Saturday 20 October 2012

Ideas #2 - Soloutions

So, in my last post I was writing about paranoid illuminati theories & the realistic events & situations which back them up. I would also like to make it clear that the capitalist political system does threaten certain social systems which are necessary for our progression as a species.
From what I can gather out of various sources it seems that most parties responsible for economies which are in the top 30 or so countries are highly subject to "economic blackmail". This happens because an economy (of a country) becomes so large it depends largely on corporate enterprises in order to sustain its growth which is only logical in a political system which depends largely on the acquisition of capita.
But this way of regulating things (or lack of really) has its downfalls. Because of the large dependence on corporate interaction within an economy, governments become subjected more & more to the policy of those companies which dominate the economy in their countries. An example of this is the recent public outrage at an invitation by one MP to privately meet with David Cameron to discuss policy. This particular example leads me to question how well is the operation run. Is it a meticulously planned public relations manipulation as some would have us believe? Or is this really an example of a slip up. Deliberate or not, the fact is that someone responsible for making decisions about the U.K. (be it governmental or in the private sector) essentially is in favour of corporatocratic government. So we see that the logical outcome of capitalism is corporatocracy. Much in the same way that the flaws of communism lead to a dictatorship or totalitarian society. I find it almost mathematical the way in which political systems when enlarged breakdown. Of course this is the nature of adaptation. One person (or in this case a select few) will come along with a set of ideas & the ideas are guaranteed to not be perfect, so then it simply takes another set of people to analyze & modify them. This is the position we find ourselves in now as a global society.

I find that often when I come across material discussing this stuff, they're often inconclusive & I'm left with a feeling of helplessness & depression for humanity. This is possibly a good thing because I now feel driven to list a couple of ideas of solutions. So let's for just a minute take our eyes of what's happening now (only briefly mind) & look into the proposed future of political systems.

The Technocratic Approach
So, some people (mainly engineers) think that the best way to run things would be to replace the control of the corporations & fill the government with engineers & scientists instead. I know it sounds a bit far fetched, but what would be good about this type of government would be that the decision makers would be very well educated. That would mean they would be less likely to make terrible decisions. But as most of you have probably noticed our governmental leaders most of them already have been to very high quality places of education. It doesn't seem to help them not be absolute dickheads. So the logic of a highly educated elite making the decisions is just another duff argument, the fact that they would have had a scientific or engineering education makes no difference. Being a scientist doesn't imply morality or social understanding.

The "Zeitgeist" Solution
Because the Zeitgeist movement, it's affiliated films & pages seem to be reluctant to promote a political allegiance (as if that would be a bad thing) it's hard to ascertain what they stand for. But, from what I can gather the Zeitgeist movement promotes a slightly different take on technocracy whereby they don't specifically want scientific leaders they just want a scientifically regulated society. Alternatively to the technocratic approach "a scientifically regulated society" allows social science experts to be in the ruling elite. This is a little better than just scientists having control over everything. It allows for what experts refer to in Plato's "Republic" as the principle of specialisation. In this context I'm (maybe incorrectly) using it to describe how in this proposed system experts have control within their respective fields. Of course this still allows for a form of absolute control. Highly specialised absolute control but absolute control nonetheless.

Monetary Reform
This solution addresses the specific problem of the way that money is regulated in this country. I'm specifically referring to the monetary reforms as proposed by the Positive Money Campaign. Their argument is highly logical, I seriously suggest you go watch some of their video's as they are very educational. They are addressing the inability of the government to regulate the creation of money. They attempt to solve it by getting a law passed which means that bankers cannot simply create money. It's a very complex problem so it's worth looking up. Although it is a good cause it is not the end of the game. I believe the campaign is a small step towards to addressing much broader issues.

The Socialist Solution
I'm sure you've all heard of socialism. Most often socialism is referred to in connection to communism. For instance Karl Marx famously said that socialism was simply a transitional period between society as we know it. I find communism is an idealistic form of political philosophy but I disagree with it because it requires that same type of absolute control which tends to be the downfall of most political systems. Whereas socialism is a much more moderate form of the political ideals I like out of communism, but presented in a much more handleable format. Some would argue that in a socialist state having a centralised government controlling the distribution is in itself a form of absolute control. I would agree with that but at least in this model the centralised authority have a pre-arranged duty to provide for the people. But as we know in this country that isn't enough to ensure unbiased regulation.

Overall it seems the solutions I have provided are inconclusive to solving all our problems. They're either not broad enough or not ensuring of regard to the public. I think a sensible formula for our development as a society is progress in very much the same way that we've always done. & I don't mean let's continue with out capitalised "democracy"(/corporatocracy). I mean every socio-political norm is subject to the analysis of every free mind. So the health of our society is dependent on how much free thought is allowed & how much our regulators allow themselves to be questioned. Because the only way to prove that your idea is a strong one is to subject it to a great deal of analysis. I think the Socratic notion of questioning everything applies here.

Just to clarify I advocate none of the political solutions listed above in whole (except the monetary reform one).

Further reading:

Has western capitalism failed?



