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Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingana Show.
Thomas seven seven seven is back, and do you think
this will be the last Hobbsbomb episode or do you
think there's another one in.
Speaker 2: This to you? Because it's I mean, it's your platform,
and we can go as long as you want on it.
I think that I think three part series are are good.
It's sort of I think it's a good model for
this kind of content. But I'll go as long as
you want on whatever topic. I I was basically going
to conclude what I have to say on the subject today.
Speaker 1: But let's do it that way, and then it gives
us a chance to start something new.
Speaker 2: Yeah indeed, yeah, no before if that's informant live, I
don't feel them right today. So I started repeating myself
for whatever, please advise me of that. And we're hopping
around it. But in terms of the timeline, and but
I think people have been okay with following it. The
what's important to me, especially in terms of at least
what I the kind of real val I find a Hobbsball.
I mean, obviously it's his twentieth century historiography, but especially
World War One because it's so ill understood and it's
such a critical event, you know, like I this is
something of a tangent like the other week. I'm not
gonna name names because I don't have people to think
I'm being mean or I'm not even trying to like
suggest something unitive. But I've done this panel with you guys,
and I was talking about how people especially in America,
but also basically like across anglophone countries and like their
academic culture and stuff. The other idea, they reject historicism
of the continental type, but they fall back in this
kind of like midwid idea of oh, history repeats itself
or alternatively, they like a shoe that. But then they
claim that, you know, well there's not really press it
into extrapolate, so you can't make assertion in XYZ. So
like I was making the point of the twentieth century, basically,
there's nothing you can lean from that moving forward other
in terms of the strategic landscape or power political development.
And this guy's like, well you can't say that. I'm like, actually,
I can you tell me World War one is gonna
happen again? That never ever happens, you know, like that's
that's the equipment of like a meteor strike, you know.
I mean so, but the side Hobsbaum was interesting, especially
the way he characterized the Great War. I mean, obviously
because he was at base at doctor near Marxist Leninist.
He he overstated material and economic causes, but there is
nuance there that I think warrants attention, you know. But first,
I mean a little bit of background in terms of
like what laid the foundation for his sort of breakdown
of the Great War, Hosbom was very much he very
much proposed the theory of what's what's now called the
general crisis. Okay, what the what? What what the general
crisis refers to is this is this odd period in
the nineteenth century whereby on the one hand, there's this
kind of running stability in terms of power, political activity
and interstate warring. You know, after Waterloo. After Waterloo, not
much happened in Europe. I mean, I mean a lot happened,
but I mean the in terms of war and peace developments.
You know, there's the Crimean War, which is very much
restricted to the theater, to the primary battle space, you know, uh,
which you know, very much spared the continent. And there's
the Franco Prussian War, which really that's kind of what
started to knock France out of the game as like
a trough like bourgoning superpower in my opinion, But that also,
I mean that was that was kind of the most
that was one of the greatest like Prussian victories of
all time. But that also, I mean that was kind
of the first blitzkrieg in some ways, you know, and
there there wasn't large scale civilian nutrition in it, you know.
But other than that, I mean some of the reasons
I think, like I mentioned before, so many European mercenaries
like streamed into the United States to like to take
up to take up arms for pay for you know,
the Union or the Confederacy because there just wasn't there
wasn't a lot going on, you know, if you were
if war fighting was your hustle, you know, either because
that's just what you like to do, you know, you
were an action junkie, or like that's how you made
a living. Like well you kind of had to look
abroad if you wanted to fly your trade, you know.
But there was a lot of social instability, and there
was a lot of there was a lot of sociate
logical there's a lot of punctuated disturbances, you know, like
in the social structure of the main European countries. And
like this started really after the Thirty Years War. You
know a huge Trevor Roper is another guy. He was
very very different than Hobsball, but he basically abided this
as well. Okay, Like basically in the middle of the
seventeenth century, there's this total breakdown in politics and social
order and economics and everything else. And this culminated in
you know, the Thirty Years War, you know. Then there's
the English Civil War. Then in France what they call
like the Frond, which was basically like this running civil unrest,
you know, and in some cases just like violent criminality
that didn't even really have a political raison dtro It
was just like guy, he's kind of like clicking up
and robbing, raping and killing people under some like loose
auspices of economic justice by violence. You know. The the
Holy Roman Empire, which, uh, which was actually a really
important political structure, you know. I know that there's a
lot of Anglo phone historians. They they're kind of like
a highly declared like it was neither Holy nor Roman
nor an empire. It's like, okay, that's great, but it
the reason why like it took on that Moniker was
to suggest that, you know, this is a transfer of
sovereignty to Europe. Central like from what was like the
just public on Romanum you know, I mean it does track. Okay,
there was revolts against the Spanish crown in Portugal, there
was there there were secessionist movements in Naples and Catalonia.
Like and this also just like jumping off like at
the same time. You know, it wasn't coincidental that something
was happening, you know, and when when the dust kind
of settled, you had this increasing centralization at governments. Okay,
Like we talked about last session, there was this kind
of like nationalism that kind of took rude, but it
was like grow much something enlightenment phenomenon. Like again we
say like nationalism, we're not talking about some return to
sort of like tradition or or some kind of atamistic tribalism.
