Last night I and several other assorted bloggers and Samizdatistas dined at Chateau Perry, at a gathering hosted by Jackie D. The guest of honour was Mr Squander 2. Of course we all asked after Mrs and Baby Squander 2, and the good news is that mother and child are doing much better.
For me the most memorable thing that got said last night was when Mr Squander 2 told of how, during the Brezhnev era, poor old Mr Brezhnev apparently consumed an annoyingly large amount of Soviet and in particular KGB man hours trying to get various of his minions to answer for him the question: “Who runs capitalism?”
Presumably so that they could take him/her/it out, in some way or another, and score a cheap and quick victory in the Cold War, although sadly that wasn’t part of the story as told last night.
Or, maybe the idea was for Brezhnev then to able to sit down with this controlling mastermind, and to ask him/her/it: “How can we do it?”
Knowing the damn Bolsheviks, it could well have been both. First find out how they do it, then kill or enslave them all, starting where it makes most sense, with whoever is in charge.
Anyway, (1): Heh. And (2) does anyone know anything more about this? I tried googling: Brezhnev “Who runs capitalism?”, but that yielded nothing. It is such a great story that it is the kind of thing people believe because they want to believe it. I know I want to. But, is there any truth in it?
As it was a basic tenet of the faith that there was an amoral Wall street cabal operating behind the scenes controlling everything, I suppose the story is possibly true, at least to some extent.
Also, as a projection, it would not be unusual for the leader of a top down, secretive ruling system to imagine there was a similar structure operating on the other side.
In a similar mode, there is a story of Kruzchev’s visit to New York, during which he staged the infamous shoe pounding display at the UN. Reportedly, he was stunned by the volume of traffic he could see on the streets of Manhatten, and convinced that Pres. Kennedy had ordered all the cars in the US to come to New York for that week, just to impress him.
It was impossible to convince him otherwise, apparently, and he recalled several intelligience people from their posts in NY for failing to uncover this plot and warn him about it.
I remember reading about this in Time or some such awhile after the visit, but can’t vouch for its veracity.
God, I’m glad that horrible monstrosity no longer exists. When the Soviet empire collapsed, it was just like being a cancer patient and hearing the doctor say the tumors had mysteriously shrunk. It might not have been VE day, but it was damned close.
On a lesser note, but similar concept,
In a discussion about language with my Russian wife to be, the topic of the French Academy and its Russian equivalent was raised. When she asked me about the equivalent English organisation, she flatly refused to believe me when I said there was no body charged with the legal authority to control and regulate the language. She couldn’t comprehend that a language could maintain itself without such controllers. And this from someone who spoke seven languages, including perfect English and who had already been living in London for six years.
The idea of the need for control can run very deep.
Reportedly someone on the scene admitted to Kruzchev that we _had_ brought all those cars in from all over the country, but that the really hard part was to bring in all the really tall buildings.
Someone should have givin him a copy of the game “iluminati”.
Oh yes, it hadn’t been invented yet.
Supposedly.
Shhhh.
Who runs capitalism?
The Jooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooos!!!
Of course. Who else?
It sounds like he might have been asking in order to define it.
Have a look at the Brezhnev Doctrine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brezhnev_Doctrine
Just a brief thought.
The fact that there is no absolute and inflexible power structure to capitalism is a large part of why they hate it.
The Jooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooos!!!
According to the usual idiots, the following is a description of the Elders of Zion:
“Three hundred men, each of whom knows all the others, govern the fate of the European continent, and they elect their successors from their entourage.”
Wait a minute… I thought the limit for a group of human beings knowing all the others was 150…
In uni I heard a great a great story about some high-up Soviet economic functionary who was taken on a tour of one of the public markets in London. He spent an hour walking around the place and looking at the stalls, and then asked his hosts “How are prices set at this market?” The hosts then went into a little lecture: there *are* no set prices, the free market, competition, supply and demand, etc. After listening to their speech, the Soviet guy smiled indulgently, waved his hand dismissively and said “Gentlemen, I know this is the official line, but tell me: How are the prices set at this market?”
Even late into the perestroika era, many Soviet economic planners with economics degrees had never seriously studied the free market and had no theoretical or practical grasp of these principles. It was more convenient for them to assume that all this “free market” talk was just a cover for a planned economic system much like the one they were familiar with.
I remember an anecdote about a Soviet economist after finding out that the price of milk was set according to protein content complaining that they should be setting the price according to fat content like they do in America.
He obviously hasn’t read his Adam Smith, everyone knows it is the man with the invisible hand that runs capitalism.
If it’s any help in tracking down the source, I’m pretty sure I read it on National Review. I’d guess it was probably Jonah Goldberg, but maybe not.
Visitor: “Take me to your leader.”
American: “That sumbitch ain’t been born yet.”
I thought the price of milk in the U.S. was set according to the distance from Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Capitalism has surpassed socialism even in the field of irrelevance of regulations.
Brian, I think it’s one of the old, bearded Soviet-era jokes. Sort of like these .
Tatyana: thanks for the link, it took me some 40 years back. Weird translation though: they kept calling Rabinovitch “a man”:-P
Yeah, I noticed that, too.
“Jew” is still a word to wisper, apparently.
I’ve that story before. Apparently, he dispatched teh KGB to find and exterminate the cabal which controlled the economic system.
Reminds me of a taxi ride I once took in London in the late ’90s. The first part of the conversation with the cab driver was about his flight from Afghanistan as a refugee from the Soviet army.
Initially, I took pity on him.
The second part of the conversation involved the driver ranting at me about how the world is controlled by 99 Jews. The 99 Jews were directing the UK, France, Russia and the US to take over Afghanistan and steal its gold. Of course, the Ayatollah Khomeini and King Fahd were also Zionist agents.
No tip for you!
I think there are still a lot of politicians in Washington DC who are trying to find out who is running capitalism so they can kill it.
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