Sep 7, 2022·edited Sep 7, 2022Liked by Billionaire Psycho
The Left is threatening a slow and painful suicide by Marxism, rebranded as ESG scores and wokeness. The conditions are indeed ripe for a Caesar figure to emerge and win popular support by promising a return to economic and military strength and domestic tranquility. For all the shrieking the Left has been doing about MAGA being a fascist movement, they are going to be the ones responsible when the populace goes for the real thing, as a reaction to the threat of leftist self-sabotoge. If a Caesar doesn't emerge in time for the 2024 campaign, one will emerge in the aftermath of that election. Sadly, the writing is on the wall for the American republic.
Nov 15, 2022·edited Nov 15, 2022Liked by Billionaire Psycho
I agree with many of the themes and corollaries you make in the essay above. There are some similarities of ideas made by Ravi Batra of Southern Methodist University in his bestseller the Great Depression of 1990 in that there are inevitabilities we face due to the inequalities inherent in financial capitalism, which lead to political corruption, excesses etc.. Both the elites on the right and the left in politics are embodied in one man--Trump. He pretends to be a man of the people in the mainstream middle class by playing on well worn meme's of always getting a snow job by the main stream media, recalcitrant big government, and various conspiracies that are difficult to disprove or to prove....but play well to the masses...I have studied the writings of a man that stood up for the masses in the late 1800's named William Hope Harvey- campaign manager and strategist for William Jennings Bryan's run for president in 1896.. He took on the big city machines of New York, Boston and Chicago in favor of using silver as a bi-metallic money standard. This is the type of financial populism that we need today. And make no mistake- both the left and the right will fight it tooth and nail....Steve Bannon tried and failed to use the term financial populism, its a very loaded term- but makes perfect sense.
I'm working on a sci-fi novel with a setting within a space-faring "Confederate States of America" with a few differentiations.
One main idea I had for this political entity called the "Confederation of Settlements" is that the primary 'branch' of their government is an association called the "Ownership League" (OL). I bring it up because your post reminded me of it.
Membership in the OL, as I conceptualize it, confers the rights and privileges of full Confederate Citizenship. To gain membership you must be a "man-of-holding," a property owner of some kind (land, vessel, station, etc.) AND participate as well as prove advanced understanding of the Leagues workings. Think of the OL as a common etiquette, negotiation and arbitration process, and culture that forms the base of what makes the "Gentry" or "Aristocrats" of the system. Dealings or things done outside the OL are still valid, they just carry the stigma of being 'ad hoc', 'improper' or 'juvenile'. Ideally one could live their whole life with out having to deal at all with the OL and its strictures, though in practice participation can be beneficial, even if interacting with it tangentially.
The trick is that anyone can be in the OL if they desire and can meet the requirements. But to own property you don't have to be a member, a member just has a visible stake (as they are in the OL not because they own things but are actually 'part-owners' of the Confederacy itself) in the system and access to its more complex services. A Settler, shorthand for one who is not in the OL but is a Confederate, can own his immediate property with all the benefits of allodial title, and members of the OL, or other interests cannot infringe without chancing pain of death, likely inflicted by the Settler there on his doorstep, outside of proper etiquette.
I suppose the system tries to blend the benefits of an open public exchange, like the block chain, and the necessities of private ownership and privacy in general that keeps a man and his family safe and provided for. It all hinges on a pioneering mindset, allowed by the 'infinite land' in the sci-fi space setting, and severe consequences for corruption.
I say all that to ponder if such a system could prevent the issues we see brewing today. Where the claims of men to property are not unlimited (i.e. how some Romans could own vast swathes of conquered Europe, as you mention, leaving nothing for their lessers) and the consequences for not 'coming correct' are dire.
Empire stems, in one aspect, from the Yankee/puritan desire to make others live like you do. Sometimes it falls into your lap, as you mention, but having a cultural prophylaxis against parasitical behavior is wise to resist the traps of being the most powerful in a given era.
Allowing the peasantry to HAVE enough of their own business to mind, and not infringing on their personal handling of it, would have kept many a rulers head from rolling over the millennia. Because at the world-wide level, an Empire is the 'king' and the whole rest of humanity are the 'peasants'. And we know how dangerous peasant revolts can be.
Hollywood pushed the idea of the Hero as a vestige of patriarchal control.