We're saying that like kind of the court in these
countries consolidated. And it's like, okay, look, you know, like
within these sovereign parameters, like we are the only sovereign
we have the power to tax you, you and you
you know, the only the only legitimate men under arms,
the ones we each are you know, stuff like that, Okay,
and it's kind of this kind of like central bureaucracy
like developed to kind of prevent this chaos that have
been happening. And this was like one hundred and fifty
year cycle from like the end of like the Thirty
Years War and the Peace of Westphalia until like the
start of the nineteenth century, you know. But throughout the
nineteenth century, despite these this this kind of basic stability
in terms of like power political activity, there was this
increasing tension because you like a lot of these a
lot of these like you know, otherwise progressive states that
it centralized, you know, despite that they were they were
most of them were like run by absolute monarchs or
they were run by a court that was essentially staffed
by you know, like an upper house of landed aristocrats. Okay,
and obviously, you know, clergy people still had a lot
of cloud you know, the Roman Church couldn't assert itself
in an absolute way over sovereign governments anymore, but it
still had great power. So there's this weird disconnects. On
the one hand, like structurally, you had the structure of
the modern state like as we know it today, but
it was populated basically by these aristocrats and and uh
and clerical types and people who derive their mandate from
sort of traditional modalities that we're ceasing to exist. Okay,
I want to hosbal. There's big points and a lot
of people don't understand this about Marxists. Marxists don't look
at aristocrats and the bourgeoisie is the same thing. They
look at them as opposing classes, which they are, Okay,
and the first revolution before the proletarian revolution can happen,
like basically the bourgeoisie have to annihilate the aristocracy and
when that does, enter can't happen. There's this kind of
stagnation and like the Marxist Letinist worldview, like nothing is progressing,
you know, there's not like innovation. Government kind of it
has this monopoly on power. There something dynamic about it.
And this is critically important because I've heard people talk
about and especially because I understand why people develop that
impression based on the rhetoric as well as the experience
historically of the Russian Revolution. They view like Bolsheviks's guys
who like want to kill kings or like view like
them as guys who just like want to burn down
the churches because they view the church as they repressor.
That's not the way they look at it. Yeah, they
want to do those things, but their whole notion is
that the bourgeois is a revolutionary element too. It's got
to annihilate like the throne and altar and like the
European court as it's existed for you know, millennia, and
it's now consolidated under the trappings of the modern state.
And then like when the bourgeois is able to consolidate
control of this modern means of production, you know, that
can be applied to you know, basically resolving shortages and poverty.
Like that's like when the proletariat rises up up and
then like takes over those means and that's like the
final revolution. Then there's like no more class, there's no
more cast you know, and like life can be like
socially homogenized, like in circumstances of plenty, and there's not
material need anymore. And because there's not contradictions anymore, and
there's not there's not material deprivation, like there's not war anymore,
and like all the superstructural features that cause those things,
you know, like like like racial problems and things like
those are all like annihilated because they can no longer
be exploited, either deliberately by design or or or just
by you know, or just you're just owing to intrinsic
tensions that that that that cause us stility, owing to
the internal contradictions of of a non ruestic paradigm. Like
that's what they're talking about. Okay. So Hosbaum's view and
Roper's view, albeit for different reasons and a lot of
like Aglo historians, was that this phenomenon I'm talking about
it basically kind of it created this like weird stagnation
and these tensions kept on developed this sort of unsustainable momentum,
and then by the time of the Great War, what
it essentially happened was you had this kind of like
hyper competitive capitalist paradigm between the major European powers, but
it was kind of inconsistent across national frontiers and uneven. Okay,
so you had the Germans that were absolutely killing it,
and they were eclipsing the UK, which had previously been
you know, kind of like the like like like like
the like the factory of Europe, you know, and and
and and British products that had been like flooding the
planet and markets far and wide, like that was over
with but the but the newly consolidated like German state,
like it was cash poor, you know. And then he
had the French, who, like I said, they'd been kind
of like knocked off of their out of stole you know,
by the Franco Prussian War and never really recovered, you know,
frankly from like Waterloo and stuff. You know, so they
were like realizing that like they were gonna like the
future basically was them being like a junior partner kind
of in this like German dominated continent as Europe becomes
a superpower. Okay. And hobbs on view is like, look
with the Great Equalizer raises and military power, and he's right,
and if you don't believe that, I mean I'll relieve this, okay.
Like at peak, I'm talking in the era of like
undeniable strategic parody, like after nineteen seventy seven, the Soviet
Union at peak is it's GDP was like one fifth
out of the United States, Okay, its annual growth was
like one point two percent or like something that would
be like viewed as pathetic by you know, by the UH,
by the Boon this Republic, or by the United States.
