Posted on 05/21/2008 7:45:30 AM PDT by BGHater
I thought this was going to be about Google!
The republican ideals of the Founding Fathers aren't holding up well against the advance of technology. I think the author has hit on an important point - that a slightly less repressive version of today's China is the convergence point where most nations are heading. Vastly superior to a Third World country, but less than what the United States was at its height.
Do you think there’ll still be a middle class in such a world?
And the problem....
The people don’t have a problem with it! How do you fence a wild boar?
“Do you think there’ll still be a middle class in such a world?”
I think so but the chasm between classes will be much greater. The middle class will not benefit from technological gains that much. They will, more or less, hold serve. Also, there will be very little chance for upward mobility from the middle class. The marriage of big government and big business will opress all opportunities for the middle class, save a few who are hand-picked and are held out as hope so that the middle class will continue striving. Also, I see a future filled with fear for “middle classians” in which people always feel as if they’re being watched and any false move or word could relegate them to the lower class or a worse fate such as imprisonment or death. I think this is the prototype for the future because it makes perfect economic sense for the elite in that it will provide much greater profits and control for them and such a system would provide few, if any, threats such as new ideas, technology, etc, that could threaten the status quo.
Those few that have the insane talent or luck to challenge the Establishment will likely either be swatted down like flies or they will be given a choice between towing the line and paying their dues or be ruined. Needless to say, those with ideas that entertain or in some way can improve the lives of the Establishment will have a better opportunity at succeeding. Given the constant drudgery and oppression likely in such a system, these people will be very few and far between.
Not really. There will be the usual top 1%, an "upper tier" 10%, and then everybody else. America is already well down that path.
Scary. And the PTB in the US want it here, too. Hence the push for “national ID”.
Wow, that sounds depressing. They’ll have to make military service mandatory, or very attractive, because who would want to defend this system?
“And the problem....
The people don’t have a problem with it! How do you fence a wild boar?”
The Chinese don’t know any better. The technology has improved their lives and they have never known what it is like to have a political voice. The West, however, will likely be “won over” with psychology and more gradually. Of course, I assume that it could be won over more quickly with military force (say a Chinese-led one), but the people, especially Americans, are likely to be so traumatized and angry at the loss of what they once knew as freedom (as opposed to the oppression known by the Chinese people), that they will likely be unable to be produce on a level so as to be beneficial and profitable for the elites. Even with fear used as the sole motivator, many Americans would fail to respond to the fight-or-flight stimulus due to their prior living conditions. Many would just roll over and die eventually if they had a literal gun to their head all the time. I’m not sure if that means Americans are soft or noble but I’m not sure if that matters much. All that being said, I don’t see how it gains them to take a well-educated, hard-working workforce and throw it away be traumatizing the populace. The U.S. is likely to be the last bastion of semi-freedom in the semi-free world for this reason. Also, Americans have a way of ignoring what’s going on in the rest of the globe so many people won’t really understand the pressure cooker that they’re in.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world will hate the U.S. out of sheer envy (assuming that they even get honest information on what America is like). Rest assured, however, America will get there. America’s history is already slowly being “rewritten” and “revised” so that future generations will not know how truly great life was in America once upon a time.
Basically Animal Farm updated to the Twentieth Century.,.
The Chinese have become the Borg without all them doo-dads
Also known as fascism.
I wonder how many noticed when China went from being a Communist state to being the first fascist Superstate since the Reich.
Under communism, the state owns all the means of production.
Under fascism, the illusion of private ownership of the means of production is maintained. But, make no mistake, the state controls it all.
“Wow, that sounds depressing. They’ll have to make military service mandatory, or very attractive, because who would want to defend this system?”
Hitler was elected. A police state ensued. Ethnic groups were rounded up like cattle. Millions upon millions defended the system. Many probably did so out of fear, some out of evil, some out of ambition, and many out of being disinformed into being true believers(the German government controlled, either directly or through coercion, all of the media in the country). The German government told the same lie over and over to its people. This happened in a 20th century Christian nation. Of course, coscription was mandatory. I suspect that most people were deathly afraid of the regime and just hoped that they and their families survived the war. It may have not been the right thing to do, in retrospect, but it was a choice that most people would’ve made.
I’d even go so far as to say that many higher-ups in the German military probably found the atrocities committed appalling but all were afraid to speak because of a web of fear. If any open dialogue were allowed without fear of punishment, the system would’ve likely broken down because I fear that there were few true believers at places like Auschwitz...only those who were afraid and those who were so corrupted by the power they had over others and the dark forces at play in Germany at the time that they couldn’t see the light anymore.
“China is now where Capitalism is being run from the main HIVE... like the Borg..
The Socialization of Capitalism or the Capitalization of Socialism..
Basically Animal Farm updated to the Twentieth Century.,.
The Chinese have become the Borg without all them doo-dads”
I think you’ve got it right. We’ve been conditioned to choose between big government and big business and we are getting the marriage of both.
