Future of Global Industrial Development

Large hypersonic passenger plane being designed in E.U.

Major Countries Will Have a Mission: To become a key piece in a "spinal cord" of world management. 

Their Method: International alliances will become increasingly centered on specific long term goals of industrial production and distribution and less on military or ideological needs as was the case in the 20th century.



The essence of 21st century competition is competition in efficient product output and jockeying for position to be the main link in a global state directed heavy industry chain. Countries with highest capacity to mass produce and distribute complex infrastructure related things will be most able to provide structure for planetary unification/governance and acquire popular legitimacy for it. Individuals in relevant capitals of the world will go to great lengths to have their states be as indispensable within this spinal cord as possible. This involves creating links between so called "national champions" and national industrial sectors in general (and thus political units themselves as public sectors increasingly get involved in the long term planning and funding).

For example, elites in Mexico City may realize that the rapidly growing Mexican industrial sector may not take leadership in the northern hemisphere by itself. BUT if they integrate it sufficiently with Canadian and American sectors then their ability to make influential decisions far up the spinal chord gets dramatically increased. Their psychological ego drive to get better and better seats at collective decision making table will thus drive the countries they manage towards merger.

One might argue that this isn't any different from the process that has happened for the last 400 years as various cartels pushed their governments into cooperation/merger, into international or supranational alliances, and occasionally into warfare with each other over surplus production. One might also argue that the post-hegemonic fragmentation into a multipolar world is also a seemingly cyclical typical occurrence. However, the current process of financial and industrial cartels influencing supranational mergers will take place in an environment that differs from a previous multi polar period of the early 20th century. That is since:

1) Dogmatic economic and political ideology in general has been discredited (with decline of the last two major ideological powers: USSR and US)  
2) Nationalism has been discredited in its older forms by technological globalization and by major migratory flows of humans
3) There is tendency towards continental political blocks that build on and improve on the EU model  
4) Warfare between cartels (and thus the governments they control) is prevented by the existence of nuclear weapons
5) World is now in a fragile situation where:
_____a) Due to accelerating technological progress and the Internet, world's rich find it increasingly difficult to maintain/create artificial scarcity (on at least light industry level) to prevent major profit collapse and corresponding social unrest
_____b) Major transnational cooperation is constantly required (on at least continental level) to coordinate fiat money generation and banking-monetary policy in general to prevent major profit collapse and corresponding social unrest
_____c) Capital intensive heavy industrial production (of fission reactors, high speed trains, etc) cannot really be fully managed and funded by individual cartels anymore and requires constant state/tax payer subsidy, support, and assistance
_____d) Ramping up capital intensive heavy industrial production/infrastructure is required to resolve and manage rapid population growth, resource depletion, and environmental degradation. This is needed in order to prevent civil unrest stemming from these 3 key global issues (civil unrest = major profit collapse = civil unrest).

Although the factors that create current cartel driven tendency towards political merging are not always stated this clearly, they nevertheless direct this process for the most part.   

What is apparent is that powerful egos cannot compete in the old ways via violence or in a free for all technologically enabled resource depletion. Financial speculation has also proven as inadequate to provide a long term release valve for psychological competition. The process of elimination leaves world leaders with a rather novel benign (and rather difficult!) way to compete via production and welfare generation for the people they oversee. 

To help visualize what is needed, what is happening, what will increasingly continue to happen, and what needs to be ingrained in global consciousness as needing to happen, think of this example:

[ There are 5 continents in the world with multiple countries each. 4 of these continents have at least 2 strong industrial countries with industrial monopolies that are cozy with their respective governments. Elites of 3-4 of the continents (North and South American companies may merge on this one) decide to create supranational "Japans on steroids" for each specific heavy industry. With state aid and coordination, a beefed up equivalent to European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) is created on each continent for energy, high speed rail transport, bridge/tunnel equipment, air/space transport, modular housing, and a few others related to resource extraction to feed the new "continental champions".]

