Is America’s Socialism Only for the Rich, or Everyone Else?

07.03.10 The Joker (of Batman fame) acts as a scarecrow; and in the Obama Socialism poster (of Republican Party fame) this scarecrow acts to frighten people away from something they want so that the scarecrow owners can keep the goods for themselves (socialism).

The battle in America today isn’t to determine if we have socialism or don't have it, it’s to determine who gains the spoils of government protection: will it be the citizen majority, or the rich elite?

Even if the entire population is diving to extinction, driven down by individual competition, natural selection will still favor the most competitive individuals, right up the moment when the last one dies. Natural selection can drive a population to extinction, while constantly favoring, to the bitter end, those competitive genes that are destined to be the last to go extinct. – Richard Dawkins

From Russia with Money: The Evolution of Socialism into State Capitalism

30.11.06 & 11.07.09 One thing I have learned over the years in reading news articles about Russia in the western mass media is that almost everything they report is wrong. In fact you can almost take whatever they say and invert it and you’ll be pretty close to the truth on what is really happening in Russia.

Case in point: the established myth in the west is that President Vladimir Putin is continually crushing democracy in Russia with his heavy hand of autocracy. This assumption is widely accepted as fact by western audiences, but upon closer inspection this is clearly a bogus criticism since the vast majority of Russians support Putin, much more than Americans support President W. Bush. Bush is actually far guiltier of promoting anti-democratic policies than Putin, but then that’s the purpose of vilifying foreign leaders – to distract domestic attention away from legitimate national problems.

Human rights and civil society standards are weaker in Russia than they are in Western Europe, and even in most of the United States, and that's a legitimate criticism. But in order to be fair we have to put it into proper context. Russia is just now emerging from decades of Soviet Communist authoritarianism where political commissars and secret police ruled with state sponsored terrorism over their own people. Remember that not more than a few decades ago authorities in the United States were using fire hoses and attack dogs on protestors, and even today the current American President has secret detention centers operating across the globe in conjunction with notorious prisons in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay Cuba that are officially outside of the law! Put into proper perspective the United States has no platform to legitimately criticize Russian society on standards of democracy.

It’s also worth remembering that this same western media loved Boris Yeltsin, even as the Russian public hated him, because his administration was so profoundly corrupt and because he willfully allowed the national wealth of the Soviet Union to be siphoned off in rigged auctions to just a few unsavory characters through insider deals. The fact that most of these newly minted billionaires were Jewish was practically never mentioned in the western media but could not be ignored by the Russian public that wasn’t as ignorant. This creates a schizophrenic interpretation of Russian events that continues to this day.

Seven oligarchs controlled half of Russia's entire economy during the Boris Yeltsin 1990s. Six of the seven were Jewish: Berezovsky, Vladimir Guzinsky, Alexander Smolensky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Friedman and Valery Malkin. Putin was swept into office on public demand to take back control of his nation from these robber-barons, and he did it by making an agreement with the barons that as long as they stayed out of politics they could keep their ill gotten wealth. Yet they still couldn't uphold their end of the bargain so, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Boris Abramovitch AKA Boris Berezovsky, they were slapped down. Abromovitch fled the country and Khodorkovsky, Russia’s richest man, went to prison. Imagine that!

Many of the ‘Russians’ depicted in the western mass media aren’t really ethnic Russians at all, but the mass-media can’t explain who they really are and what they really want. Putin’s real intention, and what Russia is really like, can’t be elucidated to the western public because it would contradict all the other lies and myths that are so important to perpetuating the west’s establishment power structure. Consequently, the first thing to remember about Russia is that things are rarely what they seem to be.

About seven years ago when I talked to people about Russia they would bring up the usual doom and gloom about autocratic government policies and an unstable economy. Agreed, things were definitely bleak for Russia, but I was also quick to respond that Russia was actually one of the best places to look for economic growth because, having hit the bottom, they have nowhere else to go but up! And indeed that has quite evidently been the case. A continuing, but rarely reported story is the success of Russia economically, politically, and even socially. One of the main reasons that Russia’s success is downplayed and maligned in the western media is the fact that Putin has used his brand of ‘state capitalism’ so successfully and if that same methodology is adopted in other locations it would have very unpleasant consequences for global capital and their continued ability to plunder indiscriminately and with legal impunity.

Bankrupt a decade ago, Russia has a growth rate triple that of the EU and is the second largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia. But Russia’s economic success is not simply due to the current high price of crude oil. The Russian government has been remarkably savvy in their financial planning, having raised national gold and cash reserves to record levels and paid off much of their foreign debt, particularly their debt to the IMF, the pseudo-benevolent fund widely viewed as a political tool of the American financial elite. Even more brilliant has been Russia’s petro-prescience having very shrewdly maneuvered around the global machinations of Dick Cheney and his oil friends in the current administration of W. Bush. Putin has shown that he can play hardball in response to the United States’ maneuvers to monopolize petroleum resources in the Middle East, i.e. Iraq, and Central Asia as shown by the Bush administration's ulterior motives behind their War on Terrorism and their no-holds barred effort to acquire basing rights in Afghanistan and surrounding states to secure preferential passage for petroleum and gas pipelines throughout that region. In contrast to the shrewd macroeconomic management in Putin's Russia, a country that is replacing poverty with prosperity, is George W. Bush's America. Bush, with the help of Congress, is burning through $2,000,000,000 every week just to sustain his worldwide 'War on Terrorism'. White House aligned critics in America heap scorn on Russia under Putin even as their own country replaces prosperity with poverty.

