THE RECORD
September 20, 2000

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

I have spent 55 years of my life studying the subject of capitalism and the saying that holds that capitalism has always been with us and we'd better learn to live with it, is incorrect.

Capitalism, as we know it today is a relatively recent phenomenon. Although its origins go back some 300 years to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the origins of neo-classical capitalism 200 years to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, it's present out of control development is only a few years old, since the banks have been deregulated and permitted to create unlimited amounts of money. Anything that happened before, or has been written in the textbooks, is no longer applicable, because the deregulation of the banks has created new, never before seen paradigms.

Comparing capitalism under the gold and then the strictly enforced, government supervised reserve standards and under present deregulation, controlled only by the money markets, is like comparing the difference between the Nazis' word based anti-semitism to their "Final Solution" of legalized mass murder. I have seen them both in real life.
Today's capitalism is not private, or "free" enterprise, as it does not encourage and support personal freedoms and initiative for making a living. It's purpose is the separation of suppliers from users. Iit creates incompetence and reliance on an exploitative system and forces people into the service of the system under an overlapping, now globalized, managerial class. In many ways it is the same principle as Soviet communism was under the Politbureau, or any fundamentalist religious community: Everything and everybody is forced to serve a "cause."

The ruling classes of the past and present have not been capitalists, but faith based, self appointed aristocracies whose power was always based on three specialized sectors: "The Military", "The Priesthood", "The Merchants."

The best example of this is the present day USA. The "Merchants", in this case the banks, corporations, stock and money markets, invent and plan the policy. They also own and control the government. The "Priesthood", in this case the economic departments of universities (that should really be incorporated into Departments of Religious Studies), supply the necessary ideological theories that absolve theft and murder. "The Military" enforces the orders of the Merchants and are absolved for their crimes by the Priesthood, with the usual excuse of: Creating wealth and prosperity.

If we go through every age of history we'll find exactly the same pattern repeating itself, regardless of race, colour or creed. In other words, wars, conquests, colonizations, the rights of ruling classes and most ideologies are always faith, or religion based. Capitalism is not an ideology, or economics, but a religion based ruling system.

I no longer believe that any ideology is the answer, because they can all be corrupted and twisted around beyond recognition and used as weapons by the above ruling classes, who can change colours at the drop of a hat. We can see this in the case of the NZ, Australian, British etc. Labour Parties and to a lesser extent with the NDP.

I still support social democracy as the least evil of the lot with the potential for the development of permanent solutions for democracy, human rights and a sustainable and equitable economic system. However, this system can not and will not be based on ideological theories, especially by so called economists, but unalterable numbers and an incorruptible accounting system.

Co-operation with capitalism is an impossible dream, because it is a total war economy where everybody is an enemy and all associations are based on temporary convenience, ready to be broken at any time. Their credo and key word is "competition." This means the elimination of competition and the establishment of a fascist dictatorial system under the rule of the above three oligopolic classes. The evidence is all around us. The suggestion of co-operation reminds me of the advice that used to be given to women in case they were raped: "Don't fight back, just co- operate, stay calm and hope you won't get hurt too badly!"

I grew up in such conditions and rejected the offers of the communists in my youth. Today's capitalism is nothing more than a gilded form of this same communism. (I'm talking about the practical execution of the theory, not the lofty but impractical dreams of Marx, etc.)

All forms of competitition always increase costs which are transferred on others. In economic/war competition first the victims are hurt or wiped out, then the dominant system burns out, or runs out of energy and collapses. Here, again, we have hundreds of historical precedents that hi- tech won't solve, because hi-tech itself is a dead end on account of ever increasing energy demands. In short, the whole thing is an exercise in futility and waste of resources and energy, as all wars are.

My main interest has always been comparative history, the use of past precedents to predict the future. I have found that the cause of history's tragedies has always been the misunderstanding of economic efficiency and misuse of economic theories, in short "attempts of resource/energy theft" from others, misnamed as "economics."

All wars, conquests, colonization, oppression, genocide, discrimination etc. of the past have been attempts of resource/energy theft, whether the intent was the capture of slaves, gold, farmlands, forests, or as in the case of the Americas, whole continents with slaves and unexploited resources. In the past it was sanctified by religions, now by the worst religion of them all, called capitalism. They all ended up in major tragedies for the vast majority of peoples and the ecology.

On the technical fields, again forced on us by capitalism, much of this hi- tech nonsense has been untested. Only about 5 to 10% of chemicals in use have been thoroughly tested and we have major environmental problems now killing millions every year, such as melanoma and cancers that were unheard of in my childhood, when we never wore shirts in the summers. How about the leaking condos and the capitalist incorporation system that allows the culprits to escape scotfree, transferring costs on others?

The much touted "Green Revolution" in agriculture is a total failure, poisoning us and future generations as well the GM foods. Have any GM seeds or products ever been tested for their long term effects either by the makers, or the governments that sell it and try to push it on humanity? I think not. I've just read an article by a science writer who went around lokking for test results and couldn't find any. The only thing the manufacturers and governements could produce were propaganda for the "huge potential benefits of bio-technology", without any scientific evidence. I also have scientist friends in the field who know the score, but are not permitted to talk openly under threat of the withdrawal of funds. This is the result of economic competition.

All these horrors have been forced on us to satisfy the convertibility of artificial money into resources and goods. In short, not by private enterprise, but by capitalism, just as the wars and conquests of the past have been forced by the three ruling sectors above. This, again, is the result of monetary competition, where the only deciding factor is the growth of profits at any cost, just as the privilleges of ruling classes have been promoted throughout history.

How can you co-operate with criminals who are using the gullibility of people to rob them blind?

Copyright (c) 2000, West's International