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CARL BEIJER

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HIPPIE-PUNCHING 2021 A new twist on a very old right-wing smear. A line of criticism that’s popular in the discourse these days goes something like this: Some socialists smear their critics by pointing to a handful of reactionaries — the worst bigots, the most dangerous militants, and the most deranged conspiracy theorists — and pretending that all of

their

NOBODY CARES ABOUT "WOKENESS" If all you had to go by was conversations in the media and statements by politicians, you would have to conclude that something called “wokeness” is the defining issue of our time. WHAT IS THE POST LEFT? The Post Left is openly hostile to various factions that they lump together as “the left” — not just Democrats and liberals, but radical groups like anarchists and socialists as well. Rhetorically they adopt the bog-standard positioning of the self-identified independent: they are uniquely free-thinking equal-opportunity

offenders who

out

CARL BEIJER

these debates

their

NOBODY CARES ABOUT "WOKENESS" If all you had to go by was conversations in the media and statements by politicians, you would have to conclude that something called “wokeness” is the defining issue of our time. WHAT IS THE POST LEFT? The Post Left is openly hostile to various factions that they lump together as “the left” — not just Democrats and liberals, but radical groups like anarchists and socialists as well. Rhetorically they adopt the bog-standard positioning of the self-identified independent: they are uniquely free-thinking equal-opportunity

offenders who

out

CARL BEIJER

A substack on socialism and other things. Subscribe for full access! HIPPIE-PUNCHING 2021 A line of criticism that’s popular in the discourse these days goes something like this: Some socialists smear their critics by pointing to a handful of reactionaries — the worst bigots, the most dangerous militants, and the most deranged conspiracy theorists — and pretending that all of their political opponents are like that.They will call you a fasci A WORD ON PRIVATE AND PERSONAL PROPERTY Last Friday, when I appeared on The Majority Report to talk with Sam Seder about socialism, our conversation eventually turned to property.And in an effort to draw a clear distinction between capitalist and socialist perspectives, I framed it in a way that THE WOKE SEMANTICS PROJECT Moving forward, I’ll be using this post to keep track of innovative new uses of the word “woke”, if only to demonstrate that a process of semantic generalization is indeed taking place. Since this is going to be a sporadic and sometimes tedious project I won’t send out emails with every new update, but I’ll send out a tweet from THE PROGRESSIVE-POPULIST HORSESHOE The strategy is simple: 1) Concede that various symptoms of capitalism are indeed a problem. If you are a progressive, for example, you can complain about inequality or monopoly or various identitarian antagonisms that are fomented by capitalism. If you are a right populist, you can complain about alienation, or about the economic

stresses that

GENDER, LANGUAGE, AND LEFT STRATEGY The left has already won much of the war over gender and the English language. This may come as a surprise to people who are caught up in today’s endless controversy over pronouns, but over the past hundred years leftists were fighting over gendered nouns as well.. The gist of the problem is that we had a whole vocabulary of nouns — often

(though not alwa

NOTES ON A FAILED SURVEY ABOUT SOCIALISM Perhaps there's a reason that it failed! If you caught my recent appearance on Majority Report — or if you happen to be one of the people who I contacted about it — you may recall that I have been working on a survey about socialism. Specifically, over the past few weeks, I have been asking wonks and media types the following four

questions:

THREE POINTS ON THE PRODUCTION OF CAPITALIST IDEOLOGY Three points on the production of capitalist ideology. A lot of the socialist media criticism I see floating around in the discourse these days tends to get a few analytical points right — for example, that media products will tend to express the interests of NEERA TANDEN MUST DROP OUT It is only a matter of time until Neera Tanden’s bid to lead the Office of Management and Budget runs headlong into a wall of at least 51 Senators. Her fate was sealed the moment Democratic Senator Joe Manchin announced that he would cross party lines and join Republicans in opposing her nomination. As a courtesy, the White House has issued CARL BEIJERCARL BEIJERARCHIVE New Top What is Carl Beijer? The dark money behind right-wing "woke capitalism" rhetoric An anti-communist front-group for business PR staffed with Koch apparatchiks is running a major messaging campaign. Nobody cares about "wokeness" Yet another poll showing how detached

