Supporting the central state to protect your favored cartels is simply
pimping for the Empire
The central illusion of both Left (so-called Progressives) and Right
(so-called conservatives) is that the Central State's essentially unlimited
powers can be narrowly directed to further their agenda.
(I say "so-called" because the "Progressives" are not
actually progressive, and the "Conservatives" are not actually
conservative. Those labels are Orwellian double-speak, designed to mask the
disastrous consequences of each ideology's actual policies.)
Let's begin by stipulating that ideology, any ideology, is an intellectual
and emotional shortcut that offers believers ready-made explanations, goals,
narratives and enemies without any difficult, time-consuming analysis, study or
skeptical inquiry. This is the ultimate
appeal of ideology: accepting the ideology relieves the believer of the burdens
of analysis, skeptical inquiry, uncertainty/doubt and responsibility: all the
answers, goals and narratives are prepackaged and mashed together for easy
consumption.
This is one of the core messages of Erich Fromm's classic exploration of
ideology and authoritarianism, Escape
from Freedom.
And what is the essential foundation of authoritarianism? A central state. This is not coincidental.
What few grasp is the teleology of the centralized state: by its very nature (i.e. as a consequence of its essentially
unlimited powers), the central state is genetically programmed to become an
authoritarian state devoted to self-preservation and the extension of its reach
and power.
The central illusion of Progressives is that an all-powerful central state
will not become a self-serving expansive empire, but will be content to wield its vast powers to protect its favored
cartels/monopolies and distribute money skimmed from the citizenry to
Progressive constituencies such as public unions, healthcare and education.
This is an absurd fantasy. Once
you give a central state essentially unlimited power to stripmine income and
wealth from its citizens, create and/or borrow essentially unlimited sums of
money, protect private (and politically powerful) cartels from competition and
project military, financial and diplomatic power around the globe, the state
will pursue Authoritarianism and Empire as a consequence of possessing those
powers.
You can't cede unlimited, highly concentrated powers to the central state
and then expect the state not to fulfill its teleogical imperative to protect
and extend its powers. The state with unlimited
powers will be ontologically predisposed to view any citizen that seeks to
limit its expansion of power as an enemy to be suppressed, imprisoned or
marginalized.
The state with unlimited powers will be ontologically predisposed to
protecting its powers by cloaking all the important inner workings of the state
behind a veil of secrecy, and pursuing and punishing any whistleblowers who
reveal the corrupt, self-serving workings of the state.
The state with unlimited powers will be ontologically predisposed to view
any other nation or alliance as a potential threat, and thus the state will
pursue any and all means to distrupt or counter those potential threats.
The state with unlimited powers will be ontologically predisposed to create
and distribute propaganda to mask its self-serving nature and its perpetual
agenda of extending its powers, lest some threat arise that limits those
powers.
Democracy and a central state with unlimited powers are teleologically
incompatible.
Progressives worship the central state and cede it essentially unlimited
powers because they want that state to be powerful enough to impose their
agenda on others and reward their constituencies.
But it doesn't work that way. Once
you cede unlimited, highly concentrated power to the central state, you get an
authoritarian empire that is driven to protect itself from any threat at all
costs--including democracy, though the state may maintain a facade of carefully
managed "democracy" as part of its propaganda machinery.
Read more at:
No comments:
Post a Comment