By Andrew McKillop
1-11-14

Economic Failure Polarizes Society

The argument is that economic failure will firstly divide society, then trigger political polarization. Upstream of that, on a day when the supposed 'bellwether' Baltic Dry Index slumped by more than 30% showing that world trade is likely declining, maybe fast, we have a scarcely commented morph of the entire political system in all mature western democracies. The net result is“extreme convergence” and “permanent economic crisis” or the arrival of one size fits all. We have de facto one party states with shattered economies.

Politically, the countervailing opposite trend is to all-out extremism and single issue politics.

France is a good, that is bad example. In first week January 2014, all political debate is polarized around the subject of the “bitter comic” Dieudonne M'bala M'bala who once upon a time, several years ago dared to run an outright antisemitic gag in one of his TV shows. He was blackballed and ostracized by the media, his former comic-partner, Jewish-origin Elie Semoun disowned him, and Dieudonne went on a one-way trip to political extremes.

In fact Dieudonne is as much anti-State as antisemite. His packed-but-illegal roadshows are a good, that is bad example of political hysteria at basement level, only feeding off the general ambiance of despair, rage and bewilderment. Even the official voice of French extreme right anti-State hysteria, Marine Le Pen of the Front National ­ styled as France's very own Sarah Palin - claims to be shocked by Dieudonne.

Through 2013, mainstream media like the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times have many times carried articles from contributors who bewail the massive economic, banking, financial and regulatory errors committed in all the western market economies, before and after the 2008 crisis. The articles also note the apparent total inability of any “consitutional political party” to do anything about it. Few of these commentators however point their accusing fingers where they should ­ at outright, total and seamless political convergence and what has to come next.

Muppet Economics and Politics

The next stage is easy to forecast, shown by event like France's new political roadshow of po-faced mainstream politicians miming shock and horror at the Dieudonne crisis. The present total convergence among the main political parties in the “postindustrial liberal democracies” can only produce this typical “alternate crisis”, the Dieudonne crisis. It could only produce what happened in the recent US political debacle of the Debt Limit shutdown and debt-limit muppet economics debate.

Me Tooism totally dominates. No action is possible. Liberal “laisser faire”, it would seem, has only a few alternate modes which probably include Stalinism, Nazism or Fascism. Or possibly Buddhism, but in any case doing nothing “is the only solution”.

Convergence is the keyword. It applies in all the so-called “old/mature democracies” but at best and at most, the already rapidly aging and worn “new parties” like the US Tea Party or the UKIP in Britain, or France's National Front or its coming possible Dieudonne Party are all add-ons, which add nothing. Their potential for further polarizing politics and society is low because they stem from polarization. Their reach among the basically uninterested voting population tails off almost overnight.

The net result is we have a one-way default shift to pure and simple one-party states in the creaking “mature democracies”, unable to face a future of “too old to grow and too young to die”. The morph from their previous usual two-party systems, with two muppet parties that slugged it out at the hustings each election year, is now almost complete. The two party system is rearview mirror.

In the US the one party ruling clique are the Demorepublicans. In France they're the UMP-PS. In Germany they're the CDU-SDP. In Japan they're the LDP-DPJ. In the UK they're the New Lab-Tories.

In other western ex-democracies morphing to one party states, we already have open and clear non-party governments or “caretaker” governments, often called technocrat coalitions. Or simply nothing at all pending new elections ­ which can take years.

The 2008 Mother Crisis

Already five years on, the 2008 crisis is earning a reputation as a crisis of defective government, which did not specifically reflect any inherent basic defect in the economy.

The government was “out to lunch”, and had been that way for decades, not years. Governments had built up national debt like there was no tomorrow. The economy “ran by itself”, by laisser faire supposedly, but Oligarchic or “crony corporate” takeover had already happened. One party government could only enact “convergent liberal” policies, so the 2008 crisis had all the time it needed to happen. It could have happened sooner, or later. It can happen again but due to convergence there is No Alternative to what was probably the last-ever “Liberal economic crisis”, before one party government became permanent ­ bringing convergent no alternative economic crisis.

Political crises are finished, because there is only one party. When the crises are not financial or economic, they are social. When they are not social they are cultural and human. When they are not cultural they are existential and mass psychological. The notions of economic, social and political security are seamlessly bundled together. All of them are under attack.

