The main assumptions of neoclassical economics are that consumers make rational decisions, acting independently based on all relevant information to maximize utility, companies aim to maximize profits, and markets self-regulate in response to the law of supply and demand.
Neoclassical economics ideology is based on faulty assumptions about the human condition and the real economy. The supposition that consumers behave rationally when making choices ignores the influence of (subliminal advertising, psycho-emotional factors, academic knowledge, peer pressure, available economic income, incorrect or incomplete information, and random conjunctural factors that can interfere with the decision-making process.
Profit maximization is neither the only nor the best way to assess how markets work. Profit maximization exacerbates inequality, exploits workers, encourages the ostensive consumption of superfluous goods and services, generates unnecessary waste and irreversible environmental destruction. Profit maximization dehumanizes people and commodifies social relationships.
The economy must be structured to supply essential needs, not to stimulate artificial consumption habits and addictions in order to increase profits.
Neoclassical economics assumes that the quantity of goods and services consumed is an indicator of social well-being, forgetting to mention that the more unequal the society, the more the indicators distort reality, accounting for goods and services that only upper classes can access, does not contribute at all to the well-being of the majority of the population that has to work hard to satisfy basic needs.
Enjoying access to public health and education services, improving life expectancy, social equality, economic stability and the right to leisure for all without distinction seems to me more reasonable than producing products, goods and services for the "free market.” Who can ultimately enjoy and benefit from the free market? Free for whom and to what?
Neoclassical economics assumes that the market is self-regulating based on the idea that competition and supply and demand determine the rational and efficient allocation of resources.
If we ignore reality, the law of supply and demand as the basis of the “free market” in which the consumer makes informed choices and takes rational decisions generates a self-regulating dynamic equilibrium seems coherent.
Neoclassical economics also foresees the non-existence of a maximum profit ceiling for investors, entrepreneurs, and owners, paving the way to hollow democracy from the inside.
The exempt "free market" must determine the value of a product, good, service, or property based on the consumer's perception. We all know that’s how free markets work, exemptions for whom?
The financialization of the economy and the deregulation of the financial markets with the abolition of the Glass-Steagall Act https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/glass-steagall-act repealed in November 1999 by then-President Bill Clinton was one of the determining factors for the financial crisis of 2008.
The free market is not directly synonymous with capitalism, but, as a rule, the country’s most enthusiastic about free markets are capitalist and defend proprietary rights above any other right.
The rentier class thrives in capitalist countries where financial markets are completely deregulated.
When the capitalist class refers to the "free market," it refers to capital markets and financial instruments trade, most of which relate to the FIRE sector's parallel world. The true concept of a free market is a public place/square where producers and traders display their goods on certain days of the week, month, or year and where consumers go for fun and to shop. People get to know each other, talk to each other, and get informed about the products displayed. Trade is done according to the law of supply and demand.
Chains of stores and supermarkets, even when they follow the rules of supply and demand, can always find ways to make agreements with competitors to fix prices, resorting to cartelization.
Free markets don`t become unfree because of being regulated.
The most important thing is that the rules are fair and balanced; the same principle applies to taxes and interest rates.
The main question is: Cui bono with deregulation? Follow the money to get to know the truth. If political choices and the laws of the country do not benefit ordinary people, then our duty is to investigate why? If we come to the conclusion that the problem is systemic and structural, then it's time to change. Still, it is not possible to implement meaningful change without a well-defined political project.
In practice, the "free market" benefits a tiny minority because the system is set up to facilitate those with the most. The capitalist system is designed to defend the interests of capital; the more economic and financial power, the greater the margin for negotiation and the ability to exert influence within and outside legal limits; special interests dictate the rules when money becomes the law.
The unregulated "free market" excludes externalities, technological asymmetries, academic and income disparities. In short, the “free market” is free to purge anything that conflicts with easy profits and rentier monopolies.
The more deregulated the market, the more exposed to fraud and mismanagement, which means that the State will be forced to intervene to cover the losses to stabilize the economy whenever the bubble bursts.
Society as a whole is obliged to pay the ransom of the economy and suffer the consequences of economic crises. Apparently, because the system is untouchable, it is unthinkable to nationalize the FIRE sector and extirpate the malignant financial tumor. We cannot interfere with the core “freedoms” of the plutocratic class.
Financial speculation in the real estate market provides an "excellent" service to society because it generates the illusion of a constant increase in the value of properties.
