Posted on 10/13/2002 2:12:41 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
This is the second article in a three-part series on corporate feudalism and our erstwhile billionaire collectivist pigs.
Read Part I: The Left-Wing Billionaire Collectivist Pigs.
Toward State and Corporate Feudalism
Why do our economic, political and intellectual elites promote the one-world-fits-all collectivist cultural, economic and political template for America and humankind?
Why do billionaires like Bill Gates Sr. and Jr., Ted Turner, George Soros, Alan Greenspan and yes, even supposedly conservative elites advance globalism and collectivism? They do so by paying for it, encouraging it and setting in motion all the policies and systems which will deconstruct and recreate the basic national identity and political structures.
For many of us, it is difficult to consider that so-called capitalists are in fact collectivists. Perhaps we have been so preoccupied with other things, like wars, national events and social problems, that we didn't notice. Nevertheless, this nation and its institutions continue the long march toward the Corporate Collectivist State.
In bygone times this would have been called a feudal system. These days it is dubbed globalism, the New World Order, or the Third Way. To reverse a phrase made famous by Martha Stewart – it is NOT a good thing.
Nature of the Corporate Collective Beast
The "globalism" of the progressive left, as well as the corporate partnership with the left, is authoritarian in nature. It is also destructive of legitimate authority. The deconstruction and overthrow of legitimate authority includes basic institutions like Christianity and religion, as well as the nuclear family.
In addition, that partnership is facilitating the ruination of republican and classically liberal political values, civic virtue, Western culture, history and literature, AUTHENTIC capitalism, our national identity, and the administration of our borders. In fact, the entire basic legacy, which is the essence of Western civilization and society, is being torn apart.
Social critic Robert Locke defines one aspect of this new paradigm by calling it "corporatism." According to Locke, "It has the outward form of capitalism in that it preserves private ownership and private management, but with a crucial difference: as under socialism, government guarantees the flow of material goods, which under true capitalism it does not.
In the effort to reconstruct society, the confederation of elites encourages unlimited mass immigration, which benefits the Gramscian left as much as it helps the corporate and political elite. Both groups get what they want. Both take the lion's share of economic and political power, nationally and internationally.
Collectivists are gladdened as Western society is reconfigured into oppressor and victim classes, with the help of the modern Marxist Antonio Gramsci, who with a few others from the Frankfurt School of Social Theory gave us political correctness, identity politics, non-assimilation of immigrants and mediocre education that does not support a Western-oriented American identity. It also gave us the tools they use on the great unwashed through the use of psychosocial controlling mind games.
Just about any multicultural or diversity program, as well as the latest psychological technique, has absolutely no trouble getting grants and funds from the corporate giants. In that regard, both the educational establishment and corporate America use something called the Delphi Technique. DT is a psychosocial manipulative mechanism used on groups of individuals to create a "consensus." However, it is always a consensus at the expense of the individual, freedom and the nation-state.
Social critic and Hudson Institute scholar John Fonte has a name for a part of this demise of freedom and the nation-state. Fonte calls it "transnational progressivism." In an essay that dealt with modern Marxist Antonio Gramsci's influence on American civilization, Fonte referred to assorted corporate CEOs as the Hegelian CEOs. Since the days of Carnegie, Rockefeller, Mellon and the rest, "cutting edge" ideas that are customarily leftist and collectivist have found a sugar daddy among our economic elite.
Corporate Collectives
Old-time capitalists, as well as more modern ones, continue to fund collectivist causes. The majority of funds for population control, eugenics and weird science came from the Rockefeller Foundation. Ford and Pew fund many leftist and radical causes such as identity groups and radical environmentalism, as well as offering funds for litigation against property rights, support of U.N. programs, radical feminism, and outrageous art and literature.
