America's Political and Economic Delusions

Wilhelm A. Tietz

1990

Published in:

The Northwest Technocrat, 3rd quarter 1990, No. 320
This article has been adapted from a lecture.

Language, like the sun, must light our way. It is the intellect's method of communication, and if we are to develop a civilization worthy of the intelligence of humankind, it of necessity must be free of ambiguity. It must be articulate, precise, probing, relativistic, all in factual accord with the impelling directions of nature's changes.

The millennia of evolution witnessed massive geological and climatological forces molding the environment. It was a time demanding the utmost of the reasoning powers and survival instincts of all living species. The primordial human mind had to have concentration and emphasis upon the basic necessities in the struggle for survival, and was bound to ignorance because of its limited experience -- its limited social memory. Those habits and instincts have consequences that today threaten the extinction of life.

It must have been an era of vivid imaginings, dark superstitions and fears, many of which constitute the limitations of today that stand between man and his attainment of a viable social structure.

Ignorance engendered fear and the attribution of supernatural powers to mystical spirits, other inhabitants of the Earth and imagined fearful beings, Unreasonable fear furthered the initial capitulation to authoritarian power -- to the chieftain and the witch doctor, and authoritarian power demands idolatry, the control over mind and body, the suppression of knowledge, the observance of ritual and adherence to doctrine supported by intimidation and force.

The Neolithic Age, around 4000 B.C., was witness to the formation of a ruthless, authoritarian socio-cultural system based upon economic slavery, the Price System. Since its inception it has ruled all civil society, from the era of the great urban cultures of antiquity, the church/state of the Sumerian and Egyptian dynasties, the Greco and Holy Roman Empires, to today's American imperialism.

Of great significance, the system's ruling power structure over the millennia has in part maintained its authority by means of indoctrination and the distortion of language. Some of the language that has been implanted in the human mind are abstract political concepts that can mean whatever you want them to mean. Words that are divorced from reality such as: democracy, capitalism, free enterprise, socialism, communism and others -- liberty, freedom, justice and equality, that comprise the many devices of Price System social control. Absolutism has produced an ideology whereunder there is a dimming of the discrepancy between fact and falsehood.

We present our society as being democratic, holding to an ideal of equality, when in reality our proclaimed principles are abandoned for the credo of the Price system whose axiom was defined by a 20th century satirist as "Das Kapital uber Alles," ("money rules over everything"). This is a restatement of the concept of centralized power by an elitist plutocracy, as envisioned by Alexander Hamilton and his coterie and that is still enforced to this day. It has created America's dynasties of power, wealth, luxury and fashion: America's apartheid, separating the "Beasts" from the gentry, a society of privilege.

What is it that we esteem and cultivate? The basic biological and physical needs of humanity upon the North American Continent can be met -- within the constraint of natural laws and the Earth's finite resources. The resources exist to provide for an intellectual environment out of which an age of reason and enlightenment can be born. Why has it not come into existence?

In the days of Cromwell, the concept was held "that only the freeholders constituted the body politic, and that they could use their property as they pleased, uncontrolled by any obligations to any superior or by the need of consulting the mass of men -- who were mere tenants at will, with no fixed interest or share in the land of the kingdom." It made the landed gentry omnipotent. This same viewpoint prevailed in the writing of the U.S. Constitution, as the former colonial freeholders conceived the legislative branch of the Senate as protecting only property rights. The Senate's members were not subject to "the imprudence of democracy" until the 17th amendment, May 31, 1913.

The Constitution granted a priority right to those who equate the concept of property and ownership with the power and privilege to exploit as a right of property. This also applied to the ruthless exploitation of humans as the prime energy resource in the evolution of the Price System. Ten American presidents were slaveholders. George Washington owned 216 slaves in 1773; Patrick Henry, the "voice" of the revolution who said "Give me liberty, or give me death" owned 65 slaves at the time of his death; Thomas Jefferson, the "pen" of the revolution had 185 slaves in 1809; James Madison at one time had 116 slaves. The list continues.

Following the master-race traditions of slavery and supremacy, of past centuries and congruent with the fascism of 20th century Europe and Asia; the exploitation of women and children in the textile mills; the child labor on the farms, in the mines and factories; these were the corollary of the Bill of Rights for the disfranchised; these were the realities of free enterprise, liberty, freedom, justice and equality. These were the misnomers of democracy.

