Corporate Aristocracy

Monopolies, oligarchies, collusion, racketeering, conspiracies, technocrats, and thievery, to name a few...

We live in a Corporate Aristocracy.

Or, as they often like to call it a Technocracy.

This is NOT a Capitalistic society.

We DO NOT have a free market.

It is carefully curated and controlled well beyond our capacity to engage in commerce freely. Some are afforded privileges and access to materials that others are not — requiring licenses to do and obtain things that are often unreasonably regulated to the sole financial benefit of a few.

You may have land. You may have coal on your land. Yet, you are not allowed to mine or sell that coal. That is not Capitalism.

It’s prohibition of all competition.

Capitalism has not been a feature of the United States, nor the wider Western world, since 1913 when a non-federal agency with no reserves took over our bankruptcy procedure under the guise of ever allowing us to be free of the ball-and-chain that is Usury.

This may seem like a bygone concept, but the fact that you must PAY someone for the permission to WORK is patently dystopian.

Income tax is dystopian.

It doesn’t matter what percent cut they take out, the fact they can take any cut out of your labor means they full-well have the means to bring it to 100% if they thought they could get away with it. Everything else is just pretense.

Aside from that, it’s just bad economics.

The very concept of money, legal tender overseen by a governing body, is undermined when taxes are applied to the ability of the people to access that legal tender. Money should only be taxed when an exchange in goods occurs, to compensate the structures in place who maintain the order necessary to facilitate free trade.

Labor facilitates trade, so going after the real value of labor can only hurt trade.

When you tax the acquisition of those goods, specifically the labor involved, then you are actively disincentivizing and prohibiting the production of ALL goods. It’s intentionally crippling the economy when you attack the labor with undue taxes. It indirectly raises the price of everything by injecting an artificial scarcity into the labor market. If you are in any way punished for working then less work will be done, thereby creating a labor scarcity.

This is only offset by the fact that the working class now has to work more to supplement the people who refuse to work under those terms, thereby appearing as a labor surplus. Add to this the campaign to trick women into working and paying taxes and you have a sufficient rat race to keep people too busy to notice they are being screwed over.

But, I digress…

This discussion is more about value.

In order for the money to have value, it must first become a recognized commodity among the population. If it cannot become a commodity, if people are penalized in their efforts to acquire it, then it cannot feasibly maintain its value. Money only has value if it maintains a steady flow. Money locked away in a vault, hidden away from the economy, has diminishing value because it might as well not exist.

Furthermore, if a percentage of every dollar earned and every dollar spent is taxed, then the candle burns at both ends. You are devaluing the dollar while also devaluing the labor to acquire it.

In brief, the best way to shoot the economy in the foot is to penalize people for the work they do. Charging people to work is a backwards strategy that undermines your nation’s solvency. The only reason you would do such a thing is if you sought to destroy a nation from within very, very slowly.

Such is the intent of any organization that exists outside the loyalties of any nation in favor of its own selfish interests. Such is the nature of a Corporate Aristocracy.

Capitalism

Let’s define Capitalism in its most fundamental manifestations.

You are a cave man. You live in the forest. You have access to vines. There are more vines in your forest than you could ever possibly use for your own tools.

You meet a cave man from the desert. He has access to obsidian. There is more obsidian in his forest than he could ever possibly use for his own tools.

Desert caveman needs vines, because his desert has none. Your forest does have vines, but it does not have obsidian.

Both of you have three forms of Capital. One, is your body and its ability to produce labor. Two, is the land you live on, the shelter you have established there, and your access to it. Three, is your land’s resources that are not readily available in other lands.

These things have value because other people want of them. People need vines and obsidian. Seldom few people have both because they are often biome specific resources.

You don’t find coal in the ocean just as you don’t find fish in a coal mine.

These forms of Capital have various degrees of usability, based primarily on one’s ability to exchange them. If something is easier to exchange, then it is considered a “liquid” asset. For a caveman, vines and obsidian are liquid assets, respective to each caveman and their habitat.

The forest caveman trades the desert caveman his vines in exchange for obsidian.

Now, desert caveman has a stack of vine bundles in his cave. Forest caveman has a pile of obsidian in his cave.

Enter, island caveman.

Island caveman has little obsidian and little vines on his island. What island caveman does have, however, is fish. Island caveman needs obsidian and vines to make spears and nets to get fish. Desert caveman and forest caveman would really like island caveman’s fish.

Island caveman is next to desert caveman who is next to forest caveman. Island caveman is too far from forest caveman to get his vines. Island caveman needs vines to build a raft to get desert caveman’s obsidian over to his island.

