Amerika

Since the middle of the nineteenth century, much of the history of the Western world has revolved around the clash of different economic theories. First you had David Ricardo and Adam Smith who laid the groundwork for the principles of the Capitalistic system, meaning free enterprise and private ownership under the market-mechanism of supply and demand. Then you had Marx and Engels who declared that the a specter was haunting Europe; their Socialism was said to be a mixture of German philosophy, British economic thought and French spiritedness for revolution. The idea was that the Capitalist system in its desire for profit would create a hoard of unruly and deprived workers that would tear down the Capitalist rule. And then of course everything would be equally divided.

These two economic theories soon drew in all sorts of intellectual notions and thus developed into full-blown ideologies. Throughout the twentieth century the two schools fought each other all the time, resulting into the Russian Revolution, the Red Scare, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Due to the rise of nuclear weapons both sides became so powerful that the whole world would be destroyed if they openly fought, thus began the era of the Cold War. Oh yes, there were also Hitler and Mussolini and their economic systems, which seemed to do really well for a while, but nobody knew what those were really about. Thus they were regarded with suspicion by both of the Big Schools, and quickly disposed of, so that the conflict that really mattered could continue.

However it what soon revealed that people always work harder and more readily when they work on that which is their own, since they learn to love the very soil which yields in response to the labor of their hands, not only food to eat, but an abundance of the good things for themselves and those that are dear to them. And in the Socialist system everything belonging to everyone and thus to no-one. Hence the end of the Socialist regimes, weathered down by the economic inertia of the masses and the strangling government bureaucracy. Francis Fukuyama wrote in The End of History that Western man had left the primitive Germanic quests for honour and glory behind him, and that all he really wanted now was to drink cola and eat fast food. And watch “beer-drinking-buddies sitcom style soaps”, as Brett Stevens might say.

1-0   for Freedom.

Or so we thought.

Let’s look closely; what happens under Capitalism? Do men learn to love the very stock certificates which yield cold cash, in response to the labor of someone else’s hands? For the original Humanist economists like Ricardo and Smith, the justification of private property had always been tied, at least as an ideal, to ownership and labour going conjoined. I mentioned that Capitalism and Socialism started out as economic theories, but quickly drew on all sorts of intellectual notions. This is why the majority of Americans think that a victory for Big Business, since it is a victory for Capitalism, is also a victory for Patriotism and Christianity. What people usually don’t take account of is that:

1. The original economic philosophers of Capitalism saw labour as a self-elevating, maybe even ‘sacred’ activity that helped to develop a man into a more complete person, by honing his talents, crafts and skills. They never worshiped Capitalism as what it is today; reverence for supposedly ‘smart’ individuals, who got rich through playing around with stock-shares and currency speculation, who have never done an honest day’s work that produced something actually useful for someone.
2. The idea was that one should earn good money for good quality work, meaning by producing something beautiful or functional to others. The founders of Capitalism didn’t envision Capitalism for what it is today; call-games on television, tricking people with fishy contracts. I’ll always remember the story of cousin Ricky (not my cousin though): His job was to call people up to remind them to pay. However he wasn’t to call at the last two months of the year. Since the contract said they had to pay one month at the time, except the last two months, these had to be paid simultaneously in November. If they failed or forgot to do so, they had to pay another year extra. The contract simply ‘hoped’ that people would forget this. Today, Capitalism is a system that destroys common human courtesy. And so much for Patriotism, because those men in Big Business really don’t care whether they’re working in the U.S.A.,Mexico or Thailand. They move their factories to where production and shipping costs are lowers.
3. Usury – has nothing to do with hard labour. Borrow 100 dollars from a bank, and pay 120 back. The bank vouches for your 100, where do you get the other 20 from? From another guy. Now ask yourself how the other guy got his money to pay you. Hopefully you get it. If you do, ask yourself the question why monetary theory isn’t taught at school. I’ll lift a tip of the veil for you; your currency is confidence. And the stronger the threat of confiscation and being thrown on the streets, read; the more debt, the better, because you’ll produce goods and services by working. It’s not the money that the economy depends on. It’s on you providing goods and services. Because that’s what keeps people alive. Now you may understand why that debt counting billboard thing in Los Angeles keeps going up despite Obama’s promises that it will go down.

Does all of this mean that I worship some sort of anti-Capitalist ideology? No. I only follow whatever combines Truth with Power. I’m simply putting the objective facts before you on the table.