Obviously a far greater amount of state capitalism and state funding/management is required to create these continental champions. This is made palatable to tax payers via sharing half or more of the profits with government treasuries the way Gazprom does. This rapidly builds on, combines, and goes further than European Coal and Steel Community, Euratom, EADS, Gazprom, and others.

The main goal is not only to rapidly streamline and take advantage of economies of scale in heavy industrial production of energy plants, large energy power plants parts, trains, planes, modular housing, and resource extraction/recycling. The main goal is to turn every continent into a supranational factory making 5-6 broad categories of things needed to prevent global social unrest AND to maintain competition, evolution, and diversity of product within global industry. The beauty of this process is that each country can increase or decrease the level of state ownership/(macro socialism or state capitalism however you'd like to call it) as it sees fits while maintaining the country within the industrial chain. Being part of the chain also creates incentives to boost technological, infrastructural, and social development in all spheres to remain part of and embed further into the chain. The incentives to make holistic improvements are greater than those driven by neoliberal emphasis on reform since success and failure is more obvious. The public can easily tell if their country doesn't have what it takes to design and cheaply construct a large part for a next generation transatlantic hypersonic heavy passenger plane. To catch up and enter the chain, the production capabilities of military industrial complexes should be converted to civilian use when possible and utilized to the maximum.

Additional positives of this arrangement is that a lot more capital intensive experimentation can now be allowed due to pulling of resources and supranational tax payer guarantees. Macro Gazprom type build up in production inefficiencies is more than compensated by introduction of new generations of hypersonic aircraft, mass production of MagLev transport and passenger train wagons, fission reactors, etc.

There is also an Orwellian twist to this new global competition (although a positive one). One can see the 6 continents entering into a triangular macro competition where not even 2 beefed up EADS type super companies can ever hope to fully win. Lets be more obvious. Say there is Oceania Rail, Eurasia Rail, and EastAsia rail all developing newer, better, and differentiated MagLev train products (ranging from magnetic heavy loader factory chain carts, to city subway cars, to transcontinental passenger, etc). Triangular competition like this tends to produce simultaneous launches of product by all 3 entities. This has been observed in product ranging from flat screen television to next generation fight airplanes. We see first seeds of what's to come in the Boeing and Airbus rivalry with China working on its own super heavy transcontinental passenger plane.

click to enlarge

If triangular competition reaches total planetary scale then the cost of the new products, time to make them, and time in between each successive generation of product falls. Yes, there will be entire continents filled with monopolies fused into supranational continental monopolies but it is small price to pay for macro level technological progress. New experimental continent scale protectionist policies and competition over guiding/exploiting the development of African Union should prevent any 2 supranational factories from totally overcoming the triangular arrangement. Tripolar world is dramatically more dynamic as elites within each industrial cluster need to always be focused to prevent indirect strategic collusion between 2 rivals while working and competing with each rival indirectly as well. Anybody who played 3 way chess knows this. Some projects like manned mission to Mars may require occasional industrial unipolarity but for the most part the tripolar arrangement described has sufficient economies of scale to really benefit humanity.


CONCLUSION:

To finish off, these days when evaluating the strength of a country one should overlook non-industry sectors within GDP and focus on 1) nominal value of industrial sector as % of GDP and 2) efficiency within this sector.

Industrial Sector By Nominal Dollar Value and Industrial Growth in 2010

China____________$3.3 trillion______(growth of 11%)
United States______$3.3 trillion______(growth of 3.3%)
Japan____________$1.4 trillion______(growth of 15.5%)(highest before quake hit)
Germany_________$862 billion______(growth of 9%)
Brazil____________$677 billion_____(growth of 11.5%)
Russia___________$666 billion______(growth of 8.3%)
UK______________$521 billion_____(growth of 1.9%)
France___________$519 billion______(growth of 3.5%)
India____________$484 billion______(growth of 9.7%)
South Korea______$458 billion______(growth of 12.1%)

Nominal industrial sector of US empire and key satellites____________$7.06 trillion

Nominal industrial sector of BRIC______________________________$5.127 trillion

The world is a lot more balanced now when it comes to making and distributing large physical objects. Increasingly transnational and amoral corporations like General Electric and Siemens can strangely become a source of transnational pride for billions of humans if they merge into a state fused productive arrangement described above.