So behind the scenes, behind all the accusations and name calling, much of what’s really going on is about money and power. Putin is reclaiming his nation’s natural resources from the control of private individuals, in this case billionaire oligarchs, and placing control back in the hands of the federal government. This is in direct contradiction to the mantra of global finance capitalism that strives to place all wealth under private control and for the express benefit of private individuals. This is high stakes stuff.

The philosophy of this unrestricted capitalism was best encapsulated by Milton Friedman who stated "So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no, they do not." Although Friedman and his economic belief system were once lauded he’s now widely reviled as the architect of a dysfunctional society based on greed, injustice, and anti-social behavior, a society that demonstrated the apex of its values with the Enron scandals. Not surprisingly, predatory capitalism remains popular with the ultra-rich but it nonetheless has no intellectual justification backing it up, only the inertia of the past. So it’s no longer seen as a solution but as a problem waiting for something to replace it and this is why regulated state capitalism is so vilified by the elite and their media mouth-pieces: it scares them to their core. I think that state capitalism is the natural evolution of socialism, it respects the profit motive of free-enterprise but it also respects the needs of the public that socialism addresses.

And now you get the picture. Now you can see why the New York newspapers think Putin is a terrible person and everything Russia is doing is evil.  Venezuela is the same story all over. Chavez is a popular, fairly elected leader who builds houses for the homeless and provides political representation to people that have never had it for centuries in his own country, while even providing heating oil to the poor in the United States! Yet the Bush administration has nothing but invective to describe him and his populist state capitalism policies. What does that tell you about the values of the people in power in the United States today? To paraphrase the brave patriot Daniel Ellsberg, we aren't on the wrong side, we are the wrong side.

The established storyline has it that the ‘anti-free-market’ policies of Chavez and Putin are going to drive their countries into the ground. Business’ will flee the horribly onerous regulations imposed on them by rich-hating dictators, and the miserable public will soon be jumping form tall buildings in desperation as poverty and despair engulf them! Yes indeed, according to the New York experts and the White House and most of the western mass media Russia must be a total disaster in the making.

Kind of funny then isn’t it that the reality of Russia is quite the opposite? Yeah, turns out Russia, or at least Moscow the cultural heart and brain of Russia, is soaking in money. Skyscrapers and luxury apartments are sprouting like mushrooms and the new rich struggle with the difficult problem of determining what to spend all their money on! The most expensive place in the world to live is Moscow and wealth inequality, not poverty per se, is becoming the most serious problem. Putin’s domestic policies haven’t scared off business. In fact foreign investors are busting down the door to get into Russia and buy a piece of the action! But how would the average American know any of this from the news fed to them?

The narrow range of foreign news that Americans receive is very disturbing at a time when so much of the world, from India to South Korea to Russia, is so rapidly advancing. America is becoming more and more a self-contained bubble that believes its own lies and acts on the world stage according to a false sense of reality. Where’s the world’s tallest skyscraper being built? New York? Chicago? No, it’s in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. How many American’s could find the UAE on a map? The American conception of Arab culture is shaped almost entirely by the mass media so they conclude that all Arabs are religious lunatics and suicide bombers and it doesn’t make sense to them that they could be building towers and hosting world class events like the 2006 Asia Games in Doha, but it does make sense that America should be invading and bombing them. Who profits from perpetuating that myth?

Despite all the conflict, or perhaps because of it, I see many reasons to be optimistic in the early part of the Twenty First century. George W, Bush has power but he could hardly be less popular. Bush is the face of unilateralist disasters, the man is a walking talking advertisement for international cooperation. Off cameras foreign leaders are already preparing for the fall of the Bush administration and neo-con policies. The United States is in a difficult position because as the dominant power that straddles the globe they have only one way to go: down. Behind the scenes America’s planners and elite realize the precariousness of their situation and although they certainly cannot admit it to the public, and perhaps not even to themselves, they know that their war has already been lost and their Empire is in a mortal state of decline. The American public won’t ever see it coming but nonetheless they are about to learn some very difficult lessons in the near future.

In comparison Europe, because they lost their Empires and lost the wars, were compelled to ask difficult questions about their beliefs and assumptions and they were gradually transformed through this process of introspection. Today when Europe shakes its head at America’s violence and foolish policies forced on the world at bayonet point they're criticizing from experience. Europeans no longer believe that putting opponents in concentration camps and secret dungeons to extract confessions makes for acceptable state behavior. Russia gave up its imperial ambitions by choice, perhaps the only instance of an Empire willfully shutting down, and they learned from the experience. Most Russians no longer believe that invading and occupying foreign countries, like Afghanistan, is a viable means of extending national power and prestige. The United Sates won World War II and so they never had to ask any tough questions about themselves. Today they're paying for it and tomorrow, after they've finally lost the war, they'll be forced to question themselves. Hopefully afterwards they'll be willing to join the rest of the world to build a brighter future for everyone, instead of only for a select few over the dead bodies of everyone else.

19.08.01 Equality is perhaps the most risible of the popular hollow slogans. Yet are we to gain equal poverty or equal slavery under the righteousness of a democratic law? Before you beg for equal rights it would be wise to define who you're becoming equal to before your unqualified request is granted. Are we seeking equality with the best, the average, or the worst? And which category will we actually be granted?! Beware the socialist revolution long on hyperbole and short on details.

