Reseñas
Man, was I wrong. This book has to be the most comprehensive readers digest on total world breakup started some 30 years ago by using shock and awe economical strike used for sole purpose of converting the majority of the world into gigantic exploitation field.
Author's writings on effects of "liberalization" of East, Latin America and Africa are current even today, because recent militant liberation actions in last two decades or so point to the same goals as it was in more economical strike in 1990's.
I agree with the author that main issue humanity experiences is conflict between classes of people - you may call it castes if you want to feel less Marxists (but are you then politically correct, eh?) - rulers and ruled. Why is this so strange to grasp is beyond me. Classes always existed and always will exist. It is only mark of period if there are conflicts and unrest or peaceful coexistence (with maybe movement between classes possible for some). If anyone has any doubt just look at last two years and sudden classification of people - workers, professionals and entrepreneurs - as radical or non-essential. And note who never declared themselves as non-essentials but "voices of reason and " (man I hate this) " science and facts". Terrible. And unfortunately political orientation does not play any role - modern Western left is as bloodthirsty, single-minded and vicious as the right to both internal and international policies, there is no difference (as much as one would like it to exist). Author makes quite a few points here especially related to the so much admired left intelligentsia. And also let me not get started on human cybernetization in order to reach (for all means and purposes) godhood for few. If this does not sound like quazi-religious explanation (since technology is not there yet) for our future aristocracy, I dont know what does.
Additional point I agree with is that racial and gender issues present in "modern" world are just used as white noise - otherwise somebody would expect some hard words and actions at least in Middle East for the same issues - correct? In general problem is with have's and have-nots (which is more of a hipster way of saying class of citizenry) and (as is case throughout history) have-nots have numerical superiority. So lets stir up tension the other way because each segregated part of society will always think they are the most oppressed and they will never find common ground.
Book is rather short but very concise and to the point. If there was any doubt about anything author writes about in 1990's (when book was originally published), for anybody capable of using ones mental capacity to think and draw conclusions - there are no more doubts.
Very pleasant surprise, gotta admit.
Highly recommended.
In chapter 4, Parenti describes problems of the USSR economy post-WW2 and it sounds like an ultra leftist's dream society
"Not surprisingly, work discipline left much to be desired. There was the clerk who chatted endlessly with a friend on the telephone while a long line of people waited resentfully for service, the two workers who took three days to paint a hotel wall that should have taken a few hours, the many who would walk off their jobs to go shopping."
The autonomists would be proud. I feel he really sells the system short here, repeating the old claim that central planning was "too inefficient" - if so, what is the advantage of socialism at all? Outside of the idea of "totalitarianism", it feels like he endorses near every Western view about the "inefficiencies" of the socialist system. Yet it's clear from what he says elsewhere that even with these inefficiencies, the USSR was able to deliver a decent standard of living for everyone. To have a whole chapter (chapter 4) which is a weird bashing of the socialist states and featuring many claims about "disincentives to work" and even "human nature" is kind of frustrating cause it feels so out of place. Here another big problem of his style of writing shines through - his reluctance to actually cite anything. Big claims don't get cited even when they're controversial. For me it's most noticeable here because so much is basically anecdotal evidence treated as wider fact but it re-occurs throughout the book and weakens his persuasiveness - if you disagree with the left in general you're just going to be asking for more evidence regularly and in this chapter you're going to be asking for more evidence if you're a communist.
Maybe Parenti is a bit of a Bukharinite. In chapter 3, while endorsing the more "autocratic" economic direction that the USSR actually took in order to build up an industrial base, he sees and endorses a second path: "moving in a liberalized direction, allowing more political diversity, more autonomy for labor unions and other organizations, more open debate and criticism, greater autonomy among the various Soviet republics, a sector of privately owned small businesses, independent agricultural development by the peasantry, greater emphasis on consumer goods, and less effort given to the kind of capital accumulation needed to build a strong military industrial base. The latter course, I believe, would have produced a more comfortable, more humane and serviceable society. Siege socialism would have given way to worker-consumer socialism". It's hard to disagree with the idea of more union autonomy etc exactly but stuff like "privately owned small businesses"? Certainly an unusual take on communism, kind of Yugoslavite.
" The decision by Soviet leaders to achieve military parity with the United States-while working from a much smaller industrial base-placed a serious strain on the entire Soviet economy." while at the same time recognising that the USSR was still in a state of siege even then - it wasn't so much a decision as a reaction to the circumstances forced upon them, something he accepts while taking about pre WW2 USSR. This isn't to say that the military spending was right and proper or anything but it wasn't some strange bolt from the blue, the thing about the "siege socialism" he describes is that it was never *able* to end because socialism was always under siege.
