Movement towards fascism

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It is apparent that the West is moving towards fascism. It matters little what type it takes, or whether it is some new variety. Socialists like to lump all capitalists together so they can smear them in one fowl swoop. This collectivist thinking is described in the Socialist Manifesto. The reality is that we are moving towards fascism for two reasons:

1. Business leaders are so anti-intellectual, so antagonistic towards ideas, that they regard philosophy as all nonsense. For them its all about the practicalities. This is why in the face of a tax increase, they end up split, rather than united. We saw this with the Resource Rent Tax. The government did a deal with the two majors Rio Tinto and BHP, leaving the smaller industry players in a corner licking their wounds. Andrew Forrest, CEO of Fortescue Metals, was flip flopping from one side to the other. The problem is - they were split on their narrowly defined self-interests, and they ended up selling themselves off to the lowest bidder. Why? Because they did not understand the nature of ideology. They left small and large business divided, and now they have made government look 'reasonable' middlemen. This happened in previous wars as well. Historians will say capitalists sided with the govt. The CEOs of BHP and Rio Tinto are NOT capitalists, they are 'middlemen' or politicians with very little equity in the companies they control. Forrest is a capitalist, but sadly he is not a terribly smart one, and few among capitalists are great thinkers because they are 'practical people'. i.e. Goal motivated rather than with lofty, and most often detached ideas, which is why philosophy gets a bad name.

2. Ambivalent populous moved easily by any ideas. Yep, this is the Western population which had us going to war, the population which thinks rights are 'obligations and entitlements, rather than protections from such impositions. They are a product of religious and state-funded education and academia.

So are we going to war? Well I would suggest it will not be world war but sporadic periods of civil war. The reason I say this is because Western democracy is perfectly compatible with Chinese style government. The Chinese are docile under a hard-line government, but they will be no less collectivist under a more popular leader - the current deputy leader of the Community Military Council. He is married to a folk singer.

The only threat to this trend is really the internet. So how might government deal with that? Well, we can get a clue already. In the name of child protection, websites like mine will be blocked. If I put up any protestations, I will be threatened and then assassinated in the spirit of Philippines politics. This is collectivism.. the greatest good for the greatest number.

Capitalism will be claimed. The problem is the 'famed' market participants or 'pin up boys' of capitalism are not the CEOs...they are few and far between. I am one, the taxi driver who took you to work today might be one. You will not find them in government. They are people with a respect for freedom and ideas. But more importantly, their notion of freedom is not a subjective conception. It is an idea that coheres and corresponds to the rest of their knowledge.

It will be truly interesting to see where the Cameron bros take England in the next few years. I'll read with interest. Closer to home... I will watch with dismay as Australians 'capitalists' allow the Gillard government to expropriate their wealth with the Resource Rent Tax. Unsurprisingly the parasites are circling. State governments are fighting with the federal government for a cut. They are like 7 thieves trying to split with the cash. We can only hope they kill each other in a shoot out. But in the tradition of Western style democracy, I am sure that they will realise the greater practicality of splitting the loot...just as the Liberals and Labor agree to share power.

Are you expecting any protection from the courts. Don't. The courts are interpreting an arbitrary statutory law, which they consider has higher standing than common law. That is apparently because the people support statutory law. Such is the standing of democracy that the empty symbolism seems to carry so much significance. I don't vote, but I can't remember the last time I votes on any legislation. Nor can I remember an occasion when there was a party who represented me. I can't even conceive of a world where there was any prospect of a MP agreeing with me on everything. And I know these people don't have much life experience. They can't even get a job after parliament.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

Resource Rent Tax

Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) not viable

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The Australian Labor government is proposing legislation to spend $43 billion on a national broadband network. It is a huge number. People are apparently arguing that we don't need a consultants report because:

"the ultimate commercial viability of the NBN is not the issue, because state-of-the-art communications infrastructure is crucial for the country".

This is folly in several respects. This judge investment assumes that 'fibre' is state of the art. The problem with this view is that the government risks rolling out a network for large sums, which cost half as much if they wait a few years. Where is the logic in bringing forward so much expenditure. People should also apply some critical thinking to the 'report' which provides cost analysis to this project, because too many consultant reports are simply not very good at projecting costs...and more importantly, revenues.

