Category Archives: Culture

Nationalism under 5G

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5G?

Fifth-generation wireless (5G) is the latest iteration of cellular technology, engineered to greatly increase the speed and responsiveness of wireless networks. With 5G, data transmitted over wireless broadband connections can travel at multigigabit speeds, with potential peak speeds as high as 20 gigabits per second (Gbps) by some estimates. These speeds exceed wireline network speeds and offer latency of 1 millisecond (ms) or lower for uses that require real-time feedback. 5G will also enable a sharp increase in the amount of data transmitted over wireless systems due to more available bandwidth and advanced antenna technology.

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A big conference will be held in Germany soon. Its primary speakers are the foreign ministers of China, Japan, India and South Korea. There is concern in Europe that the nations of Europe will never have 5G independence. Germany’s cybersecurity chief struck a pessimistic tone at a pre-Munich cyber conference: “If you talk about digital sovereignty, we don’t have it. And we’ll never have it.” There will be presentations by Pelosi, Pompeo and Zuckerberg as well. [Politico]

The idea of sovereignty may undergo significant political transformation if, as feared, whole nations are just uplinks to a few communication systems owned and operated by a few nations like China and the US. National privacy, very much like personal privacy, may not be available. In the old days the spy business used to be a face-to-face transaction but with China manufacturing its technical equipment and the US eavesdropping, no nation will have secrets.

The US already is pushing back on China for a number of manufactured items used in smartphones and cloud-based games. The US asked the European Union not to install Huawei hardware but, said the EU, what else is there? The US is behind China in 5G development.

Nations, just as with a person’s decision making, will be influenced by 5G operators who already know what the target nation is thinking, what its economic conditions are and where its vulnerabilities lie. What will this do to traditional diplomatic relationships? Will a robot wearing suit and tie replace Pompeo?

A current model may provide insight. At the turn of the millennium there were 12 significant stock exchanges around the world. The differences in time zone meant that transactional business for a given stock exchange was local and finished before other stock exchanges opened. Today, that is not the case. An investor can issue trades to any exchange in the world at any time of day. An investor doesn’t have to miss daily opportunities that would be gone had the investor had to wait until the exchange opened for business the next day.

Continuous access has the effect of leveling the monetary value of daily interactions between exchanges. It also reduces the range of highs and lows relative to other exchanges.

Applying these causes and effects to nations using 5G, the positive side may be the prevention of surprises that lead to political or military conflict. The downside may be a new form of authoritarianism – similar to the direction AI is taking with US citizens.

Ancient Mariner

Dimes in the Mud

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Has the reader ever had the experience while turning the vegetable garden in early spring when muck covers everything and sticks to shovels rendering them useless – and finds a dime in the mud? That’s how mariner perceives moments of progress in the nation’s culture.

֎ For example, after mariner blasted the human species in a couple of posts, news sources started mentioning a few dimes. The Economist cited statistics that said low wage workers, among all classes of workers, had the highest increase in wages in 2018-19. It is a dime found but not so shiny. The reason, says The Economist, is because many states have been increasing the minimum wage. If one’s income rises from $7.25 to $12.50, that’s a 38 percent increase. For higher wage groups, 38 percent would be astronomical; on a chart, then, as a percentage of income, the low wage track rises well above other tracks. It is a blessing for low wage workers to receive a nice boost in their income. The federal government remains at 7.25 percent.

In recent years some economists have begun to offer the idea that having too many poor people limits the growth potential for the nation’s economy. American society hasn’t dropped its belief that if one wants to have income, one must work harder but, on the other hand, if it constrains the income of other classes, let the poor have a few bucks.

Interestingly in the popular press and in the platform of Democratic candidate Andrew Yang, not only should minimum wage rise to $15, in addition every citizen should receive a $1,000 – $2,000 monthly disbursement from the government. Mariner advises readers not to hold their breath. Nevertheless, the idea is afloat.

֎ Another dime found is that the Earth’s output of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) did not increase from 2018 to 2019. The primary benefit came from industrial nations switching from coal to other sources, especially renewable power.

