VIRTUAL SCARCITY, and, "Why War?"
So, I discovered this past discussion on Virtual Scarcity, which is another version of the quote found here: http://madman101.livejournal.com/1328761.html , so I am reposting it. (Out of context of it's long boring post at http://madman101.livejournal.com/1148560.html ). To make the repost worth your while, I also added a little more to it, about war and such. (Also, I may be inserting this into the first post linked above)...
ECON Note: Capitalist economies are very capable on phase-shifts, even if they are as far-gone as the DECLINING EMPIRE ECONOMY of the USA, so invested in megacorps, corrupt vested interests, military expenditure, political dysfunction, etc. Why? Because what you don't see, you tend not to know. There has been more to the movement of wealth to the top 1% than mere bank transfers of money, the Fed, Wall Street, taxes, etc. Dysfunctionalising capitalism itself requires VIRTUAL SCARCITY - or the exhaustion of the wealth of most actors - in order to thrive. The masses, and the classes, are habitually, and ignorantly, perpetually rendered towards a state of essential depletion of resources, such that they lose most of their degrees of freedom. ("Peripheral", "marginal"). They often willingly submit and contribute to this rendering of self towards a full state of virtual neediness.
Greatly, they are impoverished via direct expenses charged by corporations, banks, governments, prices, inflation, etc.
But there are peripheral or surfeit expenses paid, as when their wealth diminishes relative to growing, covetting, land-grabbing, controlling, prospering MONOPOLIES.
Fundamental reducers also include SECONDARY COSTS foisted upon them and upon THE COMMONS; profuse, covert and etc. competition from larger actors and throughout society and the reacting environment itself; the loss of access to control of resources; the loss of real rights, and so forth.
And, as intimated, people self-impoverish by contributing to a system of WANTS-AS-NEEDS, (via "paradoxical learning," "externalised locus of control"), always wanting to consume, rather than to stabilise property, e.g., or injuring their health caught in the shadow of this great consumption, and so on.
So, what happens is that, even in a country of great wealth, a landscape of virtual scarcity is carved out across the land, so that everyone is directed towards an ultimately zero-sum gain "FUTURE", whereby they are required to compete amongst themselves in order to survive, or else die, literally or in spirit or liberty.
SO..... Simply by adjusting structures and/or patterns and/or channels of economics and institutions, as by investing in grassoots-up stimulation, rather than top-down, and rather than AUSTERITY, it becomes very easy to provide the economy, and preferably the masses and the classes, with additional degrees of freedom, (which are their right after all), whereby spending and investment, etc., can be changed towards a new, more COOPERATIVE FUTURE.
Would that we not need virtual scarcity AT ALL! But there is so much more wealth potential latent in economies, which go unseen, because vested interests keeps pushing for the status quo, or the more-and-more impractical "future", as when Euro BANKS demand AUSTERITY merely for the sake of repaying the debts which they essential created via faulty risk-taking behaviour - assumptions and generalisations of safety, basically based on the greed of certain - a handful of - INDIVIDUALS. - (Rationalised via moral assumptions and arguments).
[2/10/13]: Some central banks and treasuries of countries may go on printing money out of thin air, and then the banks pass off the common-man argument that any debt owed (to them) must be paid up, come hell or high water. By doing this magic, they lock up the wealth extracted in the past, up there in their tip of the capital pyramid, and impose inflation or currency wars, (etc.), which only become a greater tax upon the common men, making them less able to pay their debts. as demanded. Inevitably, over-reaching capitalism, i.e., imperialism, ultimately must go to war and/or collapse. Capital has abstracted to such a point where it has practically evapourated, and become no good for much else than forcing, controlling people into war, as a further (uncontrollable) attempt to keep their relative wealth near the top locked up, (internationally). (Thus is makes sense that banks have funded Communist regimes or Hitlers in the past).
One outcome from war is a decimation of populations - i.e., leading to a relative labour shortage for those countries which are able to recover economically, mainly via manufacturing, and market capture, and increasing demand. Where once there may have been a labour GLUT, (even though wars may have yet been fought for even cheaper labour, as in the Civil War), now a labour SHORTAGE means that labourers are able to unionise and bargain for higher wages, much to the chagrin of the banksters, et al. But all is relatively well, since the economy is expanding, and social programmes may even (likely) be introduced to better the lives of a rising middle class. The very middle class the GOP puppet people have been at war against, most actively since the 1970s.