The collective corporate insists that a quasi-government group, like The Nature Conservancy, is doing us all a favor. Meanwhile, TNC buys up land from people who are often railroaded into being "willing sellers" of private lands. Then TNC sells it back to the government at top dollar. This is corporate elitism at the expense of private property, the ordinary citizen, and the U.S. Constitution. This kind of corporate activity flies in the face of everything this country is supposed to be about. It is another example of a corporate identity promoting a collective idea – the idea that the state is better equipped to "take care" of land or whatever else it has its sights set on.
Pew spent nearly $5 million in advertising to buy the "roadless initiative" executive order from the Clinton administration and was reprimanded by the House legal counsel and a federal judge in Idaho, but to no avail. The Hispanic political identity group La Raza, meanwhile, takes big bucks from the Ford Foundation. Planned Parenthood gets much of its money to promote abortion from the Rockefellers.
Yes, the Rockefellers. It is short of amazing that immigrants who benefited so strikingly from the freedoms they found in America successfully added new levels to the human misery index. The Rockefellers often used unethical and anti-human practices to control others, or to benefit themselves at the expense of others.
The Rockefellers' support of the racial "scientific" projects of the pre-Hitler Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Germany, plus their relationship with I.G. Farben before and during WWII, were not free-market capitalism at its best.
Rather, their activities and special treatment by government as well as the misuse of their position fit the definition of corporatism. Many of their actions and support of divergent collectivist causes such as eugenics, racial theory and population control represent a major failure in moral principles. This is not what American economic freedom and the free market are supposed to be about.
The Rockefeller partnership with the German industrial giant Farben caused the Truman Commission in the early '40s to condemn that relationship, which included trying to keep the oil flowing to Hitlerland in spite of the war. (1)
Additionally, thanks to the Rockefellers' support of hyper-racist Margaret Sanger and her offspring, Planned Parenthood, social Darwinism thrives. Demographically, the West is in population free fall; but with help from the Rockefellers, and now many other Western moguls, abortion is a social convenience as well as a sacrament.
More recently, they have given us a bioethicist loony named Peter Singer. Professor Singer holds a Rockefeller- endowed chair at Princeton.
These days, the Rockefellers, along with mega-bazillionaire Maurice Strong and former red-turned-green Mikhail Gorbachev, have decided that not only does the world have too many unwanted people, but also they have the answer to this self-described inconvenience. The new elite calls it the Earth Charter. It is the Ten Commandments of the New World Order, utopian globalists, Third Wayers, whatever. In a recent column, lefty Alexander Cockburn takes on this particular clique of corporate collectivist elite.
Cockburn tells us:
Cockburn concludes:Perhaps the most grotesque recent display of UN Kulchur at full stretch was the carrying of a cheesy "Ark of Hope", containing the Earth Charter from the US to the Earth Summit in Johannesburg last month. This same charter is the spawn of Steven C. Rockefeller, Canadian eco-mogul Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev who has said of it, "My hope is that this charter will be a kind of Ten Commandments, a Sermon on the Mount, that provides a guide for human behavior toward the environment in the next century and beyond."
Now comes the jackboot: The earth must "adopt at all levels sustainable development plans and regulations. Prevent pollution of any part of the environment. Internalize the full environmental and social costs of goods and services in the selling price. Ensure universal access to health care that fosters reproductive health and responsible reproduction." In other words, population control, as promoted through the century by the Rockefellers, who of course assigned the Manhattan real estate to the U.N. for its headquarters. [http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn1009.html]The Rockefellers are a prime example of the weird marriage of corporatism and progressivism and why it is destructive.
There are a lot of names to assign to this growing darkness and one of them is "transnational progressivism."
Transnational Progressivism
In his very excellent essay "The Ideological War within the West," John Fonte gives us some clues as to what shape this new monster is taking. Fonte states, "The key concepts of transnational progressivism could be described as follows:
The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born."
Furthermore, "A dichotomy of groups: Oppressor vs. victim groups, with immigrant groups designated as victims. Transnational ideologists have incorporated the essentially Hegelian Marxist 'privileged vs. marginalized' dichotomy."
