Will Of The People - Chapter 5

Capitalism: A Rampant Virus of Consumption

“A way of life that bases itself on materialism, on permanent limitless expansionism in a finite environment, cannot last long, and its life expectation is the shorter the more successfully it pursues its expansionist objectives.”

- E. F. Schumacher



Part 1 – An Ever-Accelerating Runaway Bus Headed For Oblivion

It is surprising to note that Capitalism and Socialism have certain similarities. Both of these philosophies have much merit when viewed in microcosm, but quickly become unwieldy and preposterous when applied on a larger scale. For a small tribe of people numbering perhaps 100 individuals, collective cooperation and ownership of some of the tribe’s resources can be seen as an advanced and equitable method of organization. Indeed, this is surely a more advanced culture than that of a tribe who divide up all their resources into unequal private parcels, and where each member is on guard against the trespasses of his neighbors. Such a culture seems quite backwards and even paranoid, and certainly less efficient. But we know that as the collectivist tribe grows to thousands or millions of individuals, all of these advantages disappear and the system becomes unwieldy due to the impossibly large logistical tasks it faces. As the tribe grows, the people within it are progressively homogenized and impoverished by the sheer weight of the bureaucracy needed to control them and their activities.

As with Socialism, population growth turns Capitalism from a reasonable paradigm into a prescription for disaster, but somewhat differently. Capitalism seems somewhat absurd for a tribe of about 100 people, but as the population grows to a few hundred or thousand, it begins to make far more sense than Socialism. When towns and cities are formed, the bedrock of human civilization, the people no longer all know each other as friends or relatives. This lack of familiarity makes common ownership much more precarious because people will become more contentious about sharing with strangers, especially in times of adversity. These contentions will erupt into factional violence during times of stress. And so we can see that collectivism will cause more violence, instability, and inefficiency at these population levels than Capitalism will.

But as the population grows further into the tens or hundreds of thousands, Capitalism too begins to suffer a logical breakdown. Because the fundamental resources of a community are finite[1], and only a small finite number of people can own all these resources, the additional population there exists only as superfluous people devoid of any power. These people exist for no other reason than to labor for and consume the products and services of the few who own everything, and as such can be thought of as a kind of human livestock herd for the wealthy. Because of this, those who have sufficient assets or skills will move to newer, incompletely monopolized communities, where they can practice Capitalism so as to become among the wealthy elite themselves.

We can see that this leaves a dearth within the original community. Now that the enterprising and capable people have gone to form their own, newer communities, only the feckless poor are left behind. Even the old land owners probably live elsewhere, in better communities. And with this exodus of the semi-wealthy capable people, these owners make less profit from their holdings. They have fewer customers now, and those that remain in this old community have less money to spend. Thus, these once-valuable assets begin to die.

On the other side of the equation, in the new town set up by the capable people, we can see that they quickly prosper and again will eventually own all the basic resources of the new town. As the population of the new town continues to grow, the exact same thing will happen as occurred in the old town. This, in turn, will cause a new crop of capable people to move away once again to set up an even newer town for themselves.

And so the beginning stages of this process are not too onerous, and we can even say that a kind of natural selection is occurring among the people. Those who are the most skilled and industrious strike out into new lands where they build their new fortunes, while the inept stay behind as virtual chattel, serving the needs of the older crop of capable people. In real life, of course, it is nowhere near this morally clear and fair what actually occurs. But the idealized model does have a certain ring of justice and propriety to it, even if it also is a bit harsh.

But as time goes by, when virgin lands and resources become scarce, each subsequent iteration of this process yields worse and worse results. And as the population continues to increase, competition grows exponentially for those few assets and resources that remain.[2]



Capitalism is a Mindless Wildfire

“Capitalism subjects any individual capitalist to the immanent laws of capitalist production, laws which are external and coercive. Without respite, competition forces him to extend his capital for the sake of maintaining it.”

- Karl Marx


In this way, Capitalism can be likened to a consuming fire that spreads outwards in every direction, and that is fanned ever hotter by increasing population. And just like a fire, it must find new resources to burn and consume or it will quickly die. In its wake, it leaves only a blighted landscape of consumed resources and people, like the charred remains of a forest fire.

This would not be such a problem except for one fact: The World Is Not Infinite! Capitalism needs an infinite amount of resources or it will eventually burn them all up and die. And complicating this danger is that Capitalist economies need to burn progressively hotter each day or a recession or depression will ensue, impoverishing many. If we were just talking about this being a threat to Capitalism as a philosophy, that would be bad enough. The death of Capitalism would shock the world to such an extent that mass misery and poverty would surely follow. But the danger is even greater than this. Capitalism burns and consumes the resources needed for any government and for long-term human survival, itself. And since it seeks to always burn hotter, it does not use these finite resources in a prudent and realistic manner. Instead, it seeks to explosively consume them as fast as possible! Indeed, the faster the resources are being sold and consumed, the wealthier everybody in the society becomes and the better the economy is said to be performing.

“America's resources seemed inexhaustible [in 1500] … However, the existence of the new lands encouraged an attitude not unlike that of Alice's Mad Tea party. When the tea and cakes were exhausted at one seat, the natural thing … was to move on and occupy the next seat. … As time passed, the tea table of the Americas had proved not to be inexhaustible … What many of us fail to realize is that the last four hundred years are a highly special period in the history of the world. … This is partly the result of increased communication, but also of an increased mastery of nature which, on a limited planet like the earth, may prove in the long run to be an increased slavery to nature.”

- Norbert Wiener



Making Gold from Ashes – The Next Phase

In time, much of the virgin resources of the Earth become consumed, and so it becomes necessary to find a way to make more money from the fields that have already been wasted and burned. These barren places may no longer contain gold or timber or fertile soil, but they still are valuable simply because they offer physical space for people to live and work. But these cannot be truly valuable without a high demand for living space. In this way, simply to increase the value of otherwise useless land, we can see that Capitalism encourages population growth.

In years past, even only 100 years ago in America, a man did not have to own property or pay rent at all if he had sufficient skills. He could simply travel to a place where no one else lived and eek out a modest living from his natural surroundings.[3] While many were not hardy enough for such independence, it is important to note that the option was available and did occur. But in today’s world, every square inch of our planet is known and owned by some individual, corporation, or government. There is no free space anywhere upon our world, excepting some desolate regions of Third World countries where life is impossible for other than the indigenous people. For all practical purposes, the entire planet is an owned thing, and so every person must pay either for rent or to purchase just a simple physical space in which to live.

This is an astonishing fact, and one that would frighten and confuse many people from previous centuries. The notion that it costs money just to physically exist, no matter where you may go or how little you may impact those people around you, completely independent of your needs for food and water, is a completely foreign concept for humanity before modern times. This condition could not occur without a high human population.

And so we can see that if the owners of land that has previously had its resources consumed wish to continue to make an income from these wasted lands, they must encourage humanity to breed abundantly so as to increase the demand for simple living space. And now that they have been successful in making our population so high as to enable us to discover all land and parcel it out to finite owners, they have created a global monopoly on a basic essential of life that was never monopolized before.

What has been done is akin to a likely future change where we can expect to be forced to pay for our consumption of breathable air, and pay a waste charge for our dumping exhaled carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The reasons why we don’t pay for air today is that the population is not yet large enough to create a measurable impact upon the atmosphere through simple respiration, and there is no means yet of determining the title of ownership for the air. But both of these conditions will likely change.

As the population grows further, it will expand into more forest regions, depleting the planet’s natural oxygen generators and carbon dioxide scrubbers. In the oceans, pollution and other causes will reduce the amount of phyto-plankton. These losses, combined with the increase in total human respiration and industry, will likely create a noticeable decay in the gas quality of our air. People will then have an incentive to buy auxiliary supplies of oxygen for their homes, offices, and even vehicles, releasing it slowly into their HVAC and heating systems to supplement the depleted ambient air. The outside air in wilderness areas with abundant vegetation will likely be nearly normal, but in the cities there will be a significant reduction in gas quality. This should not be so severe as to be dangerous or lethal, at least for some time, but those without additional oxygen will have greater mental confusion, muscle weakness, and frequent headaches. Thus, a market will be created for a previously free and abundant resource.

The title of the air will likely be determined to be owned by each country’s government, in proportion to either their land area or population.[4] And so this will set up the justification of charging each person a waste-disposal tax for their exhaled carbon dioxide output. After all, if the government can charge individuals and companies a fee for toxic waste disposal, and can regulate the unfettered release of the same, it is a simple incremental step to do the same for exhaled carbon dioxide.