From Socialism to Capitalism - A Cycle

04.04.03 Our contemporary industrialized society is founded on hypocrisy, and two elements of it are intelligence and beauty. Here's why: we know that intelligence is mostly inherited, rather than earned, but we're then told that intelligence can be increased through education. Yet this is blatantly contradicted by the evidence which shows us that educated people are not necessarily smarter people, they've just jumped through the arbitrary hoops established by cultural convention. Intelligence is a very useful measure of personal capability for a wide variety of tasks but, despite this fact, in the United States companies can't use intelligence tests to hire people even though that's the best means of determining qualification - for any job! Why not? Because it's "unfair"!

But even though IQ test are an illegal means of hiring that hasn't stopped it from occurring. The names are changed and the process is obfuscated to please authorities and social convention but it still occurs, just less accurately and consistently. So obviously certain loopholes exist, and with good reason, because intelligence rating is so effective. After all, education is really useless but intelligence is absolutely not. Smart people will pick up the nuances of any job faster than dumb ones and work better too. This is not rocket science, people know this but society fears being regimented along lines of intellect because most people are lukewarm intellects, average at best, they fear losing to those better endowed than them. Hence the creation of artificial boundaries such as making IQ tests illegal for job hiring. Interestingly, the United States military uses an IQ test for job placement; it has a different name (ASVAB) but works in exactly that capacity. Few complain because the median is so dumbed-down that only the dullest fail, so it offends few and magnifies many.

Intelligence is a sought after commodity and so is beauty, but society treats the two attributes very differently. Starting with intelligence, think of the inveterate town fool or court jester or the comic relief on any TV show or movie, what purpose do they serve? It must have a universal appeal given the long-lasted impression it has left and the continued popularity across cultures. People want to feel comfortable, they want to feel superior, and the easiest way is to laugh at someone more foolish and stupid than you. It's crass, yes, but always popular.

Intelligence is an estimable quality, just as beauty is, but intelligence has a universal use that beauty does not. What I mean is that intelligence will put food on the table whereas beauty can't, at least not directly. A smarter hunter will catch more than a dumb one and a smarter leader will last longer than a dumb one, for instance, but a beautiful person must rely on the exploitation of their subjective qualities in beauty through others to gain what they need through indirect means.

So although intelligence has many limitations placed on its public expression, beauty does not have as many even though its desirability is often at equal levels. The reason for this I think is that beauty is something that can be altered or enhanced as well as being (partly) a subjective value as well, unlike intelligence which is primarily objective in qualities while being mostly genetic in origin and not something that anyone can improve or alter significantly. Beauty is socially acceptable as a ranking tool, as feminists for instance have been vocal critics of, because it can be changed through cosmetics, surgery, perceptions, better lighting, as well as many other ways. It's pretty tough to pretend to be much smarter than one really is but not too tough to pretend to be much more beautiful than one really is! So even though beauty and intelligence are mostly gifts, or curses, of genetics and not something we can change they're treated very differently in human society.

Economist and historian Karl Polanyi found that human nature has a tendency to subvert 'free-market' Laissez Faire economies by building legal restraints and social protections. I think that this is solid evidence in support of the contention here. In addition to this we can see that all of human society wherever it occurs has at least one universal theme - that being that the public wants to feel safe and they will create arbitrary, artificial and seemingly specious rules just to maintain that semblance of comfort. The intelligent are limited so as not to make too many feel lessened. Socialism is really the apex of this theme in practice, a very clear-cut system that tries to please as many as possible while limiting the expression of the entrepreneurs and motivated individualists.

My World

Even deeper than this universal theme of social comfort-seeking is the underlying principle that drives it; this is universal self-interest. Every person is fundamentally motivated by a self-interest above that of others. We all live in a solipsistic reality and indeed it cannot be any other way because we are incapable of feeling what others feel or knowing what other knows. We can guess, we can surmise and craft fairly accurate hypothesis' because after all most others react as we ourselves would react in similar situations, but still we can only enjoy the benefits that come to us directly. Only the self can feel pleasure or pain or any other sensation, but most importantly pleasure because rewards are what drive most of human behaviour. The reward in the case of social comfort is that of being accepted, of being with like members. We all feel uncomfortable being with a group that is obviously better than ourselves in looks or intelligence because it's harder to relate and communicate and it's tougher to be accepted. Similarly we generally don't want to be around lame-brains and ugly people because soon we start to take on their less than desirable attributes, if just by association, and the conversation and understanding are limited as well.

Human society seeks an equilibrium of conformity where those 'better than us' can't be too much better in public, and where we have just enough 'worse-than us' to laugh at and feel superior to. It's a game of perceptions to a large extent. It's human nature to want what we don't have; those distant things always look better because the lack of possession means a lack of awareness for the flaws and negative aspects that probably go along with it. Television and popular media have warped this scale significantly over the past fifty years but the fundamental motivations remain the same. We all want to be beautiful and intelligent but we don't want anyone else to have more than we do! And in a system where I don't perceive a fair chance of getting either one than it's in my best interest to promote a set of rules where no one else can get intelligence or beauty of money or anything else like that either.

The Socialist / Capitalist cycle

But now you can probably see where this leads. Two paths are evident, one is socialistic - one of stagnation where most everyone gets dragged down into the lower middle category and those who try to better themselves are shunned and met with disapproval by the others. Significant levels of social hypocrisy and outright lies within the culture are needed in order to maintain this system though because it's based on what people want not the way things really are. People want equality but the world is inherently un-egalitarian in nature.

