 Observing the System-for-the-Rich
Overall observation does not make sense. We start with some history but let’s be clear this chapter is a viewpoint. In the intro-vision zandtao looked at societal infrastructure and a system-for-the-rich; this was a minimal viewpoint essential in zandtao’s view to help follow your path. As a pathtivist observation of that system and vision needs to be more detailed so zandtao presents a more detailed view. Do not accept this view without question.
Media, Conditioning and Triggering
As with the intro-vision what zandtao presents here is a view. It is the truth as far as he knows it but there is so much to know and he knows so little. .zandtao chooses his media, based on his conditioning and then his transcending of that conditioning zandtao has determined sources which he considers truthful views but there can be no verification - as there is so much to know.
Much of what is presented here contradicts what is presented in mainstream media and is a contradiction of what we learned through education in our upbringing. .zandtao makes no apology for this contradiction but just as msm is a viewpoint so is what zandtao puts forward. What msm presents to you they claim as truth, zandtao suggests that it is a viewpoint, and that what he presents here is a more accurate view. .zandtao asks that you question. Use the clarity and graces of consciousness to examine what is truth. Just enquire. Did what you learnt in your upbringing and other aspects of conditioning make sense, does it reflect a total understanding of the way life is??
When bill has spoken of politics to people with different views, certain questioning brings about violence in the other. .zandtao senses that this violence is a protection of views that are integral to societal infrastructure and the system-for-the-rich but yet can stand no questioning. As such violence as a triggered response illustrates that these views cannot be substantiated. This applies to many of the fundamental delusions that are integral to the system-for-the-rich. Apologists for the system-for-the-rich put forward these unsubstantiated views that democracy, freedom, egality, and compassion are integral to societal infrastructure and system-for-the-rich but detached mindfulness quite clearly sees contradiction and situations that do not fit this. Such apologists will say “we know better” but zandtao simply says if the explanation is not fully accountable and open then it is likely not to be true. If you reach a trigger in another, avoid the pointless violence and attempt to understand what is causing the trigger. If you reach a trigger in yourself, calm down and use mindfulness to question the source of the trigger. For yourself you control how far the questioning can go. Hold the trigger with mindfulness and see where it arises. Triggers arising from consideration of the societal infrastructure can also be reinforced by upbringing as parents are often conditioned to accept the societal infrastructure. Perhaps some of that trigger comes from that deluded acceptance. Let go of the emotions using mindfulness, release the conditioned aspect of the trigger, and let go of the Sacred Wound.
Healthy Disbelief - Discernment
Why are we still expected to learn facts and regurgitate those facts for exams? Why doesn’t education simply develop critical thinking allowing the discernment we learn to choose our factual sources? Surprisingly enough we can go through life without believing what they require of us, but using our mindfulness and other graces use the facts they require when they are required to be used. Basically only use observations that we have observed.
Since Marx socialists have accepted most of this approach, used the required facts when jobs or the system requires them. But instead of accepting only what they have observed, they have replaced the facts/beliefs of the system with the facts/beliefs of marxism. For zandtao there is some truth that overlaps with the societal infrastructure and the system-for-the-rich, but when it is belief there is no discernment - no wisdom.
Healthy Scepticism
Unfortunately this healthy scepticism on not believing the facts of our education has had an unfortunate consequence in that groups of disenfranchised people have started to believe demagogues because of the promises they have made - promises that have so far not appeared to bear fruit. Believe only what you observe to be true.
Sceptical Guidance
So does the reader believe zandtao? .zandtao does not want belief that is simply replacement of the systemic beliefs of upbringing with new beliefs. .zandtao asks that all you accept arises from your observation and experience. So why does zandtao write? He offers what is written as advice or guidance, advice or guidance that could be confirmed as truth through observation and experience. Use your mindfulness with this guidance and see whether your experience and observation agrees. No agreement, no acceptance.
But this agreement does not mean agreement with upbringing but agreement with observation and experience. Discern the difference when determining your truth. When working as a wage-slave you can learn to use the facts they want without belief remaining detached and accepting only your experience and observation as truth.
Let us start with a view of history.
Feudalism - where came democracy?
