Economic Development Alternatives for United States

The swelling dissident movement in United States will have to start shopping for ideas concerning socioeconomic alternatives in order to make itself viable. What does it have to work with?




The global financial crisis has clearly illustrated that there is a serious vacuum of ideas on what to do next as a civilization. Majority of the public senses (on various levels) that key leaderships of many Western states do not offer much more beyond printing more money, socially brutal austerity, etc. Playing for time and looting are not solid ideas and everybody knows it. This inevitably opens up society to ideas from below which will eventually result in part of the elite siding with these ideas to co-opt them and ride them to power.

In United States, we saw the libertarian critique meme and the reactionary "going back to FDR policies" meme rapidly become dominant online over the last 2 years. Collapsist and neofeudalism memes are also about to become dominant. Collapsism in particular forces future oriented thought. The non-Internet world is quickly following behind since it took researchers a year or so to educate themselves about the fraud that caused the crisis, to put their books out, and then another few months for people to read the books. Various socially visible pundits can now defer to books as authoritative sources in speaking up. The market for new type of demagogy (talk radio being the old type) is nowhere near to being saturated.

This awakening resembles a sort of a popular front in the making since people from diverse ideological backgrounds are creating a consensus of what they are against (federal reserve corruption, military eating most resources, financial oligarchy and its personal lawyer/butler [US congress]). A marriage of convenience of this sort is usually created when all other options are exhausted and it will split into petty infighting once the current regime is changed.

All the accelerating muckraking and massive corruption exposures going on currently will begin to create a dissident critical mass in the near future. This is due to the gently exponential curve that is word of mouth communication and most importantly due to some elites sensing that popular sentiment now allows certain things to be safely discussed on a national level. Like in a jury herd dynamic, a minority of consistent and tireless individuals can swing the entire group whether at elite level, the level of a bar or church, or national level. The vacuum of workable ideas in leadership allows such informational waves to spread and take hold rapidly. It may have taken Christianity 300 years to become a dominant meme but with present communication technology, informational "viruses" can do the trick in just years.

In interesting times like these, small but very narrative consistent groups have disproportionate amount of influence. Notice how quickly Ron Paul's faction went from being an ignored laughing stock to being a respected dissident movement (the mere fact that some oligarchs partially co-opted it with funding demonstrates level of genuine popular support). The great budding coalition of groups who usually don't want anything to do with one another (but who realize they got a common enemy) is gaining strength by the week. The awakening process does not even need to take hold of most people. A society historically needs maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of people to substantially switch their world view in order for real transition to start happening. 1/3 of the population can always be counted on to defend status quo to the last while 1/3 can be counted on to be an apathetic mushy middle that joins whoever seems to be winning or is more popular.

How will ideas be judged, what determines which will win out?

Market of ideas is limited by two things. 

1) Practicality of an idea. This means the degree to which an idea is compatible with unfolding social and physical dynamics of human civilization (can't have genuine feudalism, monarchies, or theocracies in 21st century with hundreds of millions of educated people). In a way, the strongest idea is one which is predictive of where we're pretty much headed anyway. This criteria can be said to be desirability of the good (functionality determining desirability).

2) How quickly it can be internalized by the public at large. If one needs to read too many books to understand and accept an idea, then it really is not that great. An idea having been popular previously at some point in history greatly helps with this. This criteria can be said to be the knowledgeableness of the buyer to determine which good is desirable.

So what's on the market presently?

I am going to focus on United States since in many ways the problems of United States show to the world the problems that they themselves will face very soon. The ideas that the American people adapt to resurrect themselves will eventually (if not immediately) be influential on a planetary scale after a couple of decades. The following are listed in no particular order of importance.

a) Reactionary "going back to FDR style" Keynesian monetarism, sound money, and rapid infrastructural development

b) Reactionary "going back to the John Quincy Adams style" American credit system, sound money, and rapid infrastructural development

c) Reactionary "going back to industrial robber baron style" brief and unstable period of something resembling what the libertarian faction wants. Some haphazard and rapid ego driven infrastructural development.

d) American version of Leninist New Economic Policy and very rapid infrastructural development

e) Emulation of Chinese style oligarchic dictatorship and rapid infrastructural development

f) Post-monetarist energy accounting Technocracy and very rapid infrastructural development


SPOILER ALERT:

It'll end up being f) eventually but not before one or more of the others are torturously tried, muddled through, combined, and recombined. In effect, a)-e) are a connecting bridge of experimentation that will make f) possible in due time. Some areas of the country and the world may experience de facto libertarian c) environment due to only the local oligarchs having developmental resources (see Abramovich in his post as governor of Chukotka). Such frightful old school oligarchy should not really spread too quickly before rapid backlash into other choices. There is also the matter of deflation stifling its development. Therefore the libertarian faction is primarily useful as a vibrant "rural power" part of the popular front. They will quickly fade as America's socioeconomic failure discredits capitalism (fairly or unfairly) in the eyes of humanity at large.

Emulation of Chinese police state e) and industrial worker exploitation may be preferred by one wing of American oligarchy (while the other wing seems to want perpetual banana republic style oligarchic military dictatorship with sprinkles of c)). This is due to China already combining various structural characteristics of a)-d) in one package. American version of Putinism is the other "softer" alternative to this. Neither are sustainable long term since they do not address the problem of exponential progress of technology consistently increasing planetary unemployment. There will also be the issue of China entering it's "America in the 1930s" period of industrial depression and crisis of overproduction (which in turn stands to discredit that country briefly in the eyes of the world).

We can begin to see how process of elimination reduces the extent to which the current ideas on the market will be utilized. For the older generation, some elements of a) can be used to provide them peace of mind, continuity towards the end of life, and as marketing to politically sell rapid increase in state intervention. Then, for the younger generations, the mythical elements of b) combined with the edginess of d) may follow to demonstrate that rapid infrastructural progress really is occurring and to provide the future American regime with legitimacy (it'll definitely be needing it). Transition period of the next 30 years will definitely be turbulent and interesting for all involved. We must consistently remain vigilant throughout the process to make sure the rich do not derail the experimentation into something truly frightening (which would make us wish for the old USA back).

The current projected neofeudalism is to be avoided at all costs

                                                                            VS

Constructing Efficient Socieconomic Systems

Part 1: A second look at non-technological top down approaches we're already familiar with

The last article touched upon a simple overarching goal that seems to have been lost in the discourse about the public sector. That is, constantly using cutting edge engineering and technological knowhow to create a bigger energy bang for your energy buck when delivering goods and services via public means. When one makes the effort to replace a plow with a tractor one has greatly cut spending in terms of energy/resources over the long run.

Many governments in the world are the plow/ horse and buggy equivalents. Throwing more money for a better plow isn't going to cut it in the 21st century. Public tools at humanity's disposal must be restructured to meet the demands ahead, these demands being mass scale production of fission and fusion reactors to power up southern hemisphere and reindustrialization of the Western world.

Future public sectors will be judged in how they balance:

1) preservation/expansion of human autonomy

and

2) speed in construction of energy plants needed for continental infrastructure projects in irrigation, transport, farming, etc.

The idea will be to create virtuous cycles where the public tools and infrastructural products of said tools reinforce each other in a rapid movement forward.

