In my mind's eye I am constructing roads. They line the earth like a map and sink into the dirt. The physical land is ready to be drawn upon by man. The industrial sector starts to see promise in its easy-to-use layout. Workers quickly follow and the business worlds bustles, ready to construct building atop of building geared toward finance and economics. Each individual unit is ready to use his energy to improve the structure of the city. To lay a road here or build a bench there. Alleyways develop, gardens are planted atop of roofs, and a banker orders a fountain to be constructed in front of his building. This is the decentralized world which could be guaranteed through proper institutions. The government, instead of intruding, can actually facilitate private development by creating the proper infrastructure for its nourishment. However, for something like this to be realized, one must first understand the wildness of the market and the collective unconscious which drives it. I wish to showcase this tension for the reader and the danger man faces when he attempts to interfere with the actual mechanisms of the economy.
But first I want to set up a mythological set of images. Cities, as I have experienced, are where the doers do. The country, on the other hand, is where the passive stay passive. Nothing changes in Montana, but things change in the city all the time. They transform with each foot pushing into mud or a dime thrown in a bum's cup. In the southern district, people chuckle dismissively in a comedy club, a woman asks a man for a smoke outside a 30 story building, and a drunk pees on a red brick wall as a train passes by. Somewhere in the north, an ill college student writes his passions on the blank pages of his journal, on the floor under him two people make love, and under them is an older woman watching Starz. Nothing interests her tonight so she decides to go to bed early. Down below, far below, in an alley with a thrown over garbage can, someone is getting mugged. A man of great wisdom or terrible pride can render a city raw with the bite of his words or the tip of his pen. Revolutions can happen in the country, but they are always a result of a person inspired by vitriolic ideas from the urban world.
In Montana, the entanglement of branches, leaves, and bark with the high peaks in the West and the empty plains of the East have a sort of order to them as well, but what they lack is the energy and spirit of man's will. His desire to transform perceived chaos into order (blocks, ovals, window panes, side walks, cement). Both are necessary. Both realms of delight. But a city is where a man goes to construct his ego; the wilderness the place to dissolve it. It reminds him that nature is all-consuming, endless, and that man's world is a strict illusion. The city grows from the gifts of the earth and orders it to understand it, the earth is the foundation of man's world--they complete each other and are the masculine and feminine energies of the cosmos.
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It is my belief that modern Western man has blinded himself. He has focused his attention (as is the left brain's inclination) to the ego at the expense of the subconscious. This blindness has translated into Keynesian economics, and ultimately man's belief that he is the Earth's master and it his servant. Keynesian economics is, of course, predicated on the belief that the government can positively affect the market by enacting certain policies. It has also led to the establishment of fixing interest rates at near zero, the printing of dangerous amounts of fiat money, and the corruption of the private banking system. The Federal Reserve, created in 1913 by Woodrow Wilson with the Federal Reserve Act, is a socialist institution at the heart of America's 'free market'. This manipulation has only been amplified further when in 1971 Richard Nixon abolished the last vestiges of the gold standard which were established with the Bretton Woods monetary system in 1944. After this, the American dollar was no longer tied to a commodity. It was primed for manipulation by the private bankers in charge of the Federal Reserve. The market, which was uncontrollable by a single man's will, was now under the purview of the men who did seek to control it. This system led to the growth of the military industrial complex, pork barrel spending, and overall, the average American's enslavement to debt. If the creation of wealth meant nothing but the pressing of a button on a computer screen, then America, as long as her currency was still respected, could do anything she pleased. And she did.
The markets themselves are not a masculine force; in fact, they are quite feminine. They mimic nature in that they are often cyclical, based on the seasons, and even the cycles of the day. The macro-economy is the collective unconscious of a greater body of individuals, just like 'nature' is the collective unconscious of the Earth itself. It represents the animal, plant, fungi, virus, and bacteria kingdoms, the deeps of the oceans and highs of the mountains. The economy is likewise separated into various kingdoms, industrial, financial, high-tech, etc. and their various linkages. And just like nature, there are individuals in the market's systems--huge organisms like multinational corporations and small one-cell units like people themselves. Man often puts an emphasis on bigger creatures, thus when a large firm fails, he feels the need to save it and the individual cells which make it up. This is often labeled 'progressive' and 'compassionate'. What it is is unnatural. Even elephants and tigers should be allowed to die if they are found wanting. It's called 'the survival of the fittest', and when this is not allowed to happen, the overall economy will become less able to provide utility to the masses and weather more severe storms in the future. It is only when man tries to direct the market's, nature's actions for his own need do they become corrupted by man's will. This is not to say that saving a good business (or animal) is an evil, especially if it was killed by something alien, like the government's will or a madman with a shotgun. However, if it dies because it can no longer compete, it should be allowed to perish. Just like nature, a new company will spring up to replace it, a better, more fit company. That is, if nature/the markets are working properly, which today, neither are.