In Europe our history is feudal where basically people became slaves to a feudal landlord - slaves as peasants/serfs or slaves as soldiers. This feudal system has changed in presentation but not structure. Feudal landlords were replaced by the owners of production and now they are replaced by the 1% - out of interest? The 99% has remained in a similar relationship - not as slave but wage-slaves. Now there appears to be greater choice - we can choose as wage-slaves to follow different careers, but the societal infrastructure remains feudal.
There is a delusion of democracy but this is not a change of system. We can know it is not a change of system because the feudal 1% has never relinquished power. The feudal do not own the land in the same way - although there are vestiges of feudal ownership such as the UK monarchy, but the feudal as 1% have the power. How do we know this? Because no matter who we vote for the system remains the same - it is a system-for-the-rich whoever is in power. The electoral system gives people access to some decision-making but nothing that alters the system. Don’t believe me - just observe. But don’t believe the opportunists who benefit from the electoral system, most simply seek power through election and with that power benefit themselves without helping the 99%. Observe this for yourself; and if your observations don’t agree, trust yourself not zandtao.
Changes in Societal Infrastructure
Let’s examine recent societal infrastructure to see if it has transformed into a democracy. Let’s look at a simplified traditional Marxist model - traditional economic model as an example. An individual used their labour to create surplus value and there was a struggle between owners and labour as to who got that surplus value. As an individual the wage was the product of that labour and we were conditioned to spend that wage in a certain way of consuming. Advertising and marketing tried to condition us as to how we spent those wages.
Changing Accumulation
Over the years profits were expanded beyond this simplified model in order to expand accumulation. This was done through stock markets where various financial mechanisms were used to increase accumulation. This could be seen in terms of futures, derivatives etc., all of which were not based on surplus value and were not based on an actual product. The result is there was an increase in accumulation without any change in available products. This left the economic system vulnerable.
Going beyond this finance institutions began to see new ways to engender the servitude of wage-slavery. To buy a house was beyond the actual available currency in an individual family so institutions developed debt strategies. It became acceptable for families to go into debt to buy a house, and as a result their wage slavery was guaranteed.
The 2008 crash misused this debt mechanism. Originally banks were constrained by regulations and common sense. The amount a bank could lend initially depended on the gold standard, the amount of money banks could lend depended in some way on the amount of gold that backed up the money. But banks wanted to make more profits, and knew that they could increase their own profits if there was increased debt. So regulations were introduced to enable increased debt, typically a house could not be bought unless the price was less than 4 times joint annual salaries. Soon banks found this too restrictive and the regulatory practices got less and less. Unscrupulous lending practices were significant in the 2008 crash as humorously explained by John Bird and John Fortune.
National Roles
Nations have a role in this economic system. Increased accumulation arises through wider markets, increased resources and cheaper labour. In the US cheap labour was originally slaves, but this then changed to migrant labour - cheaper than the typical US member of the working class. Whilst this labour was enabled by the government at the behest of industry, the majority of people scapegoat this cheaper labour as being the problem when it is the owners who wanted the cheaper labour in the first place - owners choose who works for them.
Similarly in the UK the political system has now become dominated by the issue of immigration. This immigration was caused by colonialism, introduction of cheaper post-war labour - rather than wages being governed by supply and demand, and this century following the US model of bringing in cheap labour claiming there were not enough people to do the work. This was never done for the benefits of the British people but for the owners.
Colonialism obtains Resources
Colonialism arose so that the UK could get the resources not available for the industrial revolution on the small island. Historically it had always been acceptable to plunder for gold and other aspects of wealth, what was originally done by the navy of pirates such as Drake and Raleigh became commonplace as colonialism sometimes using missionaries and providing development as an excuse. Colonialism demanded taxes thus ensuring barter economies had to die out as the colonised were forced to pay taxes. One excuse for taxation was the roads, presented as a benefit for the people but primarily developed to transport goods back to the hegemony.
Colonial Peoples as Consumers
And once people were brought into moneyed economies they also became moneyed consumers - market place. Businesses did not have the colonial might so government instructed their military whilst businesses benefited. Wars were fought for control of these resources and markets - the First World War ostensibly being the division of the African cake. Whilst Germany lost the war the country was never decimated nor was the government changed significantly as the war was about African resources. Soon Germany became economically powerful again - often through investment famously the US Bushes, and a new war started. This was manipulated by the design of Bretton Woods and the marshall plan leading to the US hegemony the world lives under now. That hegemony wages war through NATO expansion and control of oil resources.
