I wrote this in response to
Aditya's criticism of my original snippets post:
Aditya, I thought you were going to respond to the other post, you lying bastard. Also, this is not the greatest post to respond to. That said, you make some good points (and there are some things you've said that I don't really know much about, but I'll try to address, and learn more about later). Firstly, I object to the use of the phrase "conspiracy theory" in most cases. It has gone from a relatively neutral term meaning that three or more people have planned something in secret that is either illict or immoral in nature to pretty much being synonymous with the belief of people who think they've been anal probed and "the government" is covering it up. Although my assertion pretty much is a conspiracy theory (although I don't entirely agree that it is a conpiracy), so I guess I can't really complain about your characterization.
Regarding the "conspiracy theory" of the ruling class. It seems pretty obvious that the people with the most political and economic power a) want to keep their power and b) know how to. I call that class consciousness, which may sound unpalatable to most. However, few would disagree that points a and b are incorrect. The ruling class is simply the alliance of the people with political power in order to secure their interests. I don't even need address any denial that there is in fact an alliance, so I won't.
With regards to the unemployment rate specifically, there is a specific constant unemployment that is about 4-7 percent in the United States, which is called structural unemployment. That's just inherent in capitalism. There's also cyclical and frictional unemployment, which the government and the owners of the means of production actually have a good deal of control over. The capitalists can hire and fire people, the Randian in the Fed can change interest rates, minimum wage can be alterred, etc... It would be foolish to say that they didn't do these things with their own interests in mind. While it may not be a conscious conspiracy, they're definitely working together to support their class interests.
While I don't know much about the economics of the "socialist" countries you are referring to, except for the fact that they are not in fact socialist. These countries that are practicing benevolent capitalism probably in some ways are more egalatarian than places like the United States, but they still have the same shortcomings. That's all I can definitively say on the topic at this point.
As for the unemployment rate being overstated, I agree with you entirely. Most people are not employed for an extended period of time. The vast majority of the permanently unemployment do have extenuating circumstances which have very little to do with either laziness or a "ruling class conspiracy". However, the unemployed who are capable of working provide a nice little motivation for the workers who aren't unemployed. It keeps worker productivity up and wages down. Dissent is also pretty easily managed. For example, at Leo's bike messenger company, they were attempting to organize. Within a few weeks of the beginning of the negotiations, quite a few people left the company. I think about four or five were fired and an equal amount quit (and quitting may not seem relavent, but I if it's in response to the draconian methods imposed in response to the organization of the workers, it seems important). While that may not seem like a lot in a company of dozens of people, it provides an impressive psychological deterrent.
For me, the vote is still out as to whether or not most of the problems in this country are being specifically engineered by the ruling class, or are more or less a natural result of the social order. I used to lean more towards the latter, and I still do, but the conscious actions of the elite seem to be an entirely plausible support for the order. All in all, it can easily be both.
At the risk of sounding elitist, I think it's very possible for "the unwashed masses" (to borrow a phrase from the actual elitists who thought that the poor needed a system that will decide the politics for them, our founding fathers and their economic, political, and intellectual descendents) can vote against their own self-interests. Again, the idea of brainwashing has been placed in the same category as conspiracy theory, but I think it's still an appropriate term. Religion is a powerful tool in getting people to lose track of what actually benefits them. So is education (and lack thereof). I know I'm not touching on exactly how these institutions do this, but I feel like thise response would get tediously long. I'll try to write about their specific method of "educating" the public in other posts. If people are given false illusions and outright lies which cloud their judgement, they are already in a system that decides the politics for them, regardless of whether they are in a direct democracy or a parliamentary republican or totalitarian state. And for future reference, trying to refute somebody's point by claiming that their argument leads to an unwanted conlusion is not a very effective debate tool. It's like calling someone sexist if they claim that men on average have more upper-body strength than women. (I feel like this entire paragraph is touching on some nice ideas, and I'm not doing them much justice in this article, so I'll try to publish and expanded version later)
It's also possible to claim that many poor people act against their own interests simply because they're stupid conformist or something of the like, which I believe is more of a justification for not allowing them to rule themselves than the brainwashed argument (but I guess that's neither here nor there). However, any cursory look at the history of progressive movements in the last two or three centuries will show that most of them have been pioneered by the working class, who seem to have had a very clear knowledge of their own interests. Even before then, the peasants in Europe viciously fought against the first steps towards capitalism, which they all knew would not benefit them in any way. There's no way to know exactly how many of the poorest people in society were directly involved in or even supportive of these movements, but my guess is that it was a minority. Now I don't know exactly why most people act against their own interests in the political sphere, but it could have to do with structures inherent in any given hierarchical system, or conscious meddling on the part of the propertied class, it could be both, it could be due to new advances in propaganda techniques in the last century or so, or it could be that the entire world has embraced the "consumer paradise" that is capitalism, and while certain aspects of capitalism don't benefit them, they realize that they must exist in order to support the system itself (which ultimately benefits them). I don't think it is because the people are just naturally too stupid to realize what's good for them.