In the US, during the years leading up to the 2008 panic, from the years 2003-05, the Federal Reserve led with what is now “the only possible policy”, copied by all other central banks, to hold interest rates excessively low compared with the monetary policy and strategy of the 1980s and 1990s.

The Fed's interest-rate policies drove the real estate and subprime boom, and the inevitable bust. This was however only one facet of the crisis-prone which the one party state applies. In particular, the almost complete and total “hands off regulatory process” produced a further convergence of the political elite and the Oligarchic bankster elite. As we are seeing today in a string of huge settlements between state regulatory agencies and the Bad Banks, like JP Morgan, which received huge bailouts in the 2008-10 period, their cynical and criminal rigging of a range of financial markets dates from the 1980s.

Following the 2008 crisis, convergence was shown in all the mature/old democracies by the so-called “ad hoc bailout policy” applied opaquely and everywhere to prevent the Big Banks shutting down, helping drive sovereign debt to new extreme highs.

The Demorepublic

The muppet parties “regulate and protect” the economy and society under the trappings of different and real parties, but inside the cockleshells convergence has moved so fast and so far that they have indistinguishable policies and platforms. Muppet parties only decorate the Oligarchic takeover - they exist to execute the power process of the Oligarchs. As the permanent Bad Bank regulatory circus act shows, the bankster oligarchs and their corporate allies are in full control. Some call it hubris or plain and simple arrogance, but under any analysis it is a denial of democracy and a cast iron proof that Democracy has mutated into Oligarchy.

For political economists and historians the one-way drift to “convergence” is defined as a tidal move from old majority-type governments, to new consensus-type governments. Along the way, political parties morph from trying to be different, to being the same without even needing to try.

This means there really is no remaining need for the ritual of elections where the two historic, leading, largest political parties swapped roles. Under this old ritual, one party moved into power, the other became The Loyal Opposition, and then waited its turn for 4 or 5 years to move back into power. The intermediate solution was either minority government or coalition government, but with today's total-convergence politics this farce can be suppressed. One party governments are permanent coalitions.

The real nature of power can be announced ­ we have the One Party State. The main problem is that after the Oligarchic one party state, Tyranny is the next stop. What are we going to do about it?

Surprisingly perhaps, this moral crisis drove a fierce and sometimes bloody debate in the USA ­ in the years 1776 to 1800. Exactly the same political struggle and ideological conflict applies in the “mature ex-democracies” of today, with just a few tweaks and reversals of party names, but at present is only in its larval stage.

The Demorepublicans of 1800 were sure they could get and hold power when or if there was one man-one vote. The Federalists were not interested in the vote-ritual and wanted to move straight on and up to the Big Picture. They wanted a big army, a big national bank, an automatically empowered ruling intellectual and power elite, and a military place in the world alongside then-hyperpower Great Britain ­ despite it being the USA's previous colonial master. Between members of the 1800-style global power elite that was no barrier.

Times do not change. Witness John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov snickering together in a luxury Geneva hotel, in late 2013 as the fixed up the Syrian crisis to their liking.

The USA's Demorepublicans of 2014 have seamlessly woven themselves Federalist rags, we mean Armani tailored lounge suits. 1800-style Federalist desires and demands for how the economy should be run are now exactly what Mitt Obama or Barack Romney want ­ and say they want. Shifting to Europe's one party muppet shows, the one party governments of the continent are so indistinguishable ­ politics wise ­ that they all favour a Federal Europe. They also need the European Central Bank, the same way US Demorepublicans need the Federal Reserve.

The Me Too muppet parties want gay rights and states rights and minority rights and color-coded frozen food products and safe cars, and a crusade fighting global warming, but above all they want their crony capitalist partners, and future paymasters to live and thrive. And that means financial corruption, to start with. In the USA of 1800, the Federalists basically believed in cementing-in corruption as an untouchable privilege of the power elite, calling it rule by “the rich, the well-born and the able”.

The one party state of today has a total hold on the mass media, a basic necessity as George Orwell told them long ago. Public information now means no information. Apart from straight propaganda, its role is to befuddle, to amuse and confuse.

Process Not Purpose

Political economists explain “convergence” and the rise of the one party state as the morph from politics where goals and purposes were dominant, to a simple process of owning, holding and using power. There are no more issues. Everything has been decided “upstream”. As for goals, that means values, and those are for the religious, for young and immature persons. Harry Potter politics.