If this is a viable decision, then it does not need government to make it. In fact it could be solely undertaken by Telstra at no cost to the government. Of course it only makes sense because its government funded. This will be another white elephant like the Ord River scheme....only viable 30 years after its initial development. i.e. We would have saved 2x the project value if we had delayed the project 20 years.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

Resource Rent Tax

Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

You have to love competition, right?

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The following article reminds me of the movie 'The Patriot' with Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger. Mel Gibson plays the role of a revolutionist, and in the Confederate parliament, he poses the question 'But why should I substitute a British tyrant 3000 miles away with one in my backyard'.

Its a good question...but that is precisely what one does when one accepts the initiation of force or coercion as a basis for political discourse. Which brings me to the question of the Australian federation, where you have two tyrants claiming a piece of your life, whether you are an investor or worker. The Australian government last year without warning stated that it was going to raise the royalties of minerals by 40% (aka Resource Rent Tax). This was after no consultation, and resulting in investors losing a great deal of value from their wealth.

Now we have the sorry situation of the states stepping in and saying they want their share of the 'spoil'. This is like two greedy colonial masters fighting over territory. The problem will of course end up in the High Court, where they will rule that the government had no business intruding in the affairs of the states. The Resource Rent Tax is a quasi-royalty, as much as they might dress it up as an income tax, and it is an attempt to steal wealth from shareholders, and now the states.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

Resource Rent Tax

Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Democracy, unions and extortion

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No good can come from extortion. i.e. The use of force to attain some value or concession. In society today, people are able to extort people illegally because of arbitrary laws which make excepts, which depart from principles which fail to treat people equally. This is the basis of natural law...the idea that as human beings we are equal in capacity (i.e. thinking in particular), thus equal moral agents before the law. The extent to which we are not equal, i.e. Mentally retarded, temporary insanity or mentally ill, is the extent to which we make concessions or withhold moral judgement. This is also why we don't condemn animals for moral breaches by human standards. They have no conceptual faculty to display moral agenda. That is not to say they are not moral. They just don't have a choice about being moral. By moral I mean - act in accordance with their nature, as opposed to some arbitrary or subjective standard some humans would decide to live by.

In this article we can see how a powerful union in Australia has resorted to extortion in order to extract funds from Australian business. This is not the first time that I have heard news of this. A story years ago described how a local union boss was paid kickbacks to keep miners working at Rio Tinto mines. His workers knew about this.

About 20 years ago I knew a demolition contractor John Compagion who was blacklisted by a construction union for failure to comply with their demands. He received death threats. He had 50 plus staff, and lost his business overnight because of a construction union. He ended up committing suicide by shooting himself in the head. Not before trying to develop some intellectual argument. The problem is business thinks it can simply to continue to pay out these people. They are just rewarding a bad system. Unfortunately, whilst he had the charisma of a leader, he did not have the intellectual arguments. He tried....but it was too late.

This union is an extortion ring, let it persists with its existence because people fear it. It is powerful because its member base is an important support for the Labor government of Australia. Martin Ferguson in this story is directly implicated.

Years ago there was the Labor Senator Richardson who was discovered to have a Swiss bank account. You might wonder for what purpose. We have long been accustomed to Labor's pork barrelling and vote stacking. This party is corrupt... and whilst the Liberals are better; by no means are they stewards of moral standing...which is what you would expect from political leaders. The role of politicians is to enact 'moral law'. The fact that people elect extortionists into parliament ought to be a source of concern. They then have to question the system. Does not democracy legalise and legitimatise extortion? 'Might makes right'. This sounds like extortion to me. Heard about the 'tyranny of the minority'? Well the Senate was supposed to protect us from that...but society has moved on...parliament has consolidated, interests have alligned, and now the major parties have shared interests...to preserve their duopoly of power. The media helps them do it, so they can retain their power as well.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

Resource Rent Tax

Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Sexual harassment settlement reasonable?

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According to NZ Herald, an Australian employee has been awarded $850,000 after settling a sexual harassment law suit against David Jones. Notwithstanding the merits of her case, it is hard to believe that the woman earned the $500,000 she will take home from the case. So what is years of sexual harassment worth? Well, she was not the only woman, so I guess this must have been one 'well-organised' CEO. But seriously, if we reflect on her context, she will face:

1. The negative stigma of having sued a CEO, a tease, a brainless blonde

2. The negative stereotype of having advanced because she was provocatively dressed

3. The negative stigma associated with the fact that she seemed to wait so long before she took action

Without knowing what she did, or without knowing how future employers or customers might respond to her, it is hard to know what impact these events will have on her life. I do however recognise that such events in the early stages of one's life can be 'life changing'. They can change your attitude to people....or define your relationship to people. These are life changing events. Of course the counterparty does not realise. We have a great many CEOs who really harbour enormous insecurities; who feel they are entitled to any woman, whether because some women are ingratiated, or because they simply need intimacy.

