Post-Malthusian and Marxist publicly-permitted thinking incorporates three seldom-recognised misconceptions.
The first is the Elite-derived version of democracy; that is, that electing somebody else to represent us within a rigidly controlled chamber and infrastructure, constitutes democracy. It is not.
The last notable person to define democracy was Abe Lincoln, with his lyrical and concise "Government of the people, by the people and for the people." In contemporary terms, this means that the community, at all levels of size, formulates all policy; then to be implemented by the public service (administration/executive).
Note that this excludes: parliaments, politicians, representatives, voting, majorities, campaigns, policies, political parties, and so on. Ergo, the Elite are entirely cut out of the equation and thereby lose control.
No wonder they killed Lincoln.
The second miscomprehended element is 'capitalism'. Free trade is exploitative capitalism, "free" to repress and manipulate at will. But this is always said in an accent that implies 'private enterprise'.
In point of fact, in a genuine DEMOCRATIC MERITOCRACY, private enterprise can flourish, with only unacceptable impositions on the community prevented by government, whose actions are clearly mandated by the people through, not elections, but consensus protocols.
It is an actively hidden fact that humans are hard-wired to agree (watch them smile), and when everybody has access to the same information, consensus is invariably in the vicinity of 97%. Had we access to government policy, none of the evils plaguing humanity would have been permitted.
The third unrecognised element is 'population growth'. It is not "1,2,4". Human environments expert Buckminster Fuller dismantled this cherished belief back in the early 1960s. But the Australian demographic experience of 1949 to 1973 demonstrated the reality in real life.
Thanks to the intervention of trade unions, (aided also by building societies, veteran organisations, and the Churches... according to Donald Horne's 1964 "The Lucky Country"), every Australian worker had access to well-paid full-time jobs, paid annual leave, and paid sick leave. Every family had access to a new car and was able to purchase a family home, if they so chose.
Measurable poverty in Australia had to include seasonal workers, who invariably owned their own homes, to actually present a technical poverty sector on the vast famous Australian middle class bell curve.
Meanwhile, it was soon globally-recognised that when nations adopted an age pension, population growth went into reverse within 20 years. Insecurity is the driver of population growth. The Rothschilds and Rockefellers reject this because it renders their cherished return to medieval feudalism unnecessary and, in fact, psychotic.
Australia's (and NZ's) egalitarian prosperity could not be tolerated and, in 1975, the "democratically elected Whitlam Government" was sacked by the CIA and MI6 and Australia has been run by the City of London and the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission ever since, with the catastrophic outcome the world now gazes at with horror. Unemployment is now 60% (as measured universally since 1893).
Both Marx and Malthus were wrong because they attempted to insert fond beliefs into the 'evidence plus evidence' equation. 'Beliefs' are the adoption of attitudes and positions DESPITE the evidence; a process we might better equate with insanity.
Thanks very much for your rich reply. I found myself nodding my head through most of it, until, towards the end, I found your disimissal of Marx and Malthus tucked into the final paragraph.
First let me respond to your earlier points about Malthusian theory...I recognize the merit in your argument, with which I'm not unfamiliar, that when people feel security for their golden years, they will have fewer children in their prime. There is a certain logic to this theory,. and it is one of the more hopeful resolutions to the problem of population. However, having said that, let's be clear that 1,2,4 is not a literal transcription from Malthus, it was part of a satirical epitaph for him. Whether population expands in strict geometrical progression or not is quite irrelevant to the main thesis, which is that it cannot, without peril, exceed the resources needed for its sustenance. Surely you would concur here. That the inequitable allocation of resources within capitalist society makes this problematic, and even Malthus himself, in his Introduction I think it was, says something to this effect. The point of my article, however, is not to defend his theory, as much as to defend the man himself from so many scurrilous attempts to label him a genocidaire....he was nothing of the sort.