No, this is not a call to emulate China (as some in the West are beginning to do) or argument for some sort of a scientific dictatorship (although after the current ghastly rule by bankers and lawyers a congress/parliament of scientists would be a liberating breath of fresh air). Efficiency should not be a dirty word. The word was certainly dragged through the mud by free market economists (the energy logistics behind outsourcing being so inefficient as to make Soviet central planners blush) but we can reclaim it.

Many people are currently focused on bottom up structural reform within their communities and micro governance in general. That is all good but before we move on to that lets remember that there are always 3 other basic ways to get things moving on a macro level. Additionally, whether reform is from above or below, the extent to which it is possible depends on a certain level of technological development and proper implementation of communication devices, transport, etc.

Common top down types of restructuring to bring about efficiency on a macro scale:

A) Breaking up larger political structures geographically to infuse the newly independent parts with new life and autonomy. Example: dissolution of Austria-Hungarian Empire and USSR. After the fragments became independent they learned how to function and are now joining up again in new economic/political blocks on their own free will. Think of it as a bloated monopoly or an unwieldy AOL/Time Warner merger coming apart. When the different parts don't compliment each other well (if they are kept together by historical force or if the ethnic groups don't mix well), then major public sector efficiency gains can be made locally through splitting up the country. Some even argue that countries should have population caps (ranging from 10-50 million people) as small countries provide best examples of governmental streamlining.

If large entities like India, China, or United States (it can easily be 5-7 smaller federal unions) are split up, the fragments can reorganize and then merge again in a fashion that is more productive for all. This is not realistic brainstorming in most cases but lets continue to illustrate types of macro reform that may be attempted in unforeseen regions in the future.

It may presently be absurd to join the already huge and ungovernable Mexico and USA together with Canada to form a North American Union. However, if Mexico splits, if USA splits, and then if Canada splits, after 10-15 years of independence the newly streamlined governments of fragments can rearrange into a North American Union that is dramatically more productive. This of course is recommended for those bloated beasts that can split without bloodshed (once again you know who you are... Indian subcontinent).

B) Joining industrial enterprises together to create economies of scale.
One may think that A) contradicts itself. Why would countries join together again (even partially) after political decentralization and independence? Once again, efficiency is the reason. Think of a hypothetical federal union that has 3 major states: Mexas, Malifornia, and Mew Mork. The country has one large industrial monopoly (Mockheed Lartin) that makes advanced passenger planes. The factories to assemble the airplane parts are scattered throughout the union, research facilities concentrated in one part, vertically integrated mines in another and so on. If this imaginary country splits up, the new governments may become a lot more efficient, responsive/closer to the people, freer, have greater energy and ability to do things faster, etc. However, the new sovereigns of Mexas, Malifornia, and Mew Mork may suffer greatly if Mockheed Martin is similarly split up into three pieces. That is because synergy between the parts of the industrial giant has been lost. The new countries will be left with pieces of a giant and will not be able to barter planes for other things that they need (or even provide planes for themselves in the short term as cheaply as before). The slow down of real physical economy would then negate benefits from acceleration of the political process.

This is not to say that all industrial monopolies with a global reach are synergetic. Lockheed Martin for instance purposefully decentralizes its operations through all 50 states to influence congressmen which creates ridiculous cost overruns and logistical inefficiencies. But if one looks at how European Union and USA emerged, there were major industrial enterprises driving the integration. When it comes to infrastructure builders and providers for products like MagLev trains, tunnels, and canals it's obvious that some organisms need to stay together and expand for cheaper utilization of materials and assembly lines. Industrial giants benefit from size and are the only way to advance real physical economy and wealth of the world.

Therefore, if we continue discussion of what may be best for North America, the optimal restructuring may be: the 3 great countries on the continent splitting into a bunch of smaller sovereign political units (while preserving their industrial links) THEN coming together again as a North American EU confederate  equivalent and THEN creating singular continental industrial monopolies to take advantage of economies of scale. This way North American Union can fully utilize its resources to stamp out planes, trains, fission reactors in large cheap quantities to compete with similar continent wide industrial giants elsewhere. These continental giants would dwarf Gazprom and most likely be born from bilateral/multilateral agreements between sovereign governments (rather than any private interests). At this scale, such continental industries are necessarily public property as a mater of simple energy economics and common sense. On a longer timeline, this process would eventually lead to UN being partially or fully in charge of a planetary electrical grid, irrigation construction, and other things of sufficiently international scale.

C) Finally another structural reform is elimination of local governments. In parts of northeastern USA, the oldest parts of the country, there is an absolutely absurd, archaic, and insanely inefficient overlap of tiny local governments. An area and population that would simply and cheaply be covered by a county government in the Midwest would have an ancient village government, a town government, and various neighboring microgovernments all fighting tooth and nail with each other as if it was some Middle Age feudal principality.

Often, a good way to cut spending is to simply wipe out local governments and replace them with one bigger horizontal government with a flat managerial structure that can provide goods and services cheaply by utilizing its larger negotiating power. Unlike A) which wipes out an umbrella gov, C) creates a new umbrella gov for localities while eliminating those under it. Feudal political middlemen on the village level may sound like they are close to the people but when it comes to adding to resource costs and societal progress they stand in the way like some strange Western tribal elders. Here is an example of a fiasco that can occur.

This will be all for now, I'll return to question of efficiency and its interplay with human autonomy in later parts as well as discuss micro bottom up approaches.

WikiLeaks Reveals Bits of Conversation from Various G20 Meetings

Less Educated People are Nicer

A move to thought in shades of gray from dualistic black and white thought may be more correct but decreases person's ability to be as nice as before



When reporters visit Tea Party protests, they often remark on just how warm, pleasant, and down to earth the individual protesters are. That is until the focus is switched to the two minutes of hate at hand (we've had plenty of good coverage concerning the sheer ugliness). Meanwhile, the college schooled urban dwellers seem incapable of showing strong emotional passion in either direction. What's the deal?

We've heard how less educated and religious states tend to be more charitable on per capita basis. This is not an article about that (for more on disentangling the dynamics of domestic humanitarian aid here). Neither is it about higher population densities creating dislike of fellow people or less emotional types perhaps being more likely to get higher education. Lets talk about averages.

Binary thinking is very clear cut and begins to be ingrained in childhood. The more one's inner mental universe is split into good and evil dynamic, the easier it is to go full throttle in one direction and against another. This is due to the simple reason of insufficient choices within the inner mental world when it comes to explanatory and descriptive constructs.

The more educated one becomes the more perceptive choices and shades of gray the mind has to work with. Instead of having intense biblical A and B, the person can now choose E or F as perceptions of reality and corresponding action (be it intellectual or emotional). A and B are not only used less but may now be increasingly seen as undesirable to be used at all (due to their intensity and exaggeration to the point of being incorrect).

This is an obvious observation but this dynamic may cause serious problems for society. If A is absolute good and B is absolute evil (as is often the case in many countries), then reluctance of an educated mind to see something in black and white can create paralysis when it comes to effective political action. In the face of a real tangible enemy, threat, or grave injustice, the highly educated populace may resort to halfhearted measures, compromises, and insufficiently intense emotional communication.

A less educated person on the other hand will be compelled to self righteous thoughts and deeds which can result in rapid positive and humanitarian breakthroughs for society. The negative flipside of this is self explanatory and we see it within certain crypto-fascist factions of the Tea Party movement. Like a childlike Lennie from Mice and Men, a rigidly dualistic person is capable of incredible niceness as well as hideous viciousness. The more educated one becomes the more neutered in demonstrating the outreaches of wholesome humanistic helpfulness.

