A double cheer for Free Enterprise

Corporate Capitalism and Free Enterprise systems are not synonymous. The former rejoices in oligarchy. The latter detests it.

What made the US great for much of its history was a belief in its own exceptional destiny, its flexible labour market, high degree of innovation and its emphasis on individual freedom. It is also was motivated by a culture of self-reliance that eschewed the class structure of Europe. The country has a market economy and it is this adherence to free markets that have generated the wealth that underpins the success of the nation. The same is true of Hong Kong and Singapore.

So why do free markets work? Essentially they provide through the price mechanism immediate feedback that allows supply and demand of goods and services to reset in a timely manner to a new equilibrium situation. Excessive regulation, price controls and government interference (well intended or not) needlessly complicate the resetting mechanism resulting in shortages, price hikes and unstable situations.

The market aggregates knowledge in a far better way than any committee of elites or central planning forum could ever hope to do.

This does not mean of course that there isn’t a role for government on the economic front but its main purpose should be to provide a legal framework that will facilitate market economics, ensure competition and sustain a level of spending to adequately protect the most vulnerable in the society by providing necessary services.

The Demise of America

The United States is the most critical nation with respect to the immediate future of Western Civilization as it is the economic, technical and military powerhouse for the Liberal world. As it goes, so goes the civilization, for better but largely for worse. Unfortunately the country is being hollowed out at a breathtaking pace. Giant transnational corporations with little loyalty to the population have moved production facilities offshore. Rampant bureaucratic creep has complicated the market place. Public and private debt has soared and an ideologically dominated education system has seen to a fall in standards. Narcissism dominates over modesty with the country being subsumed by an epidemic of racial and gender politics that have cut across all strata of society. American exceptionality is looked on with disdain by a great deal of the population who see the country’s constitution – the role model for the protection of individual rights as an impediment to an internationalist world order that promises a new heavenly earth. If the US is an exporter of anything now it is that of bad ideas (racial essentialism, white privilege constructs, multiple genders, porous borders) that is clearly eroding family, community and national frameworks of cohesion.

For activists and internationalist elites this is deliberate, a necessary step in the tearing down that precedes the rebuild. However the Europeans have added to the deadly mix  (thart has found its way across the Atlantic) with falling birth rates, demographic transformation and surveillance state pressure. This has placed future generations at the mercy of centralized control that is as faceless as it is unanswerable to the population. Natural rights are being sacrificed to the collective will with freedom taking a back seat to authoritarianism.

Has the Frankfurt School destroyed society?

Not yet but in the absence of a push back it will. It has contributed to a significant decline already.

Cultural Marxism itself has its origins in the Frankfurt School (place of birth Frankfurt, Germany 1929) whose idealism incorporated a synthesis of Freudian, Marxist and Hegelian reasoning. It views history as march to an inevitability that can be directed by the control of institutions to facilitate necessary social change. In this way it deviates from Orthodox Marxism whose focus is largely on the economic.

Key thinkers here include Marcuse, Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas and Fromm. Social Emancipation and critiques of capitalism dominate the discourse and its impact across Academia (in particular the social sciences and humanities) cannot be understated. From here it has spread influencing both the biological and physical sciences, the professions and education. All of the disciplines (indeed all facets of life) are viewed as a platform that can be used to advance the necessary social change favored by the ideologues.

In the United States and other parts of the Anglosphere , this fusion of cultural Marxism and post-modernism has worked its way from the university into the mainstream. The intent is to bring in trans formative change consistent with a re-calibration will to power and by all accounts it appears to be gaining the upper hand. Push back began during the Trump era but the failure of conservative elements to seize the initiative earlier on means that the necessary resistance is playing catch up. The power dynamic has shifted to favor these authoritarian leftist ideologues and all strata of society will be the worse off for it.

Cultural Marxism envisions a restructure society in a way that opposes the capitalist infrastructure in support of a top down rearrangement that will advance outcomes that are believed to be more equitable. Critical Race Theory, the dichotomy of the oppressed and the oppressor and a general hostility to the Judeo-Christian core of Western Civilization are vital aspects of its praxis. The mode of thinking is a definite outgrowth of a metastasized leftism but unlike the radicalism of the Bolsheviks, and various State socialisms it has settled for a patience that was willing to bide its time with a slower walk through the institutions.

This walk though has picked up having fueled a ride on the globalist bandwagon that has oxygenated its outreach. It has found a necessary ally in post-Modernism deconstructionist thought, which also abhors legacy structures and tradition.

As it stands today I have very little doubt whatsoever that the West is in decline. The institutions are showing all the rot of ideological take over with identity politics dominating over merit based philosophies. The corporate, governmental, academic and educational worlds have all been infected by the mind virus of guilt ridden wokeism with the subsequent fall in standards making its presence felt ubiquitously.

But like all tunnel-visioned marches that eschew self-criticism it will forge a landscape of collateral damage. Truth will be its first victim followed only slightly by its inability to entertain contrarian initiated free speech. In this it echoes a Maoist zeal that will torch history to rewrite a narrative. Nothing is sacred, definitions are fleeting and victimhood serves as a weapon to justify what is needed. At its core it knows no constraints and if not checked will furnish a body count of lost lives and torched careers that for expedience of power will leave the gains of the enlightenment burning in a smoldering heap

What happened to Tsar Alexander I of Russia?

