaganda. After spending some time in USA, he figured out that both systems were tyrannical, but the Russian system had more advantages to balance out the tyranny. He figured out that we were rewarding him for BREAKING, not MAKING. He returned to Russia.

Labels: From rights to duties, Make or break, skill-estate

  ¶ 7:15 AM