Guest Post by The Zman
The Financial Times, the strange colored newspaper you see at airports, is not known for its skepticism of modern global economics. Therefore, it was a bit of a shock to see the mouthpiece of global finance come out in favor of a radical rethinking of the economic order. They argued that all options must be on the table in order to address the tattered relationship between the people and their governments. In their words, the social contract must be restored after the virus panic ends.
The alleged sentiments behind the editorial are not wrong. The primary duty of any government is the welfare of the people. It’s why we have government. Sure, we assign it functions like protecting private property and enforcing contracts, but that’s not the reason we invented government. Similarly, the state defends the privileges of the rich at the expense of everyone else. This has been true since the dawn of man, but again, this is not why human societies have governments.
The point of government is the general welfare of the people. That means defending against attacks from abroad and attacks from within. The former is straight forward, but the latter is where things get complicated. Defending against internal threats is about a set of laws and customs for the purpose of maintaining order. The character and nature of the people will determine these internal structures. Good order in the lands of the Mohammedan is different than good order in the Orient.
This is not a concern in a world of nations and nation states. In a world of global capital and the free flow of goods and people across borders, it is nearly impossible. The state cannot enforce the customs of its people when its people change with each generation, maybe with each decade. When economics requires the people to yield their ancient customs and liberties, the point of government is no longer the welfare of the people, but as middle-man, facilitating conformity to economic necessity.
This is where the globalist on the Financial Times editorial board fail in their analysis of the current crisis. The social contract, if there is one, is not built around a set of economic policies. It is not a set of rules imposed by the keepers of the economy in order to make transactions as efficient as possible. The social contract is the invisible bonds between the people. It is this dedication to the shared welfare that necessitates the creation of the state in order to maintain those bonds.
Those invisible bonds are not the creation of the state, but the result of the mating decisions of our ancestors. The social contract between Finns is just the conceptualization of their shared history and ancestry. It is unique to them. What makes a Finn and Finn is not where he stands on the map or how he does business. What makes him a Finn is he is the fruit of the Finnish family tree. To be Finn means the ability to one day make more Finns. That’s biology, not economics.
The social contract can only exist among a people with a shared ancestry. If the goal is to restore the social contract, the first step is not a new round of economic fads, but a restoration of the ancient bonds among people. The West must first become a collection of nations again. Only in a world of nations can the governments of those nations preserve and defend the social contract. Safeguarding the welfare of the people can only happen when there is a people, rather than just people.
This is the fundamental flaw of the current order. Cosmopolitan globalism rests on the false notion of homo economicus. This is the assumption that humans are rational, self-interested, and pursue their subjectively-defined ends optimally. More important, it assumes that people are defined internally, rather than by the untold number of invisible bonds and interactions with their society. Globalism assumes man lives in a particular society, because it benefits in some way to do so.
Not only is this false, but homo economicus is in direct contradiction with the concept of a social contract. Socrates could not flee Athens and avoid death, because to do so would mean he was no longer Socrates. Who he was as a person was defined by his membership in the polis called Athens. The social contract cannot exist in a world of atomized individuals. The social contract can only exist in a world where people are defined by their membership in a society of their people.
The editors of the Financial Times are not wrong in their observations. The great inequity in the West is a not only disruptive, it is fundamentally immoral. The strange blend of casual indifference and despotic intolerance by the state, the anarcho-tyranny, is intolerable and will lead to conflict. The heavy-handed abuse of power by the surveillance state will lead to conflict. These are not root causes, however. They are symptoms of an ideology at odds with human nature.
That is, of course, the radical idea that must be on the table along with crackpot ideas like universal basic income. The restoration of nations with governments dedicated to maintaining the welfare of their people. This means the end of mass immigration and the repatriation of as many foreigners as practical. It means the end of global institutions that supersede national sovereignty. It means the embrace of the great diversity of man and the value of good strong borders between people.
Of course, this revolution in thinking will not come voluntarily. This fact is made plain in that Financial Times editorial. The reason the great defenders of cosmopolitan globalism suddenly sound like Marxist undergrads is they want to preserve the current order at all cost. If it means embracing nutty ideas like universal income, that’s fine, just as long as the class of international pirates can ride the oceans of global capital. If that’s what it takes to keep homo economicus going, so be it.
