The Economics of Economic Philosophy: Blame Class?

I have read a few articles implying that the middle class is capitalist, while the upper and lower classes are collectivist, and I wonder if game theory isn't at the root of it.

If you don't have and can't create wealth, it behooves you to take a collectivist approach to wealth. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. Since you need a lot and are not able, collectivist thought works to your advantage.

If you can create wealth, then it behooves you to try to keep as much of it as you can. Enough said.

Note also that this is a continuum - so that the marginally productive still have a advantage in stealing from the hyper-productive.

The highest echelon game becomes interesting, and there have been several versions throughout history; and there are several strategies being employed now - so don't think this is the only one. Anyway ... the strategy is to sell yourself as the means of collectivism and enforce it through the power of the collective poor and elite. In other words, robin hood from the productive and give to the poor, keeping the lion's share for yourself. If you also steal from the marginally poor, IE, those who can produce enough for themselves if they are not taxed, but not if they are taxed, then give some of it back to them saying you stole it from the rich - you look magnanimous and strengthen your system. At any time you can pull strength from the poor, the marginally poor, and the collective elitist thieves to punish the productive who try to buck your system.

Stick it to the Productive

Excellent article.

George Lakoff is not a Paedophile

He's just a elitist leftist hypocrite who enjoys endives and soufflé out the can. For all the tugging at heartstrings the liberals do to pass their destructive policies, you'd think he'd at least blush when calling the right out on their talking points.

Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, Too Big To Fail, Mutually Assured Destruction

I saw it first on Beck, and have seen a few blog posts about it. If it is in place, the way I understand it, it explains a lot of the behavior we've seen. Institutions (and their states) would have no reason to not go into unsustainable debt. You could fight unilateral wars of aggression and pay for it on someone else's dime. You could throw party after party and let someone else pick up the tab. It works until it doesn't - when enough prisoners (as in prisoners dilemma) defect and you get Cloward and Pivens on a global scale. Except, IMO, Cloward and Pivens seem to have concluded that more socialism would occur after the reset, when I see more capitalism as the only logical choice.

In Defense of Unions

As you may have noticed from my posts, I'm a big fan of capitalism. I also believe that one of the responsibilities government has in a capitalist economy is to break up unnatural monopolies and regulate natural ones. (I'm going to use monopoly for all collectivist economic structures here - cartels, monopolies, duopolies, etc). However, repeatedly, we have seen regulatory capture, where the monopolies just pay off any (government) intervention - and often guide the government into strengthening their power position.

That's a problem, for freedom and for a sound economy. I have argued previously that collectivist practices in management (executives) leads to collectivist practices in workers. We saw this in the auto industry - when a town only has one business, the only way for workers to get their fair share is to unionize. But this holds true if a cartel forms, too. Let's say there are three auto makers. If management does not collaborate, there is constant competition to fairly compensate employees (also known as competition for the best talent) - the best managers are also rewarded as customers choose the best product. However, if the companies conspire against the workers to, for example, cap pay, you will likely see guilds form to compensate for the collectivist activities of the executives.

I see this phenomenon playing out now where we have the collectivist financial elites and large powerful unions take center stage as the economy collapses.

Health Care

I think I've written this before, but I'll repeat it anyways. To fix health care we should:

• stop buying insurance


• use savings, family, friends, and charity instead


• ask for the cost of a visit/procedure


• beak up the monopoly on health providers


• degrees and certifications can be used to help the consumer choose, in addition to services like yelp and consumer reports


• life threatening trauma and contagious disease would be handled as they are now (no insurance, no problem)

Game Theory Brain Dump

I'm not going to pretend to present this properly, but maybe you can make some sense out of it anyway.

One of the problems right now can be the lack of a coherent message out of the current upsurge of political activity. I'm going to do a quick compare/contrast from what I perceive to be the libertarian perspective.

(PSEUDO) PARTY COMPARISON
neocon - promotes an aggressive and expensive foreign policy contrary to libertarian ideas of force for self defence only and non-coercion. Also often progressives. See Cheney and Wolfowitz
conservative - looks to the past for ideas and leaders, can easily be affected by precedent over principle. See Hanity, O'Reilly, Gingrich
lawful republican - law based instead of (necessarily) principle based. A good match since law is a good tactic for the implementation of (libertarian) ideals. See Judge Nepolitano
fascists - believe the government should work closely with big business and/or big unions. See lobbyists
royalty/cronies - the long serving members of the (republican) party and their entourage. See Bush
machiavellians - use cultural mores to win elections. See Lee Atwater and Karl Rove


There are more, but these factions represent the big players I'm seeing.

POWER
There are many different kinds of power, but I want to break things down to money, referential, force, legitimate. Money should be obvious, the most powerful players here are the federal reserve, the treasury, big banks, and big business. Referential power is popularity, and is largely the reason for democratic elections - attractive, charismatic, entertaining individuals top this list: actors, sports stars, models, handsome politicians, etc. Force is the power of physical violence: military, CIA, FBI, homeland security, police. Legitimate is the use of title and position and is often backed by force: manager, CEO, president, judge, etc.