Now if one's consciousness is expanded through education in societies that are

1) sparsely populated
2) ethnically collectivist and homogeneous (think Scandinavian countries) 
3) augmented by strong welfare supports on top of expanding economic pie

then the atrophying capacity for dualistic thought and action is neutralized.

This is not the case in large pluralistic Western societies today. Education can therefore not only stifle fullhearted activism but create contempt for those who do practice fullhearted activism.

I have written on the need for Tea Party and Progressive movements to join forces against the financial oligarchy. Educated urban dwellers need to get over their distaste and contempt of dualistic rural Tea Party expressions. They need to attempt to redirect factions within TP towards doing things they themselves don't have the heart for. Many in the TP will be loyal allies once the corporately funded blinders are taken off their faces. Black and white thinking can be a useful tool when applied properly.

Progressive Libertarian Coalition

Can cats and dogs get along in an alliance of convenience? Extreme economic national emergency calls for a unifying common platform. Here's a 9 point platform that can unite them.



The bipartisan removal of incumbent dinosaurs in congressional primaries and the sheer energy involved now provides hope for an alliance of convenience between all major nationalist factions in United States. By nationalist, I mean those producerist conservatives and progressives who believe in making America stronger by protectionist build up of domestic industry/infrastructure and by diminishing the power of the financial transnational oligarchy. In other words, to go back to the better days of FDR style attempts to preserve and enhance the physical non-paper shuffling capitalist core of American economy.

Citizens across the political spectrum are in total agreement on the need to completely clean congress of everybody presently in it. The hope is that newcomers in November are not as bought off as current congressmen and that it'll take time for corporations to buy them out (thus giving a few months where the new politicians may act relatively autonomously due to weak connections to the oligarchy). However the extreme economic national emergency calls for a unifying common platform to multiply the power of newcomers and to pressure the congressional senior citizens with easy to understand concepts.

How would a common political platform look like? The platform has to be balanced by things people are for and things people are against to give it depth and traction. Lets begin:

1) Protectionism. This means higher tariffs on imports as a source of national income and a way to reduce unemployment in the blue collar sector. Historically, protectionism not only works splendidly for every major society that engages in it but is also backed by the blue collar muscle of the rural and urban discontents. Majority of the factions within the tea party will be for this through proper use of the China card. The less numerous younger libertarian faction may object on ideological grounds but is unlikely to split over this (side with transnational corps exploiting Chinese labor over the interests of their fellow blue collar T partiers). Libertarians have a lot of severe cultural disagreements with other (formerly GOP) T party factions but still remain. After all, Ron Paul's people pretty much started T Party in the first place.

2) Glass-Steagall separation between commercial and investment banking. The passing of Glass-Steagall will deal a mortal blow to parasites on Wall Street and its effectiveness has been verified ever since G-S was originally passed in 1933. The bipartisan McCain-Cantwell amendment already brought this issue into national discourse. Reintroduction of Glass-Steagall is also the most effective filtering tool for congressional candidates in November since those who support it stand against the speculators. Quest for and achievement of G-S would additionally satisfy the psychological craving for justice among activists across the political spectrum as its implementation destroys the Wall Street oligarchy in its current too big to fail casino manifestation. Since the importance of G-S also makes it a danger to Obama's oligarchic backers, the issue must be approached carefully yet forcefully. Swaths of T party movement who have not been co-opted by corporations should jump on the proposal. This will ultimately allow the infrastructure thrust of the rest of the platform listed bellow

3) Nuclear Energy. The job creating and environmental benefits make fission and fusion energy an obvious political rallying point. Younger progressives may need to drag their older brethren along on this one. They can point out that fission allowed for the socioeconomic optimism in 1960s, is ridiculously clean/safe, and will make advanced green transport infrastructure possible. The more intense nationalists in the T party will love the idea of switching focus from oil to nuclear (after all it still makes some older democrats uneasy), achieving energy independence, and peacefully competing with Russia in the fission reactor industry.

4) Constitutional Convention. The purpose of a ConCon is elaborated upon in depth here. The primary reasons for demanding a historic convention are: a) create unity and excitement among both T party and progressive activists b) create dialogue that leads to settlement of the culture wars through agreement to disagree until the ConCon occurs c) send a powerful message to the political class that even cleaning house is not enough and that the structural blocks on people's will are to be resolved d) rechannel the energy from potential social unrest towards pursuit of a constitutionally legal restructuring of the country's governance

5) Thorough audit and demasking of the Federal Reserve's finances, history, and functioning. This will uncover more dirt than most people can imagine and most likely either end or severely transform the fed's functioning. This will be the ultimate muckraking and like G-S, satisfy the popular sense that some justice is being done. Now that the Goldman Sachs investigation triggered similar investigations into other casino giants, people's appetite to discover who stole hundreds of billions of tax payers dollars is greater than ever. Since the Fed is the parasitic heart behind our imperial socioeconomic system, it will be the hardest nut to crack. The difficulty of the full scale audit (that Ron Paul and many progressive economists desire) demonstrates why the T Party/Progressive alliance of convenience is essential. The impudence of the federal reserve also provides an overarching point of focus for the anti-bankster activists.

6) Proportional Representation on the state level and ultimately on the federal level (either through an amendment or Constitutional Convention). PR is another politically neutral concept of agreement that goes an incredibly long way towards giving people better representation and thus reduces corporate influence. It puts the first nail in the coffin of the hated two party oligarchic duopoly. Replacing all incumbents in Congress does not resolve the fundamental and glaring structural inadequacy when it comes to electing state and national representatives. It will take a bit of education to spread the concept but its elegance and widespread use throughout the world (even Brits are discussing it) should provide an exciting new structural alternative in the process of streamlining the American democracy. Just like direct election of senators, it is a prudent evolutionary step (that can begin to be implemented on a state by state basis through decentralized activism).

7) Congressional term limits. This fits perfectly with the anti-incumbency strides of recent months and proportional representation reform. Instead of allowing society to deteriorate to the point of collapse for congressional dinosaurs to be sent packing, term limits do it automatically. There will always be gusts of fresh air with such limitation. Considering that entrenched and totally out of touch 80 year olds in power were one of the main reasons why Soviet Union began to stagnate, this is a matter of outmost importance. American gerontocracy has to be ended since people that old, secure, and corrupt are dramatically less mentally flexible and capable compared to when they first got into office decades ago. More on the problem of congress being a senior citizens home here.

8) Rebuilding the nation's water infrastructure. The quality of the "drinkable" water in most regions in US is horrendous. The outdated and overstressed water systems are also a source of danger in terms of insufficient supply for the agricultural sector. Besides age and lack of funds, climate change puts new unforeseen stresses on water infrastructure in almost every state. Lets not wait for another Dust Bowl event to compliment the current depression. Although it may seem odd to have it on the list, this is a vital economic issue for rural communities and a public health issue for urban areas outside of the northeast.

9) Isolationism. Another obvious way to stop dumping resources into a hole in the ground. This has to be marketed to T partiers and progressives in different ways. Conservatives are always fine with idea of not helping the "ungrateful world solve its own problems anymore" due to refocus on domestic rebuilding. Libertarians are ideologically predisposed to isolationism while progressives are of course sick of imperial adventures. Isolationism also allows the alliance of convenience to expand to some former reform party paleoconservatives. Obviously the empire and the influence of the most powerful lobby (the military) cannot be ended rapidly (one of the key reasons being the sheer number of high tech blue collar jobs that military corporations provide inside the US). Isolationism serves as a way to refocus conversation towards domestic nation building and reemphasizing the pro-infrastructure focus of the T Party/Progressive alliance.