(My answer on Quora)

He died of typhus in December 1825 and since he had no legitimate heirs (his two daughters died in childhood) a succession crisis following his passing. This was complicated by the military supporters of the Decembrist revolt who favored Tsar Alexander’s earlier liberal reforms. The revolt failed and the Tsar was eventually succeeded by his reactionary brother Nicholas I.

It is worth noting that Alexander I ruled between 1801–1825. He was the same Tsar that helped turn Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia into a disaster for the Corsican. Although Alexander introduced reform in the early part of his reign he became increasingly despotic in the latter portion of his life and was dominated by a religious zealotry that was becoming increasingly regressive. Rumors persisted after his death that he was actually alive and was living as a hermit in Siberia. This hasn’t been substantiated.

Why is the UN useless?

 (Asked on Quora). My answer below.

Useless is a bit harsh as it has had some success on the health and political front. The campaign against polio and the military action in Korea (1950–1953) can be viewed in a positive light. The decision to divide what was left of the British Palestinian mandate (Transjordan - later Jordan - had already been cut off) into a Jewish and Arab state was another good move. It was the best of all possible options at the time.

Unfortunately there are more negatives than positives.

United Nation failures though are largely a consequence of several factors

1. The lack of a common vision. Words mean less than action. Enlightenment and Human right ideals are not shared by many of its member states even if they give lip service to it. It would be better if the UN were a league of democracies and had standards for admission
2. The politically expedient use of Veto politics that weaken security council decisions. This was a common feature during the Cold War Era and continues today.
3. Bloc Voting on Key decisions. This pigeon holes necessary debate,
4. The UN has become a platform for local vendettas that detract from the bigger picture eg. look how its anti-Racism conference in Durban was turned into a hate Israel fest.
5. It is overly bureaucratic. Red tape rules. Too many levels of organization that cut against grassroots initiatives. Ownership of deliverables disappear into the aether
6. The United Nations all too often lacks the teeth to enforce its actions on the ground. When pushed by hostile parties it often backs down.
7. Its Programs are often burdened by corruption eg. oil-for-food funds.
8. Many of its Committees have become parodies of themselves eg. Human rights abusing countries sitting on Human Rights Commissions.

Is the Western elite losing the support of the Common People?

 (My answer)

The elites, who traditionally dominate the major parties in most Western nations appear to be losing their grip on the power structure within their respective political domains. What you are seeing now is not necessarily a new phenomenon but an expedite of the ‘disillusionment-with-the-establishment’ process that goes back to WWI.

It makes sense. The elites were chosen to be stewards of the economy and guardians of the nation state. They were elected to protect our rights. Their first priority was supposed to be that of the electorate. In this regard they appear to be failing - economies have been mismanaged, manufacturing sectors gutted, privacy rights infringed, and cultural traditions compromised in the wake of falling education standards, a deleterious lockdown and crumbling institutions. Elite loyalties seem to reside with globalist orthodoxies setting the stage for the emergence of a statist/corporatist bureaucracy that views the unwashed as ‘items’to be managed by the deliberate control of information.

The elites have starved the system of oxygen and may finally be paying the price. Its about time.

List of Observations.

 (Some appeared in an earlier list)

There is no more certain avenue for disappointment than looking to a politician for moral and ethical guidance.

At its core the powers controlling a real world communist nation are the embodiment of the ideal corporate capitalist as there is no more powerful monopoly than the unopposed government.

In any political system it is a virtual certainty that the same types of people will acquire bureaucratic power. The only safeguard that the public has is the foresight of those who anticipated this eventuality, to have put in place, the necessary stop gaps.

To those in power the constitution is at best an inconvenience.

False Messiahs are never in short supply.

Beware of politicians who promise change. What they inevitably fail to mention is that change need not be positive.

The stock market thrives on natural and artificially created uncertainty and is driven by expectations that often detach themselves from reality. It is consequently a poor judge of the overall state of the economy in the short run.

There is nothing more expensive than a government program that promises something for free.

Civilizations prosper when responsibility exceeds entitlement. They atrophy when the balance flips the other way.

You can bury any reasonable conclusion under a statistical mudslide.

The surest sign that a civilization is in decline is the deterioration of the quality of art and the excess in excuses for it offered by the creative class.

The reality is that ignorance is a source of comfort for many.

A great deal of evil can be committed in the name of community safety.

The more you alleviate danger the greater the public propensity to fear the irrational.

Very few people are as great as their resume would have you believe.

Institutional survivability selects for grafters.

Any large organization will eventually collapse under its own weight.

The problem with all ideals is that they are without exception predicated on a misunderstanding of human nature.

There is perhaps nothing as toxic as distorting the gift of science to march head first off a cliff while claiming to advance the greater good.

The world itself is most in need of a serious dose of humility.

Avoid the temptation to marinate in your own propaganda.

Most system critiques far exceed in quality the counter solutions that they propose.

A great deal of government folly is driven by the need to push ahead with absolute certainty into a milieu that is ridiculous at best.

Most problems that exist are a function of an over correction somewhere down the line.

Given enough time and any system will become corrupt