Politics in the Age of Technology Induced Social Fragmentation

Most of world's people culturally live in different time periods ranging from 1820s to 1970s (Western time). This should be taken into account in international relations to avoid conflict and to speed up transnational construction projects.




When forging political coalitions to push through great infrastructure projects in the near future, we need to take into account continued rapid acceleration of two opposing social trends:

 
Trend A: Continued disintegration of unitary mass culture.

Mass culture was previously spread among the majority by top down mediums like television/newspapers or concepts like religion/geographic nationalism. As the demographic still affected by these mediums and concepts gets older and/or poorer, mass culture will become increasingly peculiar and less unifying for the whole population. In a way, that is worrying since the glue holding the diverse personality types will really only continue to exist among the diminishing baby boomer block.

Horizontal Internet communication allows the diverse rich spectrum of human breeds to not only find those similar to themselves but also to only communicate and interact (socially polarize) among those like themselves. Thus we see emergence of micronations and tribes within these micronations to a level unseen before. This explains why there is greater amount of difference within Millennial generation than there is between Millennials and Boomers. We see such technology enabled socially polarized clusters reflected in rising acuteness of various movements (libertarians, atheists, etc). There is little to dampen the fervor of these micronations since social media and search engines increasingly cater to people's informational preferences thus isolating, reaffirming, and making them more "acute" by the day. All of this of course was said when newspapers, television, and radio came into being since people could select among the channels, stations, or papers. Horizontal, socially emergent, bottom up, and cheaply widespread nature of the Internet is a qualitative step above these past mediums. There is possibility of major disruptions comparable to immediate post-Guttenberg press period.

At the very minimum, a cutting edge hybrid of proportional representation and direct Internet enabled democracy will need to be provided so at least the major personality clusters (SJs, SPs, NTs, NFs) can have political parties to represent their sensibilities. However, it is not sufficient to just provide the tools for these social clusters, tools that allow a political release valve for their feelings and energies. We need to start thinking of a unifying strategy and platform to prevent major paralysis stemming from intergenerational bias, intercultural bias, and particularly 21st century biases (micronationalism versus globalism and "inter-era bias"[see below]).


In the Western world, the disintegrative trend has started among the elites many decades ago, moved on to the professional upper middle classes in the 1960s, and is finally reaching majority of the population. The process of atomization and cultural disintegration described above is rolling like an accelerating wave from most culturally developed countries to all areas of the world. Four decades ago, Alvin Toffler's Future Shock and Between Two Ages made it clear that world's population lives in overlapping "eras" (preindustrial, industrial, post-industrial, technocratic [post-capitalist]).

One could be upper middle class in Nigeria living in industrial period culturally reminiscent of America in the 1840s, one could be lower class in Berlin living in early technocratic period, one could be an Afghan elite living in a pre-industrial stifling society, one could be a rural educated kid in Bahrain independently discovering the values of the hippy movement of 1960s America, etc. Russian Federation for instance, displays many cultural tendencies of late 1940s early 1950s USA. The overlaps and permutations are endless and there is great urgency to avoid mass psychological disturbances and violent frictions from reactionary conservative movements.

It is the shared responsibility of the trend setting Millennials at "ground zero" of cultural atomization (North America) to figure out how to lead productively in the informational spheres like TedTalks, documentaries, conferences, and newest mass media. With their proper informational leadership, they can show how to go forward as a global society without becoming stifling or reactionary.

Trend B: Continued increase in popular desire for more collectivism and community among those who already spent years living in very fragmented atomized societies.

An example of this was seen in the manufactured "Reagan revolution". As minority of the population (Ivy Leaguers who discovered their ego and hedonistic potential that comes with it) grew tired of the rest of society not catching up with them and the loneliness that comes with it, they chose to reabsorb themselves into a new form of corporate nationalism (that emphasized endless individual material expansion and dropped the need for collective sacrifice of prior exhausted FDRist nationalism). In the years ahead, we will see top down and bottom up calls for a still newer nationalisms that try to remedy mistakes of the American experience of both 1930s-1970s period and unfortunate 1980s-2008 period.

