What Happened to Integrity and Honor?

The hope here is that facing the reality of moral collapse frees us of the delusion that fiddling with technocratic financial abstractions and policy tweaks can reverse moral collapse.

Ours is a technocratic culture with a short attention span, and so problems and solutions are understood to be 1) technocratic and 2) instant. The problem is something that can be distilled down to a spreadsheet, formula, algorithm or legalistic policy, and the solution is some modification of spreadsheet, formula, algorithm or legalistic policy: all our problems will go away if we just end the Fed, switch to cryptocurrency, tweak some laws, get rid of the bankers, eliminate an agency, and so on.

These solutions will offer immediate relief. The problems will start melting away the minute we modify the spreadsheet, algorithm, financial settings or legal code.

But what if the problem is the collapse of integrity and honor, a moral rot that has consumed the foundations of our social order? If this is the root problem, then technocratic-financial solutions are the equivalent of excising a wart from the big toe and declaring that as a result of this procedure, the brain cancer has been cured.

What if the problem is that everything we're cheering as Progress is actually the opposite--it's Anti-Progress? What if all the technocratic "advances" that are constantly being hyped as wondrous are actually harming our physical and mental health?

So a product labeled as a "veggie snack" that's nothing more than fat-soaked, sugary potato starch is lauded because it's immensely profitable, a virtue gained by deceiving parents into thinking a "veggie snack" is a healthy snack.

That this is a culture in moral collapse is obvious, but we dare not admit it. That integrity and honor have decayed to the point of parody is equally obvious, but that too doesn't register in a culture attuned to novelty, profit, gadgets, legalese, techno-fantasies and technocratic "solutions" to problems that aren't even visible to technocrats.

Integrity and honor have, along with everything else, been commoditized into something we sell as a "product" or "enhancement." Virtue-signaling has replaced actual integrity, and as the host of my latest podcast observed, the job of corporate CEOs is not to make quality products; their job is to elevate the corporation's stock price by whatever means are available--including hollowing out quality, reliability and durability.

Seeking a Culture of Honor and Integrity with Emerson Fersch and Amy LeNoble (59 min)

In this state of moral collapse, we look to centralized authorities to solve all our problems. But the collapse of integrity and honor does not have a legal, financial or technocratic solution. We have to reverse that collapse ourselves rather than rely on centralized diktats from on high to fix what's broken.

Before we get to the hope, let's first review reality. Here is loneliness--soaring.



Here's a snapshot of our social contacts: now mostly online:



With the easily predictable results: social trust is decaying....



...Along with the bottom 90%'s trust in institutions and centralized authorities, both public and private.



And we all know how positive online interactions are for our collective mental health:



Every one of these graphics depicts a social order in collapse, yet this truth is greeted with silence or delusional misdirections and self-referential parodies being passed off as "solutions."

Let's say we want a lifestyle stripped of denial, moral rot, techno-fantasies and technocratic delusions, a lifestyle of responsibility, accountability, integrity and honor. Oops, sorry, that lifestyle is out of stock and we don't anticipate any reordering.



The hope here is that facing the reality of moral collapse frees us of the delusion that fiddling with technocratic financial abstractions and policy tweaks can reverse moral collapse and Anti-Progress. We are then free to see the problem is spiritual and cultural, realms that we change in our own lives, not by waiting around for central authorities--the state, Big Tech, etc.--to fix for us.

We need a new way of living, not more gadgets and financial "innovations." A restoration of basic integrity and honor cannot be achieved by technocratic "solutions"--policies, crypto, apps, algos, AI--for the belief that these are solutions has blinded us to the decay and collapse of the foundations of the social order.

Yes, it's understandable that we all want a solution to the collapse of integrity and honor to be done for us by some new app or a new law, but that's like thinking the wart on the big toe is the source of the brain cancer. Real social change comes from the ground up, not the top down. I explore these themes in my new book The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century.
(free sample chapter)

New podcast: Seeking a Culture of Honor and Integrity with Emerson Fersch and Amy LeNoble (59 min)

---

My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free


Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Subscribe to my Substack for free

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Fix This or Nothing Else Matters

The top 10% are the dog sipping a drink as the cafe burns down, saying "this is fine."

What's the one thing we need to fix or nothing else matters? There are plenty of potential candidates: immigration, healthcare, wokeism, hot war in Europe, inflation, draining The Swamp, etc.