֎ Just as insurance companies were licking their lips by taking advantage of the possibility to collect genetic information with which to limit coverage and increase profit, the United States has a law called Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act – a dime for sure. One hopes that Donald doesn’t know about it.

֎ Here is a shiny dime: The US Federal Trade Commission announced they are requesting information from the data tech giants regarding the thousands of mergers and acquisitions that have occurred. Data tech giants (Google, Microsoft, Apple, communication corporations, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) already dominate the daily life of citizens and are creating virtual control over every citizen’s decisions in life. Most of the acquisitions were to buy niche tech companies before they became competitive – definitely antitrust activity. Along with big banks, big data needs to be divided.

֎ There is another democratic debate on Wednesday. Save your dime.

Ancient Mariner

 

On the Tech Front

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֎ It was China who hacked into Equifax’s credit history data recently. China now has the credit history of most Americans. May as well ask China for one’s latest credit score.

֎ The first ‘no-cash’ all electronic bank was approved by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The bank’s name is Varo. No tellers required. It isn’t exactly the Kenya model but it’s an app on the smartphone. The ‘buyer beware’ element is that a person never holds income in their own hands; the asset value of income is disappearing. Oh well, most people can’t afford to buy houses, build savings or pay for health and retirement anyway.

֎ Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo) said:    “Google and Facebook have acquired hundreds of companies in the last two decades, yet the FTC never once intervened to try to block any of these acquisitions.”

֎ Amazon Prime Day has become a top-notch shopping holiday, up there with Black Friday.

It occurs to mariner that the world is fragmenting. On the one hand, wealth is accumulating at increasing speed to those of the oligarchical class; on the other hand, lower and middle class people are having a bankruptcy experience; on the other hand, artificial intelligence is taking over the role of shaping society; on the other hand, corporate influence is replacing government influence as the source of economic oversight; on the other hand, dozens of nations will cease to exist as global warming takes its toll on land, water and economy.

Okay, millennials and Zs, it’s your turn.

Ancient Mariner

The Age We Live In

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“The truth of the first decades of the 21st century, a truth that helped give us the Trump presidency but will still be an important truth when he is gone, is that we probably aren’t entering a 1930-style crisis for Western liberalism or hurtling forward toward transhumanism or extinction.

Instead, we are aging, comfortable and stuck, cut off from the past and no longer optimistic about the future, spurning both memory and ambition while we await some saving innovation or revelation, growing old unhappily together in the light of tiny screens.” [By Mike Allen ·Feb 09, 2020]

One doesn’t come across good philosophical writing every day. Mike Allen is a staff writer for Axios.com, a general news outlet. Those two paragraphs catch the mind in a way where there is no room to argue, no room to deny, no room to interpret. It strikes directly into our psyche. His perspective requires no props, no direct evidence but readers know it is true.

And it is depressing. There seems no way out; there is no remedy. Is time the only cure? Is time even a cure? We can only wait and see . . .

Surely, though, the cantankerousness and excessive intelligence of humans will not let this state lie. There is money to be made; power to grab; inquisitiveness to be sated; children to be born who will start a new era. These activities can be believed and even acted upon – if one is under fifty years of age.

Over fifty Mike’s comments strike home too accurately. Baby Boomers and Gen Xs are stuck with a world they did not create, a world they never owned and a world that ended twenty years ago. The GI generation (born 1900 – 1924) matured in a time when the world had begun to change rapidly but they remember when society began at home, before rapid travel, communication and corporate dominance. In those early days, the citizens were their town, were its economy and were the source of its culture. At least today GIs can remember when.

What do the youngsters feel – the millennials and Gen Z (Mariner speculates because he is no Gen z)? Mariner has two married children who are millennials. They live in a world they themselves are creating; that must be a good experience. However, their generation is between what the older generations left unfinished and what the world holds in store for the future. They have a lot on their hands as technology sprints faster into the future, leaving untested cultural mores scattered about. Social change is no longer measured in generations; it is measured in decades. The burden of escaping Mike’s pessimistic view lies with them.