That is it for now. There are many more unifying points of contact but these 9 are the most important and self reinforcing. Glass-Steagall, Constitutional Convention, Term Limits, Protectionism, Nuclear Power, Proportional Representation, Federal Reserve Audit, Isolationism, and Water Infrastructure Development. If one allows the sheer transformative nature of these unifying goals to sink in, then differences such as over gay marriage seem petty and insignificant. I was tempted to add high speed rail and transport infrastructure to the list but am content with nuclear energy and water development for now. That is because nuclear energy has to come first in order to power real jumps in train technology (like transcontinental MagLev trains) and discussion over trains in a predominantly car centric society can lead to major disagreements instead of unity. Meanwhile, water development is as important to country and city alike and non-controversial. However, high speed train development can be integrated into the platform depending on the state by state basis. There are definitely many conservatives who fully support and understand the issue of building up next generation logistics with all the job creation that it'll bring.

The end result is something that looks like a Main Street Party (emphasis on real economy, job creation, anti-wall street, etc) without culture war nonsense to distract from the mission of reforming this socioeconomic system in a major way.

New Constitutional Convention for United States (ConCon)

Practical Plan to Really Restore United States Economy (by late 2020s): 

Part 1: Road to Constitutional Convention and a proper message to unite factions of the tea party with urban progressives in an alliance of convenience



Situation in United States has deteriorated to a point where we are not looking at a gradual and peaceful slide into Brazil level international status (with similar domestic social conditions) anymore but at a Soviet style nasty imperial disintegration when the next inevitable financial shock occurs.

We've heard many exciting proposals recently such as "abolish the fed", "end corporations as legal entities", "default on the debt", "wipe out the financial parasites and rebuild FDR style", etc. Structurally however, none of those can be accomplished due to oligarchy's aging personal lawyer/butler (supreme court/congress) and their guard dog (the president) being on a tight leash. Needed changes cannot come from the federal center of force unless the situation dangerously deteriorates. It'd be too late then.

As such, a moderately radical (compared to fascist, bolshevik, and secessionist proposals we'll be hearing after the upcoming second dip of the depression) but doable and pragmatic plan needs to begin to be implemented immediately if United States hopes to start a long multi-decade road to recovery. This plan has been distilled from previous long articles such as the ones dealing with unpayable national debt, pinpointing need to prevent braindrain, problems of a sold out senior citizen home that is US congress, and nurturing some industries to compete with China's mercantilist practices.

The plan has to be appealing to a vast majority of the US public across the political spectrum (fringes included) which means utilization of emotional triggers that people had ingrained into their consciousness since childhood. Believe it or not but a 21 year old progressive from Boston and a 70 year old rural man from Alabama both share nearly identical life long propaganda indoctrination by the ruling oligarchy. The trick for realization of a movement towards recovery is mobilization of a broad coalition to displace the ruling regime by flipping regime's own propaganda against them. 

Only a plan that:

a) plays to rural genuinely constitutionalist factions within the tea party movement (those not misdirected or bought off by corporate infiltration of the movement's phony "national leadership")
and  
b) unites them with younger urban unemployed/underemployed via a common, very consistent, and rather simple message

can achieve a breakthrough. Uniting some tea partiers and disenchanted progressives in temporary marriage of convenience against a common foe will be the hardest part. However when anger is up and emotions are running high, such unthinkable political bedfellows become possible if extroverted emotional waves join at a proper time. It has happened numerous times before in other societies.

[Message building]

1) Call for a Constitutional Convention  (34 states needed to have one and 38 needed to ratify)

Now that the federal and most state governments are broke and running budget deficits that require physically unacceptable austerity measures (on top of decades of already declining infrastructure and social services) popular anger can readily be channeled into a ConCon. Americans of all ages have positive associations with this concept from childhood schooling. ConCon can happen through bypassing presidential and congressional power (it is key to isolate the federal center of oligarchic force).

People like South Carolina Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer are already talking to high level republican state politicians to have a ConCon. For disenchanted progressives, a desire for a ConCon can be the best outlet for their frustration as well. Nobody knows what ConCon will bring and it therefore serves as a point of contact for a diverse spectrum of political factions. The idea can also excite the imaginations of young and old alike due to their association of it with national greatness and renewal after a difficult period. What is more, it is a legal idea that appeals to the majority of people who are psychologically not predisposed to radicalism. The slogan should be "Convention not Revolution". At the same time, the potential of convention is so full of radical restructuring promise that for the more passionate of tea partiers, the slogan can be reworked to be "revolution through convention". Call for ConCon is a protest vote against current national elites, a call for dramatically different direction, AND meaningful legal activism all rolled up in one.

It is key to get regional elites on board by playing to their pathologically narcissistic egos and sense of importance. There is so much negativity now that controlled positive attention/affection can really puff up the psyche of small state legislator. People in every state must divide their state politicians among themselves by passionately asking their favored ones to be a ConCon supporter and "a delegate to the convention" and sharply ridiculing and alienating those who don't support it. State politicians are all former political science/history geeks and many would get a kick from the masses thinking they are worthy to represent them at a historic event of such magnitude. ConCon should be made an issue in upcoming state and local elections as well. If a dedicated minority of state politicians get excited by the idea, they'll drag many of their drinking buddy legislators along for the ride via simple social psychology. Their corporate masters should not immediately have a problem with this since ConCon isn't specific enough.

It is inevitable that activism for Convention will begin fierce polarizing debates about the key constitutional changes that need to be done at the convention itself. This is where, paradoxically, our budding city/country coalition will find additional points of contact through agreement to disagree. They will realize that the federal union needs to be loosened up into a more confederal structure with states and entire regions pursuing their own modes of popular development. Thus the more confederal structure becomes perhaps the first goal of convention. This first goal needs to be stressed because it will reenergize the diverse political spectrum by creating pseudo nationalism and lively brainstorming among regional factions. Mass reactivation of the apathetic and disenchanted young democrats and progressives can even occur if emphasis on possibilities of states rights (for northeastern states) is combined with emotional need for revenge against Obama. 

Additional regional and state elites may now join the call for ConCon since they will realize how dramatically their power will increase within a more confederal America. Unfortunately but perhaps inevitably we can expect some oligarchic corporate interests to begin supporting ConCon with the expectations of profit in the more libertarian post ConCon Southeastern region of US. Opposition to ConCon should be actively painted as federal (based in the hated congress to not alienate pro-Obama ConCon supporters) AND corporate in nature to maintain emotional focus and factional unity in the ConCon coalition.


2) Building mental associations of United States with Soviet Union, time of troubles before the Last Constitutional Convention, and/or rotten oligarchic regimes that have collapsed in the past due to a diverse and peaceful political coalition 

What helps any movement is belief that regime's collapse is inevitable and that the activists are just helping history along. What helps even more is all the recent data showing that this belief is grounded in reality. I have written how all the key structural and social problems that Soviet Union had are being experienced by present oligarchic imperial socioeconomic model in United States. It seems this society reached Soviet level of decay and dysfunction via a seemingly different ideological path (the inflexibility of which inevitably began leading to mistakes on all levels of management).

