Author: Keith Preston

All Posts by Keith Preston

William Godwin: The First Modern Anarchist Reply

Anarchism/Anti-State

By Keith Preston

Few thinkers personified the intellectual culture of the Enlightenment to a greater degree than the English political philosopher and novelist, William Godwin. In 1793, Godwin published his most influential work, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and Happiness, which at the time was considered to be one of the most significant literary responses to the events of the French Revolution, along with the works of Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. True to Enlightenment ideals, Godwin suggested that human beings were born as a Lockean tabula rasa, and that education, along with improved social and political conditions, could result in significant steps toward human perfectibility. Such an evolved condition of human existence would render the state unnecessary as individuals would be inspired by reason to act on behalf of what was in the best interest of the community. Similarly, Godwin envisioned that an enlightened society would be less in thrall to vices such as greed and acquisitiveness, and a more equitable distribution of resources would result. The classical theoretician of anarchist-communism Peter Kropotkin would, more than a century later, suggest that Godwin was in fact the first modern proponent of anarchist-communism.

Family, Marriages and Children

            From a historical perspective, Godwin is today recognized more for his famous family members than for his political ideas. His first wife was Mary Wollstonecraft, a pioneer feminist who produced the classic work A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which was published in 1792, and argued for the extension of the Enlightenment idea of “natural rights” to include women as well as men. Wollstonecraft died in 1797 due to complications from giving birth to the couple’s daughter, Mary. However, Mary would later become famous both for her marriage to the Romance poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and for her authorship of the novel Frankenstein, widely considered to be a pioneer work in the genres of horror and science fiction.  Clearly, Godwin’s family exercised considerable influence in British literary circles during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Godwin himself also produced a pioneer work in the genre of the “thriller” called Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams, and the family’s literary business, known as the Juvenile Library, also published children’s books as well.

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“A State within a State”: Hezbollah as a Bulwark against the Atlanticist-Zionist-Gulf State Axis Reply

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags:

By Keith Preston

Introduction

            Hezbollah is one of the most unique political organizations in the world and has the distinction of having forced the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to withdraw from southern Lebanon on two separate occasions. The first of these was in 2000, ending Israel’s 18-year occupation of the region. The second was during the 2006 Lebanon War following a renewed assault on Lebanon by the IDF. Hezbollah is also considered to be a model “fourth generation warfare” organization by theorists of generational warfare, such as William S. Lind. Fourth generation warfare theory argues that the nature of war has been transformed since the end of World War Two. Because of the invention of nuclear weapons, international warfare between states has largely become cost prohibitive. Consequently, the waging of war has become a matter of conflict between states and non-state actors primarily.

Non-state actors may include any organization that engages in armed conflict outside of the state system, such as guerrillas, insurgents, or terrorists. However, non-state actors also include organizations that provide functions usually considered to be the prerogative of states (such as the provision of social services, education, public infrastructure, or public security), or focal points of public loyalty other than states, such as movements, causes, religions, ideologies, or gangs. Fourth generation warfare theory indicates that many people around the world are transferring their primary loyalties away from traditional national patriotisms toward fourth generation forces of many kinds. For example, rather than considering themselves to be a patriotic citizen of their nation, a person may first consider themselves to be a loyal Muslim, socialist, or devotee of animal welfare. Hezbollah is considered by fourth generation warfare theorists to be the most sophisticated fourth generation model because of its ability to provide traditional state functions on a significant scale, and Hezbollah’s having superseded the Lebanese military as the “national defense” force of Lebanon.