For those of you who don't attend my college. I've decided to share with everyone my argument for why western capitalism has failed from the debate on "Has western capitalism failed?". The version I read at the time was a somewhat condensed version of this. There was some uncertainty in what the title was, while at the time of agreeing the topic it was "Has western capitalism failed?" the title on the poster changed the end bit to "...has finished" so essentailly the oposition argued against a different point. It was still a pretty well matched debate, the opposition did nobly in the face of complete logic. We still won 12 votes to 9. Enjoy!

Has western capitalism failed? Yes, yes it has. Capitalism as an economic system has adverse political effects which lead to unfair leverage from people who have large amounts of money. Ideally government would be the main deciding political ministry. But realistically the logical extent of capitalism causes corporations to have an unnecessarily large influence on the economy & therefore the power to dictate the market.
For instance, in the U.S.A. one of the leading capitalist economies of the world, their politics is rife with corporate corruption. For example Michael Taylor former Monsanto Senior Lobbyist was appointed as a senior advisor to the FDA commissioner. Monsanto are the company responsible for Bovine Growth Hormone which is illegal in the EU due to its potential side effects. They are also responsible for countless other untested genetic engineering which has caused hazards to public health. Another example of this is Climate change skeptic senator James Inhofe who received around one million dollars between 2005 & 2010 from major oil & gas companies.
Some of you may have come across the term military-industrial complex in your reading which describes the suspicious number of shared current & ex-staff members of leading weapons manufacturers & U.S. government bodies involved in military decision making. Just to give you some perspective on that, the U.S.A. holds ¾ of the global arms market & their military budget this year so far has been 295 thousand million dollars.
Although monopoly is technically illegal, in certain industries there are only a few notable companies which practically run the game. This contradicts the ideology of a free market economy because capitalist style acquisition of wealth naturally equates to a few extremely wealthy & economically globally dominant organizations in each field of the market.
One of the big problems with this is that companies are legally obliged to grow & produce profit for their shareholders. In most cases organizations will disregard public & environmental welfare in the area’s from which they recruit labor & harvest resources in order to meet their profit quotas. While there is much exploitation of workers in this country, the law is fairly effective in protecting workers. But this often causes multinational corporations to move overseas bringing with them the disregard for local health & the environment. Another effect of this importation of labor & materials is that it effectively re-routs the money flow away from our national economy causing degradation in working class wealth & national productivity.
Which brings me to my next point; the 4 fastest growing economies in the world are; Brazil, Russia, India & China. These are collectively known as the BRIC countries. They are significant because it is speculated that their economies will eventually grow to surpass the main economies of today by 2025. It is also pertinent to note at this point that none of these economies are based on western capitalist ideals.
An underlying relevant fact is that our much beloved western dream of unlimited growth is simply not feasible because the resources on the planet although vast aren’t infinite.
The 2008 recession of the western world was a result of the government’s inability to regulate the banking system. Years of boom were replaced with a fore sighting of many years of bust. This has meant;
·        The implementation of austerity measures as can be seen in the recent cuts to spending.
·        High unemployment coupled with
·        A reduction in benefits
·        Leading to a cycle of poverty
One of the main causes of the recession & indeed flaws to the capitalist system is the result of banks; Lending more & then when people spend more, people borrow more which leads to more defaults. Then the banks panic & lend less which in effect causes the money supply to shrink. This penultimately leads to less spending and after that a recession.
Banks have come to have a huge impact on the money supply. Storing & lending money now has become an essential part of our financial system. The Federal Reserve in the U.S. & the Bank of England are both privately owned banks responsible for the printing of money in their respective nations. Most of you will probably be surprised to hear that 3% of the money in circulation in the U.K. is in notes & coins the other 97% is in digital storage. I would also like to add that when a bank lends money it digitally increases the value of that persons account.
In effect banking largely depends on lending money which the banks may or may not have; this is known as fractional reserve banking. The consolidation of market control that I was talking about earlier also applies here: the 5 largest banks represent 85% of the international market & they have 78 board members between them.
An unfair side effect of capitalist politics is that the rich portion of the population has continued to be richer & more concentrated. And inflation becomes more disproportionate to the increase in wages. This means it becomes much harder to support a family in Britain.
Just to give you an idea of this in America the richest 1% have a third of the net worth of the country & the richest 20% own 85% of the wealth. In this country 10% of the population is more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10%.
In the 1920’s there was a big push in America to improve the standard of living. However this influx of spending led to the great depression. After this president F.D.Roosevelt introduced the “new deal”, which where a series of reforms that created more jobs through the injection of money into the economy via the government. This style of nationalized economics has proved to be quite successful. For example in this country we have the National Health Service that improves our standard of living vastly. The alternative, privatization of public services for example the case of the transport system has further restricted our freedoms in those area’s & allowed private businesses unnecessary control in things which are part of the public domain.
In America the ideal of a capitalist system has been branded an essential element of national identity. This was evident in the cold war, when political propagandists cast communism as seemingly satanic politics (which was true for Russia in some respects). But more to the point it has glorified capitalism as the best & most moral style of living which as I said earlier is not the case. This type of political supremacy results in further international division, which at the end of the day is an illusion because of course we are all human. None of us should be considered greater than anyone else. Inequality continues to be furthered in the name of capitalist economics.