In his analysis of Fonte's essay, Dr. Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum Concludes: "Although forwarded by progressives and garbed in post-modern lingo, Fonte shows that bureaucratic leftism represents a throwback to a pre-modern age in Europe when rulers were unelected. Today's bureaucrats effectively fill the role of yesteryear's kings."
In other words, what modern Americans are facing is feudalism and fascism that is masterminded by the world's collectivist know-it-alls, and funded by myopic control-freak rich guys. The corporate types who have accumulated power and position want to keep it. The collectivists want to devise the master plan to remake humanity into the utopian ideal. Their collaborative results are individuals who become pieces in the big machine of the collective state.
This is NOT about class warfare. It is pure and simply the growth of modern- day feudalism. It is also a kind of fascism which attempts to be the prime director as to who is allowed to have the keys to the vault of wealth, privilege, power and identity.
Capitalism or Corporatism?
Political economists tell us: "Capitalism is not a system biased toward any group of people, but emphasizes a level playing field for all to progress in. In contrast, corporatism gives political power to a group of people. Corporations can manipulate the system to obtain results which are not in sync with the free market."
If the programs and ideas of the collectivist left and the corporate groups go into effect, it will mean the demise of our national identity, as well as what is left of our floundering constitutional republic. As it is, we are to be transformed into citizens of the world, where others will centrally plan our lives.
Of course, in that New World the individual is merely part of a particular demographic group in which the individual has no power, but rather the group has the power. It is perfect form for the unelected bureaucratic state. It fits in with the thinking and analysis of Robert Locke in his recent series on "What Is Corporatism in America."
Locke explains: "What makes corporatism so politically irresistible is that it is attractive not just to the mass electorate, but to the economic elite as well."
In his latest essay, "Corporatism and the '90s Bubble," Locke identifies many aspects of the emerging confederation of elites – particularly, how they impacted American society and economics in the '90s under Bill Clinton and Alan Greenspan.
Locke maintains: "But during the past bubble, wage inflation was suppressed by mass immigration. Importation of foreign workers to the United States doubled in the 1990s, and during the mania, the technology industry succeeded in adding another 100,000 foreigners per year by expanding the H-1B program. Instead of worrying about how to end the bubble, Alan Greenspan focused on using even more immigration to keep wages down and prolong it. … Greenspan said, 'Aggregate demand is putting significant pressures on an ever-decreasing available supply of unemployed labor. The one obvious means that one can use to offset that is expanding the number of people we allow in. Reviewing our immigration laws in the context of the economy which we will be employing in the decade ahead is clearly on the table.' "
We allowed our economic central planners to fiddle with the free market, and because of that we have the economic mess we are in. The average person should remember something important before they look to these central planners to CURE a single thing ever again.
As Locke reports: "Another alarm that was cut was wage inflation. In the long term, wage inflation equals raises for American workers, a self-evidently good thing. In the short term, wage inflation acts as a self-correcting mechanism to stop bubbles: as workers become too expensive, companies stop hiring. It also serves as a signal to the Federal Reserve that the economy is growing too fast, i.e. unsustainably fast and fast enough to bring on an eventual crash."
As for the current failure of the free market, Locke adds, "the free market has been corrupted by corporatism. The boom became the ultimate entitlement and the stock market the ultimate means for the delivery of government largesse to the middle class, the upper middle class, and the wealthy."
I can't recommend this article highly enough, as it cuts through the garbage and gets to the gold. I suggest you read the entire Locke article as well as his "What Is American Corporatism?" They are both brilliant and may be found at www.frontpagemag.com or www.vdare.com in Locke's archives.
Also must-reads are John Fonte's essays on Gramsci and de Tocqueville in America and "The Ideological War within the West."
Next time: Part III, Corporate Collective Feudalism.
Footnote
1. United States Congress. Senate. Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Military Affairs. Scientific and Technical Mobilization (78th Congress, 1st session, S. 702), Part 16 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1944), p. 939. Hereafter cited as Scientific and Technical Mobilization.