A future industry, one that truly exemplifies the process of turning ashes into gold, will be the oxygen industry. Manufacturing plants will be created where hydrogen-powered electricity generators will be used for electrolysis. Water will be consumed to create oxygen and hydrogen, with the hydrogen being used as the primary fuel to power the generators. This will likely consume a great deal of water, making water scarcer and more valuable. The astute reader can see where this will lead – yet another nearly-free basic resource of life will become transformed into a valuable commodity, all due to population growth within a capitalist environment.

And so we can see that the very Earth, something historically virtually free to all and part of the eternal commonwealth of our species, has been turned into a valuable commodity by the growth of our population beyond prudent bounds in serving the cause of Capitalism. And while land has been owned and fought over since the dawn of time, it has usually been the case that the resources the land contains or its strategic potential, and not the actual physical space itself, have been the true value of the land and the basis of ownership of it. In modern times, land is valuable simply because it occupies a physical space wherein people may exist. Resource-rich lands are still valued for their resources, but all other land is now valuable simply because it can support the footsteps of humans.

In ancient times, many indeed were forced to pay for living space in cities, and were forced by their poverty to remain thus. Other wealthier people often preferred the urban life, or had economic interests that required then to stay and pay rent or purchase their property. But there always was the option for many that if they wished to live unencumbered by others, that they could simply strike out into the great unknown lands of our world and seek their home and fortune. There was no planet-wide monopoly on living space. Indeed, many cultures existed as nomads where the notion of permanent, discrete property ownership was unknown. These were not all weak tribes of wanderers and traders, wielding no military or political power, but often included major world powers of their day such as the Huns and Mongols.

But Capitalism has sparked such a firestorm of population growth and resource depletion that life in the modern world is such that virtually every person is an economic serf of the owners of Earth. If our population was only perhaps 500 Million to 1 Billion people, there would be far less economic value to owning resource-depleted lands everywhere except in major cities. In outlying areas, people would not pay 20-40% of their monthly income for the privilege of simply existing in a particular place. Many would simply walk away, outward into the great unsettled areas and pay no one. And even if these lands were all known and owned by somebody, the sheer size of all the empty lands, the lack of population density of the ‘squatters’ upon these lands, and the impossibility of patrolling all these unsettled areas, would make enforcement of this ownership both impossible and unprofitable.

Alas, our modern world is so crowded that this option is gone, and a heretofore eternal basic human freedom has been destroyed to serve the purposes of Capitalism.[5] And as our world becomes more and more crowded, the relative costs of land and rent will only increase. In time, many will pay 60-80% of their income on rent, for we know that as the demand for any product or service rises, so does its cost. And so the future holds nothing but greater misery for all who do not own land, unless a means can found to roll back our population to a level that breaks the monopoly on living space that presently exists. Many would suggest that Capitalism itself should be abolished, and that this would solve the problem. But as we have already seen, Socialism cannot work either with population anywhere near this high.

There is no system of government that preserves human freedom that can operate in conditions of high population, and this is because freedom itself requires space to exist. It is an intrinsically spacious concept. The only solution to all of these problems is population reduction. And since we most certainly will be forced to address this in the future, just to maintain life upon our planet, shouldn’t we take up the challenge today when conditions are not yet quite so dire?



The Economies of Scale – Growing Humans for Fun and Profit

I have previously stated that Capitalism creates a condition where only a few own everything and where the remaining people exist only as a kind of human livestock herd for the wealthy. This can be illustrated by looking at a single consumer product: Toilet paper.

Toilet paper is not a product that ever inspired anybody to artistic or intellectual achievement and advancement. It spawns no symphonies, nor serves as a bolt of inspiration for any technological leap. It is, in the grand scheme of things, an irrelevant human creation because it does nothing in itself to advance the state of human civilization. It is a highly functional product, to be sure. And it does help with maintaining human sanitation and hygiene, without which advances in civilization are impaired. But unlike computer microprocessors, aerospace engineering, pharmaceuticals, and machine tools, TP does nothing directly to push human civilization to higher degrees of power and refinement. Unlike these industries, one does not get into the TP business out of a burning passion for the product or out of a feeling of being a pioneer, pushing humanity to the next level. There is no wonder, mystery, or adventure in the day-to-day activities of a TP mogul. It is, on a philosophical level, a truly pointless business.

But Capitalism doesn’t care about any of this. Instead of ensuring that the bulk of human labor is expended upon tasks that push humanity forward, or at least as much as is possible while maintaining all the other logistical functions of life; Capitalism instead ensures that the bulk of human labor is expended upon merely profitable tasks, whether they have any actual value to our species or not. And TP is a profitable business as long as you can sell enough of it.

It is also a much simpler business than CPUs because the product requires little research or proprietary knowledge to create, and because every human needs it simply by virtue of their biology. An easy-to-create product that everybody needs to buy is the ultimate Capitalist dream.

In the TP business, as in many others, the only way to make great profits is to sell your product to a vast number of people. If we imagine that there is a 10-cent profit margin on every roll of TP, we can see that we need to sell 10 Million rolls per year to make $1 Million per year profit. Let us imagine that 1 TP factory can produce this many rolls per year.[6] After operating at this production level for a time, it becomes obvious that we could make twice as much money if we could own and operate 2 such factories instead of just one. But there are possible problems here.

First of all, we need to ensure that there are enough customers out there to actually buy all 20 million rolls per year. Without this, we will over-produce the market and create a surplus which will drive down our profit margin, making out expansion much less profitable. In addition, we need to find a whole additional crew of skilled and unskilled employees to operate our new factory. If these are not similarly abundant, wages will rise due to scarcity of labor and our providing this new increased demand. This will reduce our profit margin, making our expansion less profitable or possibly even a waste of time.

Happily for the Capitalists, the answer to both of these problems is the same simple solution: Promote increased population. With twice as many people living in our community, we can sell twice as much product (at full price) and employ twice as many people without any increase in wages. In this situation of increased population, the consumer pays exactly the same price for the product, the worker earns exactly the same wages, but the Capitalist owners make twice as much income.[7]

So, if the Capitalists can get their herd of human consumers/workers to reproduce and double, they will make twice as much profit without upsetting the dynamics of the situation at all! Neither the workers nor the consumers become any more powerful because their very reproduction is diluting their power. If they kept their numbers low, consumers could bring price pressures against the company (due to low demand) and workers could obtain wage and benefit concessions from the company (due to scarcity of labor). But not only is this not happening, the reverse power trend is occurring because the Capitalist owners are becoming even wealthier than they were before. With this additional excess wealth, they can now buy more political influence which will further protect their interests from the possible future actions of consumers or workers, and will give them protection from taxation as tax codes are modified with additional complex loopholes. And so as time goes on, and this process is doubled and redoubled over again, the masses breed themselves into progressively weaker conditions of economic and political power, while the Capitalists exalt their power and wealth with each new birth.

If this isn’t agriculture, or ranching if you prefer, I don’t know what it is. The Capitalists are ‘growing’ people just to enrich themselves, almost like a cattle rancher does with his cattle.

This condition has grown to such huge proportions that Capitalists are expanding progressively into global marketing and distribution. The consumers of America and Europe have been mostly saturated with basic products, and so it is necessary to find a new source of people to add to the herd of consumer/workers. This makes China, India, and Third World nations all fertile ground for selling basic products like TP to an even larger herd of humans. As new markets open up overseas, it becomes profitable to also move production facilities overseas as well, since this makes distribution less costly and the Capitalists can pay far less for wages to these recently destitute peoples. Consume, Burn, and Move On to the next unburned field; the way of the locust is the credo of Capitalism. And this process has progressed to the point where we have burned up every field within our own nation, all similar adjacent nations (like Canada), and we must needs go far into foreign regions just to find fresh fuel for our Capitalist flames.

This creates a huge potential for future danger, as we become deeply economically entangled with nations whose political and military agendas are opposed to ours, such as China. It is possible that China could obtain, and is now obtaining, strategic advantages versus us that we would never relinquish to them were it not for our investiture in their sovereign land and peoples. Indeed, if some great military crisis were to occur between our nations, and all trading ties were severed, America would likely suffer a major recession or depression simply because such a vast amount of our herd of consumer/workers are Chinese, and an enormous capital investiture of production facilities and inventory lies within their borders.

Because this is well known to the Capitalists, they will mortgage the security of our nation and our future economic standing in the world just to pacify the Chinese a little longer so as to reap today’s easy enrichment. They mollify their consciences by telling themselves that the sheer force of Capitalism will eventually subvert the Chinese Communist government, as it had in the Soviet Union, and so the danger will ultimately be eliminated.