He's great at writing against the USA and against anti-communism but he's much worse at mounting an effective defence of socialist countries. He devotes a couple pages maybe to pointing out things that are genuinely worth shouting about - far higher life expectancies, universal literacy, healthcare, access to culture, much reduced homelessness and unemployment, etc - but that's about it. Yes, it's clear from what he says about the collapse of socialism that it was an absolute disaster (chapters 6 and 7 are blistering polemic, really great writing) but that doesn't really convince the uninitiated that communist ideologies are good. Instead he mounts an attack on the incredibly inflated death count attributed to the USSR and Stalin specifically but it's not particularly inspiring to read "oh well only 2 million people were in the gulags" or something, especially when it's tied with portrayal of Stalin as purely some weird power hungry dictator - there's no wider class or historical explanation of what happened, past the talk of a siege. For most genuinely curious people, the question is less "well how many people did Stalin kill" and more "if a significant number of people died or were killed, how can we stop this happening again if I support communism". I just feel it's not very convincing from that perspective and it's almost just missing the point. Even if the death counts are massively inflated, those deaths are still horrifying. Parenti completely acknowledges this and attacks Stalin but because he can't provide any explanations or give any alternatives it's not a promising or convincing defence. Maybe I'm harping on about this a bit much but it's a confusing and very limited defence of the USSR - to a large extent it's only defended because it was better than what followed/the USA, even though in reality there was a lot more to it. I dunno I'm not much of an expert on the USSR myself.
The chapters I said at the start are good but not good enough to overcome my hesitation about the chapters I didn't like. But I do really appreciate how easy to read his writing style is.
1 
tombomp | 6 reseñas más. | Oct 31, 2023 |
tombomp | 6 reseñas más. | Oct 31, 2023 | 
The main thesis of the book, was that Julius Caesar was assassinated not for being a tyrant, but for taking away power and profits from the wealthy elite, and giving them to the people. The book details his policies and reforms he proposed and enacted, such as debt relief, rent control, landlord taxes, redistribution of wealth and land from wealthy elites to middle/lower classes. Considering leftists 2000 years later are still being assassinated for similar policies, it shows that society has not really changed much in 2 millennia.
The book was interesting, but could get a little dry at times. If I were a little more familiar with the big names at the time, it probably would have been vastly easier to follow. For that reason, I'd recommend this to anyone who has read anything about Roman History before, but maybe not for someone's first time.
Although marketed to Western audiences as a humanitarian intervention against Serbian atrocities, the US and NATO had been interfering in Yugoslavia’s internal affairs long before any Serbian atrocities. In 1984, the Reagan administration in the US issued National Security Decision Directive 133, which called for the support of “quiet revolutions” in communist Eastern Europe. This involved supporting reactionary secessionist leaders and their movements in Yugoslavia. The US threatened to cut off all aid to Yugoslavia unless elections were held, but only within the various republics and not at the federal level, inflaming inter-ethnic tensions. The US National Endowment for Democracy and other CIA fronts supported the electoral campaigns of pro-West, anti-Serb, and anti-socialist leaders in the national republics. At the same time, countries such as Germany and Austria sent arms shipments and military advisors to secessionist leaders in Croatia and Slovenia. German military instructors even engaged in combat with Yugoslav troops. By 1991, a European conference on Yugoslavia declared its support for “sovereign and independent republics” within Yugoslavia, effectively repudiating Yugoslavia’s sovereignty.
Alongside US-NATO support for right-wing secessionist leaders was the IMF-imposed fiscal dismemberment of Yugoslavia. In the 1960s and 1970s, Yugoslav leaders had made a catastrophic error in borrowing money from the West, and by 1991 Yugoslavia’s international creditors were in complete control of domestic monetary policy. Under the IMF-imposed structural adjustment and capitalist shock therapy, transfer payments from the federal government to the national republics were cut, leaving the republics to fend for themselves. As Chossudovsky wrote:
By cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics, the reforms fueled secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions, virtually ensuring the de facto secession of the republics. The IMF-induced budgetary crisis created an economic fait accompli that paved the way for Croatia’s and Slovenia’s formal secession in June 1991.
