Only National Secularism will restore 'confidence '.
dev carter
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The difference between plutocratic secularism what we have, and
national secularism what we need, hinges upon what is the more
adaptive evolutionary strategy- gene selection or group selection. The
plutocratic order has opted for the former as it means less government
intervention, unregulated markets, negligible inheritance tax, lower
income taxes, and the opportunity to exploit traditional theist
prejudices in its own interest.
At the individual level it comes down to a choice, should one act
opportunistically in pursuit of self interest to increase one's
prosperity and hence the survival prospects of one's heirs directly or
should one do what is in the national interest to increase the wealth
of and survival prospects of the nation state and thus, the survival
prospects of one's heirs indirectly.
The national secular consciousness is extensible to the international
secular level and we could also pose the question thus:
At the national level it comes down to a choice, should one act
opportunistically in pursuit of the narrow self interest of one's
nation state to increase its' prosperity and hence the survival
prospects of its citizens, directly or should one do what is in the
international interest to increase the wealth of and survival
prospects of all humans, directly and thus, the survival prospects of
the human race, indirectly by improving the condition of all nation
states.
Increasingly there is a tension between the political ideology of
individualism and what the human being is biologically- a social
animal. The asecularist cannot remedy the malaise this tension
ultimately produces as they perceives mankind as divine and above
nature, the natural world of heaven and earth being divinely created
to satisfy mankind's wants, existing 'out there' like a giant
smorgasbord for human opportunistic exploitation. Mass species
extinction, environmental degradation, nuclear weapons proliferation,
and global warming are the direct result of theism giving the green
light to unrestrained human opportunism.
The corrosive effect of theist ideology ill equips the average
individual for a broader fiscal and economic social responsibility,
fixated on individualism at all levels, one is skeptical about power
from above impacting one interest's positively and ever fearful of the
populist power from below impacting them negatively. The entrepreneur
knows that the big corporation will seek to eliminate competitors from
a level playing field and since money politics ensures they have the
ear of the party in power, any level playing field will be soon
unleveled against entrepreneurial interests. The entrepreneur also
knows the threat from the populist parties wanting higher wage levels,
health insurance, superannuation, improved working conditions, more
entitlements, and protectionist policies for the domestic market to
mitigate the impact of foreign competition.
Viable free markets depend on a vibrant entrepreneurial class, as this
class is essential to the growth and development of the peacetime
economy, it may pay higher wages and offer improved working conditions
to the underclass than offered by the multinational corporate sector
seeking to lower production cost by moving production to the low wage
economies. The social responsibility of the corporations is nil- their
obligation is to maximize profit for the bourgeoisie - the share
holders, not to provide adequate wages to workers. Having produced in
the lowest cost country, the multinational corporation seeks to sell
in the higher cost countries where they can undercut the
entrepreneurial class who produce locally at the higher wage cost.
National secularism is not 'socialism' - the political ideology that
puts the state above that of the individual, by another name. What
national secularism acknowledges is that the individual who cannot
organize his or her own economic activities to survive independently
in a profession, trade or other occupation, needs others who organize
a self-sustaining profitable or break-even economic activity for them
that offers them employment. Most of that work is done by the
entrepreneurial class who gather sufficient capital together to begin
a new business activity from scratch.
In competition with the entrepreneurial class is the plutocratic class
with their multi-national corporations who hire and fire not in the
national interest but in the more narrow interest of shareholders ever
keen on the immediate dividend and short-term profit that maintains
asset values. National secularism acknowledges the importance of free
markets but to keep markets free and sustainable in a functional
sense, market intervention to provide a counterweight to the
plutocratic and bourgeoisie classes is essential. Failure to do so
inevitably leads to the ultimate creation of a militarized economy as
the wealth available to the plutocrats and bourgeoisie via inequitable
taxation within the plutocratic political system cannot be increased
due to stagnation of the non-military sectors of the domestic economy.
Only national secular policies can provide the level of support
necessary to restore the level playing field and benefit the
entrepreneurial class and the other classes whose condition is
improved as a consequence. The key to achieving this goal is to
eliminate the welfare state scrap-heap indolent class by the creation
of a bill of rights and a secular infrastructure that provides the
means for individuals to survive in times of economic hardship by
moving from private employment to employment in government run but
privately owned businesses that would pay for acquired assets in
shares, and for labor by offering a living allowance slightly above
the level of unemployment benefit plus shares or options in the
business that would provide a future benefit- assets that would earn
dividend income or could be optioned or sold later at a profit to
achieve a similar outcome.