The unfinished business the youngsters inherit is a lack of usable scruples for a new world of instant communication, instant information and old, worn out economies around the world. Political cultures are held back by older generations who are unaware their world no longer exists.

Brand new environments not experienced in living history will be a different challenge for the youngsters. Society certainly will be different by the time they retire. Mariner prays they will leave Mike’s malaise behind.

Ancient Mariner

Changing Times

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Mariner made the mistake of watching Empire Games on Netflix. It is an excellent documentary series about how power abused the citizenry and how power exchanged hands from one king to another (assassination).

It was a mistake because mariner also is investigating the current transition from the industrial age to the computer age (Reagan Administration in 1981 to a time toward the end of the twenty-first century. The elimination of labor jobs in the United States caused by the NAFTA agreement in 1993 is comparable to the introduction of textile machinery that caused the Luddite revolt in 1811, considered the beginning of the industrial age).

Disturbingly, there are similarities between power transitions in the age of empires and power transitions today. Don’t rule out assassination:

Anybody here seen my old friend Abraham . . .

Anybody here seen my old friend John . . .

Anybody here seen my old friend Martin . . .

Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby . . .[1]

Anybody here seen my old friend John Lennon . . .

And almost, anybody here seen my old friend Ronald.

Every one of these assassinations is related directly to shifts in political power or shifts in economic direction. It turns out there is a pattern common between emperors and today’s leaders: accumulate political power – force change to culture – accumulate wealth – citizen rebellion – accumulate political power, etc. For emperors, accumulate wealth meant waging war to increase territory and economy. Today war has many manifestations.

Improved weaponry, communications and transportation in the twentieth century have allowed ‘accumulate wealth’ to be a global event. Wars in the computer age have newer methods; everybody wants to join in – even if, in the last decade, old-time explosives aren’t as important.

For example, in the old days of emperors, wealth was acquired through military action. Today, wealth is acquired through corporations. Even so, the procession to rebellion is similar. The proletariat is abused (just two examples: disappearance of steel manufacturing and Google); in a corporate sense, nations are colonized in pursuit of wealth; eventually the disadvantaged people revolt (note Brexit, Donald’s base, and Venezuela). As far as battle between ideologies and cultures, the computer and Internet are the weapons of choice. During WWII, planes dropped leaflets or nations broadcast radio programs. Today, advocates insert propaganda into social media. Today, in the computer age, the procession to rebellion can be provoked by inciting rebellion without firing a bullet or even having to travel to the target nation.

While the procession to rebellion has not changed for the moment, three significant events have curtailed military violence: the invention of nuclear weapons, acquiring wealth through corporations and the ease of invasion using just a smartphone. In effect, militaristic war is being pushed back to the days of parochial conflict.

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The other significant similarity between the age of emperors and the age of computers is economics. Setting aside for the moment the egomaniacal dictators and those who dream of being king, quality of life is a major provocation for rebellion.

The relationship between accumulating wealth and general quality of life is not absolute. For example, global weather cycles, plagues, and significant planet activity have nothing to do with the procession to rebellion but greatly affect quality of life. Still, lack of citizen quality can be interpreted as economic dissatisfaction.

The computer age brought with it a new economic engine: computers allowed corporations to become international. Manufacturing no longer was constrained by slow information or relatively high labor costs. Corporations found it more profitable to loosen the fiduciary laws of investment and become less accountable in their role as supporters of society. The transition to investment and away from manufacturing began in the Reagan administration during the 1980s. Since then labor has suffered as better paying jobs moved to more lucrative foreign labor markets; ignoring the role of supporting society has led to wage suppression in order to improve corporate profits; corporations aren’t sharing their profits. So much for trickle-down.

It is now forty years later. The proletariat suffers on every economic front from sustainable income to job security to housing to less than adequate health care. As the stock market rises to new heights, the economic challenge to the man on the street grows more intense. The time is ripe for the procession to rebellion to rise. Indeed it has started in the name of Donald’s base.

