User talk:Nmutsaers

'Social Theory: Why the problems of the Socio-economic & Political system cannot be resolved by the ideology of the system.

Trying to solve the problems of the current system is big business; still, the problems do not go away and in many ways continue to deteriorate. The list is long and serious, affecting more and more people. Currently we are faced with festering economic recessions in the developed world; long-term stagnating financial markets; continuous corporate scandals and bankruptcies; huge public budget deficits; deteriorating public social/ welfare services and infrastructure; persistent, wide spread global unemployment and under employment, and for those working, job insecurity, stress, in combination with long-term stagnating real wages; rising income inequality; poverty for billions and even starvation for millions; endless wars and violence of various kinds; increasing global environmental destruction and ruin; emerging energy and urban transportation crises suggesting looming inflation, possibly followed by deflation; growing, widespread social injustice and political corruption.

Ideology is the name for the unwritten assumptions, even often subconsciously held, underlying the actions of one actor/player or the relationships among a set of players. It is these assumptions which determine the strategies and ways and means by which the current system goes about trying to solve such problems. In national systems there are typically 5 such players. The corporation in the economic subsystem, the political parties and government in the political subsystem and the public and the investor in the social subsystem. Very broadly speaking, the corporation makes the money; the political subsystem distributes the money and the social subsystem, owns and spends the money. Until the rise of globalization, the ruling ideology was National Ideology. In that case ideology refers to the underlying assumptions governing the relationships among the major players of the socio-economic & political system of the nation.

These assumptions reflect the realities/ conditions/ technology, existing at the time of creation of the system, which took place some 200/300 years ago. Typically in such a system, a core ideology underlying the relationship between the government and the corporation is that the national corporations needs all the help it can from the government in order to remain globally competitive, because the national corporation brings jobs to the public, profit to the investor, taxes to the government and national power and security to the nation. Another typical ideology is that any global destruction is good as long as it benefits the nation, (starting with colonialism). An important current national core ideology is that the public can assure itself a lifetime of economic wellbeing from employment only. Politically a core ideology is that the representative system is the best way to come to a democratic consensus concerning the common good. In relating internationally, a core ideology is that peace can be best obtained through war in combination with other measures. There are 8 such core ideologies.

These core ideologies represent and define the values and behavior of the players and as such are incorruptible. It is not conceivable the current system would ever give up on, say, the representative system to define the common good, or peace through war or when this is not possible, the threat of war.

This is essentially the reason why it matters little which political party is in power. Because all political parties adhere to these values, all solutions to all problems must fall within the confines of these values, so no real structural change is possible and as long as this remains so no real change is possible without changing system.

The crux of the matter is that change is necessary since all eight current ideologies benefit the private at the expense of the public. The benefits to the private manifests itself in the form of Corporate Capitalism which allows the private to distribute to itself an increasing share of all wealth created and to concentrate this wealth in fewer and fewer hands, so much so that presently (2005) the US 500 largest corporations are equal to 75% of US GDP with profits of some $600 billion with the top quintile of the population gaining the bulk of the rise in this income and wealth. The costs to the rest of the public manifest itself in the form of the long list of social, political, environmental and economic problems detailed above. All so-called "problems" in fact benefit the private, be it stagnating wages, corporate bail outs, public deficits to support demand ad thus increase corporate profit, reduction of the welfare state which cuts corporate taxes, etc.

Why are these ideologies benefiting the private at the expense of the mass of the public, considering that the system, in principle, was created to benefit the public?

To answer that critical question precisely and succinctly, but also rather devastatingly; centuries of time and the change it brought, especially change brought on by globalization, has hollowed out the core ideologies which maintain and hold up the old system, so much so that  what once may have been truth and reality is now  falsehood and  wishful thinking.

