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What Have We Gotten Done?
What Have We Gotten Done?
Or at least, what has this blog gotten done?
Perhaps the most important thing this blog has accomplished is to help its readers understand – or at least get them arguing about! – the need for a movement that is more than merely political: a movement that is philosophically and theologically capable of defeating progressive postmodernism, physicalism, and nihilism; with new economics that can be defended against both communism and neo-liberalism; with new leadership that can effectuate change; and with cadres organized to do it.
My calls to action have been spread out over the last three years. I’ve assembled them here:
- Conservatism is Dead (Oct 03, 2021)
- Why We Must Lay a New Foundation (Oct 18, 2021)
- Why Has Our World Gone So Crazy (Jul 28, 2022)
- The Physiocratic Platform (Nov 08, 2022)
- What is to Be Done (May 10, 2024)
- No, Really – What is to Be Done (May 17, 2024)
- Reenchantment, Rectification, Reckoning (May 24, 2024)
Having spent the last few weeks furthering those calls to action, this week I wanted to take a step back and consider what else – if anything – I’ve gotten done so far.
Those of you who have been with me since the beginning of my contemplations will hopefully find this a helpful summary of all that has come before. Those who have only recently joined me in suffering on the Tree of Woe can consider this essay my table of contents or greatest hits compilation.
I’ve presented my accomplishments in what I consider their order of importance.
A Defense Against Postmodernism
About ten years ago, I read Stephen Hicks’ book Explaining Postmodernism. The book ends with the following paragraphs, which for many years preoccupied my mind:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Rich Get Richer and the Poor, Poorer – But Why?
The Rich Get Richer and the Poor, Poorer – But Why?
A Brief Digression into Heterodox Economics
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The Parable of Talents, found in Matthew 25:24-30, is perhaps the earliest written statement of this famous aphorism:
For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him, that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.
Because of this verse, the entire phenomenon of “the rich getting rich and the poor getting poor” is often called the Matthew Effect.
However, the aphorism was first stated in its modern formulation by the great Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. In his 1821 book A Defence of Poetry, Shelly criticized the “utilitarians” of his day by remarking that under their administration “the rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer.” Today the aphorism is commonly expressed in present indicative tense, expressing a seemingly unchanging pattern observed over time: “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”
Whatever its source and tense, no one disputes the truth of the Mathew Effect. Indeed, its factuality is in evidenced everywhere! The Guardian reports:
The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes to $869bn (£681.5bn) since 2020, while the world’s poorest 60% – almost 5 billion people – have lost money.
The details come in a report by Oxfam as the world’s richest people gather from Monday in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum meeting of political leaders, corporate executives and the super-rich.
The yawning gap between rich and poor is likely to increase, the report says, and will lead to the world crowning its first trillionaire within a decade. At the same time, it warns, if current trends continue, world poverty will not be eradicated for another 229 years.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Let’s talk about Civil War
Let’s talk about Civil War
The movie, I mean.
Mrs. Woe and I went to see Alex Garland’s Civil War last Sunday evening.1 It’s worth seeing, and if you’re going to see the movie, see it on the big screen at a good theater. We saw it with Dolby Cinema and it was a powerful experience. Our seats vibrated with every gun shot, every helicopter, every explosion. Neither of us had experienced such a visceral war movie since Saving Private Ryan.
Warning: The remainder of this essay will contain spoilers for the movie.
After finishing Civil War, my wife and I discussed its politics. Both of us agreed that Garland had done such a good job of making the movie sufficiently opaque that an average American of either Blue or Red persuasion could enjoy it. Most people would, we felt, look no deeper than the superficial message: “civil war bad.”
But we also both concluded it was, at its core, a left-wing movie. “Given the movie’s left-wing sentiments, the progressive critics must have loved it,” I thought. “Let’s see what they have to say!”
So I opened up Wired.com to read its review, entitled
The Troubling Politics of Alex Garland’s Civil War:
When director Alex Garland sat down in 2020 to write his new movie, Civil War, he was clearly worried about the polarization of American society. The Covid-19 pandemic was just beginning to take hold, and former US president Donald Trump was still in the White House. It was a much different country from the one in which Garland is releasing his biggest film to date.
Garland [has] created… a far-right fantasy recruiting tool. In Civil War, Garland’s apocalyptic US features a country ostensibly stripped of partisan labels, where both the left and right become intolerant of each other and turn deadly….
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Running on Empty, Part IV
Running on Empty, Part IV
How the War between Russia and Ukraine is Destroying the Petrodollar System
Welcome to Part IV of Running on Empty, my four-part analysis of the Petrodollar system.
Part I of this series explained that the US dollar is the world’s first reserve currency that is not backed by precious metals. Instead it is backed by other people’s oil. Because of a secret treaty between the US and Saudi Arabia, petroleum can only be purchased with dollars. Every country needs oil, so everyone country needs dollars and sells imports to the US to get them. Demand for dollars has made the USD the primary American export, allowing the US to deindustrialize and financialize its economy.