One possible solution and an inverse of Reaganism may be material nationalism (such as communal claim to land and key natural resources within nation states), physiological nationalism ("we are all human! and no matter how diverse got common physical needs!"), psychological nationalism ("we got common emotional needs!") and a mix of all 3. At the same time, the middle classes will insist on continued room to build hyper individualism (if desired) and further personal autonomy in psychological, interpersonal, and material realm (example: perhaps the people collectively own the land but you own your own unique shelter and property on this land).

It is possible that the educated intuitive suburban youth in the Western world will continue to further individualize and create ever more acute microtribes indefinitely but the shared viral experience of global information will increasingly provide a sense of a real global community and desire to be part of it somehow.


Reconciling the Trends Politically

At first it seems that we have a recipe for endless conflict. First, the perpetual exponentially increasing friction within Trend A. Then the clashing of Trends A and B as some more backward segments of global intelligentsia strive to break free of mass community and older nationalisms while cutting edge intelligentsia tries to reassert some new postmodern community and high tech inclusive nationalisms.

Just as hippies in say, Indonesia, sell out and discover their own version of Reaganism, all of a sudden they see a trend coming their way from Japan that puts everything into question once more. Most human personality types can only psychologically handle and absorb so many paradigm shifts and trends in their lifetime (much less a decade).

This is why political platforms of the near future should be as broad and deep as possible. The material, psychological, and physiological nationalisms mentioned previously can be scaled up to the whole globe or scaled down to a small city. Lets review the MPP:

Material: (Land and key resources like minerals in the land are our collective commons and are to be managed by us as we democratically see fit)

Psychological: (We are all humans and have commonalities like need for self-esteem, autonomy, love, influence, etc. And these desires will be provided for via proper political representation and management of the collective commons)


Physiological: (We are all humans and have commonalities like need for water, food, shelter, and some material matter to manipulate with tools, turn into tools, etc. And these desires will be provided for via proper political representation and management of the collective commons)

These three obviously blend together and play off each other and are broad and deep enough to provide a common political platform for a majority of human personality clusters. A society can safely be federal, unitary, decentralized, part of a supranational unit, diverse, homogeneous, etc as long as these three nationalisms are emphasized politically. Cultural, ethnic, and value nationalisms will still exist and play a major role but unlike MPP they provide for major source of unhealthy friction. De-emphasizing them will be a major challenge and calling for word's elites in the decades to come (just as de-emphasizing and separating religion and state was for elites in centuries prior).


As could be guessed, mass infrastructure development is to play a major role in putting MPP to the forefront of popular attention and to make MPP possible. In essence, to create a new type of global "glue" that would hopefully go a long way to neutralize the frictions of Trend A and frictions between Trend A and B and to put the energy generated by these frictions towards productive use.

Although 21st century will be marked by top down elite emphasis on collaboration and cooperation, even competition can still be allowed to co-exist when it comes to infrastructural achievement. This would sublimate the psychological tendencies of more aggressive human personality clusters into a socially healthy mass effort. A way to think of this is a sort of "space race" right here on earth (example: "we beat them in building this amount of fourth generation vertical farm complexes!"). Ethnic, cultural, intergenerational, and inter-era differences will still manifest themselves in the types of infrastructure projects that communities build. And of course, in an awful potentiality of resource wars. More on that in a future article. Resource wars are serious business.

Super Summary: Infrastructure as key word and mantra so we don't forget why civilization is possible at all

Infrastructuralist focus is needed to make 3 new forms of healthier scalable 21st century unifying nationalisms possible (MPP). Infrastructure itself is scalable and can range from microcomunity level to planetary level. Infrastructure focus redirects the friction within Trend A and friction between Trends A and B towards productive efforts. Infrastructure pushes towards more informational sharing and friendly cooperation between communities that operate on different political scales and whose people live in different cultural "time periods".

