Famed Yale business guru Jeffrey Sonnenfeld said America’s top tycoons are freaked out by Trump’s ‘Maoist’ MAGA movement — despite some executives’ ‘Dear Leader’ praise in public
Aight, so Imma put on my grad school hat for a minute. ‘Maoism’ as a term, isn’t stuff Mao did, or things that happened in China in that period. Heck, it doesn’t really even come from Asia.
Maoism, or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, is an ideology which proclaims itself to be the next stage in the development of Marxism, and was codified, largely, by the Communist Party of Peru (Sendero Luminoso), and the network of parties that it a part of, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.
It’s called Maoism because the PCP and the RIM were grappling with the legacy of the Chinese revolution, the Sino-Soviet Split, the Reform and Opening Up under Deng Xiaoping, etc.
Think of it like this, Jesus Christ was not a Christian. Jesus was a Jew, responding to the context of first century Roman Judea. Other people came along later, had a bunch of ideas about what the legacy of Jesus was, and what came out of that was Christianity. But if you hopped in your time machine and asked Jesus if he was a Christian, he would not have known what that meant.
Similarly, Marx was not a Marxist, Lenin was not a Leninist, etc. Other people had a lot of ideas about the legacies of these people, their ideas, and the revolutionary movements that they were apart of, and what develops are these ideological lineages.
So Maoism asserts that, for example, the experiences of the Mass Line, and Cultural Revolution (or at least the idea that class struggle persists under Socialism) from the Chinese experience, are universal lessons, applicable anywhere. Rather than being specific to China.
There’s more to it than that. But I really want to make it clear that Maoism is more than just “and then we kill all the sparrows and our grain harvest will collapse!”
So no, not close enough. We don’t get to throw around words, if we claim to care about opposing fascism. Don’t make me pull out the Sartre Quote.
We can, and should criticize the Trump admin, but we can do it in a way that doesn’t boil down to “what are we, a bunch of Asians?!”
If they make them into communists then they can beat them and continue doing capitalism instead of admitting that conservative ideologies are all backwards nonsense that have never been proven to work outside of interactions made up by people who are consistently wrong about everything.
The problem being that for many people (including my own ex, apparently, both to my and my kid’s utter shock), authoritarianism and communism/socialism are synonyms. For those folks who got fed the propaganda and had no real reason or desire to question it, that’s the characterization that works the best to communicate the threat.
For reference, an actual conversation:
“Man, Trump is going to make the U.S. a full-blown communist country”
[Me and Kid: Mouth agape, silence for about 5 seconds]: “I’m sorry, WHAT?”
“Yeah, you know, communist, like Russia was with Stalin”.
“…do you not know what communism is?”
“Yes, it’s when there’s an authoritarian dictator.”
“No, that’s authoritarianism.”
“Oh. I’ve never heard of that before.”
Yeah we know a large amount of the population has a middle school level intelligence and an elementary school ability to read. Doesn’t mean we got a cater to morons instead of publicly educating them.
True, but part of this is impact and speed. As an uneducated person, you can immediately grasp what’s intended here and why it’s bad. Takes longer, and probably time you guys in the U.S.* simply don’t have, to better educate folks to come to the same ultimate conclusion in large enough numbers.
Your education systems are widely gutted, general level of political knowledge is poor, and you have folks speed running to old school authoritarianism with the support of a lot of dumb people - and those folks are very close to the finish line. You. Don’t. Have. Time. I’m not saying I’m a fan but there’s a practical component to this.
*Noted that this is an assumption and you may not live in the U.S.
It was a very weird conversation. Most of the time I didn’t think about the education gap between myself and my ex, but that was one of (to be fair) maybe three times it was illustrated.
Credit where credit’s due, she’s pretty clever in most other respects, just not this stuff as much. And it’s not like I’m an expert myself, I just know the difference here 'cause school.
School didn’t teach me much of anything in regards to history, and my post-secondary education was in regards to buildings, not politics. I’ve never really understood the “education” argument when so many educated people I know are honestly pretty dumb save for the highly specific thing they’re trained in, and even then you can tell they were good enough at school to pass and that that doesn’t necessarily mean they can do their jobs well. School, in my experience, can even be quite difficult if you have a bad professor and go outside the bounds(I had mostly good ones and two that pretty much no student, or even some other professors, has ever truly liked but who unfortunately ran the program).
For me it’s about curiosity, mostly. I have plenty of gaps in my own knowledge but I try to actually learn stuff as I go.
These are very fair criticisms, and curiosity is key. It’s more about the opportunities to follow your curiosity/get exposed to ideas that may at first be outside of your interests. Formal education can facilitiate that well, but you’re right that it’s not the only way or the best way for everyone. Learning never stops.
“Maoist”? lol
So, is Trump gonna order executions of landlords now?
Yeah, I’m writing a thesis right now about actual Maoism, and like… Really? That’s the phrase they chose?
Words used to fucking mean something!
Well his policies are already responsible for hundreds of thousands of death, so close enough?