The truth is that it really doesn’t matter. The USSR government served the needs of the ruling class. Fascist regimes do the same. It matters not whether the businesses own the government or the government owns the businnesses.
All that matters is that power is consolidated into the hands of the few. Socialism, corporatism, and facism all have the same ends for the commoner: tyranny.
America is moving towards a socialist-corporatist hybrid. Unfortunately, this is the end game of capitalism. This is when free-market capitalism is being morphed into an oppressive, monopolistic form of economic system instead of a truly free-market system.
This is like a game of Monopoly winding down. For the haves, this is the time to start collecting on those hotels, the time to make trades (both with colluders and with those in desparation with the ends being bankrupting the have-nots and bleeding down the wannabes until they become non-threats. For the wannabes, this is the time to start praying that you get lucky before the haves own so much that you don’t have a chance. The wannabes must take lots of risks and will still likely wind up broke. For the have nots, this is the time to down as much beer as possible and dodge the back entire back half of the board before leaving the game.
And yes, for the have nots, sometimes you are better off just sitting in jail, watching the TV out of the corner of your eye, and downing a cold one.
“Under fascism, the illusion of private ownership of the means of production is maintained. But, make no mistake, the state controls it all.”
But I own 5 shares of Wal-Mart, so I have “opportunity” and “ownership” in this new era ;) /sarc
That's the question I keep asking myself. People call people "nazis" or "fascists' for so many things I think a large majority of the world doesn't know even know what fascism actually is.
Here it is . . . and what we get is fawning over this new world power. I don't think antagonism is necessary with China - but our kind of soft antagonism gives us neither the power of outright opposition or the rewards of partnership.
The main point is in the conundrum posed. How do you fence a wild boar? Feed it some corn, and let it come, continue to feed it till it comes everyday. 1 day, put up a fence up on one side and continue to feed them. Let them get used to the fence on one side while feeding them corn, as they will learn to go around the fence. Continue, fence on 2 sides. Feed them corn, they'll learn their way around that. Fence and feed on three sides, they'll learn they have 1 way in and 1 way out, but that is their undoing! Feed them and fence them completely. They'll go nuts that they can't get away at first, but once they realize that they are still getting fed, they won't care, until they are slaughtered of course.
It's purposeful incrimentalism. As long as you're fat and happy, you don't care that you are losing freedoms.
This makes Orwell’s 1984 look tame.
“I’m not talking about the ChiComms, I’m talking about the general US populous.”
Sorry, I did think you were speaking of the Chinese as being the wild boars. I agree with the rest of your post about the incrementalism. It is the only way to effectively cage the American people while still maintaining them as “assets” (which I believe that they are due to education, productivity, lateral thinking, and a multitude of other reasons). Of course, the reason that Americans are assets to businesses and governments is also they’re biggest liability. Maintaining the status quo virtually requires the containment of Americans as Americans uncontained and with limitless opportunity will eventually overturn the status quo in favor of a normally better way of doing things.
Simply put, an intelligent, ambitious, hard-working, creative American is a great guy (or gal) to have working, creating, and thinking for you until he (or she) decides to bolt for the door. Non-compete clauses are common in America for a reason and it’s because Americans have a habit of taking good ideas (especially when they’re ignored by red tape and bureacracy) and setting up shop on their own. The best of them end up threatening the profitablility and viability of the established companies because they are just better ideas.
Once a company is dominant, it is no longer in its best interest to have a free market in that industry. Instead, it’s better to erect as many barriers to entry as possible such as, ahem, regulatory ones through the use of goverment apparatus. Of course, some of them just go old-school and money-whip you like Wal-Mart has done to many a small-town business that can’t compete with Wal-Marts buying power. The less capital-intensive the industry, the more regulation required for the protection of the dominant players.
General retail is mainly a money-whipping game with its volume discounts, etc. Things like insurance are both highly-regulated and capital intensive, hence the lack of new solutions for health insurance in the private sector (you can thank overregulation in both the medical and insurance industries for socialized medecine in the future).
Many industries, however, are just regulated to death and not that capital intensive. If you’re a researcher chemist in pharmaceuticals, try opening up your own shop dedicated to finding the cure for the condition you feel most led. You’ll never make it through all the trials and hoops needed even if you have the cure on hand. Some bigger company would have to buy your concoction from you and they will take at least a large part of what should have been your profits. For that matter, just try opening up a food company...bring back the FDA. It takes so long and costs so much to get a product through the FDA, then through the countless hours of pounding the pavement to try to get buyers with your now sellable product that your likely to starve yourselves.
If we had a truly free market with a true meritocracy, money wouldn’t even be an issue. Venture capital would be easy to come by for those with better products and ideas and everyone would be better off because the pace of improvement with regards to product diversity and technology would be greatly increased. We now live in a society in which a large percentage of the populace dies with at least one multi-million dollar idea that would have improved countless other lives go wasted and unfulfilled.
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