But they were probably like the strongest military power that's
ever existed on this planet. Okay, So in the Hosboms view, like, look,
if you're being if you're if you're basically being merked,
like in the game of uh, in the great Game
of of capitalist commerce, and you know, the kind of
zero sum competition before European integration was a reality. Your
trump card is essentially that you can defeat your enemies
on the battlefield, you know. And there was a certain
conveinence here because again, you know, the Crimean War resolved
pretty rapidly. Okay, the Franco Prussian War resolved pretty rapidly.
The war between the states here in America was a bloodbath,
but that oldest peculiar conditions. Okay, So going into World
War One, the combatant states like, yeah, I mean there
was there's complex historical factors that conspired to make it happen.
But the major combatants figured that, well, you know, this
is going to resolve pretty rapidly, you know, and the
British especially thought that. And you know, I this is
a discussion for another series, but I said during the
World War One series that a whole veg I think
was I mean, he was a really sympathetic figure in
the Great War, and that that perfectly exemplifies like what
Howe was talking about, the kind of the the nam
between like a whole veg the consular and and and
the Kaiser. You know, Wilhelm was not a good man
and he he did not have good aptitude. But even
if you had, there was like this bizarre kind of
tango where you had you had like you know, the
leader of government and a Joveg. Then you had literally
the Kaiser who was the king. Then you had these
industrialists and both Hoveg and the Kaiser they had to
organize like purchasing you know, arms, munitions, figuring out some
way to appropriate manufacturing and means the sustain battlefield demands,
but also compensating these private actors for like you know,
their outlays and things. So it's like you got kind
of like three bases of sovereignty that are that are
basically at odds and have competing interests, but they're all
profiting or at least you know, surviving by virtue of
this war enterprise, you know, and it leaves us conditions
where like nobody's really in charge. And like Hobwa made
that point too. You know, and that's why I put
him kind of head and shows above most most Marxists
who just say like, oh, well, world war want to
happen because you know, of overproduction, you know, like and
that that's that's ridiculous, Like, well, Wan didn't happen because
there was some conspiracy of capitalists like well, we got
to kill off, you know, our workers because there's you know,
we can't employ them, and well, you know we we don't,
we don't we don't have a destination for these over
produced goods, so we're just gonna blow them up on
the battlefield. Like nobody thinks that way. And that's also
not like wars happened. And if that was the case,
Like if that was true, like basically anytime there was
a major recession, like the president would just like devise
a war like that, That's not how things happen, you know,
Like if if there was a huge financial crisis next
year and America and the Chinese would be like, let's
like let's pretend to have a war and sink each
other's navies, Like, well, would that accomplished? You know? That's
I mean, I'm being ubtoced deliberately, But this is an
important point because they're refrained. Even a guys should know better.
It's like, well, war is about big business or it's
about money. It's like, no, it's not, man like, how
is it about money? Like how? I mean, yeah, people
definitely find ways to profit from war, but you can
profit from literally anything, you know. I mean, that's that
doesn't tell us anything, you know, but that's this is
fundamentally important. And this not not just the catach to
feel the Great War and you know the fact that
it kind of deformed an entire generation, and I mean
and put an entire generation in the grave as well,
but it these these these tensions and these uncertainties. This
is what's uh, this is what facility. This is what
expedited the Bolshevik Revolution, which very easily, by the way,
could have prevailed europe wide. You know, I mean it's uh.
I'm the first to acknowledge, as any serious student in
the twentieth century, is it's strange that the literal heart
of the of the Communist International was Russia. That's that's weird.
But people conveniently forget or they just don't know because
they they're subjected to bad history, you know. I mean,
there was a communist revolution in Germany, there was a
communist revolution in Hungary. There almost was in the UK.
You know, this stuff was stopped by force of arms.
It didn't just fizzle out or something, you know. But
this is the way to understand the twentieth century and
the degree to which, you know, the twentieth century was
basically a reaction to communism. I mean, they can't be overstated,
you know, in power political terms. I mean, like obviously,
if we're talking about human life at scale in any book,
there's an entire myriad of factors across a broad spectrum
that go into that. But the kind of key takeaway is, uh,
you know what Osbon called the age of capitalism like
facilitated this and like that's he actually he wrote an
essay that became a book called The Age of capital
eighteen forty eight to eighteen seventy five. And he makes
the point the word capitalism it first entered like the
let the academic lexicon in the eighteen sixties, you know,
from eighteen forty eight, like after the revolutions in Europe
were quashed in both Europe and America, there was this
there's this kind of like massive economic boom okay. And
that's one of the things that meant that there wasn't
another like eighteen forty eight like revolutionary sentiment, because like
there's a lot of wealth being produced, you know. But
again there was these kinds of like obsolete social structures
that were sort of organizing people's lives. Nonetheless, yet these
societies were flooded with capital. But it was it wasn't
it was. It was very much like funnel into specific channels,
you know, not by conspiracy of design or something. But
there just was not like a free like like individual
people and not a lot of person power, and this
created like weird disparities, you know, like there wasn't there's
a lot of like if you're a if you're a neoliberal,
like an economists, you look at this as like basic
market and efficiencies. You know, this is why like banking
is so important to like the monitorist view. And then
they're right about that. You know, the availability of capital
and you know, uh competence and financial instruments like that.