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

Carl Beijer. About People. Writing on socialism, contemporary politics, and other things. Subscribe for full access to paywalled articles and more than five years of archives. You can email me at cwbeijer@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @carlbeijer. THE DATA FOR PROGRESS CABINET TRACKER UPDATE (11/23/2020) - Data for Progress has joined a few other groups in launching a petition against appointing Bruce Reed as the head of the Office of Management and Budget. While they are likely to spin this as a victory if Biden declines to do so, this would be a goalpost shift from the proposals floated in the Progressive Cabinet Project. WHAT IS THE POST LEFT? The Post Left is openly hostile to various factions that they lump together as “the left” — not just Democrats and liberals, but radical groups like anarchists and socialists as well. Rhetorically they adopt the bog-standard positioning of the self-identified independent: they are uniquely free-thinking equal-opportunity

offenders who

WHAT'S NEW ABOUT THIS GOP "REALIGNMENT"? This is the same coalition conflict Republicans have dealt with for decades. Matt Stoller says that “There’s disdain for paying attention to debates on the conservative side of the aisle, as if it’s all in bad faith.”. I suppose that this extremely vague statement is probably true. But I’ve paid very close attention to

these debates

PSEUDO-MATERIALISM AND CLASS IDENTITY Uncoupled from real material analysis, class labels just play liberalism's rhetorical games. Carl Beijer. Jun 16, 2020. Share. Share. Years ago, Matt Bruenig wrote a short but important essay on the problem of identitarian deference (ID). In brief, Matt points out a recurring premise in our discourse: that people associated with

certain

ELEVEN WAYS TO IMPROVE TWITTER So here, in no particular order: eleven ways to improve Twitter. 1) LIMIT PUBLIC INFORMATION ABOUT A USER’S FOLLOWERS AND FOLLOWS. Displaying the count of a user’s total number of followers encourages clout-chasing. Displaying information about who a user follows encourages follow-policing. To fix both problems Twitter should restrict what NOBODY CARES ABOUT "WOKENESS" If all you had to go by was conversations in the media and statements by politicians, you would have to conclude that something called “wokeness” is the defining issue of our time. A WORD ON PRIVATE AND PERSONAL PROPERTY Last Friday, when I appeared on The Majority Report to talk with Sam Seder about socialism, our conversation eventually turned to property.And in an effort to draw a clear distinction between capitalist and socialist perspectives, I framed it in a way that TWO CRITIQUES OF "THE LEFT" The concern-troll critique. The two conceptions of “left” spelled out above are indeed at odds. But opponents of capitalism must not, for some reason, insist that “left” refers exclusively to their politics, and that the champions of capitalism — liberals and progressive Democrats among them — CARL BEIJERCARL BEIJERARCHIVE New Top What is Carl Beijer? The dark money behind right-wing "woke capitalism" rhetoric An anti-communist front-group for business PR staffed with Koch apparatchiks is running a major messaging campaign. Nobody cares about "wokeness" Yet another poll showing how detached

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

offenders who

these debates

certain

CARL BEIJER

New Top What is Carl Beijer? The dark money behind right-wing "woke capitalism" rhetoric An anti-communist front-group for business PR staffed with Koch apparatchiks is running a major messaging campaign. Nobody cares about "wokeness" Yet another poll showing how detached

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

these debates

TWO STRATEGIES FOR DEFENDING FREE SPEECH There are two strategies for defending free speech. Since everyone who reads this lives under the ideological domination of liberalism, it’s easy to conclude that there is only one strategy for defending free speech — the liberal strategy — and that this is the only possible strategy.Which explains why, if you don’t buy into the liberal strategy, liberals will conclude that you simply THE WOKE SEMANTICS PROJECT Moving forward, I’ll be using this post to keep track of innovative new uses of the word “woke”, if only to demonstrate that a process of semantic generalization is indeed taking place. Since this is going to be a sporadic and sometimes tedious project I won’t send out emails with every new update, but I’ll send out a tweet from THE PROGRESSIVE-POPULIST HORSESHOE The strategy is simple: 1) Concede that various symptoms of capitalism are indeed a problem. If you are a progressive, for example, you can complain about inequality or monopoly or various identitarian antagonisms that are fomented by capitalism. If you are a right populist, you can complain about alienation, or about the economic

stresses that

SOME CLARIFICATIONS ON POLITICAL LABELS First, the ideology of capitalism. This is just the tangle of beliefs, narratives, unexamined assumptions, framings, etcetera that rationalize the global domination of capitalism: certain ideas about property, meritocracy, freedom, and so on. This ideology is ubiquitous around the world; in the United States, it’s shared by Republicans

and

questions:

NEERA TANDEN MUST DROP OUT It is only a matter of time until Neera Tanden’s bid to lead the Office of Management and Budget runs headlong into a wall of at least 51 Senators. Her fate was sealed the moment Democratic Senator Joe Manchin announced that he would cross party lines and join Republicans in opposing her nomination. As a courtesy, the White House has issued CENTRIST POPULISM AND THE "DOUBLE HORSESHOE" THEORY OF Populist politics are nothing new in the United States — certainly not on the left. Even on the right, where some pundits have detected an uptick in populist rhetoric, Republican politicians and their media counterparts have long railed against various “elites”: academics, celebrities, journalists, and so on. Centrists, meanwhile, have CARL BEIJERCARL BEIJERARCHIVE New Top What is Carl Beijer? The dark money behind right-wing "woke capitalism" rhetoric An anti-communist front-group for business PR staffed with Koch apparatchiks is running a major messaging campaign. Nobody cares about "wokeness" Yet another poll showing how detached

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

offenders who

these debates

certain

NOBODY CARES ABOUT "WOKENESS" If all you had to go by was conversations in the media and statements by politicians, you would have to conclude that something called “wokeness” is the defining issue of our time. TWO CRITIQUES OF "THE LEFT" The concern-troll critique. The two conceptions of “left” spelled out above are indeed at odds. But opponents of capitalism must not, for some reason, insist that “left” refers exclusively to their politics, and that the champions of capitalism — liberals and progressive Democrats among them — A WORD ON PRIVATE AND PERSONAL PROPERTY Last Friday, when I appeared on The Majority Report to talk with Sam Seder about socialism, our conversation eventually turned to property.And in an effort to draw a clear distinction between capitalist and socialist perspectives, I framed it in a way that CARL BEIJERCARL BEIJERARCHIVE New Top What is Carl Beijer? The dark money behind right-wing "woke capitalism" rhetoric An anti-communist front-group for business PR staffed with Koch apparatchiks is running a major messaging campaign. Nobody cares about "wokeness" Yet another poll showing how detached

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

offenders who

these debates

certain

NOBODY CARES ABOUT "WOKENESS" If all you had to go by was conversations in the media and statements by politicians, you would have to conclude that something called “wokeness” is the defining issue of our time. TWO CRITIQUES OF "THE LEFT" The concern-troll critique. The two conceptions of “left” spelled out above are indeed at odds. But opponents of capitalism must not, for some reason, insist that “left” refers exclusively to their politics, and that the champions of capitalism — liberals and progressive Democrats among them — A WORD ON PRIVATE AND PERSONAL PROPERTY Last Friday, when I appeared on The Majority Report to talk with Sam Seder about socialism, our conversation eventually turned to property.And in an effort to draw a clear distinction between capitalist and socialist perspectives, I framed it in a way that

CARL BEIJER

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

these debates

TWO STRATEGIES FOR DEFENDING FREE SPEECH There are two strategies for defending free speech. Since everyone who reads this lives under the ideological domination of liberalism, it’s easy to conclude that there is only one strategy for defending free speech — the liberal strategy — and that this is the only possible strategy.Which explains why, if you don’t buy into the liberal strategy, liberals will conclude that you simply THE WOKE SEMANTICS PROJECT Moving forward, I’ll be using this post to keep track of innovative new uses of the word “woke”, if only to demonstrate that a process of semantic generalization is indeed taking place. Since this is going to be a sporadic and sometimes tedious project I won’t send out emails with every new update, but I’ll send out a tweet from SOME CLARIFICATIONS ON POLITICAL LABELS First, the ideology of capitalism. This is just the tangle of beliefs, narratives, unexamined assumptions, framings, etcetera that rationalize the global domination of capitalism: certain ideas about property, meritocracy, freedom, and so on. This ideology is ubiquitous around the world; in the United States, it’s shared by Republicans

and

THE PROGRESSIVE-POPULIST HORSESHOE The strategy is simple: 1) Concede that various symptoms of capitalism are indeed a problem. If you are a progressive, for example, you can complain about inequality or monopoly or various identitarian antagonisms that are fomented by capitalism. If you are a right populist, you can complain about alienation, or about the economic

stresses that

questions:

CARL BEIJER

their

WHAT IS THE POST LEFT? The Post Left is openly hostile to various factions that they lump together as “the left” — not just Democrats and liberals, but radical groups like anarchists and socialists as well. Rhetorically they adopt the bog-standard positioning of the self-identified independent: they are uniquely free-thinking equal-opportunity

offenders who

these debates

NOBODY CARES ABOUT "WOKENESS" If all you had to go by was conversations in the media and statements by politicians, you would have to conclude that something called “wokeness” is the defining issue of our time. ELEVEN WAYS TO IMPROVE TWITTER So here, in no particular order: eleven ways to improve Twitter. 1) LIMIT PUBLIC INFORMATION ABOUT A USER’S FOLLOWERS AND FOLLOWS. Displaying the count of a user’s total number of followers encourages clout-chasing. Displaying information about who a user follows encourages follow-policing. To fix both problems Twitter should restrict what TWO CRITIQUES OF "THE LEFT" The concern-troll critique. The two conceptions of “left” spelled out above are indeed at odds. But opponents of capitalism must not, for some reason, insist that “left” refers exclusively to their politics, and that the champions of capitalism — liberals and progressive Democrats among them — J.D. VANCE AND THE "AFFLUENT" POOR Vance says that he is talking about “class”, but there just isn’t any way to to get any information about class from his chart - even if we use AC’s dubious definition. In fact, it’s even worse than that, because “the affluent” isn’t even a reference to class: it’s a direct reference to wealth. And while the right rolls

out

CARL BEIJER

their

offenders who

these debates

NOBODY CARES ABOUT "WOKENESS" If all you had to go by was conversations in the media and statements by politicians, you would have to conclude that something called “wokeness” is the defining issue of our time. ELEVEN WAYS TO IMPROVE TWITTER So here, in no particular order: eleven ways to improve Twitter. 1) LIMIT PUBLIC INFORMATION ABOUT A USER’S FOLLOWERS AND FOLLOWS. Displaying the count of a user’s total number of followers encourages clout-chasing. Displaying information about who a user follows encourages follow-policing. To fix both problems Twitter should restrict what TWO CRITIQUES OF "THE LEFT" The concern-troll critique. The two conceptions of “left” spelled out above are indeed at odds. But opponents of capitalism must not, for some reason, insist that “left” refers exclusively to their politics, and that the champions of capitalism — liberals and progressive Democrats among them — J.D. VANCE AND THE "AFFLUENT" POOR Vance says that he is talking about “class”, but there just isn’t any way to to get any information about class from his chart - even if we use AC’s dubious definition. In fact, it’s even worse than that, because “the affluent” isn’t even a reference to class: it’s a direct reference to wealth. And while the right rolls

out

CARL BEIJER

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

and

stresses that

A WORD ON PRIVATE AND PERSONAL PROPERTY Last Friday, when I appeared on The Majority Report to talk with Sam Seder about socialism, our conversation eventually turned to property.And in an effort to draw a clear distinction between capitalist and socialist perspectives, I framed it in a way that NOTES ON A FAILED SURVEY ABOUT SOCIALISM Perhaps there's a reason that it failed! If you caught my recent appearance on Majority Report — or if you happen to be one of the people who I contacted about it — you may recall that I have been working on a survey about socialism. Specifically, over the past few weeks, I have been asking wonks and media types the following four

questions:

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

offenders who

these debates

certain

ELEVEN WAYS TO IMPROVE TWITTER So here, in no particular order: eleven ways to improve Twitter. 1) LIMIT PUBLIC INFORMATION ABOUT A USER’S FOLLOWERS AND FOLLOWS. Displaying the count of a user’s total number of followers encourages clout-chasing. Displaying information about who a user follows encourages follow-policing. To fix both problems Twitter should restrict what NOBODY CARES ABOUT "WOKENESS" If all you had to go by was conversations in the media and statements by politicians, you would have to conclude that something called “wokeness” is the defining issue of our time. TWO CRITIQUES OF "THE LEFT" The concern-troll critique. The two conceptions of “left” spelled out above are indeed at odds. But opponents of capitalism must not, for some reason, insist that “left” refers exclusively to their politics, and that the champions of capitalism — liberals and progressive Democrats among them — A WORD ON PRIVATE AND PERSONAL PROPERTY Last Friday, when I appeared on The Majority Report to talk with Sam Seder about socialism, our conversation eventually turned to property.And in an effort to draw a clear distinction between capitalist and socialist perspectives, I framed it in a way that CARL BEIJERCARL BEIJERARCHIVE New Top What is Carl Beijer? The dark money behind right-wing "woke capitalism" rhetoric An anti-communist front-group for business PR staffed with Koch apparatchiks is running a major messaging campaign. Nobody cares about "wokeness" Yet another poll showing how detached