Since Americans are very educated about Soviet problems and failure, it would be very easy to begin comparisons between the two former superpowers in the minds of the tea party movement. The more they would look, the more similarities they will discover to their horror. This will help movement towards ConCon by providing an aura of inevitability when it comes to ending federal power in its current form.

When it comes to young progressives, such suggestions of comparison (USSR to USA) will prove to be more difficult due to their laughter and derision of tea partiers calling Obama's policies socialist. Some may of course see the blatant similarities but they are not likely to see USA in the same light as the rural ConCon supporters. Thus it seems better in their case to compare United States to post WW2 regimes in Spain and Greece before they were ended by a broad coalition (where liberal college educated youth played a key role). Unfortunately Franco's regime and similar rich man's regimes in Portugal, Brazil, etc are not well known to the US public (due to their rot having a more common capitalistic source with US) and don't provide the same association with inevitable decay and collapse. Therefore, a hodgepodge of societies should be utilized when comparing problems of US to similar problems that other countries had. This will show demoralized progressives that America's problems are not unique, how such things were solved abroad, and how ConCon is the best legal way of bringing about the end of the current regime.

This is it for now and later sections of the recovery plan will deal with the debt situation, military industrial complex, and additional political solutions as truly bipartisan coalition builders.

What is meant by recovery is putting the country on a road back to the level of dynamic ability, social strength, and international role model status that existed at the peak of American power in 1960s (before it was gradually and systematically ground into a large banana republic by a neoliberal oligarchy). When US returns to that level of confidence, government responsiveness, and hope for a better tomorrow then new plans can be implemented that work with the the drastically improved tools at hand.

American Identity Crisis

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The artificial "American" nationality created as an assimilating force is beginning to break down due to inequalities of education within the dominant ethnic coalition.





Many Americans are humorously reluctant to even approach the topic of race and cultural integration. When the French and Swedes (with far lower % of non-whites and immigrants) are actively discussing these issues, the citizenry within Home of the Brave runs for the hills. That's not necessarily an issue of an elephant in the room or fear of seeming offensive. There is a sustained historical reason for every American citizen to suppress his own thoughts on ethnic/racial groups. That reason is state ideology.

Lets briefly review the ideological process that has so far driven national integration in this country.  Ideological "equality" until 2009 has referred to cultural assimilation that expanded beyond Germans and Irish and moved onto all whites as well as select ethnic groups like Jews and Asians. For most of the 20th century, as long as whites remained the vast majority of the total population, neutral terminology like "American" (that didn't refer to any tribal/national origins) could be used to try to consolidate the vast geographic territory into one national fabric. Creation of a neutral national identify to serve as an umbrella nationality for many diverse peoples is standard practice for leaderships of very populous states. In this sense American is no different than the terms Chinese, Soviet, Indian (and these days European).

However, even in very diverse federal states like China or the Russian Federation, there is a ruling ethnic group or a coalition of a few groups that make smaller nationalities cluster around them by the use of force. In China it is the Mandarin speakers and in RF it is of course Russians (with 75% of the population). In US, the native Englishmen have long stopped being numerically dominant in the 19th century (although they remained qualitatively dominant in wealth and education). This pushed them into gradually expanding the ruling coalition by accepting Germans, Irish, Poles, Italians, and so on. Since "English" could not be used for numerical reasons for national identity building the way "German" or "French" is used today, the artificial concept of American had to be bolstered and gradually strengthened.

The power of the artificially constructed nationality rests on the ideology/reality that backs up its promises (how equal are all Europeans in EU, how equal are all Soviets, etc) as well as how much physical power those assimilated into the idea of the umbrella nationality really have. For most of the country's history, there were certain minority populations with whom assimilation was never tried (integration of relatively recently freed slaves and conquered ethnically cleansed natives). This was because it would drain national energies and political capital of elites within ruling ethnic groups and deprive them of divide and conquer tools for new arrivals (gradually offering the umbrella "American" and its promise of equality to some new immigrants like the Germans, Irish and Polish first but not to Italians and Jews until much later). This was not any conspiracy but a natural path of least resistance and an organic way for concept of American to really put down its roots (as opposed to just covering everybody with a term American right away). The gradual and imperial manner of rewarding the title of "American" allowed US leadership a tighter leash than the one Soviets possessed since the term felt and was more real psychologically to those who "earned it" (see the number of Irish and Germans who died in US Civil War, WW1, etc).

In the past few decades a couple of things began to strain the process of national integration that has worked well so far in terms of political stability:

A) Emergence of new culturalism for 20%-25% of the population which is based more on higher education and less on racial/ethnic affiliation.

This first factor was the increasing division amongst assimilated Americans in terms of education and consequently wealth. There was always a large wealth gap between tycoons/descendants of British elites and the rest which was heavily correlated with ethnic lineage. However the GI Bill and mass access to college in second half of the 20th century (particularly by 1960s) really gave a large number of whites of all stripes a way to leap into the power demographic. "Middle Class" as a term actually began to partially stop being an early 1950s cold war propaganda tool to mask and ease class tensions (by putting into peoples minds the idea that wealth is on a continuum with a fatty middle rather than a narrow pyramid with a wide base) and began to become a reality for a number of white Americans.

Higher education put pressure on the previous method of rewarding the title of American. It brought about higher states of consciousness that:

1) Increased perception of physical material national inequality within dominant ruling white coalition on the one hand

2) Brought a new form of knowledge based culturalism as prejudice to increasingly large amount of people within the ruling coalition on the other

Old culturalism (in place for most of the nation's existence) consisted in acceptance to assimilate some select ethnic groups and view them as co-equal Americans while rejecting non-whites and natives as other/excluded/subjects. Until 1950s, vast majority of the population was technically illiterate and racial physical differences made it easy to have rule of thumb for the masses. Lack of higher education for the assimilated really compounded old culturalist prejudices. The old culturalism as a tool of control, although undermining national integration for some ethnic groups, made up for it in the minds of US leadership by accelerating assimilation amongst other groups. For example it was politically easier to betray the interests of blacks at say, 5% of population, to gain an Italian voting block of over 13% and sell this idea to older Anglos/Irish/German majority in a specific area. The divide and conquer routine for electoral politics was of course an organic and natural outgrowth of British rule.

[note: Racism as a concept is a new phenomenon in Britain because classism was so strong there historically. To the elites it never made any difference what color the poor peasants were. It seems the current American oligarchic leadership emulates old Britain in that regard.]

The new culturalism is more individual based and springs from a person's access to information that most lack. Currently its physical manifestation is one of educated whites (20-25% of the population who went to college) migrating to urban areas (reasons for migrations are outlined in Death of Suburbia) and the socioeconomic power increasingly concentrating in their hands. When vast majority of ruling ethnic group's population are undergoing a split between those with basic literacy and those with more advanced tools for political influence, when that manifests into real inequality of opportunity (which always existed but is now underlined by educational background), then the "equality" offered by the idea of being an "American" begins to lose its strength. When a college educated white has more in common culturally with his/her counterpart in France or Australia than with a rural religious white in his own country, then the term American begins to lose its strength as a tool of national integration just like the terms Soviet or Yugoslavian did. Sub-American identities thus begin to gain power as they are at least connected to tribe, blood, and cultural/regional peculiarities. The bonds of a federal national structure and control from above begin to weaken.

B) Demographic shifts due to migration and same as before fertility resulted in greater number of people (proportional to the overall population) who were always excluded.