That's that's the regulatory mechanism that's essential. But beyond that,
you basically need like capital flow like where it's going
to be most efficiently allocated in order to produce produce wealth,
and that that wasn't really happening, despite the fact that
you had you know, you had kind of at the
top and also kind of like unevenly distributed like sort
of throughout the sociological spectrum. You know, you had some
like some incredible innovations that were like aldering people's lives.
And there was like government could simply do things that
it couldn't before. I mean, like wet World War One
like that totally insane. Like the ability to mobilize like
five million men, arm them, equip them, feed them, then
like turn them loose to like assault your ops like
that that would be like unthinkable even in like the
Napoleonic era, you know. And it's not just modern command
and control. It was like transportation, it was you know,
it was a more efficient fuel sources. It was like
more efficient killing technology. I mean it was it was
like it was all these things. But the uh, something
else that's important to is Hoblom said, And he was
writing this in the fifties. You see first world say
like in the fifties, but this age of capital, this
was like the first this was like the Nasca earliest
stage of global globalization, okay, because if you were a
major capitalist power, you know, and again I involved in
our capitalists and within the terms HOSWOM doesn't, I don't
use those kinds of terms. But you know, you the
British Empire held equity basically on every continent, you know,
and America was not yet a superpower, but you'd find
American goods basically all over the world. Okay. And there
wasn't a there wasn't a unified banking structure, but lending
across national frontiers at scale, with governments guaranteeing financial instruments
that started blowing up, you know, and that that would
have been unthinkable before. You know, in a lot of
countries it was literally illegal for UH national banks to
you know, to trade across national frontiers or to or
to issue financial instruments in foreign markets. But a lot
of countries simply wouldn't deal in your currency, like even
if it was UH, even even if it was viewed
as you know, a desirable currency, and speculators would invest
in it. Oh and and and pursing foreign currencies at
this time was also largely illegal. It was quote unquote
currency speculation. It was like literally a crime, which is crazy,
but that that that that was the norm, you know.
But this, uh, but because of that, like in the
early stages of any economic system or any paradigm, not system,
but like paradigm, there's gonna be like really really uneven growth, okay,
and that's gonna lead to certain disparities. I'm not talking
like social justice disparities. I mean like between enterprises, a
lot of capital is being created, but a lot is
being wiped out, like we just mentioned across national frontiers.
This kind of development is uneven. But also certain industries
develop a kind of outside cloud okay, and not the
arms industry per se, but the the kind of a
terrestrial manufacturing enterprises that facilitate the arms industry. They developed
outsized power like as did again you know, uh, financial institutions.
This wasn't some conspiracy and that's not why World War
went happened, but it was a but it facilitated resorting
to military measures to remedy power, political imbalances h at scale. Okay,
it was a perfect storm at things. And again that's
that's really important, you know. And in my own like
manuscript to try and emphasize this point and has I don't.
It's not like my primary authority on that, but I
do site. But uh yeah, moving on, it's also too domestically,
whether you're talking about the United States, the UK, France,
or Germany, the way such things about to mention were
characterized kind of differed along the you know, local custom
and cultural differences and convention, but kind of like the
lingua franc of government became you know this like there's
like this resurgence that sort of like enlightenment shibalus. So
whether you're in Berlin, London, Washington, Paris, all your heart
from government is oh see, like this is like an
age of unprecedented plenty. You know, it's the age of
reason and science and progress. But people were getting like
ground into dust, you know, and like working in a
factory or a slaughterhouse. That was like hell, you know,
it's not I tell a lot of guys in the
right who they you know, they throw shade on stuff
like Upton Sinclair's the jungle, and I'm like, okay, I'm like, yeah,
I don't agree with those kinds of conclusions either. But
what he describes, that's that's that's one hundred percent accurate.
You know, there'd be guys. Uh, there was no welfare state.
You couldn't just get like a link card. So if
you were out of work, like you weren't eating and
basically your ability to make a living depended on your
ability to physically like perform, you know, and guys would
die on the job like there's like ten percent like
attrition and like a steel mill or like a slaughterhouse,
you know, and if god for biddy get injured or
like you lose three fingers on your hand in some machine.
You know, they're the biggest surplus in any major city
at this time was like that of like able lot
of men who want to work.
Speaker 1: So did did hobs Im have anything to say about
the move from agrarianism to basically employment where you're providing
for yourself with your own with your own hands. And
then all of a sudden, it seems, in the span
of a decade, people are moving to cities to get jobs.
Speaker 2: Yeah he uh, yeah, yeah, he got he got a
lot into that.
Speaker 3: I mean, the the extrapolation of you know, the household
being the center of production to people being forced to
sell their lever as some sort of factory worker.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, that was tremendously disruptive and you know it also,
I mean, hos Mom was insightful in his sociological takedown because,
unlike a lot of people, you know, show Humpeter's big
critique of the Marcus paradigm, and I'm gonna bring this back.