This was a result of man's ego--his need to control nature for his own end. And it was and is arrogance.
It gave him a drive to control the world around him, to live completely separated from the danger that nature (the market) represents. There is nothing in science that detracts from the majesty of the universe. In fact, it enhances it. However, this knowledge (logos) also gives the holder a new power to weild--it makes him start to believe that he may be different than the rest of the cosmos, and this leads to a great deal of hopelessness on one end, or a sense of superiority and entitlement on the other. Nature is transformed into a mere resource that can be used, not something that can be worked with as an equal. In the history of humanity, this is the turning of the Neolithic to the Axial age. Goddess cultures began to waste away and give way to sky-god dominated ones. We can see a graphic representation of this in the Babylonian tale of the slaying of Tiamat by the new god, Marduk. This change seems to coincide with the invention of the alphabet and the growth of cities. With the collapse of female worship, women began to be treated as property, people's ownership of slaves, and the mistreatment of nature. Man's sense of self, something that is quite different in oral cultures, set him on a path of hierarchy, boxing, kings, and feudalism--and the creation of the great abstract god in the sky who denied the existence of the female half of Himself completely and could not be depicted in pictures, but only writing.
This is the work of the left brain, Saturn, who is the mythological representation of time and death, and to the Romans, civilization itself! However, it also leaves out the female aspect of the godhead, the Mother, she who represents eternity, wildness, and the invisible dimensions of our lives--the subconscious as opposed to the conscious. There is also a completeness to her that the masculine ego lacks. She is everything, not just the 'nouns' but also the 'verbs'. Saturn, on the other hand, is pure will. He is the Titan of individuality, boxing, of beginnings and endings. His desire is to control the Mother to his own ends. In other words, he wants to be free of her wildness, not having to worry about her mood-swings. The story I want to set up is this: Saturn's desire, the great material force in the universe, is not only to control the market, but to eventually eliminate it completely. In this case the great Titan is represented by the will of government to control a wild economy. This 'wild economy' is the Mother--a great, holistic force that is susceptable to the whims of the collective unconscious.
It is, indeed, a fallacy to assume that the goal of the market is continual expansion. It is analogous to saying that the ultimate goal of evolution is continual expansion from bacteria to higher creatures, to humans, and then to whatever comes after. It only gains this significance when man starts to form a framework of memories and desires, constructing a story from the patchwork. This is the masculine ego trying to take control of something it does not completely understand. A single person does this constantly. We form goals, a narrative, from our memories and hopes. This happened because this happened because this happened. In fact, studies have shown that much of our happiness depends on the forming of these false narratives. Viktor Frankl discovered this inside the horror of a concentration camp. And Maury Kelly concludes in a recent article for the Atlantic:
As studies have shown, depressives tend to have more realistic—and less inflated—perceptions of their importance, abilities, and power in the world than others. So those of us who benefit from therapy may like it in large part because it helps us to do what others can do more naturally: to see ourselves as heroes; to write (and re-write) the stories of our lives in ways that cast us in the best possible light; to believe that we have grown from helpless orphans or outcasts to warriors in control of our fate.In other words, we can accept a bad event happening or our own egregious actions if it was the inevitable stepping stone to the person we needed to become. The error occurs when we start to associate too much with our 'roles'--when we forget that they are just drops which fell from the subconscious like rain from a cloud. There are, of course, many more where that came from.
