The current framing of Western politics is ultimately what I believe is best described by Mike Benz in what he calls "The Blob". It's fundamentally the foreign policy establishment (FPE) arm of the government that manages the American empire in an outwardly fashion.
The composition of the FPE is two-fold: internal government resources and external corporate and financial stakeholders, who Benz refers to as the "donor drafter class" of government activity. The "drafter" stakeholders are like dolphins following a boat so they can ride the waves and get prime pickings of fish disturbed in the boat's wake.
The Blob has a ferocious appetite for preserving their international rules-based order (i.e., hegemony), and thus anything that challenges that order (e.g., the West's World Bank vs. China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, superpower shares of IMF, and so forth). This self-preservation effort is their highest priority of all.
With that, there's no authentic diversity in political orientation - there's just the blob. Political diversity might have been a luxury of the old world order, but it went away when they transitioned into the new clown world order.
I honestly think the only realistic path for The Blob to lose power is when it self-destructs. It seems like the inevitable outcome, but the question is will it destroy all of us on its way out?
As far as political orientation classification goes, there's a more simplified coordinate system that can be deduced - (X) government (Y) not government. (Y) being the only choice that's congruent with natural rights.
The XY graph was my main point here really. More government or less? The choice is obvious to me.
Like you, I think the Blob (which is an adequate descriptive term) will implode. Any day now...can't wait. Will it destroy us on the way out? Quite possibly. But we should look at this like chemotherapy as the Blob is clearly a cancer that's infected our whole society.
I found the criticism towards the central bank a little cliche, without emphasizing a solution to that particular problem. There are fair criticisms towards the central bank by anyone who watches their decisions such as unnecessary bailouts. However the mechanism of printing money is "supposed to be" a tightly regulated one. Simply speaking, there aren't a lot of better alternatives to the current Keynesian models. In addition to that, there are a variety of economic theories that look at the mechanism of money printing. Some would agree the infinite supply of currency is unsustainable, like one giant bubble waiting to implode, even with tight restrictions. On the other hand, lack of currency fluidity creates harsh environments like the dirty 30's. I see you're looking at this from a political lens but the regulation of money printing is so fundamentally important to a functioning society that it is a priority for most nations. Lastly, America has benefited more from money devaluation than anyone else. There are always tradeoffs with different systems, but it seems to me America has had the financial cards stacked in its favor for nearly a century. Ironically, the rise of authoritarianism came from America. China's wealth is built off the backbones of the US dollar.
There's a whole discussion here but this is just a slight perspective on the article. Overall, it was insightful, and I enjoyed reading your views.
Might sound cliché but it's news to many people. As to solutions: hard assets, alternate currencies, precious metals, etc. Fiat currency must and will end.
There are other models that are more effective than Keynesian models in the long run, like Austrian. My personal favorite book on economics is "A Humane Economy" by Wilhelm Ropke ( I don't know the altcode for umlauts on o's). Highly recommend that book.
As for the rest of your comments I agree and appreciate the kind words.
I enjoyed reading this post. I agree with a number of your points, with the exception of 1. The first half of this post was spent trying to redefine, or revisualize with charts/diagrams the political spectrum. Kind of like changing terms like garbageman to refuse engineer, its all needless wordsmithing, or what I like to call gobbledygook. It’s rather unnecessary in my opinion. Now the issues of government power, money, central banks, etc that you discuss are on point and I really appreciate the effort you put into your study and writing.
Why did you decide to call more government control "Up" and less "Down"? Despite proclaiming otherwise, it's like you subconsciously see power as more important than freedom. This is just handing a psychological advantage to the enemy.
You can choose to think the other way if you want. Up to you. I chose "Up" because it represents the tier of people at the top of urbanized societies, as visualized by this population density graph from several different countries:
I think that the models are missing a lot on what is potentially possible. History doesnt start 5000 years ago. Check "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" by David Graeber, and David Wengrow. The political" potential for "governing" there is much greater.
Where would you put a polity like democratic Athens there, where elections was done by sortition and there was a very tight oversight of administrators? Or those huge agricultural communities in what is today Ukraine, wih up to 10,000 people, living in walled componds with no difference between their houses, and that also seemed to have a very transparent "democratic system.
Your model does not take such matters in consideration and with this involuntary narrowed Overtone window, you damn us all to the existing hierarchies, forever.
If we're looking at what's *potentially* possible then I agree. The scope is enormous and there are all sorts of solutions. What I'm aiming for instead is to create better framing mechanisms to describe the current state of Western politics. These models are not a one-size-fits-all political mechanism for all times and societies.
Re: damning to hierarchies — we are currently damned to hierarchies, and I'd very much like to see that change. Think I elucidated that in the final section.