Economic Productivity is this:

1. People who produce the needs of basic living to keep themselves alive.
2. Have a group that is sufficiently large to provide the needs to sustain themselves. And then a bit extra.
3. This ‘extra’ can be used to allow people to exist who exercise professions that enrich the general quality of life.

Globalist Economy is this:

1. Have banks that people have confidence in.
2. Let people spend money in the name of these banks, regardless of whether this money exists or not.
3. Have an economy of people who are paid to do the administration of using this ‘money’ to attract the goods of life necessities from elsewhere. Hence, our economy has been almost completely severed from the actual requirements for sustaining a human life. Our economy has become a self-serving bureaucracy. The fact that it produces pointless administrative labour that doesn’t feed or clothe anyone is irrelevant – people are paid in wages of bank money. They can use this to buy the actual products they need from elsewhere. People who produce goods and services believe in the banks, and owe money to the banks. Thus they work.
4. You probably do administration somewhere and lost touch with the thing your line of work is producing. If you could see what you had made from beginning to end, that it was a good quality product that would make someone’s life better, then perhaps you could have been proud of that product and of your job. You are a gear in some administrative system somewhere. You do what you’re told and don’t overstep your strictly delineated eligibility / authorization. You’re effectually interchangeable with a Russian bureaucrat stuffed away behind the Iron Curtain.
5. Work is essentially organized occupational therapy. This can go on as long as (a) money can be rented out without limit, and (b) people who create the goods of basic life necessity accept the money. However the monetary system itself is flawed since there’s an infinitely greater amount of rent that must be paid over money than there is total money in the money pool.

It’s really this simple: A country can never go bankrupt if the basic life necessities of people are provided for. YOU can’t go bankrupt as long as you are capable of providing your own basic life necessities. Therefore I suggest you buy a piece of land and start an orchard. I’m serious though; you just keep your eyes fixed on that board in Los Angeles. The only way America can be saved is if this post is printed, put in an envelop and sent to the White House, so that Obama can read it in front of the cameras as his speech to the nation. (Except then this last sentence shouldn’t be read out loud – so that we can see if he reads his speeches first before he speaks them openly.)

I suggest that the economically unproductive are summoned from time to time to do labour, by herding animals, growing fruits and weaving cloth at special sites. They won’t be paid in money but they will be paid in the products produced in other of these sites. In exchange for growing fruits they’ll receive meat and clothing, for example, or other products if they choose so. This has the benefit that their existence can be provided for independently of the monetary economy. Therefore there will be a disentangled economy, so that the second half of the economy, the monetary part, can fall back upon the first part. You see, the second layer of the economy, what we’re all focused on right now, is all play (stock-shares, administration, internet-marketeering). The economy that provides for our lives is what should be any sane government’s top priority. Ask yourself the question: ‘How come that can exist at this very moment?’

Some have argued that the best system is a mixture of societal Darwinism, tribalism and monarchy, leaving the individual to succeed . . . AND to fail on their own abilities. However I fear that most people are too whimsical, whishy-washy and/or irrational to be truly left to themselves without direction given to their lives by others. Leaving them on their own might destroy the worth of life since it would probably lead even more of an MTV-society, which is really what we have right now regardless of all the government economic intervention and welfare programs.

People have not been instructed in Freedom – they have been taught entitlement which is something quite different. And with an MTV-society I mean people being only interested in one another in so far as they have happy clappy feelgood stories to offer that make teenage girls giggle. They feel lonely and miserable, because others wont listen to their inconvenient stories of pain or suffering, won’t help them out of their emotional isolation – but when others have a comparable problem they’re suddenly not home.

And whose fault is that? Ignorance is to blame. Lack of principles, lack of discipline, lack of reason. This really comes back to it that we are living in a service-industry driven economy, not production – almost no-one makes stuff. We only service others; we’re employed by banks and stores.

People could be great if they are taught the right ideas. The idea that their labour is something they can take pride in, if they do it good. But instead people see their labour only as something they do to get their next quick fix; some sort of consumption thing which leads to an empty and unfulfilling life. This unfulfilling life gives rise to triviality to fill this emptiness. This leads a cheap infotainment industry which drowns out any form of cultural greatness. So that man has nothing left to live up to, and thus he sinks into fatalism.

Tags: barack obama, capitalism, economics, Nerdcore, realism, socialism