10-14-2022, 09:42 AM
(more)
Any Crisis Era is itself a transition between 3T and 1T. The best that can happen is that 1T ways supplant the discreditable ephemera of a 3T. If the economic basis of 3T ways vanishes, then that itself forces political innovation such as the New Deal. I recall seeing some old books, one of them touting the "New Era" economics of the 1920's, and it is basically the idea that those who have the gold make the rules for everyone else... but that those who own the gold are the only competent and trustworthy people to decide everything, I saw those books in the 1960's and recognized that nobody in his right mind would want to return to the 1920's except perhaps to get his youth back. People can say whatever they want about the Great Depression, but America grew its way out of the Great Depression with economic reforms (especially in saddling bankers with the role of guardians of Other People's Money instead of participating in the gambles of the time), large investments in infrastructure, a crackdown on gangsterism and violent crime, and the formation of new shoestring businesses. By 1939 America was far better off than it was in 1929 from the standpoint of education, consumer goods, and economic stability. All that had not recovered were the speculative values of securities in the heady days preceding the 1929 crash. High taxes on passive investments made stock-market investments unattractive.
The 3T "New Era" economics and politics look much like neoliberalism such as Reaganomics and Newt Gingrich's "Contract for America". Both are top-down and plutocratic; both expect the common man to defer to the will of the only people who supposedly know what is best for us -- basically that the elites take everything that they want and out of generosity allow us to survive on such scraps as they deem fitting for us. The difference between the economic meltdowns beginning in 1929 and 2007 (the real Crashes took place in 1930 and 2008) is that the meltdown beginning in 1929 forced the economic elites into survival mode. They may have despised "That Man in the White House", but they had to keep their focus on economic survival instead of political power that can allow economic elites to profiteer profusely. Political leaders of 2008 and 2009 backed the banks and prevented what would have been analogues to the disastrous bank runs that turned a crash similar to those of 1930 and 2008 into the Great Depression. Within a couple of years, Big Business sponsored the Tea Party that ensured that any reforms after 1910 would be dedicated to enriching a Master Class of shareholders, landlords, giant corporate farms, and business executives.
We need recall that the political basis of our Republic depends upon the absence of any economic or bureaucratic power able to hold the rest of Americans in thrall. Giant businesses, let alone the bureaucratic structures analogous to the Soviet nomenklatura that develops within them, did not exist. Government may have been only white male owners of small-scale property (that would eventually change to the better), but nobody could dominate political life through the ownership of assets upon which people depended for sustenance. When most business (including agriculture) is small, then plutocracy of the sort that now holds us in near thrall does not exist. Sure, the plutocrats tout the freedom that they believe in, but that is mostly the freedom to take everything that can be taken without responsibility for anything else. Contemporary plutocrats in America are no better than feudal lords, and the sooner that we recognize this, the sooner we will have real freedom.
Giant industries have been consolidating monopolistic control of industry, and they have also concentrated economic activity in a few places where sort-of-prosperous people get to live. Of course, urban landlords get every penny possible from tenants. A bureaucratic elite of executives better at controlling workers than at creating wealth has emerged and gets rewarded. Agriculture increasingly resembles Junker-style estates that have a corporate structure that depends upon a powerless rural proletariat of farmhands and those who work in rural industries such as dairies and slaughterhouses.
These industries have a good thing going, as do their well-paid retainers within the businesses and their political clients who dominate political life most of the time. If their power were entirely economic we might not have such problems as we have. They can buy media, and with that they can shape politics. I look at the Dark Money spent on political ads that defame anyone who does not share their agenda -- that he who owns the gold makes the rules and that no human suffering can ever be excessive in the service of elite power, indulgence, and gain.
Pointless suffering is evil, which explains much of the content of criminal codes and that why we expect physicians to administer strong pain-killers to those who need it (such as morphine to terminal-cancer patients), set broken bones, and treat painful afflictions. We do things to prevent fires and auto accidents. We have dentists to remove abscessed teeth and to replace cavities with fillings. We have all sorts of entertainments to fill time that would otherwise be numbing boredom. Economic hardship and distress are painful in their ways.
...A 3T is excellent for those who can profiteer from it by fleecing and exploiting others, but eventually the opportunities to fleece and exploit others vanishes in a market crash or a catastrophic war. A 1T allows more widespread prosperity and recognizes the significance of the contributions of those who do the real work. That alone evens out much.
