Ben Hickey
For years I have reviewed books on Amazon, providing both extremely positive and negative reviews. Always well argued and based on the details of the book and many times referencing other books. Only very recently have I ever experienced any feedback from Amazon that my reviews were not welcome, and of course only for negative reviews against books that pushed an establishment narrative.
Then I wrote a review for the book “China’s Age of Abundance” by Wang Feng (a professor of Sociology at University of California, ex Fellow of the Brookings Institute and on the board of the Columbia University China Centre for Social Policy). A book which works hard to remove the Party-state as the main driver of China’s remarkable development and to trash the era of Mao during which the whole basis for the post-1978 rapid growth was built (and during which China doubled India’s growth rate while being under brutal Western sanctions). Perhaps not surprising given that he was a “sent down” youth during the Cultural Revolution, spending three years (1975 to 1978) in a Northern Chinese village. He got his BA in China (Hubei 1982) but then left for the US where he got his Masters (1984 Michigan) and PhD (Michigan 1987). Then, echoing so many current Western commentators, opining about the increased political “interference” (i.e. Xi’s successful campaign against corruption and capitalist profiteers, now followed by a successful state driven re-orientation toward economic upgrading and technological independence) leading to an end to China’s growth. The standard Western liberal rewriting of history to remove the central role of the state, and the fundamental restructuring of society (i.e. revolution) required to drive successful socialist development.
And suddenly I was not only unable to comment on any more books, but every single review that I have ever written has been removed. I have become an unperson on Amazon for the sharing of thought crimes, very 1984! I had received an email warning, but not any communication about any such erasure. When I went to review a book, I simply got this message:
We apologize but Amazon has noticed some unusual reviewing activity on this account. As a result, all reviews submitted by this account have been removed and this account will no longer be able to contribute reviews and other content on Amazon. If you would like to learn more, please see our community guidelines. To contact us about this decision, please email community-help@amazon.com.
They seem to have taken a page out of the book of YouTube in wiping all content without warning and not providing any real explanation why, apart from a breach of their extremely vague community guidelines. As in true Kafka style, it is up to me to guess how I breached these guidelines and I am provided with an utterly impersonal email address for any appeal against the Judgement of Amazon.
Now of course this action is extremely hypocritical as Amazon is rife with extremely nasty reviews, just generally not usually of establishment narrative texts written by establishment authors. A while ago Amazon used to provide the ability to comment on a review at Amazon, which provided many times very illuminating and back and forth discussions; but then this function was removed. It appears now that any cogent criticism of the establishment narrative, even in the form of online book reviews is now deemed to be a thought crime requiring unpersoning.
On a wider note, what we see is perhaps the next stage of censorship within the West as an increasing number of those that speak out about Palestine are harassed, abused and arrested, a scandal is created to go after right-wing “Russia loving” Tenant Media and some of their commentators, and the US State Department launches a campaign to have Russia Today banned around the world. Africa Stream was also taken offline by Instagram, Facebook and YouTube after US state allegations. Let’s remember that the US state has “alleged” many things that turned out not to be true.
In Gramscian terms, the ruling class is attempting to both regain control of the dominant narrative and to further restrict the ability of alternative cultural hegemonic projects to develop or even criticize the dominant narrative. When we may very well be on the cusp of widening conflicts in multiple theatres (Russia, Middle East, China), driven by US and US vassal and proxy actions, this makes absolute sense from the point of the ruling class. At the same time the dominant liberal element of the ruling class is still fighting the insurgent Trump element, which is also reflected in the censorship being carried out.
If Kamala Harris becomes the US President she could become the equivalent of Woodrow Wilson who created a fascist state within the US, with full censorship and even a para-military thug force (the American Protective League) and book burning, to drag an unwilling US public into WW1. A period utterly memory-holed (along with Wilson’s utter racism until recently) by US domestic historians and political scientists, until the book “American Midnight” by Hochschild. During which the US was made safe for “liberal democracy”, through the crushing of anti-establishment elements. This period pre-dated the rise of Mussolini and his brown-shirts and of course Hitler and his SA; both learned much from the US and also gained much support from members of the US ruling class. A ruling class that planned a US fascist coup in the mid-1930s.
Trump may have more of the personality of a Mussolini, but a Liberal Fascism may be much more probable than a Trump one. This could be the future of the US, as well of course a UK under the execrable Starmer. One will note many parallels of this era already occurring in the present, including the utter vilification of everything to do with the official enemy (then Germany and Germans, now Russia and Russians and increasingly also China), and the silencing of oppositional voices. The utterly racist and elitist Woodrow Wilson dragged the US population into a war against their will and stakes a good claim to being the worst US president ever; perhaps Kamala Harris will vie for that prize.
The lesson here is a very old one. And one understood by socialists since the C19th. An essential part of building organisations to challenge capitalism is the construction of a radical, democratic political education apparatus.
The German SPD, much maligned historically, understood this and its institutions amounted to a state within the state, a siege engine built against the walls of the system. The same was true of the socialist and trade union movements around the world- the first priority was always to construct channels of communication between the working class and the socialists that would by-pass the capitalists system of idoctrination and propaganda.
Hence The Daily Herald, for years Briatian's biggest selling daily and run by socialists (Siegfried Sssoon was literary editor for a time). Hence the Appeal to Reason in the United States. Humanite in France.
We should and easily could, sell our own books, run our own magazines, build our own search engines, organise our own Universities and schools at every level. these are the real and proper tasks of a socialist party to enable the mobilisation of the enormous intellectual and artistic potential of democracy, unencumbered by the bourgeoisie's need to cater to individual greed and obeisance to the idiocy of hierarchy.
As to Amazon: it is sad but entirely predicatble. It would be suicidal for the scoundrels who exploit humanity and risk the future of the planet to allow the free debate and untramelled discussions which would obviously conclude that the assets that they owned and used to enrich themselves should be under public ownership and democratic control.
I stopped reviewing China books ten years ago, after making the same discovery.
The topper was when they gave Hillary Clinton's bs book 'It Takes a Village,' 72,000 five star ratings!