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The Intellectual Legacy of Carl Schmitt Reply

Religion and Philosophy • Tags:

                                                by Keith Preston

Part One: p. 1

Early Life and Intellectual Development

The Turmoil of Weimar and the State of the Exception

Part Two: p. 6

The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy and The Concept of the Political

Part Three: p. 11

The Destruction of the Weimar Republic and the Rise of the Nazis

Part Four: p. 15

The Nazi Era, The Postwar Period, and Schmitt’s Contemporary Relevance

Part One: Early Life and Intellectual Development

Among the many fascinating figures that emerged from the intellectual culture of the Weimar Republic that existed in Germany between the two world wars, perhaps none are quite as significant or unique as Carl Schmitt. An eminent jurist and law professor during the Weimar era, Schmitt was arguably the greatest political theorist of the twentieth century. He is also among the most widely misinterpreted or misunderstood. The misconceptions regarding Schmitt are essentially traceable to two issues. The first of these is obvious enough: Schmitt’s collaboration with the Nazi regime during the early years of the Third Reich. However, the other reason why Schmitt’s ideas are so frequently misrepresented or even reviled in contemporary liberal intellectual circles may ultimately be the most important. Schmitt’s works in political and legal theory provide what is by far the most penetrating critique of the ideological and moral presumptions of modern liberal democracy and its institutional workings.

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American elite divided over US-China economic ties Reply

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations

Press TV. Listen here.

The American elite are divided over what the economic relationship between the United States and China should be like, says a political analyst.

Keith Preston made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday when asked about President Donald Trump’s furious reaction after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had warned the trade war with China was a risk to the US economy.

In a furious flurry of tweets on Friday, Trump attacked the Powell’s stewardship of the world’s biggest economy.

“As usual, the Fed did NOTHING! It is incredible that they can ‘speak’ without knowing or asking what I am doing, which will be announced shortly,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

“We have a very strong dollar and a very weak Fed. I will work ‘brilliantly’ with both, and the US will do great,” he added.

“My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?”

Preston said, “There is a split within the American elite, within the American economic and political elite over the question of what the economic relationship between the United States and China ought to be.”

“It’s clear that the Trump administration represents a vein of the American elite that do view China as a primary enemy and wish to take a more hawkish position towards China when it comes to things like tariffs and trade and those kinds of issues, economic relationships and also military relationships as well.” 

“On the other hand, there are other sections that the American elite that are very concerned about maintaining a trade relationship that currently exists between the United States and China, they do not want anything to disrupt that,” he added.

Trump lashed out at China on Friday, vowing a quick response to China’s announcement of new tariffs and ordering US companies to leave the country.

The attack came after China announced earlier on Friday it would impose new tariffs on US soybeans, lobsters, peanut butter and other imports worth $75 billion in retaliation for Washington’s latest round of punitive duties that take effect in two rounds, September 1 and December 15.

The United States will raise existing tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports to 30 percent from 25 percent, beginning on October 1, Trump said on Twitter Friday.

PressTV-US to hike existing, planned tariffs on Chinese imports

PressTV-US to hike existing, planned tariffs on Chinese importsPresident Trump says the US will hike tariff rates on most imports from China in retaliation for Beijing’s new duties on American goods.

He added that the duties on another $300 billion in Chinese products, set to take effect on September 1, will be increased by 5 percent, reaching 15 percent.

Why I Stopped Being White (and You Should Too) 8

Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations, Race and Ethnicity • Tags:

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

Race is a touchy subject in the West. People across the aisle, especially white folk, tend to avoid it like a plague. A big part of the reason behind this reservation has to do with the fact that both the left and the right maintain an equally immature grasp on the subject. While the right seems to be convinced that race is some kind of scientific fact like a species of bird, the left seems to view it as an inescapable historical prison sentence with no hope for escape. Like usual, the left is wrong and the right is way fucking wrong. There is nothing scientific or permanent about race. It is a social construct as fluid in nature as gender or sexuality, and it is constantly evolving. Almost every known race was created by a collision of former races that have ceased to exist. About the only thing that the clueless class in the left-right paradigm gets right is that the white race is a very unique creature, and a dangerous one.

The white race is unique in that it is the first defining race of the imperial era and modern day imperialism defines its very existence. The Western Europeans designed the concept of whiteness to justify their expanse and enslavement of the New World and it’s dark skinned cousins across the Global South. As the insatiable nature of capitalism demanded endless expansion, it’s moneyed mandarins required the creation of a new super-class to rationalize the enslavement of the darker nations. This concept became even more necessary with American independence and the fall of monarchism.

