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| Free Market | Rate Topic |
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10th, 2008 03:07 pm |
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1st Post |
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Joe Kelley Administrator
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http://www.anarchism.net/forum/board_entry.php?id=26878
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10th, 2008 03:07 pm |
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2nd Post |
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Joe Kelley Administrator
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The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing but the Truth So Help Me, You. In order to make sense of an upside down world it occurred to me to challenge my own sense of logic concerning a few matters that were handed down to me from external sources. Having done so with more than slight effort and with greater discipline than what may accomplish an uncomfortable chore I have arrived at a perspective that makes sense easily, rather than by force of effort or rationalization. God can be seen as truth and that is enough of that since I am not God and I am not capable of The Truth, The Whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth even if I try real hard. I can work at it with help. Where the help originates from is subject to my human propensity to err, so the help may come from God, yet – how would I know? I am not God. Help arrives from outside of me. I am in charge of belief. I am in charge of what I allow myself to believe and I do need help. The problem that has continually impressed me as being a very powerful problem is something that can be called falsehood. The powerful enemy of truth can also be called deception. The important discovery I’ve found in reference to this powerful foe is the truth concerning who has the power to decide what is believed to be true and what is suspected as being false. I have that power. I can try to give that power away, yet that is false; or so I’ve come to believe. As the story proceeds a measure of falsehood inevitably finds its way into the process known as thought. Once falsehood does find its way in there really isn’t any way to get it back out, without help. This is true, or so I believe, because falsehood makes a person believe, or trust, falsehood. Now, you know, this can seem like something, or someone, is confusing. Who is confusing? What is confusing? If you do not know, then you may want to entertain the idea that falsehood has entered the thought process and that you may be infected or you can ignore the fact that you do not know who is confusing and you can ignore that you do not know what is confusing. You can blame me. What you cannot do, even while you believe that you can, is to claim that you are ignorant of your ignorance while you know that you do not know. That may appear to be a confusing from your viewpoint. That has been said before, perhaps by someone trusted. Once you know, you know, and it is false to claim that you do not know while you do know. Perhaps someone who has studied scripture can quote a more eloquent phrase to explain the relationship. Once a person becomes aware of something, a lie or crime for example, the person cannot claim ignorance without resorting to deception. Something known can be forgotten if it is forgotten. Being aware of something is being aware of something. Ignorance about something previously known is forgetting. It is factual. I forgot. What I am pointing out is a certainty of knowing a condition of ignorance. You cannot claim to not know that you are ignorant once this fact, of ignorance, is known – without relying upon falsehood or provide the facts. Example: I know that morality is objective, factual, and based upon the physical requirements of life. In other words; it is immoral to injure life or reduce the physical requirements of life while it is moral to nurture and increase the physical requirements of life. I can claim now that I am ignorant of knowing my propensity for human error in this case. Does that claim erase knowledge of my own ignorance? Does the claim enable me to escape from error? Can I claim now to know the truth? The answer is clearly: no. I cannot pretend to know that morality is objective – absolutely. I can propose how morality is objective as morality functions to nurture and increase the physical requirements of life. I can reserve my observation of knowledge and render it to be subjected to further scrutiny. That does not necessarily make my observation false or subjective. Morality is objective, factual, and based upon the physical requirements of life. The proof is found in living. The proof is earned while living, among people and being human – being free from falsehood. At this point I have a chore to accomplish and I need a lot of help in perfecting the idea. The idea is to communicate an exposure of a particularly insidious lie. Many people are infected with this lie and I may live out the rest of my life without ever finding another person capable of defeating it – the lie. I can present the lie as I see it and do so in the way that I am able – with words. Then a requirement exists for you to understand the nature of the phenomenon that I describe and if you please you can comment upon its validity, accuracy, or logic. Is it a lie? Before describing the lie it may help in communicating the lie to say a few words about the people who originally created the lie. These liars are criminals. These people who have created this lie destroy life with this lie. They do so because they can and I really can’t say, for sure, that any other reason inspires the continued use of this lie by those criminals. The other possible reason, other than to destroy, is profit. I can’t confess here since I do not construct this lie and I do not further or use this lie – at all. Criminals use this lie to destroy and, perhaps, to profit from their victims – at their victims expense. The lie, as I’ve already stated, is insidious. It is criminal. It is destructive. It is evil. It supposes that politics and economy are amoral concepts that are free from or divorced from moral considerations – like math. If this, goes the lie, than that occurs like one plus one is two. That is a lie. Politics and economy are moral concepts that intend to further life. Crime is immoral. Sloth, apathy, carelessness, indifference, science, and math are amoral. Politics and economy are moral concepts. The lie, and it is a big one, supposes that politics and economy are amoral concepts. I decided to place this viewpoint right here in this thread because Blackwater does relate to politics, economy, and free market competition. How?