Infrastructure sets short, medium, and long term national goals that pushes cooperation between different personality clusters and creates unity among them that doesn't stifle them on a personal emotional level. Having and building the means towards more energy, food, shelter, and resources is less disagreeable than national goals stemming from one dominant ethnic or cultural faction. In order for infrastructural focus to be had at all, short, medium, and long term goals need to be quantified and put out for the public to manage (example: quadrupling arable land within 20 years, eliminating a certain desert within 10 years, etc).

Finally, for these goals to be properly decided on and implemented, a major technocratic reform towards a more advanced proportional representation and direct democratic hybrid political system is to be undertaken.

Outline for Future International Development

The Pragmatist has accumulated enough articles to attempt a general developmental outline for the world until 2050. Version 1.0





Such outline can be likened to an invisible statue on which drops of paint have been randomly thrown one at a time over the last 2 years. The paint drops are of different sizes and some statue parts have been disproportionately hit. Nevertheless, parts of some tangible form can be discerned at this point. Both deconstructive pieces on what fails (unfortunately roughly 2/3 due to necessity) and constructive ones (on what to have instead) help with this project. This is a sort of a wiki meta article and will be the most linked.

The outline is not born out of wishful or idealist thinking but rather out of attempts to forecast where the world is headed anyway, what makes sense via process of elimination, and what is in the strategic self interest of powerful individuals who run the planet. In other words, this outline tries to conceptualize a summary of solutions to some problems troubling not just all the peoples of the world but a forward thinking faction of the international elites. Solutions must be roughly compatible with the thrust of "reality" in order to be grafted onto it and transform it.

A lot of things covered will be very general and seem rather familiar exactly for that reason. Much will also appear fantastical, overly far reaching, and idealist. That is simply due to the still underappreciated and mind boggling technology spawned possibilities of the 21st century post-capitalist world (move to post-scarcity civilization will be more drastic than was the move to agricultural civilization from hunter gather one). It is funny how people who fully understand and believe in eventuality of cybernetic augmentation also miss out on macro level possibilities of post-money, post-wage slavery, post-scarcity, and post-financial parasitism.

There is also the sheer magnitude of the threats that we must avoid no matter what.

What to avoid at all costs?

A) Nuclear world war (for reasons ranging from imperialism to severe resource inequality resulting in a sort of planetary "civil war" between united cosmopolitan haves and united cosmopolitan have nots)

B) Technological singularity arriving into a world as severely unequal as it is right now (in terms of resources available to some homo sapiens versus others). We do not know when the singularity will happen but we should work with 2040-2050 as the deadline to complete much egalitarianism building preparatory work in the socioeconomic sphere. It is to be understood that the environment must be set up where everybody has the right, ability, and cultural maturity to receive free genetic and cybernetic augmentation as soon as it becomes available.

"Economic" (to be replaced with Technocratic) 


Replacement of the failed field of economics with engineering and science. Focus on what physically works and building more of it. This means mass scale infrastructuralist thrust by every center of force on earth. Elites are to be judged on their ability to build infrastructure and innovate construction methods of building it. This also means a constant and flexible integration of parts of diverse systems that work from every society on the globe and constant mutual learning. Not one model is to be held as the right one in its totality and the entire world is to be considered equally developing. This thinking is to be applied to energy production first in order to make everything else possible.

Exponential construction of energy sources growing a lot faster than human population at all times. Emphasis on nuclear (fission/fusion) and complementary solar/space based solar. This engineering/scientific thinking is to be applied to politics and the social sphere as well (a 21st equivalent of the efficiency movement on steroids to take into account all the cutting edge research).

The base for development is to be units of energy and mass of resources instead of incoherent abstraction (gambling houses like the NYSE or fiat monetarism). Total discrediting of Anglo-style imperialist monetarist capitalism (and its rich man's propaganda libertarian offshoots) will make technocratic central planning thought mainstream in 10 years time. You've read it here first. Much of what The Pragmatist covered will be mainstream and widely accepted pattern of thought in 10 years time. We already see rapid popularization of 1920s-1930s Technocratic Movement memes via widely culturally disseminated attempts like the Zeitgeist movement. These efforts will be copied, elaborated on, marketed for specific regions, etc.