This new white aristocracy replaced the royal bloodline and shaped the very nature of the planet’s economic ecosystem. The First World was created with the excess wealth pillaged from the Third World, and it’s subjects soon became victims of new races invented to further empower the white race. The colored races of black and Latino were constructed to both consolidate white supremacy’s ill-gotten gains and to rob the many tribes that made up these racial monoliths of color of their diverse indigenous cultures. The white race is unique, not simply by the Machiavellian nature of its design, but by the necessity of its supremacy over other similarly constructed mass races to justify its very existence. But like most imperial schemes, white supremacy backfired.

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I Was a Red Flag Kid 5

Culture Wars/Current Controversies • Tags:

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

Middle school sucks for everybody. But its harder for some people than others. After nearly a decade at a small, conservative, K-8 Catholic school, I was beginning to chafe beneath the cross of my mental illness. I had suffered from depression and anxiety since early childhood but as I entered the maelstrom of my teens, these issues became too turbulent to conceal. I didn’t feel like the other kids and my awkward individuality felt far from welcome among the pious adults. Even beyond my ability to cope with the basic everyday stress of being an active human being, I felt strange and detached from what passed as normal in this stifling environment. My body felt like a mistake and I couldn’t shake the fear that these feelings were evil. I had never heard of words like transgender or genderfluid. This was the Nineties and the only people who looked the way I felt were Dennis Rodman and Marilyn Manson, and the generally excepted wisdom at my church was that these freaks were going to hell, and so was I.

I was terrified. Terrified of myself. Terrified that if I ever let people in, that if people ever really truly saw me, they would either burn me at the stake or run screaming for the hills. So I retreated and found ways to cope. I lost most of my friends but I found shards of myself through the awesome power of punk rock music and radical politics. George W. Bush dropped bombs on Baghdad when I was in 8th grade and the very next day I came to school with a peace sign strapped to my arm. In early post-9/11 middle America, this mild gesture of resistance was tantamount to burning a pentagram in your forehead and declaring allegiance to Al-Qaeda.

I spent the proceeding weeks and months engaging in all out verbal combat with nearly every student and teacher I crossed. It was exhausting, but for the first time in a very long time, I wasn’t scared, I was proud. I had declared my independence from “normal” and stood my ground and it felt empowering. So I dressed in all black, stopped standing for the pledge of allegiance and gave up on trying to please the normal people who occupied my life. I decorated my backpack with badges emblazoned with the portraits of my new saints; Kurt Cobain, Che Guevara and Joey Ramone. Then the wolves came in and normal bit back.

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The Sound Money Showdown in U.S. States Reply

Economics/Class Relations, Uncategorized

Policies relating to sound money have been the subject of substantial debate at the state level this year, with bills, hearings, and/or votes taking place in nearly a dozen legislatures. 

As most state legislatures have now wrapped up their work for the year, let’s review the victories (both offensive and defensive)—and lone defeat—for sound money during the 2019 session.

The Sound Money Defense League’s primary goal is to remove every kind of taxation imposed on constitutional money. Given its practical importance, the hottest issue in the states has been taxation—i.e. whether citizens should face a levy when buying or selling gold and silver.

● House Bill 2684, introduced by West Virginia Delegate Pat McGeehan, aimed to remove all taxes (sales tax, corporate income tax, and personal income tax) from gold and silver. Meanwhile, Senate Bill 502, sponsored by Senator Craig Blair, exempted only precious metals from the state’s sales tax.

The West Virginia bill removing sales taxes passed overwhelmingly through both chambers, and Governor Jim Justice signed SB 502 into law.

● House Bill 2140, introduced by Kansas Representative Jim Kelly, included a sales tax exemption on the sale of gold and silver as part of a larger bill rife with new taxes. Governor Laura Kelly signed the measure in May.

