The Ameri-Sino-GE-Goldman collaboration

While on the face of it libertarians can find little to complain about Obama's recent "conversion" to enterprise-focused concerns and move to the "center", for a libertarian who sees so many masks in the political realm, further consideration and much caution is called for.

I am one who doesn't believe a conversion has taken place -- after Obama's meeting with Bill Clinton and appointment of Bill Daley, it was obvious to me that first we'd see razzle, then we'd see dazzle. As I wrote in a previous post about The Very Important State, The Very Important Leaders of The Very Important State are not going to turn the market loose for any amount of creative destruction, innovation and bottom-up economic growth. In stead, we'll see the further development of State Capitalism as The Very Important State Leaders weave a global web with our weaving partners China, GE, Goldman Sachs and other Modern State Players. Since business has gone global, the Big States and Big Businesses are actually concentrating on Global Capitalism.

All this does nothing to create the necessary open environment in which small to medium enterprises can flourish. This current change is central planning (not direct price, wage and production planning, but rather overall management of direction of the Global Economy) on steroids. It's still statism, just statism in the service of wealth creation that's controlled by Big States. If American government policy can benefit GE, Goldman, China (which is like a Big Corporation) and the other chosen, global movers and shakers, then Obama and the progressives get what they need to provide the infrastructure development which fits into their agenda (alternative energy, high speed rail), and it creates jobs at the same time. This type of global and domestic "investment" will be sold as a new direction in which we keep apace of global changes, establishing America's position in the competitive global market.

In practice, domestically, it will amount to corporate/union welfare/favoritism and support-purchase for re-election in 2012. So, I'm not impressed by Obama's "move to the center". The center? Of what? Global statist management? Jump on board all you opportunists -- mark your place and hope they need you next year.

G20 independence

While its refreshing to see the countries in the G20 grown up and independent economically, it is also time for them to become independent militarily. I, for one, don't care about the empty title of Number One Superpower, so it's a good thing for responsibility to be shared globally. America will lead only if we are worth following, and time will tell on that matter.

It's past time for America to relinquish the role of World Police -- let the G20 countries provide for their own defense. As the big-dogs of the British Empire learned, SuperPower status is not all it's made out to be. We have enough trouble at home.

America is just beginning

There has been much talk about the decline of America and the rise of China and India. While there is nothing wrong with the rise of China and India, and their success should be cheered by everyone, especially if it means liberalization and improvements in the area of human rights -- however, too many are taking pleasure in the idea of America's predicted decline. It's possible for America to decline and collapse, but it's not likely as long as we maintain our freedom and fight for a free economy. I have every reason to assume that's what we will do.

America is positioned to begin a period of growth and prosperity unlike anything experienced before. As the global economy adjusts and America finds ways to deal with cheap foreign labor and unfair business practices, it appears that a great shift in global power is taking place and that America is slipping, but it's an illusion. We have the opportunity now to create a huge spurt of growth and employment in the area of energy production, and this will likely be the first thing forced on Obama by the urgent unemployment and debt situations.

For all our military power, if America follows her productive and creative strengths, we have the land and resources to which can be applied educated brain work and smart, efficient, productive labor, and this will place America at the forefront of economic growth and an incredible rise in the standard of living.

It'll take a combination of good education and immigrants to meet the demands. We're bordered by two oceans, and have a large land mass that is relatively underpopulated. Once we remove restrictive regulations which hurt American companies in the global economy, and we will remove them when the situation becomes severe enough, economic growth and innovation will take off.

America is also positioned to take the lead in new energy sources, and it's time will come. It'll be good to watch the entire world grow economically, and for poverty to be erased all around the world, but anyone who thinks America will not be out front just doesn't understand the situation. 

I don't need to feel like I'm a part of this wonderful land of creativity and energy in order to achieve a false, unearned self-esteem -- I'm just grateful I'm a part of it, and hope many others get the opportunity, if it's what they want. Let's move past politics and put statism to bed -- it's time to create the next phase.

The Road to Freedom -- part VI

Perhaps another name can be given to a self-governing society, because State will not be appropriate. The State will forever be associated with political means, dominion and exploitation. Moving beyond State exploitation to a self-governing society, one which arranges protection against coercion in all its forms, a new society is born, not engineered and planned by a centralized government, but, rather, aways emerging from the interplay of free citizens. Communities will be more important than geographical boundaries. A limited government providing protection and dispute settlement will likely be necessary, but this is open to innovation. Perhaps regional protection agencies will be sufficient, with a unification of armed forces in case of a foreign attack. It's highly unlikely, though, that any country would think they can defeat and dominate free people in an area as large as America.

