What do you think, Is he right?

money is power.
it does sound like that though- I instinctually expect someone describing capitalism as a "system" of "power relations", asked what those power relations are, to give a list something like: "class, white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity…"

… all stemming from the basic economic relationship to the MoP. This is a point no Marxist can abandon; without naming the origin of power we are back to the game of fighting micro-aggression, etc.

Why is he right, what are power relations other than relations between people with differing amounts of power.

structures are important as people who inhabit those structures and work in them to make decisions,

If the whole world was simply structures without agency, then why would anything ever change?

Occam's razor

Marxian thought does not deny agency, just that systematic structures often inform and direct agency: had Peter Alexeyevich Romanov been born a peasant, the reforms of his Russia never would have happened in that specific way, but the material conditions of Russia at the time mean that reforms like his would have still occurred.

They are ultimately different types of access to the means of production.

Depends on the Marxist school, really.

CEOs pull strings in rooms all of the time. People conspire every single day.

No he is 100% right.
Its not about people pulling the strings, the people pulling the strings do not cause the system. The system causes the people pulling the strings. Attacking the people pulling the strings is only a means to dismantling the system, not a goal in of itself.

No he's not. Listen to Parenti, you idiots.

youtube.com/watch?v=Jsua0m6GreY

Ok I agree here, but surely sometimes when you are educating people, it is neccessary to point out who is pulling the strings.

Let's say a man who is in charge of a company makes a decision to avoid tax. The system allows him to do this, for sure. However, if we discover this tax avoidance, is it better to say "the system did it" or "this man did it"?

Doesn't always blaming the system, in fact in a way keep the system alive? By not singling out people to blame, not scapegoats mind you, but those with power, then we leave (and others who see they got off free) to continue to abuse and use the system for their own ends.

my interpretation of what he writes is that there are individual bad capitalists, but ultimately the very structures and relations of capitalism are the issue, and leftists recognize this, whereas conspiracy theorists believe the issues stem from individual charcteristics of ”elites” or what will you.

Well the liberal choice is
The socialist choice is

No.
It doesn't matter if we punish them. It doesn't matter how hard we punish, it will keep happening. The problem is systemic, not "just a few bad apples". Even if we killed the CEO, it will still keep happening, the shareholders will cover their tracks and hire a scapegoat to take the blame. There is plenty of people willing to take a gamble like that for the millions CEO's get paid.

What the fuck is the CIA then you fucking retard?

see:

Constructive. Thanks for your excelenet contribution, refferencing a "readabook/watchavid" instead of giving your own reasoning.

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What's with cretins demanding "your own words/opinion" responses?

Saying readabook or watchavid in response to such a simple topic, instead of engaging with others, discussing ideas and growing the board by engaging other users, is bad.

The others are brainlets, their ideas are shit, and growth for the sake of growth is the idea of capitalism and cancer. Go watch the vid to be less retarded. Hope that helps.

I agree that the system is always the primary thing at fault and that the "bad apple" thesis is wrong.

BUT…that doesn't have to be mutually exclusive with naming people who profit and yes conspire within the system to do morally wrong things.

When someone kills someone, we hold that person to account, don't we?

So if someone is conspiring to defraud or to steal millions avoiding tax, shouldn't we also hold them to account?

It sure helps to stamp out the sparks of leftism in anyone you talk to, you arrogant cunt. You are what's wrong with the left. Replace "retard" with "shitlord" and you are no different from a reddit leftist.

You can hold them accountable, but you should put the focus on why they did it, not that this particular person did it.

ftfy

Parenti would bitchslap your lil destructive ass. Your kind is why the left is unable to grow.

could you at least summarise Parenti's argument for us.

Start arguing against Parenti any time.

If you are only able to tell people to read books and not explain it yourself, you will never convince anybody and get people to become leftists. You will only ever feel smug.

He just dumbed-down and explained Parenti's position for you, doofus. Your complaint is that he was too smug and not nice enough? Are you a leaf or something?

BE NICE DAMNIT

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the question is about cause and effect
conspiracists think that the cause is "bad guys turning the system bad", leftism should be about the system just doing what it needs to do to preserve itself
when you start to deny however that this self preservation doesn't reflect itself in antisocial psychopathic characteristics developing in the benefiting individuals that as well abuse their position of power for personal gain - which is an inherent problem of capitalism - and start to cry "antisemitism" about that, you're becoming an "antigerman" ideologue who attacks any form of anticapitalism and socialism as antisemitic

because he's a red liberal.

antigerman
they deny class and proclaim attacking the bourgeoisie as antisemite
their "socialism" only allows opposition to capitalism in the most abstract way imaginable

overthrow the system but don't touch the poor porky because that's antisemite

class interests invoke conspiracies
there is no contradiction

THIS

what is this meme?