The current framing of Western politics is ultimately what I believe is best described by Mike Benz in what he calls "The Blob". It's fundamentally the foreign policy establishment (FPE) arm of the government that manages the American empire in an outwardly fashion.
The composition of the FPE is two-fold: internal government resources and external corporate and financial stakeholders, who Benz refers to as the "donor drafter class" of government activity. The "drafter" stakeholders are like dolphins following a boat so they can ride the waves and get prime pickings of fish disturbed in the boat's wake.
The Blob has a ferocious appetite for preserving their international rules-based order (i.e., hegemony), and thus anything that challenges that order (e.g., the West's World Bank vs. China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, superpower shares of IMF, and so forth). This self-preservation effort is their highest priority of all.
With that, there's no authentic diversity in political orientation - there's just the blob. Political diversity might have been a luxury of the old world order, but it went away when they transitioned into the new clown world order.
I honestly think the only realistic path for The Blob to lose power is when it self-destructs. It seems like the inevitable outcome, but the question is will it destroy all of us on its way out?
As far as political orientation classification goes, there's a more simplified coordinate system that can be deduced - (X) government (Y) not government. (Y) being the only choice that's congruent with natural rights.
The XY graph was my main point here really. More government or less? The choice is obvious to me.
Like you, I think the Blob (which is an adequate descriptive term) will implode. Any day now...can't wait. Will it destroy us on the way out? Quite possibly. But we should look at this like chemotherapy as the Blob is clearly a cancer that's infected our whole society.
I found the criticism towards the central bank a little cliche, without emphasizing a solution to that particular problem. There are fair criticisms towards the central bank by anyone who watches their decisions such as unnecessary bailouts. However the mechanism of printing money is "supposed to be" a tightly regulated one. Simply speaking, there aren't a lot of better alternatives to the current Keynesian models. In addition to that, there are a variety of economic theories that look at the mechanism of money printing. Some would agree the infinite supply of currency is unsustainable, like one giant bubble waiting to implode, even with tight restrictions. On the other hand, lack of currency fluidity creates harsh environments like the dirty 30's. I see you're looking at this from a political lens but the regulation of money printing is so fundamentally important to a functioning society that it is a priority for most nations. Lastly, America has benefited more from money devaluation than anyone else. There are always tradeoffs with different systems, but it seems to me America has had the financial cards stacked in its favor for nearly a century. Ironically, the rise of authoritarianism came from America. China's wealth is built off the backbones of the US dollar.
There's a whole discussion here but this is just a slight perspective on the article. Overall, it was insightful, and I enjoyed reading your views.
Might sound cliché but it's news to many people. As to solutions: hard assets, alternate currencies, precious metals, etc. Fiat currency must and will end.
There are other models that are more effective than Keynesian models in the long run, like Austrian. My personal favorite book on economics is "A Humane Economy" by Wilhelm Ropke ( I don't know the altcode for umlauts on o's). Highly recommend that book.
As for the rest of your comments I agree and appreciate the kind words.
I enjoyed reading this post. I agree with a number of your points, with the exception of 1. The first half of this post was spent trying to redefine, or revisualize with charts/diagrams the political spectrum. Kind of like changing terms like garbageman to refuse engineer, its all needless wordsmithing, or what I like to call gobbledygook. It’s rather unnecessary in my opinion. Now the issues of government power, money, central banks, etc that you discuss are on point and I really appreciate the effort you put into your study and writing.
Why did you decide to call more government control "Up" and less "Down"? Despite proclaiming otherwise, it's like you subconsciously see power as more important than freedom. This is just handing a psychological advantage to the enemy.
You can choose to think the other way if you want. Up to you. I chose "Up" because it represents the tier of people at the top of urbanized societies, as visualized by this population density graph from several different countries:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/population-density-patterns-countries/
I think that the models are missing a lot on what is potentially possible. History doesnt start 5000 years ago. Check "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" by David Graeber, and David Wengrow. The political" potential for "governing" there is much greater.
Where would you put a polity like democratic Athens there, where elections was done by sortition and there was a very tight oversight of administrators? Or those huge agricultural communities in what is today Ukraine, wih up to 10,000 people, living in walled componds with no difference between their houses, and that also seemed to have a very transparent "democratic system.
Your model does not take such matters in consideration and with this involuntary narrowed Overtone window, you damn us all to the existing hierarchies, forever.
If we're looking at what's *potentially* possible then I agree. The scope is enormous and there are all sorts of solutions. What I'm aiming for instead is to create better framing mechanisms to describe the current state of Western politics. These models are not a one-size-fits-all political mechanism for all times and societies.
Re: damning to hierarchies — we are currently damned to hierarchies, and I'd very much like to see that change. Think I elucidated that in the final section.
Trying to make them in a way a little bit more explicit, especially in relation with power? And therefore hateful... Stepwise approach, eh?!