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Diana van Eyk's avatar

What an interesting -- and accurate -- concept.

"At the beginning of Bullshit Jobs David Graeber briefly introduces what he calls “anti-conspiracy theory,” which I always found to be an intriguing formulation. Anti-conspiracy theory is not the opposite of conspiracy theory; it does not assert that conspiracies do not exist, or that powerful elites do not shape outcomes. It deals with a different way that they can shape outcomes. While a conspiracy theory might posit that a group of actors got together in secret to plan something specific, anti-conspiracy theory claims that powerful forces have made everything impossible except for a small range of outcomes. When problems appear for the rich and powerful, Graeber writes, “the rich and powerful will step in and do something about the matter.” What you end up seeing in the real world, as a result of this dynamic, is whatever can make it through the gauntlet. Maybe elites were hoping for one particular outcome; maybe they don’t care what happens at all, as long as their interests are not threatened. You might also call it negative conspiracy theory, since it deals with the things that do not occur."

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Jed's avatar

Absolutely. The decimation of a domestic Marxist alternative within the US is kind of the meta-conspiracy -- it was about foreclosing possibilities, those possibilities so numerous it's pointless to try to list them all. Imagine had there been an eco-socialist alternative to liberal environmentalism in the seventies: we could have actually derailed global warming. The original sin and the biggest crime of the Boomer generation was the decimation of truly left alternatives in the imperial core. And this was their overt, exoteric goal: all the covert action and conspiracies perpetrated during the Cold War were done under this public justification, accepted by the American people: to destroy communism. The only political force that could have saved us. A profound tragedy.

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