Political power & the mythologies of economics

The theories of economics are not definite and provable like the rules of mathematics and physics—they are mythologies (lies and fiction) imagined by the “neo-priests of modernity”: the economists. Like the philosophical and theological arguments of metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics and religion, the theories of economics cannot be proved or disproved. 

As they cannot furnish the ultimate proof for their theories, the economists rely on political power to forcibly impose their ideas. The boundary between economics and politics is blurred, and every decision taken in the name of economics is a political decision. The true purpose of economics is to ensure that the political establishment has access to unlimited funds. 

The bureaucracy needed to impose a free market system is as large and coercive as the bureaucracy needed to impose a communist system. The bureaucracy in so-called capitalist countries is larger than that in any communist country. Even multinational corporations, which are regarded as the symbols of free markets, have huge bureaucracies. 

Like the political movements, the so-called free markets are impacted by the prejudices, fantasies, irrationalities and delusions of the ruling class and the masses. Without political power and a large bureaucracy to maintain order, the free markets cannot exist.

Exposing the Myth of Capitalism: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

The idea that you can create a perfect society through communism is a modern secular mythology. But the same applies to capitalism as well. Capitalism too is a modern secular mythology. The so-called twin pillars of capitalism—individual freedom and free enterprise—are mythologies; these ideas are as unreal as the preachings and mythologies of ancient cults and religions.

When someone says that he wants people to live in a free society, he means that he wants everyone to live according to the tenets of his own culture. History is full of instances of freedom being used as a weapon to subvert and capture other cultures. When someone says that he wants free trade, he means that he wants the companies of his nation to be allowed to take control of natural resources, labor and even political power in other parts of the world. 

Can a capitalist country thrive without plundering the resources of weaker minorities in their own country and in other countries? So far we don’t have any evidence to show that capitalism can create happiness and prosperity without exploitation of humanity’s voiceless underclass.  

The United States wants us to believe that it is a capitalist society and the land of the free. But violence that the European settlers (between 16th and 19th centuries) unleashed upon the Native Indians of North America, and those who were brought from Africa to toil as slaves, was no less brutal than the violence that the Lenin’s Bolsheviks unleashed on the Russian bourgeoisie. 

By the end of the 19th century when the Native Indians of North America were subjugated, expelled or exterminated, the Americans turned their eyes on other parts of the world. 

America has been continuously at war, simultaneously with several countries, since the dawn of the 20th century. This country played a central role in two of the biggest wars of the 20th century, the 1st and the 2nd World Wars. In the last 100 years, the American government has been involved in several coups to overthrow democratically elected governments and transfer power to tyrants who would serve American interests.

If all the world's major nations decide to follow the American capitalist model, then there is no chance of peace in the world, and a Third World War will become inevitable.

Today I finished reading John Perkins’s semi-autobiographical book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Perkins’s claims in his book that he was hired by engineering consulting firm Chas T Main that was affiliated to American intelligence and that his job was to coerce the leaders of underdeveloped countries into accepting substantial loans for large-scale infrastructure projects and trap them in a system of American control. 

I am not convinced that the account given by Perkins is fully accurate—this is because in several of the book's passages, he sounds like a nutty conspiracy theorist and a deranged political activist. However, despite this major weakness in his narrative, his trenchant critique of capitalism and corporatism makes sense.

Civilizational apocalypse and preservation of relics and ruins from the past

When a civilization becomes obsessed with preserving the ruins, records and artifacts of ancient civilizations, which fell and disappeared centuries ago, it is because its elites are gripped by the fear that their own civilization is in an advanced state of decay and decline, and their way of life is about to vanish from the face of the earth. 

The elites realize, subconsciously or consciously, that their world will soon join the list of history’s dead civilizations. This dreadful realization of civilizational apocalypse fills them with the longing to preserve the bits and pieces of the civilizations which died in the earlier ages. 

As they squander massive amounts of resources in studying, venerating and preserving the relics of long dead civilizations, they are filled with the desperate hope that they will not be forgotten, and that when their civilization dies, its ruins, records and artifacts will be studied, venerated and preserved by the civilizations of the future.

The unnatural does not exist, only the natural does

What does the word ‘natural’ mean? It means everything, mental and material, that exists in the universe. Nothing that exists is unnatural. Everything that has ever existed, every event that has ever happened, and every thought that has ever sprouted is natural. 

The idea that there is a difference between the natural world and the man-made is a myth. Human beings are as much part of nature and as any rock, insect, bird or animal. Since we are part of nature, every human action, every human creation and every human thought is also a part of nature, as are the mental images and acts of other creatures. 

