A Theory of the U.S.' Transition to a Communist Police-State: A Sketch
http://www.nationalexpositor.com/News/1068.html
Point/Counterpoint - Economic news from the NY Times sup****ts my theory
that
the United States is in the midst of a transition to a communist police
state, being ushered in by "liberal"economic policies designed to
undermine
the functionality of the market concomitantly with a Gramscian mainstream
press that erodes American confidence in the market system. In this
context,
the trends of big government liberalism and big government conservatism
point directly to convergence in a communist police-state.
The advocacy for a "hybrid economy" is a veiled attempt to collapse the
capitalist economy and facilitate the "arising" socialist one. I
specifically reject the "hybrid economy" hypothesis, which draws on a
distorted concept of Hegelian antithesis-synthesis; that is, that it is
possible to take the presumably cold-blooded but efficient capitalist
economy and merge it with a "compassionate" Durkheimian (i.e.
structural-deterministic) social order to result in an efficient and more
ethical economic order. I posit that the market economy is as a Weberian
"ideal-type" that can only be distorted and undermined by government
intervention; by this I do not mean the protection of life, liberty and
property by law necessary to the ethical functioning of the system. Thus
Keynesianism, a product of the mind of a Fabian socialist, is a slow rode
to
communism.
This leaves us with a choice among two mutually exclusive alternatives:
capitalism and socialism.
A defense of the virtues of capitalism is needed to reject the alternative
hypothesis that socialism is a superior economic system.
Firstly, I reject the Leninist hypothesis that capitalism is by nature
imperialistic, and therefore causes states to destroy rival states due to
market competition, or conquer their resources colonially. Imperialism and
colonialism predate capitalism, and thus it logically and necessarily
follows that capitalism cannot cause either (though I suppose some
creative
tenured professors could claim that time is actually running backwards, or
that causation doesn't exist, or time doesn't exist or some other rubbish
to
justify their moral crusade for the demise of their rivals in social
status,
the businessmen that actually create wealth and satisfy willing consumers'
needs).
It must also be said that wealth is not limited by physical resources in
the
manner suggested by socialists; matter can be reconfigured from old forms
to
create new value, and ideas and new technology can create new virtual
markets that can employ people. Technology can also be employed to ensure
enough material necessities such as food and water. It is a myth to say
that
the lowest on the rung are not even provided for at all as a result of
capitalist exploitation. If anything, as an advance from the feudal
economic
system, not only do people in a capitalist system want farmers and
laborers
to be provided with the food and shelter they need to accomplish their
labor, they want them to have surplus capital to buy goods, thus creating
more wealth. It is the socialist system that is ultimate exploitation in
practice.
And one last note about human conflict. The first violence, so to speak,
was
not Cain against Abel; it was Nature destroying Cain's crops. Material
scarcity is a root of much conflict; but man obviates this condition by
having the option of laboring to have his needs met, or providing for his
own needs. If labor is not in demand in a pre-industrial society, a
classical problem is that of land rights. The shortage of labor in this
context is aggravated by new technological uses of machinery. This is a
substantitive problem in such societies. There is no developed service
sector or local surplus capital that can incentivize entrepreneurialism.
In
addition, property is restricted by land rights, and those without
property
who desire to meet their own needs with it, often finds it accrues to
families whose sons, over time, become barons, and whose influence becomes
aristocratic. This is reinforced over time by political connections that
solidify privileges. However, this is a problem of inheritance
specifically
(as odd as this seems in the minds of those in the modern industrialized
world), and political privilege. The propagation of political
consciousness
to hold the governments accountable by demanding free and fair elections
is
the well-tested and sustainable solution. The past problem of how to
educate
the people of underdeveloped countries is slowly beginning to reside.
Democratization as a global phenomenon is still flouri****ng, and mass
media
technology, which may become available the world over in our lifetimes,
will
potentially provide the solution to the education and democratization
problem. This is given that entrepreneurs in the industrial and
post-industrial world pressure and provide incentives to elites to both
democratize and open their markets.
Secondly, free market economy is the only known type compatible with
individual liberty.
