Sorry for my lack o’ updates—as well as all o’ the poetry in crippled Spanish. The bourgeoisie have tampered with my computer so that it becomes overheated with the passion o’ the upcoming sexy revolutions, so I can’t use it as much till I get that fixed.

But I have to discuss a few quality crimes o’ writing I’ve seen recently—recently being, for my slow work, last month:

I.

1st, this will be the last time I discuss Noah Smith’s fine work, but I feel like this synthesizes my commentary on his & Mankiw’s work. Smith recently wrote ’nother article jerking off economics, this time making up some faux-nerdy term to show how valiantly economics has avoided being taken up by the vile left & right¹. In this case he focuses on our friends, the Austrian-schoolers, ’cause they’re not clever ’nough to hide their biases.

What Smith fails to realize is that that’s simply ’cause nobody wants economics: both the left & the right build populist support by bashing economics, which everyone can agree has failed either by being too left, too right, centrist—whatever ideology one most despises. The point is, we all know economists suck ’cause they’ve done nothing but fail for the past few decades. The only people who defend economists are economists themselves—since they still need an ’scuse for all that phat loot.

Typically, throughout this rant he defends economics purely on the basis that it is purportedly “left-wing”—whatever vapid meaning he grants that empty term. & yet, @ the same time, he argues that mainstream economics has already co-opted Austrian-school ideology. So, ’gain, Smith shows that he doesn’t e’en read his own work or is deliberately trying to mess with his readers’ minds, since none o’ his shit makes sense, yo. Mo’ than likely, he is attempting to do that double-sided self-praise that pundits always do wherein they praise themselves for being successful in the mainstream while also pitying themselves for not being completely successful. You may recognize it as the same rhetoric Forbes used when they tried to show that capitalism was both triumphant & nonexistent, ’cause everything’s socialist now. It’s a universal technique, as it’s important to make one’s disciples feel urgent ’nough to act gainst a powerful threat while not discouraging them.

The truth is that, as the study that Smith misinterprets shows, economists are biased in favor o’ centrism, ’cause that’s the least controversial, & thus the 1 that’s most likely to make them appear smart to the most people, since everyone only thinks those who already agree with them are smart. If economists are starting to turn leftward, it’s only ’cause that’s what the media’s already turning toward. Notably, Smith can’t ’splain why economists are now turning leftward, other than that it’s what the hip people do, since that seems to be what Smith considers to be most important. For instance, his criticism for Post-Keynesians in his li’l bestiary² is purely based on their not agreeing with him, without ’splaining why they—or anyone—should.

But the problem with economists like Smith has nothing to do with them being “mainstream” or “left-wing” or “right-wing”; their problem is something probably far mo’ heartbreaking to pseudonerds like Smith: that they’re just plain dumb. We can see this by the childish rhetorical games that Smith—as well as e’en mo’ respected economists, like Mankiw—use that wouldn’t e’en pass a freshman logic class.

I also love his parting sentence, which shows the kind o’ mental cancer economists must harbor:

Econ’s relatively strong resistance to political sci-jacking is not inconsistent with its recent leftward turn.

See, there’s a huge difference ’tween an “objective science” twisting coincidentally with the media’s tide o’ political views & the vulgar public media twisting economics toward their views—namely that economists still have their privileged & paid status in the former.

II.

Speaking o’ dumb, let’s take ’nother gander @ 1 o’ the many churches o’ America’s other mindless theology, vapid positivity, & read an article from Careerealism. In this case we have ’nother #’d list for tips on how to defeat one’s fears o’ failure. Who wants to bet none o’ the tips are useful & are, in fact, meaninglessly abstract &/or logically impossible?

We can see that this article’s writer has perfected the craft o’ terrible writing by her logical blunders right @ the 1st paragraph (after a photo representing the trite metaphor o’ a boxer—’cause nobody on the internet has a speck o’ creativity anymo’):

Everyone fears failure, especially as adults. Think about it: As a kid, you made mistakes and you had some failures. So, naturally, as an adult, you don’t want to experience those negative feelings associated with failing again.