Human history offers a definitive answer, and it's none of these issues. The answer is wealth inequality. Historian Peter Turchin has focused on the tedious task of assembling data (as opposed to opinions, ideological positions and theories) on the crises and collapses of previous nations and empires. The keystone dynamic is soaring wealth inequality, which is shorthand for power inequality, as wealth generates power, income inequality, as wealth generates income, and health inequality, as wealth buys the best healthcare.

Turchin has written a number of books on the topic of social discord and collapse, but his recent article succinctly summarizes his findings: The deep historical forces that explain Trump's win: "We're in a good position to identify just those impersonal social forces that foment unrest and fragmentation, and we've found three common factors: popular immiseration, elite overproduction and state breakdown."

All three are the consequences of exploding wealth inequality. As wealth--which can be understood as claims on future time, energy and productive assets--is concentrated in fewer hands, the prosperity of the bottom 90% decays as costs rise and wages stagnate (i.e. immiseration), the economy no longer produces enough highly paid slots for the ever-increasing production of highly educated, high-expectations professionals, and since extreme concentrations of wealth corrupt the state, the state breaks down as bread and circuses no longer mask the gap between the top 1% (what Turchin calls "the proverbial 1%") and the top 10%, "a highly educated or 'credentialed' class of professionals."

The top 1% and top 10% set the contexts, narratives and agendas of the economy and society, and they're naturally coy about their role in soaring inequality. In their view, the extraordinary rise in their personal wealth is the result not of asset bubbles generated by policies adopted to serve the influential, but of their "hard work" and remarkably excellent decisions--in other words, their soaring private wealth is the natural order of things, and those left behind are, well, the losers in a Darwinian competition which they won and continue winning.

This self-congratulatory hubris cloaks the reality few admit to, which is their wealth is largely the result of policies that inflated bubbles in assets which they happened to own or buy early in the bubble.

The top 10% fear a real rebalancing will transfer some of their wealth to the bottom 90%, and so they cling with fanatic tenacity to the fantasy that increasing their wealth will "trickle down" to the little people. In their view, the correct policy decisions are those that will increase their wealth and income: cut taxes (which fall mostly on the top 10%), run trade and federal budget deficits that keep asset bubbles inflated, reward corporate monopolies and cartels, and promote the fantasy that "draining The Swamp" will somehow magically increase the wages of those who have lost ground for the past 45 years.

This chart of trade balances (i.e. trade deficits), wages as a share of U.S. GDP and the S&P 500 stock market index (SPX) is instructive. Note the diminutive size of the enormous asset bubbles of 1996-2000 and 2004-2008 compared to the stupendous Everything Asset Bubble which has so richly rewarded the owners of assets...



... who just happen to be the top 10%, who own almost 90% of all stocks:



And stockholders have done very, very well as corporate profits have skyrocketed in multiples of inflation:



The top 10% are also coy about how the bottom 50% of U.S. households--65 million households, 170 million Americans--fared as the Everything Asset Bubble "raised all boats:" well, not quite all boats, as the bottom 50%'s share of assets fell sharply (down 25%) as the wealth was concentrated in America's ruling / professional class.



The top 10% are equally coy about the immense divide between the stagnating prospects of the bottom 50% and the unprecedented wealth pouring into the vaults of the top 1% as their share of total assets rose 26%:



The net worth of the top 0.1% (330,000 Americans) exploded from $4 trillion in 2000 to $20.8 trillion today, more than 5 times the net worth of the bottom 50% of Americans (170 million people).



From low-Earth orbit, these obscured by the self serving realities become visible:

1. The top 10%, regardless of ideology, orbit the same nodes of wealth and power. The ideological differences are exaggerated to mask their common interests. They jet around the world to the same places, eat in the same pricey bistros, hire the same CPAs to "save on taxes," and they own homes in exclusive neighborhoods and manage the same portfolios of soaring stocks.