Between 1991-1992 Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia, and the US and its NATO allies hastened to recognize the right to self-determination of these republics. The secession and subsequent US-NATO recognition of these republics led to a bloody cycle of violence that ravaged the Balkans. Under the Yugoslav constitution, the will of a republican majority could not override the equally valid will of a constituent national minority within that republic. The large Serb population inhabiting Croatia and Bosnia had a constitutionally protected right to self-determination and overwhelmingly wished to remain within the Yugoslav federation. US and NATO recognition of Croatian and Bosnian self-determination was, therefore, an implicit rejection of the right to self-determination of the large Serb population inhabiting these republics.
Moreover, the secessionist leaders supported by US and NATO were violently opposed to sharing power with constituent national minorities. Although Slobodan Milošević has frequently been compared to Hitler, it is more appropriate to compare Hitler with the secessionist republican leaders supported by the US and NATO. In Croatia, the US and NATO’s ally was President Franjo Tudjman. In 1989, Tudjman wrote how “the establishment of Hitler’s new European order can be justified by the need to be rid of the Jews” and how “Genocide is a natural phenomenon in harmony with the sociological and mythological divine nature.” As independent Croatia’s first president, he appointed Nazi collaborators to government posts, adopted the currency and emblem of Nazi-controlled Croatia, and boasted to his generals that the Serbian question had been resolved after the war. With NATO-supplied weapons and aerial support, the Croatian military under Tudjman ethnically cleansed the republic’s Serb population, “replete with rapes, summary executions, and indiscriminate shelling, driving over half a million Serbs from their ancestral homes in Croatia,” Parenti writes. In Bosnia, the US and NATO’s ally was President Alija Izetbegovic. During WWII, Izetbegovic was a member of the pro-Nazi Young Muslims, which recruited Muslims to serve in the Nazi SS. Izetbegovic intended to transform Bosnia into a fundamentalist Islamic state, claiming “Islamic society without an Islamic government is incomplete and impotent.” Months before the outbreak of the war, his fundamentalist militia waged a civil war against more moderate Bosnian forces and, according to a White House estimate, ethnically cleansed 100,000 Serbs before the war.
Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia naturally armed and organized themselves in defense against ethnic cleansing and massacres by Croat and Bosnian militias. These Serbs were supported by the Yugoslav People’s Army, which took active measures to ensure the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia against US-NATO-supported aggression. This is not to deny that the Serbs and Yugoslav troops committed horrible atrocities, but I haven’t seen evidence that what atrocities were committed could be classified as “genocide”. The US and NATO and their fascist proxies are responsible for the conflict. Once war starts, it develops a momentum of its own. Moreover, US-NATO countries or their allies have committed comparable and even worse atrocities without there ever being a genocide tribunal, such as in the Philippines, Indonesia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, or the British in Northern Ireland or the Russians in Chechnya. In Canada, Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act and suspended civil liberties because the FLQ kidnapped two people, killing one. How would Trudeau have responded if Quebec armed itself with foreign weapons and ethnically cleansed its non-French population?
US-NATO humanitarianism revealed its true self after the 1995 Dayton Accords. Bosnia became a virtual colony of the US and NATO. Under US-NATO control, Parenti writes,
Bosnia-Herzegovina became a Western colonial protectorate. Western officials imposed most of the fiscal and monetary policies. Western intelligence agents operated at will throughout the society. The media and the schools were cleansed of any dissident viewpoints. If any groups were to organize and agitate for an end to debt payments, or a return to socialism, or complete independence from Western occupation, SFOR, the NATO-stabilization forces in Bosnia, was ready to deal with them.
That “the Western powers put aside indirect forms of neo-imperialism and opted for direct colonialism” in Bosnia is most clearly evident in the Serb-inhabited Republika Srpska. US-NATO forces denied the Bosnian Serbs the right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, independent media, free elections, and every other fundamental human right. In response to crowds angrily protesting against media censorship, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana went so far as to announce that NATO “will not hesitate to take the necessary measures, including the use of force, against media networks or programs” critical of NATO. “For all intents and purposes,” writes Parenti, “Republika Srpska became a NATO colony. Its citizens were free to pursue only those policies pleasing to their imperialist overlords, free to listen only to media programs and elect only candidates approved by NATO. By definition, the free-market reforms and NATO domination were equated with democracy. And by definition, any resistance to such rule, even by duly selected RS representatives, was deemed hard-line, anti-reformist, and anti-democratic.”
In other words, the US and NATO supported fascists with arms and weapons who ethnically cleansed Serbs from their republics. When Yugoslav forces retaliated, the US and NATO battered Yugoslavia and imposed a colonial regime on Bosnia that was more oppressive than under Milosevic. This might seem irrational, but empire is not irrational. The Bosnian War enabled the US and NATO to achieve their ultimate objective: the Third Worldization of Bosnia. Bosnia’s “state-owned assets, including energy, water, telecommunications, media and transportation, were sold off to private firms at garage-sale prices. Essential health services fell into a state of neglect, and the economy as a whole remained in a sorry condition.” US-NATO forces forced Bosnians “to reconstruct the shattered economy along free-market economy lines, including significant privatization and close cooperation with the World Bank.”