But, just look at this simple point: In an economy where virtually EVERY CORPORATION wants to reduce wages at their plants, then so in the over-all labour market, why WOULDN'T all business ultimately agree to conspire to crash wages through discord and WAR, in their perpetual, competitive race to the bottom, including the "#danger of collective action," or the mass violation of the Commons, (privatisation, etc)?! They are naturally oriented to support the STATUS QUO at all costs, including WAR, even though a war may ultimately weed many of them out AFTERWARDS, as well as raise wages! (So - we get back into the topics of paradoxical learning, or cutting off the nose to SPITE the face). It can be a natural course for herds to cull their populations, but more on this topic elsewhere. But I will add, no animal but man follows this course more artfully, elabourately and INSANELY than man. I mean - exactly what is he meaning to evolve towards?!!! [end]
Aside: (Another way of bringing on a phase-shift is to transition to CHEAPER energy - and this is presently being attempted via today's STATUS QUO power and technology structures, the same wealth-inequality/perversion. To attempt to do it this way simply leads to congestion and war, and the substitution of the USA Empire with, most likely, a Chinese empire).
A dysfunctionalising economy which more and more demands turning up the screws on global virtual scarcity, (which also involve investment bubbles and many other phenomena), until socio-economic AUSTERITY programmes (predictably) fail, and then the power structure demands more virtual scarcity by creating amongst the divided masses and classes such dire LIFE-AND-DEATH situations and structures as WAR, and even revolution, is composed of a game of people, EACH WHO ONLY WANTS TO FIND A WAY OUT TOWARDS MORE MONEY, which is seen as more wealth or power. Either compete for these windows, or perish. And so we see such societies as sport freaks like THE VILLAGE IDIOT, NETHER GUY, RADICAL COMMIES, FUNDAMENTALIST LIBERALS, FUNDAMENTALIST RIGHTIES, HEDGE FUND RAIDERS, NAKED SHORT SELLERS, CORRUPT POLITICIANS, ETC. What started out as a desire for, "a way out," (in), in the form of a job, and also a car, and a house, and so on... end up, often, as an insatiable need to control and to damage. Might makes right. Doing the very opposite of what the greater society considers moral or proper. The right to lie and get away with it. The right to kill large groups of people and get away with it. And so on...
PS - Note that GOP political decision to supposedly support (some) immigration reform will be wanting reforms that don't hurt soon, (as in creating more pro-Dem voters from aliens), such as allowing anchor babies to become citz, or reforms which will keep labour wages AS CHEAP AS POSSIBLE. Mark my words. This issue portends further arguing, and it may become another sham debate, used, like the abortion, and now gun-control, merely for campaign purposes.
PS 2 - Thinking of doing a poll on "WHAT TURNS WOMEN ON?" - so if you have any thoughts on that now, I will add them to the poll. Don't worry. I'm a ladies man. And my poll is already quite strong.
ECON Note: Capitalist economies are very capable on phase-shifts, even if they are as far-gone as the DECLINING EMPIRE ECONOMY of the USA, so invested in megacorps, corrupt vested interests, military expenditure, political dysfunction, etc. Why? Because what you don't see, you tend not to know. There has been more to the movement of wealth to the top 1% than mere bank transfers of money, the Fed, Wall Street, taxes, etc. Dysfunctionalising capitalism itself requires VIRTUAL SCARCITY - or the exhaustion of the wealth of most actors - in order to thrive. The masses, and the classes, are habitually, and ignorantly, perpetually rendered towards a state of essential depletion of resources, such that they lose most of their degrees of freedom. ("Peripheral", "marginal"). They often willingly submit and contribute to this rendering of self towards a full state of virtual neediness.
Greatly, they are impoverished via direct expenses charged by corporations, banks, governments, prices, inflation, etc.
But there are peripheral or surfeit expenses paid, as when their wealth diminishes relative to growing, covetting, land-grabbing, controlling, prospering MONOPOLIES.
Fundamental reducers also include SECONDARY COSTS foisted upon them and upon THE COMMONS; profuse, covert and etc. competition from larger actors and throughout society and the reacting environment itself; the loss of access to control of resources; the loss of real rights, and so forth.
And, as intimated, people self-impoverish by contributing to a system of WANTS-AS-NEEDS, (via "paradoxical learning," "externalised locus of control"), always wanting to consume, rather than to stabilise property, e.g., or injuring their health caught in the shadow of this great consumption, and so on.
So, what happens is that, even in a country of great wealth, a landscape of virtual scarcity is carved out across the land, so that everyone is directed towards an ultimately zero-sum gain "FUTURE", whereby they are required to compete amongst themselves in order to survive, or else die, literally or in spirit or liberty.
SO..... Simply by adjusting structures and/or patterns and/or channels of economics and institutions, as by investing in grassoots-up stimulation, rather than top-down, and rather than AUSTERITY, it becomes very easy to provide the economy, and preferably the masses and the classes, with additional degrees of freedom, (which are their right after all), whereby spending and investment, etc., can be changed towards a new, more COOPERATIVE FUTURE.