The second path is where the restrictions have been loosened either through legislative revolution or social anomie usually, and those with superior attributes are allowed to succeed or fail according to their own desires and motivations. But without a set of rules for redistributing their success the system quickly develops into one of haves and have-nots. Anger and class-envy ensues and you know the rest of the story.

Another more famous Karl, who used the last name of Marx, saw history as teleological and evolutionary; it all inexorably progressed from a lower level to a more advanced stage, and capitalism was more primitive than socialism and the highest stage was of course communism. Marx may have been an impressive thinker but he still got it impressively wrong; he misunderstood biological evolution and erroneously used it as a framework for economic and political history. There is no upward path in this regard but rather a vacillation between two states based on the singular and universal human motivation for self-promotion. Political-economic systems gradually switch between socialist and capitalist models based upon the collective perceptions of their populations. If they feel that too many people are better off than they are then they will demand government enact laws to protect them, to limit the expression of coveted, nontransferable attributes such as intelligence or to a lesser but no less serious extent - capital. And I mean capital in large quantities which does not transfer well if at all, meaning the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; capital is sticky. Conversely if the public feels too cloistered and limited within a stifling milieu of conformity they will likely begin to demand more freedom and ability to profit from their own attributes and talents.

Of course the cultural expressions will vary, different language will be used to obfuscate these trends and make them more palatable to the public, just as always. But look at Eastern Europe long beaten down under Cold-War/Iron Curtain Soviet rule, heavily socialist rule I will add, to the point that equality was pushed very long and hard onto the populace. They indeed became similar, but only in their poverty. Today many of these countries have switched and embraced capitalism, once restricted talents and energies are now free to seek self-profit and personal advancement. And around the cycle goes.

The durability of the capitalist system resides in the fact that people think they can make small, simple adjustments or choices to defeat their competition. And human behaviour is greatly influenced by competition - no one wants to be worse off than their neighbor (competitor). In the capitalist system they can switch from Brand X to Brand Y and (seemingly) become more happy, successful or beautiful, but once again it's important to note that no one can buy more intelligence.

It's not difficult to predict where any given society is headed in this cycle. Just look at the level of social hypocrisy and double standards. If a society is increasingly busy trying to make war look like peace and obfuscate the obvious, then they're headed towards the socialistic conformity end of the spectrum. Conversely if a society it generally less inclined to buy into the BS and embraces a spirit of anomie then they're likely headed towards the capitalistic side.

I regret using the terms 'capitalist' and 'socialist' because they're too closely associated with economic models to most, but really I think they're more than just economic systems because reflect attitudes, large-scale social values and collective aspirations as well. Lastly I want to emphasize that socialism is not a singular edifice, some socialism works better than others - just compare Swedish socialism to Soviet socialism; nevertheless the details are different but the concepts and values remain the same.

Free-Market Absurdity

For a quick but profound example highlighting the fallacy of free-market righteousness, or the Ayn Rand Objectivist types with a 'might is right' ideology, think of Bill Gates who in his $100 million dollar compound consumes so much water that nearby residents are forced to curtail consumption. Local restaurants post notices, "Due to water crisis, customers will not be given water to drink unless they ask." While Mr. Gates consumes 4.7 million gallons of water in a year.

It's absurd to think that the average citizen and the mega-rich can be charged equal rates and that both will have equal access to limited resources. If the free-market was always right, if might is always right, than entire towns full of productive people (and Microsoft customers) would die of thirst while one billionaire lounges in a deck chair sipping cognac and watching the fish frolic in his artificial salmon stream.

An Army of Communists

05.11.01 Americans often have difficulty recognizing irony, perhaps because they're surrounded by it and consequently inured to it. The military ranks are generally considered politically conservative, at least in the sense that they have a higher proportion of nationalistic sentiment even if they don't always vote Republican, although most do. The point is that the American military type is either recruited to begin with, or indoctrinated with the belief, that socialism is prima facie evil and that communism is a Russian soldier with you in his rifle sights - commie bastards! Yet the irony is the fact that the American military, or for the best example here I'll use the US Army, is the most socialistic organization in America, by far. Indeed, it's a communist organization that would make Marx nostalgic if he were here to see it; and if you laughed at that statement you either don't know anything about practical communism or you don't know anything about the Army.

In the Army you get paid the same amount of money whether you work or not, every soldier has a skill, some are very technical and costly to train, but whether you actually do the job you trained for or not, and many don't, you get the same pay. On paper, rank promotion is supposed to be based on time in grade and quality of record, but in reality it's either through favoritism or more often a mechanical process devoid of any qualitative decision making. Except for about highest ranks it doesn't matter much anyway because the pay is abysmal. Much like actual communism everyone gets paid but the downside is the fact it's universally substandard, truly a paragon of socialism right there. But of course it goes much further because in order to compensate for the lack of cash, the costs of food and household items have to be subsidized, hence the commissary (grocery store) and the PX (most everything else), plus free or reduced cost housing, much of which would be considered section-8 in the regular world. And everyone gets free medical care, but it's so sub-rate that unless you want to learn what 'malpractice' means you avoid it like the plague. Then of course we have the Generals and Colonels which are the equal of the Kremlin or the Central Committee members, chauffeured around in limousines doing what they want when they want to and making the big bucks.