But this wasn’t enough for US-NATO leaders. What was left of Yugoslavia, i.e., Serbia and Montenegro, still refused to be Third Worldized. For Western free-marketeers, an unacceptable state of affairs continued in Serbia: 75% of Serbia’s industry remained publicly owned as late as 1999. These publicly-owned industries needed to either be privatized or destroyed. As Parenti writes, “a massive aerial destruction like the one delivered upon Iraq might be just the thing needed to put Belgrade more in step with the New World Order.”
The US-NATO needed a new pretext to bomb Serbia — this was Kosovo. Parenti makes a convincing case that Kosovo was far from requiring a humanitarian intervention:
As an autonomous province of the Serb republic, Kosovo enjoyed far more extensive rights and powers within the FRY than were allowed national minorities in any Western European state or the United States. Kosovo was allowed to have its own supreme court and its own Albanian flag. University education was in Albanian, with Albanian textbooks and teachers. There were also Albanian newspapers, magazines, television, radio, movies, and sporting and cultural events. All education below the university level was exclusively in Albanian, a language radically different from Serbo-Croat. With only 8 per cent of Yugoslavia’s population, Kosovo was allocated up to 30 per cent of the federal development budget, including 24 per cent of World Bank development credits.
The terrorist activities of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) deliberately undermined Kosovar-Serb relations. The KLA attacked police stations, Serbian villagers and farmers, government officials, and professionals, all to provoke conflict between Albanians and Serbs. Even moderate Albanians were terrorized and murdered if they didn’t support the KLA. These attacks continued for more than a year before triggering a concerted response from Yugoslav authorities. As even a UN court ruled, Serbian troops did not carry out genocide against ethnic Albanians during Milosevic’s campaign of aggression in Kosovo from 1998 to 1999.
Just like in Bosnia, the objective of US-NATO bombing was not human rights, democracy, or humanitarianism, but the Third Worldization of Serbia. Besides supporting an organization that the US itself considered a terrorist organization only a few months before, the US and NATO’s agenda to Third Worldize Serbia was most clearly evident in its choice of targets. In what Parenti describes as “privatization by bombing,” NATO humanitarian bombing targeted Serbia’s economic and cultural capital:
NATO’s attacks revealed a consistent pattern that bespoke its underlying political agenda. The Confederation of Trade Unions of Serbia produced a list of 164 factories destroyed by the bombings — all of them state-owned. Not a single foreign-owned firm was targeted. As I observed on a trip to Yugoslavia shortly after the war, the huge, state-run Hotel Yugoslavia was made uninhabitable by NATO missiles, while the corporate owned Hyatt Hotel, with its all-glass facade — as inviting a target as any mad bomber might want — suffered not a scratched window-pane. Buildings that displayed highly visible rooftop signs that advertised Panasonic, Coca-Cola, Diners International, and McDonald’s, the latter replete with immense golden arches, survived perfectly intact.
The NATO bombing targeted only publicly-owned schools, libraries, telecommunications, energy and transportation infrastructure, factories, theaters, hospitals, and clinics, as well as historical sites, cultural monuments, museums, and churches — “something not even Hitler did.”
Considering the current conflict in Ukraine and NATO’s involvement in it, this book is a powerful indictment of NATO, the world’s largest terrorist organization. Everyone should read this book.
2 TJ_Petrowski | Jul 24, 2022 |
TJ_Petrowski | Jul 24, 2022 | He seems to be talking about the ideal of communism and not what it is in real life. (not that I am an expert)
While I agree capitalism has some major issues which he points out, he seems to minimize communism's shortfalls.
He made an interesting point that Capitalist and Fascists play footsie.
After the war communists prosecuted many more Nazis than West Germany.
Not sure how true that was, however if true I commend them for that.
Although, hard decisions had to be made after WW2 to keep the countries working.
Overall, worth reading to hear different viewpoints but beware of his agenda.
Si sottolinea la differenza di opinione riguardo l'America che hanno i superpatrioti e il resto del mondo, specie i Paesi vittime di sanzioni economiche e interventi militari per "l'importazione della democrazia". Interessante vedere come i super ricchi e superpatrioti usino quest'ultimo in maniera del tutto strumentale per ingrossare i loro già enormi profitti. Patriottismo, imperialismo e capitalismo vanno perciò a braccetto ed è solo un nuovo sistema che può spezzare queste catene.
