Corporatism
Power has an endless appetite for money, and money needs power to make insane sums. To make money, power must be highly coercive and centralized. In decentralized individualistic economies, power is not enough to make money and to scratch the back of cronies, who in return scratch the back of power. That is why, since Sumeria —the first known so-called civilization —the entangling alliance between power, money, and theocracy has been essential to the rule of the masters. The only difference now is that theistic religion has been replaced with Atheism.
To acquire and maintain authority, all three components together build a dogma and highly illogical rhetoric. “You must obey authority because it is a divine right”, “You must obey the authority because truth always comes from authority”, “You must obey the authority because it knows the best is the best of all”, “You must obey authority because without it no one and nothing will be safe”, You must obey authority because it will help you prosper:, “You must obey authirty because it represents you”. Nothing could be further from the truth than these highly deceptive and baseless claims.
The old paradigms of gods, demigods, pharaohs, kings, and emperors are now thoroughly demolished, especially in economically advanced societies. This same old is now replaced with new and more deceptive terminologies: Mercantilism, Fascism, Nazism, Cronyism, Socialism, and Corporatism. The purpose is still the same: to take power from individuals —the only actual reality —as opposed to these made-up terms —and centralize it in the hands of the same three components. Even the arguments usually raised are precisely the same as in the old days.
The biggest enemy of this centralized power structure is the decentralized capitalist economy. That is why every component of this power structure hates Capitalism. Politicians can never stop fixing the system that was never broken and that created the most significant and richest economies ever, the largest and most prosperous middle class, and the fastest declines in poverty rates. No other political, economic, financial, religious, social, and cultural structure and system has ever come close to the success of Capitalism.
Although some are stubborn enough to deny the success of Capitalism, in most cases the argument goes like this: “Capitalism is good but ____.” For example, “Capitalism is good but it must not be unbridled”, “Capitalism is good but it is destroying the environment”, “Capitalism is good but it is causing the concentration of money in fewer hands”, “Capitalism is good but competition in it is destroing our values”, “Capitalism is good but it is highly materialistic”, “Capitalism is good but it is causing the global warming”.
The argument against unbridled Capitalism implies that the most corrupt, the most inefficient, the most wasteful, the most crony, the most violent, and the most lying institution ever created by humans —the government —must have the authority to regulate the most successful economic system ever. What could be more stupid than this proposition? Government regulations only increase costs, raise prices, hurt competition, benefit cronies, and slow innovation and invention. The only reason they have for it is that in this way, the Socialist governments (Every government in its essence is Socialist) can become parasites on the most productive and wealthiest system ever to maintain and grow their coercive authority.
It is undeniable that advanced capitalist societies are the most environmentally sound societies ever. I mean, the level of cleanliness in these societies is unbelievable. Even today, you can observe this pronounced difference by visiting less economically advanced societies and Socialist societies. In many of these places, it is even hard to breathe. Water is not clean, food is contaminated, streets and sewer systems are a mess, and power and water supply outages are common. It is the combination of private wealth and a rich tax base in economically advanced societies that makes much cleaner environments possible.
In feudal societies before Capitalism, wealth was highly concentrated in the hands of a few. Capitalism generated a vast, wealthy middle class, making a more equitable distribution of wealth possible. Of course, then the government comes to fix what was never broken. A wide array of war-on-poverty programs, while poverty was declining anyway, and welfare systems were primarily introduced since the beginning of the last century. Trillions of dollars have been spent on these wasteful programs since then. But in the meantime, the growth rates average out to a dismal 2%, the middle class is shrinking, and poverty rates either rise or remain steady. Economic growth rates are often lower than population growth; hence, there is a never-ending unemployment problem.
Ironically, socialist gurus, media, academia, so-called thinkers and intellectuals, and politicians frequently use the word war, which is purely a political phenomenon, for competition in free markets. This is deceptive beyond imagination. War is all about destroying and murdering the perceived and politically made-up enemy, while competition is all about making yourself better to do better. All the incredible progress we have made over the last two to three hundred years is the result of competition, the profit motive, and greed. Nature has given this magical property to the natural order of Capitalism. A father or mother leaves home to take care of themselves and their family, but cannot do that without benefiting others.
Unlike the government, businesses and other providers do not have the coercive authority and monopoly on the use of force. They cannot extract wealth from people at the point of a gun and threat of violence in the name of taxation. Pay or else cannot be the way for businesses to make money. They must provide a product or service people want and need, and it must be better than their competitors’. Otherwise, no money, no profits. This is what led to the Industrial Revolution, which raised living standards faster than ever in human history and enabled most women to come out and compete with men without the brute force required before the invention of machines. It also led us to the even better digital revolution, and is now taking us into the AI and Nano revolutions.