Socialist Liberals often have it wrong in this regard. They argue for a government that is compassionate and will save everything, but at the same time ideologically chip away at the masculine half of nature. This makes no sense. They deny what makes the feminine special and instead attack the masculine with masculine tactics. Women are of the base. They nourish the soil, the roots, so the the masculine has a solid foundation to build from. Her basic desire is not to hunt, but to provide elements of a successful endeavor, not actually taking part in it. Many feminists may argue that this is somehow a lesser function, but it is important to remember that during Paleolithic times, the woman's role as mother, gatherer, and home-keeper was equally as important as the man's role as hunter. The man's quick spurt of energy and then instant success or failure was more heroic; however, if he did fail, then the clan would have to rely on the women's gathering abilities. She provided the fail-safe, the jumping pad which men felt comfortable enough to leap from.
Men and women during these times were on equal footing; however as civilization progressed and people moved into cities, her function was deminished. It is one of the great achievements of our age that her power is returning. It is the markets, a great equalizer, which will eventually return her to her status. Statistics support this fact. Feminists often bring up the pay disparity, but any sane individual can see these numbers are slanted. If it were true, companies would hire many more women to take advantage of their less-than-equal pay. This decrepancy, in the first place, is often a result of women leaving to take care of children and not advancing as far as men would in a similar period. It is also true that women are often attracted to careers that are not as high-paying as a man's. Should this be seen as unequal? I say no. Men often risk more in the jobs they choose and thus often receive higher pay. This is the essence of the hunt, of striking out on a quest and completing it no matter the risks. It is also supported by various financial equations that show that higher risk results in a higher value in the denominator, lowering the attractiveness of the investment. It simply makes sense. Many women feel disillusioned because they have lost the sense of the feminine inside themselves in a man's world. However, with the advent of the internet, which is highly feminine in the way it works, the continued interdependence of the world economy based on the market, and continued linkages via IGOs and NGOs, a return to equality is not only coming, it is almost here, at least in the Western world. However, as I will try to show, the goal of life is not continual growth as put forth by the left brain; nor is it the continual change acknowledged by the right. It is a balance between the two.
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The markets have 'gone wrong.' There is no denying that fact; however, some believe that it is the markets themselves that are inherently evil and not the system of government attempting to control them. When I say 'system', I am talking about the revolving door of the private and public sector, the gerrymandering of districts, the stink of lobbyists in Congress, the secret mechanisms of control, of private vetting, of criminal activities perpetrated by government employees, the nascent police state, the military-industrial complex, and the horror of self-inflicted terrorism on our home soil to justify it. Both parties, no matter their campaign promises, inflate the federal government's power when they are placed in office. This should reveal the duplicitous nature of the two-party system. It is a red herring to keep us distracted from the real corruption and evil. Enslaved with debt and overwhelmed with pop culture, sports' statistics, and social networks, people, in general, do not have enough energy to enlighten themselves on important things like the national debt, bills passing through Congress, or the drones filling the skies. They rely on the people in government to do what's right, and this is a dangerous assumption.
What we all must realize is that to attempt to control the will of the market is like trying to control the will of a river by damming it, siphoning off water for irrigation, or fishing from her waterways. Heidegger talked about a similar concept when it came to technology--on one end, we can see nature (or 'the market') as a resource that can be owned or, on the other, as something that cannot be owned but instead, worked with. Picture a boat atop the waves. It is still a technology, but it is one that doesn't destroy the resource. Yes, things like dams, irrigation, and fishing can be done sustainably; however, when put under the control of government, this result is unlikely. People and markets, for the most part, are rational. It is not in their best interest to destroy their livelihood (especially if they own it). And even when man is irrational, what is wrong with that? Wasn't man born to be irrational if he wants? Shouldn't the markets then reflect his irrationality? In theory, one person should not be able to affect the entire system if capitalism isn't corrupted anyway. However, with the engorgement of government, this will always be the case.
My argument for the restriction of government is not that it is inherently evil, but that it is so easily corruptible. Yes, it is nice to imagine a perfect utopia where the government is controlled by people who are selfless and intelligent, but this can never be the case if humans still act like humans. Unless you are willing to fundamentally alter mankind to extirpate his natural desires for power, sex, and wealth (and believe me, some people really are), then a perfect benevolent system of government can never be. The alternative to father government, some people wrongly believe, is America's capitalism gone wrong--the conglomeration of banking, MNC's, and government into something of a corporotacracy. But again, this system is one where government is still too big. By planting seeds in the market's soil and burning down an overgrown, dying forest, there can possible be real 'green shoots.' This, however, requires a recognition of life and death. People fear death. They fear change. To allow something to die is against the ego's natural tendency. The subconscious, on the other hand, has an innate knowledge that everything will eventually perish, but the parts that make it up never will. There is only change but never true destruction. In the West, death is hidden away in a hospital bed. It is a terrible sad event and people only mourn. We can be controlled by our fear of death, you see, and we often are by those in control. After we realize that death is simply another illusion we can progress into a healthier and saner way of seeing of the world.