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10th, 2008 03:08 pm |
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3rd Post |
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Joe Kelley Administrator
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In order to communicate the perspective from which my analysis of the free market competition of Blackwater is produced I’ve posted the previous arrangement of words. From that perspective the Blackwater phenomenon is evaluated. To recap: Politics and economy are objective disciplines based upon a moral principle. Morality is based upon a simple relationship between that which exists and the end of that which exists. In other words the concept of morality is based upon a perception of life compared to a perception of the absence of life. Life exists. That which promotes life promotes life. That which destroys life destroys life. That is the objective scenario. The subjective or judgmental aspect of morality merely places life above or more valuable than the destruction of life. Politics, from this objective viewpoint (life can be sustained by acting in a pre-meditated manner that intends to and follows through with an effective method of sustaining life), exists after (or during) the incorporation of economic thought and action. Politics, again from the objective viewpoint, intends to make use of an oversupply of economic production if an oversupply of economic production is produced though objective economic activity. Economy, from this objective viewpoint, pre-meditates present and future activity intending to expend less power to create more power. This may appear to be far fetched if the reader is indoctrinated with subjective value judgments concerning false and misleading economic dogma. Economy intends to utilize available economic power to produce a greater supply of economic power. Crime intends to utilize destructive power (falsehood and violence) to take economic power from victims who utilize available economic power to produce a greater supply of economic power. An example of politics, possibly the only free market example, is a concept called insurance. When economic power is utilized to produce a greater supply of economic power and an excess of economic power (above consumption) is realized: the excess can be invested toward the creation of even more economic power or the excess can be stored (saved?) for ‘a rainy day’. Politics intends to decide which investment will utilize the available power in the most economical manner to create a greater supply of economic power. Politics intends to decide the best investment. Insurance exemplifies this goal in a most economical manner because insurance gathers the most relevant information required in predicting the most economic investment of excess production. A step back to pre-insurance may suffice to illustrate an important relationship. Pre-insurance will be a condition whereby economic power is scarce and insufficient to ensure economic survival. All economic power is consumed during the economic life of the people lacking sufficient economic power. There is no excess economic power left over to store, save, or invest. As soon as economic power moves from the red and into the black an economic decision is made. Excess production, once it exists, is excess production. What happens to excess production once excess production exists? Who decides what to do with excess production once excess production exists? What possible uses exist once excess production exists? How is excess production utilized once excess production exists? These are the economic paths that only exist when economic production reaches a level of power in excess of consumption. Once these paths exist a path must be chosen and the excess economic power will flow along the path chosen by whatever method that is possible. Politics is the label describing the human activity inspired by the creation of economic abundance. Who decides how to spend the excess? How is the excess spent? Economic abundance can inspire people to spend economic power toward the creation of falsehood and violence for obvious reasons. One example of the expenditure of economic power toward the creation of falsehood is the creation of the idea that saving economic power can produce a greater supply of economic power. I am speaking of the falsehood known as ‘interest’. Rather than concentrate on that lie, that fraud, it is more economically viable to invest time and energy figuring out how to utilize economic power to create more economic power. That is the dilemma or problem that politics intends to solve. Which path creates the most economic power and uses up the least economic power in the process. That problem becomes a greater problem when falsehood and violence threatens to consume economic power on offense (criminal) and defense (avoidance of crime). This should be easy to see from a utopian perspective and a little imagination. Suppose, for example, a new device existed where a person could be impervious to harm by violence or fraud where the individual has a device that shields the person from violent attack and the device has an automatic bullshit detector. The utopian dream seen from this view may or may not require the dreamer to include a device that removes the possibility of having stuff stolen from the individual. I think the lack of physical harm caused by criminals and the lack of being harmed with bullshit produced by criminals would end the power that is necessary to get away with theft. People spending their time stealing might as well spend their time producing. The idea here is to look at the costs that are wasted on committing crimes and defending against crime. Add all that cost up and subtract it from the total available power. Now imagine using that lost power doing the work of creating more power. Note too how the whole scarcity price power transfer scheme vanishes when economic power is produced into a state of over-abundance. Costs reach zero while purchasing power remains high. Labor may become scarce and then fetch a higher price. Who would argue with that scenario? You guessed it – the criminals. Perhaps I am alone with that guess. I may yet get to Blackwater.