Non-white Hispanics and blacks combined at 25% of the population ( and burdened in large parts not only by original cultural prejudice but also the newer overlapping culturalism from urban educated). The culturalism against these two groups is rarely manifest by hostile acts or words but by typical and effective way of depriving anything of power, which is excluding and ignoring.

In recent times, racial solidarity and inclusion began to truly occur amongst the equally educated with mostly the cultural inertia of the older first form of culturalism hampering the process. Higher education brings its own cultural soldiarity and identity that can be much stronger than having similar physical likeness. There is little incentive for educated whites to break unity with equally educated non-whites for the political, economic, and cultural benefit of uneducated rural whites. Educated blacks and Hispanics are not numerous enough proportional to their population and too geographically splintered to really form their own communities so there is little option for them but to assimilate into expanding white dominated urban educated class. The most similar people conspire for power.

[note: Poor rural whites, blacks, and Hispanics have a lot more in common than they think and future American populist movements will have to tap into that if they are to be successful. GOP of course blew that chance due to regional and internationalist oligarchic controls over their party.]

Obama's election has shown these emerging rifts and alliances with remarkable clarity. The new updated integration with an educational filter is not confined to ethnic/racial groups and creates enough new inequalities to start to rot American ideology from within. Concepts such as equality of opportunity, rags to riches, free farmer individualism, and self government begin to not work as effectively as state propaganda if country is sufficiently culturally and ethnically splintered and increasingly ruled by one tiny successful multi-ethnic urban faction with PhDs. With rural ghost believing evangelical whites at 25%, blacks and Hispanics each at roughly 13% each, whites at 70% (and dropping due to lower birthrates compared to other groups), those with Bachelor's at roughly 25% (obviously the factions overlap often), we begin to see the serious splits occurring that cannot be rapidly or practically cured with higher education for all (due to these splits preventing effective political national action).

Politics increasingly becomes a matter of what faction will make enough alliances with others to dominate the rest. Obviously that's how it always works but with the national identity of "American" weakening, each election increasingly brings a sense to the loser that the winner is illegitimate and is a cultural interloper. The hysteria of the opposition will increase every time with elites on each side undermining the other in nationally unhealthy ways seen in unstable states.

This has slowly turned United States into an increasingly weak splintered federal state like Brazil or a few other South American countries.

The educated and wealthiest 20% (who are in their own battle with the richest 0.1% internationalist faction) increasingly rule through corporate power from the cities and create blatant cultural exclusion internally. The last American frontier ended in suburbia. Now American people will have to finally face each other and grow up. The country is still spending enormous resources on promoting an ideological agenda around the world with no equal opposition to counter it. The rest of the world is becoming more pragmatic while American society sharpens its ideology (recently demonstrated by rising popularity of libertarian ideas amongst educated whites and amongst defeated republican opposition) and continues to rot from within.

The current process of United States transforming itself from an ideological society into a pragmatic realist society will be gradual and painful.

The rot, so far, is effectively masked by America being an ideological empire and focusing its people on spreading and defending a rigid one dimensional point of view that obviously cant be one size fits all for all societies in the world. Although the process of decline sped up and slowed down at times, discussion and assessment of the situation was muted by how gradual it has been. Societal inability by politicians to address race and ethnic factionalism is a sign of how important the issues are (as if mere utterance of the issues will create social disorder). Soviets were also unable to really discuss the simmering ethnic problems in their midst until too late for similar reasons. Violence is unlikely as American artificial nationality had enough time to partially infiltrate the consciousness of residents living here and as the various American peoples are not specific to certain states.

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What is very likely however is America beginning to mean no more than what Brazil or Argentina means when the price of the military catches up to economic realities. When that occurs and contradictions of state ideology and social reality are exposed to the world (Obama's election has done a lot to slow the process and repair the international image), there will be probably be a painful multi-year period of re-organization from super-power into a normal power. It should all be over by 2020s within our lifetimes. Who knows? If a radical solution is not found to reverse the decline then perhaps we could be a good source of raw materials, religious hardworking immigrants, and weaponry for United States of Europe.

Political Ponerology by Andrew M. Lobaczewski ( Review )

A superb book to jump start the science of Ponerology (utilization of psychiatry, psychology, sociology to study how clinical psychopaths economically and socially stagnate/lead to disaster societies that they rule)




Andrew Lobaczewski joins a seemingly endless list of brilliant Polish expats who only found their place in the sun abroad. This seems to happen when a particular ethnic group's elites do not have the playground of a fully sovereign state to rise in and exert their minds on. In an ironic twist Lobaczewski claimed that a famous fellow expat Zbiegniew Brzezinski ( whose amazing book warranted a review of its own) promised to help promote Political Ponerology but at best did nothing and at worst actively suppressed it. The book itself has been provided online for free in PDF format by some wonderful strangers trying to spread knowledge of it.

So what's special about Political Ponerology? For starters, it utilizes a holistic synthesis of psychology and sociology to create a new science to help explain why "evil" (more on the term later) periods occur in human history. The book is long and aimed at people with some psychological background so the "why" can be explained in a relative nutshell as follows:

[ A specific rare breed of homo sapiens (a.k.a. clinical psychopaths constituting .6% of population) are incapable of proper emotional empathy due to specific inherited neural arrangement of their frontal lobe. There are also some people with similar emotional retardation due to environmental damage in frontal lobe area (think Mike Tyson, Wilhelm II, Stalin, and the famous Phineas Gage).

 "The common factor in the varieties of this anomaly is a dull pallor of emotion and lack of feeling for the psychological realities, an essential factor in basic intelligence.... The average intelligence of the psychopath, especially if measured via commonly used tests, is somewhat lower than that of normal people, albeit similarly variegated. Despite the wide variety of intelligence and interests, this group does not contain examples of the highest intelligence, nor do we find technical or craftsmanship talents among them.... They learn to recognize each other in a crowd as early as childhood, and they develop an awareness of the existence of other individuals similar to them."

"Although he deliberately cheats others and is quite conscious of his lies, he appears unable to distinguish adequately between his own pseudointentions, pseudoremorse, pseudolove, etc., and the genuine responses of a normal person. His monumental lack of insight indicates how little he appreciates the nature of his disorder. When others fail to accept immediately his “word of honor as a gentleman”, his amazement, I believe, is often genuine. His subjective experience is so bleached of deep emotion that he is invincibly ignorant of what life means to others."

When these types take over leaderships of ideological/political/religious/social movements by clawing to the top or being born into wealth/power, their personalities:

1) Distort the original meaning of the movements (the final distortions become look alikes regardless of the movement name they publicly mouth)

2) Drive empathic numerically normal people out of them and replace them with low empathy friends and loyal lackeys . These enabler individuals collectively make up to 6% of the human herd and include schizoids and subclinical hereditary "psychopath-lites". The lites are capable of some emotion, caring, and could be socially useful if society exerts energy to steer them in the right direction. However their crushing narcissism creates an addiction to attention (regardless the social cost) of such magnitude that they become natural allies and/or servants of their totally conscience deprived clinical brethren. Most natural politicians fall into this "lite" category.

