The jury is long ago in. There is absolutely no way to meaningfully control, rein in, oversee, or reform a behemoth centralized power to which all must render their fortunes, to whatever (arbitrary) degree. It is demonstrably clear that any pool of treasure derived and accumulated from such a coercive association will absolutely be pilfered, skimmed, redirected, misdirected, squandered, wasted and finally brazenly stolen outright by exactly the people that the author of the article linked below would prefer (and rightly so) be deprived of its largesse.
It is further demonstrably true that any such pool will always necessarily be captured by such people and the organizations they create for the very purpose of becoming the directors and appropriators of it, and can’t help but be. Once captured and in order to capture and consolidate their hold on it, they will always then write and have laws passed, by the institution (the state) that enforces their interests, to greatly favor those particular interests and make the road extremely rough or entirely impassable for anyone working in opposition to them. Finally, in the end, no matter how gross an infraction or violation by a member of this class, whether legal or ethical, they are so powerful that they can simply either ignore the system of justice which applies to all non-directors, or modify it on the fly if they want to make a show of being subjected to it (note that the most major and notorious events in the U.S. over the last 60 years: JFK’s assassination, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair, 9/11, and the financial catastrophe of ’07-’08, got processed for public consumption via Congressional actions, whether by special “Commissions” or by regular hearings, and not via the jural system, whether Grand or petit). There are never any indictments issued or sentences passed, and no one ever goes to jail or even loses their job or gets demoted. All these things, because they directly involve the behemoth, become extra-judicial. They are processed for show outside the justice system applicable to all non-directors.
This is plain to see if see one cares to. A fact that must be reckoned with, and at long last. The problem needs no further defining. The solution needs now to be laid out. Except, now the circularity begins.
Collectivism of any kind requires, mandates participation (tax payments), and sometimes physical service (military), and that’s practically every single political system of any size and note in the modern and ancient worlds, and that compelled participation begets a pool of treasure which calls relentlessly to the pathologically corrupt hearts and minds that will always and surely come to direct it, and to the more petty tyrants among us who want to control others via proximity to and minor control over some small corner of that pool, and to all the busybodies that are sure they know what’s best for others and are willing to use or condone force if and as necessary to see their benevolent will for others and the common good done. The pool WILL be captured and administered by this group. Always, and no discovered infraction will ever cause even the slightest loss of grip for the first part of that triumvirate, the directors.
The only thing that could ever affect the directors, I have come to believe, would be the advent of viable voluntary society as a counterweight. I’m not even sure that would do it, but I think it’s the the only thing that might (and I think it’s morally correct, anyway), and it has not been tried. Marching in the street does nothing but blow off steam for the marchers and those that root for them. Voting only gives the non-directors a vague sense that they have a say and are theoretically in charge of their own destinies, at least nominally. But marching and voting largely only waste the time of the participants and divert their energies from examining the actual juggernaut dynamic which is the actual root or primary engine of all the grossest societal ills, and into hollow ceremonial actions. Even when civil demonstration seems to have worked, as perhaps with Gandhi, or with King and the civil rights marches, the effort expended and costs were gargantuan. It’s not a realistic level of effort and time to have to routinely put forth to obtain or maintain one’s liberty and other “rights”. The behemoth can just change its mind later, anyway, even when it appears to have conceded.
Having examined these issues and the questions of morality involved at great length, I have no regard for socialism, because we don’t own each other. It’s also a proven failure, for the reasons I have stated herein. That said, I understand the author’s frustration and how he’d like things to go. I wish he had a patch of land somewhere to try to realize his goals, so long as I wasn’t required to contribute to or be governed by them. But as to controlling the existing behemoth, I would ask, just how exactly would he propose it might be checked? What precedent exists to show that it ever could be? Who exactly among us is morally fit AND intellectually capable (both) of overseeing it, and of undoing its capture and of preventing its future re-capture?
I suggest that nothing can check it while it’s mandatory, and that no one is fit to oversee it, nor ever could be. The reading of history would seem to make this statement nearly irrefutable (I include “early” only in case there is an example of which I am unaware). If it’s not, though, or doesn’t need to be true with future attempts, it’s time someone in the collectivist world laid out the viable path to their goal that precludes capture by the directors.
The problem has been defined, ad infinitum – the linked article contributes more evidence to that definition – so enough of that part, maybe, for awhile. Time to describe exactly how a system does not get hijacked. The U.S. Constitution has a very clear clause in it about the right of the people to redress grievances (against their government). Great idea, but that clause has no teeth because the road to redress has been made hyper-arduous and time consuming at best, and with state employed gatekeepers along the path, whether in front of the Grand Jury or the Court systems, who can simply turn any petition away, so it’s meaningless.
That’s true for all of us, in every system. Anyone aware of a crime or injustice, needing a wrong righted, needs to beg the state to hear the case and petition. When it won’t, or when it makes the road so rough that it cannot be traveled, because it would run counter to the directors’ interests to do so, then what?
The Left should address that question now. It’s really well established and agreed at this point that oligarchy, plutocracy is the problem. It’s also well established that the deep-pocketed among us can hijack any and every system ever so far devised, so that problem would seem to be perpetual in nature, at least in the current paradigm where all are required to contribute to it. It would be good if bright minds would turn their attention to that dilemma now.
America’s oligarchy: No money for opioid crisis, endless funds for corporate tax cuts
On the same day that Congress moved forward on nearly $6 trillion in tax cuts to the super-rich, the Trump administration declined to allocate any funds to address the opioid crisis.