It's true that the transational progressives (referred to as tranzis in some of the blogs) have their roots in socialism. But they have refined some of the axioms. In particular, they preach that the essence of who you are is determined by the group you were born into. They use these tribal and racial groupings to stir up trouble, which of course only they (the self-appointed brilliant elites) believe themselves capable of resolving.
This philosophy does a lot a of things that they like. It dismisses the very idea of individualism (except for those self-same elites), and gives tools like political correctness to intimidate opponents into silence. But you're right, their goals are essentially the same as the socialists - complete domination of society "for the good of everyone", and that can only be done with powerful central government, run by themselves of course.
Not only is this gutless; it is plain stupid.
The governance of the UN is far less democratic than is that of the U.S. Congress, Senate and all. That's why the Democratic Party loves it so . . .
Now that they're on top of the mountain, they don't want anyone else to climb it.
Under a Republic, freedom as well as goods flow....
Marxist Antonio Gramsci and Hillary Clinton and The Third Way
Under the Third Way, nothing flows but slave labor, taxes and poverty.
”DT is a psychosocial manipulative mechanism used on groups of individuals to create a "consensus." However, it is always a consensus at the expense of the individual, freedom and the nation-state.”....DT is Jessie Jackson’s favorite way to conduct business, it has another name, EXTORTION. Many have been returned to the serfdoms that were deemed untenable by our brave ancestors who opened the New World for us. However the King’s ever-growing army known as the Bureaucratic Army and his warlords who make up the various positions like the EPA, The United Nations, the USFA, FEMA, to start with, now go here to see just one part of the Bureaucratic Army that has taken over the Republic as we once knew it
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/alpha
...and here for another peek at this monster we call government:
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/gov/tree
The robber Baron’s of old are some of the same families of today with a few new ones still trying to do what won’t work. We aren’t different races and colors for nothing; what a boring world it would be with only one animal, one race, one color, one bird, one tree, one flower, one fish etc. all the same. Yet these meddlesome nuts with money are attempting to take away my freedoms and my Republic to assuage some tortured belief “life will be better”. They, through greed, will never learn. But I on the other hand, have learned that the Democratic and Al Gore view of “No Controlling Legal Authority” will stand me in good stead with the coming "globalism" of the progressive left...I will pay it no mind, no mind at all. With luck and hard work, I will be able to keep my freedom and my Republic!
Some people call them "progressives". Other's call them "compassionate conservatives". I just call them "Corporate Commies".
Steven C. Rockefeller is Professor Emeritus of Religion at Middlebury College, Vermont. He received his Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and his Ph.D. in the philosophy of religion from Columbia University. Professor Rockefeller is the author of John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism (Columbia, 1991) and the co-editor of Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment is a Religious Issue (Beacon, 1992).
Active in the field of philanthropy, he is chairman of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. He serves as a trustee of the Asian Cultural Council and as a member of the Council of the UN University for Peace in Costa Rica. From 1997 to 2000 he chaired the international Earth Charter drafting committee, and he is a member of the Earth Charter Commission.
Professor Rockefeller is a founder, trustee, and former president of the Wendell Gilley Museum in Southwest Harbor, Maine, which focuses primarily on art inspired by bird life and other flora and fauna. He is a founder and president of the Demeter Fund, which promotes environmental conservation in Vermont and recently established a new park overlooking Lake Champlain and the Adirondack Mountains.
Here in NY, the Rockefellers are every where. In NY, specifically, there are two groups that are purely land grabbing groups and they are both funded by the Rockefellers. The first one is called OSI which is short for Open Space Institute and Scenic Hudson. Around where I live, and work, land is being scoffed away by these two groups, once what was private land, and then it is given to the State Parks and property taxes are then increased each year to force other land owners out of their privately owned land. It is scary if you think about it and most people have know idea that it is happening.
Well put. One can spend a lifetime trying to prove a conspiracy, and get nowhere.
The conditions that breed collusions, by contrast, one can point to quite quickly and clearly.
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