The Impact of Monetocracy on the (com)Post Industrialization of America

The Yang Zhu has been entrapped by the Face Book beast. The past months have had yours truly exploring the entanglements of a Face Book fantasy. It is amazing how dynamic and subterranean it is, how one can get into a certain persona, profess or antagonize as much as one wishes, and partake in the on-going process of checking, censoring, pruning, blocking, along with the occasional admissions of hostility and the begging of pardon. It is an exciting experiment in civil society.

Of course, the philosopher's job is to ask the uncomfortable questions at inconvenient times. We take our pleasure in popping balloons of delusion and unaccountability. It's a pleasure, I say, though imperative is more like it. Liang yao ku kou. "The good medicine is bitter," goes ancient Chinese saying on speaking the truth. Everyone seems unnervingly preoccupied with "positivity," "good vibes," "ebb and flow." Hard questions are purposefully being unasked, avoided, raised only in hushed tones, after looking over one's shoulders, furtively in patriot-speak. Denied.

The last time I wrote was when the healthcare question was unresolved. And now that the Democrats have shown themselves to be even more shameless before the finance/insurance industries than their "foes" across the aisle, it would be easy for one to be downcast but for the hopeful responses by the states. California, for example, has precedent in exercising price controls over insurance and does so presently with regard to fires, cars, and earthquakes. There is already discussion of using a similar law to reign in private health insurance. As the central authority has taken the lead on this serious matter, it is up to the states to craft a response that vindicates the liveliness of our democratic system. At the same time, we do not want to be held captive by the vagaries of democratic processes, what amounts to nothing more than a show. That is why we have the anchoring precept of "monetocracy"--that is rule of, for, and by the money. That's the way most of us would have it.

In the Democrats' defense, their legislation must be responsive to the party's bottom line. Our monetocracy pits both political parties in vicious competition for the contributions from the most monetized sectors of society: finance, insurance, pharmaceuticals, hospitals and prisons, some of the US's biggest winners in America's (com)Post Industrial Age. Of course, democratic participation through dollars appears to be a God-given association in our system. How this association works in terms of actually "buying votes" or "getting out one's message" on airwaves literally owned by the public is not altogether clear to bumpkin like me. How dollars work in a monetocracy to affect legislation is evident in the present healthcare tax legislation, which handsomely benefits the well-monetized sectors of the party's economic base. Everyone knows the side with the most money should win. Should we feel that something is wrong when it doesn't? Shouldn't the Yanks win the World Series every year by virtue of their players salaries? Shouldn't the way legislation gets written federally, internationally and in state capitals around the country be protected from the unpredictability of representative government through money itself? Such security provisions are a testament to the efficiencies of a monetocracy over systems where the stupid people without any money have any say so over their earthly existence.

The breast-beating over health insurance legislation modeled after a system instituted by the opposition's chief presidential candidate is carefully orchestrated kabuki to leave audiences hypnotized by the predictability of pronouncements made a thousand times before. Unfortunately, the vocal and active pockets of groups awakened by the jolt of economic displacement are still wildly diverse in their apprehension of the problems, not to mention the solutions. This may be a good thing. As the Naderites get to dialog with the Ayn Randers, a new consensus around national priorities can be established. Whether it gets told by the media or whether it produces the improvements necessary to increase people's wholesale economic security depends on a willingness to examine some of the ideological and behavioral shortcomings born from our lusty attachment to self-interest. Needless to say, prospects for turning to a sustainable economic and social model still seem some way off, especially when the status quo seems so much more "secure."

The time when cleptocrats are enriched by entities that enrich themselves through decay will come to be known as the (com)Post Industrial Era. In the Industrial Age the villains made their money by building things and creating jobs. In the (com)Post Industrial Age they make money when the factory closes, or when any number of gambling options "manifest." In a monetocracy there is little distinction between money and wealth. Hence, cleptocrats and populace alike bit-by-bit sell the priceless wealth of the commons in exchange for the worthless hope of casinoismo, private rights redeemable on a speculative basis. Those who do not hold deeds to some such Ponzified promise, even the ones who do but are questioning for how long, need to hurry up and make a lot of money to prove they are not irretrievably stupid or in the alternative rethink monetocracy as a viable model for creating secure and stable societies.