Just as in every stressed rebellion, those who can manipulate political advantage rise to power. Too often, these economic saviors have little empathy; they are eager to move to changing the culture and accumulating wealth for the powerful rather than the citizens.

There is a happy ending, sort of. The United States has been a democracy from its inception. That democracy, especially now, is far from perfect but it has allowed the nation – so far – to avoid the ravages of nations like Greece, Turkey, Brazil, Poland, Columbia, Venezuela and the entire Middle East to succumb to collapse and allow despotic leaders to shut down free society. Mind you, with the likes of Donald, these are scary times. Another term and the nation will join Turkey and the others.

As to how the procession to rebellion will occur in the future –

Ancient Mariner

[1] Dion DiMucci album released 2001

Cash not Accepted

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This is an issue that seems troublesome. Frequently, using cash to pay for material goods and services is not allowed in deference to the ease of credit card payment, smartphone gimmickry and more generally by the desire of the banking industry to ‘manage your income’ for you. Further, the increasing percentage of online purchases makes cash less necessary for daily living.

Regular readers know that mariner is an advocate of personal privacy – not only because he wants privacy but more importantly, that without control of his personal information he will cease to be the decision maker in his daily life. Data tech corporations receive billions of dollars by selling personal information to entities who want to manipulate individuals in a manner that increases profits rather than taking a genuine interest in the wellbeing, independence and prerogatives of an individual. Even the political conflicts that produce destructive false information and fake news and unmanaged data will bring down a civilization. Mariner agrees with George Soros and many others that Mark Zuckerberg should be removed as CEO of Facebook.

Not being allowed to pay by cash, however, has larger social ramifications. Axios.com posted an item that exposed the difficulty of small rural towns where small banks are closing, leaving citizens without a way to manage their finances but also limiting the borrowing of funds to manage agricultural cycles. In principle, there is no cash to be had. The result is that big bank corporations now have a say in whether a local farmer can obtain an operating loan. Indirectly, this means a big bank can manage agricultural practices.

The largest social ramification is the economic abandonment of the poor and low labor classes of US society. Credit is not only a matter of opportunity, where one lives can shut off any form of cash equity. One’s credit is based on neighborhood as much as personal responsibility. Donald is pursuing changes to the Community Reinvestment Act that will modify the reasons why banks are required to invest in poor environments.

A poor person, with just a few dollars in their pocket, will have no way to purchase goods because they will not have a credit card.

Typically, capitalism works fine when there are resources to leverage. Alas, the US is running out of resources which has led to the oligarchic scavenging of 90 percent of its population. Switching to cashless economics will hurt a large percentage of citizens who have no choice but to deal in cash.

There was an example on TV that showed a father wanting to buy his children ice cream but the establishment would only accept credit cards.

Ancient Mariner

 

The Biggest Great Divide

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The last post on perception is a lead-in to this post about a great divide. What are our perceptions of the future – not the far future but starting now until 2050? An emerging perception is that millennials (born 1981 – 1996) will live their lives on the fence between two very different social and economic cultures. They will bear the burden of financially supporting both offspring and elders; their own careers and roles in society will be tumultuously tossed about and fraught with uncertainty.

Millennials started their lives in an Adam Smith world (he married capitalism to reformation ethics) and will end it in an economic and social world beyond description today – though many futurists believe the concept of ‘job’ will be divorced from Adam Smith’s marriage; artificial intelligence will disrupt existing class perceptions; Planet Earth will play havoc with resources from Helium gas to the disappearance of vast stretches of dry land, to a shift in weather patterns that will collapse significant agricultural markets.

Progressive economists suggest if the economy isn’t soon redistributed from its advantages to oligarchs, the US may experience rebellion similar to that in other countries in the news today. Data tech corporations are so pervasive and so uncontrolled that a new retail culture may evolve with a US Congress of self-appointed data tech CEO’s and Jeff Bezos as President. (mariner speculates)

Presuming all these hotspots of change may happen, what is the core cultural issue? What will people experience day-to-day? What persistent event will cause foment and disorder as society rewrites itself?