The prices are completely unrealistic and the rental market becomes inaccessible to working-class families. When the bubble bursts, many middle-class families lose their homes and society as a whole suffers, with the exception of those causing the problem. The government saves the corrupted institutions and a new cycle can begin.
With the concession of public services to private entities, profits are prioritized to distribute dividends to shareholders. In contrast, the quality of services deteriorates and the infrastructure and equipment do not receive the necessary maintenance and renovation, with hazard risks for the public while postponing the bill for future generations.
Lobbying and the revolving doors are used by big businesses to influence political decisions, and campaign financing helps the "right" people to have the maximum chance of being elected.
The truth is that capitalists hate free markets and competition. Capitalists love monopolies, neocolonialist control, financial enslavement and rent-seeking.
Free trade requires rules and regulations to defend the public interest and national sovereignty.
Deregulation only favors unscrupulous opportunists. Whenever sociopaths and psychopaths are allowed to control society, they create a legal system to protect proprietary rights above anything else and a moral code to glorify the wealthy.
The accumulated financial capital is transformed into political capital and society becomes controlled by the capitalist sociopathic class.
Only a democratic society can control capital accumulation and set a maximum wealth ceiling. Those who belong to the working class and believe that enrichment should have no limits defend a society where capital will always be placed above any other value. Proprietary rights will always be placed above human rights and environmental protection, without exception and if you believe that green capitalism is different, you are being duped again.
Nobody denies that capitalism encourages entrepreneurship and individual initiative.
Assets and property are privately controlled, and earning a living requires submitting to the will of a boss in order to survive on a meager salary because the capitalist system is based on the right to exploit.
For people who value independence and do not easily submit to the will of others, the solution is to become entrepreneurs and try to find their niche, a small business, or self-employment regardless of the real utility for society; what matters is that the activity is profitable, even when the profit is barely enough to survive. There are many “entrepreneurs” who also belong to the exploited class, but the title might make them feel a little better.
Capitalist culture is normalized at a planetary level, whether in the pursuit of profit or in the idea of unlimited access to goods, products and services. The desire to own private property is deeply rooted that even people aware of the flaws, contradictions, and destructive power of capitalist culture remain attached to the system's structural values and cannot organize themselves to demand a real system change.
Individual initiative is good for society; nobody wants a society deprived of this good. But society is a system for serving and protecting the collective good that public institutions and services must guarantee.
Limits, restrictions and prohibitions are part of life in society.
A government should be as large as the country's citizens democratically decide to be appropriate.
Democratic freedoms need to be regulated against abuses and to defend the diversity of which society is composed.
Absolute freedom does not exist and anyone who believes in the right to enjoy absolute freedom must experience living completely outside the supportive network provided by society.
Anarcho-capitalists advocate the “free market” style where money is "earned" from speculative operations, financial instruments trade, and other financial market schemes.
How should we label a society that empowers a tiny elite to accumulate synthetic wealth obtained in the virtual reality of financial markets that can be converted into real-world properties, goods, products and services?
It is a pertinent question that we all must ask, including citizens who believe in productivist capitalism in which wealth is obtained through activities useful to society, which is not the case with financial capitalism.
Financial capitalism is the pinnacle of fraud; we should engage in getting rid of it, the sooner, the better; it is harmful to society, causes immense suffering and destruction and is driving Western society towards techno-feudalism.
Over the past five decades, financial capitalism has been the lever of economic growth in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Neoliberalism is responsible for the destruction of the social fabric in the Western world, most notably in the US and the UK.
A financial system based on virtual enrichment resorting to all kinds of financial instruments schemes allowed in the deregulated free market. The free market is a comprehensive system used and abused by restricted individuals, groups, institutions, organizations and corporations with knowledge, connections and power. It allows them to accumulate unlimited virtual wealth that can later be legally converted into material goods and properties. This is equivalent to using Monopoly money to buy real property! This is the pitiful state of decay to which the globalized capitalist class has brought western society.
Society is ruled and controlled by an elite enriching themselves through the accumulation of virtual wealth produced in the free markets parallel universe of monopoly capitalism, while ordinary citizens have to survive and compete for crumbs in the real economy.
10% of the population benefits or can benefit from this fraud. Still, most of the population would be better off if the existing banking and financial order were simply dismantled and replaced by public banking. Keeping ourselves convinced this is impossible neutralizes the imperative need to make it happen.