Aight, so Imma put on my grad school hat for a minute. ‘Maoism’ as a term, isn’t stuff Mao did, or things that happened in China in that period. Heck, it doesn’t really even come from Asia.
Maoism, or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, is an ideology which proclaims itself to be the next stage in the development of Marxism, and was codified, largely, by the Communist Party of Peru (Sendero Luminoso), and the network of parties that it a part of, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement.
It’s called Maoism because the PCP and the RIM were grappling with the legacy of the Chinese revolution, the Sino-Soviet Split, the Reform and Opening Up under Deng Xiaoping, etc.
Think of it like this, Jesus Christ was not a Christian. Jesus was a Jew, responding to the context of first century Roman Judea. Other people came along later, had a bunch of ideas about what the legacy of Jesus was, and what came out of that was Christianity. But if you hopped in your time machine and asked Jesus if he was a Christian, he would not have known what that meant.
Similarly, Marx was not a Marxist, Lenin was not a Leninist, etc. Other people had a lot of ideas about the legacies of these people, their ideas, and the revolutionary movements that they were apart of, and what develops are these ideological lineages.
So Maoism asserts that, for example, the experiences of the Mass Line, and Cultural Revolution (or at least the idea that class struggle persists under Socialism) from the Chinese experience, are universal lessons, applicable anywhere. Rather than being specific to China.
There’s more to it than that. But I really want to make it clear that Maoism is more than just “and then we kill all the sparrows and our grain harvest will collapse!”
So no, not close enough. We don’t get to throw around words, if we claim to care about opposing fascism. Don’t make me pull out the Sartre Quote.
We can, and should criticize the Trump admin, but we can do it in a way that doesn’t boil down to “what are we, a bunch of Asians?!”
Yes I’m sure the business major guy was conscious of the finer points of 1950s Peruvian Marxist-Leninist factionalism when they called him that.
He isn’t conscious of that because that guy is a fucking dipshit who should think before he opens his mouth.
If we care about opposing fascism, the we ought to use words responsibly.
Media really trying to get that red scare stuff to get people to dislike Trump. You got this and then there’s Harris calling Trump a commie.
If they make them into communists then they can beat them and continue doing capitalism instead of admitting that conservative ideologies are all backwards nonsense that have never been proven to work outside of interactions made up by people who are consistently wrong about everything.
The problem being that for many people (including my own ex, apparently, both to my and my kid’s utter shock), authoritarianism and communism/socialism are synonyms. For those folks who got fed the propaganda and had no real reason or desire to question it, that’s the characterization that works the best to communicate the threat.
For reference, an actual conversation:
“Man, Trump is going to make the U.S. a full-blown communist country”
[Me and Kid: Mouth agape, silence for about 5 seconds]: “I’m sorry, WHAT?”
“Yeah, you know, communist, like Russia was with Stalin”.
“…do you not know what communism is?”
“Yes, it’s when there’s an authoritarian dictator.”
“No, that’s authoritarianism.”
“Oh. I’ve never heard of that before.”
Yeah we know a large amount of the population has a middle school level intelligence and an elementary school ability to read. Doesn’t mean we got a cater to morons instead of publicly educating them.
If smart people are so smart, why aren’t they in charge?
Checkmate nerds!
True, but part of this is impact and speed. As an uneducated person, you can immediately grasp what’s intended here and why it’s bad. Takes longer, and probably time you guys in the U.S.* simply don’t have, to better educate folks to come to the same ultimate conclusion in large enough numbers.
Your education systems are widely gutted, general level of political knowledge is poor, and you have folks speed running to old school authoritarianism with the support of a lot of dumb people - and those folks are very close to the finish line. You. Don’t. Have. Time. I’m not saying I’m a fan but there’s a practical component to this.
*Noted that this is an assumption and you may not live in the U.S.
Wow…that’s just wild.
It was a very weird conversation. Most of the time I didn’t think about the education gap between myself and my ex, but that was one of (to be fair) maybe three times it was illustrated.
Credit where credit’s due, she’s pretty clever in most other respects, just not this stuff as much. And it’s not like I’m an expert myself, I just know the difference here 'cause school.
School didn’t teach me much of anything in regards to history, and my post-secondary education was in regards to buildings, not politics. I’ve never really understood the “education” argument when so many educated people I know are honestly pretty dumb save for the highly specific thing they’re trained in, and even then you can tell they were good enough at school to pass and that that doesn’t necessarily mean they can do their jobs well. School, in my experience, can even be quite difficult if you have a bad professor and go outside the bounds(I had mostly good ones and two that pretty much no student, or even some other professors, has ever truly liked but who unfortunately ran the program).
For me it’s about curiosity, mostly. I have plenty of gaps in my own knowledge but I try to actually learn stuff as I go.
These are very fair criticisms, and curiosity is key. It’s more about the opportunities to follow your curiosity/get exposed to ideas that may at first be outside of your interests. Formal education can facilitiate that well, but you’re right that it’s not the only way or the best way for everyone. Learning never stops.
If that happens he has my utmost support. I would buy 5 overpriced maga huts in a heartbeat
I know one he could start with.