Anti-Capitalist Fake-ism

it's funny when you hear someone speak - he doesn't sound at all as I'd imagined. Not a great lecture though...

Hmm. I found it reasonably cogent, suggestive more than anything else maybe, but he kind of makes that clear at the start of the talk. He's basically saying that there's pernicious psychological processes at work in the acting out of managerialism writ large, and trying to articulate that there's something paradoxical about bureaucratic processes generally in which efficiency is the supposed object but where box-ticking creates pointless work for everyone involved.

grizzleb said:

there's something paradoxical about bureaucratic processes generally in which efficiency is the supposed object but where box-ticking creates pointless work for everyone involved.

Click to expand...

Sounds reminiscent of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:

In any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

Click to expand...

Heard of it on here first - might have been quoted by vimothy, can't remember.

I had no idea that Zhao had "personal differences" with K-punk. This thread completely passed me by.

Yeah I think you're right really. Just saying that it's not really very difficult what he's saying, whether it's particularly insightful is another matter.

Dunno, quite enjoyed that talk. He's much better sounding human than he is generously handing down pearls of indisputable wisdom from his blog. I liked the stuff about depression - fits in quite well with the thing that Comelately linked to with Ziziek saying that the emergence of buddhism as a coping mechanism in the business world (and elsewhere) is a result of and problem with capitalism. I'm not sure I'm completely sold on either argument but I reckon there is probably a grain of truth in each case. Some people surely are being told that their refusal to accept the parts of the modern world they don't like is a symptom of a psychological disorder. Although I'm sure that's not the reason for all psychological disorders. I suppose it's not a particularly new claim either.
Whether now really is a unique chance for a new system though... not convinced but he has to either say that or give up, which is pretty impossible for him to do cos it would mean embracing the capitalist real he's just railed against.

i think there's a strong link to the thread on religion/Dawkins. Capitalism is modern-day religion in the West, in the sense that it's the organising principle for everything, and in that provides the limits of most people's worldviews (it is a struggle to think outside it, those who protest are treated in much the same ways as heretics/disbelievers are in 'traditional religion'; definitely asserting that they are mad/psychologically imbalanced is one part of this treatment)

heh