On balance, it is probably a reasonable settlement. Its a pity however the judge or jury did not award anything for sexual harassment campaigns. It would have been nice to see the company required to provide $250,000 towards a national sexual harassment advertisement campaign. Maybe they will do that anyway given the negative publicity they have attracted in this case.

There are a number of sexual predators in Australian business. I am reminded of a 'dick' I had the displeasure of knowing, who ended up harassing his secretary at Commonwealth Bank. It makes you question the standards of these companies. Clearly there is a lack of accountability, and a lot of bravado....which clearly impresses some people. 'Fake it until you make it'....followed by a graceless fall.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

Resource Rent Tax

Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com

Democracy is driving us towards nationalism

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We are witnessing a shift in many European countries towards nationalism, and this will by necessity entail greater fascism, since governments will accept every opportunity to assert their authority to preserve peace. I give people this warning because its inextricably the direction in which the world is heading. It will start in Europe for three reasons:

1. The cultural (racial and religiously defined) boundaries in Europe are looser in Europe than anywhere else. i.e. Its easier in the EU to jump a border for economic reasons than anywhere else.

2. The European cultures are more strongly collectivist than many other cultures, and with their Western traditional, they are more nationalistic than others.

3. Europe already has a historical legacy of fascist extremism, cultural persecution, so those elements will be resources to be used by extremists trying to incite violence.

Democracy as long been celebrated as an instrument to achieve democracy. The problem is that democracy has only been successful where it was adopted by a homogeneous culture, where minorities were so small, that they were less important, or the value disparities were insignificant. It is also evident that the collectivist baggage of welfare statism was not present in the past, and so thus minorities were always easier to tolerate. This is not the case in the modern world. Democracy has failed to provide a stable regime for the former Yugoslav states, its failing in the Middle East, and its unravelling as we speak in Germany.

People will tolerate democratic discourse if the disparities are incidental or the individual is sufficiently alienated by the weight of majoritism. This is not the case however when tyranny is socially defined as some sub-culture, most particularly when they are a group of persecuted, well-organised minorities.

Chancellor Angela Merkel blamed the doctrine of 'multiculturalism' for Germany's woes. But I would suggest the problem is not the policy per se, but democracy, which fails to reconcile opposing interest groups. It is difficult to tolerate a sub-culture which compels you to change your values, and you have difficulty expelling a sub-culture which has developed such deep roots, even citizenry in your midst. This is the problem with democracy. It does not reconcile the divergent values, but instead it allows one group of citizens to become an imposition on another, so we have victimisation on both sides. i.e. Germany is burdened by the alienation of 'lazy' Turks who see no reason to learn German, and Turks are disenfranchised by discrimination which makes any improvement impractical. This is a recipe for an escalation in ethic-based division. More problematic is when you have a self-righteous Chancellor Merkel saying 'take it or leave it'.

Germany did not welcome these Turks on the proviso that they spoke German or adopted Christian values. It has decided to adopt those standards after the fact. The other problem is the appearent nationalism in Merkel's statements. She assumes that Christian values are the proper ones to learn...irrespective of the fact that the distinction between Germans and Turks has less to do with religion and more to do with parenting and organisational styles or discipline. After all, Islam was derived from Judaic-Christian tradition, so that is hardly a point of contention. The common denominator however is a self-righteousness which could lead to violence, incited by either side.

Merkel suggests that the 'Turks should integrate' as if there was something special about German culture, and something intrinsically bad about Turkish values. That might be true of false, if one looked at the basis for either value system, however the problem is the implicit lack of objectivity. Nothing could incite racial violence more than the following remarks by Merkel:

Merkel: "We feel tied to Christian values. Those who don't accept them don't have a place here".

The problem of course is that no person should repudiate the values of others because they subjectively think their values are better than others. They ought to be reconciled in a forum where reason is the standard of value. The fact that Germans, to the extent that Merkel represents them, are not open to reason can only incite violence because they are likely to find Turks retain as much false pride as them, as just as little respect for reason.

WWIII - bring it on. Most people never learn.