3) Utilize their positions to economically feed on the human herd rather than improve the herd

4) Reshape the countries they took over in their own arrogant, short term gain focused, egotistical (refusal to see need to keep evolving and to learn from others) image. There are always soft people to be found who emulate successful people or politicians out of blind ambition or deference to power and tradition. Up to a fifth of the population thus ends up copying the manners and thoughts of nasty unpleasant people who are physiologically incapable of emotionally caring about the population they are in charge of. A good example is a manager learning to play golf and laugh at the poor just because his boss does it. These weak people serve as a buffer and ambassadors between psychopaths in charge and the rest of society.

5) Lead the countries they are in charge of into decay and disaster (since essential psychopath's lack of emotional depth, parasitic existence, and impulsivity makes them below average when it comes to technical administration, science, and overall intelligence). This disaster in turn may open the door towards vengeful revolt by a new social movement infected by these same types of individuals ]
 ____

The book was written in 1984 and the author noted that Soviet Union was in advanced stages of pathocracy (unhealthy and maladaptive on a macro scale social organization of foxes guarding the hen house) while United States was entering midlevel stage. The early and midlevel stages are those where normal people are completely socially atomized, alienated from each other, and made to fight each other over the ever diminishing crumbs falling from rich/powerful peoples' tables. The advanced stage is categorized by normal people building psychological immunity against people in charge and reclaiming their humanity through forming social bonds again.

"However, our existence is contingent upon necessary links with those who lived before, those who presently make up our society, and those who shall exist in the future. Our existence only assumes meaning as a function of societal bonds; hedonistic isolation causes us to lose ourselves. "

They learn the healthy art of sardonic laughter at their masters (as occurred in the Kremlin dominated space in Eurasia), begin to help each other out as they see they are all in the same boat, and finally begin sharing between each other practical survival tips, alternative news information, and hard hitting gossip about the masters that was previously taboo. Here is more on how declining USA of today is very similar to Soviet Union in 1980s. Normal people are those whose affective brain structures ( rather than linguistic structures) are activated when presented with emotionally loaded words, people who  respond to fear-evoking stimuli, and  who generally rank lower than perfect 100 on Thinking function in Myers-Briggs typology.

The review began with how the above mentioned take over by a small minority results in "evil" periods or times of troubles. Evil of course at first sounds like a ridiculously loaded word to be immediately dismissed by secular intellectuals (considering efforts such as those made by Nietzsche in Genealogy of Morality as well as by contemporary atheists). However the book conceptualizes a pathocratic society overcome by evil as one which dramatically increases (domestically and abroad):

1) neurosis of the population(s) since neurosis is inevitable result of normal people ruled by psychopaths (...anxiety, sadness or depression, anger, irritability, mental confusion, low sense of self-worth, etc., behavioral symptoms such as phobic avoidance, vigilance, impulsive and compulsive acts, lethargy, etc., cognitive problems such as unpleasant or disturbing thoughts, repetition of thoughts and obsession, habitual fantasizing, negativity and cynicism, etc. Interpersonally, neurosis involves dependency, aggressiveness, perfectionism, schizoid isolation, socio-culturally inappropriate behaviors, etc)
2) murder/rape/torture/looting etc.
3) economic and social stagnation/disasters

In other words we're talking about a drastic increase in instances of irrationality, decay, violence, and chaos. Such periods have been and are condemned relatively universally by a broad spectrum of humanity regardless of moral valuation, cultural/political affiliation, geography, etc. Even Nietzsche couldn't help but utilize the word "evil" in this broad earthy sense at times. That is because violent social and economic chaos endangers the rich/powerful as well as the poor/weak by creating conditions favorable to revolt, civil war, and/or foreign powers taking advantage.

First couple of chapters are spent to emphasize that one cannot approach the study of how evil grows, spreads, and fades from a moralistic/religious perspective. That is because such approach has always failed in the past by leading to cognitive error, non-empirical solutions, and emotionality that just perpetuates evil. Lobaczewski believes we ought to study such periods from a naturalistic perspective as one would study a colony of insects. Only naturalistic empirical approach to tackle evil can provide increases in human consciousness necessary for creation of international solutions agreeable to most of humanity (at least to those countries not enduring one of the evil periods/phases).

Alright, it still just feels wrong to use evil as an adjective and especially one in a naturalistic setting. Corporate puppets and ideologues like Reagan and of course religious forces have tainted the term perhaps beyond reclaiming. Thus the author's term pathocratic may become more fashionable as it conveys the more digestible image of a social disease. The book explains in satisfactory detail the interpersonal many year process of how pathocracy emerges from a small cold group of egoistic and goes international. The editors of the book are now working on a simplified guide to Lobaczewski's ideas to make them more accessible to the public. I am tempted to turn this review beyond a heartfelt recommendation (that people at least skim the free PDF of the book linked above) into such a guide but it would defeat the purpose of the review. Even integrating quotes was a problem since there were so many good ones (dozens upon dozens that I marked). Lobaczewski seems to have been (he died recently in Poland) amazingly well read and drew from a variety of sources to complement the psychiatric thrust of his material. Regardless of your political orientation and moral valuation, Political Ponerology offers something for everyone and most people will leave more enriched upon reading it.

Happy New Years and the second part of the article consists of some randomly selected lengthy quotes to give a taste of the book with reflections on them for those who aren't tired yet:

"Our experience teaches us that psychological differences among people are the cause of misunderstandings and problems. We can overcome these problems only if we accept psychological differences as a law of nature and appreciate their creative value."

A truly pluralistic society can only be healthy if some factions don't monopolize perception of reality by calling their mode of existence the best and the only measurement stick to judge most people by.

"However, each society on earth contains a certain percentage of individuals, a relatively small but active minority, who cannot be considered normal.We emphasize that here we are dealing with qualitative, not statistical, abnormality. Outstandingly intelligent persons are statistically abnormal, but they can be quite normal members of society from the qualitative point of view. We are going to be looking at individuals that are statistically small in number, but whose quality of difference is such that it can affect hundreds, thousands, even millions of other human beings in negative ways."

This is a controversial point for me since I wrote previously that there is no such thing as normal due to the concept of normal being decided by a number of statistical bell curves (with those who happened to be born quantitatively different and in poor socioeconomic conditions being labeled as abnormal while same quantitatively different born in good wealthy conditions escaping stigma and maladaptive living). However, I admit that past abuses of psychiatric and psychological community in labeling are not enough to reject the concept of abnormality altogether. Lobaczewski seems to be well aware of Thomas Szasz's concerns regarding psychiatry and takes pains so say that global healing will involve one of the biggest acts of forgiveness ever undertaken concerning the psychopathic minority. His conception of abnormality regarding pathocratic individuals seems more akin to how mentally retarded are agreed to be abnormal qualitatively. The difference with the retarded of course is that psychopaths create a large scale damage multiplier effect on society.

"If various circumstances combine, including a given society’s deficient psychological world view, individual’s are forced to exercise functions which do not make full use of his or her talents. When this happens, said person’s productivity is no better, and often even worse, than that of a worker with satisfactory talents. Such an individual then feels cheated and inundated by duties which prevent him from achieving self-realization. His thoughts wander from his duties into a world of fantasy, or into matters which are of greater interest to him; in his daydream world, he is what he should and deserves to be. Such a person always knows if his social and professional adjustment has taken a downward direction; at the same time, however, if he fails to develop a healthy critical faculty concerning the upper limits of his own talents, his daydreams may “fix on” an unfair world where “all you need is power”. Revolutionary and radical ideas find fertile soil among such people in downward social adaptations. It is in society’s best interests to correct such conditions not only for better productivity, but to avoid tragedies."

