The term “conspiracy theory” itself is the subject of a conspiracy is used to discredit any claims of a conspiracy - to the benefit of the mega-rich

TL:DR The term “conspiracy theory” itself is the subject of a conspiracy - that term is used to discredit any claims of a conspiracy - to the benefit of the mega-rich.

This offering is largely in response to someone making the comment on another post “fact not conspiracy” - that conflates the idea of a conspiracy as being a lie, untrue and lacking foundation.

And that’s a problematic conflation because many conspiracies are in fact very real.

Here is a page that highlights a range of outrageous conspiracies that turned out to be true including the Business Plot, also called the Wall Street Putsch - a political conspiracy in 1933 in the US involving Prescott Bush (dad and grandad of two former Bush presidents) to overthrow the FDR and install a fascist dictator. I’d never heard of this but you’ll find tonnes of accounts of this online. It’s very real.

But these are the spectacular conspiracies. There’s everyday capitalist conspiracies that might not seem so big, but are very real - and consequentially, are bloody massive in impact. From big tobacco to car industry to the use of plastics, the oil industry, tech industry - virtually every big industry and big name you can think of has been part of plots (or “plans”) to get you to spend more, and for industry to lessen its expenses and increase its profits. This really isn’t at all surprising.

The idea that different industry leaders might get together to push forward their common interests or even do things that are immoral or even unlawful should not shock any of us - and indeed we do see plenty of examples of big companies being caught out doing stuff that should shock us (eg Facebook & Cambridge Analytica scandal). But what these examples should highlight to us is that conspiracies do happen (of course they do), that is folks do in fact conspire to bring about specific outcomes, and that we should be careful about how we use the term “conspiracy theory” as a generally disparaging one.