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10th, 2008 03:08 pm |
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4th Post |
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Joe Kelley Administrator
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In order to further preface my perspective on Blackwater and Free Market Competition it occurs to me to set the stage during my learning process concerning two very separate doctrines concerning Free Market Competition. The Free Market Competition Doctrine I grew up knowing, during the 60’s, 70’s, of the last century, was taught by my peers and by the social contacts experienced by me, my four brothers, one sister, two double cousins, 5 girls cousins from Aunt Jean’s family on my mother’s side, two boy cousins from Aunt Teenie (also on my mother’s side), 4 step brothers, and one step sister. We operated a Free Market Competition society based upon a specific doctrine of truth. In other words; it was wrong to lie. Everyone knew how lying, deception, and falsification worked as a means of taking power from us as power went to the lying scum bag. When ever one of us endeavored to accomplish a power transfer with a lie the rest of us defended against that ‘take-over’ with vociferous anger. The word of the lie by the lying one spread like wild fire and before the next lie could be uttered from the same source the lie lost all power. This is how it was in our Free Market Competition. It may be hard to understand the next claim that I make concerning our Free Market Competition, and you can remain confused as you see fit. In our Free Market Competition nearly everyone won. There are a few who lost the competition; one was my step brother who is now dead. He was winning until he died. No one led our group and by this statement I include the parents. The parents led their own lives. That is how our Free Market Competition worked. The enforcement of ideology, such as it was, limited itself to two areas or two lines in the sand. You do not use violence or deception as a means of gaining ground in the competition. Having mapped out where I came from it is now my inspired effort to move the story through a time when I became aware of another form of ideology that presumes to describe Free Market Competition. I will then propose a third ideology that exists and the second and third form have their own proponents, agents, enforcers, propagandists, apologists, enforcers, and ideologues. Being exposed to church, public, and private schools while our Free Market Competition Society (with its ideological defense against violence and deception) exposed us to the first competitive example of a Free Market Competition and this competitive example was almost the same as our Free Market Competition with one well hidden exception. Hidden within the competitions ideology is a lie. The lie pretends to abhor lying just like our Free Market Competition abhors lying. Actually the competition loves to lie. Lying, according to the competition, is wonderful, useful, constructive, encouraged, rewarded, favored, and held in great esteem with one catch. The catch, of course, is that the lie has to have power. If the lie has no power the lie becomes public enemy number one – just like our Free Market Competition. Therein lies the deceptive nature of the competition’s ideology. On the surface the competition is the same as ours; both appear to abhor lies. One actually abhors lies. The other one loves powerful lies. The complexity of this lie can be viewed very simply. Don’t get caught. Lies are fine, even very rewarding, just don’t get caught. That is how the competition defines its ideology and the discovery of the difference between our Free Market Competition and the competition's Free Market Competition was earth shattering to me since I grew up as a naïve believer in some strange hypnotic ideology that could be called “Nationalism”. That may work to label the competitions ideology. I can retain, with a qualifier, my version of Free Market Competition as such: Free Market Competition (free from deception and violence as a means of gaining at the expense of other competitors). I can also separate my version of Free Market Competition with the competition described above as such: Nationalism (Free Market Competition based upon powerful lies as a means of gaining at the expense of other competitors). I can describe this world of ours in these terms because these terms describe the world of ours from my perspective. I cannot describe this world of ours from someone else’s perspective since I am me and I am not someone else. My ability to describe what happens in a world where Nationalism empowers the process of Free Market Competition (as its principle ideology where lies are utilized as a means of gaining at the expense of other competitors) is limited, however I have read works that describe how things work out in great detail and with more than a little artistry. Example: Gulag That is the means and the ends desired by proponents of the Free Market Competition whereby lies are utilized as a means to an end. The means is explained in detail. The ends are described in detail. Have fun with it if you have an interest in it. That version is one of the best versions I’ve ever read. I haven’t read all the versions of that form of Free Market Competition. I’ve read many version and many versions lie. That is true; they lie. That one is factual. The author is an authority on the subject. He was awarded his license to be an authority on the subject during his stay in the Gulag. The Gulag is the end desired. Those who love to lie love to create victims or so the story goes. Read it if you please.