The parallels between the military and full-blown communist society are legion, indeed it's a universe unto itself. But does it work? Well sort of, but only due to three factors, one it's a voluntary communism because no one has to join, two because it's extremely well funded communism since it can siphon funds, meaning taxes, from the immensely more productive 'free-market', and three the military life is basically look busy and do as little as possible anyway so the pressure to accomplish anything is minimal. Still that's making it overly complicated because the only factor that successfully encourages individual effort is the rank promotion incentive tied with pay increase. So, in a limited way communism can work but only if a relatively fair and pervasive structure exists with which to summarily reward personal effort with a desirable incentive, usually meaning good old-fashioned money.

New Democracy

08.07.01 In an environment where people have the freedom to define themselves they by and large opt for the lowest common denominator. If one looks at recent history, even 200 years ago, power and wealth were vested in the few and in comparison today is truly the age of democracy. I think the flaw with democracy is not the concept but the material democracy is forced to work with. The flaw is the character of the public, the demo in democracy. They choose to be a mendacious mob rather than a collection of cooperating intellects. To extend a phrase from H.L. Mencken - the problem with democracy is the public.

So, basically we have two choices: either throw out democracy for a superior pattern, or alter the quality of the public, in other words raise the common denominator to the level that it represents a cooperative and rational element. The primary need here is a method of improving collective quality through media and role models. In other words if instead of football stars and mindless movie icons we supplanted them for scientists, philosophers, and philanthropists then the public would fall in tow; follow the leader.

Although this would work to an extent, I surmise it's fundamentally flawed because already the public has a choice to read the supermarket tabloid or a science journal and we already know which paper 99% pick. I mean, when I talk to someone they invariably discuss the latest Hollywood film and not quantum computing, even though the second issue is far more intriguing and multidimensional. In other words, I think the mark has already been made, people have already defined themselves and their characters and they are undeniably (and will be for the foreseeable future) nothing but a boorish, self-centered, ego-driven mob. But that's not necessarily a bad thing because mobs are remarkably easy to direct if you have the brains and the tools. It's a waste to throw out the quality few with the rest of the hoi polloi. The alternate then is to create a caste system, an elitist model but once again were running counter to the mob's first choice of 'democracy'. The elite would be no less ego-driven but would at least be less rash and more likely to weigh action against consequence. This was roughly the intent behind the United States Constitutional Republic before it became a so-called democracy.

Clearly every person, just like every group, has its flaws so the best idea is to categorize, to best match ability with task and that means specialization but not necessarily lack of personal choice and the more capable the person the more choice they will have in finding their niche. But the positive aspect is that most people already know what they like to do, and what they do best, so a job doesn't have to be mandated or dictated as long as reasonable allowance is given for exploring possibilities and transferring from one job to another. For more information on this topic read the Education page at Holology

The 'ideal' solution is a pseudo-democracy wherein the boorish public believes they are largely in charge because their immediate needs are met fairly and quickly. Yet simultaneously the social structure is advancing the capable few from the mob upwards into positions of law and policy and guiding the long term health of the public meaning a chronic, concerted effort to minimize degradation and maximize elevation of society in mind and body. Sort of what communism promises but never delivers, so clearly the crux of the matter is the mechanics of the socio-political structure.

To start with we need a structure that will fairly and reasonably match niche with individual and once in place will maintain a steady, strong output - the muscles the labor power.

Second a system to integrate the specialized tasks of millions, the muscles into a functional whole machine. This is the nervous system, a set of linked communications.

Third is a system to plan and organize everything lest it become self-defeating or wasteful. This is the mind or the executive branch.

But I don't want the executive deciding who goes where just like the mind doesn't decide which skin cells will die in the next 30 seconds or how many beats a second the heart will pump. I don't want the executive to be able to change the structure at all, merely decide what the machine will do and with a built in limit that it can never be self-destructive, in other words the executive mind can not commit suicide taking everyone else down with it. The nervous system has to share the hurt, right?

Full employment: sad but true that not everyone is employable for various reasons both natural and artificial. The admired aspects of full employment, characteristic of some Communist and National Socialist regimes, comes at the price of chronic wartime stance. Any regime can attain the same miracle with enough deficit financing and wasteful production. Point - people will always be unemployed, and the unemployed are trouble. This is a perennial problem and I'll leave it for later resolution suffice to say the idea is to maximize usage of labor resources.

Redundant labor: So fulfilling that previous maxim we come to another issue, that of excess labor. In peacetime and slow growth combined with automation we have too many workers and not enough to do. The classic trick is to dream up a goal, either a war or trip to the moon or what have you, and allocate extra labor resources to fulfill this goal. Growth is necessary, otherwise we'll have massive unemployment and government will have to deficit spend to keep them quiet, or face trouble. So the "goal" is now once again up for later resolution. Rank it this way 1) defeat enemies 2) if no enemy left explore 3) public works 4) make a new enemy.

This is no master plan, it's barely even a start but it's worth contemplating if for no other reason than rationally determining what's right about it and what's wrong - go for it.

08.07.01 The volunteering is slavery credo promoted by Ayn Rand objectivists and ideological relatives not only seems counterintuitive but is corrosive to human success, both individually and collectively, when actualized. Humans are social creatures evolved from primate clan structures and everything we create is part of that interconnection, our economy is participatory, our culture, the benefits of civilization all are predicated upon intense, consistent and durable multiparty cooperation. So whether you like it or not, and I'm sure at certain points we all have our complaints with it, this cooperative structure is unavoidable and an increasingly necessary aspect of humanity. The answer isn't increased separatism of individuals, we have enough dissociated atoms already, rather the answer is specialization, cooperation, and unification of collective goals.

