Welcome to Nicolas Lalaguna's online archive
In my previous post I talked about fascism being the political goal of capitalism in order for it to reach its economic goal. In simple terms capitalism’s primary objective is to concentrate the ownership and control of wealth and resources into the fewest hands possible. In order to achieve this goal capitalists have to concentrate political power into the fewest hands possible so that political power isn’t used to stop them from concentrating wealth. Neither democracy nor capitalism are structurally flawed, they are simply at odds. Capitalism concentrates power while democracy shares power. It is in this struggle that the modern political discourse plays out in an almost cartoonish democratic whack-a-mole.
The battle lines drawn between the democratic right and the democratic left for the last few centuries have been over the extent to which the capitalist class is regulated and social responsibility applied to them. The democratic right pushes for a regressive or conservative framework with restrictions and responsibilities applied unequally, while the democratic left pushes for a progressive or liberal framework with restrictions and responsibilities applied more equally.
Tied into this struggle is yet another narrative, that of the hierarchy of power, within which is a conflict between bottom-up power and top-down power. This conflict has many facets, such as diversity versus homogeneity, local versus global, communities versus elites, and of course the powerless versus the powerful. It is in this overarching power framework that the fanaticism of a national power elite can directly impact communities across the world. These conflicts are symptoms of the spread of the democracy-capitalism dichotomy.
The decisions made in Washington to limit, regulate or even hold accountable the US based oligarchs and the global oligopolies under their control will consume all of our day-to-day experiences in these power conflicts. Whether Facebook is regulated as a news outlet, Amazon has to pay tax where it does business, Twitter can be held accountable for inciting violence, Google limits access to publicly available information, investment banks are not subject to the rule of law or Apple undermines personal privacy will all be largely decided in Washington but impact each and everyone of our lives around the world.
While our “democracies” already appear beholden to the global power elite, the outcome of the 2024 US election will further compound this power imbalance if the superpower that our vassal-democracies have pledged fealty to openly embraces an autocratic form of oligarchy. Because if that were to happen, once Capitol Hill rubber stamps a behaviour the vassal governments will have to fall in line. Lets not forget we are talking about the most powerful military force on the planet, who in recent decades has arguably shown itself to be one of the most belligerent.
And it is in this that the U.S. election has such a profound effect on the lives of billions of people across the planet. Which, due to the archaic processes of the electoral college, the idiosyncrasies of the swing states and the desire for celebrities to be three dimensional role models could mean that a very small group of people with a disproportionate influence over others could decide the outcome. What is truly terrifying about this is that many within those three groups have little or no experience in critically analysing the social, economic or political impacts of policy. Whether that is the pseudo news reporting of a handful of sycophants at Fox News, the heart felt posts of celebrities like Taylor Swift, or the pithy late night satire streamed around the world.
While I am grateful that some of those voices, like that of Taylor Swift and Seth Meyers, are people with public personas that project empathy towards all people with apparent sincerity and humility, that is more about my own political biases. I have to remind myself to temper my admiration by asking the question what happens when a celebrity with anti-social tendencies is allowed to promote lies and violence instead. This isn’t a difficult thought experiment. There are numerous examples of celebrities skewing towards the autocratic and conspiratorial on social media today, with quite literally millions of people hanging on their every tantrum.
The fact is the modern cultural system plays into this concentration of the capitalist power paradigm by over amplifying only certain political voices disproportionately across only the major social media platforms that are oligarch controlled. And that is where the danger lies, in this democratic whack-a-mole by-proxy.
Outsourcing our critical thinking to others allows our political power to be hijacked. Political interest groups will use these cultural icons as trojan horses for their own political agendas. The perfect example of which is playing out in front of all of us as the Heritage Foundation quite obviously hijacks the easily manipulated ego of an attention seeking sociopath struggling with cultural irrelevance to infiltrate their way into power. And while similar things do happen on the left, historically they have tended towards attempting to undermine or dismantle groups, not disestablishing democracy altogether.
I don’t disagree for one minute that Trump is very probably a malignant narcissist, but it is not him that worries me. What worries me now, and has worried me for the last two decades are the people that were waiting to ride someone like him into the white house. And it is not just the fanatics in the republican party, the billionaire oligarchs, or the religious zealots that we need to worry about. It is also every individual who thinks that they have the right to abuse with impunity anyone that doesn’t look like them, talk like them, love like them, live like them, worship like them, earn money like them or urinate like them.
The world may win a stay of execution in the upcoming presidential election but until we take a more all-encompassing view of inequality in all of its variations we will keep taking on the role of mole in the global game of democratic whack-a-mole.