Mental decolonization is the first step; we should not be afraid to ask difficult questions; we must question the entrenched beliefs and ideologies shaping our perception of the sociocultural order and political economic system.
This reality is the height of fraud and we should focus our attention on it because this crime against humanity and against nature is far more perverse than any of us ever imagined.
We have to stop being naive and believe in the illusion that it's just a game of luck and chance and that the critics just don't know what they're talking about. The plutocratic rentier class wants us to believe in the necessity of preserving the scheme indefinitely because the day we realize that it is nothing more than a rent-seeking parasitic system, utterly useless, we will be forced to demand its end.
A financial instrument is a real or virtual document representing a legal agreement involving monetary value. Financial instruments are divided into two types: cash instruments and derivative instruments, which can also be divided according to the asset class, debt-based or equity-based.
It dismays me that most people make little to no effort to comprehend the perception manipulation mechanisms that elites use to manufacture consent. Understanding how money is used as a tool of social and class control is essential to change how we perceive profit and value, wealth and property, meritocracy and privilege and so many misconceptions about the meaning of earning a living.
The elementary principle is to direct people’s attention to convenient ideas, issues and narratives instead of making people feel the need to ask hard questions. Who benefits from manipulating public perception and why?
What are the reasons why certain issues are relevant while others are relegated to oblivion? In a class-based society dominated by capital, where everything is literally commodified, including human relations, most of the problems that affect the existence of the common citizenry have a common denominator, capital.
Capital is “money (or another asset) used to generate more money”.
In the business world, capital means anything a company owns that contributes to the production of value.
Capital sources include financial assets that can be settled as cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities.
Tangible assets include machinery and facilities used to manufacture a product.
Money is a form of capital only when invested to generate more money.
Liabilities is a form of money that a company owes and that must be paid back.
Equity is money investors put into the company in exchange for ownership and never needs to be returned.
Those who control the mechanisms and instruments used to reinforce the concentration of capital have the power to shape society.
The capitalist class has developed a skillful scheme for managing the hope factor, nurturing necessary illusions of potential achievements located somewhere in the future sufficient to encourage supporters and even convert them into tribalized fanatics, just like it happens in religion and sports.
What is Money?
Money can be anything that can serve as:
- store of value, which means people can store it to use it later
- unit of account, i.e. provide a common basis for prices
- medium of exchange, something people can use to buy and sell
Of the three characteristics of money
1 Means of Payment
2 Unit of Account
3 Store of Value
The means of Payment is by far the most important. If money is accepted by the general population as an unconditional means of payment, then money is valuable to society. Money enables citizens to work together for the common good.
Definitions of money
1 Money is a creature of the law.
2 Money is not tangible wealth in itself, but a power to obtain wealth.
3 Money is a symbol, worthless in itself, but symbolizing wealth.
4 Money is an abstract social power based on law.
5 Cash is whatever the government accepts for tax payments.
6 Money is a legally enforced medium of exchange by the government.
7 Money is a medium of exchange accepted by the people.
8 Money has value as a medium of exchange only because it is accepted by the People and is legally applied by the Government acting on behalf of the People.
Stephen Zarlenga's definition of money is:
Money’s essence (apart from whatever is used to signify it) is an abstract social power embodied in law, as an unconditional means of payment.
James McCumiskey’s definition of money is:
Money is an unconditional means of payment, a token for wealth, worthless of itself, but symbolizing wealth because it is enshrined in law; and administered by Government as a public resource, for and on behalf of the People.
The Nature of Money
Money is a common resource, which should be created by the Government for the benefit of the People.
“Money exists not by nature but by law” Aristotle, Greek Philosopher
Clearly in the 4th century BC, almost 2,500 years ago, Aristotle understood the nature of money. Money is not a commodity that is to be mined like gold or silver. Money is not a commodity to be farmed like wheat or barley. Money is not an animal like a cow or a goat. The nature of money is that it is a legal invention. Money is a creature of the law. The Greek name for money is ‘nomisma’, which is derived from ‘nomos’ meaning law or binding custom. Aristotle defined money as an abstract legal power, publicly controlled for the common good.
The Fourth Branch of Government
Political scientists refer to three branches of government:
1 Executive
2 Legislature
3 Judiciary
Stephen Zarlenga in ‘The Lost Science of Money’ argues persuasively and cogently that there is a fourth branch of government, (whether we realise it or not), called The Money Power. The Money Power is the power to issue money in any given country. Martin Van Buren (8th US President, 1782 – 1862) coined this phrase, and it will remain capitalised in this book in honour of this truly great insight into the nature and ownership of the money-creation process.