The state may hire more police officers, spend billions on an ever more elaborate judicial system, and build more prisons, but all this has little effect. Such policies merely mask the symptoms of a social disease that, by rendering it more tolerable, they only serve to perpetuate. As the global economy marginalizes more people, this disease can only worsen and spread to those areas of the world that have succeeded in remaining unaffected. - Edward Goldsmith

Not only that but as unemployment and underemployment spread, as the ranks of the impoverished and disenfranchised grow they will by necessity be forced into the adversarial economies outside the formal system. Regional cooperatives and community investing are both increasingly palpable and accelerating in pervasiveness. Globalization and its lackey cousin, socialist government, has effectively generated its own enemies.

Curing the disease of the present has only made future disease more virulent and deadly.

Family Life isn't Profitable

14.08.00 Population expands to fill the void AND Economic success stifles reproduction  THEREFORE Populations plateau with the presence of economic and social security-blankets for the middle class.

And while only a few countries so far have declining populations, already 61 countries, representing 44 percent of the world's inhabitants, have below-replacement fertility rates (fewer than 2.1 live births per woman).

Europe's share of the world population, 20 percent in 1960 and already down to 13 percent, will fall to around seven percent in 2050.

The problem with the expected population growth, Jacques Vallin of the French Institute of Demographic Studies notes, is that "most of it will take place among the populations which are least able to support it, namely poor and developing countries."

Thus Africa will see its share of world population increase to 20 percent in 2050, compared with 13 percent at present and only nine percent in 1960. Thus the HIV-AIDS pandemic, despite its terrible toll, will cause scarcely a dent in that continent's population curve.

So, in America, even with the greatest economic boom ever, ironically (non-immigrant) birth rates are flat or barely above replacement level of 2.1 children per family; and where would the average be without the Mormons and the Catholics? Japan and Germany even have campaigns to promote childbirth. Everything is as good as it has ever been, so why the decline in birth rates? The genetic need to reproduce hasn't vanished but the sentiment has changed, 'now is just not the right time to do it'.

Birth rates have little to do with GDP but everything to do with socialism, by that I mean that when wealth trickles down to the masses a middle class is created and a state run social security-blanket is built, then birth rates fall. Why? Cultural factors in heavily industrialized countries tend to downplay the importance of family life often in favor of social and economic success. In poorly developed countries family and social structures are much more rigid and conservative, they put family life on a pedestal. Why? Because economic success is virtually impossible for the majority of the people, they have a subsistence, usually agrarian lifestyle where even factory work only yields a few cents a day in wages. Having more children means more helping hands for chores as well as a security blanket for old age in countries that lack state run social security. Work-life is secondary to family-life not so much because these cultures favor it that way, but because of the lack of opportunities for economic success within the workplace.

Socialism acts like a drug, altering the chemistry of the body politic. Having found out that socialism has serious side-effects, governments now are forced to administer antidotes in order to keep that body alive, hence the arrival of retrograde policies concerning birth promotion and family. In the near future other programs along these lines will emerge as it becomes increasingly clear that the industrialization of society has serious and before unseen negative contra-indications both economically and socially.

In a vision of extreme irony ultimately government will be attempting to have the conservative social structures of family life alongside the modern benefits of industry and middle class wealth. Japan has long tried to pay mothers and families directly in efforts to boost population without success. Even the extreme opposite example, China's one child policy has done little to balance the population growth, instead it has created a bizarre male imbalance and a bloated population of nearly one and a half billion Chinese.

Why do we form families at all? Fun? To extenuate our genetic material? Does it really matter? What does matter is why we don't have families anymore! Perhaps because of the promotion of homosexuality, living costs, ease of extra-marital sexual gratification, social security-blanket, the need to be successful and families just get in the way, man! Exactly, now we see that the need for two wage earners to have a house, a car, and so on has necessitated sacrifice, usually a sacrifice of family life for 'survival' money. Our middle class standards, i.e. what we want and think we need to be comfortable, are at best static and at worst climbing alongside technological advances. Just as it used to be you only needed a horse, then a car, then two cars and a TV, then a washer and dryer, then a VCR, CD player and computer and ...

But simultaneously wages haven't kept up with this demand growth. Credit helps for a while, imports and cheap foreign labor help, second jobs help, but as long as the demand increases the problem remains: how to get everything we are told we need within a 40 hour work week with wages flat-lined? Life should be fun, enjoy life, buy this now! Unless you're living in an isolated religious community, like the Amish, you can't avoid being sucked into this mindset.

Achterdam, Holland: socialism successfully regulates sexual energies as a distraction from the increasingly overtaxed and spiritually degraded lives of the populace.

This is the interface between consumerism and an unhealthy population. Two forces act on people, one is the removal of work and age-based needs for children and extended family - economy and state. The second is the attraction force of consumerism which requires sacrifice of family life for personal 'success' and happiness - mass-media. Unless wages increase to match the need to consume, the cycle is both unsustainable and biologically destructive.

Solution?

One option is for government to take over the function of population growth management. Visions of Ceausescu's Cold War Romania come to mind; overflowing orphanages and a social system somewhere between purely perverted and simply dysfunctional. But it needn't be that bad if the economy is robust enough to absorb new workers and support state run institutions for the care of 'orphans' or more, accurately state property. Some countries are already headed in this direction (again?) With anonymous baby abandonment stations such as in Germany. Now instead of leaving the kid on somebody's doorstep you can drop 'em off something like you would a beer bottle or a pop can, except here you don't get any deposit money back.

