Re: <nettime> EU == USSR v2.0 ?

[Geoffrey Goodell <goodell@oxonia.net>]

How is the EU seizing control of the means of production?  How is the EU
delegitimising the ownership of private property by private citizens?  When
last I checked, it was still possible to establish for-profit businesses in the
EU, and it was still possible for individual EU citizens to purchase goods from
Ka De We.  To say that the EU model incorporates elements of socialism is one
thing, to say that it is 'communism' is a bridge too far.

Historical analogies are useful, and there may be nothing new under the sun.
However, we also need to understand what is different this time.  For example,
it may be that the automation and centralised control made possible by modern
technology, whose effects include but are not limited to altering the balance
between fixed and variable costs, have substantively changed the nature of
manufacturing and services.  And now we see that regulators in many countries
in Europe and America seem powerless to stop private interests from setting the
rules and collecting their own kind of unaccountable taxes.

It may be useful to consider the various emerging models for regulation pursued
by the EU as a response to such effects rather than a repudiation of
capitalism.  In particular, much of information and communication technology
has become a form of infrastructure, and governments have so far failed to
fully determine and implement appropriate forms of regulation for this
infrastructure [1].  Many people have offered reasons for this, and I shall not
recount those arguments here.  For various reasons the EU regulators are
well-positioned to give it a go, and they deserve our support.

Best wishes --

Geoff

[1] Bob Frankston.  "Demystifying Networking."  http://rmf.vc/demystify

On Wed, Mar 27, 2019 at 02:05:16PM -0700, Morlock Elloi wrote:
> The arguments and narratives on EU don't really make much sense. Not that
> deeply entrenched sides do not have self-coherent dogmas, they do. But it
> all just doesn't make sense. There is a total disconnect between them and
> between them and reality, it seems. Immigration, sovereignty, neoliberalism,
> nationalism, etc. etc. ad nauseam, barren and fruitless drivel goes on and
> on. Especially in GB (why anyone cares so much what happens to the
> irrelevant inbred island is a separate topic) - intelligent people have to
> admit that they don't have a clue what Brexit-no-Brexit discourse is about.
> Not that it will prevent anyone to contributing.
> 
> Maybe, then, the real issue is completely different, and present discourses
> and narratives are simply psychotic avoidance of confronting it.
> 
> EU is really another attempt at communism.
> 
> Communism appears to be genetically attractive to large swaths of
> population, so it does come up and will continue to be coming up, one way or
> another. It's like when you are constipated - it *will* come out sooner or
> later, and you know it. The question is how much are you going to pretend
> and suffer in the meantime.
> 
> The first attempt, USSR, failed for known reasons. It did work in the
> beginning though. The same happened to EU. The really existing communism
> appears to be perishable matter.
> 
> The neurotic need to brand it as something else in the case of EU didn't
> change much, if anything. The pattern is unmistakeable: wide initial support
> from working class masses and honest intelligentsia, belief in transnational
> unity and rosy future, followed by corruption of officials and apparatchik
> system of government. In the post-mortem phase, flourishing of 'analysis'
> and bickering about the exact way the decay should proceed.
> 
> So don't be sorry about EU. Hopefully we learned something, and the next
> time it will be better. It *will* come out, again.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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