Conspiracies are more relevant to political activity in 2018 than they've ever been. Elites are clinging to power while the system comes apart at the seams. Their ability to operate effectively and secretly is paramount to their hold on power.

a really pathetic and disgusting one
basically nazis larping as their own strawman of leftists

it goes like this:
"antinationalist" rather than internationalist
exception: Israel and USA
germans are a race of fascists
muslims are nazis too
class = reductionist and antisemite concept
but global conflict is race based and that's good
also antiimperialism is antisemitism, national liberation is fascism (sounds familiar? >>>Zig Forums )

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Owen Jones isn't anti-German though, he is just a redliberal (for once a very accurate description) who is trying to ride the Corbyn wave to make himself a name despite never being a support either ideologically or personally.

to be fair he does a lot of work supporting corbyn and labour. He just changes his views based on what's popular too many times.

he was also pro brexit, but when the left and liberals failed to come out for it, he declared himself for leave instead based on nothing but "brexit will embolden the right"

from what he's spouting there's no difference between him and antigerman ideology
even "left"Zig Forumsacks don't describe themself as antigerman, but the essence of it is clearly based on the same ideas

Occams Razor was designed to crush critical thinking.

If the most simple answer was true, we would've never found out about the Bush Admin lying to use about WMD.

t. doesn't understand Occam's Razor

The problem with Occam's razor is that people misrepresent what it means constantly, it says the best theory is the one that makes the fewest assumptions, not necessarily the simplest one. You can have a theory that makes very few assumptions but is otherwise extremely complex.

Nah he is doing it for his own fame and celebrity: I have no issues with sucdems coming onto the Corbyn project, since they tend not to be the Rosa Murdering type, but Jones can fuck right off back to his guardian op-ed wanking conservatory.
On a related note, porky is really fucking scared: twitter.com/Telegraph/status/980136933849432064
The torygraph got its moniker for a reason, but it was a "respectable" source of news.

youtube.com/watch?v=n4yyFg8dhPE

Owen Jones does not follow marxian class analysis (he talks about class in the liberal sense, not the marxian sense) but he is hardly anti-nat nor is he some apologist for Israel and America. He is detestable but not for being a british anti-German.
Also on another note, the Times did polling of the lab membership: they found that Lab members' views on Israel, Russia, Iran, the US and China were all pretty much the same: that by a large margin the are "forces for bad in the world". The UK is like 50-30 bad vs good, roughly the same for Germany and the other state was Sweden which obviously was like 90-something for good.

WTF I love capitalism

Nice summary.
Now give me some parenti books faggot

To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia
youtube.com/watch?v=ApaMIJiOt-c

What can be fucking easier than watching a video? Even illiterate people can watch it and listen to what Parenti has to say. You have no fucking excuse.

capitalism involves power relations

< dogma OK

people with power may be abusing it

< Conspiracy theory!

some porkies are obviously pulling strings

< Anti-semitism!

I didn't even mention Jews

< Triple Nazi!

one of them's a Muslim

< B&! WE'LL HAVE NONE OF THAT MATE

his boss owns your newspaper

< TRIPLE B&

OY YOUI ARRR AN ANTAY SHEMITE!

this is a good topic, what are some other good articles, quotes, videos etc on people vs structure?

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I don't like Anti-Germans but this is a complete misrepresentation of their views. They still support anticapitalism and class struggle, what they do however is distort theory regarding nationalism and antisemitism (Adorno, Horkheimer, Postone, etc) in support of American and Israeli imperialisms.

Of course he is right. Cospiracy is for absolute brainlets who searched for the truth, where led away from marxism by the capitalist class, and found some crap.

Only class analysis is a real analysis.

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The jewish guy in that picture always looks so strange to me. He looks like a spaceship captain or something, not a jew.

Not really.

Capitalism is a system of power relations, and there are shadowy groups of individuals pulling the strings. The latter doesn't lend itself to anti-Semitism, but 'shadowy individuals' want anyone who notices it to blame the Jews (or Satan, etc.) instead of the bourgeoisie and government leaders as a whole. What could be somewhat contradictory here under certain circumstances (but under reasonable ones, isn't really) is that this acknowledges that even capitalism is worse than it necessarily has to be, as various original anti-feudal safeguards of capitalist society have been gradually eroded to the point that Adam Smith could probably be aggressively branded as a socialist were he alive today (thanks to evil socialized medicine).

Technically, they have and we basically know about some of them. The Illuminati was a real thing, the Bilderberg Group is documented, and we know of these various summits. It's obvious that there are groups of particularly rich people who gather together on ideological grounds, they just talk more about profits and power and less about pagan magickz and grays.