Now onto Marx: I do wonder whether you read my footnote expanding on Marx's prediction about "relative immiseration" of the proletariat vs. absolute impoverishment. As stated in my piece, Marx himself allows that organized workers can gain some pretty nice concessions from the capitalists, taking back a significant chunk of the "surplus value" they produce for the capitalist, which is the source of capitalist profit. However, and this needs to be stressed, Marx also qualified these gains as temporary at best, because the compulsion of capital to accumlate capital will eventually express itself in practices that undermine worrker gains (unless the organized workers maintain a sufficient degree of political power to prevent it). And the sad history you recount of the Australian labor situation only too fully tells this tale. Post WWII, labor had immense economic and political power. Capital worked behind the scenes, covertly and overtly, to undermine it and seize practical control of the state, which they have succeeded in doing in almost every developed country. It was all downhill after Reagan and Thatcher.
Surely you see that Marx's predictions here were accurate. Nothing short of the conquest of state power, or in your terms, the return of political power to the people, will save labor from further depredations.
One thing I wish to point out, though, is that the Covid plandemic, in my estimation, was cover for a class war. However, it was not so much the class war envisioned by Marx, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat , but between the haut bourgeoisie (big corporations) and the petit bourgeoisie (the mom and pop shops). I truly wonder what Marx would have made of this. it certainly played no role that I'm aware of in how he expected things to unfold.
Thanks again for your reply. I sense from your recommended reading that we are pretty much on the same page, but evidently not in the case of the subject matter at hand.
We are still on the same page, Ken. Being concise forces a price on the communication front. I was just maintaining textual continuity with the "124" reference. Nevertheless, my surveys show that 99% of people believe this in principle... the power of propaganda delivered by a foe with $500 trillion to play with.
The Australian situation in 1973 incorporated a concerted joint attack by Rupert Murdoch and David Rockefeller, which certainly had its impact; followed by an all-out Rothschild/Rockefeller coup in 1975. Capital was not the weapon. It was Media and the fact that Bob Hawke, Richard Stalling (Pine Gap), Doug Anthony, and Sir Arthur Tange were CIA agents all along. Kurr worked for MI 6 and Coombs worked for the BIS.
I suggest that Marx did not envision the power of 21st century media; and nobody could expect him to.
I reiterate, we are firmly on the same side in this war.
I'm impressed, Ken. Very well written..
Post-Malthusian and Marxist publicly-permitted thinking incorporates three seldom-recognised misconceptions.
The first is the Elite-derived version of democracy; that is, that electing somebody else to represent us within a rigidly controlled chamber and infrastructure, constitutes democracy. It is not.
The last notable person to define democracy was Abe Lincoln, with his lyrical and concise "Government of the people, by the people and for the people." In contemporary terms, this means that the community, at all levels of size, formulates all policy; then to be implemented by the public service (administration/executive).
Note that this excludes: parliaments, politicians, representatives, voting, majorities, campaigns, policies, political parties, and so on. Ergo, the Elite are entirely cut out of the equation and thereby lose control.
No wonder they killed Lincoln.
The second miscomprehended element is 'capitalism'. Free trade is exploitative capitalism, "free" to repress and manipulate at will. But this is always said in an accent that implies 'private enterprise'.
In point of fact, in a genuine DEMOCRATIC MERITOCRACY, private enterprise can flourish, with only unacceptable impositions on the community prevented by government, whose actions are clearly mandated by the people through, not elections, but consensus protocols.
It is an actively hidden fact that humans are hard-wired to agree (watch them smile), and when everybody has access to the same information, consensus is invariably in the vicinity of 97%. Had we access to government policy, none of the evils plaguing humanity would have been permitted.
The third unrecognised element is 'population growth'. It is not "1,2,4". Human environments expert Buckminster Fuller dismantled this cherished belief back in the early 1960s. But the Australian demographic experience of 1949 to 1973 demonstrated the reality in real life.
Thanks to the intervention of trade unions, (aided also by building societies, veteran organisations, and the Churches... according to Donald Horne's 1964 "The Lucky Country"), every Australian worker had access to well-paid full-time jobs, paid annual leave, and paid sick leave. Every family had access to a new car and was able to purchase a family home, if they so chose.
Measurable poverty in Australia had to include seasonal workers, who invariably owned their own homes, to actually present a technical poverty sector on the vast famous Australian middle class bell curve.