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Who’s Afraid of Tulsi Gabbard? Reply

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Electoralism/Democratism • Tags: ,

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

Elections are different for anarchists. We’ve already made our peace with the basic fact that representative democracy is a sham even when it’s not rigged by moneyed oligarchs. So when we do actually take part in the process, it’s usually for purposes of propaganda and/or Machiavellian strategy. One thing Trump was right about is the influence of the deep state, though it’s hardly the shadowy coalition of dope smoking lesbian Bolsheviks the Alex Jones-set imagines them to be (I wish.) Rather, they’re more of a loose coalition of rich old white men who travel back and forth between unelected positions in the federal government and the numerous industrial complexes of the Fortune 500. At the risk of sounding like a member of the tinfoil hat brigade, these are the people who really run this country. Elections, especially at the presidential level, are largely just theater, a glorified reality TV show designed to feed the masses the illusion of living in a democratic society beneath the steel boot of a rapidly decomposing empire.

I personally subscribe to the Murray Rothbard philosophy on elections, which basically goes that since the state is defined by it’s monopoly on the use of force, the best we the people can do when we’re not loading rifles is to support the most antiwar candidate available. To me, this school of thought is made doubly relevant by the fact that theoretically the only thing the president has direct authority over is the armed forces. To say that this philosophy has brought me to some strange places is an understatement. I have personally changed political parties no fewer than three times and counting. And I’ve found myself openly backing everyone from Jurassic goldbugs like Ron Paul to New Age hippie vaxxers like Jill Stein (who’s 2016 campaign sticker continues to haunt Hillaryites from the bumper of my Ford Taurus.)

The DNC’s bottomless clown car of milquetoast morons doesn’t exactly provide a lot of options for the Rothbardian voter. Most of the candidates seem to come from the Oprah School of social democracy, chumming debt besodden millennials with the promise of an endless procession of free shit, payed through taxing super-villains without offering to cut a single missile. The only solidly antiwar candidate was 89 year old former senator Mike Gravel, but since Mike has called it quits after essentially being banned from Cable TV and screwed out of his rightful place in the latest debates, that only leaves contrarian powder-keg, Tulsi Gabbard.

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After Fed Disappoints, Will Trump Initiate Currency Intervention? Reply

Economics/Class Relations • Tags:

By Stefan Gleason, Money Metals Exchange

Following months of cajoling by the White House, the Federal Reserve finally cut its benchmark interest rate. However, the reaction in equity and currency markets was not the one President Donald Trump wanted – or many traders anticipated.

The Trump administration wants the Fed to help drive the fiat U.S. dollar lower versus foreign currencies, especially those of major exporting countries.

Instead, the U.S. Dollar Index rallied throughout July ahead of the expected rate cut and continued rallying after Fed chairman Jerome Powell made it official on Wednesday.

In fact, the Federal Reserve Note broke out to its highest level since early 2017.

The Fed also announced it would end its balance sheet reduction program a month earlier than originally scheduled.

These dovish policy changes apparently weren’t dovish enough. The central bank could have gone for a 50-basis-point cut instead of the more routine quarter point cut it delivered. It could also have announced a new Quantitative Easing program.

Perhaps the biggest market-moving disappointment (equity bearish, dollar bullish) was Fed Chairman Jerome Powell shooting down the idea of an extended rate-cutting cycle.

In his press conference, he described the cut as “mid-cycle adjustment” that didn’t necessarily imply follow-up cuts.

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Reflections on His Goofiness: William Gillis on Positive and Negative Liberty 5

Anarchism/Anti-State, Religion and Philosophy

Goofy Gillis has a lengthy interview podcast interview available. Listen here.

Here’s my general take on the content of this interview.

He’s not unintelligent, and much of what he is saying is not “wrong” per se. But I know enough about him to know that his idea of “freedom” amounts to the de facto compulsory universalization of the PC/SJW/Antifa/call-out culture paradigm, although perhaps enforced by extra-legal vigilante violence rather than a conventional state.