I'm going somewhere with this, well, like, look like Marxists
aren't really talking about class. Like the job you do
isn't your class, you know, like your class is what
you're born into, and it's defined by how you relate
to other people similarly born to this kind of like
social stratum that isn't really mobile, you know. So in
Schumpeter's view, which is the traditional view, it doesn't matter
what job you're doing around which money you have, Like,
that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a class,
and class isn't something you can just like jump up
from or down from, like within a generation. And Osbom
accepted some of those premises. He's like, yeah, you know,
one of the reasons why the working class exists is
because the social capital that kind of facilitated no blessedge
oblige as well as you know, kind of the communitarian
impulse that you know, stood in for the wealth or
state in antiquity and things. It's like capitalism like rips
all that apart, and it makes every man like a
stranger and it enshrines the war of all against all,
not only as like an im an implacable reality, but
as like a positive good. Almost. So the only thing
you have in common with like your neighbors, figuratively and
literally is that you're all being crushed like in these
in this like industrial labor environment, and you know, you've
got to stand together or all die. And that's like
what the working class is. You know, it's not it's
not a class in like the traditional sense, or there's
not some like basic affinity between between peoples, like they're
your comrades because you're you're like in the same way
you are like with the guys you're like unjustly locked
in prison with. You know, it's it's circumstances that like
drive you together. So and that and that that actually
tracks with like what marsh was talking about in dos Capital,
Like if when you talk about alienation, he's not just
talking about the process of whereby labor is not personal anymore.
You don't create things, you're not a producer. You're just
doing this like pointless process, like over and over and
over again. It's dangerous and dirty and painful, but it's
alienation from your fellow man. And even if you haven't
to be married, like you never see your wife. She
she's stuck with some dangerous, dirty job like you have
you know, at the end of the day, like maybe
you like get to sleep in the same bed as
her and occasionally you collide in intimacy and have children.
But he's like that that alienation touchs and concerns every
aspect of the workers existence. It's not it's not. It
doesn't just like remove his labor from his own domain
and creative power. It alienates him from like what should
be his community. It alienates him from his eth nose,
It alienates him from his life. That alienates him from
you know, he doesn't have neighbors anymore. You know that
this all tracks and yeah, so he makes a lot
out of that, and that's one of the reasons why
this process whereby the Vestigel aristocracy, he's able to like
hang on to power because people were people like bonded
in pe andage. They are dependent upon like the lord
of the manner. And this is a deeply psychological process. Okay,
and it's enduring. It's in a cosmon view. Okay, this alien
this this this alienation that is a matter of life
and death. In a lot of cases, that sounds a
matter of quoit of life, like it stands to kill you.
He's like, really, the only remedy these people have is
like appeal to the church or to like appeal to
traditional social elements that are kind of like the guardians
of the culture, if you want to think about it
that way. So they appeal to aristocrats and stuff, you know,
for justice. And that's one of the things that keeps
these guys like if not relevant, like able to remain
like in situ you know. That's why hospital made.
Speaker 1: It keeps it keeps the revolution in stasis. There's no
there's no chance of having a revolution.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And so guys like a hosball. And he
said this was the big problem in during like this
the long crisis he talked about, because uh, there was
always like technological innovation and this kind of future shock
and disturbance, but putical cultures were like frozen, you know,
and that was that I mean, that's that's the point
of like any revolutionary Marxist in the twentieth century, but
Cosmon especially because I think that he had a particular
emphasis as well as insight into sociological questions. He's like,
we've got to educate people to break them of these things,
of these tendencies. We've basically got to like break them
on their short term self interest or their attachment to it,
because we've got to literally kill the aristocracy. We've got
to allow the bourgeoisie to conquer everything. We've got to
let them consolidate, we've got to let them create conditions
of plenty before we kill them tigurically and literally. You know,
it's a very brutal view of a struggle processes, but
within the bound and rationality of Marxist Leninism that tracks,
you know, and there is like a kernel of truth
to it, not in terms of its ethical conclusions, but
I mean, like today this is a bit of a tangent,
but I'm list making the point to guys, this has
died somewhat, but it's it won't die completely. This is
the favorite refrain of dissident p Well, it's gonna be
a massive financial collapse, had a great depression, that's never
going to happen again, okay, because it can't happen in
the state of information awareness. Like to the second information awareness,
that kind of stuff only happens long to uncertainties. There's
not uncertainties anymore. Like that doesn't mean the dollar can't
like bottom out, but even if it did, that doesn't
mean like you're not going to be able to buy food. Okay,
Now there could absolutely be shortages. I don't believe in
climate change in the sense of these crazy people who
think who were to stand in like apocalypse cult for them,
But I'm certain that there's all kinds of environmental factors
that just a way to God's will or the nuances
of of of this planet. I could easily see famines
coming back. I mean, and you know, I mean it's
if they're but it suddenly became impossible to grow certain
kinds of crops that would food oar everything. I mean,
So I absolutely do not say like crises can't happen.
But it's idea that you know, like owing to miscalculation
or owing to like a gap in you know, information awareness,
you know of hours or days, like you know, like
like billions of dollars is gonna be like wiped out
overnight in the stock market. That would never happen again.
That's retarded, you know, And guys like Hoswom predicted that.