Turchin describes how counter-elites arise to fragment the status quo, but let's not kid ourselves: these counter-elites are nothing more than manifestations of Christopher Lasch's revolt of the elites, elites who share a keen interest in buying off the bottom 90% with distracting sensationalized "news," misdirecting narratives, and a minimum of bread and circuses. Their only goal is to replace the existing elite: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration (2023)(Peter Turchin)

The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (1996)(Christopher Lasch)

2. The top 10% are the dog sipping a drink as the cafe burns down, saying "this is fine." They are defensively aware of the hollowness of their hubristic claims to have "earned my wealth," but blind to the precariousness of their place at the top of the heap. Their complacent embrace of self-congratulatory hubris does not have a good track record in terms of survival strategies. We are in the final stages of let them eat brioche: AI will fix everything, etc.

3. We either fix wealth/power/income inequality or nothing else matters. Everything else is either a symptom or consequence of wealth/power/income inequality or it's signal noise generated to distract the bottom 90% from the 45-year erosion of their standard of living.

Nothing will change until we admit that the policies of the past two generations have only one possible result: extreme concentration of wealth. Either we face this directly or we fiddle around with histrionic distractions until it's too late.

---

My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free


Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Subscribe to my Substack for free

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NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.

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Really Authentic Authenticity Package (TM) now 50% Off

What renders everything phony, BS, inauthentic, is that everything important is cloaked to hide the deeply artificial nature of the entire setup.

You know it's all phony, all artifice, all BS, and so we're delighted to offer our really authentic Authenticity Package (TM) to special people like you for a one-time 50% discount. Sure, you could book a flight to the temples and walk the same pathways as the spiritual masters of old, but you wouldn't be getting the full authentic experience because our guides are truly authentic and so our packaged, commoditized tour is the Real Deal (TM). Anything else is, well, unworthy of your social media feeds.

I've often noted here that it's impossible to parody Everyday Life (TM) now because everything is already a parody of itself. The Black Friday frenzy is a parody of a dark comedy of people jostling to get the hot deal on a TV they don't need "but it's so cheap, how can I resist?"

The Authentic Tour of the Place Ruined by Tourism (TM) is a self-parody, as there's nothing remotely authentic left in places that depend on tourist spending for their livelihoods, including jobs as "cultural guides" to a golden past before tourism ruined the place.

My commish on the Authentic Spiritual Adventure Walking Tour (TM) is my livelihood, and the "value proposition" of the tour is its claim to authenticity via my authentic interest in Authentic Spiritual Adventures.

Can we experience a fabulously authentic visit to a romanticized, heavily promoted high-status destination and keep it entirely private? You're joking--what would be the point? The black holes of insecurity are bottomless, and a private life offers no grist for the status-seeking frenzy to establish a self and identity worthy of public approval, admiration and envy, and so there is literally no point in having an experience that can't be shared online to score "I am worthy of notice" points.

Insecurity demands consumption to validate our existence. Without ownership of assets, products, services and experiences, we cease to exist other than as a shadow of a shadow. We desire to save money so we can consume more with our limited means. If our means are essentially unlimited, we quickly become self-parodies of status-seeking wealth.

Hey, buddy, I see adverts on your website. Yes, you do, and so let's start with the artifice that the Internet is "free." There's nothing "free" about the Internet; it costs billions of dollars to operate and maintain. We all have to pay to access it, and those who post content "for free" are paying for the server space, either upfront in cash (as I do), or by sharing the revenues platforms generate from our "free content" by selling data collected from those "engaging" our content or by selling adverts.

So yes, I sell my writing here, and sell space to an advert enterprise to offset the costs of offering "content for free." Recall that if there's no price tag, we're the product being sold behind the facade of "free."

The inauthenticity arises from the claims being implicitly added to whatever is actually being sold. The brand that is cashing in on its reputation for quality by selling products of inferior quality is adding an implicit "value proposition" of quality that isn't real: the product is rubbish, designed and destined to fail or be obsoleted by software upgrade cycles.

To present a commoditized package as "authentic" is itself a parody of actual authenticity, which is by its very nature unique, personal, private and therefore opaque to exploitation. The same can be said of the frenzy to present status signifiers as the means of sustaining a fragile sense of selfhood that withers away without a constant flow of validation from the outside world.

Hiding where the money is coming from and what's actually being transacted renders the whole thing phony, artificial and inauthentic. So where is the ostentatiously ascetic guru living without a mobile phone getting his money from? Oh, he's a tenured professor at a local public university, drawing a handsome salary and benefits package, and a lifetime guarantee of income courtesy of the taxpayers. No wonder he can market his high-status asceticism so freely.