What percentage of a worker's wage should be paid on average for
rental accommodation? If the plutocrats and bourgeoisie classes have a
virtual monopoly control of the residential sector, they are free to
extort a maximum return. Not so where a government managed enterprise
competes in the rental market place by increasing the supply of
affordable accommodation. Such accommodation can be built in the
downturn of the economic cycle and sold off in the boom and help to
cool the type of economic conditions that created the US housing
bubble- where the poor borrow to excess in a futile attempt to escape
the monopolists and slum landlord sharks.
As profit and income is distributed from a government managed but
privately owned enterprise to the private wealth creators, a more
efficient economy and viable market place is the result since income
is more broadly distributed. Where socialism might control rents at a
fixed rate, national secularism would control rents by increasing the
supply of rental accommodation. In the Australian capital cities rents
are at least double the rate needed for a productive stable economy.
Other areas for urgent national secularist intervention are the
essential service sectors such as health, energy, transport and
communications
In the absence of national secularism to balance markets, corporate
dominance effectively creates a global plutocratic vertical market
that locks out entrepreneurs and workers from the benefits of the
enterprise. Inflation in the developed economies is seen as beneficial
to the plutocrats as it gives them an opportunity to raise prices, and
reduces the competitiveness of the other classes in the scramble for
real assets. To the plutocrats a debased currency that is not
redeemable in gold, silver or other precious commodity is an
advantage, as competitors cannot protect their savings from
plutocratic undermining by inflationary price rises. A national
secular reform may be impossible without the return of the national
currency to a silver or gold standard as a counter-weight to a chronic
inflationary spiral.
In the absence of national secularism, democratic politics ultimately
reaches a stalemate where the only competition is between the
plutocratic corporations in the various market sectors defense,
transport, primary production, energy and tourism as the plutocrats
vie for dominance over each other by any means possible. Thus, the
plutocratic order throughout the west is built upon corporate
struggles for control of the government agenda. The theist dogmas
producing rampant individualism has created a death camp society where
feminist abortion on demand now goes hand in hand with plutocratic
largess for the winning sector, typically the defense sector, to
ensure white national fertility rates plummet below a replacement
level. The wealth of the plutocrats enables the trafficking of
immigrant labor of any color, legal or illegal, to make up any
manpower shortfall in the developed economies.
Plutocratic largess impacts the globe bringing environmental
degradation, species extinction, and the negative effects of global
warming but since their largess benefits the plutocratic sector with
the levers of government in its pocket, not the victims, little is
done to rectify the situation other than a belated acknowledgement of
the existence of such problems as outstanding "issues for debate" not
as "national and international calamities that will require tax
dollars to fix and proactive intervention".
Of course when the major plutocratic sectors such as banking and
finance take a massive hit, bailout remedies costing trillions of
dollars will be sought to prop them up by the other plutocrats in
power- but of course only at the general tax payer expense.
This plutocratic system has evolved with minimal transformation of
the status quo ante order and quite revolutionary adjustments are
ideologically camouflaged as ordinary domestic improvements or
essential foreign policy adjustments for public security in the
defense of a national interest. The attractiveness of plutocratic
secularism is that it was implemented as an evolutionary
transformation of Judeo-Christian capitalism- feminist power for
abortion on demand supplanting the traditionalism of the Roman
Catholic Church. The pursuit of canny self interest neither needs a
quorum, nor a debate between elements of the power elite, merely
sufficient politicians in power to legislate in one's interest
prepared to label the 'extermination of a fetus at the whim of the
mother' as a 'termination to protect the life and wellbeing of the
mother'. National secularism must eliminate abortion on demand but not
abortion per se, by a series of checks and balances that restore
national fertility rates to replacement levels.
The plutocrats can never relinquish power and the theist inspired
individualism they promote ensures that that many trust no one. Who
would be the ultimate arbiter on what is essential to a national
interest- a committee of experts, a commissioner appointed to write a
report? Ultimately, the real national interest is discarded by
plutocratic secularism as a subversive concept that would bring
socialism via the back door. To the plutocratic ideology- the
individual is 'real'- 'society' is a mere reified figment of the
popular imagination.
This plutocratic worldview was expressed by Thatcher thus:
"There is no such thing as society, there are individual men and
women, and there are families".
Trapped in the theist mindset Thatcherites are not conscious of the
evolutionary truth that man is a social animal and needs much more
than his immediate and extended family for long term survival. The
Australian aborigines have the longest surviving cultures on the
planet- tens of thousands of years old. In their societies the
extended family, clan and tribe was far more important than each
individual or his or her biological family. The more integrated and
resourceful a tribe the better able it was to withstand the challenges
of the hash and unpredictable Australian climate and the competition
for resources from other tribes.