Greater than identity politics, greater than economic imbalance, greater than global warming – it is the educated versus the uneducated; the elite versus the useless; those who can participate in society and those who can’t.

These perspectives are not new. Social philosophers and futurists have suggested this great divide since the 1970’s. But today it is a fresh subject in journals, magazines and online science sites. There are characteristics of the divide that exist today. For example, those who accept that the successful will be successful and others never will be are the same people who don’t believe in welfare, Medicare and Social Security. In other words, if a person hasn’t made it, they are not allowed to have any value in society – they are useless even to themselves.

The French term is ‘raison d’êtra’, which means reason to be or role in life or in personal terms, why am I here? The feeling of uselessness is a struggle often among retirees, young adults without links to society, and especially those who by their class and education are denied the right to succeed or interact with the participating members of society. Psychologists long have defined the emergence of gangs in destitute neighborhoods as a result of not being allowed to participate in society therefore they create their own role within their neighborhood.

Society is only a decade from the first waves of white collar job loss. It is a common statistic that artificial intelligence may eliminate from fifty to eighty percent of jobs across every discipline, every skill, and every function that constitutes the ‘common workforce’ today. It does not help that income for middle and lower income people already is suppressed and hasn’t kept up with inflation. Donald’s base, suffering job loss and massive reduction in salary, is a current example of a segment of workers that has fallen on hard times and claim they are forgotten in today’s economy. Indeed they are.

As the months roll by, the issue of joblessness and especially the denial of the right to pursue happiness, success, etc., otherwise known as a raison d’êtra, will reach a breaking point where violence may be the proletariat’s only option.

The federal government has no choice even given polarized parties, wealth-driven politics and the cost of global warming, but to address joblessness which may be at a level commensurate with Venezuela today. The tax code, ensconced for generations as a capitalistic friend, must be dismantled in order to accommodate a very large portion of the US population.

Already in today’s democratic campaign for president, Andrew Yang has proposed a minimum income supported by taxes. A monthly distribution to citizens, especially those shut out of social participation, may be one way of preventing violence and stabilizing feelings of personal worth.

In a recent post mariner suggested that a new concept of having a job was to create a self-managed job. This is a job that a person assumes on their own for the good of their society. A pure example of this is a member of mariner’s family who has taken it on himself to improve the bare space around the base of trees along the sidewalk; he plants flowers and attractive greenery. He is satisfactorily employed but has taken on a role to improve his neighborhood. In the future, this approach to raison d’êtra will be a major way of defining work – and – it will need to be a source of income as well.

Another example is mariner’s neighbor who has chosen to maintain the gravel alley for his block. Again, income was not involved but, given the idea of a monthly distribution from the government, many otherwise unemployed citizens will find roles to play that will, mariner suspects, greatly improve the civility that is in short supply today.

If artificial intelligence and the corporations that control it are brought under control; if the tax structure shuts down abusive wealth and redistributes economic participation to the proletariat; if new job growth can be harnessed to deal with global warming; if international cooperation can be modified to support the economics of sustainability – maybe there will be some fun moments learning a new culture and new economics.

Ancient Mariner

 

Perceptions

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Mariner once heard a politician complain about the (liberal) New England states and that the fathers of our country should have just continued the forty-ninth parallel past the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean and left New England to Canada. This happened some fifteen or twenty years ago; even then mariner knew that the forty-ninth parallel crossed into the Atlantic at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River just south of Newfoundland. Self-perception, whether of one’s importance or one’s knowledge of facts, is not a good view of reality. A lesson for all of us; if we are to represent reality, it must be only after a fact check.