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

offenders who

these debates

certain

ELEVEN WAYS TO IMPROVE TWITTER So here, in no particular order: eleven ways to improve Twitter. 1) LIMIT PUBLIC INFORMATION ABOUT A USER’S FOLLOWERS AND FOLLOWS. Displaying the count of a user’s total number of followers encourages clout-chasing. Displaying information about who a user follows encourages follow-policing. To fix both problems Twitter should restrict what NOBODY CARES ABOUT "WOKENESS" If all you had to go by was conversations in the media and statements by politicians, you would have to conclude that something called “wokeness” is the defining issue of our time. TWO CRITIQUES OF "THE LEFT" The concern-troll critique. The two conceptions of “left” spelled out above are indeed at odds. But opponents of capitalism must not, for some reason, insist that “left” refers exclusively to their politics, and that the champions of capitalism — liberals and progressive Democrats among them — A WORD ON PRIVATE AND PERSONAL PROPERTY Last Friday, when I appeared on The Majority Report to talk with Sam Seder about socialism, our conversation eventually turned to property.And in an effort to draw a clear distinction between capitalist and socialist perspectives, I framed it in a way that

CARL BEIJER

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

Carl Beijer. About People. Writing on socialism, contemporary politics, and other things. Subscribe for full access to paywalled articles and more than five years of archives. You can email me at cwbeijer@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @carlbeijer. HIPPIE-PUNCHING 2021 A new twist on a very old right-wing smear. A line of criticism that’s popular in the discourse these days goes something like this: Some socialists smear their critics by pointing to a handful of reactionaries — the worst bigots, the most dangerous militants, and the most deranged conspiracy theorists — and pretending that all of

their

these debates

BERNIE'S LOSS, AND TWO THEORIES OF CAPITALISM The two dominant explanations tell us a lot about how people think about power. It has been about a year since Joe Biden won South Carolina in the 2020 primaries, marking the beginning of the end of the Sanders campaign. Since then, two competing explanations for his loss have come to dominate the discourse: The machine beat him.

Capitalism

stresses that

and

THE WOKE SEMANTICS PROJECT Moving forward, I’ll be using this post to keep track of innovative new uses of the word “woke”, if only to demonstrate that a process of semantic generalization is indeed taking place. Since this is going to be a sporadic and sometimes tedious project I won’t send out emails with every new update, but I’ll send out a tweet from NEERA TANDEN MUST DROP OUT It is only a matter of time until Neera Tanden’s bid to lead the Office of Management and Budget runs headlong into a wall of at least 51 Senators. Her fate was sealed the moment Democratic Senator Joe Manchin announced that he would cross party lines and join Republicans in opposing her nomination. As a courtesy, the White House has issued

CARL BEIJER

A substack on socialism and other things. Subscribe for full access! THE DATA FOR PROGRESS CABINET TRACKER UPDATE (11/23/2020) - Data for Progress has joined a few other groups in launching a petition against appointing Bruce Reed as the head of the Office of Management and Budget. While they are likely to spin this as a victory if Biden declines to do so, this would be a goalpost shift from the proposals floated in the Progressive Cabinet Project. ELEVEN WAYS TO IMPROVE TWITTER So here, in no particular order: eleven ways to improve Twitter. 1) LIMIT PUBLIC INFORMATION ABOUT A USER’S FOLLOWERS AND FOLLOWS. Displaying the count of a user’s total number of followers encourages clout-chasing. Displaying information about who a user follows encourages follow-policing. To fix both problems Twitter should restrict what WHAT IS THE POST LEFT? The Post Left is openly hostile to various factions that they lump together as “the left” — not just Democrats and liberals, but radical groups like anarchists and socialists as well. Rhetorically they adopt the bog-standard positioning of the self-identified independent: they are uniquely free-thinking equal-opportunity

offenders who

A WORD ON PRIVATE AND PERSONAL PROPERTY Last Friday, when I appeared on The Majority Report to talk with Sam Seder about socialism, our conversation eventually turned to property.And in an effort to draw a clear distinction between capitalist and socialist perspectives, I framed it in a way that WHAT'S NEW ABOUT THIS GOP "REALIGNMENT"? This is the same coalition conflict Republicans have dealt with for decades. Matt Stoller says that “There’s disdain for paying attention to debates on the conservative side of the aisle, as if it’s all in bad faith.”. I suppose that this extremely vague statement is probably true. But I’ve paid very close attention to