In defense of liberty vis-a-vis equality, one should not trade liberty for
equality, when the latter is a fantasy and the implications of the latter
are unattainable by logical dictate in any social order to begin with (see
Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan for an indirect proof). One can argue for
anarchy,
but inequality will still be dictated by Nature.
One delusional belief of the left is that individualism necessarily
results
in social competition and thus conflict. The liberals' brandi****ng of
multiculturalism and "diversity" is thus never employed to imply that one
is
an individual - one is a member of a social category, an abstract entity
that absolves you of your own particularity. Diversity is never meant to
mean diversity of ideas, ideals or individuals.
Ironically, individuality seems to be made possible in a setting of
cross-institutional loyalties and identities, which is de facto a global
possibility with the advent of mass communications and global
trans****tation. This is precisely what "liberals" and jihadists fear, a
proliferation of identity-enabling and enhancing social spaces made
possible
via avenues such as the world wide web. The former see individualism as a
threat to their power-base of abstract emotional idealism as an irrational
hold on political true believers' minds, and thus a pathway to socialism
and
their own implied elevation in social status; the latter see it as an
erosion of faith in the mind of Muslims, and thus the ummah's privileged
social status.
But to say that individualism is the cause of social conflict is again
defeated by the antecedent conditions test for causality; there was social
conflict before institutional structures competed for claims of identity,
hence individuality as a consequence of competing institutions cannot be a
cause of social conflict (anthropologists trace social violence back as
far
as the human skeletal record indicates). An individual, if left to his or
her own devices, and in an environment of stable, just and predictable
legal
order, seeks only to live, prosper, and sup****t his or her family. In such
an atmosphere lay the possibility for true compassion, the freely
exercised
empathy that comes spontaneously from human beings who have self-respect
and
thus the possibility of mutual respect, of the type implied by the golden
rule.
The denial of individuality and the inexplicable drive for equality on the
left dictates that the next logical move in the future will be a call to
genetically control human beings for "advantages." This impending call
will
be greatly facilitated by the left's accomplishment of institutionalizing
abortion, which sets the philosophical precedent of giving human beings
the
right to say which human beings have the right to live and which should
die.
Exacerbating this precedent is the death penalty, which is a rightist
institution that signals that life can be taken away by decree. The
concept
of man's fallibility does not seem to be a matter of consideration by
arrogant lawyers and judges who presume themselves to sit in the place of
God; and by this I mean the lawyers and judges' fallibility and not
necessarily the criminals'.
Furthermore, inequality of social and political status is not done away
with
in any socialist or communist state in reality, but is only exacerbated by
a
reduction of the m***** underneath the socialist apparatchiki to
impoverished, completely dependent and vulnerable slaves to the state.
Socialism is thus incompatible with human self-sufficiency and therefore
personal integrity and dignity.
It is not a coincidence that the Russians' political and moral spirit was
crushed by communism. But of course, since they were equally crushed and
humiliated by systematic terror and repression by Stalin, it is argued by
socialists that a Stalinist system is superior to the limited spontaneous
social conflict brought about by a capitalist system. Never mind the merit
in a world that requires people to take the moral responsibility of caring
for themselves and puts the onus on the people to have compassion in a
personally and morally edifying manner, instead of magically whisking it
away by tax decree. The abdication of morality from personal discretion is
the effective death of personal responsibility and hence, morality. A
reversion to a new Dark Ages, where the only law that exists is
unquestioned
(socialist) dogma is the logical consequence.
What is perceived by the left as the main impediment to the functioning of
a
communist economic order is very much the globally integrated capitalist
world system (see Immanuel Wallerstein). The Leftists see that since the
brainwa****ng of the m***** in a perfectly controlled communist setting is
impossible in the current environment of lightspeed multimedia
communications, they must increasingly call for "unity," the empowerment
of
transnational institutions, and rationales for complete global economic
control.
Hence the Neomarxists' nonsensical calls for regulation of economies for
the
sake of so-called "global warming." The term "climate change" has been
dropped by the greens because it is a a truism and a non-novel fact of
nature, and because it lacks the "global" implications of "global
warming."