This is a logistics problem:

• Forest caveman wants fish more than obsidian and way more than vines.

• Desert caveman wants fish and vines equally as much over obsidian.

• Island caveman wants vines more than obsidian and way more than fish.

The solution is setting up a supply chain.

First, island caveman must rely upon desert caveman to trade vines for obsidian. Then, desert caveman must be willing to trade a portion of his stockpile of vines for fish. Obviously, this would take more fish to acquire the vines than if island man traded with forest man directly, but they are too far apart to make that trade consistently. Desert caveman is the intermediary. He’s very fortunate, as well, because the arid desert preserves the fish and vines sufficiently for their storage.

Desert caveman sees to it that fish flows to forest caveman and vines and obsidian flow to island caveman.

The result is that desert caveman becomes a very important node in this economic supply chain. He becomes quite wealthy in fish, vines, and obsidian.

Island caveman is the worst off because he needs more resources and also must expend more labor in pursuit of what he needs, crossing the ocean on a raft.

Forest caveman is not too bad off, but still is the least nourished of the three because the cost to him to acquire fish is very high. Still though, the forest provides for him nuts and berries, and so he will not starve if he cannot acquire fish.

This is Capitalism. Without the involvement of money.

People with assets, leveraging those assets, and adhering to the natural order. Some will come out with more wealth simply due to circumstance. Some will exert more labor than others to acquire the same ends. Some may feel jealous, but without the labor of all three and the agreement to trade, none may receive all the commodities that they would like to have. They can always return to how things used to be, before trade, but they will not be better off. They would be cavemen, doing cavemen things, and without the cooperation of their own kind find themselves far more vulnerable to the elements than is necessary.

Now, inject currency.

Currency

Desert caveman is upset that he has to stockpile so much fish, obsidian, and vines at his place. Not only that, but he has to deal with the calculations of how many fish is worth how many vines is worth how much obsidian.

“There has to be a better way!”

So, desert caveman goes to a far-off shore in his lands and starts collecting red seashells. Island caveman doesn’t have immediate access to these same seashells. Desert caveman collects enough red seashells so that one seashell = 100 obsidian stones suitable for making spearheads or knives.

Seashells, then, form the currency and are backed by desert caveman’s evaluation of obsidian. Obsidian is necessary for cutting implements which both island caveman and forest caveman need to cut vines and hunt fish.

He asks forest caveman and island caveman to meet him at his desert cave and splits the shells between them three ways. He says, if they want obsidian it will be 100 stones for 1 seashell. Likewise, they apply their previous trading evaluations and vines come out to 200 arm-length cuttings of vines per 1 seashell and 50 fish to one seashell.

Therefore, 200 vines = 100 obsidian = 50 fish = 1 seashell.

They all then put a mark on all the seashells in circulation.

Desert caveman agrees that he will no longer collect more shells and every year or two they will come together and count the seashells to make sure there is always the same, steady amount such that the value of all the assets don’t fluctuate with anything other than the season, as vines and fish wax and wane in availability.

This further advises the need to base the seashell on the value of obsidian. Desert caveman, forest caveman, and island caveman all know that the supply of obsidian desert caveman is capable of harvesting is steady. They can see his streams and quarries and can reasonably estimate how much is there in reserve.

They spit and shake hands, give a few grunts, and go back to their respective caves.

As long as they agree on the conversion rates, and are considerate to the change in the seasons’ blessings, now they can trade seashells instead of the cavemen having to break their backs storing and moving rocks, vines, and fish around all the time. Trade is easier because a caveman can bring his shells and not a cart of rocks, vines, or fish to acquire what he wants — without fear that he miscalculated how many of the heavy objects he needed to get the supplies he requires. The concept of deferred value, of locking labor into a symbolic gesture, is founded.

A currency born.

Desert caveman is its appointed treasurer, not only because he lives centrally but because he has the most to lose if trade breaks down. The desert is not merciful, after all…

The three of them form a regular Congress and determine the value and whether or not more seashells must be acquired to replace those lost to misfortune or age.

So long as everyone is honest, the system works well.

Dishonesty

Island caveman is not happy. He’s doing more work than the other two because his capital — his fish key resource, land, and stockpile of seashells is not as well off as forest caveman and desert caveman.

Fish spoils. He must haul heavy rocks and windswept vines over dangerous seas. Despite the other two relying on his supply of fish, especially desert caveman, he can’t seem to acquire enough seashells to live comfortably. Transit has a lot to do with it.

He can’t abandon the island to go live with desert caveman or forest caveman, however, because then he’d lose out on his valuable capital asset in fish.