I don't think this is a coincidence as that is truly what we need
The Left is threatening a slow and painful suicide by Marxism, rebranded as ESG scores and wokeness. The conditions are indeed ripe for a Caesar figure to emerge and win popular support by promising a return to economic and military strength and domestic tranquility. For all the shrieking the Left has been doing about MAGA being a fascist movement, they are going to be the ones responsible when the populace goes for the real thing, as a reaction to the threat of leftist self-sabotoge. If a Caesar doesn't emerge in time for the 2024 campaign, one will emerge in the aftermath of that election. Sadly, the writing is on the wall for the American republic.
This is good stuff. Have you read the series on the American Caesar at the. Worthy House?
What if Ceasar hath cometh yet?
I agree with many of the themes and corollaries you make in the essay above. There are some similarities of ideas made by Ravi Batra of Southern Methodist University in his bestseller the Great Depression of 1990 in that there are inevitabilities we face due to the inequalities inherent in financial capitalism, which lead to political corruption, excesses etc.. Both the elites on the right and the left in politics are embodied in one man--Trump. He pretends to be a man of the people in the mainstream middle class by playing on well worn meme's of always getting a snow job by the main stream media, recalcitrant big government, and various conspiracies that are difficult to disprove or to prove....but play well to the masses...I have studied the writings of a man that stood up for the masses in the late 1800's named William Hope Harvey- campaign manager and strategist for William Jennings Bryan's run for president in 1896.. He took on the big city machines of New York, Boston and Chicago in favor of using silver as a bi-metallic money standard. This is the type of financial populism that we need today. And make no mistake- both the left and the right will fight it tooth and nail....Steve Bannon tried and failed to use the term financial populism, its a very loaded term- but makes perfect sense.
Great read. Really asks the important, thought-provoking questions
Saw the bird was mean to you. Hit me up when you find your way back to your frens.
I'm working on a sci-fi novel with a setting within a space-faring "Confederate States of America" with a few differentiations.
One main idea I had for this political entity called the "Confederation of Settlements" is that the primary 'branch' of their government is an association called the "Ownership League" (OL). I bring it up because your post reminded me of it.
Membership in the OL, as I conceptualize it, confers the rights and privileges of full Confederate Citizenship. To gain membership you must be a "man-of-holding," a property owner of some kind (land, vessel, station, etc.) AND participate as well as prove advanced understanding of the Leagues workings. Think of the OL as a common etiquette, negotiation and arbitration process, and culture that forms the base of what makes the "Gentry" or "Aristocrats" of the system. Dealings or things done outside the OL are still valid, they just carry the stigma of being 'ad hoc', 'improper' or 'juvenile'. Ideally one could live their whole life with out having to deal at all with the OL and its strictures, though in practice participation can be beneficial, even if interacting with it tangentially.
The trick is that anyone can be in the OL if they desire and can meet the requirements. But to own property you don't have to be a member, a member just has a visible stake (as they are in the OL not because they own things but are actually 'part-owners' of the Confederacy itself) in the system and access to its more complex services. A Settler, shorthand for one who is not in the OL but is a Confederate, can own his immediate property with all the benefits of allodial title, and members of the OL, or other interests cannot infringe without chancing pain of death, likely inflicted by the Settler there on his doorstep, outside of proper etiquette.
I suppose the system tries to blend the benefits of an open public exchange, like the block chain, and the necessities of private ownership and privacy in general that keeps a man and his family safe and provided for. It all hinges on a pioneering mindset, allowed by the 'infinite land' in the sci-fi space setting, and severe consequences for corruption.
I say all that to ponder if such a system could prevent the issues we see brewing today. Where the claims of men to property are not unlimited (i.e. how some Romans could own vast swathes of conquered Europe, as you mention, leaving nothing for their lessers) and the consequences for not 'coming correct' are dire.
Empire stems, in one aspect, from the Yankee/puritan desire to make others live like you do. Sometimes it falls into your lap, as you mention, but having a cultural prophylaxis against parasitical behavior is wise to resist the traps of being the most powerful in a given era.
Allowing the peasantry to HAVE enough of their own business to mind, and not infringing on their personal handling of it, would have kept many a rulers head from rolling over the millennia. Because at the world-wide level, an Empire is the 'king' and the whole rest of humanity are the 'peasants'. And we know how dangerous peasant revolts can be.