What's phony is getting paid by shadowy state entities to post high-minded "think-tank" content under the guise of "public service" while pimping propaganda. Grubbing for money in the open is an honest portrayal of what's being transacted. I once passed a beggar on the sidewalk holding a cardboard sign about a "Jedi Mind Trick." The transaction was a bit of humor, a smile in the urban dreariness. I gave him some green in payment for the humor. It was a fair and open transaction, everything was transparent.

I am sitting right next to that beggar. Here is my writing and my begging bowl. If I add something to your life, and you feel like tossing in some green, thank you very much. If not, that's OK, too. Everything here on the sidewalk is offered for "free," with the understanding that everything offered for "free" takes time and effort.

What renders everything phony, BS, inauthentic, is that everything important is cloaked to hide the deeply artificial nature of the entire setup: what's actually being sold and transacted is purposefully opaque, along with the "value proposition," i.e. what's completely phony that's being sold as authentic.

We might also ask: when did the economy become dependent on selling phony claims of value rather than transparent value?

---

My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free


Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Subscribe to my Substack for free

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NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.

Thank you, Shane H. ($70), for your monstrously generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.		Thank you, Howard S. ($70), for your superbly generous subscription to this site -- I am greatly honored by your support and readership.

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Read more...

Slashing $2 Trillion from "The Swamp"--Three Things

There is no way to cut federal spending without reconfiguring the economy from the ground up, starting with healthcare.

The words "government" and "efficiency" are rarely found in each other's company, because efficiency isn't integral to the function of government the way it is in private enterprise.

Efficiency is an oft-stated goal, of course, and given ample lip-service in PR, but the coin of the realm in government isn't efficiency, it's influence, as the squeakiest wheels get the grease, and those funding elected officials' campaigns and greasing lobbyists' palms are very squeaky indeed.

Which brings us to the second thing: who does "The Swamp" work for? The naive answer is "The Swamp works for itself, feathering the bed of millions of bureaucrats." This answer reflects the importance of serving self-interest, always a good starting point, but it doesn't really do the heavy lifting, which requires following the money and asking who gets to distribute the money.

Who distributes the federal government's trillions? The elected officials in Congress. Yes, "The Swamp" works for Congress. And since members of Congress each need millions of dollars every election cycle to win re-election, "The Swamp" also works for lobbyists and those who hire them: corporations, banks, financiers, interest groups, think tanks, and the rest of the sprawling ecosystem that extends far from federal bureaucrats into every nook and cranny of the American economy.

If we follow the money, we find the vast majority of the $6.75 trillion that flows through federal coffers goes to private sector businesses, institutions such as universities and individual Americans. A small slice funds the federal bureaucracy which is "The Swamp" in the popular imagination.

Here is my chart of the ecosystem nurtured by federal spending. Please note the vast reach of many key parts of this ecosystem, and ask yourself if any one of these many parts has a presence in your county. The answer will be "yes."

Is there a college or university in your county? It's partially funded by "The Swamp." Is there a highway in your county? It's funded by "The Swamp." Is there a military base, or company with a defense or Department of Energy or NASA contract somewhere in its revenue stream? It's funded by "The Swamp," too.

It's a useful exercise to actually read the emails sent by your congressional representative, touting all the federal funding being funneled to your congressional district. Much of this funding is for infrastructure that probably doesn't have as much fat in it as we'd like to believe, since the work is put out to bid, just like a private-sector contract: bridge repairs, sewage treatment upgrades, environmental projects, new gym for the school, and so on.



A good place to start exploring federal spending and revenue is FiscalData -- Treasury.gov, which helpfully reminds us that:

According to the Constitution's Preamble, the purpose of the federal government is "...to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." These goals are achieved through government spending.

Here is a snapshot of federal spending. Note that 44% is consumed by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Most of the $1.2 trillion distributed to Social Security recipients flows directly into the economy as those monthly payments are spent. As for Medicare and Medicaid, most of the money flows to private-sector healthcare, a vast industry with an infinite appetite for more funding.



These two sectors--retiree pensions and disability (Social Security) and healthcare (Medicare and Medicaid), along with interest on the ballooning federal debt, account for 80% of projected increases in spending.