Doing away with the notion of governments with goals and a purpose, and replacing that with “the executive” is one giant step towards the one party state. Among other things, it relegates the old Left ­ Right system to oblivion, where there were always at least two parties, but they resulted in clumsy horsetrading for cobbling coalitions and minority governments together. Today, the old/mature democracies have center-right, center-left and center-center parties. Only the “fringe” has New Parties screaming slogans.

The New Parties bemuse the voter mob while behind the scenes the real business rolls on, but the New Parties are objective allies of the One Party, shown by the ability of New Party politicians to shift party labels, to make overnight flits, to sincerely examine their conscience on TV or in Sunday newspapers - and then fly to join the One Party where the kickbacks are meatiest, closer to the action.

Convergence and consensus remove the previous clutter. The One Party executes the process of power. To be sure the ritual of voting in elections is maintained ­ this isn't Hitler's Germany you know ­ but the content and substance of politics is homogenized like a McDonald's burger, because there is no content, anymore. This avoids wasting time on core versus peripheral minority issues.

Homogenization, like convergence is part and parcel of the new political process. No purpose ­ only a process. No future ­ only the timeless present.

The results of this are shown by the apparently stupefying inability to decide anything, which One Party governments and their glove puppets do ­ or don't do ­ every day. No change is possible, because the Oligarchs could lose what political economists call their “rents”. That is privileges. Dividing out the rents and inventing new ones is a time-consuming and entirely secret process.

Manufacturing Public Opinion

The US Federalists of year 1800 were far ahead of their time. Led by Hamilton and Adams they were similar, or identical with year 2014 One Party leaders. They peddled the same slogan pack, and executed the same process of absolute minority rule. They served and protected the same Oligarchs, who returned the compliment.

At the time, at the very start of the 19th century, Liberal Economics already existed as their rationale for hands-off the economy, and hands-on the porkbarrel for their partners and paymasters. Early nineteenth century Liberal Economics had an already well-honed slogan pack, from well-heard and well-read sloganeers such as Francois Quesnay, Adam Smith, David Ricardo. It was also the era of all and any kind of wars, from civil and international, to colonial wars and trade wars. Even pirate wars were popping, at the time.

To be sure without Internet, but with the same total media control spinning the same cult of mass ignorance, called “public opinion”, the elite was able to run One Party government almost everywhere. In a lot of cases it had that ultimate prop for autocratic government ­ the monarchy.

Most radically in Europe, the federalists have upended and inverted the 1800-era US Federalist slogan pack. At the time, American Federalists wanted strong national government. Today, only weak governments are acceptable in Europe, because the elite wants a Federal Europe. The weaker the national government, the better.

For the US Federalists of 200 years ago, dedicated to destroying democracy and replacing it with the One Party State, public opinion was as good as any written constitution. For them, and the Oligarch-serving political muppets of today, constitutions need “loose interpretation”. The media is there to do that, to cut and fold the one-liners from the muppets, to mold public opinion into greater submission, and greater idiocy.

For one party muppet politicians and their loyal media talking heads, “The End of History” as peddled by Francis Fukuyama in the 1990s was a godsend. Unfortunately for them, his nonsense-theory was quickly trashed by well known historians, who pointed out that Fukuyama was only repackaging declinism and endism under new and shinier wraps. In his book he used the French revolution as a claimed example of the way true democracy replaces tyranny, forgetting the mass killings and the total ruin of the economic and money system the revolution brought.

Forgetting also that within at most 10 years this revolution spawned a perfect dictator, Napoleon, with a public proud plan to create an Oligarchy, while his colonial armies ran amok across Europe ­ and further afield! Napoleon also created the Bank of France and an authentic police state. The previous No Party state of the decrepit monarchy and its charmed circle of Oligarchs was replaced by a more repressive and “technocratic modern” No Party state ­ with its new Oligarchs.

We are therefore trapped inside History ­ it is certainly not dead ­ meaning the next stage can be truly historic. How this new process operates will not be signaled directly by public opinion, for reasons including the “convergence” of opinion in the old democracies. We might expect a westernised variant of Arab Spring, following another and predictable “economic crisis”, but debate and discussion on this subject is presently unsure and uncertain.