Right now the brain drain to other nations helps to reduce some of these problems. However not all will flee abroad and some will stay behind to try to create revolutionary trouble.

"Some of these individuals attempt to protect positions for which their skills are not commensurate, while others fight to be allowed to use their talents. Governing a country becomes increasingly difficult when such battles begin to eclipse other important needs."

Note current total paralysis of the American federal government.

"It would appear, rather, that the best candidates for development are those countries whose populations number between ten and twenty million, and where personal bonds among citizens, and between citizens and their authorities, still safeguard correct psychological differentiation and natural relationships.... If someone asked me what should be done to heal the United States of America, a country which manifests symptoms of macropathy, inter alia, I would advise subdividing that vast nation into thirteen states--just like the original ones, except correspondingly larger and with more natural boundaries. Such states should then be given considerable autonomy. That would afford citizens a feeling of homeland, albeit a smaller one, and liberate the motivations of local patriotism and rivalry among such states. This would, in turn, facilitate solutions to other problems with a different origin."

We definitely saw an improvement in functioning in many former Soviet republics after their separation. This is akin to a large stagnant corporate giant like AOL/Time Warner splitting up into parts to improve efficiency. Individual parts are better able to more quickly address burning problems and specialize in what they are good at. USA can easily transform to be an EU style confederacy of at least 5-6 smaller federal unions.

"Dreams of a happy and peaceful life thus gave rise to force over others, a force which depraves the mind of its user. That is why man’s dreams of happiness have not come true throughout history. This hedonistic view of “happiness” contains the seeds of misery and feed the eternal cycle.... During good times, people progressively lose sight of the need for profound reflection, introspection, knowledge of others, and an understanding of life’s complicated laws."

Note whites who grew up in suburbia.

"At the same time, America, especially the U.S.A., has reached a nadir for the first time in its short history. Greyhaired Europeans living in the U.S. today are struck by the similarity between these phenomena and the ones dominating Europe at the times of their youth. The emotionalism dominating individual, collective and political life, as well as the subconscious selection and substitution of data in reasoning, are impoverishing the development of a psychological world view and leading to individual and national egotism. The mania for taking offense at the drop of a hat provokes constant retaliation, taking advantage of hyper-irritability and hypo-criticality on the part of others. This can be considered analogous to the European dueling mania of those times. People fortunate enough to achieve a position higher than someone else are contemptuous of their supposed inferiors in a way highly reminiscent of czarist Russian customs." 

Note the top 20% of population calling poor rural and urban people lazy for doing low wage labor without even a hint of effort regarding contextualized explanatory knowledge.

"This strongly suggests that the separation is biologically conditioned. In the psychopath, a dream emerges like some Utopia of a “happy” world and a social system which does not reject them or force them to submit to laws and customs whose meaning is incomprehensible to them. They dream of a world in which their simple and radical way of experiencing and perceiving reality would dominate; where they would, of course, be assured safety and prosperity. In this Utopian dream, they imagine that those “others”, different, but also more technically skillful than they are, should be put to work to achieve this goal for the psychopaths and others of their kin. “We”, they say,“after all, will create a new government, one of justice”. They are prepared to fight and to suffer for the sake of such a brave new world, and also, of course, to inflict suffering upon others."

"Egotist nations start wasting money and effort in order to achieve goals derived from their erroneous reasoning and overly emotional reactions. Their inability to acknowledge other nations’ values and dissimilarities, derived from other cultural traditions, leads to conflict and war."

Take any Bush or Brezhnev speech.

"During “happy times” of peace dependent upon social injustice, children of the privileged classes learn to repress from their field of consciousness the uncomfortable ideas suggesting that they and their parents are benefitting from injustice against others. Such young people learn to disqualify disparage the moral and mental values of anyone whose work they are using to over-advantage. Young minds thus ingest habits of subconscious selection and substitution of data, which leads to a hysterical conversion economy of reasoning. They grow up to be somewhat hysterical adults who, by means of the ways adduced above, thereupon transmit their hysteria to the next generation, which then develops these characteristics to an even greater degree. The hysterical patterns for experience and behavior grow and spread downwards from the privileged classes until crossing the boundary of the first criterion of ponerology: the atrophy of natural critical faculties with respect to pathological individuals." 

 This means that a society is already well on the way to entering pathocratic period when people like Reagan are seen as normal and their message is not automatically rejected with disgust (as they would have been in 1950s and 60s). Although until recently, the libertarian economic message of totally gutting safety nets was rejected with disgust by most, the mere fact that it is finding a wider audience with every passing day shows we're entering hysterical final stages of the process. In the meantime, citizenry has been conditioned to automaticlly mock and ridicule actual empathic people who want to bring better quality medicine, schooling, etc. To be fair, many are turning to libertarianism as default since there aren't enough competent elites left in high levels of government and corporate hierarchy who can make a difference even if say, Nader was elected (see below).

"Since the managerial functions have been taken over by individuals with mediocre intelligence and pathological character traits, the pathocracy becomes incapable of properly administering anything at all. The area suffering most severely must always be whichever one requires a person to act independently, not wasting time searching for the proper way to behave. Agriculture is dependent upon changing climate conditions and the appearance of pests and plant diseases. A farmer’s personal qualities have thus been an essential factor of success in this area, as it was for many centuries. Pathocracy therefore invariably brings about food shortages."

The key point to take away from this quote is that even if US government elites wanted to provide good healthcare, shelter, and food to the peasants, they'd be unable to due to decades of hiring incompetent cronies all the way down to the village level.

"The most frequently used methods include paralogistic and conversion methods such as the projection of one’s own qualities and intention onto other persons, social groups, or nations, paramoral indignation, and reverse blocking. This last method is a pathocratic favorite used on the mass scale, driving the minds of average people into a dead end because, as a result, it causes them to search for the truth in the “golden mean” between the reality and its opposite."

A good example would be journalists projecting Washington's desire to dominate central Europe and Central Asia onto Russia. Another example is a parasitic hedge fund manager accusing people like Ralph Nader and Michael Moore of wanting to "steal" from productive people by raising taxes on the rich.

 "A third language thus appears alongside the ideological doubletalk described above; in part, it borrows names used by the official ideology in their transformed modified meanings. In part, this language operates with words borrowed from still more lively circulating jokes. In spite of its strangeness, this language becomes a useful means of communication and plays a part in regenerating societal links... However, in spite of efforts on the part of literati and journalists, this language remains only communicative inside; it becomes hermetic outside the scope of the phenomenon, uncomprehended by people lacking the appropriate personal experience."

We see the phenomenon described in Soviet style fatalistic dark humor on the internet and in politically savvy individuals on various alternative news websites who use official terminology of the parasitic class to mock and dissect it. Oligarchy owned media of course cannot comprehend it since the people on television are wealthy and isolated from physical realities of what they are discussing.

"People with various psychological deviations have always existed in every society on earth. Their way of life is always some form of predation upon society’s economic creativity, since their own creative capabilities are generally substandard."

Unlike today, many of the original Wall Street criminals in the 1980s didn't go to school on how to swindle the uneducated citizenry but were simply street smart. American financial sector is prime example of parasitic "creativity" that isn't meaningfully creative in any socially useful way. Considering the financial sector is now up to 20% of the economy, that's a lot of people who work in feeding on the human herd not just domestically but of course internationally. The result on normal people like the author says is mass scale social neurosis.