He said, stuff's gonna largely be rubberized moving forward. There's
not gonna be like food shortages. You know, there's not
gonna it's gonna be very easy to produce things that
today him talking in like nineteen fifties are hard to produce.
You know, you're gonna like a lot of these problems
are gonna go a way, you know, and that and
that happened, you know, And that's one of the reasons
why this is I mean, it's probably not the skupe.
But one of the ways we can tell like our
government is like full of like crackheads and insane people
is because if they didn't overreach and remotely smart, they
could basically hold on to power indefinitely. Because this isn't
the nineteen twenties, because because people aren't going hungry, because
there's not a military draft or we're respected to like
sacrifice your son in a meat grinder. You know, there's
not a Soviet Union whereby you know, at any at
any time basically, you know, some enemy society that's like
mobilized at massive scale could decide to like sue for
war to remedy the kind of uneven power paradigm, you know.
Like so so it's it's you can tell these people
are insane because like they're they're basically burning the house
down when there's no reason to do that. But you
know that the degree to which, uh that that's also
why too. I mean, like I said, I I it's
it's it's dumb for people to claim that people like
Missus Harris are Marxists anyway, but it's Marxism isn't just Marxism,
isn't wokeism. It's not it's not it's not liberalism. It's
it's it's it's a very discreete uh like claim and
series of claims about historical processes. And in the short term,
Marxists absolutely want capitalists to succeed. They don't want it
to fail. They wanted to fully succeed. They wanted to
conquer everything, and then they want to kill the people
at the helms of the apparatus. Like that's the whole point.
You know what what's strange about how it developed in
terms of actual praxis is that it did it did
again like the like like the quite literally like the
heart of the of the Bolshrek Revolution in the real
world was a place that really had no like industrial
working class. You know. It was just like basically backwards
monarchy that ruled over this this this is this massive territory,
you know, like the Russian Empire had more in common
with the Ottomans than it did with Europe. Okay, I'm
not saying like racially or whatever. Like, I'm not taking
a position on that, So I don't know if people
get mad, But in terms of the way it was
structured and in terms of it being like an anachronism
in the twentieth century when it finally got brought down,
it's really really strange that this is where the Bolshrek
Revolution was consolidated and truly succeeded. You know. That's why
That's one of the reasons why when I talk a
lot to these guys. I'm not Jackson Hinkle himself, I
don't know him, but I know guys in his orbit
and guys described to that kind of worldview. So like,
there are a lot of the like rebuttals to people
like me are like, well, you can't strap late a
lot in the Soviet Union. It's like, well, I can
but even if I accept that postulate, well, I can't
extrapolate a lot, even by your own criteria from East Germany. Okay,
you know, and it's well there you go. Okay, you
tell you tell me, like East Germany wasn't an industrial
state like it I I mean, if you want to
perfectly realize, like marcis Alana state, it was the DDR.
I mean that they can't be argued. I mean, I
suppose like they're I suppose they're like rebuttal of that
would be like, well, that was an artificial state that
emerged out of like military exigencies, and you know the
fact that it was beliguered and threatened, you know, owing
to conditions imposed by capitalists like is somehow like takes
off the tables as a pure example of practice, but
because it may you know, the to bring it back again,
I forget from ramblings. I don't feel good. But the uh,
the degree of which again, like Mark, actual Marxists viewed
these things as necessary processes like can't be denied. Like
Marxist would not be in the street saying like we need,
we need, we need Acne Widget Company to hire more
women because it's bad not to, and they wouldn't be
saying like we need to text these people more like
none of that would be like in their horizon. They'd
be like, we want Acne Widget Company to become like
as massive as possible. We wanted to insinuate itself into everything.
We wanted to be able to produce everything we need,
you know, almost like magic. And then and then we
want to kill the people who own it, and we
want to take it and we want to make it
the public domain of the workers. That's what they want
or wanted. Like I said, I I like guys like
Jackson Hinkel. I think they're playing an important role right
now if if you're any kind of dissident or and
any kind of actual resistance actor.
Speaker 1: But the really interesting, the interesting thing about that is
it's the way you know that these people who call
themselves Marxists or call themselves communists nowadays aren't because they
would want Elon to succeed and take over and become
you know, like my friend Matt says his own Hensiatic league.
They'd want him to do that so then they could
take it over by force. But they they ship all
over him and oh you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, the point that the degree to which these
people today are just like goofy envy crats who were
like it's just they're just like people who are like
that guy's a big shot. I don't like him. It's
like that basic, you know, and it's like it doesn't
and like you can only that too is a symptom
of prosperity as well, because even you read Ernest Younger
was a fascinating guy in all kinds of ways, but
he lived through this stuff and you know, he kind
of he was kind of a strass arrist man, you know,
like he he was very much a socialist. And if
you read something like The glass Bes, the character of Zapparoni,
like he's he's obviously like kind of a matchup. But
like Howard Hughes and Andrew Carnegie and and like Walt Disney,
but uh, you know, and like that, guys like Zapperoni
are real type. But you know, guys like Younger thought,
these guys were historical giants. They're like, these guys are
gonna change the world. They're gonna change everything, and they're
playing an essential role in this historical process. You know,
that's it's not I mean, I'm I'm as anti communist
as it's possible to be. I don't think that should
be in dispute. But communists they're they're not dummies, or
they weren't dummies. We're just like, I'm I don't like
that guy because he has more stuff than me. It
has nothing to do with that, you know, Like it's
not it's not just like dumb lump in bullshit it
or like guys who think like gangster rappers or something like.