Some healthy competition among technocratic theorists will arise. This will lead to basic conceptual convergence and synthesis while advocating some decentralization to suit cultural needs of localities. A grand bargain will be struck with a faction of elites holding on to the old neoliberal model of globalization in order to phase it out peacefully and gradually (more on this later). Much of the current "dissident" movement and its arguments is rabidly reactionary and will not make it past the smell test in the future.

Social: Renaissance/Enlightenment 2.0

Constantly awakening humanity at large will help with and will be helped by the above. For things like transcontinental MagLev lines, modular cities, and vertical farming grids to be of the highest quality, the human populations building them should be excited and dedicated. Switching to long term thinking and mass scale planetary construction projects provides a tangible life affirming vision for the human herd. This is essential to reduce the severe nihilism caused by vacuum from death of major religions, ideologies (with corresponding reliance on ready made models), and trust in political leaders (realization they are hairless often borderline psychopathic monkeys like the rest).

A call for mass public works projects is a call for humanity to rise to the challenge and figure itself out as well. To provide very comfortable post-scarcity high energy civilization and to begin colonization of the solar system, the people developing it must be developed on an individual level as well (morally, physically, psychologically, and intellectually). Not only will individuals see progress rise before their eyes but they will reap rewards from it immediately.

Infrastructure helps humans to have more leisure time and thus time to self educate themselves even further. This means it helps provide a social thrust towards a much more egalitarian world. Eventually, every homo sapien must have nutritious food and shelter as a basic right among other things. This is basic common sense in a mechanizing world where less than 500 million workers are needed to provide all the world's goods and services. These expanded rights will further allow leisure time for the new Renaissance to develop.

Although there are physiological differences creating limits to human equality, these same differences also provide for a limit on how unequal (in terms of access to resources) the homo sapiens should get. By the time first transhuman breakthroughs begin to occur (cybernetic and genetic augmentations, real A.I., etc) the humans with the most resources should not get more than 10 times those with the least resources. This means that the well off among 8-9 billion hairless apes should have their resources limited to 5-10 times those below them by 2050. This covers size and space of shelter, amount of travel, amount of electric energy, etc.

The best way to achieve this is to make the rise in quality/quantity of resource base of highest ranking members pegged to quality/quantity of resource base of lowest. If top workers have 1000 units of energy available to them, they can get 1100 of units next year IF they raise the amount of units available to bottom workers from 100 to 110. Since the new elites are to be laboring technocrats (engineers/scientists, elites who have to work for privileges instead of living off rents) they would be in position to go about doing just that.

Lets remind the reader that all of this is done to avoid nuclear world war born of inequality or cybernetic implants arriving on the scene of severe inequality leading to the same (first humans to be upgraded may perceive the rest of the herd the way one perceives the mentally retarded). Inequitable distribution of cybernetic/genetic augmentation on top of education/resource inequality would lead to tyranny and horror the world has not seen yet. Efforts to provide shelter and food to all (with corresponding leisure time opening for education) must begin immediately. This will create a virtuous multi-generational cycle of tension reduction although it may not seem that way at first however (as millions become conscious of just how much monstrous inequality there really is).


Politics: The world is to be thought of as one country in the process of unification and consolidation

1) This is key to fully allow for the infrastructuralist vision mentioned above. Efforts to rapidly close the gap between resource availability of best off and worst off must be plainly and bluntly articulated by every political leadership. The reasons for these efforts (to avoid WW3 or violent planetary insurgency) must also be articulated constantly with the same bluntness. All the world's land is to be thought of as belonging to humanity collectively (in practice to world federation of sovereigns or supra sovereign unions). This, in addition to shelter as human right will go a long way towards freeing most of humanity from the political domination of the feudal land lords. Governments are to be understood as being the ultimate landowners whereas the shelter itself is to be owned completely and inalienably by the individuals.