What was true for national ideology 250 years ago is not anymore true today. Globalization broke the link which equates public benefit with private benefit. To solve the problem of peace for the nation, it will make more war globally, peace through war brings continuous war and little global peace; if it wants more national jobs, and it will throw billions at corporations without avail. Truth is vast numbers of the public cannot anymore assure a lifetime of economic wellbeing from full employment, jobs, jobs only and supporting national corporations with hundreds of billions does not, with globalization, anymore create the necessary national jobs, more taxes and sufficient national demand to assure national growth,( as the corporation is too busy merging, cost cutting (jobs cutting)and/or moving production and jobs to low income counties);if it wants more growth, it will borrow more -into the trillions- run up public budget deficits, all to no avail even though the public is too poor, to much in debt, to continue to give away its public tax money to support national corporations and strangers alike, etc. If it wants more profit, it will pollute more; destroy/deplete more natural resources, but the fact is, the globe is not an unlimited system;  global destruction, even if it benefits the nation, is not good for the global public.

Once globalization broke the link between the public and private benefit,the system,at least from the public point of view, literally, does not have a leg to stand on. A self centered national private producer system out of touch with the global realities of the public, floating aimlessly in the fantasy world of remembrances of times past, to benefit now only the private at the expense of the public, creates in the process a host of problems for the public which it is unable to effectively solve, as it cannot even see or recognize such problems, being the manifestations of its own need to survive and profit.

The essence of all this is that to solve the problems current relationships /ideologies create requires changing the way we see the world; it requires a new consciousness, a new ideology: a global ideology. It requires a new way to see the world, a way which is based on current global realities. The often quoted statement by Einstein "no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it,” comes to mind. Once we do this, see the world for what it is presently,a new system a new set of players which would accommodate these new relationships will follow. This changing of seeing the world is critical to human survival. The era of globalization, the global village, requires we see the world based on current global realities. This is all the more essential since globalization has destroyed the meaning, value and relevance of the way the world is seen through the eyes of past national realities.

Demonstrating against the current system is senseless, as the system is truly unable of change as long as the core ideologies are in place and these ideologies must stay in place because they define the system. If you change ideologies, you change system.

All these problems, but especially the economic problems, have the joint effect to reduce the public share of all wealth created, thus the stagnation of real wages, and the resulting increasingly lopsided income distribution figures. Prior to globalization this was no problem for the private, there was seemingly unlimited global demand but the monkey wrench globalization threw in the ring is that in the closed system of the global village the relative impoverishment of the global public leads to less demand and less demand, less profit. Moving production to low income countries does not solve this problem, as long as the overall global wage bill is reduced, which it is. Mergers, the buying of the markets of others can postpone this reality, and allow the continuation of mega profits and double digit growth figures for the GCs, but not resolve it as eventually the trillion dollar GCs have reached their ultimate size.

Likewise so for the government response to create demand through borrowing from the future into the trillions, (which currently has postponed major recessions, or even depression, especially in the developed nations). Also this is a process which cannot be sustained, as it piles interest on interest, so much so that more and more borrowing must take place just to stand still and cover the rising cost of interest on the public debt.

Another current pillar of demand is speculation, especially in the real estate market. It creates temporarily a false sense of wealth for home owners, which supports much of their existing demand, but all speculation is build on expectations, which demand real purchasing power to be sustained. This bubble may see some casualties.

Add to such problems the continuing reliance by the GCs on centuries old technology, especially in the energy, transport and consumer durables sectors, (which represent by far the bulk of the economy) which are polluting, and inefficient and thus increasingly expensive, (as the escalating oil prices clearly show) especially relative to modern day alternatives and the scene is set for a system which is increasingly unable to serve public interests and solve its problems. Democracy wise, the management of this process relies on an organizational structure which concentrates power in the hands of the very few, so that critical decisions regarding this state of affairs are practically completely out of the hands of the average citizen, making a joke out of the democratic process of one man, one vote. Maintaining the system and managing the economy is strictly very big business indeed.

Combined, this situation is self destructive and in the process entirely distorts the concept of economic efficiency, social justice, equal opportunity and true democracy. The system fails both in public as well as private objective attainment. The relative impoverishment of the masses, which this leads to, not only leads eventually to economic stagnation and lower GC profit, but for the public excludes all ways to satisfy spiritual values of oneness and wholeness; instead, setting one against the other. The current system blocks any way to effectively address and eliminate its plethora of problems and makes for a world of survival, both for the public and the corporation. For a more detailed analysis, which lists the current global realities and identifies a new system based on these realities see http://www.globalideology.com