This ability to create a country’s money supply should be the most important function of Government. Because private banks now create over 97% of the money supply, they are in control of the most important branch of Government – The Money Power – which has effectively usurped the system of checks and balances enshrined in these other three branches of Government in our Western democracies.
Stephen Zarlenga has made the greatest contribution to monetary reform in explicitly stating that The Money Power is by far the greatest of all the branches of Government. The fact that this is not so currently recognised, has led to a marked distortion and corruption of society.
The constitutional imperative to define Money
The Money Power is so important that it should be officially recognised in law. Once society gains control of the issue of money, it cannot let the bankers issue money ever again.
Interestingly the US constitution states in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 5 that congress has the power to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof”.
One could interpret this as being the constitutional mandate for Congress to issue money and spend it into circulation. One could argue that Congress has the power to reclaim the right to issue the nation’s money from the privately owned Federal Reserve System.
However what Clause 5 in Article 1, Section 8 says in full is: –
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
One could interpret from this clause that only Congress has the authority to coin money, that is, to produce just the coins used in the United States. Coins are produced by the US Mint, a bureau of the US Treasury, and form about 1/1000 of the US money supply. Coins form the only part of the US money supply, which directly benefits the Government and People.
Given the importance of money to our society, I believe a clear definition should be inserted into every constitution, (or otherwise enshrined in law), defining money, and stating its supreme importance in the running of society.
Money – servant not master
The entire money supply should be created by Government for and on behalf of the People. Money should become Man’s servant rather than his master.
Source: https://positivemoney.org/2011/05/what-is-money/
Most people believe that money is created through the trade of goods, products and services produced in the real economy and the wages paid to workers. Profit as a process of wealth creation would also be the means of monetary creation.
We all understand the power that money gives, but we attribute it to wealth accumulation and never to the process of money creation and how it is allocated. "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I don't care who writes the laws." Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), founder of the House of Rothschild.
Wages paid for work done do not add value to money; it defines a value assigned by society for performing roles, functions, tasks and occupations, in short, for all activities that presuppose a monetary reward.
All forms of struggle for a more egalitarian and just society are valuable, but they can only be effective and lasting if we get to the root of the problem: the capitalist system and class society.
If we keep pretending or denying the centrality of this problem, we will never define the ideological and political strategies that could bring irreversible structural changes.
The powerful don't mind resorting to violent repression to prevent radical systemic change; only a broad, organized movement with clear ideas of the model of society intended to be built allows the development of effective strategies to overthrow the established powers.
Liberal "democracies" are paving the way for techno-feudalism. The so-called moderate parties differ in identity politics and cultural issues but follow the neoliberal agenda with more or less fervor. The democratic socialist parties are either infiltrated by neoliberals or can`t implement socialist policies because countries have lost their financial sovereignty.
Economic, financial, monetary and geopolitical governance are obliged to impose neoliberal policies independently of the outcome of national elections. In most western liberal democracies, national governance must follow the dictates of international financial governance. Central banks are obliged to follow the governance dictated by the BIS and the IMF and World Bank impose neoliberal shock therapy as default economic-financial governance. International regulatory organizations ensure that governments comply with the established rules or risk sanctions and fines.
Under current conditions, whoever wins elections has little room to break with the established order because many of the contracts are armored, so if future governments intend to break them, the State is obliged to pay huge financial reparations. This is the state we have reached; democracy is totally subservient to the interests of international financial capital and the globalized rentier class. As long as this situation continues, we will not have political democracy, much less economic democracy.
The governments of Western liberal democracies are elected to enforce the globalized financial markets rules. Their main role is to implement austerity policies and protect the managerial bourgeois class, fearful of losing acquired privileges and ready to pass on the sacrifices to the lower-middle working class.
The current system is neither responsive to democracy nor national interests because those who pull the strings of monetary and financial policy owe allegiance to the globalized financial elite.
The perversity of class society is present in the normalization of the habit of belittling people based on professional occupation and social position. We spend our lives trying to climb the social ladder as if it were the only way to have a productive and useful existence. We cling to privileges like limpets to rocks and take for granted that lower-class citizens should be available to serve us. This is called the normalization of humiliation, and it serves to justify the exploitation of people who are just like us. Class societies assume that the upper class is helping the lower classes whenever poor, “unskilled” people replace them in performing unpleasant, dangerous and/or monotonous tasks because it is their duty.