Going back to the chart of federal spending, note that tasty looking morsel labeled "non-defense discretionary spending." Yowza, now that sounds like the perfect place to slash a trillion bucks of fat. But not so fast, big fella--that "fat" is what elected members of Congress count on to reward their campaign contributors and their constituents to ensure their re-election. You will cut that "fat" over the dead bodies of every member of Congress, which we must recall, control the distribution of the federal funding.

So where do we start? I've often observed that if we don't completely reconfigure healthcare in the U.S., Medicare and Medicaid will bankrupt the nation all by themselves.

We might also note the infinitesimal percentage of the budget devoted to various popular bugaboos such as "foreign aid," much of which is actually grants or loans to buy American-made goods and services. Yes, this is an annoying waste of money, but eliminating this funding of U.S. made goods and services won't really move the needle. And let's be realistic: every global power spreads money around the world in one form or another.

In other words, the empire won't run itself, pal, it takes loot, so touche pas au grisbi.

You can explore the foreign aid "swamp" here:

ForeignAssistance.gov

How Much Does the Government Spend on International Affairs?



What every American should know about US foreign aid:

Myth #1: America spends too much on foreign aid: Opinion polls consistently report that Americans believe foreign aid is in the range of 25 percent of the federal budget. When asked how much it should be, they say about 10 percent. In fact, at $39.2 billion for fiscal year 2019, foreign assistance is less than 1 percent of the federal budget.

Then there's the $700 hammers in the defense budget. That fat is just waiting to be slashed. Alas, things are more complicated than we would like. Thanks to decades of relentless consolidation / centralization of industrial production, banking, etc.--the entire core of the U.S. economy--there are only a few corporations that can fulfill Pentagon orders. Yes, there are hopeful signs of startups competing for drones and other small-scale military weaponry, but when it comes to aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and renovating the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, there are not many private-sector options--in many cases, there's only one.

So dig into the defense budget, and the handful of corporations getting most of the dough. Seek out the black budget of the Intel "Community" (yes, a tightly knit bunch of folks), and find a couple hundred billion to slash. You won't find much to slash in the name of efficiency, because the Intel Community isn't about efficiency.

By all means, go over the entire $6.75 trillion federal budget line by line, draw all the lines from members of Congress to various centers of influence, locate all those who you're about to cut off at the knees, and then slash away. And while we're slogging through the slashing and burning of other folks' livelihoods, let's spend a moment pondering this chart of the federal debt--the government spending more than it collects in revenues--and the net worth of the top 1% and the net worth of the bottom 50%.

Is it mere coincidence that the top 1%'s net worth has risen in lockstep with federal debt, or are these two statistics correlated, that is, federal spending increases the wealth of the top 1% far more than it benefits the bottom 50%. Recall that most of the federal spending flows through to individuals and private-sector companies, the majority of which are owned by the top 1%, who constitute a very influential center of influence.



Cut off the gravy train of the top 1% and they'll respond in kind. Hell hath no fury like a billionaire scorned.

Let's recap our exploration of slashing $2 trillion from "The Swamp."

1. The Swamp itself consumes a small percentage of the federal budget. The majority of the money goes to individuals and private-sector entities.

2. The Swamp works for the elected members of Congress, who distribute federal monies, and all those who influence members of Congress, i.e. lobbyists working for private-sector interests.

3. There is no way to cut federal spending without reconfiguring the economy from the ground up, starting with healthcare, the relentless consolidation of companies and the distortions created by the immense concentration of wealth and influence in the hands of the top 0.1%.

Slashing any spending will take every ounce of political capital any administration can bring to bear. The "debate" will very quickly lead to images of folks in unemployment lines and retirees eating Friskies cat food because they can no longer afford the value meal at MickeyDs. Those actually reaping the handsome gains of federal spending will be nowhere in sight.

---

My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF)

Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF)

When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF)

Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF).

A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World
(Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free


Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

Subscribe to my Substack for free

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NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.

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"Superheroes" Reflect Our Powerlessness

And so we end up back in MovieLand, where we vicariously experience having powers we do not possess in real life.

Films reflect the collective unconscious in ironic ways. During the Great Depression, films didn't dwell on the miseries of real life; they were carefree concoctions making light of the idle rich (The Thin Man, 1934, My Man Godfrey, 1936), with the realistic (but still ending on a positive note) The Grapes of Wrath arriving a decade into the Depression in 1940.