Some will worry about national unity and fear that without a powerful, unifying State, America will lose all sense of purpose and direction, but communications and travel will connect us as it does now, only in more comprehensive ways we cannot yet imagine. America is a set of ideas, not an area of land. Even if the rest of the world worries about boundaries, America has no boundaries -- America is freedom. Free travel and interaction in a world without walls of separation seems more likely in the future, rather than the same divisions which gradually make less and less sense as barriers are destroyed one by one.

Yes, I know you think I've gone mad, but what I'm writing is a vision -- one others have had, and one that could be accomplished in time. I undersand we are nowhere near what I'm describing, but it speaks to direction. These changes might not be the best world for some, but if we all begin imagining what a better world would look like, perhaps we can create an open environment which allows true progress. Centralized planning and nation-states are showing cracks -- world leaders planning the New World Order is a nightmare scenario, so we'd better gain control and free ourselves from dominion before our future is designed for us.

We have grown so accustomed to social engineering, following the plans of the State, free-thinking has been at a minimum. We're not born to be molded by the State, compliant and submissive, dependent on the wise rulers to guide our pitiful and needy lives, and we aren't experiments for technocrats to nudge and prod and shape in the image of the perfect progressive Social Being who eats the right foods, has the right thoughts, promotes the right causes, has no soul because it's merged with the Collective Soul as we're all collectively saved by the All-Giving, All-Knowing State.

We are born free, as the cliche goes -- then we either give it up or protect it. We either think freely, or allow others to think for us.

As the midterm elections approach, reevaluating the pupose of representatives is vital. Are we electing rulers who will write policies which favor special interests? Are we electing the best thieves who will bring riches back to the states? Are we electing polished politicians who can play the political games?

Or, are we electing representatives who represent free, self-governing people and will make sure government doesn't abuse power, and who will protect freedom, and who will create a business environment where industry is confident to invest, hire and create new wealth?

There are two different visions at stake and two different directions. One vision dismantles an exploitative State and gives power to the people, and the other vision continues State exploitation and protects the status quo. How do we see ourselves, as subjects guided by rulers or as free people acting in a free market? Which direction we choose in the next couple of elections sets the course for a long time to come -- we're at a tipping point.

Looking for synthesis (warning: long post)

In his book Freedom and Domination, Alexander Rustow, in relation to 19th century German philosophy, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and what Kant descibed as "A despotic reign over the reason of people through shackling to a blind faith", wrote:

At length this secularized theology, devoid of conscientious earnestness and a sense of responsibility, at last deteriorated to the dexterous juggling of a kind of intellectual Ping-Pong. Indeed the authors of these systems do not mean to be taken fully seriously: they indulge in an intellectual game, the rules of which the reader is asked to accept; and it would be rewarding to formulate the latent rules of the games. Yet there is not only an epistemological but also a sociological aspect to this theological or quasi-theological character of romantic philosophy. It is almost like a doctrine of an aristocratic priesthood--hence of intellectual superstratification and a sublimated form of the lust for domination. The practioners of this philosophy claim to dwell in the "higher regions" high above the heads of the vulgar public, and thus to be exempt from the bothersome compulsions of the laws of the "lower," everyday forms of thought. Everything is permitted, and these self-appointed kings in the realm of the spirit hold indeed that "The king can do no wrong."

This influence lingers today. In many respects, partisanship is irrelevant to the mindset, so prevalent today, which was, and is, a reaction to Enlightenment-influenced classical liberalism.

Original liberalism was a byproduct of the Enlightenment, and Romanticism was the reaction to what many, including Rousseau, thought of as a destructive progression of science, industry and reason. The Romantics lusted for a return to nature and the primeval past, humble peasants living simply under the care of benevolent Lords, playing music, reciting poetry, free from rationalization, the domination of science, massificiation and the evils of industry and soul-stealing markets. Although both the Enlightenment and Romanticism have gone through transformations, we still see the vestiges of the original conflicts. The Romantic/conservative reaction to original liberalism started in the 19th century and gained national dominance in the 20th century, although classical liberalism also held sway with many as we progressed under steadily perverted capitalism and relative freedom from State domination -- however, the "self-appointed kings" were advancing.

The Romantic influence in the 19th century and on until now has been mostly secular, but faith-based as much as its sister reaction which is now known as conservative -- the Romantic-influenced reaction eventually split into a conservative/religious formation and a secular/socialist formation. The only "liberals" left from the orginal, now called "classical", liberalism are the group of thinkers who chose libertarianism to distinguish themselves from the secular/socialist formation who started calling themselves "liberals". The modern liberals fall somewhere between the conservatives and the progressives who moved closer to European socialism, although modern liberals are moving closer today toward the progressives. Statism is what connects the right and left, the conservatives and the liberals and progressives -- each group uses statism to achieve different goals -- they all have been a reaction to a classical liberalism which supports a limited, minimal government, or private alternatives, and a free market.