Monetary reward in a class-based society is crucial to confine people where they are supposed to belong. People do not live above their means, people are deprived of the means to live, and income is how to keep people in a permanent state of need. Some people are poor because of mismanagement, personality disorders, lack of social skills, etc… but poverty is a structural requirement of every class-based society.
We can fantasize or pretend to belong to the upper-middle class by putting on a deceptive facade, but sooner or later, the money factor will make the mask fall and expose the true social class to which we belong. We should never feel ashamed or guilty about being poor. The way to strengthen this idea is by developing awareness about the role of class consciousness in understanding a class-based society to realize that poverty is a systemic problem, not a human defect. Poverty is not solved by increasing the number of billionaires but with a political economy for economic justice and social equality. The financialization of the economy creates billionaires while deepening social inequality because the wealth accumulated at the top of the social pyramid was "produced" by the FIRE sector, which does not create anything useful for society, but misery.
Monetary and financial policy is to political economy what the circulatory system is to the living organism. The issuance and allocation of financial resources must be in the public domain. Money is a legal agreement and a virtual social good. When we agree to use raw material as money, the value of that raw material as money has nothing to do with its value as a material asset useful to society. Money is a virtual entity protected by law and guaranteed by a state.
The reward system based on monetary or other forms of remuneration can be used to build a just and egalitarian society, or it can be used to generate inequality and deprivation, as it happens in capitalist societies with deregulated markets and open economies. The idea of an open economy sounds good; it is appealing, but it is intended to lift the protective barriers of the national economies and allow neocolonialist monopoly interests to plunder the country's natural resources and raw materials.
The further down the social ladder, the more it is assumed that people can be humiliated, exploited and even mistreated. The essence of class society is the absence of rights at the bottom and the gradual increase of privileges and rights that make people insensitive to the suffering of others because the belief in entitlement transforms the way we see others; it's easy to believe that others exist to serve us because it's the natural order of social reality.
Most of the money in the economy is created not by printing presses at the central bank but by banks when they provide loans.
How does it work?
Money is more than banknotes and coins. If you have a bank account, you can use what’s in it to buy things, typically with a debit card. Because you can buy things with your bank account, we think of this as money even though it’s not cash.
Therefore, if you borrow £100 from the bank, and it credits your account with the amount, ‘new money’ has been created. It didn’t exist until it was credited to your account.
This also means as you pay off the loan, the electronic money your bank created is ‘deleted’ – it no longer exists. You haven’t got richer or poorer. You might have less money in your bank account but your debts have gone down too. So essentially, banks create money, not wealth.
Banks create around 80% of money in the economy as electronic deposits in this way. In comparison, banknotes and coins only make up 3%. Finally, most banks have accounts with us at the Bank of England, allowing them to transfer money back and forth. This is called electronic central bank money, or reserves.
Can banks create as much money as they like?
No, they can’t.
Regulation limits how much money banks can create. For example, they have to hold a certain amount of financial resources, called capital, in case people default on their loans. These limits have become stricter since the financial crisis.
Banks also risk going bust if they lend out money left, right and centre. For instance, people borrowing money will probably spend it. If they make payments to people who have accounts at other banks, their bank will need to transfer the money to that other bank by sending it some of its electronic central bank money. So if one bank lends out too much money, at some point it will not have enough electronic money in its account with us to pay the other banks.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/how-is-money-created
Outright lies, incorrect and incomplete information, conceptual distortion and perception manipulation to convey false ideas about how the economy really works.
The function of the cognitive-affective system, cognition + qualitative attribute, is to identify patterns, memorize them and remix and reorganize them whenever necessary to better help us navigate the environment where we live. Living organisms must respond adequately to real-time challenges and opportunities and manage probabilities of future events.
The information stored in the form of implicit memories represents the somatic, psychosomatic, cognitive, affective, conceptual and virtual mapping of the experiences lived by an organism. Implicit memories are "stored" in a living neurological system and serve to interpret, identify, and compare patterns to respond adequately to each new situation or problem that the organism needs to solve. When implicit memories are formed from incorrect, erroneous, or intentionally falsified information, the interpretation of the problems will be distorted and the perception of reality incorrect; the behavioral responses are functional, but the reality is falsified.