Want to read more about Chancellor Merkel's speech - see Yahoo News.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

Resource Rent Tax

Nuclear weapons and war

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According to the Japan Times, Japan has made its 17th submission to the UN General Assembly calling for a complete nuclear disarmament. Surprisingly the United States is among the 50 nations which agreed to the submission. Really the submission is stupid for the folllowing reasons:

1. A nuclear disarmament agreement can only embolden those countries who have the most to gain from the adoption of nuclear weapons. Its a red flag saying that we will allow you to have an advantage.

2. Nuclear weapons are not the problem, it is the motives of the country developing them which is the problem.

3. Nuclear disarmament as a moral crusade is compatible with dogmatic religion (i.e. mysticism), and places morality outside the real of logic. Little surprise the initiative was taken by Japan, and little surprise that the USA has endorsed it.

4. Nuclear weapons discouraged war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The 'Cold War' resulted in one of the longest periods of global peace in history.

5. Nuclear weapons are an important component of any military force. We need to remember that nuclear weapons are not solely for armed aggressive, but can have peaceful applications. Some of these applications might actually save human lives. Such applications of course need to be researched, however there might be applications for deviating the orbit of a comet so that it does not strike earth. There might be opportunities to modify geological processes to attain some resource development advantage. The mind boggles at the opportunities.

6. Collectivist countries are the ones which seek to initiate the use of any force in order to gain some advantage. The threat is not nuclear weapons any more than the threat is knives and guns. The problem is the collectivist politicians who drive political debate. Countries like Iran, Korea, Japan, Russia have more 'collectivist' leaders, however the moral ambivalence in the West shows that it is a significant factor in our political system. Democracy is a collectivist construction, imposing the will of the majority on the minorities. The arbitrary statutory legal system, which has displaced a relative rational 'common law' system is testimony to that...and the 'collectivist creep' of statutory law is driving the West to universal tyranny.

Let me suggest to you how this tyranny is going to manifest in war in future. We are witnessing an increasing use of immigration in Western countries to stimulate economic development. If you cannot use debt, governments like to rely on immigration. Political correctness rather than logic demands that you allow everyone into your country, irrespective of their values. Collectivism is no barrier. In fact, we have already argued its well-entrenched in the West. The problem is that, immigration adds a cultural element. By allowing fundamentalist mystical creeds into the secular western countries, we are likely to see an escalation in racial/rligious prejudice. This is going to inspire reactionary nationalism, such that collectivists identities will be polarised. Sub-cultural persecution will ignite national tensions as foreign governments around the world are compelled for the sake of political correctness to draw attention to the tyranny in the host 'Western' nations. Politically ambitious collectivists in Western countries will then use these issues as a basis for expanding their political support and for sponsoring more prejudicial arguments. This will be compatible with our arbitrary statutory laws, so opponents will be standing on weak moral foundations. Before you know it, you have wars. Politically correct governments defending their prejudices or racially-based prejudices.

This ought not be new to us. We can already witness in European nations the growing hostility to foreigners, and Muslims in particularly. We have already witnessed a racially-divisive war in the old Yugoslavian states, as well as the persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany. This is a fertile legacy to be used by 'majorities' to insight racial prejudices. Its going to happen eventually. All it takes will be a breach at the 'weakest link'. There is good reason for thinking the problem will ignite in Europe. It is among the most collectivist regions in the world. Perhaps the poorer areas of Germany or France are the most likely hot spots of resentment. All we need is a deterioration in economic circumstances, and governments resorting to immigration in order to stimulate economic activity. Understand that this economic activity is only needed because these governments maintain such a strangehold over their economy. Government control = bottlenecks on a nation's productive capacity. Justice facilitates commerce and job creation; but most government intervention has nothing to do with justice, and distorts economic activity, causing the boom-bust cycles we are accustomed to. These practices create vulnerabilities in the economy, and the prospect of war in collectivist countries. These wars have the tendency to draw even the most individualistic nations into the fray. The consequence is that even the freest nation's are sabotaged. Look at what the 'freedom loving' USA adopted after WWII. It was Roosevelt's 'New Deal', i.e. Measures to stimulate domestic demand after it was ravaged by a global war and acute destruction in Europe. Expect it again.

A little bit of conceptual foresight can avoid this trend. Just don't expect it.

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Author

Andrew Sheldon

Resource Rent Tax

Applied Critical Thinking | www.SheldonThinks.com