If a human beings lived like corporations, dissociated from the real world - except as it provides narrow profit, they would be considered psychopaths, schizoid. But for the System As a Marketplace, SAM, and those obliged to Internalize the Corporate Ethic, the ICErs, such dissociation is normal and necessary.

Imagine a common psychopath, a schizophrenic who has lost touch with reality, who has forsaken outrageous fortune for the contracted world of un-validated thought. He has withdrawn from relationships with other humans, given up basic response-ability, retreated to a less-than-human life of psychotic myth.

The psychotic declares: "I am Napoleon. My voices confirm this. My demons deny it!" So it is with SAM: "I am the best of all possible systems. My media confirm this. My commie enemies deny it!" The essence of SAM is the dissociation of GEs corporate system from cultural responsibility. In that sense, SAM is a psychotic system. SAM's frantic assertion "the pursuit of corporate profit benefits the whole" is a psychotic delusion, a denial of human values and responsibility.

To maintain SAM's power and protect the DIM humans, a set of psychotic myths have evolved. These Pervasive Psychotic Myths, PPMs, help ICEers to rationalize their submission to the corporate ethic. These myths reach to the depths of the human need to belong and conform, to the roots of human culture to cohere. PPMs also express an intellectual regression BAROM, a dependance on MOM to manage our lives. Such loyalty to SAM offers security - perhaps also a better chance to get ahead.

PPMs are more than rationalizations or distortions. They deserve the respect and attention due any dream because they reflect SAM's great subconscious life, sick as it is. The media, SAM's `mind of society', promulgates and maintains these myths. SAM maintains a set of Pervasive Psychotic Myths, PPMs, a few are listed here:

THE ECONOMY RUNS BY ITSELF.

The most common assumption is that nobody is in charge, that the system, SAM, runs by itself, governed increasingly by the marketplace. Truth is that our increasingly complicated global economy is directed by brilliant and competent ICERs. They have excellent organization and information, and often they know each other personally. This is not a conspiracy, it is a system. Unfortunately, they operate by SAM's values, not human values.

FREE ENTERPRISE WORKS BETTER THAN A GUIDED ECONOMY.

Objectively, free enterprise is comparatively inefficient compared to command economics. Economies develop fastest with strong and efficient leadership: The United States grew during the `robber baron' period with a small powerful ruling group. The US saw phenomenal economic growth in World War II under strong government command and control. Singapore under the national socialism of Li Kwan Yu has become a `First World' economy. Japan has become wealthy, first with centralized leadership up to WW II, then again under General MacArthur's zaibatsu national socialism. The Soviet Union industrialized in spite of extraordinary stresses, developing a quality of life close to First World, even without the cheap labor and resources of the Third World.

THE UNITED STATES IS RICH BECAUSE IT IS PRODUCTIVE.

European conquerors have prospered using the vast resources and cheap labor of this brutally emptied continent. Now most wealth, like most goods, comes from overseas investments as domestic production is down-sized and exported. United States consumes a quarter of the world's resources because it owns a quarter of the world's capital. World War II was exquisitely managed to gain a larger share of world capital. The US is rich not because it is productive, but because it has capital.

THE G7 (Wealthy nations) FAVORS OPEN WORLD MARKETS FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE DEVELOPING NATIONS.

Elaborate tariffs and restrictions are managed by lobbied officials - usually quite out of sight. "Open markets" usually means not `markets' but `investments', the opportunity to use cheap labor and resources with a minimum of restriction or taxation. Conflicts of Japan in Peru, France in Zaire were two examples of the centuries old struggle for `markets'. Such struggles have been increasing and expanding in recent centuries, enabled by advancing technology and the accumulation of GE capital.

DEVELOPING NATIONS NEED FOREIGN INVESTMENT TO FLOURISH.

They receive little gain from foreign investments, usually in the form of low wages, military aid, and bribes. Most of the profit goes to the multinationals, MUNCs, p.298. Less profit goes to the local elite `compradors', who send their kids to Vassar. The local oligarchs, rather than tax these firms, rely on loans from G7 banks and governments. The money is received by the local elite, but owed by the people. Each crisis, like the Mexican devaluations and the South East Asia currency crisis, transfers even more wealth from the poor to the wealthy. We can buy cheap.

US FOREIGN POLICY FAVORS DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM

Any government that taxes, or otherwise inhibits the multinationals is overthrown by the CIA and its helpers. Elections are limited, and guided as window dressing. Elected officials are beholden to those who finance and control them. The local military establishment - financed, trained and guided by US and its allies - is the backup, should the civilian government be inadequate. US AID provided computers so the Guatemalan military police could keep track of the indians. Which First World government supports which Third World military is not easily exposed. As for human rights, China, not Saudi Arabia or Indonesia, is criticized for its human rights, perhaps because its successful capitalist sector is still guided by the Chinese Communist Party.