Meanwhile, it was soon globally-recognised that when nations adopted an age pension, population growth went into reverse within 20 years. Insecurity is the driver of population growth. The Rothschilds and Rockefellers reject this because it renders their cherished return to medieval feudalism unnecessary and, in fact, psychotic.
Australia's (and NZ's) egalitarian prosperity could not be tolerated and, in 1975, the "democratically elected Whitlam Government" was sacked by the CIA and MI6 and Australia has been run by the City of London and the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission ever since, with the catastrophic outcome the world now gazes at with horror. Unemployment is now 60% (as measured universally since 1893).
Both Marx and Malthus were wrong because they attempted to insert fond beliefs into the 'evidence plus evidence' equation. 'Beliefs' are the adoption of attitudes and positions DESPITE the evidence; a process we might better equate with insanity.
Thanks very much for your rich reply. I found myself nodding my head through most of it, until, towards the end, I found your disimissal of Marx and Malthus tucked into the final paragraph.
First let me respond to your earlier points about Malthusian theory...I recognize the merit in your argument, with which I'm not unfamiliar, that when people feel security for their golden years, they will have fewer children in their prime. There is a certain logic to this theory,. and it is one of the more hopeful resolutions to the problem of population. However, having said that, let's be clear that 1,2,4 is not a literal transcription from Malthus, it was part of a satirical epitaph for him. Whether population expands in strict geometrical progression or not is quite irrelevant to the main thesis, which is that it cannot, without peril, exceed the resources needed for its sustenance. Surely you would concur here. That the inequitable allocation of resources within capitalist society makes this problematic, and even Malthus himself, in his Introduction I think it was, says something to this effect. The point of my article, however, is not to defend his theory, as much as to defend the man himself from so many scurrilous attempts to label him a genocidaire....he was nothing of the sort.
Now onto Marx: I do wonder whether you read my footnote expanding on Marx's prediction about "relative immiseration" of the proletariat vs. absolute impoverishment. As stated in my piece, Marx himself allows that organized workers can gain some pretty nice concessions from the capitalists, taking back a significant chunk of the "surplus value" they produce for the capitalist, which is the source of capitalist profit. However, and this needs to be stressed, Marx also qualified these gains as temporary at best, because the compulsion of capital to accumlate capital will eventually express itself in practices that undermine worrker gains (unless the organized workers maintain a sufficient degree of political power to prevent it). And the sad history you recount of the Australian labor situation only too fully tells this tale. Post WWII, labor had immense economic and political power. Capital worked behind the scenes, covertly and overtly, to undermine it and seize practical control of the state, which they have succeeded in doing in almost every developed country. It was all downhill after Reagan and Thatcher.
Surely you see that Marx's predictions here were accurate. Nothing short of the conquest of state power, or in your terms, the return of political power to the people, will save labor from further depredations.
One thing I wish to point out, though, is that the Covid plandemic, in my estimation, was cover for a class war. However, it was not so much the class war envisioned by Marx, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat , but between the haut bourgeoisie (big corporations) and the petit bourgeoisie (the mom and pop shops). I truly wonder what Marx would have made of this. it certainly played no role that I'm aware of in how he expected things to unfold.
Thanks again for your reply. I sense from your recommended reading that we are pretty much on the same page, but evidently not in the case of the subject matter at hand.
We are still on the same page, Ken. Being concise forces a price on the communication front. I was just maintaining textual continuity with the "124" reference. Nevertheless, my surveys show that 99% of people believe this in principle... the power of propaganda delivered by a foe with $500 trillion to play with.
The Australian situation in 1973 incorporated a concerted joint attack by Rupert Murdoch and David Rockefeller, which certainly had its impact; followed by an all-out Rothschild/Rockefeller coup in 1975. Capital was not the weapon. It was Media and the fact that Bob Hawke, Richard Stalling (Pine Gap), Doug Anthony, and Sir Arthur Tange were CIA agents all along. Kurr worked for MI 6 and Coombs worked for the BIS.
I suggest that Marx did not envision the power of 21st century media; and nobody could expect him to.
I reiterate, we are firmly on the same side in this war.