{"id":46315,"date":"2026-01-26T12:55:59","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T20:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=46315"},"modified":"2026-01-26T12:56:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T20:56:00","slug":"michael-parenti-on-capitalist-on-capitalist-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/01\/26\/michael-parenti-on-capitalist-on-capitalist-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Parenti on capitalist on capitalist crime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bathtubbulletin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-90.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-71217\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Parenti in Berkeley, California, US in 2004<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michael John Parenti was an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who wrote on scholarly and popular subjects. He taught at universities and also ran for political office. Parenti was well known for his Marxist writings and lectures, and was an intellectual of the American Left.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Michael_Parenti\">Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Born:&nbsp;<\/strong>1933,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?sca_esv=fc1c730d332ca106&amp;sxsrf=ANbL-n7HaKstcj_1khyzF2draX1gwXrlnw:1769460791326&amp;q=New+York&amp;si=AL3DRZEaipurC9pse1xO2aCwuJWfKA_Njx1c7Qs8ap9rx81jmlG9fyQjCzLNV3bVin8hijW07e2bTHE6NL1NE8OKSiPfjksdZjL0F4_-BXaG8RMlvohi8x6h53naOoanodxWP682zLWIMjKkUWPg_Kcm96wLlLV3zFIKQ3Hr0kUjn2vfvXub9re1R5qjGETaInbMl6JDJJ4x&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjWzaSPi6qSAxXzlIkEHZaMK_wQmxN6BAgdEAI\">New York, NY<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Died:&nbsp;<\/strong>January 24, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">ChatGPT:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Michael Parenti comes back to this idea a lot, usually to puncture the myth that capitalism is \u201cpeaceful\u201d or that violence only happens when ideology gets&nbsp;<em>too radical<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The core Parenti point:<\/strong><br>Capitalists routinely&nbsp;<strong>kill other capitalists<\/strong>\u2014not by accident, and not as a moral failure of individuals, but because&nbsp;<strong>competition, empire, and profit make violence structural<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s how he frames it ????<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Capitalism isn\u2019t just markets \u2014 it\u2019s power<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Parenti argues that capitalism doesn\u2019t operate through polite competition alone. When profits, resources, or markets are threatened, capital turns to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>coups<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>wars<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>sanctions<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>assassinations<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>proxy conflicts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>And the victims are often&nbsp;<strong>other capitalist elites<\/strong>&nbsp;who are on the \u201cwrong\u201d side of a power struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>It\u2019s not labor vs. capital only \u2014 it\u2019s capital vs. capital, backed by states and armies.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Wars are often capitalist-on-capitalist conflicts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Parenti points out that many wars sold as \u201cideological,\u201d \u201chumanitarian,\u201d or \u201cdefensive\u201d are really:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>one bloc of capital trying to dominate another<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>rival business classes fighting over territory, labor, oil, trade routes, or finance<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Examples he frequently gestures toward:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>World Wars I &amp; II (imperial capitalist powers clashing)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cold War proxy wars (U.S.-aligned vs. Soviet-aligned ruling classes)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>U.S.-backed coups against&nbsp;<em>national bourgeoisies<\/em>&nbsp;that threatened foreign capital<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In these cases,&nbsp;<strong>capitalists die, lose power, or get eliminated<\/strong>\u2014not because they opposed capitalism, but because they backed the&nbsp;<em>wrong version<\/em>&nbsp;of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. The state is the hired gun<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>A classic Parenti line of thought is that capitalists rarely kill each other&nbsp;<em>personally<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014 they outsource it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The state provides:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>armies<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>police<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>intelligence agencies<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>economic warfare<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So when one capitalist faction destroys another, it looks like \u201cforeign policy\u201d or \u201cnational security,\u201d not murder \u2014 but the effect is the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Capitalism is violent even toward its own<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Parenti loves flipping the usual narrative:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>If capitalism were peaceful, it wouldn\u2019t need:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>endless war budgets<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>repression<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>prisons<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>secret services<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>propaganda<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The fact that it&nbsp;<strong>devours rival capitalists<\/strong>&nbsp;shows that violence isn\u2019t a bug \u2014 it\u2019s a feature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">5. Why he emphasizes this<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>He\u2019s pushing back against the idea that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li>socialism = violence<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>capitalism = freedom + peace<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Parenti\u2019s response is basically:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>Capitalism kills workers&nbsp;<strong>and<\/strong>&nbsp;capitalists.<br>It just kills workers quietly and capitalists strategically.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Parenti in Berkeley, California, US in 2004 Michael John Parenti was an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who wrote on scholarly and popular subjects. He taught at universities and also ran for political office. Parenti was well known for his Marxist writings and lectures, and was an&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/01\/26\/michael-parenti-on-capitalist-on-capitalist-crime\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46315"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46316,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46315\/revisions\/46316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}