The fact that the entire earth is not warming, that Antarctica is rapidly
expanding in terms of ice mass, that Asia is now experiencing the coldest
winter in modern recorded history, and that ice and snow levels in North
America are also at all-time record highs seems to do nothing to slow down
the spurious and dubious calls from the Left to control so-called
"greenhouse gases" and thus oil, the lifeblood of the capitalist global
economy.
Having laid out some basic defenses of capitalism, and logical
contradictions, faulty assumptions and hollow promises of socialism, we
shall proceed to the NY Times article mentioned above.
The news story? US Payrolls Unexpectedly Fall for Second Straight Month
Read the short article and you will get a sense of the socialists' usual
doom-and-gloom and the "failure of the capitalist economy." Mind you, this
is the economy that essentially made the U.S. the most successful and
powerful nation on the planet, not the socialist economy that was shredded
and left in ruins by reality after roughly 100 million actual living and
breathing human beings were ground up as so much fodder and grist for the
mill, all for the sake of the socialist intelligentsia's unfounded
chimeras
of a perfect social order. The obvious juxtaposition to this fact is that
the United States utterly defeated Germany and Japan in World War II and
in
no wise colonized them, though the leftists think they cleverly retort
when
they claim that both countries are "indirectly" conquered by capitalists
in
the U.S. If this is true, how come Japanese automakers are running
American
automakers out of their own market? How come German cars are considered
the
best and most reliable cars of the luxury class? The U.S. gave these
countries the ability to compete with America in the free market, with the
consequence that inferior American carmakers lost and the American people
won. This is highly inconsistent with the claim that both countries were
"indirectly colonized."
After the usual apocalyptic vision of the labor market in the "news"
article, we come to the clincher:
"One bright spot was that the government added 38,000 jobs in February on
top of 4,000 new-hires in January."
This is yet another sign of the intermediate stage to the socialists'
takeover of the United States - the creation of a government-dependent
"post-industrial" service economy. The economic opening to the left is a
two-fold one; the first is the ex****tation of industrial labor to foreign
countries by cor****ations, and the second is the virtual im****tation of
cheap labor from Mexico. As the baby-boomer population continues to age,
and
as the social welfare system implemented by FDR's New Deal and by LBJ's
"Great Society" begins to hang pendulously on the economic middle class, a
tem****ary solution can be to "im****t" cheap labor (that is, not enforce
immigration laws), nationalize them (ala McCain-Kennedy) and tax them to
sup****t the system. But this system, as we are seeing with the collapse of
Europe, is doomed to failure. For more on Europe's social-demographic
problems and imminent demise one should read Mark Steyn's America Alone,
Walter Laquer's The Last Days of Europe, and Melanie Phillips'
Londonistan.
Demographically, the newly arriving Mexican underclass will come to resent
the ever-increasing tax burden they will inevitably be asked to share.
There
will be a concomitant escalation in the immigrants' perception of
unfairness, and their relative lack of political power will lead to
classic
latent revolutionary conditions; one can cite Ted Gurr's relative
deprivation theory (author of Why Men Rebel) for more on how this theory
works.
Ironically, as Mexicans' political power increases, the Democrats will
consume them as independent political entities by citing the Republicans'
imaginary racism, creating grievances between races, and inciting class
warfare. The Democrats, however, will not be able to restrain the social
forces that will be unleashed, nor do they want to - there will be demands
for socialized medicine (which they will gladly attempt to grant, since it
is a linchpin for communist regimes everywhere), and other public welfare
benefits that will have to be underwritten by printing more and more
unbacked money. Inflation will skyrocket out of control, and the economic
basis for the existing order, the capitalist one that allowed for liberty
and upward mobility, will crumble as there will be blind calls for the
social fascists to restore "public order." Of course, this is a variant of
the Hitler model for attaining absolute power.
And the Republicans will sit idly by, as they are de facto owned by
cor****ate contributors, who are not perceptive enough to see beyond their
immediate fiscal interests.