2) The current neoliberal model of third worldification of the first world and first worldification of the third world has done its job to internationally equalize a bit and to spread the wealth around but has now run its course. The time has come to equalize between bottom 10% and top 10% in every region. The global inflationary fiat casino experiment is crashing to an end and will wipe out a lot of wealth of the top 1% (much of it artificial to begin with). The 1% will be vulnerable for a time and provide an opening for central planners and sovereign states to make a comeback and to confiscate oligarch assets, tax, redirect anger from bottom to top, etc.

Although sovereign governments will make a comeback against financial oligarchies, they will understand that planetary unification of sorts within various unions is desirable for reasons of peace, history, and economies of scale (link up publicly owned industrial giants and their resource chains). However, as much as nation state haters may object, it may not be possible to "E.U.fy" every monopoly on violence. That is healthy as long as nuclear stand offs are not allowed to develop.

3) Quality of political leadership is to be rigidly monitored and constantly improved. It is not enough to make people who build and work into our leaders (engineering technocrats instead of current leaders who are shareholders in financial and weapons multinationals). To prudently approach and tackle the solutions to the monstrous problems facing us, we need to keep improving the art of selecting the technocrats. It is advisable that world leaders have live public debates and discussions with each other as often as possible. Populations should compete when it comes to the quality of their leaderships.

A sort of debate/discussion Olympics for world leaders would help. That is something to boast about. "Our president is the most skillful when it comes to applying the cutting edge methods for rapid construction of fusion plants!" "Our prime minister is on the forefront of education reform and shelter construction, we have eliminated homelessness first". Replacement of the dangerous nationalisms and celebrity worship with pride in builders and those apes that improve the herd the quickest (notice I said improve not just make comfortable). Democratic input will naturally find its place in a much more real way than it can ever hope in today's capitalist dictatorships. Global information networks even provide for opportunity of direct voting and discussion for the first time in thousands of years.

A New "21st Century Social Contract", "Grand Bargain", "An Offer They Cant Refuse" 

Just the way the early capitalists entered into co-existence with the feudal lords, the early technocrats will have to enter into peaceful co-existence with the capitalists. The half a billion NTs around the world who are extroverted, aggressive, thoughtful, and have access to Internet based self education for the first time will make an offer to the elites that may sound like the following:

"If you allow us to operate freely and set up regions of total operation then you will not be harmed. Although your indirect political control over the state apparatus will be greatly diminished, although most of your lands and hard assets may be seized with time, your bodies, your families, and remaining assets for comfortable retirement will not be touched. You have played the game of life well and controlled the world. Now you are obsolete and most of you will NOT face persecution for past crimes and excesses. Your children will even be allowed to seek positions in the new technocratic hierarchies. We will have a period of long co-existence where our systems overlap and function side by side and where you will still be able to have some influence. Eventually, like the monarchs of old you will fade into history as every homo sapien on earth is provided for and is no longer physically coerced into working for you.


If you choose to not take this offer you will face decades of unrest and increasing violence since we outnumber you 9,999 to 1. Numbers, technology, talent, and the tide of history is against you. You are outmatched and will lose badly. You will not find safety or honor in any shape or form anywhere you go and this planetary escalation may turn nuclear. You and your children are not guaranteed to live to see the singularity and will not be upgraded to become demigods here on earth. Take our offer of peace, progress, cooperation, and maintain control over something or face losing everything. This is in your best most "enlightened" self interest."

The educated workers will not stand for anything else or any attempts at co-opting technocracy from above. They will also flatly reject any visions that promise high tech corporate neo-feudalism under the guise of "post-industrial green society". No condescending profit based green philanthropy or oligarch backed NGO meddling either. The enduring demand of wage slaves is: shelter and food for all with supporting continental infrastructure (first in northern hemisphere and then the entire earth) to provide leisure time to further build thoughts of egalitarianism.

Attempts to divide and conquer the youth will only last so long. They are becoming too educated and impudent. Instead, time is coming where the elites will be divided among prudently technocratic and conservative neoliberal lines. Forward thinking elites will see the writing on the wall, make the right choice, and stage a comeback hoping to co-opt as much as possible. They will be younger on average than the current banker/ military general bunch. The world may have a real conversation then.

This concludes version 1.0. See you 100 articles later for version 2.0.

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.

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.