Human beings are social animals living in an artificial environment. Human society is a cultural creation that depends on structuring institutions based on narratives that shape identity and give meaning and unity to a social system.
Culture is constituted by narratives based on ideas that allow us to communicate and give meaning to a communal existence. Society is an artificial environment that allows its members to solve problems and satisfy essential needs based on mutual aid, cooperation and reciprocity within the broader context of the biosphere.
The human imagination seeks to give meaning and assign purpose based on the accessible interpretation of the available information and the experience accumulated within a specific socio-cultural context. The creative power of human imagination does not exist to create fiction, produce art, discover scientific facts, or develop amazing technologies; imagination exists to help explain, understand, make sense of and solve problems. Imagination can help us to discern facts, but the truth is not crucial for us to function in society, which allows society to be hijacked and manipulated by special interests that put society's structural institutions to work on their behalf by developing a legal system that authorizes it and a cultural-ideological system that glorifies it.
We can live decades or even centuries under the rule of lies and obscurantism because we are endowed with the psychocognitive adaptative plasticity that allows us to be educated, indoctrinated and domesticated to adapt to practically any type of sociocultural environment.
We can live in an ideological-cultural environment based on erroneous knowledge that emerged from the attempt to attribute meaning to reality and was not manipulated by particular interests but the result of erroneous interpretations of natural phenomena and unfounded correlations. But in a class society where the maintenance of power and the concentration of wealth and proprietary rights are at stake, errors and lies are intentionally planted to disseminate ideologies controlled by elites to deceive the public with structural narratives that justify, normalize and legalize social relations based on abuse, exploitation, repression, privilege, superiority, etc... this reality is not the result of chance, it is tailor-made.
The dominant ideological-cultural narratives are thought to shape society based on a path previously chosen by the ruling elites. Although it is impossible to control all variables, it is perfectly feasible to plant trends and create a cultural-ideological climate conducive to accepting unpopular measures, resorting to the most effective PR methodologies to manipulate, condition, influence and divide public opinion and thus manufacture consent.
This issue worries me because I realize that most people do not give it the importance it deserves. Society is continually being shaped by the special interests that control it and the perception is manipulated in order to convey an idea of a society that corresponds to the way the dominant classes want us to interpret it.
The ideological inspiration conveyed by the dominant narratives comprises some facts and a lot of fiction because the idea is not to help the public better discern but to manage the necessary illusions that shape personal preferences and tastes and ideological and political identification.
Today's public relations and advertising industry have the scientific knowledge and technological means that have transformed the production of necessary illusions into the most important activity at the service of the dictatorship of information to manufacture consent.
Language manipulation and semiotics have reached a level of refinement in the manufacture of consent that the PR industry founders Edward Bernays and Ivy Lee could never have imagined.
It means that we live in a fictitious reality in which the perception of it is more real than factual reality. What gives meaning, organizes and allows us to understand reality is perception and perception takes shape from the existing ideas in the sociocultural environment in which we live. We are primarily attracted by ideas that arouse our curiosity and motivate us to find answers to real problems or to clarify existential doubts.
The ideas that influence and shape the perception of reality go far beyond conscious reasoning. What we believe to be an accurate version of reality is based on the unsound information floating in the social environment influencing how we perceive reality. Most information shaping public perception is manipulated to give a fictional idea about how society works.
This is the core of the problem; deeply rooted beliefs guide us on vital issues for our individual and collective existence, yet they are often incorrect, completely wrong, or simply intentionally distorted.
Ideas, ideologies, dogmas, assertions and narratives often give us distorted views of how an economic, political, financial, military, or other system works... The force of arguments or, more frequently the argument of force transforms ideas into systems of authority. Lies can easily be transformed into views supported by institutions and entities representing authority in whatever form. Propaganda is highly effective, creating a cultural-ideological atmosphere that prepares citizens to accept the unacceptable by rationalizing the absurd.
We should take seriously what we believe because what we believe is what we become.
Art does not command life; beliefs do. Ultimately, the ideas conveyed in the web of cultural-ideological narratives shape the perception of reality, organize and command how we live.
A mixture of facts and assumptions constitutes the perception of reality. The fundamental question to be answered is: who designs and controls the dominant narratives from which the beliefs that function as landmarks helping us to navigate through life?
Earning trust is the easiest way to deceive, use and abuse our fellow citizens; when we are not careful about the narratives we pick to trust, society will become owned by untrustworthy unscrupulous people.
