While this writer insists the first capitalists
were
in England and came with the Industrial
Revolution,
let me assure you that the zeitgeist was alive and
well with me in Rome. I invented it. signed, Crassus Emperor
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Crassus
Historical
background the establishment of capitalist supremacy
Richard K. Moore
rkm@quaylargo.com
In this way British industrialism came to be dominated by wealthy investors, and capitalism became the dominant economic system. This led to a major social transformation. Britain had been essentially an aristocratic society, dominated by landholding families. As capitalism became dominant economically, capitalists became dominant politically. Tax structures and import-export policies were gradually changed to favor investors over landowners.
It was no longer economically viable to simply maintain an estate in the countryside: one needed to develop it, turn it to more productive use. Victorian dramas are filled with stories of aristocratic families who fall on hard times, and are forced to sell off their properties. For dramatic purposes, this decline is typically attributed to a failure in some character, a weak eldest son perhaps. But in fact the decline of aristocracy was part of a larger social transformation brought on by the rise of capitalism.
The business of the capitalist is the management of capital, and this management is generally handled through the mediation of banks and brokerage houses. It should not be surprising that investment bankers came to occupy the top of the hierarchy of capitalist wealth and power. And in fact, there are a handful of banking families, including the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, who have come to dominate economic and political affairs in the Western world.
Unlike aristocrats, capitalists are not tied to a place, or to the maintenance of a place. Capital is disloyal and mobile it flows to where the most growth can be found, as it flowed from Holland to Britain, then from Britain to the USA, and most recently from everywhere to China. Just as a copper mine might be exploited and then abandoned, so under capitalism a whole nation can be exploited and then abandoned, as we see in the rusting industrial areas of America and Britain.
This detachment from place leads to a different kind of geopolitics under capitalism, as compared to aristocracy. A king goes to war when he sees an advantage to his nation in doing so. Historians can 'explain' the wars of pre-capitalist days, in terms of the aggrandizement of monarchs and nations.
A capitalist stirs up a war in order to make profits, and in fact our elite banking families have financed both sides of most military conflicts since at least World War 1. Hence historians have a hard time 'explaining' World War 1 in terms of national motivations and objectives.
In pre-capitalist days warfare was like chess, each side trying to win. Under capitalism warfare is more like a casino, where the players battle it out as long as they can get credit for more chips, and the real winner always turns out to be the house the bankers who finance the war and decide who will be the last man standing. Not only are wars the most profitable of all capitalist ventures, but by choosing the winners, and managing the reconstruction, the elite banking families are able, over time, to tune the geopolitical configuration to suit their own interests.
Nations and populations are but pawns in their games. Millions die in wars, infrastructures are destroyed, and while the world mourns, the bankers are counting their winnings and making plans for their postwar reconstruction investments.
From their position of power, as the financiers of governments, the banking elite has over time perfected their methods of control. Staying always behind the scenes, they pull the strings controlling the media, the political parties, the intelligence agencies, the stock markets, and the offices of government. And perhaps their greatest lever of power is their control over currencies. By means of their central-bank scam, they engineer boom and bust cycles, and they print money from nothing and then loan it at interest to governments. The power of the banking elites is both absolute and subtle...
"Some of the biggest men in the United
States are afraid of something. They
know there is a power somewhere, so
organized, so subtle, so watchful, so
interlocked, so complete, so pervasive
that they had better not speak above
their breath when they speak in
condemnation of it."
-- President Woodrow
Wilson
The end of growth capitalists vs. capitalism
It was always inevitable, on a finite planet, that there would be a limit to economic growth. Industrialization has enabled us to rush headlong toward that limit over the past two centuries. Production has become ever more efficient, markets have become ever more global, and finally we have reached the point where the paradigm of perpetual growth can no longer be maintained.
Indeed, that point was actually reached by about 1970. Since then capital has not so much sought growth through increased production, but rather by extracting greater returns from relatively flat production levels. Hence globalization, which moved production to low-waged areas, providing greater profit margins. Hence privatization, which transfers revenue streams to investors that formerly went to national treasuries. Hence derivative and currency markets, which create the electronic illusion of economic growth, without actually producing anything in the real world.
If one studies the collapse of civilizations, one learns that failure-to-adapt is fatal. Continuing on the path of pursuing growth would be such a failure to adapt. And if one reads the financial pages these days, one finds that it is full of doomsayers. We read that the Eurozone is doomed, and Greece is just the first casualty. We read that stimulus packages are not working, unemployment is increasing, the dollar is in deep trouble, growth continues to stagnate, business real estate will be the next bubble to burst, etc. It is easy to get the impression that capitalism is failing to adapt, and that our societies are in danger of collapsing into chaos.