Accumulation increased through Automation
Within this infrastructure the owners have been increasing the profits from production through automation. This has meant that the need for human labour to create production has decreased. This has placed increased burdens on nations and their taxation as fewer people are working and paying taxes yet there are more people unemployed and needing these taxes to survive. On top of this BIG business is now refusing to pay taxes showing that government does not control business.
Economics - Supply and Demand
Within this societal infrastructure we need to see the functioning of the system-for-the-rich, and to do this we have to stop correlating it with academic economics and daily trade. When we go to the market for veg we look for what we want and we choose the cheapest or we choose our favourite vendor - or something else. None of this really has anything to do with the system-for-the-rich even though it is the basic supply and demand of economics. But when expert economists or apologists for the system speak about the economy, they like to convey the system-for-the-rich as economics.
Fiat money
zandtao is no economics expert nor does he have any experience in system-for-the-rich economics but he is able to make certain observations. If something goes wrong western governments print money, borrow money, and generally manipulate. They don’t print fiat money for our benefits but for the rich - often in finance. In the 2008 financial crisis that was based in poor banking practices, they found money to prop up the banks; it would have taken less money to pay for all the unpaid mortgages that led to the financial crisis in the first place (crisis explained with humour).
Gold Standard and Confidence
Previously there were regulations associated with how much money could be printed - often associated with the gold standard (printing money if the country had gold to back it up). But governmental regulation and control were too restrictive for the system-for-the-rich - they wanted more profits and accumulation. This was all changed by Thatcher-Reagan. And the rich got richer. Since then rich people make profits by investing, and the system-for-the-rich is concerned simply with the ability to invest and make profits for the huge amounts of money the rich people have. For the system to continue there must be a level of confidence that the system will not crash. For no other reason than this need for confidence, in 2008 bankers were supported rather than the people. Many people lost their homes - not simply the poor who were sold impractical mortgages. Following the 2008 crash many people suffered but eventually the system was “substantiated” again by this fiat money, and rich people could then continue to invest and make profits.
Computer Investment
Since that time there have been many forms of investment in computers - and now AI. Looking at Karen Hao’s book makes it clear that we are dealing with similar egos to the “coke-sniffers of the City”. The AI industry are people driven by the accumulation, and have an essential symbiotic relationship with capital - without the delusions of these people there is no capital expansion and profit-making.
Recent history shows a techno-pattern. Tek comes up with something to invest in, the people selling this tek have sufficient bs to build confidence, and with the confidence comes investment and profit-making. What is the relationship/benefits for daily life? There needs to be some daily life benefit to build up the systemic confidence.
Let’s examine the daily life dividend. For the system-for-the-rich people cannot allow understanding to connect to the vast amounts invested, the huge profits made for accumulation, the huge profits made by certain individuals who are the vehicles for the system-for-the-rich, and the relatively little use that investment produces. This connection cannot be made. But because the numbers are so huge we think there is a relationship - so there is systemic confidence.
AI - Latest Tek Bubble
At the systemic level AI is the latest tek bubble to provide the vehicles for capital investment - previous bubbles have been the internet investment in the 90s, and later all the crypto crap. Some people make fortunes from nothing, but mostly capital just shifts around as huge sums that just invest. These bubbles are just things that can be invested in and produce profits.
Covid Investment
As an aside let’s look at the last investment bubble that was not started by tek - Covid. The system-for-the-rich just continued accumulating during the crisis. 7 million lost lives globally, many of the 99% lost businesses but the system-for-the-rich continued throughout the crisis as governments needed money. They made profits from vaccines, PPE and whatever government needed them to invest in to get through the crisis. But there was no benevolence even with the deaths from the pandemic - just more accumulation. In daily life there were the deaths and shortage, but in the system-for-the-rich the rich were barely affected except for some inconveniences - perhaps the occasional death? Throughout the pandemic poorer communities suffered disproportionately but that is the way of the system-for-the-rich; if they can invest and accumulate the system-for-the-rich is continuing for their own benefit - system as usual. From a systemic viewpoint there was no systemic compassion shown by the rich - no freebies, no substantive contribution to alleviate the suffering of the 99%. It was business as usual - invest and accumulate.
