Oldspeak, Newspeak, alternative facts, and mind control

George Orwell's point is that the changing of the definitions of words changes how we think about such concepts. Capitalism originally was a revolutionary ideology saying that the big government firms of the European empires were not just bad for the people but also bad for the economy as a whole. Instead, we should have an economy where the means of production are owned by diverse interests not concentrated whenever possible. This exists in Europe today. The word has been evolved to mean a system very similar to the mercantilism the early capitalists oppposed, and day to day indistinguishable from the mercantilism of old. This is the same tool used by Oceania in 1984 to control the thoughts of the people, and is effective by cutting people off from their philosophical ancestors. Propaganda has become fake news, making it seem more like the onion than Pravda. Alternative facts are lies, another Orwellian trick.

History of Newspeak

We have seen this reversal of definitions to the point where they are the opposite of what they originally mean, when white is black and socialism is capitalism. The complete reversal of the definition of capitalism, (which I'm not sure exactly how it evolved over the last 50 years) has been far too quick to have happened organically. Roosevelt was lauded as "saving capitalism" for the new deal and banking regulation, meaning the reversal has happened since 1945, so we are down to a maximum of 70 years. Chomsky refers to the US and Western European nations (which are frequently called "socialist" today) as "capitalist democracies" in the 1970s (https://chomsky.info/priorities01/) so assuming Chomsky was using vernacular it would then be within the last 40 years. If we look at Germany the SPD was fairly radical before the 1970s when Willi Brandt and Helmut Schmidt transformed the party into the Keynesian capitalist party (sorry for the redundancy) it is today. I expect the transformation of the word from meaning a free market to a corporatocracy/mercantilist system then would have happened under Reagan in the US, Thatcher in Britain, and other leaders during the 1980s, meaning a 180 degree turn around in its meaning over no more than 30 years in how the media talks about "capitalism".

The word socialism does extend further back in time, to Louis Blanc who founded the school of "state socialism", defined as being the government controlling some industries. The issue with this is that capitalist philosophers also think that the government had a role in natural monopolies. The difference from limited government intervention from capitalism is indistinguishable, because a government involved in the economy is part of all capitalist thought. A government which controls all the means of production is also indistinguishable from Marxism. State socialism can mean either term, making the term meaningless. Bismarck's policies in Germany were derided as "state socialism" by opponents, as were the policies of the Soviet Union. These two systems are similar in almost no way at all in reality, making the term almost useless.

Anarchism as well is often described as being "socialist". Marx of course believed that the final stage of his theory would be anarchism. He also believed that it doesn't matter if government is democratic or a dictatorship, because the "capitalists" would control society either way. (1848 Papers)

This is the inherent problem with the word socialism. Someone who believes in no government or a dictatorship can be called a socialist. Someone who believes in a mixed economy with limited government intervention and someone who believes in a command economy like North Korea are both socialist. A Democrat and Dictator, both socialist. A person who believes the government needs limited government intervention is often described as being a socialist and agrees with every capitalist philospher. Someone who believes in the eventual monopolization of all unions (syndicalism) is a socialist, but one doesn't have to believe in that to be a socialist. Socialists argue that accumulation of capital is bad, but this was one of the major goals of early capitalist thought. The definitions of state socialism and state capitalism are poorly distinguished in economic thought.

Capitalism on the other hand agrees on some very basic concepts. 1. Free markets are generally good, but not always in the case of absolute monopolies. 2. Private property is important for growth. Capitalism is an anti-slavery ideology. 3. Democracy is good. 4. When people are left to make their own decisions they generally will make the right decision as a group, with some exceptions when it comes to externalities. The recognition of a government role in infrastructure and health care which do not work in an unregulated framework has been recognized by capitalism since the early 1800s if not earlier. Adam Smith said the state should exist to "administer justice, enforce private property rights, and defending the nation against aggression" which are not specific in what particular actions government can take. This view is still held by all capitalists. Capitalism has expanded to counter-cyclical policy, which is often described as socialist, and our understanding of how and when markets fail has expanded over 200 years leading capitalism to be more specific on what "administering justice" means. That is an important reality of the early capitalist philosophers in they were clear about their goals, leaving room for interpretation on how exactly government should administer justice. The end goals however, liberty for all, and competitive markets among others, are still the end goals of capitalism. In this sense capitalism is and has always been a consequentialist school of thought. A dictator can not be described as a capitalist because there isn't the free movement of capital under dictatorships. All capitalists agree that there is a role for government in achieving a competitive free economy where all can compete fairly. This is NOT the policy of the Republican Party and right wing democrats like Nancy Pelosi which is much more in line with a variation of the Mercantilism of old.

History of Alternative Facts

Lies and the belief in there being alternate realities has become mainstream in American politics. I have known Fox viewers insisting on how everything I say is "from my point of view" for years now, which stops all further investigation into the reality of what is happening, because they believe that reality is whatever they perceive. This hasn't always been mainstream in American philosophy, when back in the day we would turn to Walter Cronkite and other more or less non-partisan journalists who reported the reality of what is happening. The 1990s we see the beginning of this, with the formation of Fox News which has spearheaded this alternative reality, from their lies of how Obamacare failed, the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, and how crime in the 1990s effected African American communities, among so many other lies.