Such an impression would be partly right and partly wrong. In order to understand the real situation we need to make a clear distinction between the capitalist elite and capitalism itself. Capitalism is an economic system driven by growth; the capitalist elite are the folks who have managed to gain control of the Western world while capitalism has operated over the past two centuries. The capitalist system is past its sell-by date, the banking elite are well aware of that fact and they are adapting.
Capitalism is a vehicle that helped bring the bankers to absolute power, but they have no more loyalty to that system than they have to place, or to anything or anyone else. As mentioned earlier, they think on a global scale, with nations and populations as pawns. They define what money is and they issue it, just like the banker in a game of Monopoly. They can also make up a new game with a new kind of money. They have long outgrown any need to rely on any particular economic system in order to maintain their power. Capitalism was handy in an era of rapid growth. For an era of non-growth, a different game is being prepared.
Thus, capitalism has not been allowed to die a natural death. First it was put on a life-support system, as mentioned above, with globalization, privatization, derivative markets, etc. Then it was injected with a euthanasia death-drug, in the form of toxic derivatives. And when the planned collapse occurred, rather than industrial capitalism being bailed out, the elite bankers were bailed out. It's not that the banks were too big to fail, rather the bankers were too politically powerful to fail. They made governments an offer they couldn't refuse.
The outcome of the trillion-dollar bailouts was easily predictable, although you wouldn't know that from reading the financial pages. National budgets were already stretched, and they certainly did not have reserves available to service the bailouts .Thus the bailouts amounted to nothing more than the taking on of immense new debts by governments. In order to fulfill the bailout commitments, the money would need to be borrowed from the same financial institutions that were being bailed out.
With the bailouts, Western governments delivered their nations in hock to the bankers. The governments are now in perpetual debt bondage to the bankers. Rather than the banks going into receivership, governments are now in receivership. Obama's cabinet and advisors are nearly all from Wall Street; they are in the White House so they can keep close watch over their new acquisition, the once sovereign USA. Perhaps they will soon be presiding over its liquidation.
The bankers are now in control of national budgets. They say what can be funded and what can't. When it comes to financing their wars and weapons production, no limits are set. When it comes to public services, then we are told deficits must be held in check. The situation was expressed very well by Brian Cowan, Ireland's government chief. In the very same week that Ireland pledged 200 billion Euro to bailout the banks, he was being asked why he was cutting a few million Euro off of critical service budgets. He replied, "I'm sorry, but the funds just aren't there". Of course they're not there! The treasury was given away. The cupboard is bare.
As we might expect, the highest priority
for budgets is servicing the debt to the banks. Just as most
of the third world is in debt slavery to the IMF, so the whole
West is now in debt slavery to its own central banks. Greece
is the harbinger of what is to happen everywhere.
The carbon economy controlling
consumption
In a non-growth economy, the mechanisms of production will become relatively static. Instead of corporations competing to innovate, we'll have production bureaucracies. They'll be semi-state, semi-private bureaucracies, concerned about budgets and quotas rather than growth, somewhat along the lines of the Soviet model. Such an environment is not driven by a need for growth capital, and it does not enable a profitable game of Monopoly.
We can already see steps being taken to
shift the corporate model towards the bureaucratic model,
through increased government intervention in economic affairs.
With the Wall Street bailouts, the forced restructuring of
General Motors, the call for centralized micromanagement of
banking and industry, and the mandating of health insurance
coverage, the
government is saying that the market is to superseded by
government directives. Not that we should bemoan the demise of
exploitive capitalism, but before celebrating we need to
understand what it is being replaced with.
In an era of capitalism and growth, the focus of the game has been on the production side of the economy. The game was aimed at controlling the means of growth: access to capital. The growth-engine of capitalism created the demand for capital; the bankers controlled the supply. Taxes were mostly based on income, again related to the production side of the economy.
In an era of non-growth, the focus of the game will be on the consumption side of the economy. The game will be aimed at controlling the necessities of life: access to food and energy. Population creates the demand for the necessities of life; the bankers intend to control the supply. Taxes will be mostly based on consumption, particularly of energy. That's what the global warming scare is all about, with its carbon taxes and carbon credits.