UNITED STATES SPENDS LAVISHLY ON FOREIGN AID.

Israel and Egypt receive the most of the visible foreign aid. Most foreign aid supports the military of governments that protect and favor MUNC investments. The United Nations dues are underpaid because it occasionally does not advantage the US.

UNITED STATES MILITARY PROTECTS THE NATION

Much of the military is needed to protect not the nation but GE's overseas investments. Protecting `American lives' is a euphemism for securing American properties. Many acknowledged this during the Iraq war. The cost of that war, born mostly by the temporary increase in the price of petroleum, could have converted this nation to domestic renewable energy, as explained in *Rocky Mountain Institute studies.

Without military force as a back up for the efforts of CIA, Third World nations would go `socialist'. They might tax or even expropriate SAM's investments, use the money for public health and welfare, or put the money in Swiss banks as Mobutu did. They might even form a `debt cartel' to decrease or cancel their burden. Such revolt of the Third world would devastate SAM, lower domestic income by three quarters - probably cause complete chaos. With such vulnerability, the military is a bargain.

ECONOMIC GROWTH MEASURES ECONOMIC SUCCESS.

Economic growth, SAM's goal, is often in conflict with ecological growth, human's goal. Human ecology depends on natural ecology, as the Eco-psychologist Theodore *Rozak and others explain. The freer the lunch the more ecological. Economic growth is often phoney. For example, natural catastrophes stimulate the economy and increase GDP. Putting mothers to work and hiring baby sitters is economic growth - it makes the money go 'round. In contrast, ecovillages might cut their external economy as much as ninety percent, with a superior quality of life, as explained in SUSTAINABLE LUXURY, p.225.

FREE COMPETITION BRINGS OUT THE BEST.

Freedom usually means the opportunity to make money and keep it. For personal security and success, SAM demands submission of human values to SAM's values, conformity to modern abstract culture, MAC. Free competition usually turns out to be a detriment to an enriching human life. It makes an `adversarial culture'. It also leads to interpersonal conflict, the victor `versus the vanquished' relationship. Increasing insecurity and anxiety spurs some to struggle harder, many to keep still, others to drop out - to the detriment of almost everyone.

Competition supposedly lowers prices. But the system GOes for the Money, GOMs, not just by "combinations in restraint of trade", but through unspoken agreements to increase costs by matching and raising the market. Prices are partially protected from technological advancements through an array of regulations and limitations such as building and zoning codes.

With all these factors, prices do not rise. Costs are dropping because of the rapid development of Third World labor and resources. Therefore, the margin of profit is increasing without inflation.

JOBS ARE A FOUNDATION VALUE

Most JOBS contribute little to human welfare. Yet if those truly bad jobs such as selling tobacco and gaming, or those absurdly inefficient jobs such as operating the tax system or the drug system, or those jobs that result from bad planning such as most of the transportation system - if these jobs were scaled back, the economy would collapse. SAM must make the money go 'round by paying people to do bad things.

In contrast, inviting people to live in ECOVILLAGES would greatly improve their life style and cut the `economy' by fifty to ninety percent. But SAM wants to make people into robots, and usually has his way.

The free market does not enhances the WORK ethic. It drives people from more humane `intrinsic' rewards to the more abstract `extrinsic' rewards. Success is measured by money, not productivity or service. Hence, the most productive jobs are paid less, the ICErs more. People are induced to orient their lives toward security, status, and trivial pursuits rather than broader human values of productivity, creativity, and broader enrichment - to make a buck.

The almost universal aspiration is to rise in job status, from lower class jobs that produce and serve, to middle class ELBY jobs that `specialize' and manipulate. Economic freedom helps some people to gain enough capital to stop working and hire others to take care of them.

But the job ethic is so compelling that the unemployed wealthy are often obliged to define their PASTIMES as jobs. The unemployed poor receive the wrath of the resentful, who must accept mostly meaningless jobs, if any are available.

MORE EDUCATION IS NEEDED BY THE UNEMPLOYED TO GET JOBS, AND BY THE EMPLOYED TO COMPETE.

Education may create a few jobs for educators and keep pupils busy, but it does not create jobs. It may also help pupils accept and adjust to the peculiar routines and demands of employment. But lessons of conformity and passivity inherent in most education is unlikely to foster the initiative for self employment or entrepreneurship. Also, what is taught is mostly useless, even harmful. Increasing the number of jobs is another story.

By specializing on the peculiar qualities that are tested, the educational system inhibits understanding of the pupils physical and social support system. Thus they are more helpless, insecure, and dependant on expensive `services'.

For the employed, further education may put competitive pressure on peers. But no citizen can compete with educated Asians or East Europeans, who are paid far less, especially in their own countries.

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Last updated Monday, April 9, 2018 05:43 UTC