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10th, 2008 03:09 pm |
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5th Post |
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Joe Kelley Administrator
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Blackwater I.G. Farben Linked above are two sources. One is a current affair (Blackwater) and the other is history. My suggestion to anyone, anywhere, is to read, at least, the first one. I will quote from the second one: +++++++++ “The construction of I.G. Auschwitz has assured I.G. a unique place in business history. By adopting the theory and practice of Nazi morality, it was able to depart from the conventional economics of slavery in which slaves are traditionally treated as capital equipment to be maintained and serviced for optimum use and depreciated over a normal life span. Instead, I.G. reduced slave labor to a consumable raw material, a human ore from which the mineral of life was systematically extracted. When no usable energy remained, the living dross was shipped to the gassing chambers and cremation furnaces of the extermination center at Birkenau, where the S.S. recycled it into the German war economy – gold teeth for the Reichsbank, hair for mattresses, and fat for soap. Even the moans of the doomed became a work incentive, exhorting the remaining inmates to greater effort.” ++++++++++ The business of exploiting the market included business people specialized at certain tasks. The description above is an economical one. The morality of it is also told by the writer in the same book: ++++++++++ “Conditions were such that sickness was a pervasive fact of life among the inhabitants of Monowitz. The hospital wards built by I.G. were so inadequate that even the S.S. suggested additional wards be built. I.G. refused because of the cost.” ++++++++++ For those of you who can read without having to insert lies and fanciful fabrications in between each letter, each word, and each sentence, so as to turn, twist, and spin any form of communication into something entirely different than what was intended by the writer, for those honest types, I ask for a peer review of my take on this Blackwater situation. I’ve prefaced my perspective on this Blackwater situation during the process of making this thread more than a three word question attached to a web link. Someone (?) already ‘helped’ the process along and I am grateful for that much, although my replies may appear to be somewhat less than gratuitous. A few more comments may lead well into the next post I write where I finally offer my take on the three word question (Free Market Competition?) linked to the News article on Blackwater. My comments concern the history of specialization in the trade of violence and deception. When we grew up (by we I mean the society of individuals who conducted themselves according to an ideology whereby violence and deception were out-side the customary code of conduct or, in other words, violence and lies were abhorred and discredited as being wrong, bad, and quite evil because violence and deception were, and is, destructive to the innocent), so, when we grew up a movie about James Bond toured the theaters around the world. In that movie the main character was awarded a ‘license to kill’, what was unsaid but certainly recognizable concerned the ‘license to lie’. Once a human being is faced with a situation whereby death at the hands of another human being is imminent and practically unavoidable there is bound to be a lifting of normal moral considerations. It may be less destructive to deceive an attacker or victim than it is to cause physical injury. This may be a very foreign viewpoint that may appear to be coming from and going off into fantasy and irrelevance. If this viewpoint does appear to be extremely odd, if so, please consider where I’ve come from and I have offered that detail earlier. I come from a society whereby the common law or mutually agreed upon moral appreciation abhorred lies. Our Free Market Competition, from where I came from, and to where I go, is free of lies. We do not embrace lies as a means to an end. If that is foreign to you, it stands to reason that this viewpoint is meaningless. Why are you reading? You can make up your own perspective as you see fit? All you need to do is speak; perhaps you have no use in hearing. The license to lie and kill was awarded to James Bond and ‘no one does it better’ or so we were told. I appreciated the movie and the sentiment. You may not. If my version of Free Market Competition (where lies and violence are abhorred as a means of gaining at the expense of competitors) is threatened by someone who has been awarded a license to lie and kill (and someone who is the best at it) my life will end. How many in your group like life? In my group it is unanimous; we like life. When Dooms Day is knocking on our door we are faced with a choice to die while maintaining our hatred of lies and violence or we can choose to embrace lies and/or violence as a means to an end – in the case of being faced with Dooms Day the end desired (inspiring the use of lies and violence) is an end to the threat that brings Dooms Day to the door. It is a tough job, but someone has to do it. Why not hire the people who like to lie and harm people if the idea is to lie and harm people?