Already in Britain there is talk of carbon quotas, like gasoline rationing in wartime. It's not just that you'll pay taxes on energy, but the amount of energy you can consume will be determined by government directive. Carbon credits will be issued to you, which you can use for driving, for heating, or on rare occasions for air travel. Also in Britain, the highways are being wired so that they can track how many miles you drive, tax you accordingly, and penalize you if you travel over your limit. We can expect these kinds of things to spread throughout the West, as it's the same international bankers who are in charge everywhere.
In terms of propaganda, this control over consumption is being sold as a solution to global warming and peak oil. The propaganda campaign has been very successful, and the whole environmental movement has been captured by it. In Copenhagen, demonstrators confronted the police, carrying signs in support of carbon taxes and carbon credits. But in fact the carbon regime has nothing to do with climate or with sustainability. It is all about micromanaging every aspect of our lives, as well as every aspect of the economy.
If the folks who are running things actually cared about sustainability, they'd be investing in efficient mass transit, and they'd be shifting agriculture from petroleum-intensive, water-intensive methods to sustainable methods. Instead they are mandating biofuels and selling us electric cars, which are no more sustainable or carbon-efficient than standard cars. Indeed, the real purpose behind biofuels is genocide. With food prices linked to energy prices, and agriculture land being converted from food production to fuel production, the result can only be a massive increase in third-world starvation. Depopulation has long been a stated goal in elite circles, and the Rockefeller dynasty has frequently been involved in eugenics projects of various kinds.
'The War on Terrorism' preparing the
way for the transition
The so-called War on Terrorism has two parts. The first part is a pretext for arbitrary abuse of citizen's rights, whenever Homeland Security claims the action is necessary for security reasons. The second part is a pretext for US military aggression anywhere in the world, whenever the White House claims that Al Qaeda is active there.
I emphasized the word 'claims' above, because the terrorism pretext is being used to justify arbitrary powers, both domestically and globally. No hard evidence need be presented to Congress, the UN, or anyone else, before some nation is invaded, someone is kidnapped and tortured as a 'terrorist suspect', or some new invasive security measure is implemented. When powers are arbitrary, then we are no longer living under the rule of law, neither domestically nor internationally. We are living under the rule of men, as you would expect in a dictatorship, or in an old-fashioned kingdom or empire.
Part 1: Preparing the way for a new
social order
In a very real sense, the terrorism pretext is being used to undo everything that The Enlightenment and the republication revolutions achieved two centuries ago. The very heart of the Bill of Rights - due process - has been abandoned. The gulag, the concentration camp, and the secret arrest in the night - these we have always associated with fascist and communist dictatorships - and now they are not only functioning under US jurisdiction, but being justified publicly by the President himself.
Is there really a terrorist threat to the
homeland, and would these measures be a sensible response to
such a threat? People are strongly divided in their answers to
these questions. Quite a bit of hard forensic evidence has
come to light, including links to intelligence agencies, and
my own view is that most of the dramatic 'terrorist' events in
the US, UK, and Europe have been covert false-flag operations.
From an historical perspective this would not be at all surprising. Such operations have been standard practice - modus operandi - in many nations, though we usually don't get proof until years later. For example, every war the US has been involved in has had its own phony Gulf of Tonkin Incident, (Captain of warship later confessed in his bio that the shooting was just lightning flashes. Lyndon lied to justify war.) or its Weapons of Mass Destruction scam, in one form or another. It's a formula that works. Instant mobilization of public opinion, prompt passage without debate of enabling resolutions and legislation. Why would the War on Terrorism be any different?
As regards motive: while Muslims have only
suffered as a result of these
dramatic events, our elite bankers have been able to
create a
police-state
infrastructure that can be used to deal with any
foreseeable
popular resistance or civic chaos that might emerge as they
prepare the way
for their post-capitalist future.
With
the collapse, the bailouts, and the total failure to pursue
any
kind of effective recovery strategy, the signals are very
clear: the
system will be allowed to collapse totally, thus clearing the
ground for
a pre-architected 'solution'. Ground Zero can be seen as a
metaphor,
with the capitalist economy as the Twin Towers. And the toxic
derivatives illustrate the fact that the collapse is actually
a
controlled demolition.
It
seems to me inevitable, given the many signals, that martial
law will
be part of the transition process, allegedly to deal with the
problems
of economic collapse. Perhaps a collapse in the food-supply
chain, due
to a collapse in the energy-supply chain. The US emergency
responses in
New Orleans and again in Haiti give us more signals, actual
test trials,
of what kind of 'emergency response' we can expect.