But I must ask, exactly who is subverting whom? I believe that the Chinese are well aware of this intention, and have seen the example of its effect in Russia. It is far more likely that the Chinese are using our ready capital and free trade to simply fast-track themselves into becoming a rich and vibrant superpower that can eclipse America in both economic and military might. When they determine that they no longer need us for further enrichment, they will likely take precipitous military action against Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and other nations in the western pacific region. Our response will be slow and measured, because our democratic control structures are inherently slower than theirs, and because we will be truly afraid of losing our now-essential economic ties with them. Almost overnight, the Chinese will present to the world a fait-accompli of conquest that no nation will have the power to reverse, not even America.

When we combine this with the fact that the Chinese have no problem at all in taking huge casualties in war, especially as they seek a lower population for their nation; and America is always casualty-averse, and is especially so now after the botched prosecution of the Iraq war has soured the American tolerance for casualties to even lower than normal levels; we can see that America will likely not have the stomach to oppose Chinese expansion with anything more than feckless complaints in the United Nations.

These will accomplish nothing, since the Chinese will have become the strongest nation on Earth, both in actual power and in the willingness to use it unrestrainedly. In time, this trend will escalate until the Chinese may become unstoppably strong, when they will come after us.

Even if these specific events don’t occur, notice how the intentions of Capitalism care nothing for our national security or for the welfare of our people. The only thing that matters is the moving on to fresh lands and peoples for consumption. In this way the paradigm of Capitalism is just the same as a drug addict seeking out his next fix. All other moral or logical considerations go out the window – the only thing that matters is getting that next fix to consume.

God Money's not looking for the cure.
God Money's not concerned about the sick among the pure.
God Money lets go dancing on the backs of the bruised.
God Money's not one to choose.

- Trent Reznor


This is further demonstrated by looking at the stock market in modern times. Oftentimes we see a significant increase in stock prices when some bad economic news appears. A rational market would fall in response to a decay in economic fundamentals. But modern markets rise because they expect the bad news will cause the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates to offset the economic problem. Thus, they are entirely fixated upon getting this new fix of cheaper credit, and they ignore the long-term realities occurring around them. ‘Who cares if the economy is in bad shape? As long as we get our fix of cheap credit today we don’t care what happens tomorrow’ is their attitude. This situation has created an artificial and groundless bubble in stock prices, and it is perpetuated by the fact that everybody is buying into the same delusion. But eventually, either we will lower interest rates to a point where they can go no further, or the fundamentals will erode still further, causing the bubble to burst and mass panic to ensue.

If we follow this compulsive, deluded, and twitchy philosophy without some moderating restrictions, surely only destruction is our fate. And while we have always thought of Capitalism as promoting strength, this is only applicable when applied to certain ranges of populations. Capitalism, at this population level, is not intrinsically strong. This is because it doesn’t put people to work on tasks that actually create advancement and strength, only profit. Having millions of people employed and working each day at creating and selling TP, cookies, soft drinks, and potato chips does nothing at all to make our nation more militarily secure or perpetually prosperous. The paper assets we glean from these commercial activities have value only in times of tranquility. As soon as war or other economic shocks appear, all of these transitory assets lose value and may even become nearly worthless.

If we were to suddenly find ourselves under attack and needing more armaments, will the paper assets from businesses like snack food sales do anything to help in our defense? No! Other nations do not have many surplus weapons to sell us (other than the ones who might attack us). Indeed, it has historically been the United States who has sold surplus weapons to allies such as Britain and Russia to help them in their fights, not the other way around. But if we, as in times past, put our wealth into harder assets such as steel mills, auto factories, textile factories, and infrastructure improvements; these assets reap benefits in times of war and peace. Capitalism won’t follow this prudent course because these economic activities have become less profitable than making Oreos and Doritos.



Feeding the Beast – The Destructive Consumption of Labor and Resources

Aside from the two previous themes I have explained in this section (the exploitation and breeding of the human herd, and the perils of global economic expansion while pursuing even larger herds), there is another more intrinsically philosophical objection to Capitalism’s practices. With Capitalism at this population level, almost the whole of humanity work to feed a beast that has no purpose in existing, and whose existence only destroys the assets upon our world and our chances for long-term survival.

How many Starbucks do we need to have on this planet? How many McDonald’s do we need? The only reason that there are thousands of these stores is that there are sufficient people to keep them all in business. And yet we would not lose anything of cultural value in having half as many people and half as many McDonald’s. The unique experience of McDonald’s would not be lost at all. So why do we have thousands more people working there and untold food resources consumed at these additional stores? Simply because they exist. And they exist simply because we exist so abundantly. There is no higher purpose being served, and the outcome of this state is only one of consumption of resources and destruction of our world.

With this, we can see that the modern working person likely expends all his professional energies upon serving a population that has no intrinsic value in existing. This makes his entire life work essentially useless and void. What I am saying is that there is no cultural, genetic, or other need for humanity to have 6+ Billion members. We would exist with all our racial and cultural diversity just as abundantly with 50% of these numbers, and likely even much lower numbers. So what is the point of chopping down 100 billion trees to house our numbers if we could live just as dynamically and diversely with half our numbers and thus save 50 billion trees? Why raise and slaughter 200 billion cattle when life would be just as good for humanity (actually better) with us just consuming 100 billion cattle? Indeed, by saving the 50 billion trees and 100 billion cattle, our environment would be much healthier, making life for everybody much better as well. The only thing that would be harmed by lower population levels, other than the grip of power of democracy, socialism, and religion, is the profits of the Capitalists. But as we can see, they made plenty of money back when our population actually was 3 Billion people. Why do they need to make twice as much at our expense and at the expense of the planet?

Our species is expending its entire efforts upon the sole purpose of expanding like a virus, and this is in great measure the fault of Capitalism which has a similar intention. We don’t actually advance our knowledge and culture very much. We just build houses for people who need not exist, grow food to feed mouths that need not exist, treat illnesses in patients who need not exist, police streets in towns that need not exist, fly aircraft for travelers who need not exist, and do similarly pointless things ad infinitum.

This fact has nothing to do with the intrinsic worth of each person. We value each dog and cat that we include into our families as a loved member of our family, and each animal has its own unique and valuable personality. But notwithstanding this, we still can see that too much of a good thing can sometimes be insane. Just because we love our cats and dogs, and each of them is worthy of love and a happy home, this does not mean that it is acceptable to have dozens or scores of animals in our homes. Unless we live on a farm or ranch where there is ample room, having so many pets isn’t an exercise in greater love, but a sign of unreasonable excess, and a lack of necessary restraint.

The same reasoning applies to the human family upon our planet. Just because each person has a singularly unique personality and is deserving of love and comfort, this is not a license for us to populate our world beyond prudent limits. Indeed, just as a home with too many pets, life in such crowded conditions is intrinsically unfair and problematic for those whom we seek to love and support.



Part 2 - The Advance of The Nothing: Turning Art into Product

In modern America, we have a grave cultural crisis underway that is driven by the modern implementation of Capitalism. Because the basic resources have all been expended, and even the secondary economic activities like heavy industry have largely moved overseas to fresher areas, the modern focus has shifted increasingly towards entertainment.

Everything is becoming entertainment. Most of the food that Americans eat today isn’t really food as much as it is entertainment. Chips, cookies, crackers, soft drinks, ice cream, pizza, beer, and all the various types of fast food are hardly optimal sources of nutrition, but they are pleasant and fun to consume. And these are all marketed in way that stress the taste, or experience of the product rather than its actual performance as a source of nutrition – the actual true purpose of food. Food products that actually are nutritious aren’t marketed as food as much as they are health care products, to correct physical problems or ward off future disease. Or alternately, they are marketed as supplements to assist athletes or others seeking superlative physical performance, or those dieters seeking to lose weight.

I am not a liberal so I do not think we should ban these unhealthy pseudo-foods. But I am concerned about the way that essential elements of human life are being transformed from their rightful place into a carnival-style world of constant fleeting stimulation providing no real substance. This trend is being driven by the forces of Capitalism that seek to create a culture where it is normal and desirable to constantly purchase things of no real utility, and for us to continually want more of it. And if we want food that is truly useful for us, we are made to feel that we are exceptional-minded, health-conscious people who aren’t really seeking to pay for simple food, but should rightly pay more for these ‘health care devices’ we desire.

A great deal of blame for this problem falls upon the Feminists, who told a generation of girls and women that domestic work is unimportant, menial, and a form of oppression thrust upon them by men. Time has borne out the real truth that most of the work done by both men and women outside the home actually is unimportant, menial, and oppressive. Pushing papers around, answering phone calls, and serving customers and clients may pay the bills, but it is hardly a more noble existence than that of a woman who manages a household skillfully for the benefit of her family.

