1mo ago

An article so aggressively stereotypically lib that I'm having a hard time believing that it's not just HB bait

https://www.economist.com/china/2025/01/16/an-initiative-so-feared-that-china-has-stopped-saying-its-name

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Quick, someone roll out the Lenin quote about the Economist
- Nah, I'd be specific.
  The position of the aristocracy of finance is most strikingly depicted in a passage from its European organ, the London Economist.
  Marx, the 18th brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
  
  Sometimes I forget just how old these institutions really are.
  
  Speaking out of how old it is (birthed in the mid 19th century), would it surprise you to know
  This tendency reached its absurd apotheosis in the magazine’s infamous 2014 review of Edward Baptist’s The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. The magazine objected to Baptist’s brutal depiction of the slave trade, saying the book did not qualify as “an objective history of slavery” because “almost all the blacks in his book are victims, almost all the whites villains.” When outraged readers pointed out that this is because, well, the victims of slavery tended to be black, The Economist retracted the review. But as Baptist observed in response, there was a reason why the magazine felt the need to mitigate the evils of slavery. Baptist’s book portrayed slavery as an integral part of the history of capitalism. As he wrote: “If slavery was profitable—and it was—then it creates an unforgiving paradox for the moral authority of markets—and market fundamentalists. What else, today, might be immoral and yet profitable?” The implications of Baptist’s work would have unsettling implications for The Economist. They would damn the foundations of the very Western free enterprise system that the magazine is devoted to championing. Thus The Economist needed to find a way to soften its verdict on slavery. (It was not the first time they had done so, either. In a tepid review of Greg Grandin’s The Empire of Necessity with the hilariously offensive title of “Slavery: Not Black or White,” the magazine lamented that “the horrors in Mr Grandin’s history are unrelenting.” And the magazine’ long tradition of defending misery stretches back to the 19th century, when it blamed the Irish potato famine on irresponsible decisions made by destitute peasants.)
  
  I'm not surprised, but that's certainly new trivia for me. Absolutely deplorable, morally bankrupt, thoroughly liberal in all the inhumane ways imaginable.
  
  sometimes I do wonder whether the sentiment goes a bit too far, whether it would be more fair to wish something like “a minor drop in circulation” or “a financially burdensome libel suit” on our London competitor.
  But then I remember what The Economist actually is, and what it stands for, and what it writes. And I realize that death is the only option.
  Oh my, it's like this piece was written just for me imma grab a cuppa and dig the fuck in. Thank you

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