First
and foremost comes the security of the occupation forces.
Those
suffering in the emergency are treated more like insurgents
than victims
in need of help. In the case of Haiti, the US response can
only be
described as an intentional genocide project. When people are
pinned
under rubble in an earthquake, the first 48 hours, and 72
hours, are
absolutely critical points, as regards survival rates. When
the US
military systematically blocked incoming aid for those
critical hours,
turning back doctors and emergency teams, they sealed the fate
of many
thousands who could have been saved. One can imagine many
nightmare
scenarios, given these various signals, these ominous signs.
World Wars
1 and 2 were nightmares that really happened, with millions
dying, and
these same banking dynasties orchestrated those scenarios and
then
covered their tracks. We must also keep in mind the Shock
Doctrine,
where catastrophe is seen as opportunity - when 'things can be
done that
otherwise could not be accomplished'. We are still being
impacted by the
shock waves that were sent out on 9/11, and again when the
financial
system collapsed. And the the really big shock, the general
collapse of
society, is yet to come. The ultimate version of the Shock
Doctrine: 'If
the collapse is total, we can accomplish any damned thing we
want to
accomplish'.
I
won't venture a guess about how this transition process will
play out,
but I do expect that it will be a nightmare of one description
or
another. Already the growing homeless population is suffering
a
nightmare, by any civilized standards. One day you're living
in a home
whose value is going up, commuting to a good job, and the next
thing you
know your family is out on the streets. That's a nightmare.
The
transition time will be a difficult time, but it will be a
transition,
it will be temporary, like a war. And like a war, it will
enable social
and economic reconstruction in the aftermath. Consider how
Japan and
Germany were socially and politically transformed by the
postwar
reconstruction process. Those were exercises in social
engineering, as
were the preceding transformations under Mussolini and Hitler.
Although
the outcomes were quite different, in each case a total
collapse /
defeat was the preamble to reconstruction. A total collapse of
the
capitalist economy is simply the application of a proven
formula. The
second part of the formula will be some new social order, or
perhaps
some old social order, or some mixture. Something appropriate
to a
non-growth, command economy. That's part 1 of the War on
Terrorism: it
has enabled the creation of the police-state infrastructures
required to
to deal with the collapse of society, and to provide security
for the
reconstruction process.
Part
2: Preparing the way for global domination
Part
2 of the War on Terrorism is about the geopolitical dimensions
of a
non-growth-based global economy. Earlier I suggested that
geopolitics
was different under capitalism, than it was under sovereign
monarchs.
The whole dynamic was different, and outcomes were weighed on
a
different scale. Similarly, many things will change in a shift
from
chaotic, growth-oriented capitalism, to a centralized,
micromanaged,
economic regime. Consider, for example, the significance of
control over
oil reserves. In a growth economy, profits were the prize, and
controlling the markets and the distribution channels amounted
to
holding a winning hand in the game. The local dictators could
manage
things as they pleased, and take their cut of oil revenues, as
long as
they honored their contracts with the oil majors, who were
happy to sell
to the highest bidders.
In
a non-growth economy, where the focus is on direct control
over the
supply and distributions of resources, it becomes necessary to
secure,
in the military sense, the sources of petroleum, and the
routes for its
distribution. It is no longer sufficient to merely profit from
unbridled
operations. Securing of the sources, and directly allocating
the
distribution, is the foundation for micromanaging the
non-growth
economy. This applies to other critical resources as well,
such as
uranium, and the rare minerals needed by the 'defense' and
electronics
industries.
In
fact we are in the midst of a resource-grab war, with China
and
Russia making long-term energy deals with Iran and Venezuela,
China
buying up agricultural land in Africa, Washington making
long-term deals
for Brazilian biofuels, and there are many other examples. In
many ways
imperialism is reverting to colonial days, when direct
administration
was the model, rather than the capitalist model: profiting
from
corporate investments under dictators who suppress their
populations.
There is a natural reversion to the dynamics of the 'good old
days of
empire' when the Great Powers of Europe focused their economic
activity
within their individual spheres of influence. Everyone knows
that global
resource limits are being reached, partly from population
pressures, and
partly from resource-exploitation practices. For this reason
alone, we
have the peaceful part of the resource-grab war.
In
Iraq, Afghanistan, and now in Pakistan and Yemen, the US, with
NATO
support, is playing a very non-peaceful hand in the
resource-grab game.