Before the Feminist Revolution, most men could earn enough to support their whole families. Now, because women have flooded into the workplace and increased the supply of labor, real wages have dropped versus costs so much that both parents need to work full time to provide the same real wages that men alone used to earn. Exactly how is this ‘liberating’?

This has affected far more than wages. In times past, the complex and labor-intensive task of preparing healthy meals from basic foodstuffs was done mostly by the women of our society – a civilized specialization of labor that followed humanity’s overall biologically-indicated tendencies and capabilities. Women’s superior small-motor coordination, multitasking ability, senses of smell and taste, and more pronounced natural desire to nurture made them far more skilled at domestic tasks than men. Likewise, men’s superior physical capacities, enhanced ability to labor in adverse weather, and greater aggressive tendencies made them superiorly adapted by nature to work outside the home.

But now with the unnatural wholesale abandonment of domestic labor by women, nobody has the time to do these things consistently anymore and so we are left with this situation wherein eating real food is an occasional luxury. This has created our current situation where food is produced and marketed (because we don’t have time to make our own) to emphasize its convenience, tastiness, and entertainment value. And an even more problematic result of this domestic abandonment is that we no longer have anybody primarily tasked to actually raise our children. Today, they grow up under only haphazard guidance, when we have time to get around to it. The wise reader can clearly see the many problems this causes our society, and how it imperils our very future.

This unbalanced home/work labor situation has resulted in not only huge increases in obesity and the various diseases resulting from poor/synthetic diets, but also in a philosophical shift away from a realistic view of our lives and our place in the world. We wrongly consider ourselves to be detached from nature because we no longer see it either as the source of our food or as any guide for our division of labor.

A woman who can be a fighter pilot should be a fighter pilot. If she can pass all the same tests as the men do and can demonstrate the same fitness and skill, it would be illogical to exclude her from this job. We need talented and qualified fighter pilots, and I really don’t care whether the person in the cockpit is a man or woman as long as they can execute their missions for us successfully.

But most girls, naturally, don’t want to become fighter pilots, or firefighters, or corporate executives. They just have been told from the time they were in kindergarten that they should want to be these things, and wanting to be a mother/homemaker is stupid. Indeed, wanting even any kind of sane womanly balance between control and submissiveness is said to be stupid. Softness is stupid – be hard. Submissiveness is weakness – be dominant. Gentleness is stupid – be rough. Play with they boys and play to win against them. Do not accommodate them or strive for symbiosis – dominate them! And use men’s own lack of willingness to fully compete with women as they would with a man as a weapon against them.

In modern times, because of Feminist influences, we have taught our women to not be feminine and instead required this of our men. Feminism[8] has taught us that femininity is weakness, and that women should strive to dominate men instead of learning to live symbiotically with them. In this, we have abandoned much of the beauty and harmony of life that is our natural right. We have seen the injustices of the past perpetrated against women, and have gone far beyond merely correcting things. We have striven to erase the natural balance between Yin and Yang, Within and Without, and Female and Male.

These little girls (and boys) have been indoctrinated by people and ideals born in a time when women were improperly limited in the scope and options for their lives. But these conditions no longer exist. And should any injustice be found afflicting any person, man or woman, that is a concern of basic social justice, not Feminism. Today, it is men who are considered to be the undesirable gender. Men are thought to be crude and stupid and dangerous. These feminists, in their zeal to undercut masculine power, have established a fanatical doctrine where all the traditional skills and tendencies of women are considered to be weak and foolish. They are trying to turn all little girls into dominant creatures most of whom were never born to become thus, or who have any natural talent for so being. Their own fear has caused them to no longer recognize their own inherent feminine beauty and strength, which is rarely expressed through displays of dominance. A woman need not be in control to be strong.

And so the Capitalists, with the unwitting help of the Feminists, have succeeded in adding the women of America into their working herd, which has reduced wages and created and expanded new markets for all kinds of pseudo-food that didn’t exist before. The only people who have benefited from all of this are the Capitalists themselves. Capitalism doesn't care if this causes our children to grow up as weeds, if we develop diseases due to poor diet, or if our home lives are perpetually chaotic and stressed. Profit is the only consideration.

“The advertising industry… encourages the pseudo-emancipation of women, flattering them with its insinuating reminder, ‘You’ve come a long way, baby’ [the ad slogan for Virginia Slims cigarettes], and disguising the freedom to consume as genuine autonomy.”

- Christopher Lasch



Erasure by Redefinition – The Assault upon Music

I love music. Music is the most emotionally powerful art form. Because I love it so much, I have very distinct tastes in what I like and don’t like. And while these preferences cover a wide range of styles, from Pink Floyd to Prokofiev, I enjoy only specific subsets of these styles and not their entire spectrum.

To me, this makes sense. When I hear somebody say that they love all kinds of music, I feel that what this actually means is that they really don’t love or feel passionately about any music because they don’t really understand the art itself, and that their claim to loving all music is just an advertisement of supposed broadmindedness meant to impress or please others. To me, a greater specificity of preference and taste is required in one who actually comprehends any true art. Because I truly love music so much, I have higher expectations of what I hear and value only those pieces that provoke great emotional responses in me. Other pieces that leave me emotionally unimpressed strike me as false affectations of emotion, performed by those who are pretending to be that which they are not, or those who have no real emotional potency. Or, I can hear the real validity of expression in a piece that still doesn’t appeal to my specific tastes. These latter pieces I respect as Art for which I simply have no attraction, while the former I disdain as blasphemies against music itself.

Music to me is a holy thing, a conduit of pure emotion that exists in no other form. When intrinsically non-emotional or falsely-emotional, melodramatic sounds are offered up to the world as music, I feel offended by what I feel is the misuse of the art itself. And when I see people preferring such pieces[9], I feel that the public is being corrupted by the superficial elements surrounding these songs, and progressively losing touch with the true intent and meaning of music itself.

The physical attractiveness or sexiness of the performers has nothing to do with music. The lifestyles of these people, those they associate with, and the causes they support have nothing to do with music. Their ability to dance has nothing to do with music, nor does their wealth, gritty origins, or supposedly ‘evil’ affiliations. The vocal range and acrobatic vocal abilities of singers, by themselves, have nothing to do with music. The speed at which a guitarist or other musician can play, by itself, has nothing to do with music. The modernity or fashionableness of appearance or sounds musicians employ has nothing to do with music.

And yet these are the primary factors which are valued in modern musicians. Some would say that this has always been the case, and to a degree this is indeed true. But it is obvious to me that whereas these factors were always a part of being a musician in times past, today these constitute the overwhelming majority of skills needed for success as a musician. Britney Spears and Ann Wilson have nothing in common other than they both know how to use a microphone and both make pitched sounds from their mouths.

Spears doesn’t sing with any kind of natural voice, but instead artificially constricts or pinches her voice to give it a more gritty or intense effect. This falls flat though because there is no real power behind the sound, and all her additional enunciation effects either preceding or trailing her lyrics sound very contrived and juvenile. Add to this the fact that her voice is recorded with massive compression, subtle pitch clarification, and additional short-delay compressed reverb and chorusing effects to thicken up her boney little voice, and we can see that the recorded Spears doesn’t even really sound like the actual girl.

Wilson sings will all the hypnotic intensity of an entranced moon-maiden celebrating the summer solstice festival on a balmy moonlit night. Her voice is powerful and authentic, and pierces deeply into your soul. It is nuanced, alternately caressing your ears with delicacy and vulnerability, and then brazenly calling you to account and notice as she blasts forth incomprehensible power. All of the vocal devices she employs actually serve the intent of the song, and increase the listener’s understanding of the intended emotions. They are neither contrived nor silly like Spears’. And while all modern vocals are recorded with some compression and reverb enhancements, these are done primarily on songs like ‘Barracuda’ to compensate for the artificial environment of the recording studio and to cast the voice into a natural-sounding performance space. There is no crushing compression on Wilson’s voice, leaving plenty of room for her impressive dynamic range. There are no pitch modifications or cleanups; she would likely slap the engineer who proposed such to her! And there is no attempt to thicken her voice into an almost instrumental-like timbre, as her voice is fully voluptuous au naturale.

The music of Spears’ songs is very homogenous, mechanistic, and otherwise remarkably bland. And my objections here are not based upon any dislike of technological music or synthesizers. I have owned and played synthesizers, among other instruments, and they can be used for incredibly emotional music. I also like some kinds of Techno music, so a repetitive steady beat and rhythmic emphasis upon it are not the problem. No, the problem with her music is that it sounds like it came from some kind of vending machine – you put the coins in and the machine starts whirring relentlessly and pointlessly. It is like those coin-operated kiddie rides of horseys or spaceships that used to be found by the door to supermarkets and Kmarts. Her music exists just to give her an excuse to sing, and her singing is just an excuse for her to dance, be beautiful, and thus be rich and famous.