Wait: so adults ’specially fear failure ’cause… they hated failure when they were kids? Then logically, kids fear failure just as much, if not mo’. Granted, I would agree that adults would logically fear failure mo’, since they usually don’t have nearly as strong a safety net as kids; but mentioning that would be authentic realism, so, ’course, nary a word is typed on that issue.

The 2nd paragraph uses the website’s own CEO as a source. By this point I think calling capitalism “prostitutionalism” would be just as accurate.

Clearly these go from best to worst, ’cause the 1st is a hoot:

Get a piece of paper and list everything you’re afraid of in your life and career. Are you afraid of failing, having people laugh at you, or having people judge you? No matter what it is you’re afraid of, write it down, and get it out there.

Here’s the fun part: Once you’ve written down all of those fears, crumple up that piece of paper and throw it away!

1st tip: act like a 4-year-ol’. Yes, that’ll show all those villainous fears!

I don’t know if I should be disturbed if this advice involves violence, e’en gainst inanimate objects, or glad that it advises fearful Americans to commit violence gainst inanimate objects, ’stead o’ just lower-class people, as is their custom.

Actually, if the advice were, “Shoot that sonoabitch crumpled paper! Show ’em whose boss!” that’d be hilariously badass. It’d be like that skit with Elmer Fudd shooting the baseball. You missed an ample opportunity as always, Careerealism.

The 2nd tip is either redundant or illogical; I can’t tell ’cause Careerealism’s writers use vague diction like “own,” ’cause they’re shitty writers. If it means, “admit you have fears,” then it’s redundant, ’cause the only reason someone would be reading this article—’less they’re like me & enjoy visiting the Menckenian zoo—is ’cause they’ve already admitted that they have fears. If that’s not what it means, then I have no idea what it’s s’posed to mean—& I have a sense that its writer doesn’t, either.

The 3rd advice is also vague, as well as filled with obnoxious emphasis using all-caps. “Do something!” has always been the rallying cry o’ the vapid middle-class who want to feel wise without putting in any effort—middle-class people being utterly unaccustomed to putting effort into anything.

OK, the 4th tip is literally, “Control What You Can Control.” Now we’re breaking into Poe’s Law. You don’t need to tell Americans to control as much as they can—those power-hungry narcissists want to control everything they possibly can. Better advice would be to tell Americans to stop trying to control things for once—well, ’cept that they wouldn’t listen, ’cause it wouldn’t be in their interests.

Footnotes:

Lo hice de nuevo:

en la medianoche tiré de la cadena.

Ahora los ruidosos demonios se han liberado,

y despertarán los cánceres

en los intestinos de todo que amo.

Yo me daría una bofetada

si no significaría que yo me haga tocarme.

¡Que repugnancia!

Lo siento…

Yo no había querido reír a tu cara.

Sólo estaba pensando de la posibilidad de comer todo un bloque de queso para cena,

que nada sino un bloque de queso.

Crees que no podía hacerlo, ¿No?

Crees que derribar a la burguesa de la cena

haría demasiado radical para mí,

que no yo podía llevar tan radicalismo.

Pues, equivocas.

En realidad, derribo la burguesa todas las veces,

que incluso sólo para divertido.

¿Cómo te gustan esos martillos?

Apuesto a que los comes con mantequilla todas las noches, ¿No?

Claro que sí…

Claro que sí…

Se derrocha una otra cebolla.

Pienso muchas veces de los oportunidades perdidos…

Pienso de los tacos comería…

Incluso las veces que yo chapoteaba el carne y el queso en mí mismo.

Y pienso de todos los sitios del web pude leer…

He dicho demasiado.

Estos secretos no deberían escaparse en el mundo fuera como las virutas derramadas, nunca.

Prometeme que no lo dirás a nadie.

Si liberas los piedras en el mar verde,

me hará añicos en tu suelo

y hará un desorden grande.

¿Es lo que querrías?

¿Querrías que tiriten todos los invitados como el papel

por la vista del charco de piel en tu suelo?

Eres una mala persona, ¿lo sabes?

No quiero que te quedes en mí cómodo cómoda no más.

Sé lo que estás haciendo.

Y no me gusta.

Kitty-kitty cat,
you are very bad;
you have blood on your whiskers,
give me my arm back.

