[lbo-talk] Credit crunch a myth?

Bill Bartlett billbartlett at aapt.net.au
Thu Jan 1 15:03:56 PST 2009


At 3:13 PM -0500 1/1/09, Doug Henwood wrote:


>>One of Mao's statements seemed awfully wrong to me when I first came
>>across it; something like "Support everything the enemy opposes; oppose
>>everything the enemy favors.
>
>Man, that's stupid. But Maoism is stupid. And look where it ended up
>- in a spectacular instance of a new kind of capitalism.

Actually, Maoism was closer to a new kind of feudalism. (Or anyhow the old kind of feudalism with new lords and masters and some new slogans.) The end of Maoism coincided with the feudal lords of the Chinese communist party attempting to create a new kind of capitalism. (Capitalism with feudal characteristics. Been tried before. Didn't work for long.)

So it looks pretty much like the old variety of capitalism to me, except they haven't yet got around to putting in the checks and balances that the established capitalist economies eventually discovered were necessary. Like checks on political government.

So it isn't a new kind of capitalism. Just the early stages of implementing the common-or-garden variety of capitalism.

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas



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