“It’s just not fair!”

Island caveman then sets out and gathers as many red seashells as he can find. He does his best to replicate the markings they had put on them, and then mixes them in to his regular stockpile of seashells. This, obviously, devalues the seashell, such that 1000 obsidian would realistically be worth 11 seashells. So long as he gradually added seashells, and no one noticed, island caveman could reap the benefits.

Meanwhile…

Desert caveman is disgruntled. It’s taking him longer and longer to go out and gather obsidian. Having exhausted all that is close to him, he has to journey beyond comfort to acquire more. Inexhaustible, though it may be, the conversion of seashell to the obsidian is no longer breaking even in regards to the labor he is willing to expend.

Because of this, he plans to alter the conversion rate. Now, it’s 75 obsidian to every 1 seashell, down from 100/1. The value of the seashell effectively decreases due to scarcity of the obsidian. Likewise, the value of fish and vines also shift such that more is required to acquire the same volume of obsidian through the seashell currency.

Island caveman and forest caveman agree to the changes, upset but understanding in the reality of the scarcity.

Time goes on…

Desert caveman starts to notice that even after his changes to the value of the obsidian, island caveman is still managing to carry on like he always had been. Desert caveman finds this a bit suspicious, and with the bi-yearly audit coming up, he looks around and counts up all the obsidian, vines, fish, and seashells to make sure he didn’t make any mistakes. That’s when he noticed some seashells were not his handiwork. They were counterfeit.

Knowing forest caveman lacked the aptitude and proximity to acquire the red seashells, he deduced that island caveman was at fault. Island caveman had broken the agreement. He was defrauding the other two.

Desert caveman then confronts island caveman over his schemes, and island caveman spills the beans. He reveals that for every 10 seashells he spent he inserted 1 fake. As time went one, it compounded, and now there were enough seashells in circulation to split them nearly four ways at the same quantity than was first agreed upon.

Fortunately, since they had regular audits of the currency, the damage was reversible. Unless…

Unless desert caveman and island caveman came to an agreement. Since forest caveman can survive without fish, as his forest can sate his hunger, why should they correct the currency? Obsidian isn’t going to get any closer to desert caveman’s cave, and island caveman reasons he should be compensated for his labor in transit of fish and the supplies needed to acquire them anyways…

“Sure, the seashells will continue to devalue… but we can just harvest some more to keep up with that devaluation, right?”

As long as seashells can float on the value of last season’s obsidian evaluation, which is set by desert caveman, then forest caveman, at the very least, will not notice any significant shift. Prices will go up, sure, but it’s far easier for forest caveman to harvest vines than it is for desert caveman and island caveman to harvest obsidian and fish respectively… They can excuse the scarcity in order to adjust the value of seashells and hide the discrepancies.

Yeah… Yeah! Let’s do it!

So, desert caveman and island caveman agree to continue injecting seashells into the economy while stifling the flow of obsidian every audit to make sure it seems things are stable, even though they might fluctuate wildly, and exponentially, between audits.

They merged their interests such that now they were playing forest caveman as a fool. The counterfeit currency became real currency. It was all “legitimate.” Who was forest caveman to complain about how little value his vines now garnered as compared to yesteryears?

They could just blame “climate change” and scarcity, right?

The state of forest caveman’s capital — his labor, assets, and land were devalued alongside the seashell. The other two, having collaborated against him, now saw to it that he needed to work harder just to acquire the obsidian and fish that once upon a time flowed freely.

Company Store

Seashells were now 75 obsidian to 1 seashell, as well as there being 1.1 times as many seashells in circulation, unbeknownst to forest caveman.

Effectively, where once it was a flat 100/1 ratio of obsidian to seashells, it now was roughly a 68.18/1 ratio of obsidian to seashells, and dipping lower. The problem with that is that forest caveman still operated on a 75/1 ratio, as the counterfeiting of new money was not on his periphery.

Eventually, obsidian and fish grew so greatly in cost that forest caveman came to desert caveman and begged him to let him go and harvest some of the obsidian so that he could make knives to harvest more vines. His margins were getting thinner and thinner…

Desert caveman agreed to this for a time, but noticed that he stood to gain more if he first asked forest caveman to sell him the obsidian he harvested off his lands and then sold it back to him for a markup. It was his land, his capital, so why shouldn’t he gain profit off the capital afforded to him?

Time went on…

Eventually, forest caveman was harvesting all the vines and a good portion of all the obsidian. He’d go to desert caveman and exchange both for seashells. He’d then take the seashells and purchase fish and obsidian from desert caveman, who became the sole merchant for all three goods.