Truly the dehumanization of life within socialist regimes is astounding, but this is merely carrying the logic to a near-term conclusion. If the state is delegated the task of caring for the babies then they also will be charged with education / indoctrination, health care, jobs and everything else down the line and 'cradle to grave' takes on a startling new meaning.

The other extreme is to destroy the cycle, but this is very difficult to do since it requires nothing short of a complete re-focus of our collective modern western values. Control by edict is foolish; control by environment is sane. Laws are capricious tenets mostly made for fools, only social engineering is logical. To control the people you have to control the environment. Some groups have done this by opting out of the consumer system, I mentioned the Amish before but that type of lifestyle is not fun and it's not easy! As much as I hate to say it I don't think a realistic solution exists within the present legal confines. Consumerism is bankrolled by human greed and selfishness, very nearly a limitless resource. Eventually the consumerist-socialist system will experience severe turmoil from its own age imbalance, or through the influx of immigrant culture clashes brought in to solve labor shortages.

Real Altruism & Wrecking the Bell Curve

18.11.99 & 09.07.09 Only a fractional percentage of the population ever contributes anything meaningful to scientific and technological progress. 99% of the human population is both unimaginative and subsistence-based both in mind and body. But this certain minority strata of society manage to single-handedly sustain our civilization by creating improved resource extraction techniques and higher efficiencies. Developments such as fertilizers and pesticides have greatly increased crop yields, while new drugs have increased life expectancy and allowed many people to live that never would be able to otherwise. Revolutions in communication and transportation technology have made life both safer and faster.

It should seem ironic that these scientists and researchers are not highly paid individuals, nor are they held in adulatory esteem by the general population. Instead pro-sports players and movie-actors fill that roll despite never contributing anything lasting to civilization. Yet the scientific strata continues to create and invent on logarithmic scale making life easier and more profitable for everyone else. Why do they do it? Many of the benefits from their creativity will not even be seen by themselves, and certainly if they wanted money wouldn’t a law degree or an acting job be better? What they produce is literally of invaluable benefit to the society and the country, yet what they receive in return is nothing more than another work-a-day wage and maybe the personal rights to a patent or two if the multi-national corporation they work for is generous enough.

But if the majority of the population is merely dead weight, the ballast on the ship of civilization, why keep them around? Or how much better would a civilization be if it was composed entirely of scientific inventors, researchers and geniuses? The problem with this concept is that every society has a hierarchical structure no matter what quality of individuals compose it. In an all genius grouping some geniuses would still end up cleaning the restrooms and mopping the floors, and if machines were invented to do all the dirty work they would still be left doing some other dirty task. Certainly technological change would be increased significantly in such a society. But if this is such a great idea (at least to the geniuses) why do those same strata continue to subsidize the lifestyles of the masses with their contributions?

If the geniuses are so smart why are they letting themselves get ‘screwed’ in this society? Who’s really smarter here in this parasitic relationship, the masses who get scientific advances for free or the scientists that give them away for free? And what of the capitalists ‘fat-cat’ middlemen that make all the profit from technological growth? After all, ones wages merely reflect the minimum replacement cost for that occupational skill. Perhaps the scientists need to unionize? Yet it seems such people are the least likely to collectivize.

If such a scenario ever saw the light of day would it stifle development by limiting investment monies? Or stimulate research by giving more benefits to the ones that actually create in the first place?

No one is really the hero in this story; likewise real altruism is just elusive as ever. Socialists spend so much effort ameliorating the ills of the masses, yet most of their problems are self-created. The smart man is hardly ever impoverished. Ignorance and lack of intelligence go hand-in-hand with poverty, crime and social friction.

Yet how altruistic is it when we've boosted over-population, over-development, and pollution with tactical technological answers? A classic example of this paradox is the overuse and misuse of antibiotics. While saving a few lives in the short term it is breeding super-diseases that may be impossible to kill, rendering any original life rescues insignificant in comparison to the damage inflicted by the coming pandemics. Thermonuclear weapons along with biological or chemical warfare are just a few more new ways to collectively die.

These three strata are all corrupt. Firstly the scientists are actively making long-term life much more difficult, literally compounding problems into crises. The capitalist middlemen making the bucks facilitating research investments are even more self-interested. Finally, while a minority of the proletariat may be happier, their collective doom is just as inevitable as their blind self-indulgence and as palpable as their continued suffering. To choose the scientific group over the others is merely picking the lesser of three evils and to single out one group would do a disservice to the potential of the other two strata, after all not all geniuses are born from well-educated parents.

The largest source of friction, like always, is the allocation of resources within the society. Now I’m not going to get into any Marxist diatribe here because every realist should know by now that life isn’t perfect nor can it ever be. Our technology is asymmetrically developing because it is driven by economic (and sometimes military) factors. Technology is primarily developed for profit, the strategic social cost/benefit is hardly every debated beforehand. Capitalism is wonderfully effective at blindly producing neat technological gizmos and making business faster and more cost-effective, but terrible when it comes to improving social harmony and cultural edification. Consequently, our country turns into yet another hemispherical system of haves and have-nots, and the most valuable contributors fail to regain even a small fraction of their donations in wages or respect.

The quandary for the 21^st century is the functional association of these dissimilar elements into a productive whole. Ultimately we need everyone: the scientist, the laborer and yes, even the business administrator; what needs to change is the present frictional and hierarchical arrangement. But don’t fret dear reader, though this problem is certainly a challenging one it is not without solution.