♪ O, O, O, homeless woman eating snow… ♫
“Shut up, hippie!
Can’t you see I’m trying to eat my Doughie-Os?
I can’t eat my Doughie-Os when your moaning
makes my stomach shrank.”
♪ Some kids have to eat their feet for midnight snacks… ♫
“Ack! Now you’ll done did it:
now my eyes & nose are full o’ liquid.
I’ll ne’er get ’em out;
I’m suing you for the whole gout.”
♪ The moon ne’er shone me no love,
so I burned myself to death in the desert sun… ♫
“I don’t have to listen to this guff:
this bar was buttered bread till you scraped it too rough.
If you don’t give me back my veiny lung…
then I’m b-gonna take myself to ‘nother rug—
& it’ll be groovy orange like tangerines;
you can’t put that rage in your machine.”
♪ The lampshades are on fire & I’ve got nowhere to go… ♫
“Why don’t you sing ’bout problems people can relate to?—
like the itch on my toe.
They shouldn’t allow it to grew.
It just isn’t true…
O, puke stains!”

Everyone’ll dead died ’cause they skipped their Friday fire ‘scape lessons, being too busy with their boyfriend, Demetrius, whom they know doesn’t truly love them, but they’re just not ready to break it off just yet, just give them a few weeks to decide.

La casa está sombreado en el azul frió,
apoyaen los nubes de llamas rosas…
que pues, fue…
¿Ahora?
Ahora se frota
en todos los otros colores,
en el mismo negro.
Pero, no ten no miedo…
Volverá el día próximo.
Todas veces vuelve.
…
Pues, a menos que se demuela por una guerra nuclear.
No podemos tener todo.
¿Y por qué lo querías todo en todo caso?
¿Sabes que se incluye muchas cosas apestosas, sí?
Como la orina de alguien,
llena de la fragancia fresca del amoniaco.
¿Es esa lo que quieras?
¿Por qué estás jodido?
(O jodida,
no soy sexista.)
Alejeteme.
Esta iba un agradable poema
hasta que las hiciste las cosas extrañas.
Todas veces lo haces,
y es muy grosero.
Debería darte vergüenza.

Lluvia y fumo,
lluvia y niebla,
hacéis el invierno frío cálido.
Pues, a menos que por los sin casa,
los nervios llenos de escalofríos,
se están reducido pieza por pieza
por el frío de la lluvia mojada.
No se sentirán nada cálido
ni amor ni nada bien
jamás.
Ahora que lo pienso,
la lluvia, el fumo y la niebla son un poco pendejos.

Presenting WikiHow‘s “How to Be a Poet: 9 Steps (with Pictures”

But th’most inspiring part o’ th’sunset pic
Is the adorable li’l watermark.

Mainstream views o’ competition are baffling, probably due to the paradoxical nature o’ competition—it’s self-defeating nature.

What does “competitive” mean? It means that the conflict is fair. What is fair conflict? That in which the challenges to all parties are equal; & yet, the goal o’ competition is the opposite: to give oneself as many advantages over others as possible.

Prototypical competitions avoided this problem due to 1 variance from economic competition: limited periods. In prototypical competitions, like races, contestants start @ the same level—or @ levels meant to even people o’ different skills, which could be considered the “coddling liberal” version—& the contest ends @ a specific point.

Economics doesn’t work that way. Rather than starting & stopping @ specific points, it goes on forever, with different individuals starting—being born—& stopping—dying—a’least every minute. This ensures that any period but the very beginning o’ human existence has been rigged by the past & that any period will rig the future.

Thus the paradox o’ the idealistic form o’ competition—so-called meritocracy. Rather than being an enlightened fair fight where the superior succeed & the inferior fail, people become sponges off their own circumstance & use what advantages they start with to build mo’ advantages & mo’ power, making it so that the victors are not the superior, but those who are already victors.

Those with power also have power over the means with which one can gain power, & are wise ’nough to keep those means so that they benefit themselves.

• Politicians use their control o’ election systems to entrench themselves into positions even with low public support, such as through gerrymandering.

• Political parties use that same control to monopolize the election system, allowing them to collude through policy fixing. If Republicans & Democrats agree on a policy, they can eliminate the public’s control over whether that policy is implemented or not by eliminating the choice the parties don’t want entirely.