National self-interest devoid of a broad secular nationalism is
quickly transformed by secular plutocracy into an opportunistic
neo-imperialism for corporate profit or political aggrandizement. US,
British and Australian foreign policy since WW2 should be understood
in these terms. Devoid of any national secular consciousness
patriotism is reduce to an unquestioning servitude to plutocratic
interests- participation in and support for prison building
para-militarism at home and military adventurism abroad. Thatcherism
in the UK and Reganomics in the USA helped to put Britain and the USA
on a path towards their current economic implosion decades ago.
The modern plutocratic state dominated by the defense sector must have
ideological enemies- be they political, economic or religious, to
justify the vast sums spent on prisons, armaments and warfare.
Institutionalized ignorance makes the flag waving cadres moderately
successful in recruiting quislings for the plutocratic cause, but
overuse of military redeployment brings a personal reluctance to
contribute an inequitable personal sacrifice. Militarization also
necessitates a costly top- heavy unproductive institutionalized class
structure to maintain- one that takes more and more wealth in taxes
from the productive entrepreneurial economy.
In the boom phase of the economic cycle, the cracks in the system can
be papered over with rhetorical spin, as a bust turns from full blown
recession or depression the fractures are clearly visible for all to
see.
History is full of examples of the holistic danger of militarism both
to the nation state and to the ordinary citizen as its effects flow
back to haunt both the domestic economy and ultimately, to haunt the
international economy as well. It is easy to exploit reactionary
ideology for war against national liberation struggles as in Vietnam
in the 1960-1970s or alternatively religious liberation theology for
the expansion of a Greater Israel in Palestine. In the post-capitalist
plutocratic world, as the state itself becomes the primary instrument
for the exploitation of plutocratic interests, the enemies of these
plutocratic adventures become militarized in turn. For example, the
USSR occupation of Afghanistan 1978-1988 must be seen as following the
example set by the US occupation of Vietnam. Al Queda's attack of 9/11
in reprisal for US support of various Zionist wars and the
Judeo-Christian occupation of Muslim territory following the first US
led Iraq war. The development of nuclear technologies and nuclear
capabilities in the Muslim states is a consequence of the US
proliferation of such technologies to Israel.
Unlike national secular states who do not have "enemies" per se, but
natural "competitors" and "partners" in the ordinary business of trade
in goods and services, plutocratic secular states ultimately are
embroiled in endless war as they exploit political and religious
ideology for personal gain. They become locked in an unreal hysteria
of confrontation, embroiled in their own ideological baggage and
totally unable to find the exit strategy from their highly
inflationary militarized economy. The current parlous condition of the
USA is testimony to this fact.
The corporations dependant on the militarized economy do well, while
others dependent upon normal entrepreneurial trade during times of
peace ( particularly tourism ) do poorly. Militarism mainly benefits
the plutocratic class and their percentage of national income rises
while the percentage earned by the non-militarized economy falls- as
more tax revenues to support militarism must be borne by a shrinking
entrepreneurial domestic and declining export oriented economy. The
top 1 % earned about 9% of national income in the USA in 1980, by 2007
that percentage had grown to 22%, equaling the income disparity prior
to the great depression of 1929. People incapable of learning from
history, tend to repeat it.
When the plutocratic state cannot finance its military agenda from
domestic taxation it either borrows beyond its means to repay the debt
or prints fiat currency. Thus the USA's red ink debt burden is
unsustainable in the long run. If one does not balance the books, a
tipping point is eventually reached where foreign or domestic
investors no longer are prepared to lend and the interest bill on the
debt stock becomes larger than the public would hold. Hyper-inflation
may then destroy the domestic economy and the currency assets of
ordinary citizen as fiat currency is non-convertible to gold or other
precious metals. Inflationary spirals are inevitable in highly
militarized economies.
By the early 1980s no silver dollars were held by the US treasury and
copper-nickel coinage was produced thereafter. The inflationary spiral
after the Vietnam war took off with wholesales prices now about 6
times higher than those of the1970s. However the lower cost of
manufactures distort such indexes- the real factor affecting the
average citizen is the explosion in the average cost of essentials -
rent, food, energy and health insurance as the plutocrats and
bourgeoisie milk the lower middle and underclass for all it's worth.
The experience of Germany following WW1 illustrates the problem. By
1920 the wholesale price index was about 13 times greater than at the
start of the war in 1914.