these debates

TWO CRITIQUES OF "THE LEFT" The concern-troll critique. The two conceptions of “left” spelled out above are indeed at odds. But opponents of capitalism must not, for some reason, insist that “left” refers exclusively to their politics, and that the champions of capitalism — liberals and progressive Democrats among them — THE WOKE SEMANTICS PROJECT Moving forward, I’ll be using this post to keep track of innovative new uses of the word “woke”, if only to demonstrate that a process of semantic generalization is indeed taking place. Since this is going to be a sporadic and sometimes tedious project I won’t send out emails with every new update, but I’ll send out a tweet from SOME CLARIFICATIONS ON POLITICAL LABELS First, the ideology of capitalism. This is just the tangle of beliefs, narratives, unexamined assumptions, framings, etcetera that rationalize the global domination of capitalism: certain ideas about property, meritocracy, freedom, and so on. This ideology is ubiquitous around the world; in the United States, it’s shared by Republicans

and

CARL BEIJER

offenders who

A WORD ON PRIVATE AND PERSONAL PROPERTY Last Friday, when I appeared on The Majority Report to talk with Sam Seder about socialism, our conversation eventually turned to property.And in an effort to draw a clear distinction between capitalist and socialist perspectives, I framed it in a way that WHAT'S NEW ABOUT THIS GOP "REALIGNMENT"? This is the same coalition conflict Republicans have dealt with for decades. Matt Stoller says that “There’s disdain for paying attention to debates on the conservative side of the aisle, as if it’s all in bad faith.”. I suppose that this extremely vague statement is probably true. But I’ve paid very close attention to

these debates

and

CARL BEIJER

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

Carl Beijer. About People. Writing on socialism, contemporary politics, and other things. Subscribe for full access to paywalled articles and more than five years of archives. You can email me at cwbeijer@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @carlbeijer. TWO STRATEGIES FOR DEFENDING FREE SPEECH There are two strategies for defending free speech. Since everyone who reads this lives under the ideological domination of liberalism, it’s easy to conclude that there is only one strategy for defending free speech — the liberal strategy — and that this is the only possible strategy.Which explains why, if you don’t buy into the liberal strategy, liberals will conclude that you simply HIPPIE-PUNCHING 2021 The new hippie-punching. For decades after Vietnam, the right insisted that the entire liberal-left shared the same basic ideology — and not just the same ideology, but the same basic culture, the same basic lifestyle, and even the same basic personality. At heart, they were all just weird countercultural hippies. WHAT'S NEW ABOUT THIS GOP "REALIGNMENT"? This is the same coalition conflict Republicans have dealt with for decades. Matt Stoller says that “There’s disdain for paying attention to debates on the conservative side of the aisle, as if it’s all in bad faith.”. I suppose that this extremely vague statement is probably true. But I’ve paid very close attention to

these debates

stresses that

and

THE CONFUSED CASE AGAINST "WOKE CAPITALISM" If you want to know what the right means when it rails against “woke capitalism,” I think the core argument emerges from statements by two Republican Senators. FOUR KINDS OF "CANCELLATION" Share. Recently, I wrote about how incoherent the discourse on cancel culture has become. In an effort to impose some minimal degree of clarity on this conversation, I’d like to categorize what we often refer to as “cancellation” into four different types: A) Government censorship, firings, bannings, editorial decisions, and

other

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

A substack on socialism and other things. Subscribe for full access! THE DATA FOR PROGRESS CABINET TRACKER UPDATE (11/23/2020) - Data for Progress has joined a few other groups in launching a petition against appointing Bruce Reed as the head of the Office of Management and Budget. While they are likely to spin this as a victory if Biden declines to do so, this would be a goalpost shift from the proposals floated in the Progressive Cabinet Project. HIPPIE-PUNCHING 2021 The new hippie-punching. For decades after Vietnam, the right insisted that the entire liberal-left shared the same basic ideology — and not just the same ideology, but the same basic culture, the same basic lifestyle, and even the same basic personality. At heart, they were all just weird countercultural hippies. WHAT IS THE POST LEFT? The Post Left is openly hostile to various factions that they lump together as “the left” — not just Democrats and liberals, but radical groups like anarchists and socialists as well. Rhetorically they adopt the bog-standard positioning of the self-identified independent: they are uniquely free-thinking equal-opportunity

