By Finn Andreen
When our ruling classes speak of “believing in democracy,” they are speaking of a romantic version of a form of governance that, in real life, is quite different than the sanitized version presented in our media.
related posts
73 sats \ 24 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 17 Sep
It does seem that corporate lobbyists have largely captured and controlled most liberal western democracies for some time already.
Prime among these crony capitalists are the bankers.
Hard to see this being fixed before it is toppled.
By China.
China now has all the requirements to overwhelm The West and its corrupt decaying democracies.
Since the CCP no longer truly manifests a communist ideology the Chinese today autocracy operates along the classic lines of The Mandate of Heaven- ie the CCP can and will rule until the people rise up and remove it- this actually creates a considerable incentive for the CCP to perform and provide decent governance over the short, medium and long term. Today young Chinese look forward with optimism as they expect continued increase in living standards and opportunities while the young in The West see the decline that has occurred over the last several decades continuing.
The decline of The West will occur very swiftly as soon as a mass movement away from use of the USD and toward the use of the Chinese CBDC Yuan- which is already operational and already providing trade payments liquidity between China and Russia and Iran, among others.
By the end of this decade China will be able to take back control of Taiwan with no risk of retaliation because the USA empire will have collapsed.
reply
115 sats \ 23 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 17 Sep
I don't see it. I think the CCP has run out of low-hanging fruit and now going forward it's going to be lots of tradeoffs between more liberalization and some oligarch's fiefdom.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Recongraves 18 Sep
Thank you for this conversation.
reply
0 sats \ 21 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 17 Sep
I would suggest as a Libertarian you may be blind to the strategic significance of the state directing its projection of resource hegemony in concert with private enterprise. From the 'Privateers' under Queen Elizabeth 1st to the development of the 'Banana' republics of Latin America.
Never has a wealthy regional or global empire developed without the crucial factor of a government supporting its trading merchants and corporates and a tandem and coordinated strategy of wealth acquisition and resource hegemony.
Never.
Today the Chinese government directs capital toward logical strategic objectives- for instance the energy efficiency initiative that began in the early 2000s and has resulted in China nearly monopolising renewable power generation in wind and solar and easily leading in the production of Lithium batteries.
Chinas clear and stated objective is to led in high technology fields and the development of international protocols.
Chinas politburo is composed of over 80% engineers- engineers tasked with reverse engineering the Wests legacy trade and technology domionance- and they are well down the road to success.
China already operates the first large scale CBDC payments protocol (DCEP) and that protocol is designed specifically to be suitable for international trade payments.
Since China was invited to and accepted the offer to join the IMFs exclusive reserve currency board it is the only member of that board to be both militarily and monetarily independent of the USA.
If you do not understand the depth of Chinas motivation please study in detail The Opium Wars...and how Britains 'acquisition' of Hong Kong resulted in the imposition of British and later many other nations domination of Chinas economy and governance.
China now has Iran and Russia dependent upon its ability and willingness to ignore US SWIFT bank payments protocol sanctions- and Chinas monetary alternative can be expected to expand further as US hegemony declines.
reply
35 sats \ 1 reply \ @jerrybature 18 Sep
All nations-states are under the invisible control of oligarchs. "Everything is the rich man's trick. There is no US, China, EU,etc. Only oligarchs. They have no passports, neither do they consider themselves citizens nation-states. Their goal is profits and power, even at all cost.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 18 Sep
Russian Oligarchs have no passports? Really?
Chinese Oligarchs have no passports? Really?
You might argue that the CCP is closely aligned with Chinese Oligarchs but you know nothing about China if you do not also know that the Chinese government routinely make it very clear that private capital is subservient to the state/CCP and its objectives...this is known widely by Chinese citizens and anyone with some interest in understanding contemporary China.
For example Alibaba founder Jack Ma- when Jack decided to challenge the Chinese state on how banking and payments platforms could progress, Jack got told exactly where to go. Jack Mas Alipay must be subservient to the Chinese CBDC DCEP because Chinas ambition is to build the protocol for CBDCs and thereby displace the USD / SWIFT hegemony.
In very stark contrast to how rentseeking US corporates own and direct the US government and obstruct it from forming let alone implementing a rational global strategy. The US is absolutely riddled with crony capitalism from healthcare, agriculture, science and education to the military....this is what gives China such a golden opportunity to organise and assert itself better than the declining US does.
reply
0 sats \ 18 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 17 Sep
Centrally directed resource allocations are the opposite of logical, they are arbitrary. I don't know why we need so many examples of this kind of system failing for people to finally get it.
China is about a quarter as prosperous as America (which has many of its own self sabotaging policies) and already struggling under the weight of their capital misallocations.
reply
0 sats \ 17 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 17 Sep
In the context of competition between states for control of international protocols centrally directed allocations of resources are absolutely imperative.
This is how wars are organised...won or lost.
The wealth of the US is considerably vested in maintaining a global military network and imposing its protocols over all others. The most significant protocol is SWIFT- the protocol controlling the transfer of value between trading nations - which forces all trading nations to hold USD, or be excluded.
US wealth and power is largely based upon its ability to impose its will upon all other nations.
If you do not organise your collective resources as a nation state the most competently and effectively you will be defeated and subjugated as The West has done to most of the worlds nations and peoples over the last 5 centuries.
reply
0 sats \ 16 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 17 Sep
Europe only became wealthy enough to do that after radically liberalizing their economies. Eventually, the rent seeking parasites who you're praising wasted a bunch of resources on these stupid misadventures.
You have causality exactly backwards.
reply
0 sats \ 15 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 18 Sep
Nonsense- throughout the history of Europe the competition between states and their ability to combine the deliberate strategy of the government with the interests of private enterprise shows that combination is crucial.
Spain and Portugal lost their dominance and wealth because the Protestant English and Dutch were more innovative and had less corrupt governance.
Wealth and success does almost invariably attract corrupt rentseeking parasites.
So yes, eventually successful governments can easily become infested with self serving rentseeking parasites- as has happened to the corporate sponsored US empire today.
In the US government is directed by capital- that is crony capitalism.
In China the government directs capital toward its Belt and Road program of global resource and protocol hegemony.
reply
0 sats \ 14 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 18 Sep
Well, we have our predictions. If China ever matches the prosperity of America, without radical market liberalization, feel free to run a victory lap. I'm not holding my breath, though.
view replies
23 sats \ 2 replies \ @grayruby 17 Sep
I don't have a song for this one.
I would argue the ruling class only speaks of "believing in democracy" to further anti democratic aims.
reply
40 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined OP 17 Sep
My claim is that "Democracy" just means rule by Democrats and they've conditioned their cult members to unthinkingly use it that way.
reply
32 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 17 Sep
There is definitely a lot of people who are under that spell.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LowK3y19 17 Sep
We can ignore the truth for only so long
reply