Whenever the majority of citizens realize that they are being deceived, the scheme fails to work and the curtain falls; even in dictatorships, it is essential to maintain the necessary illusions for the idea of systemic justice to prevail because when propaganda stops working, not even violent repression can contain popular rebellion.
Throughout human history, bonds of mutual trust were the standard default pattern of social inter-dependency and reciprocity behind the ability of the human species to survive until the present.
The sedentarization process changed interpersonal relationships by introducing social division in castes and classes and attributing roles, tasks and specialized occupations associated with a system of rewards and privileges.
The class system normalized, rationalized, justified and institutionalized inequality, exploitation, repression, exclusion and ostracism that has prevailed up to the present.
Over time the ruling classes create a legal, ideological and political system to protect their interests and a cultural and moral system to glorify the importance of their role in society.
We know how easy it is to use the power of the creative imagination to frame narratives that rationalize and justify the subjugation of inferior citizens and people considered subhuman. And when these narratives crystallize in the form of norms, rules, traditions and customs, they become the bio-sociocultural identity of a given community, society, country, or empire and are assumed as if they were immutable truths. The danger of cultural-ideological manipulation and colonization is always lurking and many of the "facts" we take for granted were ideas planted by special interests, frequently at the expense of the common good.
Over time we are conditioned to trust the messages conveyed by authorities.
Public figures, experts, celebrities, in short, people regarded as authorities: intellectuals, academics, media personalities, entertainers, sports heroes, and artists,… being famous makes people gain extra credibility and followers trust their opinions without questioning the foundation of what they state. This reveals how the class-based society scheme is set up; the relevance of the role has nothing to do with the person's real value and usefulness to society.
Apparently, anonymous citizens cannot be better informed, smarter, or more honest than well-known experts, celebrities, etc...
In the current sociopolitical context, the barrage of propaganda is crucial to maintaining social order. The capitalist economic system and the financial markets controlled by Wall Street and the City of London have reached such a level of corruption and degeneracy that if the factual truth could be widely exposed and the public had the opportunity to digest it to connect the dots and grasp what the so-called free markets are about and how the financial instruments and everything involving the process of financialization of the economy destroys the fabric of society would be impossible to avoid social upheaval.
Class society is organized to serve the interests of the ruling classes. The further down the social ladder one descends, the less worthy of respect the citizen becomes. The majority of the population conforms to this reality, including the despised.
The more polarizing an issue is, the more people tend to tribalize. Unfortunately, common sense is not always compatible with legitimate anger.
The ideological identification associated with the group's response generates irrational behavior.
The more controversial the topic, the more it divides people and prevents an enlightening and constructive dialogue.
Economic, political, financial and military elites have techno-scientific resources at their disposal to exploit controversial issues to divide society and thus defend the interests and agendas of the dominant classes.
Structural problems that affect the lives of ordinary people are neglected and dissent is neutralized.
The gatekeepers of liberal democracy use every tool in the toolbox to prevent dissident groups and radical movements from developing and growing because they understand that the people will embrace the right ideas when the time is ripe.
If the law does not guarantee social equality, then the law most likely protects special interests.
Special interests emerge when groups, organizations, institutions and corporations acquire the power to influence the legislative, executive and judicial powers. Over time, they transform society structurally and functionally to favor them while keeping the liberal democratic facade.
Elections become a mere formality when elected politicians can indiscriminately disregard the electoral program on the basis they were elected. The electoral program is the political document that defines the principles of representative democracy on which the voter bases the conscious choice to give a vote of confidence to a political project that seems the most adequate to achieve the desired objectives.
It is evident that the total disregard for electoral programs is incompatible with exercising democracy. If a government, after being elected, discards the basic document on which it was elected and implements agendas that go against what was in the electoral program, we do not live in a democracy.
First, we must debunk the myth that there are no alternatives TINA because it's not true and only proves that propaganda is working; that's what we must fight.
The essence of democracy is having political agency; either you have it, or you don't, and when the majority of citizens don't have it and believe it's not important, then we live in a simulacrum of democracy.
Capitalist economies and class-based societies can never be democratic. When the pursuit of profit and proprietary rights are placed above people and nature, the system in place is incompatible with democracy. When political democracy is reduced to theater, ignoring economic, social and environmental democracy, we have technofeudalism with a liberal facade.