That's not like that. That's fucking retarded, you know. And this, uh,
the these it's it's these like internet guys who have
never read a book in their life, like calling people
it's like goofy as fuck. But but no, I think
you know, and today, uh I realizn't going kinside the scope.
Don't forgive me for that. If it's some boring people,
But guys like Emmanuel Wallerstein, guys who uh, these kinds
of post Marxist types who do like talk about you know,
social justice within globalism. I mean, yeah, obviously I don't
like have common cause with those guys, but they're really
the only like intelligent aspect of the left, and I
think those guys are making a comeback because everybody hates
the fucking regime and like literally everybody hates liberals, like
everybody fucking hates liberals and things that are like awful.
He's as a shit, you know. That's why, like I said,
like people, I mean, he'll throw shaite on me all
the time, and I don't care, like I'm not here
to make friends, and I'm used to it. But you know,
the they get mad at me, whether it's because you know,
I got respect for Moslims and view them as like
an essential part of the new resistance, or they get
mad at me for like retweeting like Jackson Hinkle or something.
But it's like they don't understand part of bringing down
the regime and discrediting it is like pointing out not
just how morally bankrupt it is, but how like staggering
like ignorant it is and it's acolytes are you know?
And if there's if there's a serious left wing with
revolutionary ambitions, that's not a bunch of degenerate natural slaves,
Like that's that's a good thing, man, Like how is
that bad? You know? Like you got people can't like
take their like personal feelings out of stuff. It's pathetic.
It's like talking to a bunch of like it's like
talking to a much other little kids, or like modeling
old women or something. But the but that's you know,
and that's also why you know again the like I said,
we started out like that, that dude I'm not gonna name,
you know, acting like uh, I was dropping cap when
I was saying, like, you know, the it's ass nine
to you know, to arrange force structure or to conceptualized
grant strategy in like twentieth century terms, you know, like
the like like twentieth century wars can never happen again.
That's never going to happen again. You know, it's not
gonna happen again in a thousand years, you know, like
that that's the end of the uh. The the changing
like like everything these days is changing, like I you know,
like I mean the point before about like just today
I was talking some of the fellas about like public
education is dying and nobody believes anymore. Like those law
enforcement like a couple of months back, they're like I
see in Chicago now, like I said, even you know,
like like policing is going to be privatized. It's you
know in the South, like I mean you're in I'm
sure you see this, you know how like they're still
trying to fight the run drugs like it's nineteen eighty
two or something, and like there was this ridiculous press
conference and they like the Tennessee Threau of Investigation, they
held this like press conference. It was them Homeland Security
atf FBI. There was this holeless investigation that literally bust
these like twoe like outlaw bikers like sligging meth. And
they're like, we were taking drugs off the street. And
the comments were like you people are idiots, you know,
they're like what what do you think this is? You
know it's like like there wasn't like a single positive
comment man, and it's like this is like a time war.
It's like what the fuck are these people doing? You know,
like nobody believes in that garbage anymore. Now now you
got Homeland security like shaken down like trailer park meth heads. Really,
you know, like that's like that's pathetic, man. You know,
this whole apparatus, the people sustaining it, there's like increasingly
aged parasites who can't like adapt to the twenty first century,
you know. And that's one of the things that swept
Trump into power. It's the kindess of hobbsbamb and Franklin,
the Marxist we're talking about, like like they the way
they would have viewed Trump is like you know this,
They wouldn't have viewed him some like arch reactionary. It
would have been like, well that this guy's basically a
con man, but he's saying he's gonna like sweep away
these obsolescent aspects of state that people like don't think
serves their interests anymore. And that and that's why a
lot of people voted for Trump. It's not I mean, yeah,
there's like people who just like love Trump. There's people
who you know, like uh who would have voted for
RFK Junior, who are just like protest voters, but like
your average like man or lady, like it's not particularly
politically sophisticated or inclined. Like they voted for Trump because
their instincts are basically sound and they're like what what
what the hell is going on here? Like we they'll
put together that's a regime they live under, is like
this twentieth century obsolete structure they don't think about in
those turns and they realize, like this is like a
zombie regime, like it doesn't make sense anymore, like why
you know, like it's it's and then you know, it's
a it's really interesting to see this develop in real time, man,
you know. And that's why one of the things like
part of my vetting process with people who I kind
of take on as allies. I mean, that's a complicated process.
I can't really break it down into like criteria, but
one thing that's essential is like if like we do
not want reactionaries. We do not want people who think
the good old days were dope, or that we need
to like turn back time or that, or people who
think that like ncigue is like making things like where
we take over the government and can like manage its pious.
It's like people like that or not with the program.