It's the hand of a bully, 'I have the biggest gun, so I'll
take what I
want'. These aggressive actions are very provocative to Russia
and
China, and threatening to their vital economic interests. An
attack on
Iran would be more than a provocation, it would be a direct
slap in the
face, a challenge: 'Fight now or resign yourself to being
subdued
piecemeal'. In addition to all this petroleum grabbing, the US
has been
surrounding Russia and China with military bases, and has
recently
accelerated the installations of anti-missile systems on their
borders,
over the strong objections of Russia and China. The US is
being
intentionally provocative, and it is threatening vital
interests of
these potential adversaries. Alliances are being formed in
response, on
a bilateral basis, and in the form of the SCO. China and
Russia are very
close in their military cooperation, and technology sharing.
Their
strategic planning is based on the expectation of a US attack,
and their
strategic response is based on the principle of asymmetric
warfare. For
example, a million dollar missile capable of taking out a
multi-billion
dollar aircraft carrier. Or perhaps a handful of missiles
capable of
disabling the Pentagon's command-and-control satellite
systems.
Meanwhile
the US is spending astronomical sums developing a first-strike
capability, with space-based weapons systems,
control-of-theater
capability, forward-based 'tactical' nukes, etc. The new
anti-missile
systems are an important part of a first-strike strategy,
reducing the
ability of Russia or China to retaliate. These systems are
more than
just provocative. They are the modern equivalent of marching
your armies
up to your adversary's border.
If
there is a nuclear exchange between the major powers,
historians will
cite all of these things I've mentioned as 'obvious signs'
that war was
coming. Parallels would be drawn to the pre-World War 1
scenario, when
Germany was eclipsing Britain economically, as China is
eclipsing the US
now. In both cases a 'desperate attempt to maintain hegemony'
would be
seen as the cause of the war.
There
may or may not be a World War 3, but all of these preparations
make it clear that our banking elite intend to preside over a
global
system, by hook or by crook. If they wanted a peaceful
arrangement, a
splitting of the third-world pie, so to speak, it could be
easily
arranged at any time, along with substantial nuclear
disarmament. China
and Russia would like to see a stable, multi-polar world; it
is only our
elite bankers who are obsessed with world domination. It is
possible
that nuclear war is a 'desired outcome', accomplishing
depopulation, and
making the collapse even more total. Or perhaps China and
Russia will be
given an offer they can't refuse: 'Surrender your economic
sovereignty
to our global system, or face the consequences'.
One
way or another, the elite bankers, the masters of the
universe,
intend to preside over a micromanaged global system. The
collapse
project is now well underway, and the 'surround your enemy'
project
seems to be more or less completed. From a strategic
perspective, there
will be some trigger point, some stage in the economic
collapse
scenario, when geopolitical confrontation is judged to be most
advantageous. It's a multi-dimensional chess board, and with
the stakes
so high, you can rest assured that the timing of the various
moves will
be carefully coordinated. And from the overall shape of the
board, we
seem to be nearing the endgame.
Prognosis
2012 - a Neo Dark Age
2012
might not be the exact year, but it's difficult to see the
endgame
lasting much beyond that, and the masters of the universe love
symbolism, as with 911 (both in Chile and in Manhattan), KLA
007, and
others. 2012 is loaded with symbolism, eg. the Mayan Calendar,
and the
Internet is buzzing with various 2012-related prophecies,
survival
strategies, anticipated alien interventions, alignments with
galactic
radiation fields, etc. And then there is the Hollywood film,
2012, which
explicitly portrays the demise of most of humanity, and the
pre-planned
salvation of a select few. One never knows with Hollywood
productions,
what is escapist fantasy, and what is aimed at preparing the
public mind
symbolically for what is to come.
Whatever
the exact date, all the threads will come together,
geo-politically and domestically, and the world will change.
It will be a
new era, just as capitalism was a new era after aristocracy,
and the
Dark Ages followed the era of the Roman Empire. Each era has
its own
structure, its own economics, its own social forms, and its
own
mythology. These things must relate to one another coherently,
and their
nature follows from the fundamental power relationships and
economic
circumstances of the system.
