Why Washington Saved the Economy, Then Permanently Destroyed the Labor Market
Apparently, our advanced technologies have so far only enabled us to more precisely target our own foot. Obviously, WE ARE CAPABLE OF ACHIEVING FAR MORE THAN THAT. It's a matter of learning better uses for our emerging tools ... by practice.
This is a VERY useful article. It explains much about political operations,* which cannot be ignored any more than currency operations can be ignored.
Mindless, narrow class war is playing out, just like between rival Alawite/Sunni/Shia villages in Syria ... just in a more abstract venue. Is our internal class war - "financial terrorism" - just as self limiting for our aggregate? Of course. What can we do about it? How can we get back to continuously forming "a more perfect union?"
By setting our sights on even bigger, desired outcomes? On consensus outcomes that transcend the trivial tactics that are now masquerading as national goals? Surely Americans can dream audacious dreams big enough to stimulate everyone's imagination? Anything less gets boring, very quickly.
How can we get ourselves to do that? No one can predict solutions, only practice finding the unpredictable solutions. We need more interaction, more talk, and more practice at social auto-catalysis.** And, paying far more attention to adequate K-12 education would also help. That general process falls under the heading of cultural OBT&E - what we can either call "COBTE," or just auto-catalysis.
Otherwise, all we can be will remain BELOW something that is greater than the sum of our parts. We can't chase our Achievement Gap by bickering and hoarding .. only by creating - which requires discussing all perceived options and then exploring them. In short, we need to get back to practicing auto-catalysis. The highest return, by far, is always the return-on-coordination, and it can only be pursued by constant practice at auto-catalysis.
*[Note esp. that a "plant" seems to have immediately hijacked half the comments to the straw man issue of immigration. If nothing else, the 1%'s hired lobby is disciplined and organized.]
Otherwise, all we can be will remain BELOW something that is greater than the sum of our parts. We can't chase our Achievement Gap by bickering and hoarding .. only by creating - which requires discussing all perceived options and then exploring them. In short, we need to get back to practicing auto-catalysis. The highest return, by far, is always the return-on-coordination, and it can only be pursued by constant practice at auto-catalysis.
*[Note esp. that a "plant" seems to have immediately hijacked half the comments to the straw man issue of immigration. If nothing else, the 1%'s hired lobby is disciplined and organized.]
** [The definition of auto-catalysis transcends the cooperation inherent in teamwork, and emphasizes that team practice continuously enhances and enlarges the return on teamwork. Auto-catalysis makes teams better, and represents the "moment" of, or best method for, accelerating cultural Adaptive Rate.]
1 comment:
This is about two things, conflicting interests and conflicting worldviews. The fundamental dispositions (innate) and interests (acquired) result in different ways of constructing worldviews. Much if not most of this is acquired due to differences in cultural and institutional factors.
In a modern capitalistic society the ownership class is pitted against the working class and since the ownership class is outnumbered by workers, in a democratic republic it has to outmaneuver the majority politically.
One way it does this is by creating divisions in the majority, e.g., the middle class and the workers, the upper middle class and lower middle class. The strategy is to pit the interests of these various sub-groupings against each other.
Another is through the use of propaganda through media ownership and the use of emotional wedge issues that are used to get groups to vote against their economic interests.
What the elite also realize is that the nation is united against a foreign threat, so they are always creating enemies even where there were none before in order to focus national political attention away from domestic affairs. In extremis they know that they can always pull this out by fomenting war.
This is nothing new, of course. It is the course of history. Only the elite changes. Now instead of rule by warriors or priests, the ruling class is presently constituted of grand acquisitors allied with the managerial class in managerial capitalism instead of monarchy, theocracy or feudalism, since the means of production are chiefly technological rather than territorial.
Can humans in general overcome this on a large enough scale to counter the effects of narrow self-interest? We'll see, but it is not looking promising.
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