His ideology seems to be “Total positive freedom to make unlimited choices resulting in absolute diversity, except for people who might do something I don’t like, such as being ‘reactionary.'” That’s consistent with the nonsense I’ve seen in his Twitter feed.

Technology or no technology, progress or no progress, the evidence from all relevant fields shows that humans are naturally tribal in a social context, and individual values are rooted in their psychological and genetic proclivities. Where there is “freedom,” there is “diversity.” But diversity often includes the existence of polar opposites.

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Israeli Lobby behind Senate Failure to Overturn Saudi Arms Sale Veto 1

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: ,

My recent interview with Tasnim.

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The US Senate failed in its latest bid to block the controversial sale of $8.1bn worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia due to the influence of the powerful Israeli lobby in the United States, an American political analyst said.

“…Saudi Arabia and the UAE are also allies of Israel, which is extraordinarily powerful in the United States as well. The (US) President has a very close relationship with Israel, and the Israel lobby essentially controls much of the US Congress. The American petroleum industry and other US business interests also maintain massive holdings in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. For these reasons, the President vetoed the resolutions, and the resolutions did not receive enough support in the Senate to override the veto,” Keith Preston, the chief editor and director of attackthesystem.com, told Tasnim.

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Pompeo has ‘ulterior motives’ in expressing desire to travel to Iran 2

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy • Tags: ,

Press TV. Listen here.

It is clear that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has “ulterior motives” in expressing his desire to travel to Iran and be interviewed by Iranian news media, according to American political analyst Keith Preston.

On Thursday, July 25, Pompeo said he was willing to go to Iran for talks amid tensions between Tehran and Washington.

Asked if he would be willing to go to Tehran, Pompeo said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, “Sure. If that’s the call, I’d happily go there… I would welcome the chance to speak directly to the Iranian people.”

Some independent observers have said that Pompeo is actually not very interested in speaking with the Iranian people, but actually is concerned by the way Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is presenting Iran’s case on the American media to the US public.

They say Pompeo wants to counter Zarif by pushing the idea of travelling to Tehran and speaking to the Iranian media which has suffered several restrictions in the United States. Washington has also pressured social media giants to block Iranian media channels on YouTube and Google.

Preston said that Pompeo “thinks it’s an opportunity to score some propaganda points.”

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Jp Cortez: Sound Money Movement Gains Momentum in the States Reply

Economics/Class Relations • Tags: ,

Mike Gleason: It is my privilege, now, to welcome in Jp Cortez, with the Sound Money Defense League, a non-partisan national public policy organization working to restore sound money on the state and federal level.

Jp is a proponent of, and has studied in the Austrian School of Economics, and his role at SMDL as policy director, has him regularly testifying at legislative hearings and speaking at various events throughout the country.

His articles and analysis have appeared in many national news publications, including The Washington Examiner, Huffington Post, Mises Institute, Foundation for Economic Education, and more, and he’s a frequent guest on various podcasts and national radio shows to talk about the importance of sound money legislation. And it’s a real pleasure to have him on with us today.

Jp, thanks for the time and welcome.

Jp Cortez: Mike, I appreciate you having me on. Thank you so much.

Mike Gleason: Well, Jp, as we start out today, let’s set the stage here and first have you explain why this idea of sound money is important in the first place, and then, as a follow up to that, what kind of policies would help restore and reinforce sound money? Let’s begin with that.

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I’m a Little Bit Ilhan, and I’m a Little Bit Tucker Too 2

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Left and Right • Tags: , ,

By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

As something of a radical contrarian, I often feel like my life is comprised largely of coming out of an endless procession of closets, often without even realizing I’m stepping through the doorway. What? You didn’t know I was a pro-life feminist? You’ve never heard of a libertarian socialist? I genuinely can’t keep up with all the peccadillos you partisan pussies find indigestible. All in all, with this experience of casually shocking boring people, it’s little wonder I took to being queer like a fish in a frying pan.