From Jan 1920 to July 1921 it tripled again to over 36 times the 1914
level. Within 6 months that had risen to 100 times. Then wholesale
panic really ensued jumping every 6 months to 2.8 thousand; 194
thousand and finally 726 million times the 1916 price level by
November, 1923. It was cheaper for the German housewife to burn mark
notes than to use them to buy firewood.
As confidence in a currency wanes, huge hordes of dollars from the
black economy or in private stashes flow into real property, gold and
silver bullion and out of stocks and securities. A plutocratic
government's control of the economy by interest rate adjustment has
little impact because the public confidence in the economy is not
restored by a cheaper to borrow fiat currency- even at zero interest
rates. It is far better to own appreciating valuables than any amount
of debased currency so inflation soon destroys the savings of the
middle class.
The Obama spending bills will ultimately lead to an inflationary
spiral, as each spending bill will prove inadequate since it does not
fundamentally change the class imbalance of wealth and power so
dominated by the plutocrats in the western nations. The plutocrats and
the bourgeoisie have most of what they want already, so they will not
spend tax cuts or other income on consumer goods, but merely invest it
strategically in real assets to ensure a bigger share of the pie of
future income. The lower middle class in the debt trap won't spend it
either, they will use the money to reduce their debt commitments given
the rising threat of unemployment or under-employment. The poor live
at or near the poverty line will not spend the excess as it is
typically gouged away by the bourgeoisie in rent increases, and in
inflated power and medical costs.
The collapse of a major economy like the USA will bring every
extremist imaginable out of the closet as plutocratic socialism akin
to the old German National Socialism strips the plutocratic state
under marshal law free of its democratic pretensions as religious and
economic fundamentalists seek international scapegoats to blame for
the national economic misfortunes of the plutocratic order.
Protectionist policies will severely limit global trade and similar
extremist movements will become prominent in other countries, setting
the stage for global thermonuclear warfare to clear the human detritus
of its current ideological malaise with a grand cull of 1 to 5 billion
human beings.
The real culprit behind such disasters is institutionalized ignorance
on one hand and a brainwashed theist ideology on the other that
promotes an unquestioning trust in authority. Do nothing reactionary
authority promotes rampant individualism above all else by sitting on
its hands bleating "more tax cuts" like a flock of sheep.
As the recent Australian firestorms demonstrate, 200 + people who
placed their trust in authority perished following its ill considered
advice. Those who did not have such blind faith but sought practical
secular solutions and were prepared in advance by building suitable
firestorm bunkers survived.
If the elected politicians don't have enough common sense to prohibit
people from building unprotected wooden tinderbox housing surrounded
by unmanaged bushland forests, in a climate known for its perilous
winds from the hot dry interior of the continent, what intelligence do
they have for the management of the a complex web of economic and
financial relations of the domestic and international economy other
than as quisling stooges for one economic sector over another.
National secularism is the counter-weight to the democratic
politicians with their hands out who deliver quid pro quo for the
plutocrats and bourgeoisie. Such acts are akin to treason as they
weaken the sustainability and long term viability of a national
secular economy by undermining the free market and lowering GDP.
National secularism needs a new ideological beginning to remove such
'politicians' from the power equation pro-actively- a new year zero
and a new AD - an AcD to be precise.
Charles Darwin's birth year seems the ideal choice given that Darwin
was the first to conceptualize the possibility of a secular mindset-
essential for the development of a national secular movement that
would formulate its ideas and design its institutions given the belief
that man is merely one of the totality of living organisms that
evolved from a common ancestor without divine intervention. Nation
states that follow a pragmatic national secularism will survive this
millennium while those trusting plutocracy with blind faith in the
invisible theist sky god are destined to reap a holocaust - the
firestorm of thermonuclear warfare as their crazy ideas are found
wanting in desperate times.
Asecularists like human lemmings cannot be saved from reality and
their fate, for the rest of us, we welcome the year 200 AD - the 200
anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth and the great task of secular
nation building yet to be achieved by those who follow in his
footsteps. The role for politicians such as Obama, Brown and Rudd is
to urgently seek apostasy if they haven't already found it or get out
of the way of the national secular modernization that will restore
global peace and prosperity and the prospect of human survival through
this millennia to the year 1200 AD.
It is time for secularists to stand up and be counted, to define
themselves not by what they ARE NOT- merely in the narrow asecularist
mindset terms of 'atheist or non-believer' but what they are-
'national secularists' resolved to restore 'confidence' both
nationally and internationally to the human condition of all classes.
Dev Carter