I assert that any movement must have aspects of each of these four powers, so the question becomes: how can we use these powers to achieve our political objectives without compromise?


Money
current state: money is getting funnelled to both parties (and their constituent districts) by powerful players including the treasury, fed, banks, extremely wealthy individuals, military, and big business.

strategy: money is not as important as what it can buy. Once people wake up to what and who the money players are buying, their influence will diminish and the resources and labor of the majority will become more powerful. However, until the tipping point is reached, money saved, donated, and withheld from opponents is critical. I would hesitate to donate to any candidate unless they have a long libertarian voting record.


Referential
current state: Obama is possibly the most referentially powerful politician in recent history. People like him, he's handsome and charming. He lacks moral integrity, though, and today, with the free flow of information, a referential candidate cannot survive without a solid philosophical base. Further, they control the traditional media outlets by which people become familiar with leaders/candidates.

strategy: we are blessed with excellent referentially powerful leaders right now. Ron Paul, Alex Jones, and Peter Schiff come to mind, but there are certainly more. It won't hurt us to expand this base, but we should be careful not to dilute the message/philosophy. For example, someone like Sara Palin can come along, champion the tea party movement to get elected, then bomb Iran. So we need to keep the core strong, continue championing the philosophy, and look for more referential leaders who "get it". Further, we need to protect the ability for current leaders to get in front of the public - be that through what has worked so far (internet, grass roots), or traditional outlets (TV, debates, newspapers).


Force
current state: The neocons have waged unconstitutional war and implemented an oppressive national spy and enforcement grid. The force implementers are served by the strong money relations between themselves and the current system.

strategy: maximize personal ability to use force in self defence: exercise, learn hand to hand combat, buy pepper spray. Inform local police and sheriff about the libertarian movement, and its relationship to the law and the constitution. Support the troops and a strong national defence without promoting aggressive war. Recruit current force implementers (police, private security, military) or retired ones to provide security for a libertarian event.


Legitimate
current state: The republican/democrat duopoly control the government seats of power and are in collusion with the executives of large, monopolistic companies who also hold hierarchical titles.

strategy: run more libertarians for office. Hire libertarians into executive positions if you own a company or sit on the board of directors. Create or join a libertarian group which will lend the leadership of that group more authority, possibly become a leader of that group - expect leaders of these groups to push a libertarian agenda by attending political and community functions.


My biggest concern is that the energy and enthusiasm will be hijacked by the old guard. We need to be wary of folks like Beck, Palin, Romney, Bush and others who have played dirty trick politics for a long time and game the system instead of represent the people.

Stossel Does it Again: Govm'nt Education

watch the entire series

End the Duopoly: a Consensus Issue

I think people are starting to understand the Caroll Quigley, "swap out the talking head party every so often to keep the masses placated", strategy. While I'm concerned that any third party might eventually be captured into the cartel, it may be worth voting for "the most popular third party candidate" as a game theory strategy. Third parties might even form consortiums where they agree to hold a primary and only run the most likely candidate with other candidates agreeing to endorse the candidate before the election.

Theft: a Consensus Issue

A point of grave concern I've noticed talking to both capitalists and socialists is the idea of theft. Socialists seem to think: "we need socialism to keep the financial elites from stealing from us", while the capitalists say, "we need capitalism to keep the government elites from stealing from us". Well, seems to me we need to stop theft. We agree on it, we see it, we need to stop it. It's attractive to both the left and the right, but I can't say it's bi-partisan.

Fiat Currency, the Gold Standard, and Government

Lot's of good stuff on his channel. Schiff posted first.

The Bubble Setup

Warning: Conspiracy Theory/Conjecture

Remember the dot com bubble? I do. Burst just before Bush Jr. took office. Remember the housing bubble? Burst just before Bush Jr. left office. Coincidence?

Historically, Republicans have been known for sound fiscal policy while Democrats create social program liabilities to buy proletariat votes. On the surface, it would appear that democrats get to destroy the economy for short term gain and the Republicans have to bite the bullet and repair the damage.

Now, from the data I've seen, that seems to have changed under Reagan, where his tax cuts were made in a way that left a large deficit ... but, he's also credited for the economic recovery during that period.

I think that what happened recently, though, is that conservative politicians realized that if they fixed the (underlying) economic problems during the Bush administration, that they would not get re-elected. So, instead, Bush brought us to the brink of an economic collapse through the housing bubble (in part to reduce the pain from the dot com bubble correction), while filling the pockets of cronies and hoping the burst would force the next (Democratic) administration into sound economics, and limit their ability to initiate or continue entitlement programs. Instead, Obama has been "doubling down" - blaming the Bush administration (rightfully, but you rarely heard Bush blaming Clinton), but instead of correcting course he has been hitting the accelerator, and we're heading off the cliff.