• Richer people use their superior economic power to give their preferred candidates superior political power—’gain, independent o’ public support—& thus use that political power to gain extra economic advantages, spinning a self-perpetuating cycle.

• Even without direct influence in politics, richer people can simply use their superior economic power to gain mo’ economic power by leveraging their power over the property needed to create resources. This is called “capital” or “usury,” & is oft defended as “time preference,” but ignores unequal economic origins that twist people’s gains ’way from their own action—& thus makes their gains unmeritorious.

Hence the absurdity o’ economists’ “perfect competition” theory¹,—which, to be fair, even most economists don’t take seriously—either worded so vaguely as to be meaningless or so paradoxical that it essentially requires a communist economic distribution to be valid.

The main definition I’ve seen falls into circular logic—as all visions from the church o’ the market inevitably do: when no participant is strong ’nough to control price. ’Course, whether prices are unequally controlled by any participants is defined by whether the market is truly competitive or not; thus, we have no concrete knowledge o’ whether any market is competitive or whether any prices are fair, leaving this definition a mere black hole o’ empty air as intelligent as the average postmodernist nonsense, saying nothing @ all.

Economists’ vague language hides the paradoxical requirements o’ perfect competition. They talk o’ “big #s” o’ participants so that they can hide in the gray area ’tween capitalism’s tendency toward having property controlled by a tiny minority—but 1 that can still be greater than just the uniform monopoly found in “communist” countries like North Korea—& perfectly decentralized access to the market: economic democracy, which is also “communist” through the magic o’ economics’ Orwellian language.

The paradox is the same: in order for conditions to be fair, they must be equal, so that we can make them unequal in a fair way, & thus end the very fair conditions necessary for tomorrow’s competition.

This is the summation o’ the requirements:

• Perfect info: perfect info requires equal access to info. But it’s the very market o’ the media that ensures that this isn’t the case—that assures that the rich have better access to info than poor people.

• No barriers to entrance or exit: As I mentioned, any lack o’ money or resources @ all counts as a barrier compared to one who lacks this lack, & thus this amounts to equal distribution o’ resources. ’Gain, like reverse-Marxists, neoclassicals argue that communism is the 1st step toward the glorious meritorious revolution o’ capitalism!

• 0 transport costs: O, come on! This 1’s obvious!

• Profit maximization: This doesn’t fit under my earlier point, but is still wrong, nevertheless.

• Homogenous products: I love how economists’ cure for capitalism is by tearing out its purported heart. 1 o’ the strengths o’ western capitalism in contrast to Soviet economics was the colorful creativity o’ its products caused by purported decentralized economic activity, as opposed to the generic gray sameness mindlessly manufactured by Soviet inc. Economists tell us that these gray samenesses will be necessary for true competition.

• All labor is equal: Remember how people—inaccurately (para 16)—mocked Marx for purportedly not believing in differences o’ skill in labor. Well, apparently that assumption is necessary for perfect competition as well.

• Property rights: Note that this doesn’t apply to people in the past. Native Americans can be robbed o’ almost all they own & forced to live with that destitution in the present; but we must protect the gains from that theft as ardently as possible.

• Rational buyers: Since we’re talking ’bout humans, we can throw this out immediately.

• No externalities: “Duh… What’s pollution?”

1 o’ the articles I linked claims that only a few economies or industries hold all o’ these. They must have a skewed view o’ economics—for 1, since industries all affect each other, it’s impossible to have a industry that exhibits all o’ these without all doing so as well, not to mention the aforementioned resource distribution problem & the deceptive quality o’ their vague language.

The fact is, perfect competition is the capitalist equivalent o’ communist Utopian fantasies. Much as communist Utopians would write out the conflict & complexities that come with the differences ’tween so many unique people, capitalist economists’ models—fiction stories if written by the shittiest writers in the world²—write out the complexities o’ interaction ’tween humans to push the fantasy o’ their imaginary benign capitalism.

Interestingly, ’mong that list I failed to notice the most common issue o’ competition that economists tend to obsess over, despite its unrealistic value…

Individualism & Competition

The Social Spencerists³ who conflate individuality & competition couldn’t be mo’ wrong: the best way to fail in the world is to forgo the competitive strength o’ collectivity. Whether it be government bureaucracies, corporations, political organizations, or labor unions, classes always succeed when they exploit their shared power to overpower those who are divided.