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10th, 2008 03:09 pm |
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6th Post |
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Joe Kelley Administrator
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Perhaps the reader has followed along and an interest in hearing more inspires further reading. From my end, as I write, the previous introduction managed to accomplish the goal and it is not time to connect the various viewpoints into a comprehensive whole. The aim of all organisms is to survive and no one does it better than the human species. We command the power that makes more power. We control our own physical destiny since we command the power that makes more power. This control of power enables our species to survive on other planets, if needed, well beyond the extinction of all life on this planet. I know, I can hear it now, the reader was promised a ‘comprehensive whole’ and I’ve gone off on another space voyage. Please bear with me. Suppose (for the sake of agreement) that our species will survive well past the extinction of all life on planet earth and suppose that the extinction of all life on earth occurs in the future. The end of all life on the planet earth occurs on a specific day. Now, if you can please follow along, we are now approaching that day. Certain things must happen before that day (when the planet Earth can no longer support life) to ensure the continued survival of the human species. One of the things that must happen before that end date (end of the Planet Earth) is the production of enough power to move to and survive on another place, planet, or life sustaining object. This is the glue that binds my ‘comprehensive whole’ view of human existence and this must be understood when viewing the Free Market Competition. Blackwater is one of many human experiments being played out in competition with many other competitors. If the reader does agree that a day is approaching whereby the Earth will no longer support life (even if that day is one billion years from now) then the reader can follow along in this comprehensive whole viewpoint. If the reader can then agree that there must be enough power produced by someone before that day if the human species will survive past that day. The reader can then judge human activity based upon a holistic power struggle and add that expanded power struggle to the individual power struggle that permeates much of our human ideology. Therefore; there is a self-centered, egotistical, sovereign individual, and personal power struggle combined with a species power struggle. The individual concern and the species concern merge on the date when the Earth can no longer support life. This part of the holistic viewpoint renders the divergence between individual and social power struggle moot. On that day when the Earth no longer can support life (and we have not produced the power to survive without the Earth) we all share the same concern. Each individual will be threatened by the same fate. That generation of human beings will all be ‘on the same page’. Each sovereign individual will be threatened by the same DOOMS DAY. Each individual will face the same exact future cause of death; even if individuals decide to add more causes of death to the one common cause. What this viewpoint does is to identify our common power struggle as a species and this viewpoint incorporates each individual power struggle into the whole. From this viewpoint I can launch now, if things go according to plan, into the Blackwater aspect of Free Market Competition.