The government's role should not be a masculine one. It should, instead, upkeep a feminine one. In other words, a structure which the 'hunt' can leap from. The soil from which his seeds can grow and reach for the sky. How can it achieve this goal? (1) By providing the proper laws which assure the rights to property, due process, and free speech. (2) Guarantee a certain level of autonomy--the right to be able to own guns, alcohol, and drugs. (3) The right to equality not based on aptitude but on guarantees of being fairly treated no matter age, race, sex, or sexual orientation. (4) A pledge of transparency, and a law on the book that will oust the government official if he does not perform par standard. (5) I call for the end of the private Federal Reserve banking system, for fiat currency, and the end of impeding other country's right to self-determination except in some cases such as genocide and/or war crimes like torture. (6) As well as make illegal the taking of private money from large MNCs and banks once elected to a position in government unless voted on by his constituates. (7) A police force and army should be maintained to enforce the laws. (8) I believe it is better for the government to have a monopoly on certain sections of the physical infrastructure like roads and energy. This is proven in easy to understand graphs which economists can produce. Issues like education, health care, and insurance can be solved by allowing the market to out compete the government. Here I call for deregulation--people will go to the best and the best will prosper, guaranteed. (9) And lastly, the right to fail. The stakeholders have a right to take over and do as they see fit once bankruptcy is declared. This gives the potential for a new, better business to birth from the ashes.
Of course, I have a certain love for research funding and higher education. I think, at least, this sort of thing invests in the future of the country's well being and should continue if it is what the people want the government to do with their tax money. For my part, I think this would be a much better investment than pointless wars and saving businesses which do not need saving. As far as the tax system goes, I see a fixed tax of something like 10% being the most fair. Some argue falsely that taxing the rich at a higher rate is 'fairer', if that is a word; however, statistically, richer people save more so this money would end up in new, more advantageous investments from the banks anyway. This seems right and a more progressive stance on the future of the country's economy. Once emotions become involved in the government's decisions, it results in lame attempts to help which often result in the complete opposite outcome. The government, in turn, should be the boat on the river helping us coast on the waters of the market, not the dam, irrigater, or fisher. Remember, the market is a feminine force and should boost not only the elephants but the worms when it is working properly.
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I bring you this last section in a moment of clarity. Looking back at my progression over the past two semesters of college, I have learned of the limits of one's love of another. This love can only extend as far as the person loving loves himself. With this in mind, I will speak of a theoretical hero who will save us from our sins. It will be he who loves himself as much as he loves mankind. This is not to suggest that this theoretical person is full of himself or arrogant; instead, it implies someone with the conviction to extend his love as far as it will go. Compassionate love that does not interfere with another's life, but enhances it. It coasts on the waves of his waters, not altering or impeding his flow. This man will come from a place not from the desire for his own gains, but his love for all mankind.
I often speak of the meaninglessness of politics as a cynical college senior; however, if someone could emerge from the masses not wishing for material wealth, fame, or sexual liaisons, I could stand behind him fully, willing to give myself over for his cause of a better world. A world not predicated on a Utopian paradise, but one of respect, compassion, and most of all love and a knowing that God's love does not come from his desire to control our every action and thought, but a God who respects our freewill to make our own choices. Did God not know we would be thrust from Paradise always longing to return? If He is all that they say He is, then the answer is yes!
Understand what I am saying: I want an end to the counterproductive cynicism towards politics and 'the system', and instead, a call to rise above it! I long for an age that respects the individual as much as the community, a true balance between the masculine and feminine aspects of our inner selves. I also say this knowing that ultimately the respect of the community comes from the respect of the individual. By respecting the 'negative' rights of the individual, there can be true growth. The grand buildings will rise, spinning their webs, layer after layer, making all of us wealthy again. Making all of us respect ourselves again--a true love that comes from inner light not from thankless help.
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