offenders who

these debates

NOBODY CARES ABOUT "WOKENESS" If all you had to go by was conversations in the media and statements by politicians, you would have to conclude that something called “wokeness” is the defining issue of our time. ELEVEN WAYS TO IMPROVE TWITTER So here, in no particular order: eleven ways to improve Twitter. 1) LIMIT PUBLIC INFORMATION ABOUT A USER’S FOLLOWERS AND FOLLOWS. Displaying the count of a user’s total number of followers encourages clout-chasing. Displaying information about who a user follows encourages follow-policing. To fix both problems Twitter should restrict what TWO CRITIQUES OF "THE LEFT" The concern-troll critique. The two conceptions of “left” spelled out above are indeed at odds. But opponents of capitalism must not, for some reason, insist that “left” refers exclusively to their politics, and that the champions of capitalism — liberals and progressive Democrats among them — CARL BEIJERCARL BEIJERARCHIVE New Top What is Carl Beijer? The dark money behind right-wing "woke capitalism" rhetoric An anti-communist front-group for business PR staffed with Koch apparatchiks is running a major messaging campaign. Nobody cares about "wokeness" Yet another poll showing how detached

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

A substack on socialism and other things. Subscribe for full access! THE DATA FOR PROGRESS CABINET TRACKER UPDATE (11/23/2020) - Data for Progress has joined a few other groups in launching a petition against appointing Bruce Reed as the head of the Office of Management and Budget. While they are likely to spin this as a victory if Biden declines to do so, this would be a goalpost shift from the proposals floated in the Progressive Cabinet Project. HIPPIE-PUNCHING 2021 The new hippie-punching. For decades after Vietnam, the right insisted that the entire liberal-left shared the same basic ideology — and not just the same ideology, but the same basic culture, the same basic lifestyle, and even the same basic personality. At heart, they were all just weird countercultural hippies. WHAT IS THE POST LEFT? The Post Left is openly hostile to various factions that they lump together as “the left” — not just Democrats and liberals, but radical groups like anarchists and socialists as well. Rhetorically they adopt the bog-standard positioning of the self-identified independent: they are uniquely free-thinking equal-opportunity

offenders who

these debates

NOBODY CARES ABOUT "WOKENESS" If all you had to go by was conversations in the media and statements by politicians, you would have to conclude that something called “wokeness” is the defining issue of our time. ELEVEN WAYS TO IMPROVE TWITTER So here, in no particular order: eleven ways to improve Twitter. 1) LIMIT PUBLIC INFORMATION ABOUT A USER’S FOLLOWERS AND FOLLOWS. Displaying the count of a user’s total number of followers encourages clout-chasing. Displaying information about who a user follows encourages follow-policing. To fix both problems Twitter should restrict what TWO CRITIQUES OF "THE LEFT" The concern-troll critique. The two conceptions of “left” spelled out above are indeed at odds. But opponents of capitalism must not, for some reason, insist that “left” refers exclusively to their politics, and that the champions of capitalism — liberals and progressive Democrats among them —

CARL BEIJER

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

A substack on socialism and other things. Subscribe for full access! TWO STRATEGIES FOR DEFENDING FREE SPEECH There are two strategies for defending free speech. Since everyone who reads this lives under the ideological domination of liberalism, it’s easy to conclude that there is only one strategy for defending free speech — the liberal strategy — and that this is the only possible strategy.Which explains why, if you don’t buy into the liberal strategy, liberals will conclude that you simply HIPPIE-PUNCHING 2021 The new hippie-punching. For decades after Vietnam, the right insisted that the entire liberal-left shared the same basic ideology — and not just the same ideology, but the same basic culture, the same basic lifestyle, and even the same basic personality. At heart, they were all just weird countercultural hippies. WHAT'S NEW ABOUT THIS GOP "REALIGNMENT"? This is the same coalition conflict Republicans have dealt with for decades. Matt Stoller says that “There’s disdain for paying attention to debates on the conservative side of the aisle, as if it’s all in bad faith.”. I suppose that this extremely vague statement is probably true. But I’ve paid very close attention to

these debates

stresses that

BERNIE'S LOSS, AND TWO THEORIES OF CAPITALISM Since then, two competing explanations for his loss have come to dominate the discourse: The machine beat him. Capitalism creates an endless gauntlet of systematic and deliberate obstacles to socialism and the Sanders campaign was simply unable to overcome its superiority in resources and its control of strategically crucial institutions. An A WORD ON PRIVATE AND PERSONAL PROPERTY Last Friday, when I appeared on The Majority Report to talk with Sam Seder about socialism, our conversation eventually turned to property.And in an effort to draw a clear distinction between capitalist and socialist perspectives, I framed it in a way that NOTES ON A FAILED SURVEY ABOUT SOCIALISM Perhaps there's a reason that it failed! If you caught my recent appearance on Majority Report — or if you happen to be one of the people who I contacted about it — you may recall that I have been working on a survey about socialism. Specifically, over the past few weeks, I have been asking wonks and media types the following four

questions:

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7/29/19

MEDICARE FOR ALL'S OPPONENTS ARE PLAYING LANGUAGE GAMES BECAUSE THEY

ARE LOSING

The public loves Medicare because it is a reliable government program, in contrast to private insurance, which is unreliable. But Neera

Tanden argues

that

"Medicare for All" is misleading, since one can supplement Medicare's government coverage with private coverage.

