Jul 24, 2007, 04:50 am
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#4 (permalink)
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| Volcanic Erupter | Quote:
So who are these liberal communists? The usual gang of suspects: Bill Gates and George Soros, the CEOs of Google, IBM, Intel, eBay, as well as court-philosophers like Thomas Friedman. What makes this group interesting is that their ideology is becoming indistinguishable from that of Antonio Negri, who has praised postmodern digital capitalism, which, according to Negri, is becoming almost indistinguishable from communism. By Negri’s reckoning, both the old Right—with its ridiculous belief in authority, order and parochial patriotism—and the old Left—with its big Struggle against Capitalism—are the true conservatives today, completely out of touch with the new realities as they fight their shadow-theatre struggles. The signifier of this new reality in the liberal communist Newspeak is “smart.” Smart means dynamic and nomadic against centralized bureaucracy; dialogue and cooperation against central authority; flexibility against routine; culture and knowledge against old industrial production; and spontaneous interaction against fixed hierarchy.
Liberal communists are big executives reforming the spirit of contest, or, to put it the other way round, countercultural geeks who took over big corporations. Their dogma is a new, postmodernized, version of Adam Smith’s invisible hand: Market and social responsibility are not opposites, they can be employed together for mutual benefit. Collaboration with employees, dialogue with customers, respect for the environment and transparent deal-making are now the keys to a successful business.
Liberal communists are pragmatic, they hate ideology. There is no single exploited Working Class today, only concrete problems to be solved, such as starvation in Africa, the plight of Muslim women or religious fundamentalist violence. When there is a humanitarian crisis in Africa—and liberal communists love humanitarian crises, they bring out the best in them!—instead of employing anti-imperialist rhetoric, we should simply examine what really solves the problem: Engage people, governments and business in a common enterprise, approach the crisis in a creative, unconventional way, and don’t worry about labels.
| Hey wow I didn't realise you are rich. How about throwing a few bucks my way, it would be the LC thing to do:) |
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