Maintaining the Status Quo: A Classic Disclaimer Rant

Economics is a minefield for the uninitiated. Posing as a science it is in fact a more mystical pursuit whose main objective is to hold power for those who keep the money. We the ordinary, un-enshrined members of society: the artists, the students, the workaday types are at the mercy of a system that keeps our thumbs screwed tight and does not allow for dissent. No matter what your feeling on the matter rent must be paid and work must be done to accommodate the idea that we all must earn a wage and therefore “contribute” to the economic wealth of our nation.

In the absence of a truly pan-national ethos Economics is the closest we can come to agreeing on what the purpose of life might be. Various theorists and political enterprises have tried to shape how this modern creed is practiced, those with an interest in social justice and the working class tried to infuse economic policies with a collectivist flair, but for the most part the weakness and wickedness in man (sexist pronoun intended), his desire to seize power and dictate, won over the more noble ideals of Bolshevism, leaving a bitter taste in the mouth of those who would wish to organize economies for the benefit of all.

What is left is the trickle-down theory, the grossly unfair policies of the powerful that insist that individual wealth is the greatest thing to which we can aspire, a right that is enshrined in tax and corporate law to ensure that it continues indefinitely. The real victory of the Cold War in this context was the victory of billionaire industrialists (i.e. war makers) over every day people. The “winning” system of economics did not end up helping its poor, in fact it barely felt the need to pay them lip service. Its goal was to crush the idea that wealth should be shared, that its methods should be questioned, that “progress” should be measured by any other standard than profit.

Now we see that those who control this system lie to us outright and arrogantly send their armies out to die for an ideology and/or faith they do not wholly understand. The philosophy that guides these leaders is one of privilege and isolation. They believe that the fibs they tell are for the greater good, not really understanding that “the greater good” means anything other than what is best for their own cabal of friends and associates.

Granted it is difficult for anyone to become enlightened enough to see beyond one’s own ego. Their are monumental questions to ponder before one can contemplate with sobriety the shaping of human history. But these questions are never asked. The brains of the masses are subdued by toxic images and ideas—taught to conform, rather than to think. Thus those who attain power are much like the majority: absorbed in self-interest, and holding true to unquestioned ideologies even in the face of evidence that these beliefs are a tremendous failure in practice.

The basic truth, that modern representational democracy is generally a huge failure, is masked by creating a middle-class that can succeed despite the odds and can be lulled into believing that their success can be shared by everyone; that their success should be the goal of everyone. The gross unfairness, the inhumanity of the engine that generates wealth for the great Northern nations is effectively hidden in dreams of making it big and in the struggle for personal economic security. When necessary wars are engineered to keep the public imagination from straying too far.

No-one is encouraged to envision a society that has every basic need met, so that the purpose of work is really just to maintain a sustainable and healthy slow or no growth model of human existence. We must grow, grow, grow, more like a cancer than anything. We must progress at all costs. Everything this year needs to be smaller, faster and more cunningly designed than the things we needed so badly last year. Everyone must be kept busy, busy, busy. So much to gather up and exploit before we expire. When we are idle the guilt and worry can consume us, so thoroughly programmed we have become to be “productive.”

Even our gods are explained in absolute terms, and their wishes spelled out in ancient texts which cannot be questioned. Real lives are destroyed, and Earth herself condemned on the basis of archaic prophecy. No one believes that religion can or should be reformed by anyone but God’s own representatives; however the age of mysticism and prophecy is over so we live with impractical dogma that cannot be re-written, and unimaginative leaders who use this dogma as a power structure rather than an instructional model to free people of their worldly constraints. Heaven is a place where nothing happens, Earth is only the way station to this eternal nothingness, and what we do here matters little as long as it is done in the name of God.

What is wrong with us, do we truly need catastrophe to change how we govern ourselves? Is Armageddon the only way to open the door to a new understanding?