In 1990, Afro-Americans seek "freedom now"; women petition for their long-denied rights of economic equality; American labor has fallen victim of the "the rust belt", technological innovations and the machinations of multinational corporations. Data of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal that, in 1973, manufacturing jobs accounted for 24.8 percent of total U.S. civilian employment. By 1988, it had tumbled to 18.5 percent. 31.7 million Americans in our nation exist in poverty, as identified by the Census Bureau.

The aforementioned serves only as a minute illustration of economic slavery, its continuity and enforcement over the centuries. In our society the status of every individual, every class, is a function of property relations as advocated by our forebears. The Price System, subordinating as it does all human rights and human welfare to property rights, is impersonal, nonhuman and nonethical in character. It represents "not simply the pursuit of purposeless materialism" but a deeper competition for power and prestige, translated into domination and status.

In the late 1800s and the early 20th century, "an economic revolution raised up a new ruling class in America. The industrialists and the investment bankers now sat in the seats of power formerly held by southern planters, northeastern merchants, and by members of the old aristocracy of inherited wealth." By 1892 there were now more than 4000 millionaires, many of whom came to power through a ruthless disregard for the public welfare, as evidenced by Commodore Vanderbilt's proclaimed arrogance, "What do I care about the law? Hain't I got the power?"

Most of the elitist power structure, financial, industrial, political, theological and military proclaimed to our naive ancestors that an omnipotent power gave sanction to their monies, crowns and parchments, including their declarations of war. Those ancestors confirmed this fraud, and we do so to this day; it is a distorted philosophy. A cynicism, expressed by a U.S. budget director in the 20th century, and said to have been learned by him in the Divinity school at Harvard, that "there is no morality, and therefore, there can be no immoral policy" typifies America's political corruptions of this century.

Having laid claim to the public domain, the malefactors of debt increased the magnitude of their operations. American industry and banking moved toward greater consolidation through trusts, holding companies and monopolies that later were to culminate in today's multinationals. (As a typification, in 1913 the Morgan- Rockefeller empire held, in all, 341 directorships in 122 corporations.)

This new concentration of power was now directed by various corporations to the control over America's finite natural resources, its technologies and operative facilities. Among the energy and mineral resources were oil, coal, natural gas, iron ore, copper, aluminum, etc. Operating facilities, as an example, were transportation, oil refineries and electric power. The avaricious exploitation of these natural resources made America a "have-not nation" at the conclusion of World War II.

Now, there emerges into clear view America's military and economic cliques that have combined into what can only be described as the consolidation of all the prior exploitive rackets into a global monopoly. It dwarfs all past fascist attempts at conquest. An uncontrolled corrupt authority has arisen on our Continent, an authority who has assumed the rights of sovereignty, usurping a governance that we are trained to believe is residing in the people.

Those who have exploited for profit and power have misused the environment and its resources upon which our survival and standard of living depend. They promote a system based upon exponential growth on a finite Earth, and this cannot continue without our destruction.

Our society depends on energy, without energy the technology of production is silent; without the wealth of natural resources, both energy and the productive mechanism are meaningless; without the freedom to participate in the consumption of the production made possible by the natural resources, energy and technology, life is impossible, and equality, liberty, freedom, the pursuit of happiness and peace are expressions of ignorance, arrogance and hypocrisy.

North America can no longer be occupied by a high energy, highly complex technological civilization on a haphazard, planless basis, nor under governmental direction by the functionally illiterate. We must plan for survival!

The forethought of Technocracy, under the guiding direction of Howard Scott and the research of the Technical Alliance, has taken science out of the laboratory to provide a plan for a new social order beyond anything the world has yet known. With knowledge, wisdom and dedication, there is hardly a limit to what the human species may creatively achieve!

Technocracy is a new system of governance, a Technate, a government of function, and is the next peaceful evolutionary step in America's destiny. It is the total scientific coordination of all the physical functions essential for the needs and survival of humankind, and it is necessary for the development of a civilization worthy of the intelligence of humankind on this North American Continent. Its administration is organized for the control of the physical factors of a social area for functional purposes, not for the control of people. These functions are designed not only to fulfill human needs, but to be in harmony with the ecological environment and its biotic potential.

The elements exist to serve a new creative and fulfilling doctrine of life that can transcend any written record of humanity. Life can be for the first time realized as an exuberant and fulfilling celebration. The decision is yours to make.