Any Crisis Era is itself a transition between 3T and 1T. The best that can happen is that 1T ways supplant the discreditable ephemera of a 3T. If the economic basis of 3T ways vanishes, then that itself forces political innovation such as the New Deal. I recall seeing some old books, one of them touting the "New Era" economics of the 1920's, and it is basically the idea that those who have the gold make the rules for everyone else... but that those who own the gold are the only competent and trustworthy people to decide everything, I saw those books in the 1960's and recognized that nobody in his right mind would want to return to the 1920's except perhaps to get his youth back. People can say whatever they want about the Great Depression, but America grew its way out of the Great Depression with economic reforms (especially in saddling bankers with the role of guardians of Other People's Money instead of participating in the gambles of the time), large investments in infrastructure, a crackdown on gangsterism and violent crime, and the formation of new shoestring businesses. By 1939 America was far better off than it was in 1929 from the standpoint of education, consumer goods, and economic stability. All that had not recovered were the speculative values of securities in the heady days preceding the 1929 crash. High taxes on passive investments made stock-market investments unattractive.
The 3T "New Era" economics and politics look much like neoliberalism such as Reaganomics and Newt Gingrich's "Contract for America". Both are top-down and plutocratic; both expect the common man to defer to the will of the only people who supposedly know what is best for us -- basically that the elites take everything that they want and out of generosity allow us to survive on such scraps as they deem fitting for us. The difference between the economic meltdowns beginning in 1929 and 2007 (the real Crashes took place in 1930 and 2008) is that the meltdown beginning in 1929 forced the economic elites into survival mode. They may have despised "That Man in the White House", but they had to keep their focus on economic survival instead of political power that can allow economic elites to profiteer profusely. Political leaders of 2008 and 2009 backed the banks and prevented what would have been analogues to the disastrous bank runs that turned a crash similar to those of 1930 and 2008 into the Great Depression. Within a couple of years, Big Business sponsored the Tea Party that ensured that any reforms after 1910 would be dedicated to enriching a Master Class of shareholders, landlords, giant corporate farms, and business executives.
We need recall that the political basis of our Republic depends upon the absence of any economic or bureaucratic power able to hold the rest of Americans in thrall. Giant businesses, let alone the bureaucratic structures analogous to the Soviet nomenklatura that develops within them, did not exist. Government may have been only white male owners of small-scale property (that would eventually change to the better), but nobody could dominate political life through the ownership of assets upon which people depended for sustenance. When most business (including agriculture) is small, then plutocracy of the sort that now holds us in near thrall does not exist. Sure, the plutocrats tout the freedom that they believe in, but that is mostly the freedom to take everything that can be taken without responsibility for anything else. Contemporary plutocrats in America are no better than feudal lords, and the sooner that we recognize this, the sooner we will have real freedom.
Giant industries have been consolidating monopolistic control of industry, and they have also concentrated economic activity in a few places where sort-of-prosperous people get to live. Of course, urban landlords get every penny possible from tenants. A bureaucratic elite of executives better at controlling workers than at creating wealth has emerged and gets rewarded. Agriculture increasingly resembles Junker-style estates that have a corporate structure that depends upon a powerless rural proletariat of farmhands and those who work in rural industries such as dairies and slaughterhouses.
These industries have a good thing going, as do their well-paid retainers within the businesses and their political clients who dominate political life most of the time. If their power were entirely economic we might not have such problems as we have. They can buy media, and with that they can shape politics. I look at the Dark Money spent on political ads that defame anyone who does not share their agenda -- that he who owns the gold makes the rules and that no human suffering can ever be excessive in the service of elite power, indulgence, and gain.
Pointless suffering is evil, which explains much of the content of criminal codes and that why we expect physicians to administer strong pain-killers to those who need it (such as morphine to terminal-cancer patients), set broken bones, and treat painful afflictions. We do things to prevent fires and auto accidents. We have dentists to remove abscessed teeth and to replace cavities with fillings. We have all sorts of entertainments to fill time that would otherwise be numbing boredom. Economic hardship and distress are painful in their ways.
...A 3T is excellent for those who can profiteer from it by fleecing and exploiting others, but eventually the opportunities to fleece and exploit others vanishes in a market crash or a catastrophic war. A 1T allows more widespread prosperity and recognizes the significance of the contributions of those who do the real work. That alone evens out much.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.