GTAA host Ben Burgis is a philosophy professor, a columnist for Jacobin magazine, and the author of a few books--starting with one with the same name as the podcast. He's debated right-wingers ranging from Charlie Kirk to Walter Block, appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience, and been called a "glib c*nt" by Gavin McInnes. Past GTAA guests have included Slavoj Žižek, Ana Kasparian, Richard Wolff, Glenn Greenwald, Sam Seder, Emma Vigeland, Jesse Singal, Norman Finkelstein, Thaddeus Russell, Bhaskar Sunkara, Nathan Robinson, David Pizarro, Tamler Sommers, Matt Christman, Amber Frost, and Touré Reed.
The regular show is at 8 PM EST on Mondays, with a postgame for GTAA patrons starting at 10. There are debate breakdowns at 8 EST every Thursday.
I realize this is two years ago for this video. I’m not sure what’s wrong with an adult in our society being able to do what they want to do as long as they don’t infringe of the rights of others. Is that really a bad idea? One of the problems here is the 40 year certification imposed by government. That provides an incentive to do nothing on maintenance until the 40th year. In this case there were owners who had been there since the building was built, new owners, and renters. No one wanted to spend a penny on maintenance until it was due per the government 40 year certification. Now the government has imposed a financial solution for the government presumed problem on every other condominium association in Florida. I doubt it will result in any actual maintenance being done instead it will just put a lot of money in reserve funds. No doubt some of those funds will be stolen and absconded with. In a libertarian system, there would be no government inspector instead insurance companies will inspect to control their liability. If the owners refused to repair and maintain their building, the insurance companies would withdraw coverage. That would put the pressure on the owners and the association to maintain the building. It would be a different system, but there would still be a system. Still in the United States buildings should not fall down in the middle of the night. Something was seriously wrong here.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine I'll remind the audience that we did it first. We were deeply involved in both the coup and the post-coup government. When Minsk and then Minsk 2 were negotiated, it was us that told the Ukrainians not to bother with it.
If I were monarch-CEO, I'd probably steal moldbug's lunch money. He can always just abandon everyone and everything he's ever known if he doesn't like it, and vote with his feet.
Lmao these tankie adjacent hypocrites would never make these arguments in regards to the Palestinians. The Ukrainians dont want to be wiped out by russian imperialism. But these red fascists stuck in 1960 think anyone tainted by US support deserves to die. These motherfuckers are cool with fascism as long as the fascists dont like the US. I cant imagine what these dipshits think about the YPG/YPJ.
You have to include your wants needs and depe desires if you want to be moral (this is basic psychic self regulation) ans you need to address limitations and constraints (which is part of what happens in any real economy like capitalism) if you want to have any real (and not merely fantasmic, pathological freedom)
With DB being all "oooh you're just so dumb if you think supporting Ukraine is a good thing, I'm just too tired to even argue about it to put forward an argument", what does he think about the Soviet Union arming North Vietnam against American aggression? Should Soviet dissidents have opposed that?
It seems to me there are two great difficulties faced by Marxian analysis. First is the problem of the 'organic' institution, the institution which forms by way of collective, disbursed, unintentional, and complex processes. Second is the subjective theory of value which calls into question the labor theory of value. Now language is an instance of the organic institution - an institution which is constantly changing - new words appear, older words disappear - yet no individual or even group can be identified as intentionally making such changes. This class of organic institutions includes money, markets, private property, and the price mechanism. What is termed 'capitalism' is contingent on the presence and interoperation of all four of these organic institutions. The crucial point is that an institution amalgamated from several organic institutions is itself organic. Foucault's term for this sort of thing is a strategy without a strategist. By this understanding then, capitalism ( not to be confused with crony capitalism where the state is used to further the interests of the corporation at the expense of the interests of the consumer and worker) is already the purest expression of democracy possible. The subjective theory of value inverts the order proposed by Marx. For Marx the value of a manufactured good is equal to the sum of the labor required to produce it. The subjective theory of value argues that the value of a good is the price the consumer will pay for it. The action - and crucially ONLY the action - of the entrepreneur causes this price to form. The entrepreneur then determines what he will pay for the factors of production in order to realize a certain profit margin - factors of production which include sub components and labor. Schematically the Marxist wants to use the state to strip the entrepreneur of his profit, a profit the Marxist has decided represents the alienated labor of the worker. To which the entrepreneur says fine - but don't think for one minute I'm going to go ahead with my business venture. This is the crux of the matter, the reason why economic activity is always stagnant in societies where Marxists have seized control. The Inclosure Acts Ben mentions at the end were the first crony capitalist use of state power, power used to force working class off the rural 'commons' and into the urban industrial barracks. The Bolsheviks, after seizing state power, used that power in a way which was the mirror image of the Inclosure Acts. It is very important to understand Bolshevism as a culminating reaction against crony capitalism. Land was redistributed from private landowners to collective farms, which was a major part of their economic policy. While the Marxists and the crony capitalists are in a pitched battle for control of the state, it is only the anarcho capitalist who seeks to dismantle state power in preference for the society ruled entirely by way of consumer choice. Now recall that the four constituent institutions of capitalism - money, markets, the price mechanism, and private property - each formed by way of the complex interactions of all with all, i.e. formed by the most democratic means possible. The resultant society is likewise the most democratic society possible, a society where billions of consumers ceaselessly cast billions of 'votes'. Contrast this with what Gore Vidal termed the 'duopoly' of party politics in which voting is held not moment to moment as it is in the market society but only every few years. Where in the market society the consumer has a million choices among producers in a state of very dynamic competition, the duopoly limits choice to two and where competition is much more in the form of words than in deeds.