Mariner mentions this story because today perception, in whatever form it will take, has replaced reality in its entirety. One of the bad things about perception is that it is short lived. Whether the presumption was useful or not, it quickly becomes useless. It is difficult to step out of one’s perceptions and see reality. Often, one’s immediate perception distorts historical perspective or situational reality. Some examples:

֎ Often, citizens today interpret the US Constitution as if it were written for today’s Internet world and its rapid travel options and its ability to know what’s happening in Winner, South Dakota in seconds, but that perception wasn’t even in the fantasy world of politicians in 1789.

> The fathers of our nation, who suddenly had most of a large continent to manage and states that were suspicious of federal power and jealous of other states if they had more influence, had to manage the situation with nothing more than travel by horse carriage or letters carried in that same horse carriage. Further, enemy nations were present on the continent and wanted to control the new wealth to be had. Certainly the perceptions of today and the perceptions of 1789 are vastly different.

> A well-known perception is the right to bear arms. What else would the fathers recommend since there was no army large enough or transportable enough to police the continent? Authorize the citizenry to defend themselves. Mariner notes the use of the word ‘bear’ implying the right to fight rather than simply to ‘own.’ Over the eons of history, Congress should have recognized the dangers of allowing this militarily important measure to continue in the Constitution but it did not and today guns kill more people than cars or disease – disregarding the realities of 1789. Mariner will not prosecute this case here but wants to demonstrate clearly that perception is not reality.

> “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” is a well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence. The phrase gives three examples of the “unalienable rights” which the Declaration says have been given to all humans by their creator, and which governments are created to protect. Even as the document was created that ideological perception did not reflect reality: African Americans and Native Americans are humans, too. This is an example of how a perception can be deliberately applied knowing full well it is just a perception that would not hold up to a fact check.

֎ Perception is a cousin to prejudice. In many cases perception simply will be a misrepresentation of reality whereas prejudice has a vindictive side to it. Today, in this time of identity politics, prejudice helps its cousin more often than not.

> Donald’s base is a good example. The serious issue of wage suppression and disappearance of profit sharing began during the Reagan administration and has been sustained as a national economic policy by political conservatives, typically the Republican Party. The base, largely disgruntled democrats, perceived that their government had abandoned them; it was the “establishment” that was not protecting them. Given that Hillary had political baggage, did not campaign for the labor class, and proposed an uninspiring image of the future, she became a target of a perception (aided by prejudice) that defeating her would be vindication. They chose an outsider with no record to defend, and who spoke in vindictive terms.

If only the electorate would check the facts. Unfortunately, both news media and social media have no interest in facts, just market share.

Ancient Mariner

 

The First Face of America

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Mariner watched a PBS Nova broadcast about the oldest evidence of a Native American in the Americas.[1] All of Nova’s broadcasts are above average not only in reporting historical information but in providing insights into those moments. “The First Face of America” matched that quality.

Much of the broadcast displayed the effort and luck of a group of scientists exploring the lattice of caves underlying the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Today, these caves are underwater but 20,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age they were above sea level and dry. In fact, the Yucatan was exceptionally dry and early Americans often explored the caves looking for pools of water.

The great find was a complete skeleton of a sixteen-year old girl. Evidently she had entered a labyrinth in search of water and had fallen into a chasm. Carbon dating places her back 13,000 years and is the oldest evidence of humans in North and South America.

Most of us know the general story of how humans crossed over what today is the Bering Strait and followed the coast through Alaska into North America. During the ice age, the Bering Strait was a large, dry plain between Russia and Alaska. It was larger than many may assume – ranging more than a thousand miles North to South. It has been given a regional name, Beringia, because it was a busy, continuously moving place for nomadic tribes following herds and hunting opportunities. Constantly moving, they left little in the way of artifacts.

The skeleton provided a lot of implications about the life of a sixteen-year old girl in a nomadic culture 13,000 years ago. The scientists gave her the name Naia. Naia was 4 feet ten inches tall and led a rough life we today could not tolerate. There was evidence of damaging rape, and likely a stillborn child; she had bone damage on her limbs one of which was a spiral fracture, meaning someone had twisted her arm violently. Insightful to her lifestyle was that her thigh muscles at age 16 were as large as those of an adult male today – evidence of day-in, day-out walking and running; certainly evidence of a nomadic hunter culture.

