Bald, Boldfaced Moral Equivalence

In a recent comment exchange at another blog, an (unsurprisingly anonymous) respondent said this, directed at me:

Under Communism man exploits man. Under Capitalism its(sic) the other way around.

Also Capitalism has transmuted into Corporate Fuedalism.(sic)

There’s a tremendous, horrifying moral equivalence to that first two-sentence quip. Certainly “man exploits man” in each system, but the underlying snarky implication is that both systems are equally flawed merely because “man exploits man.”

What unmitigated horseshit. What a puerile, half-witted thing to say, especially if one actually means it.

I thought about firing off an irate response, but I figured A) it would have been useless because the poster probably was ignorant and didn’t really understand the reality behind that first little agitprop quip, and B) it was better to make a point for anyone else reading who thought, “Yeah, Man! Tell it like it is!” or whatever the modern vernacular is. (I believe it condenses down now to the single syllable: “WORD!”, but I could be mistaken. Modern vernacular changes so fast these days.)

So I replied:

Hmm..Under communism man slaughters man (to the tune of around 100,000,000 souls last century.) Under capitalism (in a democratic government), some people are poor but nobody starves to death. Particularly, nobody starves to death because somebody in the government thinks it’s necessary that they do.

Makes the choice a bit easier, doesn’t it?

Corporate feudalism? And just who is bound to the corporation as master? Examples?

The poster and I have mutually agreed to not clog another blogger’s comments with our discussion, but as of yet I have received no response to my invitation to continue either here or in email.

I am not surprised about that, either.

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