In contrast, the boom years of the 1950s were the heyday of dark-themed Noir films that explored (and exploited) the underbelly of human nature and American life.

Cast in this light, what do we make of our multi-decade cultural embrace of Superhero films? We can try to write it all off as Hollywood's happy discovery of an entire realm of "tentpole" franchises that can be milked for billions of dollars in reliable revenues, but this misses the undertow of cultural significances.

Is it coincidence that the decades of Superhero worship track the rise of our collective powerlessness over the shape of our future? I sense the outrage and indignation this ignites--how dare you say we're powerless, we have more power over our lives than ever before.

For a contrarian view, let's tap the 1964 classic by Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society (this link is to a free PDF of the book, with gratitude to correspondent Bruce M. for bringing this book to my attention). It is impossible to summarize a 500-page book dense with important ideas, but let's start with Ellul's insight into our collective powerlessness over the future course of the economy and our own daily lives.

In essence, Ellul explains how technology and the ever-expanding need for profitable investments control our collective future. Once the basic human needs have been met--shelter, food, water, education, medical care, etc.--then investment opportunities aren't driven by human need, but by technology's continuous advance.

Did humanity really "need" every appliance to have WiFi? No. Technology generated WiFi and the need for investment opportunities then generated The Internet of Things (IOT) which spawned vast new product lines--appliances with WiFi. Coupled with the the collapse of quality and durability, this technology led to water heaters having WiFi, just in case your phone doesn't have enough apps, alarms, chirps and notifications.

That water heaters once cost $160 and now cost $500 is the financial payoff of advancing technology creating new opportunities to invest capital. For if capital can't find new opportunities to invest and grow profits, the economy slides into Depression, and that ghastly prospect looms in the collective unconscious as the nightmare to be avoided at all costs.

And so microwave ovens now have a second "child safety button" that must be pushed first to open the door. Safety is a ready-made excuse for adding whatever technology has come up with, and as we scan the horizon, it's already abundantly clear that the tens of billions of dollars gushing into AI will be followed by trillions of dollars seeking higher profits from putting some simulacrum of AI into every device, every appliance, every app and indeed every technology, not because it improves our well-being but because it's the investment opportunity that we desperately need to avoid the cataclysm of Depression.

We are powerless to question this process, much less resist it, and so we revel in fantasies of super-powers that enable the defeat of powerful forces that threaten us. That AI will automate away entire sectors of human livelihoods--we're powerless to resist that, just as we're powerless to stop the collapse of durability and the Anti-Progress of useless complexity and the ever-greater demands on us to perform unpaid shadow work to keep all the complexity duct-taped together so we can maintain all the technologies that we are now dependent on, not by choice but because there is no choice.

The cavalcade of superheroes reflect our powerlessness and our yearning for actual control of our lives rather then the simulacrum of consumer choice of products and services that don't serve our well-being, they serve the one true need, to expand opportunities to invest.



Ellul's insights from 60 years ago also illuminate our desire for real-world political-financial Superheroes who will set the world right again. But political solutions are another form of fantasy, as I explained in Why Political "Solutions" Don't Fix Crises, They Make Them Worse (10/2/24). Hoping that giving other mortals power will restore our own power over our own lives is akin to hoping that technology will magically transform itself from humanity's Monster Id into a machine that oversees us with loving kindness, or as poet Richard Brautigan put it, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.

Sci-Fi movie fans know that the Monster Id is from the classic film Forbidden Planet: the limitless power of the planet's immense technological machinery is guided by thoughts, and since there are no filters on what thoughts guide the technology, all the dark drives of the Id are amplified by technological powers, such that the Monster Id melts solid steel doors like butter in its quest to destroy the mind that created it.

And so we end up back in MovieLand, where we vicariously experience having powers we do not possess in real life. The power we still have is not a superpower; it is a merely human power to opt out, to choose not to participate, to limit our exposure to a world guided by investment opportunities and the moral vacuum of technology that is blind to all but its own advancement.

That all technological advancement is good is, well, a lie. Much of what's presented as Progress is actually Anti-Progress, a theme of my new book The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century.

If all we believe boils down to "technology good, investment opportunities good," then we've relinquished the ability to distinguish between truth and lies, and as Hannah Arendt observed, the difference between right and wrong. This too is powerlessness, a black hole from which there is no technological escape.

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