In her day, Ann Wilson was also a beauty, but this fact is completely inconsequential to her music. The music of Heart, especially from the years before the great transformation, when music was increasingly forced to abandon art and become product (the mid ‘80s), exists as a unique artistic expression. And while Heart was never considered a ‘progressive’ band like Pink Floyd or Rush, they nonetheless found many opportunities for true creativity in both their songwriting and their instrumentation.

The overall sound of Heart has not existed in any other place other than from them, even independent of Wilson’s unique signature voice. There is much to fix the listener’s attention in these songs other than the primary voice. Variations of rhythm, harmonies clever and apt, and instrumental forays of great passion please the listener just as much as Wilson’s voice. The music exists to serve its own purpose, not as an excuse for something else or to curry favor with the masses. It is ART, not PRODUCT. If this art pleases enough of the masses so as to be commercially valuable, so much the better, but the original intention of art is expression and release, not pleasing anybody.

One who seeks to express something of value, that which may or may not be understood by others but needs expression all the same, is an artist, even if such expressions ultimately result in fame and fortune. One who seeks to be liked and adored (or to encourage sales) in the performance of some display is an entertainer, a purveyor of products - not an artist.[10] And while entertainment can be quite worthwhile in itself, and there is no need for great profundity all the time when just fun and levity are called for, problems can occur when the line between these two is blurred.

We must recognize that art is one of the quintessentially noble creations of humanity. It is fully one-half (along with science/technology) of the sum of achievements of human civilization. Like science, it is remembered and successively built upon by each generation. It is eternal, and is one of the few things that define our species. It must be preserved if we are to also preserve human civilization.

As we have seen in our comparison of Britney Spears and Ann Wilson, and when we consider many similar musicians of today and 30 years ago, we can see that there is a strong trend visible where art is progressively being removed from our popular culture and is being replaced by entertainment. Examining the popular music of today and 30 years ago with the detached objectivity of a musicologist, it is readily apparent that art in modern popular music is rapidly being turned into an anachronism. True artistic sensibilities themselves are seen as virtually nonsensical, while the concepts of the artist and his art are being redefined as those attributes most properly associated with entertainers and entertainment.

Today’s popular music is far more dependent upon intrinsically non-artistic and even non-musical elements than the popular music of 30 years ago.[11] The pop music of the past was a far more heterogeneous mixture than that of today, and contained offerings ranging from the downright silly to the emotionally moving and even profound. But in a great deal of this music, even some of the more lightweight material, one can hear a far more earnest presentation and exposition of musical skill than is heard in most of the pop performers of today. And most importantly, the greater variability of styles accepted left room for unique artistic expressions that would never even be recorded in today’s world.

In the past, even those musical forms which were meant to be commercial and highly entertaining were still often infused with the unique artistic expressions of their performers. This can be seen, in part, by the fact that the youth of today often listen to and identify themselves with music that was created before they were born. Bands like Pink Floyd, The Doors, and Led Zeppelin have many fans who were born after the death of some of these musicians. This is a brand new phenomenon. In my youth, nobody would find it either cool or necessary to be a fan of music 30-40 years old. Indeed, my parents’ generation is similar in this way as well. It is a highly unusual and significant fact that the youth of today have to look so far into the past to find music with real impact. The reasons for this are twofold:

1) This past music has genuine eternal appeal, because it is often permanent art and not only ephemeral entertainment

2) The popular music of today is largely lacking the same kind of content and inspiration, making it unsatisfying, indistinct, and largely inconsequential.[12]


Teenagers need to identify themselves by making definite public artistic or philosophical affiliations, and the very homogeneity and indistinctiveness of much modern music gives them no worthwhile or distinct banner to rally around. We all have a reasonable idea of what a Pink Floyd fan is all about as a person, or we at least know something of significance about them; can we come to any similarly distinctive conclusions about a Maroon 5 fan? There is no real information there that reveals their personality (other than to say it may be shallow) simply because there is no truly distinctive content in this music. These guys are among the better performers recording today, and each of them is obviously competent as a musician. But their well-played music is truly lacking any real soul or unique expressiveness, like a wax figure of a beautiful woman.

We can easily imagine people listening to The Doors, Led Zeppelin, U2, Al Green, and Isaac Hayes in 100 years. Does anybody really think that Maroon 5 is distinctively original or emotionally compelling enough to stand the test of time as well? Sure, there will be movies in the future that use this music to set the tone of this decade for their story, like we do today with our movies about times in the ‘70s or ‘80s. But this is different than people actually listening to it simply to enjoy.

With the arrival of MTV, music was rapidly transformed from an almost totally audible art (isn’t that what it is supposed to be?) into a primarily visual display with accompanying soundtrack. Those of us who were young adults in the 1980’s were witness to these changes. Bands became successful simply because they were attractive or had excellent videos. And bands that were actually good, but lacked these qualities, often languished in obscurity. Both sides of this equation can be seen in the story of Duran Duran.

When Duran Duran released Rio in 1982, the initial reaction was very muted, and the band originally thought they had a flop. For early ‘80s music, this band and especially this album was quite good, showing both songwriting and performing ability far above many other bands of the time. There is a lot of innovative bass playing, synthesizer textures, and very good drumming on this album. The album was produced using new techniques employing the just-available digital signal processors to create reverb and chorus effects, and its overall production was (unlike many ‘80s records) actually quite apt, and created a whole new, clean, ‘80s sound treatment. Rio is, from a production standpoint, a landmark record for good ‘80s sound.

Despite all this, and to some degree because of all this, Rio was released to only lukewarm reviews and little commercial success. But this was soon to change. Somebody in their management or within the band recognized two important factors: MTV was starting to be very important to record sales, and the guys in Duran Duran are very attractive men. Once this was understood, the record company provided a budget for video production for “Hungry Like The Wolf”, “Rio”, and other songs from the album. These were shot more like short films instead of the usual cheesy performance videos that previously had been done. The band members were dressed in stylish clothes like they were movie stars, and the videos were shot in exotic locales such as Sri Lanka and Antigua, flush full of vibrant colors, with a cast of various beautiful women as well.

The impact of all this effort was astonishing. It is hard for people of today to understand how mesmerizing early MTV was. When a video came on, you actually got to see the people making the music who were invisible to you before. We heard them on the radio, we watched the vinyl record spinning, but we never got to see them make the music. Even if we were lucky enough to see a band play live, most of us never got within 100 feet of the band even inside the arena. And how many bands can you actually get a chance to see? With MTV, all of this changed. It was as if we now were granted an audience with these musical gods, whose potent creations we had heretofore experienced only from behind the veil that kept them remote from us. Now, we could peek into the gods’ private world where they crafted the music. Or, we could see other aspects of their personality that answered our constant wondering ‘what kind of people are these guys like in real life?’

With Duran Duran, not only did we have all of this wonderment, but we also got the full impact of their high-budget, well-crafted, and truly beautiful videos. These videos were so colorful, and displayed a new type of retro early-60’s chic taken to wild new ‘80s excessive levels. These videos, in part, created the visual aesthetic of the decade.

The results of all this were immediate and extreme. Suddenly, Rio was flying off the shelves, their videos became the most popular in the world, and a new generation of 14 year-old girls had new heartthrobs. They were being hailed as the ‘New Beatles’. In less than a year, these guys went from out-of-current-style nobodies to vanguards of the new decade.

Suddenly, music which only 6 months before was considered lackluster and boring became wildly popular and the new force in modern music. And it is important to understand that the only thing that changed was the marketing of the music.

Notice, that the masses’ aesthetic sensibilities were changed by the image the band created and not by the force of their music – the actual aesthetic object in question. People genuinely started to like their music simply because is was connected to these dapper young Englishmen who evoked an image of style, sexuality, and new-generational youthful world-traveling wealth that people liked and wanted to be associated with themselves. This kind of thing has become increasingly common since the ‘80s, and is a dangerous cultural trend.

I say this is dangerous because it undermines Art. The danger comes from the way in which Art is being redefined to be something that it actually is not, and so as the true definition fades from our memories, so too does the true substance of Art. And while the music of Rio may rightfully be considered at least somewhat artistic, the means whereby it became accepted evidences a process which destroys art by redefining it to be what it is not.