The Republicans will continue to capitulate to Democrats because they are
satisfied with the status quo of illegal immigration and cheap labor, for
the first reason. The Republicans believe they win by increasing the
number
of cor****ations who are persuaded to stay in the United States; by cutting
cor****ate costs for labor at home, fewer will be persuaded to go abroad
for
cheap labor. The Republicans thus maintain a prime for the pump - campaign
contributions that insure reelection for in***bents in exchange for
favorable rules and regulations, contracts and outright ****k.
Another problem now is that big-government conservatives (an oxymoron)
have
ceased listening to the ignorant, but useful, social conservatives and
have
abandoned all conceptions of limited government and constitutional
restraint. By restraint I mean the idea that if it isn't explicitly in the
Constitution, it isn't authorized for the government to do. I do not
advocate here a static Constitution, but the original intent of the
founders
of the government should be considered when legislation is considered by
the
Supreme Court as constitutional or not.
The second reason Republicans will capitulate on domestic politics, is
because they are having their way in foreign affairs. This is a historic
pattern that will continue into the foreseeable future. Despite their
public
decrying of the Iraq War, the Democrats running for office have indeed no
intention of ending it in the fa****on suggested by the mainstream press.
Both Clinton and Obama have committed "non-combat" troops to Iraq at a
level
that will not differ significantly from the current levels of troops at
least until 2012. But the press will continue to persuade myopic,
childlike
anti-war leftists that the Democrats will immediately pull troops out of
Iraq upon Hillary or Obama entering office, meanwhile milking the
"revolutionary" zeal of socialist true believers concerning American
foreign
policy. In other words, Democrats still need Republicans as boogeymen on
foreign affairs in order to pull off their domestic socialist agenda.
Always remember: Democrats and responsibility for their own policies go
together like oil and water.
Bush has responded to this trend by instituting his own version of a
government-run service sector, and that is via such acts as the founding
of
the superfluous and ***bersome Homeland Security agency (which greatly
expanded government), the printing of money to subsidize government
expansion, and the awarding of dubious multi-billion dollar defense
contracts, such as those administered by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).
The MDA is creating a dangerous, unfeasible, unnecessary, and expensive
Missile Defense ****eld, which will destabilize MAD (Mutually Assured
Destruction) in the near future (until its feasibility in more than 30
years
by a rough estimate) and could therefore possibly trigger a preemptive war
by Russia or China (this latter conclusion is reached by applying Robert
Jervis's "security dilemma," which states that a rise in one country's
security necessarily leads to a decline in another country's security).
Not
only that but the project also fosters potentially "useful" satellite
technology that could lead to an Orwellian nightmare of a
police-surveillance state. By this I specifically mean, X-band radar,
which
is being developed to be extremely sensitive and far-reaching.
With the Republicans yielding to election-year politics and completely
backing the so-called "stimulus package," that is, tax "rebates" intended
to
"stimulate" the economy, we are witnessing the demise of liberty in this
country. These dollars will not only be inconsequential, they will lead to
more inflation, and will lead to more capital exiting the system as a
whole.
The tax "rebates" will be spent on Chinese goods at Wal-mart, not on
Harley
Davidsons.
In addition to the ruining of the American economy by the socialist left
and
the fiscally myopic right, I believe we are now witnessing the
post-Gramscian phase of the socialists' plans for converting the US to
communism. If we look at recent economic and political trends touched on
upon, ones so powerful (in the terms of path-dependence), that they are
overriding all other global forces, it is logical to conclude that:
Ultimately, the natural convergence of big government "liberalism" and big
government "conservatism" will be in a COMMUNIST POLICE-STATE.
And this may all be the brainchild of one Antonio Gramsci, a darling of
the
Left who attempted to posit a post-materialist Marxist theory based on a
cultural superstructure, and who wrote the playbook for the Left over 75
years ago. Here are some excerpts from Dr. Lee Congden, who unfortunately
only gets his description of Gramsci right (his advocacy of censor****p of
the socialist press undermines the foundations of a free country that is
the
only kind worthy of defense):
To few Americans is Antonio Gramsci a familiar name. That is to be
regretted
because the work of the late Italian Marxist sheds much light on our time.