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| Posted: Thu Apr 10th, 2008 03:09 pm |
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7th Post |
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Joe Kelley Administrator
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The I.G. Farben example illustrates how a vicious cabal of people controlling a legal economic entity can utilize human power as a means of profit. The officers of the company (who escaped accountability through a limited liability corporate legal statute) managed to cut costs and increase profits. Here again: +++++++++ “The construction of I.G. Auschwitz has assured I.G. a unique place in business history. By adopting the theory and practice of Nazi morality, it was able to depart from the conventional economics of slavery in which slaves are traditionally treated as capital equipment to be maintained and serviced for optimum use and depreciated over a normal life span. Instead, I.G. reduced slave labor to a consumable raw material, a human ore from which the mineral of life was systematically extracted. When no usable energy remained, the living dross was shipped to the gassing chambers and cremation furnaces of the extermination center at Birkenau, where the S.S. recycled it into the German war economy – gold teeth for the Reichsbank, hair for mattresses, and fat for soap. Even the moans of the doomed became a work incentive, exhorting the remaining inmates to greater effort.” ++++++++++ Cutting costs and maximizing profits. The private company managed to exploit the market economically. Nothing personal, mind you, it is strictly “business as usual” and from that view, of efficient business economy, a moral view can be held in contrast: ++++++++++ “Conditions were such that sickness was a pervasive fact of life among the inhabitants of Monowitz. The hospital wards built by I.G. were so inadequate that even the S.S. suggested additional wards be built. I.G. refused because of the cost.” ++++++++++ The modern counter part is, possibly, Dick Cheney’s Halliburton (in place of I.G. Farben) and Blackwater in place of the S.S. A private company brutally capitalizes upon and exploits a market to slash costs and maximize profits while the public agent questions the morality of the situation. At this point it occurs to me, again, to point to the divergent natures of the three types of Free Market Competitions in play. The first, and the one I grew up knowing, divorces itself from deception and violence as a means to an end. Deception and violence are so completely integrated as to be one and the same thing. At this time a word on that relationship begs to be repeated and the quote comes from the leading authority of the second competitors (what I labeled as “Nationalism”): Alexandr Solzhenitsyn +++++++++++ We shall be told: what can literature possibly do against the ruthless onslaught of open violence? But let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose falsehood as his PRINCIPLE. At its birth violence acts openly and even with pride. But no sooner does it become strong, firmly established, than it senses the rarefaction of the air around it and it cannot continue to exist without descending into a fog of lies, clothing them in sweet talk. It does not always, not necessarily, openly throttle the throat, more often it demands from its subjects only an oath of allegiance to falsehood, only complicity in falsehood. +++++++++++ The second, and most dangerous, most destructive, most exploitive, and certainly the one that falls under the label “Nationalism” Free Market Competition is free from the constraints of accuracy where lies (only those that avoid detection) are rewarded, credited, encouraged, and otherwise admitted as legitimate, right, loved, embraced, and utilized economically. The third example of competition does not pretend to be free and this example of competition operates without any restraint whatsoever. The third example of Free Market Competition is free from morality, free from truth, free from any restraint whatsoever under the sun. This third example of competition is nearly powerless compared to the other more sensible, rational, and organized or governed competitors. The third example is so completely powerless as to be rendered nearly superfluous with one exception. The third example serves the second example as a goal post or desired end. In other words; the third competitor shines in the eyes of the second competitors world view as a utopian dream, a place to strive to create, and an inspiration to drive toward. I also consider the third competitor (the competition that is free from any restraint whatsoever) to be a god send to the liars. They have their Dooms Day Parade with this utopian dream and this dream state serves to scare the bejezzus out of those who populate the first competitor (the one where lies and violence are abhorred). The second competition calls this third place by the name ANARCHY. The idea behind calling this third place by the name ANARCHY is to discredit the first competitor’s world. So…the first example of Free Market Competition is governed by a principle that admits the wrong of lies and violence. The Second example of Free Market Competition pretends to abhor violence, however the second example of Free Market Competition is not governed by accuracy (a principle that admits the wrong of lies) so the pretension of abhorring violence is a lie. The third example of Free Market Competition is complete freedom to act in any manner imaginable under the sun at any time anywhere without any principles governing actions whatsoever. When the S.S. or Blackwater can be viewed as being more moral, more right, more compassionate, more loving, more caring, and more good than I.G. Farben or Halliburton the situation may indicate a need to be slightly more accurate about the situation than what is being reported by the authorities.
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