Would that we not need virtual scarcity AT ALL! But there is so much more wealth potential latent in economies, which go unseen, because vested interests keeps pushing for the status quo, or the more-and-more impractical "future", as when Euro BANKS demand AUSTERITY merely for the sake of repaying the debts which they essential created via faulty risk-taking behaviour - assumptions and generalisations of safety, basically based on the greed of certain - a handful of - INDIVIDUALS. - (Rationalised via moral assumptions and arguments).
[2/10/13]: Some central banks and treasuries of countries may go on printing money out of thin air, and then the banks pass off the common-man argument that any debt owed (to them) must be paid up, come hell or high water. By doing this magic, they lock up the wealth extracted in the past, up there in their tip of the capital pyramid, and impose inflation or currency wars, (etc.), which only become a greater tax upon the common men, making them less able to pay their debts. as demanded. Inevitably, over-reaching capitalism, i.e., imperialism, ultimately must go to war and/or collapse. Capital has abstracted to such a point where it has practically evapourated, and become no good for much else than forcing, controlling people into war, as a further (uncontrollable) attempt to keep their relative wealth near the top locked up, (internationally). (Thus is makes sense that banks have funded Communist regimes or Hitlers in the past).
One outcome from war is a decimation of populations - i.e., leading to a relative labour shortage for those countries which are able to recover economically, mainly via manufacturing, and market capture, and increasing demand. Where once there may have been a labour GLUT, (even though wars may have yet been fought for even cheaper labour, as in the Civil War), now a labour SHORTAGE means that labourers are able to unionise and bargain for higher wages, much to the chagrin of the banksters, et al. But all is relatively well, since the economy is expanding, and social programmes may even (likely) be introduced to better the lives of a rising middle class. The very middle class the GOP puppet people have been at war against, most actively since the 1970s.
But, just look at this simple point: In an economy where virtually EVERY CORPORATION wants to reduce wages at their plants, then so in the over-all labour market, why WOULDN'T all business ultimately agree to conspire to crash wages through discord and WAR, in their perpetual, competitive race to the bottom, including the "#danger of collective action," or the mass violation of the Commons, (privatisation, etc)?! They are naturally oriented to support the STATUS QUO at all costs, including WAR, even though a war may ultimately weed many of them out AFTERWARDS, as well as raise wages! (So - we get back into the topics of paradoxical learning, or cutting off the nose to SPITE the face). It can be a natural course for herds to cull their populations, but more on this topic elsewhere. But I will add, no animal but man follows this course more artfully, elabourately and INSANELY than man. I mean - exactly what is he meaning to evolve towards?!!! [end]
Aside: (Another way of bringing on a phase-shift is to transition to CHEAPER energy - and this is presently being attempted via today's STATUS QUO power and technology structures, the same wealth-inequality/perversion. To attempt to do it this way simply leads to congestion and war, and the substitution of the USA Empire with, most likely, a Chinese empire).
A dysfunctionalising economy which more and more demands turning up the screws on global virtual scarcity, (which also involve investment bubbles and many other phenomena), until socio-economic AUSTERITY programmes (predictably) fail, and then the power structure demands more virtual scarcity by creating amongst the divided masses and classes such dire LIFE-AND-DEATH situations and structures as WAR, and even revolution, is composed of a game of people, EACH WHO ONLY WANTS TO FIND A WAY OUT TOWARDS MORE MONEY, which is seen as more wealth or power. Either compete for these windows, or perish. And so we see such societies as sport freaks like THE VILLAGE IDIOT, NETHER GUY, RADICAL COMMIES, FUNDAMENTALIST LIBERALS, FUNDAMENTALIST RIGHTIES, HEDGE FUND RAIDERS, NAKED SHORT SELLERS, CORRUPT POLITICIANS, ETC. What started out as a desire for, "a way out," (in), in the form of a job, and also a car, and a house, and so on... end up, often, as an insatiable need to control and to damage. Might makes right. Doing the very opposite of what the greater society considers moral or proper. The right to lie and get away with it. The right to kill large groups of people and get away with it. And so on...
PS - Note that GOP political decision to supposedly support (some) immigration reform will be wanting reforms that don't hurt soon, (as in creating more pro-Dem voters from aliens), such as allowing anchor babies to become citz, or reforms which will keep labour wages AS CHEAP AS POSSIBLE. Mark my words. This issue portends further arguing, and it may become another sham debate, used, like the abortion, and now gun-control, merely for campaign purposes.
PS 2 - Thinking of doing a poll on "WHAT TURNS WOMEN ON?" - so if you have any thoughts on that now, I will add them to the poll. Don't worry. I'm a ladies man. And my poll is already quite strong.