& despite the sneers @ Marxists, you can’t deny the results o’ its broad tenor o’ “class war”—also known as class competition: the most successful businesses are some o’ the most class conscious, not only in their ardor to connect themselves to any powerful entity—through mergers or investment in political campaigns—but also in their fear o’ the competitive loss from collective lower-class action, never by individualists. Meanwhile, no lower-class person has ever succeeded through individualism: they’ve either connected themselves to the upper-classes (mo’ beneficial but applicable to less people) or formed collective groups, such as unions or political parties (less beneficial but applicable to mo’ people). & despite economists’ criticism o’ labor unions, note the content o’ their criticism: workers in labor unions still benefit; it’s those who aren’t that purportedly suffer⁴. In essence: workers in unions have competitive advantages over those without unions, & thus unionization is still a wiser decision for the rational self-interest o’ those who unionize.

The individuality/collectivism dichotomy is as paradoxical as competition itself. The ol’ Smithist fable regurgitated by economists o’ widespread selfish individualism having altruistic outcomes for the public has the obvious contrast with collective action selfishly taking from others.

But wouldn’t the very selfishness that causes one to push one’s workers as low as possible also convince one to forgo the collective gain o’ individualism—spread thin—in favor o’ the individualist gain o’ collectivist action?

No surprise then that businesses prefer to collude with each other & governments; & no surprise that, in response, workers forgo sharing the gains o’ widespread individualism with corporations that refuse to do the same by forming collectives to get their own share o’ the pie. Much as vulgar socialists who criticize rich people & businesses for being selfish without examining the economic system that pushes them to do so, economists ignorant o’ concrete reality chide lower-class people for acting as any rational individuals would to maximize one’s self-interest through pushing their own wages higher @ the loss o’ collectively-inferior workers. Is it then no surprise that collectivism is so common in economics nowadays when the market proves time & time ’gain that it’s superior by rewarding it mo’ highly?

When the urge for collectivism is so strong in so many classes o’ people, how can the religion o’ individualism possible survive, much less thrive? Even those who claim to support it always sneak their hand in the cookie jar when they think nobody’s looking: a cursory search through websites like Source Watch shows the sheer # o’ “libertarian” think tanks with ties to politics & funded by numerous corporations—all for the collective goal o’ benefiting the general rich class’s rational self-interest.

& what’s to become o’ those who remain resilient in their support for individualism? How do they get power? How could they overpower the closely-connected, vast collectivists?

They can’t. Thus we understand why collectivism thrives & individualism dies: collectivism is stronger. Thus, all political & economic groups learn that they must either join the same collectivist flag or die. You can be sure that any pundit or businessperson successful ’nough to have their own books, TV shows, or other media consumed by the masses must’ve chosen collectivism, or else they wouldn’t have these things in the 1st place.

Indeed, when one thinks ’bout it, isn’t the market nothing but collectivist action? What is trade, the blood o’ the market, but scratching ’nother’s back for getting one’s own back scratched—collusion. In contrast, what is “collective” politics such as the lower-class public using their numeric superiority to enact welfare & regulation but them using their strength to compete with the rich. What could be mo’ entrepreneurial? Mo’ capitalist?

Market-thumpers will, ’course, complain that these money changes create no value; but doesn’t the Subjective Theory o’ Value tell us that we have no right to decide what is & isn’t valuable? Aren’t these economists being just as much “class warriors”?

Thus, to twist a quote from Mark Bevir: we are all collectivists now.

The sad thing is, I’ve probably only scratched the surface o’ what is surely the most broken conception o’ economics.

But can we blame economists? What are they s’posed to make o’ such a paradox? After all, we can’t just ignore competition; however paradoxical it may be, it’s very much real, hypocrisies & all. How do we deal with this irreconcilable conflict ’tween idealism—either creating an impossible perfect competition or eliminating competition entirely—& reality with its shitty version o’ competition?

As said in The Jungle, what should we fight for: something we want & can’t have or something we can have & don’t want?

Footnotes