A Perspective of Socialist Government

19.03.98 According to an online news story the French government is subsidizing 'X-rated' movies in an ongoing effort to control their AIDS epidemic. These movies will be broadcast on pay-TV. Evidently the movies will contain some kind of AIDS prevention message, although that focus seemed somewhat incidental. I mean, wow. To me that seems like giving a drug addict free drugs to control a drug habit! But I guess the socialist governments do that too. This is either complete insanity or brilliant behaviorist manipulation. Unfortunately I don't have any statistics to judge the effectiveness of these programs, but I do have a pretty decent sense of human nature. That perception tells me that although these programs may appear to ameliorate some social problems they don't fix the causes, and that's still a failure.

Socialist government just usurps personal responsibility. They give out everything the masses want while using the excuse that then it can be channeled properly and controlled. That just makes the government part of the problem. In the EU you get drugs if you're an addict, porn, gambling, free medical care and even a salary to remain unemployed. I call it codependency - both sides need each other but neither party gains in the long run.

The Americans put their money in stocks while the Europeans put theirs in savings accounts, metaphorically speaking. In Europe risk is unacceptable and I'm sure their collective history plays a huge part in the construction of this mentality. The odd part is that the European people have no alternative to the current system; after all why would anyone want to give up free benefits? Especially for ambiguous long-range goals. That's the insidious nature of addiction and socialism. The European people have reached the zenith of civilization building, they have done what they do best and it's slowly killing them!

I know that we should be fixing our own problems before picking apart others, but in the USA we don't even have a plan. Everything here is based on money (and cultural self-righteousness) so basically we just meander from one tactical failure to another. My bet is that the EU will be around long after the USA turns into a northern version of Panama or Columbia, but that doesn't mean that their system is biologically or morally healthy.

U$A Breakup / A Socialist Revolution of Sorts

01.11.96 It's somewhat ironic that Americans are so inactive that they commit self-execution through obesity. The privilege of passive lifestyles is of short duration - the real world marches on regardless.  My concern here is that specific economic indicators reveal a change in popular sentiment to the point where revolutionary politics is possible. Political change on a great scale seems inevitable in the U$. The resistance to change is mostly due to the sloth of the white middle class.

The white bourgeoisie are the communist Serbians of the  old Yugoslavia. They control the sham government and form a thin majority - just enough to stay in power by the regular increase in group hand-outs. Clinton and Dole are the "Titos", crooks running a federal kleptocracy owing its successes more to political inertia than economic or ethnic reality. The democratic sham is all the more sinister because, much like a lottery, it appears that third or fourth alternatives exist by which solutions are possible. I don't believe that the electoral college, being all Republicans or Democrats, is even capable of slave voting for a third party. Has a  non Democrat or Republican ever taken a state in the past 100 years? Teddy Roosevelt perhaps, wasn't he an independent?

America the country of states has set itself up as a monolith in the face of radical ethnic and racial demands for change. The only answers ever proposed to solve our dilemmas help Wall Street or increase hand-outs to special interests including minority front  groups which subvert their own stated goals. The U$ is a nation of special group interest politics-uncle and Sam is Santa Claus!

At a certain point the bourgeoisie will no longer wish to fund Uncle Claus with their taxes to support the sham. When a state returns less tax revenue than the Fed gives to them in benefits, the Fed will likely be glad to get rid of that sovereignty seeking state, especially during a budget crisis. The economics of profit are already leveraging the states away from the Fed because the Feds regulations are more expensive than the benefits conferred on the states. The motor voter bill, military base closures, immigration regulations, affirmative action mandates, etc. I have a feeling that state independence will come about before economic conditions worsen to the point where personal politics radicalizes.

Any political futurist interested in reasonable and accurate analysis should take California as the definitive example. California is the litmus test, the Bosnia of the U$. When California leaves the rest of the union may go too like say Quebec in Canada. The career of state governor Pete Wilson was a perpetual feud between federal and state; he was continually battling the fed's imperialistic legislation while wrestling maximum dollar concessions usually in the form of disaster aid. California will leave the union as soon as legal means are found, and a will always finds a way. It may well be that by that point the federal government will be compliant seeing California as a liability greater than its worth, it's not the 1980s asset it once was. Clinton is no Lincoln and bloodshed will not be involved. The reason is that Multi National Corporations can function just as well if not better (fewer regulations) in a sovereign California as in a Federal California. And a sovereign California will run itself more cheaply; who needs a massive military anymore, really who needs any military anymore? Why would they need any of the other countless federal bureaucratic services - they don't because they can all be done through commercial enterprises. The states do all the work anymore anyway, the welfare, the unemployment, the childcare etc. The feds just pass out block grants of cash. Eventually just like everything else in the U$ it boils down to money.

Naturally the first states seeking independence will be the ones that receive the least federal money or have the highest tax per federal grant ratio. Economic recession could put impossible stresses on the tax burden shifting plans of the government. And eventually over-funding will outpace the tax base creating budget crunches. 

The latest trend of the federal government is to tax more while simultaneously cutting benefits to states and moving fiscal responsibilities over to them as well. Right now most states have budget surpluses due to positive economic trends but the problem is they spend accordingly, meaning that once the good times end they will all be in a big red hole. The feds want to increase their power and it must come at the expense of the states, may the 10th amendment be damned. This will eventually lead to serious conflicts. With deficit and debt increasing in the near future (despite what the Clinton appointed office of budget management says) state dumping may be a prudent cost cutting measure, like cutting the terminally ill from coverage.

Collective success always confers individual benefit but individual success does not necessarily translate into collective benefit.