I say that both left and right have been faith-based, and Ayn Rand described it as statism expressed through the rule of the Christian God on the right and the God of State on the left. On the right, heaven is promised after death, and on the left, heaven is promised on earth after the establishment of social justice and equality based on a kind of egalitarianism -- both require a strong coercive State to achieve their goals. There's a faction of conservativism which has called for limited government and a free market, but when in political power, so far, they have increased the power of the State.

I set all this up, and it is far from nuanced since it's not a book, to talk about where I see the nation at this point and what separates us as a people and what might unify us. The spirit of the Enlightenment was a powerful human awakening in the service of freedom and reason, but it's been severely weakened through the centuries from recurring attacks by various forces of domination that have plagued human beings from the beginning.

The Enlightenment spurred the English and American Revolutions, and the world waited in hope as movements in France started toward liberalization and away from feudalism, but Louis XIV defended the feudal powes and resisted the advice of Turgot, Lafayette and Mirabeau, creating a premature revolution that devolved into terror and chaos, setting the stage for Napoleon -- this force of domination, which resisted, or in Napoleon's case, perverted, the freedom movement, caused Germany's attempt to synthesize the Enlightenment's rationalization with Romanticism's humanizing empathy to then devolve into irrationalism, nationalism and eventually the totalitarianism of Hitler and Stalin. A disillusioned people trained in submission soon accept powerful solutions -- the modern State became monstrous. hardly anyone can imagine a montrous American State, but then neither could the Germans.

America, better than most countries, kept the principles of the Enlightenment alive, relatively, through the original liberalism of individual rights, limited government, free market, religious tolerance, free speech, etc., but at the end of the nineteenth century, the conservative reaction to liberalism changed America into a statist nation -- the intentions were described as honorable, as defending freedom in the world, but the results have been a creeping domination, until today government has more control in America than ever. We're told that the sacrifice of some freedoms is necessary for the general welfare. America's State domination is a friendly domination, a paternalistic pragmatism that gains and exerts control with benevolence and goodwill. But the overbearing interference is crippling the economy, destroying freedom, and creating an unhealthy dependence on government assistance.

Our government is a mixture of corrupt power-mongers and well-meaning representatives who believe they are helping people in a sometimes harsh world. America is at a crossroad with two basic directions ahead -- toward total statism or toward anti-statism and private sector solutions to societal problems.

The mixed approach has not worked, because as long as the State, through government agencies, has a monopoly on coercion and its power is not strictly limited, it will grow in power until domination is complete -- this is the nature of government and bureacracies. Our love affair with the idea of enlightened technocrats benevolently planning and leading the way has failed. Central planning in any form, total or partial, doesn't work -- neither does social engineering, but both Republicans and Democrats have been complicit in the statist approach. We need a synthesis.

Our national goals are similar -- peace, prosperity, a clean environment, good schools, equal opportunity, security, insurance against emergencies, freedom, privacy, free-flowing information -- but our methods to attain these social goods are in conflict, although the majority appears to think the government is responsible for offering most of these goods. One problem is that our government/nation is broke and heading toward financial collapse -- another problem, a bigger problem, is that we are giving up our freedoms for these social goods. Government is confiscating a large amount of private wealth and redistributing the wealth according to a central plan determined by a relative handful of people. The plans are not working, and government will be forced to confiscate larger and larger amounts of private wealth as more people become dependent on government, creating a situation where the producers of wealth will be discouraged from producing, leading to financial collapse or forced labor. This direction cannot be sustained.

Our challenge is to maintain the provision of all these social goods, but change direction and the methods to private sector provision of the goods. This will require privatization of the welfare state and education and a reliance on rational and objective mediating agencies/courts to protect individual rights. It will require major changes in how we save for retirement, how we pay for our healthcare, how education is provided, how our military is set up and used, how assistance to the poor and disabled is provided and how we deal with maintaining a clean environment. Seeing as how the free market, the private sector, deals with problems in an organic, flexible manner based on supply and demand and principles of competition and innovation, there's no master plan that can be drawn up, but millions of minds working on solutions in a competitive, innovative environment is superior to top-down, centralized domination and management. This is bottom-line distinction that has to be accepted if we are going to change -- if this is not accepted the best we can do is try to sink slower.

This is our challenge if we are to avoid economic stagnation, misery and eventual collapse. We should carry on the principles of classical liberalism and not allow the forces of domination to win in this century. Is this also blind-faith? I say No -- it's the release of reason and the creative minds of people to take responsibility for their own problems with eyes wide open.