This is why I speak oldspeak, and insist that activists speak oldspeak, because newspeak is a form of mind control.

Beware the pigs

In the 1880s the British South Africa Company moved into what is modern day Zimbabwe and got a concession from the King for mining rights in the region in 1888. The British started to enslave Zimbabweans and established settlements of Englishmen. The natives no longer had any sovereignty and over the next 60 years until the 1950s they were in a feudal system. The colonial era saw the resources of the people of Africa be stolen by the colonial powers. This ended when the Africans grew tired of their colonial oppressors and formed independence movements to have more rights. In 1963 Rhodesia gained independence along with other African nations in that era, after which they were led by Ian Smith until 1979. Rhodesia was set up so there were separate voter rolls for people based on property (not indifferent from the United States when we were founded where you had to own land to vote) which effectively gave the landed white settlers most of the political power despite being a minority. In this era the government reserved a majority of seats in Parliament for whites and made it almost impossible for African political parties to get enough power to represent the majority. The way Rhodesia was set up was being decreed as racist by the rest of the world. (Source: Wikipedia) Of course, we can't blame Ian Smith completely because he was merely a figurehead of a massive governmental organization which was nominally democratic for those who had land, and was outspoken on supporting Mandela while the United States and Israel maintained good relations with the Apartheid regime, and he had started to work to try to bring majority rule to Rhodesia before 1979. It is easy to demonize him given that he was president of a country with minority rule (and while I started writing this article I found myself falling into the same trap given similarities between him and other African leaders who led for such long periods of time) but it is important to look at an individual with the context of his time and place and the power dynamics at play to diagnose the entire system as being racist and not blaming everything on the head of state when there is a congress or parliament with considerable power.

In 1979 however Mugabe came to power, under the guise of freeing Zimbabweans from their white oppressors. He promised progress and change, but his economic reforms quickly turned the country into one of the poorest and most backwards in the entire world. He has established a one-party rule where anyone who speaks against his regime is arrested or killed, frequently landing near the bottom of the rankings of all freedom indexes. He did not become as so many hoped a figure for freedom for all Africans and has frequently committed crimes against other tribes, and the white minority who are for the most part disenfranchised and have left Zimbabwe as refugees. He tries to portray himself as black empowerment and given how Africans have been abused for so many generations many see this as a good thing, but no one chooses the color of their skin and even though it isn't in the order we usually think of when it comes to racist regimes Mugabe is indeed a racist and continues to pursue policies which have made Zimbabwe a backwards state for all Zimbabweans, including targeting certain tribes of natives disspelling any notion of him being a freedom fighter for Africans.

This is in comparison to South Africa where after the truly brutal racist regime that lasted almost 50 years Nelson Mandela rose to lead South Africa to become the most economically advanced nation in Africa whose speed of economic development is close to that of China. He did this not by looking at it in terms of an us vs. them mentality but as a real liberal tried to bring all South Africans to a place where they could leave peacefully without creating a refugee crisis. They are now the freest nation in Africa for native Africans and all people compared to all other nations on the continent. The rights of people in nations in Africa where they didn't look for a multilateral liberty-based approach but instead a Marxist relativist approach where it is seen as a conflict between different classes (which were deeply aligned with people's ancestry being either European or African for the most part) have not improved since decolonization and their standard of living is the worst in the world.

When trying to advance rights for one group of people, be it Africans in Africa, women across the world, homosexuals, transsexuals, and other groups it is paramount to not turn it into an us vs. them mentality but attempt to make the value of all men being created equal a reality. A rising tide raises all boats.

Freedom in the world does not have a limited quantity and the amount of freedom in a society goes up and down over time. When one person gets the ability to speak freely this does not mean another person cannot publish their thoughts as much. My writing this blog without my government cracking down on me if I say something they do not like does not prevent another person from writing a blog of their own. This is how the world works and the great thinkers of liberalism, John Locke, America's founding fathers, and John Stuart Mill all understood this. When Europe passed the Schengen treaty the average amount of freedom in the world increased, but the amount of freedom that Americans had did not decrease because the border between Germany and Poland was opened. This is also of course what happened in Animal Farm by George Orwell who noticed this in the USSR and ended with one of the greatest quotes of modern literature, "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." which is applicable in Zimbabwe.

When expanding the rights of one group we need to ensure that we don't also make it harder for one group to have what they deserve. When we continue to expand rights for African Americans across the United States so that those who live in poor communities (because not all African Americans are poor) have police services that respect them we need to deal with the problem directly by implementing laws that hold police accountable for their actions so that they keep their actions within the law which doesn't always happen which is a great shame on our entire nation. Decreasing the quality of police in majority-white areas will not make people in majority-African American areas more free, in fact I would expect it would have the opposite effect. We need to write laws that directly address the issue along with caveats which will inevitably occur so that we can have programs that work effectively.

If we don't we will end up being no better than Robert Mugabe who talked about a Zimbabwe where Africans would be free only to turn back on his progress and make it worse for all Zimbabweans. We must be true liberals and focus on the rights as the end goal and divorce ourselves from the notion of one group always being the oppressor and one group always being the oppressed, because roles can and at times have switched in brutal fashion. When we realize this we can have freedom.