In
our post-2012 world, we have for the first time one
centralized
global government, and one ruling elite clique, a kind of
extended royal
family, the lords of finance. As we can see with the IMF, WHO,
and the
WTO, and the other pieces of the embryonic world government,
the
institutions of governance will make no pretensions about
popular
representation or democratic responsiveness. Rule will be by
means of
autocratic global bureaucracies, who take their marching
orders from the
royal family. This model has already been operating for some
time,
within its various spheres of influence, as with the
restructuring
programs forced on the third world, as a condition for getting
financing. Whenever there is a change of era, the previous era
is always
demonized in mythology. In the Garden of Eden story the
serpent is
demonized - a revered symbol in paganism, the predecessor to
Christianity. When republics came along, the demonization of
monarchs
was an important part of the process. In the post-2012 world,
democracy
and national sovereignty will be demonized. This will be very
important,
in getting people to accept totalitarian rule, and the
mythology will
contain much that is true...
In
those terrible dark days, before the blessed unification of
humanity,
anarchy reigned in the world. One nation would attack another,
no better
than predators in the wild. Nations had no coherent policies;
voters
would swing from one party to another, keeping governments
always in
transition and confusion. How did they ever think that masses
of
semi-educated people could govern themselves, and run a
complex society?
Democracy was an ill-conceived experiment that led only to
corruption
and chaotic governance. How lucky we are to be in this
well-ordered
world, where humanity has finally grown up, and those with the
best
expertise make the decisions. The economics of non-growth are
radically
different than capitalist economics. The unit of exchange is
likely to
be a carbon credit, entitling you to consume the equivalent of
one
kilogram of fuel. Everything will have a carbon value,
allegedly based
on how much energy it took to produce it and transport it to
market.
'Green consciousness' will be a primary ethic, conditioned
early into
children. Getting by with less is a virtue; using energy is
anti-social;
austerity is a responsible and necessary condition.
As
with every currency, the bankers will want to manage the
scarcity of
carbon credits, and that's where global warming alarmism
becomes
important. Regardless of the availability of resources, carbon
credits
can be kept arbitrarily scarce simply by setting carbon
budgets, based
on directives from the IPCC, another of our emerging units of
global
bureaucratic governance. Such IPCC directives will be the
equivalent of
the Federal Reserve announcing a change in interest rates.
Those budgets
set the scale of economic activity.
Presumably
nations will continue to exist, as official units of
governance. However security and policing will be largely
centralized
and privatized. Like the Roman Legions, the security apparatus
will be
loyal to the center of empire, not to the place where someone
happens to
be stationed. We have seen this trend already in the US, as
mercenaries
have become big business, and police forces are increasingly
federalized, militarized, and alienated from the general
public. Just as
airports have now been federalized, all transport systems will
be under
the jurisdiction of the security apparatus. Terrorism will
continue as
an ongoing bogey-man, justifying whatever security procedures
are deemed
desirable for social-control purposes. The whole security
apparatus will
have a monolithic quality to it, a similarity of character
regardless of
the specific security tasks or location. Everyone dressed in
the same
Evil Empire black outfits, with big florescent letters on the
back of
their flack jackets. In essence, the security apparatus will
be an
occupying army, the emperor's garrison in the provinces.
On
a daily basis, you will need to go through checkpoints of
various
kinds, with varying levels of security requirements. This is
where
biometrics becomes important. If people can be implanted with
chips,
then much of the security can be automated, and everyone can
be tracked
at at all times, and their past activity retrieved. The chip
links into
your credit balance, so you've got all your currency always
with you,
along with your medical records and lots else that you don't
know about.
There is very little left as regards national sovereignty.
Nothing much
in the way of foreign policy will have any meaning. With
security
marching to its own law and its distant drummer, the main role
of
so-called 'government' will be to allocate and administer the
carbon-credit budget that it receives from the IPCC. The IPCC
decides
how much wealth a nation will receive in a given year, and the
government then decides how to distribute that wealth in the
form of
public services and entitlements. Wealth being measured by the
entitlement to expend energy.
In
a fundamental sense, this is how things already are, following
the
collapse and the bailouts. Because governments are so deeply
in debt,
the bankers are able to dictate the terms of national budgets,
as a
condition of keeping credit lines open. The carbon economy,
with its
centrally determined budgets, provides a much simpler and more
direct
way of micromanaging economic activity and resource
distribution
throughout the globe.
In
order to clear the way for the carbon-credit economy, it will
be
necessary for Western currencies to collapse, to become
worthless, as
nations become increasingly insolvent, and the global
financial system
continues to be systematically dismantled. The carbon currency
will be
introduced as an enlightened, progressive 'solution' to the
crisis, a
currency linked to something real, and to sustainability. The
old
monetary system will be demonized, and again the mythology
will contain
much that is true...
