… Or the Rich Eating the Rich
From
“Econosophy and other musings”
“A new story is being written, people are opting out, the rich are eating themselves….”
Though it is “disjointed, straggly, leaderless and groping,” …the old way is dying.…
The Revolution is indeed Now.”
“As it grows down and out into society there will be increasing chaos, horror, collapse, and then something unknowable.”
“Socialism”:
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Selective, pained Ranting
“In the United States, the idea
of redistributing income is seen as ‘socialist’ and therefore evil.” But “capitalism is, by definition,
a distributor and re-distributor of wealth via the price mechanism, using
so-called rational or enlightened self interest to drive this forward.”
Under the aegis of capitalism, humanity
… “has repeatedly endured too much hoarding and accumulation.”
The contemporary “‘Too Big To
Fail’” pattern is a centuries-old pattern that creates “stubborn social
divisions leading to decadence and corruption.”
For centuries we have lived “in a
culture whose central premise” (at least according to elitist indoctrination
and propaganda) “has been the ‘naturalness’ of the struggle for existence” — “where ‘civilized’ reward is accumulation of
material goods and a subsequent demonstration of one’s societal value via
conspicuous consumption ….”
“Changing course toward a
resource-based economy is by necessity a radical departure from the
Money-Wealth paradigm, which is… far past its sell-by date (it had its uses)
and the hidden heart of the battle ground.”
N
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ature and the unnatural
“Capitalism does not mirror Nature. …
“Nature is Change; is in fact everything; and humanity is seamlessly, irrevocably, beautifully embedded in it, changing it as it changes us.
“Capitalism is a system born of an ideology serving an elite, and can only be so. It has been a lever to linear growth of a certain type, and has successfully harnessed humanity’s inventive genius in pursuit of that growth.
“… [I]t has monetized (made scarce) everything it could, but can take us no further. To the extent it lived, it is now dead. Certainly it was never what it’s defenders said it was, and that growing realization is a kind of death. …
“Nature is … first cooperative; and second competitive.
“Genes are not controllers of behavior, they react to the environment; environment has primacy, not some unaware double-helix firing off instructions, via proteins, from an imagined control center.
“Creative destruction is not everywhere evident. There are exceptions, wisdom being one of the most important. Institutions (are) the most pernicious.”
“S
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tockholm Syndromes ‘R’ Us”
Large numbers of “non-elites are … to varying degrees … subject to … the Stockholm Syndrome”— “a state of positive psychological attachment to a dangerous authority figure who has life-and-death power over the person(s) in question during a period of captivity.”
“Rough caricatures” might be seen in the sycophantic and/or loudly supportive “of the status quo.” More timid types might be “afraid to ask probing questions and (are) thus positively supportive of the Powers That Be.” Others may be seemingly “rational people who have logically deduced that eggs must be broken to make omelets and are thus supportive of ‘Tough Love,’ ‘Hair Shirts’ (institutionally-imposed austerity) and ‘Tightened Belts’ in the interests of law and order.”
The Stockholm Syndrome metaphor set forth by the writer is one in which the state (or officialdom) exists “as a monopoly of force…, in the role of captor”; and “citizens as its captives.”
R
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evolutionary change: Posited elements
Priorities /goals
Full
employment, with work to be redefined at the cultural level
|
Open,
optional education geared to maturity and creative problem solving, not rote
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Constant
or increasing amounts of fertile topsoil (other cultures have managed this)
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Clean
air
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Constant
or rising water tables of clean water
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Ever
falling crime rates
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Full
automation of grunt labor where this is good for society and the environment
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As
close to 100% recycling as possible (adherence to cradle-to-cradle design
principles)
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Goods
built to last for as long as possible
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Building
of ‘intelligent’ eco-cities and new transportation network (ET3)
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Speedy
transition to renewable energies
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Health
system focused on prevention, not cure [or maintenance of sickness]
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Decreasing
emphasis on ownership, increasing focus on access
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Where
feasible, goods and services to be given away for free
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All
of these under directives to “demote money” (and) “promote wealth”
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Under the current system, “the
above suggestions can only seem unworkable” and “are unworkable … in the
current paradigm.” However, they are workable “as parts of the process of
hewing a new path forward into the uncertain future.”