Part II explained how the petrodollar has grossly enriched American asset holders (stocks, bonds, and real estate) and painfully impoverished American wage earners. Under the petrodollar system, dollars are created by private banks for profit. These dollars are recycled into the economy by OPEC nations, causing stocks, bonds, and real estate to rise. This profitable exchange is enforced by American military might, which punishes any country that seeks to exit the petrodollar system.
Part III explained that for the petrodollar system to function, America needs to be able to project power worldwide to secure international trade and enforce the system. America secures global commerce and projects military power by commanding the World Ocean, by which 90% of all goods are trafficked. To overcome America’s naval supremacy, both Russia and China have sought to establish control of the World Island, the Eurasian supercontinent that houses most of the world’s population and resources. The Russo-Ukraine War is a proxy war between the uncontested master of the World Ocean (America) and the would-be masters of the World Island (China and Russa).
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Running on Empty, Part III
Running on Empty, Part III
The Implications of the Petrodollar System for America and World Geostrategy
Welcome to Part III of Running on Empty, my three-part analysis of the Petrodollar system. Part I of this series explained what the petrodollar system is, how it came to be, and what its financial effects have been on the United States. Part II explained the petrodollar’s implications for foreign policy in the Middle East. If you haven’t read those yet, check them out!
In Part III, below, we look at how those implications scale to at the geostrategic level. In Part IV, we’ll discuss how the sanctions brought about by the Russo-Ukraine War might cause the petrodollar system to break down. (I’d hoped to wrap up the series in three parts, but due to length, I had to break it up.)
Many of history’s leading nations — and all of its commercial empires — have been thalassocracies. For the last 207 years, the globe has been dominated by maritime powers. The United Kingdom began the trend in 1815. Emerging as the winner of the Napoleonic Wars, the UK established the so-called Pax Britannica and enforced it with the world’s greatest navy. While Britannia ruled the waves, the sun never set on her flag. Germany tried twice to unseat Britain at sea, and failed both times. Japan tried to turn the Pacific into its own thalassocracy in the form of the “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere,” but suffered defeat at the hands of the UK and the US. Since 1945, the UK has gradually ceded control of the oceans to the US. America rules the waves today. The World Ocean is mare nostrum, our pond.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Running on Empty, Part II
Running on Empty, Part II
How the Petrodollar Poisoned Foreign Policy with Financial Profiteering
America’s Chief Export is the US Dollar
As explained in the previous installment, the petrodollar system is based on an agreement between the US and Saudi Arabia. Under the terms of the deal, the US guarantees the security of Saudi Arabia and in exchange, Saudi Arabia guarantees that all petroleum is sold by OPEC for US dollars, with the US dollars re-invested into America via petrodollar recycling. The result: Since everyone needs petroleum, everyone needs US dollars. Oil replaces gold as the hard backing for the dollar. 1
Since the petrodollar system was put in place, the US has enjoyed a comparative advantage in manufacturing currency that no other nation enjoys. Under conditions of free trade, a country produces and exports more of a good for which it a comparative advantage, and produces less and imports more of the goods for which it doesn’t. And that’s what has happened: Since the petrodollar system was put in place in 1973, America has produced more and more dollars and produced less and less of everything else. The dollar is today our nation’s #1 export.
How large is the circulation of US dollars? As of April 2022, the American money supply, which economists call M2, stands at $21,728 Billion Dollars. M2 includes three types of money:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Tyranny, Inc.
Tyranny, Inc.
What government wants to do but cannot, it can require corporations to do for it
If you’ve read the Parable of the Seasteader, you’ll already know that at sufficient scale the public/private distinction collapses — a private entity of sufficient size can have all the power of a public entity. It is certainly arguable that Facebook and Google have reached such size. Here, however, I want to discuss a different dilemma – government’s use of private entities to regulate freedoms it cannot directly abridge.
We’re going to look at one specific right (the right to free speech) and one specific set of Federal regulations (§ 1604.11) but the pattern I’m describing here has become ubiquitous in our country. Nowadays, almost anything government is forbidden to regulate, it can require corporations to regulate for it. The government has outsourced tyranny. Let’s see how this black magic is performed.
Expression of Viewpoints is Guaranteed to be Free from Government Abridgement, Even if the Viewpoints are Hateful…
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is a remarkable provision that has, for centuries, protected Americans from the abridgment of their freedom of speech by their government. Even so-called “hate speech” is protected.
The relevant provision states that “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.” As written, the guarantee of free speech originally applied only to the federal government. However, the Supreme Court ruled in Gitlow v. New York that the guarantee had been “incorporated” in the Fourteenth Amendment and the guarantee is now applied to all state and local governments as well.
Now, in practice, there are laws regulating speech (you cannot shout “fire” in a crowded theater, and so on), but such regulations are generally “time, place, and manner” restrictions. Our Courts have universally frowned on what is called viewpoint discrimination:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
