Monday, March 7, 2011

The Impact of Toxins of Power On Evolution

The title applies in the raw to a universe of subjects, so lets tone it down to: the impact of toxins of power on the evolution of American capitalism.

A subtitle of this post might be: "the evolution of U.S. Capitalism leads to where?"

Economic theorists who are aware of the criticism that Karl Marx leveled at American Capitalism point out:
Marx argued that capitalism would succeed in its initial stages quite well in promoting growth by means of capital investment in new technology and improved means of production. Everyone would prosper. As capitalism developed, however, he argued that capitalists would appropriate to themselves more and more of the profits or income from the economy and that laborers would come to have increasingly less.

Over time, in time and such circumstances, Marx claimed that, first, capitalistic economies would undergo ever more vicious cyclical swings from boom to bust. These cycles and the on-going process of capitalism would, second, result in ever richer capitalists and ever poorer working classes, until, finally, at some point, laborers would revolt and take over the means of production, causing Socialism to ensue as a result. Socialism, in turn, was merely a transitional step to Communism.
(Seeking Alpha, K. Corson, bold in original). A wide variety of commentators from the "Tea Party II" all the way to academia, essentially agreeing with Marx, say that our current phase of American capitalism will lead to "socialism".

They urge this eventuality because "at some point, laborers would revolt and take over the means of production, causing Socialism to ensue as a result", quoting Corson, summarizing Marx, and citing perhaps revolt in Wisconsin and Ohio as examples.

This is essentially a rehash of the cyclical rebirth ideology advanced by various ancient religious doctrines, discussed at various times in various contexts here at Dredd Blog.

Rebirth of the pure comes about eventually by rebellion of the oppressed, ad infinitum, goes their theory.

The toxins of power theory says, to the contrary, that it is more likely that American capitalism will lead to totalitarianism, at the end of its imperialistic militancy phase.

Fundamentally, this is because mental damage has been and is being done to the populace on a massive scale, which 19th century thinkers such as Marx could not comprehensively take into consideration.

To be fair, their theories were developed before the massive military industrial complex (MIC) emerged then morphed into the military oil media complex (MOMCOM).

Then MOMCOM emerged as the industrial segment of the economy declined into the "rust belt", as oil addiction became predominant, as imperialistic militancy ascended to prominence, and as the media consolidated into fewer corporations.

Yes, consolidated into "media corporations" that are owned by even fewer parent mega-corporations within MOMCOM, which are not media corporations, they are for-profit corporations with an agenda.

Anyway, those aforementioned 19th Century economic theories of capitalism, socialism, and communism that were advanced by Marx and others, did not take into consideration the popular English / American theory of government which includes a basic notion of the toxins of power.

At least those theories did not consider the notion of toxins of power to the degree that it can be considered a dangerous and deadly source of social dementia, as Toxins of Power Blog and Dredd Blog do.

The 19th Century view being criticized in this post is as much a fantasy as 21st Century fantasies such as the notion that oil does not pollute, disease has no effect on the infected, and there are no consequences for destroying the ecosystem.

The mind-set of the military portion of MOMCOM is not a secret, as shown by Dredd Blog posts Graphs of Wrath and Your Health Their Number 1 Enemy, because the military comes right out and says:
The notion of using martial law (a technique abandoned just before WWI replacing it with the propaganda technique) to keep the people in their place, has been openly contemplated by the military:
A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.

“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” said the War College report.

The study says economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S.
(Phoenix Biz Journal). The plans are in place, they are simply waiting for the people to get fed up so they can fed up.
(The Government of The Government). MOMCOM has a plan in place to impose martial law, along with internment camps, if economic protest gets out of hand here in the U.S.eh?

The mindset of MOMCOM is a 20th Century Fox suffering from the lack of a conscience in a 21st Century world, because the toxins of power dissolved the 19th Century conscience our nation once had when those theories were set forth.

6 comments:

  1. There is a good post over at HuffPo by a soldier who knows the truth about government warmongers.

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  2. Americans have been effectively conditioned to reject socialism (even though they obviously don't know what the word means; so you're right, they will probably never mount a revolt to impose it. Most of that has to do with the fact that the USSR - our existential 20th century enemy - was a socialist/communist enterprise and "proved" that such a system could not work. Of course the fact that the USSR and Russia before and after it has a long history of spectacular failures at all sorts of endeavors (I saw a special on the construction of the trans-Siberian railroad over the weekend - an epic FAIL if there ever was one) is totally lost on Americans, and their use as a propaganda tool continues unabated.

    Nonetheless, Americans are even more enrapt by the ideology of capitalism and "free markets" everywhere (which in fact are NEVER free, but always rigged to benefit American interests wherever possible); so much so that they'll gladly sell themselves into debt slavery and utter impoverishment in continued support of what is actually nothing more than a global ponzi scheme, where the last in (pretty much anyone who's not rich already at this point) are doomed to get took. All of this has been greatly accelerated to to natural resource depletion, a factor that has also been effectively "priced into the market" for some time now as well.

    What all this means for society as we now know it should be clear to anyone with a functioning brain. It's all very soon to be over. Whether it takes a few years (could very well happen if cataclysmic events like large scale wars and/or natural disasters push things along), decades, or the rest of the century, the trend lines all point in one direction: DECLINE.

    Not surprisingly, MOMCOM’s role has been, is, and will continue to be the role of the Roman Legion: to protect and serve the bourgeoisie, the capitalist class for making money from their money is their sole occupation. Yes Virginia, it’s true. Foreign wars are NEVER about protecting the American sheeple from anyone or anything; but rather, ALWAYS about protecting the American capitalist class protect their right to exploit labor and natural resources world-wide.

    How long this state of affairs can continue is anyone’s guess, but if history is any guide, a fairly long time indeed. Fortunately for all of us, global warming and resource depletion might just be a blessing in disguise, as it’s hard to imagine those two factors alone permitting more than another 20-30 years of the status quo. We can only hope.

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  3. disaffected,

    "Americans have been effectively conditioned to reject socialism ... even though they obviously don't know what the word means ... they will probably never mount a revolt ..."

    They have been condition to reject whatever MOMCOM says "socialism" is.

    For example, "Social Security" is "socialism" but "Homeland Security" is not "socialism".

    In other words MOMCOM is a slut.

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  4. Randy/All,

    I came across this great link this afternoon from a poster over on Cluster Fuck Nation.

    Bob Altemeyer's - The Authoritarians

    Excellent scholarly works regarding authoritarianism and the US conservative right, free for the download by a prof at the University of Manitoba.

    Whole book downloadable here.

    Postscript on 2008 election here.

    Comment on Tea Party here.

    Love free reading material, especially when its this on point.

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  5. I apologize to all for the numerous grammatical gaffs on my first post. Whenever I get long winded first thing in the morning (and therefore usually late for work) my editing skills (never mind my fat fingered typing) totally suck.

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  6. disaffected,

    We all do typos.

    I like this comment from the Bob Altemeyer link:

    "The feedback I’ve gotten from those who have read The Authoritarians enables me to give you the major reason why you might want to do so too. “It ties things together for me,” people have said, “You can see how so many things all fit together.” “It explains the things about conservatives that didn’t make any sense to me,” others have commented. And the one that always brings a smile to my face, “Now at last I understand my brother-in-law” (or grandmother, uncle, woman in my car pool, Congressman, etc.)."

    Interesting find!

    ReplyDelete