The
pursuit of money is the root of all evil, and the capitalist
system
was inherently
evil. It encouraged greed, and consumption, and it cared
nothing about wasting resources. People thought the more money
they had,
the better off they were. How much wiser we are now, to live
within our
means, and to understand that a credit is a token of
stewardship.
Culturally,
the post-capitalist era will be a bit like the medieval era,
with aristocrats and lords on top, and the rest peasants and
serfs. A
definite upper class and lower class. Just as only the old
upper class
had horses and carriages, only the new upper class will be
entitled to
access substantial carbon credits. Wealth will be measured by
entitlements, more than by acquisitions or earnings. Those
outside the
bureaucratic hierarchies are the serfs, with subsistence
entitlements.
Within the bureaucracies, entitlements are related to rank in
the
hierarchy. Those who operate in the central global
institutions are
lords of empire, with unlimited access to credits.
But
there is no sequestering of wealth, or building of economic
empires,
outside the structures of the designated bureaucracies.
Entitlements are
about access to resources and facilities, to be used or not
used, but
not to be saved and used as capital. The flow of entitlements
comes
downward, micromanaged from the top. It's a dole economy, at
all levels,
for people and governments alike - the global regimentation of
consumption. As regards regimentation, the post-capitalist
culture will
also be a bit like the Soviet system. Here's your entitlement
card,
here's your job assignment, and here's where you'll be living.
With
the pervasive security apparatus, and the micromanagement of
economic activity, the scenario is clearly about fine-grained
social
control, according to centralized guidelines and directives.
Presumably
media will be carefully programmed, with escapist trivia, and
a
sophisticated version of 1984-style groupthink propaganda
pseudo-news,
which is pretty much what we already have today. The
non-commercial
Internet, if there is one, will be limited to monitored,
officially-designated chat sites, and other kinds of sanitized
forums.
With
such a focus on social micromanagement, I do not expect the
family
unit to survive in the new era, and I expect child-abuse
alarmism will
be the lever used to destabilize the family. The stage has
been set with
all the revelations about church and institutional child
sexual abuse.
Such revelations could have been uncovered any time in the
past century,
but they came out at a certain time, just as all these other
transitional things have been happening. People are now aware
that
widespread child abuse happens, and they have been conditioned
to
support strong measures to prevent it. Whenever I turn on the
TV, I see
at least one public-service ad, with shocking images, about
children who
are physically or sexually abused, or criminally neglected, in
their
homes, and there's a hotline phone number that children can
call. It is
easy to see how the category of abuse can be expanded, to
include
parents who don't follow vaccination schedules, whose purchase
records
don't indicate healthy diets, who have dubious psychological
profiles,
etc. The state of poverty could be deemed abusive neglect.
With
the right media presentation, abuse alarmism would be easy to
stir
up. Ultimately, a 'child rights' movement becomes an
anti-family
movement. The state must directly protect the child from
birth. The
family is demonized...
How
scary were the old days, when unlicensed, untrained couples
had
total control over vulnerable children, behind closed doors,
with
whatever neuroses, addictions, or perversions the parents
happened to
possess. How did this vestige of patriarchal slavery, this
safe-house
den of abuse, continue so long to exist, and not be recognized
for what
it was? How much better off we are now, with children being
raised
scientifically, by trained staff, where they are taught
healthy values.
Ever
since public education was introduced, the state and the
family
have competed to control childhood conditioning. In religious
families,
the church has made its own contribution to conditioning. In
the
micromanaged post-capitalist future, with its Shock Doctrine
birth
scenario, it would make good sense to take that opportunity to
implement
the 'final solution' of social control, which is for the state
to
monopolize child raising. This would eliminate from society
the
parent-child bond, and hence family-related bonds in general.
No longer
is there a concept of relatives. There's just worker bees,
security
bees, and queen bees, who dole out the honey.
Postscript
This
has been an extensive and somewhat detailed prognosis,
regarding
the architecture of the post-capitalist regime, and the
transition
process required to bring it about. The term 'new world order'
is too
weak a term to characterize the radical nature of the social
transformation anticipated in the prognosis. A more apt
characterization
would be a 'quantum leap in the domestication of the human
species'.
Micromanaged lives and microprogrammed beliefs and thoughts. A
once wild
primate species transformed into something resembling more a
bee or ant
culture. Needless to say, regular use of psychotropic drugs
would be
mandated, so that people could cope emotionally with such a
sterile,
inhuman environment. For such a profound transformation to be
possible,
it is easy to see that a very great shock is required, on the
scale of
collapse and social chaos, and possibly on the scale of a
nuclear
exchange. There needs to be an implicit mandate to 'do
whatever is
necessary to get society running again'. The shock needs to
leave people
in a condition of total helplessness comparable to the
survivors in the
bombed-out rubble of Germany and Japan after World War 2.