It is another reminder that any reform effort that begins with economics is a fraud, intended to delay real change from being discussed. Tinkering about the mechanism of global capitalism is always an effort to maintain global capitalism. That gets to the heart of what must be done. The first step in restoring the social contract is to accept that the people at the top are irredeemable. The Cloud People hate the Dirt People. It is what defines them. Real reform comes when the Dirt People hate them back.
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Why are so many defeatists coming out of the wood work?
Libertarians are pretty useless when push comes to shove.
They stand with the Left in time of crisis and sing the “government tyranny” duet.
SOLUTIONS AREn’t OBVIOUS to everyone.
Down with “global capitalism”!! What the hell is that anyway? In what theory of capitalism is wealth created out of thin air?
Real capitalism depends on people producing more than they consume. These savings, real “capital” can then be loaned, saved for a rainy day, passed on to heirs, whatever. This is real wealth that never goes away.
Whatever we’ve got now, it isn’t capitalism. Articles like this keep building a straw-man argument against all the things that capitalism isn’t, then conclude we need to abolish it.
Worse, the author calls for the government to take on even more power in order to evict all the people he doesn’t approve of. Yeah, sure, the government has such a good track record of making everything work so good, let’s just trust them to fix everything.
You go, Dan! I hate when the term Capitalism is bandied about when it is neither defined nor defined properly. That’s why it gets such a bad rap.
Accept no quarter.
“There can be no true friends without true enemies. Unless we hate what we are not, we cannot love what we are. These are the old truths we are painfully rediscovering after a century and more of sentimental cant. Those who deny them deny their family, their heritage, their culture, their birthright, their very selves! They will not lightly be forgiven.”
― Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
The social contract is the invisible bonds between the people. It is this dedication to the shared welfare that necessitates the creation of the state in order to maintain those bonds.
That last sentence is 100% bullshit.
No gov’t has ever been formed that has not turned on it’s people, slowly at first and then with ever increasing vigor. The US in particular is now clearly in the totalitarian formative stage.
This plandemic is a ruse to institute new laws already written years ago as part of the overall plan to keep pounding the average person into the ground. The entire goal of gov’t is to enrich the political class and their donors, the large to huge corporations. The ‘voters’ are the morons that provide legitimacy to what is in fact a criminal conspiracy.
The governor, of the socialist state of MI has just nutted down all travel in the state until the end of April. A person can only travel to and from the store for food, or to and from a medical facility or in the case of an emergency. All the big box stores are directed ‘not to sell’ any non essential merchandise to the public. It is to be roped off or removed from the sales floor. When or if this thing goes full retard, remember the asshats that were handing this crap down. They all deserve to live in poverty. This crap is spreading faster than covid-19. Which is the real plague?
when has a government ever needed voters to provide legitimacy?
If no voters showed up for an election, the gov’t would lose its aura of respectability, legitimacy and leadership.
But you know that, so why the stupid question?
“so why the stupid question?”
because some solutions aren’t obvious.
if “No gov’t has ever been formed that has not turned on it’s people, slowly at first and then with ever increasing vigor,” then why do you think they care about respectability or legitimacy? especially since historically almost no governments anywhere have derived their respectability or legitimacy from the governed? given this history, do you think that if people in this country stopped voting, that government would disappear?
No, the gov’t won’t disappear if everyone stopped voting, but their legitimacy would disappear.
thus, when has a government ever needed voters to provide legitimacy? come on, say it ….
“What Must be Done”—isn’t that the pamphlet written by Lenin?
“isn’t that the pamphlet written by Lenin?”
the principles were around long before lenin.
“Socrates could not flee Athens and avoid death, because to do so would mean he was no longer Socrates. Who he was as a person was defined by his membership in the polis called Athens. The social contract cannot exist in a world of atomized individuals. The social contract can only exist in a world where people are defined by their membership in a society of their people.”
“My loyalty to Virginia ought to take precedence over that which is due to the federal government. If Virginia stands by the old Union, so will I. But, if she secedes, then I will still follow my native state with my sword, and need be with my life.”
–Robert E. Lee to Charles Anderson, February 1861
‘..In their words, the social contract must be restored after the virus panic ends.’
No.
The social contract must be rewritten.
Starting with the (((‘diversity’))) clause.
The point of government the welfare of government. Specifically, those in charge of the government, and their sycophants. The idea that it is “for the good of the people” is a polite fiction used to fool the fools not in the above group. Get in the way, cause enough trouble, or try to upset the gravy train, and you will find yourself tied to the tracks.