The religious, political and cultural movements, the wars, the massacres, the quests for God and heaven, the quests for earthly utopia and perfect life, the philosophical arguments and the scientific discoveries—all of these and everything else are natural. 

Slavery is as natural as freedom, individualism as natural as collectivism, theism as natural as atheism, morality as natural as nihilism, poverty as natural as prosperity, brutality as natural as compassion, anarchy as natural as rule of law, communism as natural as capitalism and the Stone Age is as natural as modernity. 

Man is incapable of doing or creating anything that is unnatural. The unnatural, by definition, is that which cannot exist anywhere in the universe.

Brain in a vat: Is the world real or a simulation?

What is the mind? Is the mind a function of the brain or an attribute? Does the mind survive the death of the brain? What role do the more than 100 billion neurons, which exist in the mature human brain, play in the manifestation of the mind? Do we make our choices on the basis of chemical and electrical reactions in the brain or do we use free will?

If we are making our choices on the basis of the material reactions inside the brain, then we don’t have free will, and it is theoretically possible to coerce people into making certain choices by tinkering with the brain's electric and chemical processes. But if the mind is independent of the brain's material processes, then there is the possibility of free will.

The connection between the mind and matter (brain) is the oldest problem of religion and philosophy. For thousands of years countless sages and philosophers in civilizations and cultures have come up with theological doctrines, arguments and thesis to explain the relationship between mind and matter. But in our time we see these works as nothing more than mythologies, fantasies and fictions.  

We don’t know what is the real connection between mind and matter. We don’t know how we make choices. We don’t know what we are referring to, when we speak the word “I”.

In our time, philosophers, scientists, neurologists and bio-technicians have been grappling with the problem of the brain in a vat, which enjoins you to imagine that you are a brain in a vat connected to a computer program that can simulate any kind of experience. This implies that the world we are experiencing is not real, it is a matrix or simulation. 

Modern scientists and philosophers cannot prove beyond doubt that the universe is real and not a simulation caused by the brain’s processes.

This brain in a vat problem is not a new innovation. Some aspects of this problem was foreseen by the ancient sages and philosophers, who theorized that the body is a vessel made of clay whose sole purpose is to serve as a home to the soul or the mind. Every human being (basically every living creature) consists of two parts: the body, which is the vat, and the mind, which is the soul.

The structure and functioning of over 100 billion neurons in the brain is as complicated, mysterious and vast as the universe. There are two vast and mysterious universes that mankind is confronted with. There is the universe outside the body and there is the universe inside the body.

Lies and fictions are the fountainhead of civilizations and cultures

Truth is of value only in the realm of science and mathematics. In philosophy, religion, politics and culture, which are the fundamental building blocks of every civilization, past or present, it is lies and fictions which play the decisive role. 

To build a civilization, you need to unite people under the banner of a common philosophy, religion, political system and culture. It is impossible to unite people by telling them the truth. 

The masses will never unite, they will never agree to make sacrifices, if they are told that 2+2 = 4, or E=MC2, or the motion of all heavenly bodies in the universe is determined by the laws of motion and gravitation. To unite people you need to provide them with an imaginary, mythological and fictional view of the universe. The masses have to be told fictional stories which will enable them to imagine a universe that is far from reality. 

Mankind is a fiction telling creature. We have an immense power to tell fictional stories and accept these fictional stories as the ultimate universal truth. 

Billions of humans might come together and become ready to sacrifice everything, including their life, if they are told that the universe is controlled by one God who grants the wishes of all those who worship him and fight holy wars for him. They will come together if they are inspired by fictions on how the universe was created and mankind was saved from a great deluge. 

They will rush to fight great wars in which millions will be killed if they become convinced by the fictional stories and accept that their God wants them to destroy the infidels. 

In the modern secular times, philosophy is doing what religion used to do in ancient and medieval ages. The modern philosophers are developing creative fictions which enable people to come together to work for a common cause. Ideologies like imperialism, racism, the Enlightenment, socialism, communism, capitalism and other philosophies are creative fictions. 

The communist idea that a perfect society can be created through the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” is a creative fiction. But so is the capitalist idea that a perfect society can be created through something called a “free market.” There is no way of proving or disproving the fundamental tenets of communism and capitalism. Both are mythologies. 

The ability to weave and accept fictional stories or lies as the greatest truths is not mankind’s weakness. This is our greatest strength. Mankind has created powerful civilizations and come to dominate the earth because of our ability to lie and to accept the lies as the universal truth.