Parenti's explanation of a "people's history" is excellent. With few exceptions, he places historians in the same class as the wealthy elite who distort history for their own purposes and propaganda.
My saddest revelation was that Cicero was a mouthpiece and wannabe for the rich nobility. Parenti reveals him as small and grubby. What a shame.
While Parenti comes up with some sound reasons about how and why capitalism is and always as been rotten, its wars, bureaucracy, its unfair labour exchange system, etc., its the second part thats saddly weak. Towards this end he offers up his theory on 'Siege Socialism', as a counter pole to replace capitalism or offer a reason why existing socialist states should be defended as a gain for/by workers. 'Seige Socialism' is not an ideal, or a utopia but simply a reality of hostile states encircling a country which is trying to practice socialim, Parenti tells us. The beauty of this arguement is that every major crack in the system can be glossed over as a fault of the capitalist imperial powers. If only it was so simple....
Let it be said I have read many defences of the USSR, and Stalinism in general, but this is one of the worst defenses of an 'existing socialist' state Ive read for some time. How Parenti manages to go from logically asset stripping capitalism taking account of its errors to defending a society which was nothing more than an ill planned police state is startling.
Frankly Chomsky might not always be as readable, but it as to be said he has way better politics.
1 abclaret | 6 reseñas más. | Apr 8, 2010 |
abclaret | 6 reseñas más. | Apr 8, 2010 | 
None of the things he points out will be at all new to anyone who is familiar with radical left critiques, but that does not mean this book is useless or preaching to the choir. Quite the opposite: I think it can play a good role as one of those books that one can give to friends or family members with very little political interest or awareness and to people who are not familiar with or good at reading academic style monographs, but who want to understand the leftist critique of our society. Parenti occasionally still uses terminology that might be difficult for readers of a less educated background (such as "plutocratic" and "monopolistic"), but generally the book is extremely easy to read and still makes a lot of good and important points. So, pass it on to your coworkers or grandparents and anyone else who could use a confrontation with a critical look at society.
1 McCaine | Nov 21, 2007 |
McCaine | Nov 21, 2007 | 
Enlaces
Página oficial (English)
Wikipedia (English)
Este sitio utiliza cookies para ofrecer nuestros servicios, mejorar el rendimiento, análisis y (si no estás registrado) publicidad. Al usar LibraryThing reconoces que has leído y comprendido nuestros términos de servicio y política de privacidad. El uso del sitio y de los servicios está sujeto a estas políticas y términos.
I’d have to guess that any modern reader would have their hackles raised by the Stalinist apologetics that take up the middle portion of the book. Parenti seems to feel a responsibility not only to shine a light on the commendable social programs of the USSR, but also whitewash human rights abuses by contrasting them with the millions of victims of worldwide capitalism. I can understand his motivation here. After all, if we stacked the sum total of Gulag victims versus the number of Americans that froze to death on the street or died in imperialist wars or because of addiction brought on by hopelessness, parity seems far from unimaginable. That being said, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth to read the lengths Parenti goes to to make his point, a point that he doesn’t even need to make in the first place; his other arguments are salient enough.
The truth is, throughout the book’s final section breaking down a Marxist interpretation of the modern world, it’s almost impossible to find fault with Parenti’s reasoning. Walking through my hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, you can’t help but wonder how things got so fucked up in our country (as Bernie Sanders always says, the richest country in the history of the world), and once you start reading Marx, it all becomes so clear. The thrill of reading Das Kapital for me was how clear-eyed and steely it was - no emotional harangues, no guilt-tripping that I had come to associate with leftist politics. It’s just good analysis bound up with a profound respect for human dignity and potential. Now, as we close in on 4 decades of unchallenged global capitalist hegemony, Marx’s predictions and analytical framework seem to me essential for understanding how we’ve gotten into this morasse. Parenti is at his best when he adopts this tone, not feeling the need to resort to what-abouts or litigations of the past, merely observing, reporting, and putting forth an interpretation. One of the key problems of living in a capitalist society (as a American *the* capitalist society) is that you forget things can be any other way. Unlike communist repression, which for all its perniciousness was always out in the open, capitalist societies have learned how to hide the brainwashing in the sweetest, most palatable of packages. Our society is set up to cloak the detritus generated by the system, or worse, train people to ignore or dismiss it. Reading Marx and books like this help you learn to notice the profound immortality of the system that surrounds us and affect our every thought and decision.