7/22/19

YET ANOTHER STUDY DEBUNKS THE POPULAR "BIASED ELECTORATE" MYTH Conventional wisdom on the liberal-left holds that bias among voters is so prevalent that it creates a disadvantage at the polls for women and people of color running for office. The numbers, however, beg to differ. In _The Electability Myth_, a new study of the 2018 US election, The Reflective Democracy Campaign (RDC) has found that other groups have a slight _advantage _over white men among the voters - and systematic _disadvantages _that have historically kept them off the

ballot.

7/19/19

SOCIALISM ISN'T THE OPPOSITE OF LIBERALISM - AND IT ISN'T LIBERALISM

2.0, EITHER.

Ideologically, capitalism relies on one simple proposition: that property can be held privately. As Marx put it, all criticism of capitalism "is ultimately reducible to criticism of private property as a barrier and obstacle" to collective management. It is the right of private property that the bourgeoisie exercises in its control of the means of production, and in its accumulation of capital; it is the right of private property that denies the rest of us access to the commonwealth. With private property, capitalism inevitably follows; without private property, capitalism cannot survive.

7/12/19

LIBERTARIANS ALWAYS TRY TO CO-OPT THE LEFT. WHY HAVEN'T WE LEARNED

FROM THIS?

There's a simple way to recognize how class struggle is demoted to a secondary concern among the US left: look at how we fight other forms of oppression, and consider how it would look if we fought capitalism the same way. Sometimes you see parallels - for example, in left organizations that exclude avowed capitalists just as they exclude avowed racists and sexists - but quite often you see clear

double-standards.

7/8/19

GLOBAL GREEN NEW DEAL MEDIA ROUNDUP Some coverage of my new paper for People's Policy Project, The Global

Green New Deal

:

* The Katie Halper Show

* The Discourse

with

@PrettyBadLefty

* Left Anchor

with Ryan

Cooper

* We Have to Finance a Global Green New Deal - Or Face The

Consequences

,

The Intercept

* AOC’s Green New Deal Is Just the Start. Next Let’s Make It

Global

,

Truthout

Also, don't miss my follow-up post: The Global Green New Deal: Towards A Socialist Strategy

!

I'll be updating this list as more coverage appears.

7/4/19

CAN'T STOP ALIENATION BY TRYING TO END AUTOMATION An extraordinary amount of our interactions with other humans takes place in the context of economic activity - while we are consuming, working, conducting transactions, exploiting labor, and so on. And because these activities proceed according to the rules of capitalism, capitalism exercises a profound influence on our social lives. When I am shopping and I strike up a conversation with a service employee, for example, the rules of capitalism impose a powerful incentive on the way they respond to me: they need to try to get some of my money

for their boss.

7/3/19

DAILY POLLING DRAMA ISN'T TEACHING YOU A THING Seven polls of the Democratic primaries that have rolled out since the

most recent debate:

7/1/19

THE OLIGARCHS WON'T GIVE YOU PEACE George Soros and Charles Koch have announced "a new foreign-policy think tank" - the Quincy Institute - that "will promote an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing." What can we actually

expect?

6/26/19

ARE SANDERS SUPPORTERS ACTUALLY EQUATING ELIZABETH WARREN WITH

HILLARY CLINTON?

There's a curious tension in Liza Featherstone's new piece in Jacobin

on Elizabeth Warren

.

6/26/19

THE GLOBAL FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE WILL COST TRILLIONS - NOT

BILLIONS

While the reception to my Global Green New Deal paper with People's Policy Project was overwhelmingly positive, I noticed three trends that confirmed a longstanding suspicion:

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CARL BEIJER

CARL BEIJER

these debates

their

offenders who

out

CARL BEIJER

CARL BEIJER

these debates

their

offenders who

out

CARL BEIJER

CARL BEIJER

stresses that

(though not alwa

questions:

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

offenders who

these debates

certain

media discourse is

CARL BEIJER

offenders who

these debates

certain

CARL BEIJER

media discourse is