“What the above cannot engender, systemically, are the familiar
‘successes’ of the current (old) mode; ostentation, non-stop economic ‘growth,’
differential advantage, and so on. Thus unlikely are, for example
huge
houses;
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ownership
of multiple, expensive cars;
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exploitation;
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poverty;
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crime;
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cronyism;
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moral
hazard;
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political
corruption;
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concentrations
of wealth and power, etc.
|
Competition, Force, Threat, War, Violent Aggression
LeftyMathProf’s
“Eric’s Rants”
“Waking
from the Ancient Madness of Ownership”
Excerpt from transcript of
Part 6: INSANITY
“
|
We are forced to compete for our lives; those who lag behind can be
seen begging on street corners.
“Competition kills empathy, and then we find it easy to blame others
for their problems and for our own problems too. This enables racism, sexism,
bullying, random shootings, austerity, authoritarianism, nationalism,
imperialism, etc.
“
|
This culture of madness began in the Middle East around 10,000 years
ago, with the invention of separate property. It spread by the sword throughout
the Old World, and then Columbus brought it with him to subdue the western
hemisphere as well. Native Americans already had seen this sickness
occasionally, not in a culture-wide phenomenon, but in individuals, and so they
had a name for it: ‘wetiko.’
“
|
We are told that competition brings out the best in us, but actually it
brings out the worst:
- lying
- cheating
- stealing
- murder
To give capitalism credit for science is as foolish as crediting (a
tone deaf person with the music of a master musician (because both were born in
the same year).
Competition is unnecessary: Anything that can be done competitively can
be done better cooperatively.
We would like to have jobs that are meaningful and creative, jobs that
make the world a better place. Perhaps teachers, nurses, and firefighters experience
that, but few others do.
Most workplaces in our society are owned by just a few people, and most
of our jobs are structured primarily to make those rich people richer.
Privately owned workplaces are little dictatorships. That, and not laziness, is
why we hate Mondays.
We are told that the market pays us according to how much we produce,
but actually, the market pays us according to how much we control. Your boss is
paid hundreds of times more than you, but he’s not hundreds of times smarter or
more hard-working. Rather, he’s standing between you and the money.
And machines are taking the jobs.
We can’t stay ahead of them through education, for they are getting smarter
faster. If we were sharing the benefits of automation, it would mean leisure for
all of us. But the machines, like the workplaces, have just a few owners, and
so automation means layoffs for most of us, and soon all of us. Paradoxically,
the owners will have no paying customers for the goods and services that their
robots produce. Thus, the present economic system cannot continue much longer.
What will replace it, and how smooth or rocky the transition will be, depends
on whether we plan ahead.
In a caring society, we would be paid not according to how much we produce or how much we control, but according to how much we need— ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’— with no correlation or connection between those two quantities. That’s not giving and receiving (trading) — that’s sharing, because we’re all in the same boat.
But our current society is not one of caring, and that’s why we have public shootings and the world is tearing itself apart.
“…The ‘war of all against all’ cannot be ended by unilateral surrender. It is a cultural change that needs all of us together.” And “it begins with many conversations.”
Current
state of Affairs
Looking
Froward
Continuing from blog
“Econosophy and other musings”
“The intense competition for
unnecessarily scarce money has reached a sickening pitch of avarice that will
surely end in blood globally….But “the arrival of the Internet has added a
social layer to interconnectivity which is working to undermine the status quo’s
grip on the hearts and minds of the so-called masses.
“The jockeying and jostling to stay in power is now totally transparent and will likely soon become war” [more wars], which in the “long term” cannot better a bad and ever-worsening situation.
“The entire ‘Self against Other’ story is closing …. A new paradigm is being written … but a third global war could well mean stillbirth” of this paradigm. Hence the need is “pressing” … “to do what we can now to prevent that possibility.”
“Time will tell whether we evolve into something more nuanced and loving, or devolve into something more dictatorial, fearful, exploitative and controlling than currently exists. The choice is ours.”
Humanity:
Existence of Nature: Sane, Natural
“I
am because we are. The quality of my
continuation depends on the quality of our
continuation.”
W
|
hy not “We the People,” a new Revolution — a revolution in cooperation,
peace, nonviolence”?
Sources
“Econosophy and other musings” http://thdrussell.blogspot.com/
“All We Are Saying,
Is Give Wealth a Chance” Saturday, November 20, 2010
“Capitalism is Dead!
Long Live ???” Thursday, December 30, 2010
“Giving Wealth a
Chance” Saturday, November 27, 2010
Eric’s Rants: leaflets and videos LeftyMathProf “Waking from the
Ancient Madness of Ownership” (28 min), Transcript of video Eric's Rants:
leaflets and videos https://leftymathprof.wordpress.com/madness/ email: LeftyMathProf@gmail.com
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