90s Internet Bubble
There was huge investment in the internet bubble of the 90s. The internet is now part of everyone’s life so we make no attempt to connect the benefits to daily life and the benefits to accumulation. Did the internet cost what was invested? No. Lives have been changed, jobs have been lost, accumulation continued to tick over.
Y2K was an investment bubble that fizzled to nothing. Without the Y2K scare, would there have been problems? Quite likely. As big as they scare-mongered, who knows? Doubt it. Accumulation as usual - people forced to pay money into Y2K that increased the accumulation.
Fear of the Insane
Fear completely dominates zandtao’s reactions to AI because of its extinction possibilities in the areas of jobs and weaponry. His fear is primarily based around the insanity of those who are in control. He watches as the 1% go down their rabbit-holes of accumulation through AI ignoring the consequences of their actions leaving governments to sweep up the pieces - and he now watches as governments do little to cope with consequences of this insanity perhaps accepting AI delusions whilst increasingly protecting their puppeteers.
Jobs
The number of jobs is clearly on the decrease in the West. Instead of facing the cause of the job losses - automation (a history that includes AI, computers, factory automation etc.) and facing the humanitarian need to provide full employment, the 1%-satrapy has engineered a political scapegoatism that is emotive and can have no solution other than violence. Insanity. The accumulation of the rich including their family’s personal wealth is based on the 99% earning and consuming yet their automation is just reducing the % of earners and consumers. They leave it to governments to come up with strategies involving taxation and welfare but they know this cannot work and corporations are not now paying tax. The consumer society is breaking down; their insanity has given in to their addiction and while they accumulate Rome will just burn. And for the 99% while this is happening we just hope that we can find a way to earn to consume and survive.
AI Dreams and Fantasies
The AI delusion concerning job losses revolves around dreams and fantasies that AI will create wealth to such an extent that the system-for-the-rich will provide “Universal Basic Income (UBI)” in order to enable future consuming giving the system-for-the-rich some sort of stability. Currently the “welfare state” provides some of that but it is not sufficient for those forced on it, and there are many restrictions placed on the receipt of welfare. Releasing their accumulation is not a renowned virtue of the 1% yet if UBI is an integral part of the delusion to allow automation it requires this virtue.
Weaponry
Weaponry has already gone into insanity. Our weapons - drones - kill bystanders (under the name of collateral damage). We accept the justification that the enemies of our countries are tactically hiding behind their families, and therefore because of those tactics we have the right to use automation - drones - to kill the families and not get our hands “dirty” - even as active soldiers. These enemies are not people living normal family lives but terrorists tactically using family to hide; as a result these families become seen as complicit - unconfirmed by the drone system - in the activities of these enemies thus becoming acceptable targets …. and droned to death killed by automation.
Based on the tek-pattern what can we conclude? Accumulation will continue to make their profits. Money will be invested and some people will make huge profits - the “coke-sniffers of Silicon valley”. Many people will lose their jobs.
AI presents utopian delusions. Within the system-for-the-rich there are many delusions eg government-for-the-people. The system-for-the-rich requires consumers so to continue with their accumulation there must be money to consume with. We have to hope this level of consuming enables some level of survival. As mentioned above the AI delusion concerning job losses revolves around dreams and fantasies that AI will create wealth to such an extent that the system-for-the-rich will provide “Universal Basic Income (UBI)” in order to enable future consuming. Historically when has the rich given to the poor?
Teal's talk on Covid
Realistic Evaluation of the System-for-the-Rich
Sustainability
Grassroots Response
Grassroots movement strategy needs to accept that there will be AI changes in the job market, and attempt to develop strategies that enable employment. There is no point in attempting to confront AI because it is not AI that you are confronting but the system-for-the-rich, the current primary vehicle for accumulation being AI. You cannot confront system-for-the-rich by demanding the retention of jobs - that way has no accumulation and we have minimal power. But perhaps there is a way of accepting AI changes to jobs. Most jobs are for the insane of the “coke-sniffers of Silicon valley” - using creativity to make money for AI investment. But perhaps there are ways we can get ahead.
The first major round of automation losses was Thatcher-Reagan. There weren’t sufficient manufacturing jobs so the 1% through Thatcher attacked the unions eg miner’s strike. Her rhetoric was jobs in the service sector, and with the 1%-control that “has come to pass”. And worse led to anti-immigration tactics because of the lack of jobs.
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