It was he who first alerted fellow revolutionaries to the possibility that
they would be able to complete the seizure of political power only after
having achieved "cultural hegemony," or control of society's intellectual
life by cultural means alone. His was an incremental, rather than an
apocalyptic, revolution-the kind, that is, that we have been witnessing in
the United States, and the Western world generally, since the 1960s. With
this in mind, we ought not to treat the contem****ary "culture war"
lightly;
the fate of what remains of civilized life may well be decided by its
outcome.
Few Leftists now adhere strictly to the original tenets of Marxism, or
even
to those of Marxist Revisionism, but, what is every bit as dangerous,
they,
like Gramsci, often suc***b to a temptation that appears to be
irresistible
to those who dream utopian dreams: the passion for negation that often
shades into nihilism. Utopianism and nihilism may seem to be antithetical,
but they are not; both derive from the same source-undying hatred of the
world as it is...
Gramsci counseled his side to begin a "long march through the
institutions,"
by which he meant the capture of the cinema, theater, schools,
universities,
seminaries, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and courts.
A revolutionary manifesto that can express the behavior of the left for
the
past 40 years better than this Gramscian one, I am yet to discover.
A few fini****ng coup-de-graces to Gramsci and the Marxistant left to
establish the point that these people should be stopped at all costs.
If, as Marx says, our thoughts are determined by economic interest, what
makes socialist "intellectuals" so special that they can transcend this
economic determinism? Did angels tap them on the shoulders and grant them
special powers to demonstrate free will, while the "plebes" are mindless
automatons who are slaves to the capitalist order? This is rubbish -
contradictory and self-stultifying.
If, as Gramsci says, that the determinism of Marx should be replaced with
an
emphasis on on capturing the cultural superstructure in order to condition
the m***** for communism, why can't socialists admit that their decries
against "bloodless" capitalism are hypocritical and contradictory? If
culture is a malleable thing, a culture of compassion can be nurtured in a
capitalist economy just as easily as a communist one, with the added
perquisite of being in an economic system that actually works in practice.
The effect of pure capitalism is an inequality of wealth, it is true; the
successful make more than the failures, and the leaders are rewarded for
risk and leader****p. The mischaracterization is that the inequality in a
pure capitalist system is between the very rich and very poor. The
inequality in the United States has consistently been, since the global
collapse of the 1930s, a disparity between the super-rich, the very rich,
the rich, the middle-upper class, the vast middle class, the lower class
(who are rich by world standards) and the great minority whose poverty can
be characterized as subsistence level (and who are provided for by an
overly
funded food stamps program, WIC, HUD, Medicare, Medicaid and the countless
charity programs like the Salvation Army, of which America has the most
and
most generous in the world). And lastly, the rich depend on the middle
class
to buy the products they produce, thus bouying wages. As for
counterfactuals
to the claim that capitalism is inconsistent with morality, one can point
to
Puritan colonies in the United States, which established rules of fair
practice and enforced legal reprecussions for those who failed to follow
the
rules. All while being highly charitable, compassionate, loving and
cooperative with one another on the whole.
So that people do not take the influence of Gramsci to lightly, it is a
telling sign that Hugo Chavez, a veritable darling of the Left, including
the mainstream media and Academia, cites Antonio Gramsci when defending
his
decision to shut down media opposition in Venezuela.
To reiterate the fascination of the Left with brutal dictatorial social
fascists, some academics I personally know (at least three out of a
doctoral
class of 14) seriously advocate on behalf of Stalinist doctrine. I am not
just besmirching them here, I actually mean Stalinist doctrine. Typical
debate at my "university" is centered on what Rosa Luxemborg meant when
she
criticized Marx, what Trotsky had to say about it, what Lenin had for
breakfast on April 14, 1913, etc. For me, this is a bit like debating how
many angels dance on the head of a pin. We should be trying to create
knowledge in our universities, not looking for ways to enslave real people
in imaginary worlds.
|