And I mean now that not only is that like
not at all what we're about, but that's that's got
nothing to do with the trajectory of history and stuff
like that. I don't mean to be I don't mean
to like abrogate this, but I really don't feel good.
So if we could, like if we could if we
could wrap it up, that'd be great. And if you
want to, if you want to do another episode because
this wasn't up to snuff, we can absolutely do that. No.
Speaker 1: I I appreciated the conversation at the ending because I
think that's a conversation that people on the right need
to hear.
Speaker 2: That.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's too much of a jump towards
capitalism solves everything, you know, And I've been reading some
A List's letters lately and it's really opening up my
eyes to just how damaging the especially the overseas, the globalism,
just what it does to you know, the vault and.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, what's also why it's crazy these people with
like think they hate Maslims for no reason because some
like Zionists on TV told them to, or because they
think that because they think that like some like shit
bag immigrants who did something to do to them is
like Islam. It's like, man, you want to know, like
darl Islam has been getting crushed man by globalism for decades.
I mean, like they're on the front line of this shit,
like it's happening to them is as bad as what
was done to Europe. Like you're you think that's cool,
like these guys you're ops because they're like fighting back
against that shit. It's like, get the fuck out of here.
I mean people actually think that way, are my ops?
You know, like it's yeah, yeah, but it's also too
like they it's probably internalizing, like enemy the septual vocabulary,
like people who they they just like mirror like that.
They use terms like racist or like they think like, oh,
I'm a capitalist because that's who my ops like say,
I am. It's like, so you define yourself, I will
like somebody like Missus Harris or Joe Biden says, or
like what some like idiot whet professor says like I
I mean, how basic are you? You know? I don't
use the kind of terms so they again we're talking
about people like Osbam. I I kind of have to
use a shorthand. You know. It's like but I don't.
There's not there's there's not really. I'm not like a
Kazinsky guy. I know like a lot of like I
know a lot of like dissident type dudes really like
head K. I mean, there's nothing wrong with like being
into him. I've studied him extensively. I've read about Yeah,
but what you called the industrial society, that's a lot
more accurate, you know, like and coo industrials. People think
that that book. People think that book is like I
have a friend who says, oh, you can take an
al Gore book and hold it right up next to it,
and it's the same exact thing. It's like, No, he's
writing about the human condition. He's right, what you know
what the what the industrial revolution did or the human
condition is? And I read out foor No, that's fucking retarded. Well,
I mean these guys are just like say things like
they don't I guarantee these guys like never read a
book except maybe like some fucking airport paperback. But I no,
I remember when the Manifesto dropped in ninety five or
ninety six, I think it was. I think it was
like late summer ninety five, but like when it ran in.
Speaker 1: That late summer, late summer ninety five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, when I ran the papers, like I made
sure like I read it, you know, and it was
it was, uh, it was insightful stuff. I mean he's
got some blind spots, like especially a lot of like
Massavon types do like a lot of those guys don't
really fully grasp like politics, but uh, the stuff when
when he was talking about technological development and the impact
of production and labor and like how man like individually
and collectively interfaces with that, that was pretty that was
that was pretty insightful. And like I said, the term
industrial society, that that that's a lot more meaningful than capitalism,
you know, and it's and obviously too like a terms
inherently reduction. It's like like the capitalist is everything he
does is just like stack up capital and like assets.
Like that's not that's not the way people think. Like
even some guy in Wall Street who's like, you know,
kind of a stereotypical walk he huster, that's not like
the way he thinks, Like he's you know, he and
at bas the reason he, like the reason a guy
like that his world is defined by money is because
that's like power activity in his world. And that's like
a way, that's a way he can like engage in
power activity congruous with like his discrete capabilities and and
like psychology. It's not because like it's not like money
is like this ending itself to everybody like in the
capitalist system. But so I mean, that's these these things
are important. But yeah, like again, man, like I said,
sorry if this wasn't not the par but I it's been.
I'm not trying to be a martyr. But just because
like I do have responsibility to people, I thinks this
week has not been great in terms.
Speaker 1: Of what I think people. I think people like this
episode more than you think.
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes me happy.
Speaker 1: Do do plugs real port?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Man? As always, Uh, try and direct people to
my website. It's Thomas seven seven seven dot com. It's
number seven h on the S seven seven seven dot com.
I'm gonna tweak that some man. I was gonna try
and get on top of it this week, but it
but what it's it's dope, the kid who put it together.
He is great. And anytime I drop anything new, it
pops up there on like the feed. So that's like
a good way to keep up with stuff if you
like the stuff I do. I'm on social media, uh
at Capital r e A L underscore number seven hm
A S seven seven seven. The best place to find
me is sub stack. That's from my pods and stuff.
It's uh real Thomas seven seven seven at substack dot com.
And yeah, if in the description if you could include, uh,
the Merse wings too. You know, I got big like
T shirt and clothes and Mersey and uh that's actually
been selling pretty well, which makes me very happy. But yeah,
that's that's what I've got.
Speaker 1: I'll take care of that for you, all right, Thank
you appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Likewise man,