But some closet doors are heavier than others and at this hybrid moment of Republicrat hysteria, they don’t get much heavier than the simple fact that I have a great deal of respect for both Ilhan Omar and Tucker Carlson, which is a bit like being a unicorn that everyone hates for a different reason. How could this be possible? Well, for one thing, I’ve long held a soft spot in my bleeding heart for both shocking people and, well, shocking-people. As a kid, I couldn’t seem to decide whether I wanted to be Mother Teresa or Marilyn Manson when I grew up. But more than any idiosyncratic character flaw, my respect for these two highly demonized figures stems from the fact that I am and will always be an anti-imperialist above all else. And regardless of their many many flaws both Ilhan and Tucker have been fairly consistent advocates for world peace.

I never expected to like Tucker Carlson and, for the most part, I still don’t. His demonization of immigrants and trans people like myself is nothing short of revolting. But like most paleocons, with Mr. Carlson you take the good with the disgusting. Regardless of how you or I may feel about the bastard’s social cluelessness, you have to be pathologically apoplectic to deny his post-partisan devotion to anti-interventionism. Where Tucker’s beloved pseudo-isolationist Caesar, Donald Trump, has faltered, Carlson has remained courageously resolute.

Since taking the prime time slot of pandering grope-a-holic Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson has delivered some of the most breathlessly eloquent prose in defense of peace that this country has seen since MSDNC had Phil Donahue fired for speaking out against the war in Iraq, often going against the very president he rebuilt his career on defending in the process, and it’s effect appears to be profound. Donald Trump seems to have only reversed his decision to commit mass murder in Iran after a brief phone call with his favorite Fox News host. With an impetuously impressionable man-child in the Oval Office, this xenophobic, binarist dick may have literally saved lives by sticking to his guns on America’s existential need to drop hers. Hate the fucker for who he is, but game recognizes game, and Tucker is looking pretty damn familiar to this tranny peacenik. Crucify me for being big enough admit it.

Perhaps the only thing more enjoyable than seeing a neocon network hijacked by a modern-day Charles Lindbergh has been watching mighty little Ilhan make those same pigfucking giants sweat. While, as an anarchist, I may find Mrs. Omar’s pseudo-socialist, big-government-solves-everything approach to domestic policy nauseatingly tiresome, she has proven herself to be the Lower House’s most doggedly consistent critic of empire since Ron Paul.

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The Condition of the World Economy 1

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Economics/Class Relations

A very good discussion of the world economy by two Marxist-Leninists. I agree with virtually everything they say except for, of course, their interpretation of the role of Communism in the industrial development of the Eastern world.

The Communist revolutions that took place in the East and the Global South in the 20th century were simply a continuation of the bourgeois revolutions of the 18th and 19th century. In every case, these revolutions (from America and France in 1776 and 1789 to Cuba and Cambodia in 1959 and 1975) were rooted in the left-wing of the middle class as revolutions almost
always are. The West is experiencing a bloodless revolution of that kind at present (what the right-wing calls “cultural Marxism’).

Industrial development of communist countries was always made possible by Western capital. An agrarian society can’t experience industrial development by practicing economic autarky. Russia tried that with “war communism” during the Russian Civil and it failed. Hence, Lenin developed the New Economic Policy and began importing industrial technology from Western capitalists.

China attempted a similar approach during the Great Leap Forward only to experience famine and mass starvation. It was the Dengist reforms of the late 70s/early 80s that allowed China to develop on its present mercantilist/national- capitalist model, which is basically the same model used by the Asian Tigers as well as the European nations during the Industrial Revolution.

Even the Khmer Rouge understood they needed the support of Western capital. The purpose of the “killing fields” was to produce as much of an agricultural surplus as possible to sell on the world market in order to be able to import industrial equipment and technology. The Khmer Rouge goal was the achievement of industrialization by the year 2000. After they were dislodged by Vietnam in 1979, they changed their ideology from Maoism to “liberal capitalism” and formed an alliance with the CIA against the Vietnamese.