Mariner ponders how complex society could have been not having a sense of place. These nomads were always moving to find the next meal. There was no expectation of something called ‘home’ – not even for one night! Did these nomads ever feel lost? Probably not but it’s certain there were other anxieties.

Remember this was 13,000 years ago on an undiscovered continent. Civilization as we understand it had not hit its stride; the earliest evidence of semi-permanent civilization outside Africa was on the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East around 15,000 years ago.

So how well have humans fared over the years? Civilization certainly has learned how to be complex but rape and violence still abide.

Ancient Mariner

[1] On PBS at https://www.pbs.org/video/first-face-of-america-m6dgpn/

The New Economics

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For the last post or two, mariner has been lamenting the human creature. A creature who foremost is selfish, then vain, grossly insufferable and narrow minded especially as seen by other creatures in the biosphere. There are more adjectives but the reader gets the point. If the reader is a human creature, do not discount one’s self; you are selfish, vain, grossly insufferable and narrow minded. Mariner speaks his mind in the name of his alter ego and mentor, the prophet Amos.
More abstractly, the societies that human creatures build are based on their inherent characteristics but formulated into a system of measure that illustrates their success at being human creatures. The measuring system is economics in its varying forms and philosophies. Very briefly but without jaundice, consider these behavioral definitions of various economic patterns:
Capitalism is parasitic. Profit is the end product of consumed biosphere – whether human or environmental. Profit is a visible measure of selfishness, vanity, oppressive behavior and narrow mindedness.
Socialism is less parasitic as long as defined territories guarantee that everyone is assured of being equally selfish, vain, grossly insufferable and narrow minded.
Communism is less parasitic in that it constrains the opportunity for just about everyone to be selfish, vain, grossly insufferable and narrow minded.
Corporatism is parasitic, a child of capitalism that has developed better skills at being selfish, vain, grossly insufferable and narrow minded.
There are other isms but by and large they are governmental variations applied to economics that promote selfishness, vanity, oppressive behavior and narrow mindedness. One thinks of authoritarianism, dictatorships, slavery, monarchies, militarism, plutocracy and oligarchy. Oh, about democracy: it’s a method of altering overly abusive practices between human creatures; it’s just like war but it takes several generations. Parasitic economics isn’t the focus.
Mariner is sorry to be redundant but again he references the Native American societies that existed for thousands of years across the North American continent – until white man appeared. The Indians may not be any less vain, selfish, etc. than white people but they had not mastered Mother Nature. Indians had not learned how to be parasites. As human creatures they still were bound by a quid pro quo with their ecosystem. What was their economic philosophy? Sustainability.
The tribal hunters were the ‘capitalists’ except that the profits taken from the environment were not owned by the hunters; the ‘gross domestic product’, if you will, was distributed to the entire tribe (That is not true today in white man’s world).The primary requirement was sustainability – not profit or possession or any of the other human creature adjectives. Indians could not dominate their environment; rather they had to survive within the constraints of their quid pro quo agreement. The first order of economic importance was sustaining the ecosystem. The Native American economic model worked for thousands of years. Dependence on the ecosystem held a cap on abusive selfishness, vanity, oppressive behavior and narrow mindedness, AKA parasitic behavior.
– – – –
Today, just a few decades past Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, the planet itself has bought a seat at the economics table. New issues that aren’t focused on the human creature adjectives have come into play. Things like global warming, overpopulation, disappearing agriculture, scarcity of minerals and critical chemicals, depth of ecological sustainability, global extinction of important plants and animals and the chemistry of survivability itself.
Whether human creatures want to or not, it is time to settle with Mother Nature. The combination of parasitic behavior, planetary cycles, and shifting biosphere dependencies all will have serious impact on human creatures in the near future and in the far future.
The new rule for human economics is not parasitic behavior. It is sustainability as a member of the biosphere. Sustainability has no room for parasites.
Ancient Mariner