No its not the same saying ur not a parent becsuse u adopted because they were not born as adopted parents but they were born a male or female ur argument is based on feelings and even the intersex3d is male/female they have both parts not 3 parts not 5 or 6 the have 2.
Matt Walsh: Obviously, regardless of income and credit score, if the banker sees a black name, they’ll assume that the applicant comes from a low-class background. Oh? And why is that, do you suppose? 🤨
Wait, so, Norton‘s response to the “some ppl can’t work” line is that we’d rely on some ppl being benevolent to cover their costs OR they can work? What he misses is the OBLIGATORY nature of helping those kinds of ppl (assuming we can, and as a nation, through taxation, of course we can). In other words, it isn’t MERELY A NICE THING TO DO; it’s something we are OBLIGATED to help with.
If God couldn't be bothered to protect Israel against various Invasions and its destruction, why should we? If you pull the bible for your justifications ... God himself doesn't want you there anymore.
this video is a modestly schizophrenic geopolitical analysis. "china lacks combat experience, and so needs to initiate a proxy war" "there is no hope for multi-polarity and so liberational forces shouldn't even try" get your school shooting, cities of homeless having, triple gun to population owning house in order.
This was very good, Ben. I'd also observe that the question of how much responsibility Apple had in creating the smartphone is a red herring. We could imagine an Apple that was owned and controlled democratically by its workers. The way in which that would be different than the Apple that we have in our world (at the time the iPhone was released) is the primacy of Steve Jobs and the board of directors. How much responsibility do they have for the integration of all of these technologies? How much of Apple's innovation comes from the primary share holders, versus people who work for a paycheck? EDIT: I think you hit on this when you started talking about Mondragon, etc. I hadn't finished watching the video when I wrote this. A+, Ben.
@35:00 I think there are some Israelis displaced from the North who technically are being terrorized. But otherwise, you make many good points, and I think this moral calculation that is being forced, either accept oppression and death or be pro-HZ is shit.
Why would small producers not work really? If we overcame the capitalist system, what would prevent people from, relatively, producing how they please?
Matt Walsh reminds me of Martin Scorsese in Taxi Driver. "Do you see the woman in the window? That's my wife. But I don't live there. You know who lives there? You wouldn't know. But do you know who lives there...."
Marx’s view of human nature is rooted in his concept of "species-being," contending that humans are naturally creative and social beings who are alienated from their true nature under capitalism. Marx argued that under capitalism, workers are estranged from their labor, the products they create, and their fellow workers, leading to alienation. For Marx, the resolution of this alienation would come through the abolition of private property and the establishment of a classless, communist society where people could fulfill their creative potential. Thorstein Veblen, however, had a more cynical view of human nature. He saw human behavior as largely driven by instincts, habits, and social emulation. In his view, people are motivated not by a desire for creative fulfillment or social solidarity, but by the desire for status and distinction. Veblen would say for instance, look, robert, you are writing all this in order to show us you are somehow a more enlightened, more cultivated individual, can lay claim to being a member of the cognoscenti. You're not fooling anyone other than yourself. This is exemplified in his theory of conspicuous leisure, where individuals engage in wasteful displays of leisure activities chief among them the composition of long, 'erudite', writings signaling their cultural and social status. According to Veblen, this tendency was not confined to the capitalist class but extended to all social classes, who sought to emulate the habits and lifestyles of those they perceive as above them in the social hierarchy. In this respect, Veblen critiqued Marx’s more idealistic vision of human nature and his faith in the ability of the proletariat to achieve revolutionary change. For Veblen, the pursuit of status and the habits of consumption were deeply ingrained in human behavior, and these social forces could not be easily eradicated through changes in the economic system. While Marx envisioned a future society where individuals could be free from the constraints of capitalism, Veblen was more skeptical, seeing capitalism as a system that appealed to basic human instincts and therefore was likely to persist. For Veblen, Marx and those who followed him had a tendency to mythologize the proletariat, to impute to it virtues such as industriousness and lofty values which first formed within Protestantism. Veblen acknowledges a class struggle but it is the struggle of all to try to pass themselves off as 'upper class' rather than a struggle of the proletariat against the capitalist.