When the marketers said ‘You should like and buy this sound recording because these guys look good and travel the world in style’, and when people then started to say ‘I love these sounds because they were made by people who look cool – and so I become more cool by associating myself with them’, you can see the basis for my objections. This is just like people saying that plums are great food just because they are purple, and all food that is purple (of any kind including candy) is the best possible food just because it is purple. Purple is cool so that means purple food is the best, and food of other colors is bad – maybe even bad for you. The attribute of interest does not even slightly correlate with the item in question. Good-looking, jet-setting people are not more likely to make better music than bland, overweight people who never left their home county. And if they actually do make good music, it is NOT because they look good or travel. Purple food is neither better nor worse than other food – it is just a different color.

When we start to think that music is good because it came from cool people, we have lost the primary basis by which we judge the art itself – SOUND. And so the essential core of the art becomes removed from any analysis and thereby becomes lost. This is worse than music simply being outlawed or deleted. If this were so, in future ages mankind could retrieve music and re-establish it. But just as with a computer file and disk space that is not simply deleted, but overwritten as well, there is no hope of retrieving anything and one my not even know that anything of value is even gone at all. If you have a file of important data on your computer named ‘WORKFILE’, and you notice one day that it is missing from your file directory, you can then look for that which is obviously gone and try to undelete it from the disk. But if somebody comes along and writes a modified and degraded version of your data onto the same space in the disk and names it ‘WORKFILE’ as well, you won’t quickly notice that anything is missing, and you won’t be able to retrieve it even when you start to suspect that your original file in amiss.

This type of erosion of characteristics and definitions is afoot in many areas of our culture today. Food is redefined to be what it truly is not. Music is redefined to be what it truly is not. And this is done because the Capitalists find it much easier to do an excellent job with MARKETING (lies) than to do so with MANUFACTURING (truth). It is always easier to make a mediocre product, with some kind of novel or shiny feature, and tell the world convincingly how excellent it is, than to actually engineer and manufacture true excellence.

This is clearly shown in the music business. The artistic process, itself, does not easily fit in with the needs of business. One cannot create a new work of art on demand, exactly when business needs it for distribution. And one does not even know exactly what will be created by the artist before it is done. Combine this with the fact that artists like to vary their pursuits and explore the possibilities of creation, and you can see that those who are tasked with marketing these creations never know what they will get to sell, when they will get it, how similar it will be to the existing product line, or even if anybody at all will even like it.

This is an intolerable situation for the Capitalists, and so they simply prefer to deal with malleable entertainers instead of immobile artists. These entertainers will make some kind of crude approximation of music, and will create it on time and on budget. It will be similar to songs they already have done, and will also strive to be similar to new releases by others since the last time they released new music. In this way, they can guarantee that there will be a market for the music, and so all that needs to be done is to create a superior marketing campaign to achieve success. Since these musicians are entertainers and not artists, they will willingly agree to whatever demands the record company makes in its efforts to create a cool image for the band. They could choose the dark clothes, mascara, Emo image for the band. They could choose the retro-hippie beards/long hair image for the band. Or, most subversively of all, they could choose the image of the brooding artist, staying true to the music they supposedly feel in their heart.

It is this latter image that is the most obscene of all. I find it very telling that most of these supposedly genuine artists turn out to be highly attractive young women (Jewel, Alicia Keys, Michelle Branch, etc…) who may play simple acoustic guitar or piano, but who are primarily singers. As anybody who ever played in a band knows, the singer is rarely the artistic leader of the band and is mostly rightfully concerned with performance rather than composition. It also seems implausible that the vast majority of ‘true artists’ would, just by chance, happen to be beautiful enough to each have their own photo shoots in men’s magazines such as Maxim.

There is a war in progress between Art and Capitalism, and Capitalism is winning. As music becomes more and more defined as a commodity rather than art, the avenues for economic survival for true artists evaporate. This makes it impossible for those who create art to share it with anybody else, or to pursue it full time as their work. In the 60’s and most of the ‘70s, a band would be signed to a record deal because they sounded good and there was hope that some money could be made as well. The musicians didn’t primarily seek to be millionaires; they just wanted to make a decent living while sharing their music with others. There is no place for anybody like this any more, and so the conditions whereby art may be created have virtually disappeared as well.

A product such as entertainment will always have a wider popularity than any art, simply because art itself is meant to be a more distinctive thing. Anything that is distinctive, like spices in food, will have some who love it and many others will not like it at all. Less distinctive entertainment will be liked by all but not really loved by any, just like burgers and fries. The symphonies of Arthur Honegger often move me to joyful tears, but others would hate them and even cover their ears in pain. Maroon 5 won’t make anybody cover their ears, but neither will anybody be moved to tears. But it is this precise reason why Art and Capitalism are enemies.

And so we can see that Capitalism is a force that restricts, erases, and redefines Art to be that which causes its obliteration. It is The Nothing, taking all the various forms of human distinctiveness and culture and converting them into canned, lobotomized versions of their former selves – for sale for countless millions. It erases them from existence, and leaves soulless doppelgangers in their places so that we won’t quickly miss what has been taken from us. And because we are still in the grip of the idiotic philosophy of the 20th century which proclaims ‘Who is to say what is or is not art?’, people are slow to acknowledge that art is disappearing from music because they are loathe to make any conclusive judgments at all.

Art is disappearing. Our culture is being erased and is being turned into products instead. And all of this matters because Art, like Science, is one of the few truly worthwhile things than humans can do, and because it is an eternal addition to the state of humanity. As such, Capitalism is a barbaric force because it tends to destroy Art, both by impeding its creation, and by falsely redefining Entertainment to be Art, thereby eroding and suppressing art which already exists.

In Los Angeles, the music capital of the world, the one for-profit classical music radio station recently went out of business and became a country music station. Fiddles instead of Fugues – the advance of The Nothing continues on. Apparently, in a region with more than 10 million listeners, there is no market for some of the greatest musical art of the past 4 centuries. There is more money to be made by playing even non-regional entertainment instead.

Capitalism is barbaric because of the way that many aspects of life are converted from their rational place into an irrational existence that parasitically feeds off humanity. Profit is the highest god served, even if we are forced to burn up the treasures of human creation in the process. And so art is imperiled, and we also adopt unhealthy, inhumane, and irrational practices when considering even our most basic needs, such as food and child rearing.

Similar effects can be seen with Capitalism versus Science, as scientific endeavors which promise no outcome of profit are discouraged. And as anybody who understands science knows, basic scientific research which has no foreseeable applications is both the only means of making true advancements to our understanding, and almost always results in unforeseen applications and profits in future years. But since Capitalism is almost entirely concerned with today and the near future only, these advancements are discouraged and retarded.

The single most important scientific task of our age, that of discovering the means of creating electricity from controlled nuclear fusion, is considered little more than a far-fetched scientific curiosity simply because Capitalist forces see no short-term profit in its investiture. But the needs of humanity should come before immediate profits. And a virtually unlimited supply of cheap and clean power without radioactive waste would clearly propel humanity to the next quantum level of existence, just as the industrial revolution did 200 years ago.



Profitable Philanthropy – Growing and Soothing the Herd

I have stated the various reasons that Capitalists benefit from population increases, but I have not yet discussed how they go about fostering these population increases. One way this is done is by supporting religion through generous donations to churches and their charitable endeavors. The doctrines of the religions often contain commandments such as ‘be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth’, usually prohibit abortion, even when the pregnancy occurs in a very ill-advised situation, and they sometimes even prohibit the use of contraceptives. These combine to create severe population growth, especially when they occur in poverty-stricken areas of the earth.

Another way the Capitalists increase population is to provide philanthropic relief to poor areas of the world where famine or other calamity strikes, or by spending money on disease eradication efforts such as the efforts to combat AIDS in Africa. I am quite certain that a significant part of their motivation for these efforts is indeed humane and honorable. I understand that many wealthy people do feel an obligation to use their wealth to ameliorate the horrendous suffering that occurs every day upon our world. And to the extent that these motivations are indeed found within their hearts, I appreciate their noble sensibilities.

But along with these more noble intentions there also exists the understanding that if the Capitalists don’t keep many of these people alive, that there will be no new markets for their products and services in future years. It is in their interests to keep these people alive, so that they can live on and consume and thus become future members of the herd. Even if these people remain in poverty, they will still need to buy food. And if they survive long enough to become a force in their homeland, they may need to buy weapons and ammunition to support their faction’s struggle for supremacy. Or they may need to by pharmaceuticals to keep their diseases at bay. Markets of all kinds are opened by these people simply surviving.