Nothing less
will do. The accuracy of the prognosis, as prediction, is of
course
impossible to know in advance. However each part of the
prognosis has
been based on precedents that have been set, modus operandi
that has
been observed, trends that have been initiated, sentiments
that have
been expressed, signals that have been given, and actions that
have been
taken whose consequences can be confidently predicted.
In
addition, in looking at all of these indicators together, one
sees a
certain mindset, an absolutist determination to implement the
'ideal
solution', without compromise, using extreme means, and with
unbridled
audacity. World wars have been rehearsals for this historic
moment. The
police state infrastructure is in place and has been tested.
The economy
is in the process of collapse. The enemy is surrounded with
missiles.
Arbitrary powers have been assumed. If not now, the ultimate
prize, then
when will there be a better opportunity?
Our
elite planners are backed up by competent think tanks, and
they know
that the new society must have coherence of various kinds.
They've had
quite a bit of experience with social engineering, nurturing
the rise of
fascism, and then engineering the postwar regimes. They
understand the
importance of mythology. For example there is the mythology of
the
holocaust, where the story is all about extermination per se,
and the
story is not told of the primary mission of the concentration
camps,
which was to provide slave labor for war production. And some
of the
companies using the slave labor were American owned, and were
supplying
the German war machine. Thus does mythology, though containing
truth,
succeed in hiding the tracks and the crimes of elite perps,
leaving
others to carry the whole burden of historical demonization.
So
I think there is a sound basis for anticipating the kinds of
mythology that would be designed for leaving behind and
rejecting the
old ways, and seeing the new as a salvation. There is a long
historical
precedent of era changes linked with mythology changes, often
expressed
in religious terms. There will be a familiar ring to the new
mythology,
a remixing and re-prioritizing of familiar values and
assumptions, so as
to resonate with the dynamics of the new regime. The nature of
the
carbon economy has been somewhat clearly signaled. Carbon
budgets, and
carbon credits, are clearly destined to become primary
components of the
economy. As we've seen with the elite and grassroots supported
global
warming movement, the arbitrary scarcity of carbon credits can
be easily
regulated on the pretext of environmentalism. And peak oil
alarmism is
always available as a backup. As elite spokespeople have often
expressed, when the time comes, the masses will demand the new
world
order.
The
focus on control over consumption, resources, and distribution
is
implicit in the emphasis on energy limits, is latent in the
geopolitical
situation, as regards depletion of global resources, and is
indicated by
the need for a new unifying paradigm, as the growth paradigm
is no
longer viable.
The
nature of the security apparatus has been clearly signaled by
the
responses to demonstrations ever since 1998 in Seattle, by the
increased
use of hardened-killer mercenaries at home and abroad, by
excessive and
abusive police behavior, by airport security procedures, by
Guantanamo
and renditions, by the creation of a domestic branch of the
army,
dedicated to responding to civil emergencies, and by the way
Katrina and
Haiti have been handled. It would be a major mistake to think
of those
last two as bungled operations. They were exercises in
collapse
management of a certain kind, to be applied to certain
populations,
where the training and equipment appropriate for combat in
Afghanistan
is seen as being appropriate for administering aid to civilian
disaster
victims. These selected disaster victims will be seen
primarily as
threats to civil order, or perhaps undesirables to be
incarcerated or
eliminated. They will be demonized as rioters and looters.
Assistance
will comes later, if at all. And it can all be broadcast on
TV, and
somehow be seen as the way things have to be. These two
exercises were
not bungled at all. They were alarmingly successful, most
notably in the
case of the real time PR mythology.
The
limited role of national governments, being primarily
allocators of mandated budgets, has been clearly signaled by
long-standing IMF policies in the third world, and by the way
the bankers have been dictating to governments, in the wake of
the over-extended bailout commitments. The carbon entitlement
budgeting paradigm accomplishes the same
micromanagement in a much more direct way, and is the natural
outcome of the push toward hard carbon limits.
Get on RK's list: cyberjournal+subscribe@googlegroups.com is where you write. You get articles like this.
<== BACK
TO THE HISTORY OF EMPIRE
<== BACK TO
THE TRUTH GOV DOES NOT WANT YOU TO DISCOVER -- an ARCHIVE