Another reason that the Capitalists spend money on philanthropic causes is that by reducing the urge to revolt among the masses, by easing certain of their burdens – and by being seen among the community as a caring paternal force; that their own stability and survival is enhanced. Interdicting revolution before it starts is simply part of the cost of doing business for the Capitalists. In many cases, this expense is actually partly paid for by the government, since ‘Charitable Contributions’ are tax deductible. And since the government pays for it, this actually means that the people pay for it. So what we have here is a system whereby the people pay for their own mollification, but the Capitalists get all the credit for being so caring and generous.

This is also used sometimes in a slightly different way to increase the stock price of a company, and to reduce liabilities. Many companies will go out of their way to make all kinds of philanthropic and socially responsible expenditures so as to position themselves as the most humane and advanced company within their market sector. This can be seen among the oil companies, who are each in a competition to show to the world that their company is the most environmentally sensitive, most humane of the group. Many television ads can be seen for these oil companies, showing how they are investing in green energy sources, and how they are just 'regular' folks like you and me. These are not intended so much to make us buy gas only from them, but instead are meant to appeal to investors who don’t want to buy stock in a company that is a target for lawsuits or restrictive legislation, but who instead has the best public image and so also the best prospects for undeterred profitability.

There are, indeed, many selfish motivations for the philanthropy of the Capitalists. And while these are often combined with truly altruistic intentions as well, we must observe that the overall effect of all this philanthropy is the promotion of the Capitalist agenda, not the betterment of mankind. This is most clearly demonstrated by the fact that population reduction is the most urgently needed remedy for poverty and suffering on our planet, and yet no Capitalist philanthropy is pursuing thus goal. Curing a young girl and boy in Africa of HIV, through humanitarian intervention, doesn’t really help humanity if these children grow up to marry and have several children who in turn starve due to lack of food resources. Indeed, this condition threatens humanity much more by delaying the day of reckoning into the future where the magnitude of the calamity will be multiplied by all the unsupportable increases in population our philanthropy has wrought.

This may sound incredibly cold and cruel, but a dispassionate assessment of the situation inevitably leads to this conclusion. And the job of leaders is to find and implement the course of action that brings about the greatest good for the people, not just for today’s people, but also for our future. We do not have the luxury to fail in our duties, nor to pass on the tough decisions and major problems to our descendants, just as has been done with us. There is no more time for equivocation and cowardice, masquerading as compassion. It is our sad lot that these times require more courage and for us to face distasteful problems that can be only solved by painful decisions. But I, for one, care so much about mankind, and cannot stand to see the perpetuation of these conditions which actually cause suffering instead of correcting it; that I feel bound by not only Reason, but also tearful Empathy itself to do what I can to start healing the cause of humanity’s suffering and not merely soothing the discomfort of the disease. And though the cure may be painful, and suffering is unavoidable, this is not our fault. This is the fault of previous generations whose slovenly habits and avoidance of responsibility have created the problems we now face. All that we can do is to find and begin to implement the correction so that our posterity is not given an unfair burden, and so that we fulfill our responsibilities of today.

So am I saying that we should let AIDS run rampant throughout Africa?[13] I don’t know really. That is something that I need to discuss with other intelligent people, to see a wider perspective on this. I am sure that stopping AIDS in Africa will lead to other, even greater sufferings there. But I don’t feel fully morally justified yet to just simply say that we should let these infected people all die. I could become so, should additional logical support for this idea appear. I could reject this idea, should facts indicate this is necessary. In general, I oppose the blind impulse to save all these people simply because they are poor and dying. This alone is insufficient justification since our population itself, independent of any affliction, already mandates mass suffering, poverty, and death, and Africa is a region that has a great excess of population.

Africa’s population is projected to grow 116% by the year 2050.[14] This is the highest increase in the world, nearly 3 times greater than the world average. Africa has the highest birth rate in the world of 3.8% of their population per year. This figure is almost double the world average, and for Sub-Saharan Africa, both the population increase and birth rate are even higher. But this great reproductive excess brings them only suffering and misery. A greater percentage of Africans are living in poverty (living on under $2 per day) than any other peoples in the world. An incredible 66% of all Africans live in this poverty.

Certainly, the effects of colonialism have hurt the African people, but this does not explain all of these problems. These people, for whatever cultural reasons, are unable to regulate their own reproductive behavior to prudent levels even though they are incapable of supporting their own children. Under these conditions, it is impossible to ensure that all of these people will be able to survive, even without a problem like AIDS.

So when we consider what to do about deadly problems like AIDS, we must consider far more than simply trying our best to keep everybody alive and free from suffering. That intention is easily reached and brings self-satisfaction and the acclaim of others. But unfortunately, unless we do something to get population under control in Africa, even wiping out AIDS in Africa won’t truly end their suffering; it will just make it more severe in future years.

Humanity is like a man with a gangrenous leg. For years, nobody has had the courage to face up to the unpleasant truth that the leg must be amputated and the leg must die. The prospect of doing so is horrific and macabre, especially since a true reading of this analogy dictates that this amputation is to be done (as in times past) without any anesthetics. The intended remedy will be incredibly painful and truly nauseating in its implementation, both for the patient and for the doctor. But shall we continue to only ease the pain of the patient, giving morphine and holding his hand in support while the problem continues to escalate? Shall we shun the saw, calling the surgeon a heartless fiend for even suggesting its use? Is this the path of courage and caring? Or is the real empathy found in one who says “Enough! Today, we CURE this patient. This suffering shall not continue on my watch, though the remedy is horrific.” Inevitably, we will be forced to choose the survival of the whole body (Humanity) over the survival of the leg (Afflicted Peoples), and this is actually the only humane or intelligent course of action.

So while I have not come to a sufficient surety to blithely decree that all of Africa’s AIDS victims should just die for the betterment of humanity, I must say that conclusions of this type will inevitably be necessary for some specific instances of some distressed peoples. I feel that this is a topic that deserves a thorough discussion and debate, by intelligent and non-histrionic people who know that tough decisions of this kind are required for our survival, and who seek to establish a thoroughly fair and reasonable set of guidelines for actions of this kind.

This kind of discussion is hard to have, since there are few people today who are capable of calmly and reasonably discussing this subject. In our society today, Socialist cultural forces have caused us to redefine our meaning of the word Hero.

A Hero in modern times is a victim who survives their suffering to come back to a state of functional normalcy, not a person of exceptional ability and achievement. The amputee who runs a marathon (finishing nowhere near first place) is more of a Hero to modern people that the dedicated athlete who pushes himself to excellence and thus sets a new world record.[15] This is because Socialist ideology hates competition, and is suspicious of those who win it. It also redefines the highest state of humanity to be the state of normalcy, not excellence.

A fictional character endowed with superpowers is often depicted as being a threat[16], or being unhappy with these abilities and continually longing to be just a regular person. Thus, the Socialists flatter the masses into believing that they are the most excellent people on the earth, by virtue of their own mediocrity.

Because of this, people who are poor, from non-Caucasian (read: non-Oppressive) origins, and who are victims of disease or other calamity are now thought to be the most valuable and heroic people on earth. AIDS victims in Africa, Katrina survivors in New Orleans, and other such people are seen as more admirable than reasonable people who do not engage in unsafe sex or live below Sea Level next to an ocean in a hurricane zone. This means that it is incredibly offensive to modern sensibilities to suggest any logical plan for population control that involves not doing our utmost to save each and every one of these people. This is because these people are now both the poor defenseless sufferers who deserve our protection, and they simultaneously become our Heroes (due to Socialist doublethink) whom we are loathe to forsake.

So I look forward to the day when I can discuss matters of this complexity with other logical people. I need to consult with people who are perceptive to a higher altruism than simply putting bandages on all our problems without any discussion of which patients actually need to be cut open and saved by surgery. Until that day, I shall think more on these topics. But in matters as grave and vast as the suffering of the people of Africa, I am not yet morally certain enough to actually advocate the tough remedies I suspect are correct. Perhaps someday, with your help, clarity on this matter can be reached. But all of this is difficult while Capitalists and Socialists collaborate in setting the moral tone of our world, saying that all people everywhere must be saved at all costs.



Conclusions

Capitalism is a far better servant than master. It has tremendous potential to create prosperity for the people, as long as it is moderated and controlled by a philosophy which has a larger view of reality and whose goal is the advancement of humanity, instead of blindly pursuing profit only. I believe that neither the nation nor the world can be governed by pure Capitalist forces, if we are to survive and prosper. But I am equally sure that the government must employ a type of supervised and directed Capitalism if we are to be strong and humane.

This is not a call for Socialism, since I do not advocate a tax-and-redistribute form of economics. Such a system is intrinsically inefficient and actually is unfair, since merit is not rewarded at all. But it is possible for bounds to be placed on Capitalist activities, and to restrain it from being active in areas where it causes more damage than good, like artistic pursuits, while letting it work it’s magic unhindered in such areas as the Stock, Currency, and Futures Markets. And as long as the government is constituted is such a way that removes the possibility of money being used as a political tool, we can create a firewall between the non-Capitalist rulers of the government, and the Capitalist forces these rulers employ to empower the economy. While such a firewall may seem unlikely to you now, let me say that I believe that I have found a workable means to do this, and I will elaborate further on this after my criticism is ended, and my plan for remediation is presented.

We must come to understand that Capitalism is like fire. Fire uncontrolled causes great devastation and suffering, but when it is controlled and harnessed to serve us, it is a tool of inestimable value. The negative characteristics of Capitalism are no reason to extinguish its flame completely everywhere. Rather, these negative characteristics are simply to be noted and incorporated into a plan whereby the fire of Capitalism may be used in more controlled ways, for the betterment of all mankind. We should not seek to extinguish all fire everywhere, simply because we have touched it and become burned, just as the Socialists advocate. Such a reaction is one of stupid and cowardly fear, and not an intelligent mastery of the forces around us. But neither should we become enthralled pyromaniacs, convinced that all fire is good everywhere it may be found.

ENDNOTES


[1] This is land, power sources, food sources, water sources, and similar bedrock assets of a community.
[2] Notice that as these resources become consumed, it becomes harder for new generations of would-be-capitalists to strike out on their own to new areas and be as successful as preceding generations. For one thing, there may no longer be any ‘new’ areas to go to, and the resources that remain upon the earth are now harder and more costly to exploit. All the easy oil deposits, virgin forests, and gold fields lying in streambeds have long been scooped up by our ancestors, and this type of resource depletion occurs more severely every time a generation acts without considering their descendants’ needs. In this way, capitalism drains the well of prosperity to slake the thirst of previous gluttonous generations, and leaves only a few hard-earned drops of survival for the current generations who lack similarly easy pickings. This is one of the reasons that many from ‘Generation X’, and their young adult children, feel irritated by the conduct of the ‘Baby Boomers’ who preceded them. These were the last people in America to have reasonably abundant valuable virgin resources to exploit, and who in their youth had expressed such strident anti-materialism. The combination of their Dionysian gluttony and stark philosophical hypocrisy is a source of disgust for many. And the ‘Baby Boomers’ constant lamentations about the supposed lack of purpose, morality, and industry of their descendants is all the more infuriating seeing how the Game of Capitalism is much harder to play today, and how their criticism and present attitude is exactly the opposite of that which they espoused as young adults. But it is these youthful attitudes which they now forget which indeed did change the world. And it is their descendents who have to live with the fallout and consequences of this changed world; a world damaged by the selfish and narcissistic youthful excesses of their older critics.

[3] Notice that as population increases, these very natural surroundings become depleted to the point where they cannot support human life as they once had in the past.
[4] There will likely be a great disagreement on the method of apportionment, with countries such as Australia, Russia, Canada, and the United States seeking land-area apportionment, and smaller populous nations favoring population-based apportionment.
[5] I mentioned in Chapter 1 that population growth would eventually force us to give up our freedoms unless we choose to voluntarily give up the freedom to breed without bounds. This is a small example of what I mean. We have lost on our world the freedom to simply live in a place without paying somebody for the mere privilege of ‘parking’. I know that none of us has any memory of living in a time when this freedom existed, yet we should try to comprehend the magnitude of this loss for it is huge. In a similar manner, we have lost a great measure of our privacy simply because anonymity is now virtually impossible, and a person can no longer travel to a new corner of the world and leave his past and his regrets behind him. There are so many stories in history of a great man who commits questionable acts as a youth, and who then travels abroad to start a new life and to leave behind his old mode of living and sullied reputation. We know that many times this has resulted in greatness, where the transgressions of youth, if forgotten and undisclosed to his new neighbors, help to form a person of higher character and tougher mettle than otherwise would have existed if he had neither anonymity nor regretful experiences. But alas, these strong people, ‘drop-forged’ by life if you will, will never exist again. And all this is so because the pressures of population require governments to more definitively identify and track the movement of people, just to keep order. Which freedom shall we lose next as a victim of our increasing population?
[6] Please keep in mind that these figures are NOT intended to be accurate and are used for simplicity in illustration only. The actual output of the average TP factory and the actual profit margin in each roll are irrelevant for our purposes here.
[7] In real life, these figures are all modified by inflation and other factors. But the same overall relationship occurs as is shown in this simplistic, static example.
[8] Understand me and what I mean about Feminism. Women should have equal legal rights. Women are adults, just as men. Women are just as smart as men, and just as important as men. But modern Feminism is no longer about social justice. It is a program that seeks to undermine traditional/natural feminine powers and traditional/natural masculine powers, by women who are deficient in femininity and so want to change the game simply to advantage themselves only. In a feminist world, men shouldn’t be strong and dominant – women should be. Any man who behaves this way is dangerous or oppressive. Women shouldn’t be pretty, soft, feminine, and gentle – that makes them subservient to men. Men should acquire more of these characteristics, both to make them less dangerous and also more controllable by dominant women. Feminists equate femininity with weakness, and so want women to be less feminine and men to be more feminine. And all of this stems from women who are simply deficient in femininity, haunted by fear and envy, and so want to change the world to match their own deficiencies.
[9] Most people are aesthetically simple and don’t really expect much emotional content in music, even though that is the only real purpose of it as an art. Or, those people who have turned down the volume in their hearts or who are otherwise uncomfortable with real expressions of emotion usually prefer music that is emotionally void, so that they will not be made to feel uncomfortable.
[10] In this way, many ‘avant-garde’ artists are actually not artists at all, but entertainers. Their rude and brazen abominations of anti-art (a strong ‘artistic’ trend in the 20th century) were meant as demonstrations of their supposedly advanced aesthetic, so as to please the art intelligentsia. But immersing a crucifix in a jar of urine or applying 5 layers of the same white paint onto a white canvas are not artistic expressions, but items meant to oppose art itself by depicting it as pretentious. True accomplishment is, by definition, never pretentious. These are also meant as juvenile protestations against any determination of what actually is art. “Who is to say what is or is not art” they say. This bogus assertion is no different than a schoolyard bully smearing mud all over a kid’s face and then saying to the teacher “But I was just making a unique artistic statement! You cannot punish me because who are YOU to say what is or is not art?”
[11] One of the main examples of this (even though many will strenuously disagree with me) is Rap. While some Rap is combined with interesting harmonic elements in the backing music, and exceptions do exist; the actual Rap components of this are not actually music, but instead a whole new kind of sonic entertainment. The basic Rap form is dependent upon neither melody nor harmony, and the rhythms that exist are usually extremely simple and repetitive. If there were complex rhythms, like African drum music, you could make the case that Rap is music. But with nothing more than basic rhythms and zero melody and harmony, I believe that this cannot be considered music, even though it may be enjoyable.
[12] There are notable exceptions to this rule, namely bands like System of a Down, Tool, Radiohead, Muse, and others, but these islands of culture have become far more isolated instances today than was the case in years past. There is also a much greater impetus in the music business today to sound exactly like other successful performers, causing an unprecedented wave of homogeneity.
[13] Note that this decision is 0% racially oriented. If AIDS was similarly widespread in Europe, and population dynamics were the same there as well, my decision would be the same there as it would be for Africa. Race is irrelevant to these matters.
[14] This data is from the Population Reference Bureau’s 2006 World Population Data Sheet.
[15] I understand that the amputee is admirable. It is a personal victory just for him to complete this race, but this victory should not be confused with the victor of the competition who masters not only himself but also all those others competing. The winner of the race is the Hero and the amputee is not because of this. The amputee, like all the other competitors, is admirable simply for participating valiantly in the competition. But the purpose of competition is not only to compete, it is to win through honorable contest, and those who do so are the Heroes. We cannot say that every competitor is a Hero too because they are NOT. This thinking nullifies the purpose of the race itself. And all of this is important because sport is a metaphor for the true struggles that people face in the real world, and the skills necessary to compete and win ensure our survival and prosperity. Thus sport is an entertaining cultural ritual which hones our own survival abilities in the real world, not for the athletes per se, but for those spectators whose own competitive sensibilities are reinvigorated. And if we start to look at victory in sport as irrelevant, than our own survival becomes endangered as well as we will lose our potency to survive in the real world.
[16] This is also the case for genius intelligence. Geniuses are neither trusted nor respected. Rather, they are feared. The average person would rather be ruled by a normal person instead of a genius because of this fear. There are far more ‘evil geniuses’ in movies than ‘good geniuses’, and even our superheroes are usually super-strong or super-fast, not super-intelligent.