Island caveman set the prices in harvesting the seashells while desert caveman determined the value of forest caveman’s labors.

Yet, the spoils of forest caveman’s labors were not enough for their joined interests.

Desert caveman, himself, sought a future where he could sit on his land and have forest caveman and island caveman perform all the labor while the seashells came rolling in.

That future required one last step…

Taxes

For every five seashells exchanged on his land, desert caveman demanded a seashell be paid to him personally for facilitating the transfer.

He argued that because of his role as treasurer, and the value of his land which held upon it the total reserves of obsidian, he was to be compensated for his efforts to help maintain the welfare of the three parties. After all, without him acting as intermediary the luxury provided by trade could not possibly have gotten this far.

He felt he was due some degree of recognition, if not a stipend, for his secretarial labors.

And, so, both island caveman and forest caveman had to pay to use his “services.” At first, it didn’t matter to island caveman because he could just go grab some more seashells.

Yet, this too was not good enough…

Eventually, island caveman spent more time harvesting seashells than fish, which spiked up the cost of fish due to scarcity. He maintained profitability merely by controlling the supply and demand of both.

Meanwhile, forest caveman found he could no longer afford nearly as much as when they first came to these arrangements. He even pondered if it were better off just to isolate himself in the forest and forget about the other two.

Yet, he needed the obsidian and preferred fish over nuts and berries.

With obsidian growing more and more scarce as time went on…

And with desert caveman having sole access to a dwindling supply of nearby obsidian…

And the fact fish offered more nutrients, thus translating to more labor…

And the fear that island caveman and desert caveman might attack him if he stopped providing them a steady supply of vines and even obsidian he had been harvesting…

He kept his head down and continued to do as was now necessary… Hoping that one day they’d run out of seashells to find…

Corporatocracy

What I have described is the birth of a Corporatocracy.

It’s what happens when we leave Capitalism and descend into the madness of over-leveraged assets.

Market bubbles and the Boom and Bust.

Artificial resource droughts, scarcities, and financial windfalls.

Add to it Socialistic tendencies to use that misappropriated energy towards supplementing things that actively harm the economy, and you have a recipe for disaster.

The clock to doomsday starts ticking.

Inflation with the creation of more money…

Controlled scarcity feeding a collusive greed between two in opposition of the one.

Punishing a man for his labors. Charging a man for his right to work. Taking advantage of habits formed out of convenience and desperation.

The establishment of “Powers that Be” and the gradual descent into madness…

Inflated egos, pomp, and circumstance.

Propaganda pushes to reinforce predatory business tactics.

A rejection of reality.

The reality that Injustice does not require bloodshed, only desperation.

Only Fear.

Once that Corporate entity, the collusive elements of trade, bind together to form the Monopoly at the expense of those who wish only to return to the way things were; where once the playing field was even and there were no schemes nor dishonesty about the value of things, that’s when the notion of Royalty came into play.

When people believe themselves “Too Big To Fail” and thus are somehow ordained with a higher authority to parasitize off the labor of others. When they position themselves as necessary for trade while holding the rest of commerce hostage. That is when you get a class of “Nobility.” That’s when you have yourself an Aristocracy.

We live now in one such Aristocracy.

Monopolies, disguising themselves through numerous shell alliances, have taken hold over our once just and fair caveman world. The desert cavemen of the world, who rely on their sole resource on their barren land, have overleveraged that asset, that capital, to hold all others hostage to their whims.

They threaten not to steal your land, though they do covet it, but instead seek to acquire your labor, which will simply go on to afford them your land. Their end-game is to have you work for them in exchange for less than your labor’s true worth. They do this by using Money Magic to convince you that your labor is worth less than their proposed compensation, and therefore rob you of your efforts; rob you of your valuable time.

It doesn’t matter how you slice the pie — when one group is in charge of all economic decisions, your life and the lives of all those around you will invariable turn to shit.

When multiple of these entities exist, these oligarchies…

When they band together to form an Us vs Them mentality; a Predator and Prey mentality and treating us as Sheep to be slaughtered…

When they grant themselves titles, accolades, and awards for “a job well done”…

When they prop themselves up as being better than you because they can afford to work less than you, with less required skill, and for more compensation…

When they belittle and demean you for doing as they say… for doing what they force you to do to survive…

When they hide behind enforcers while claiming they somehow fight for you…

That’s when you know you are a Slave.

A Slave in the Corporate Aristocracy.

The bastard child of the Government and Big Business.

Self-proclaimed nobles who capitalize off the labors of others — who blame Capitalism for the crimes of their own Corpocratic greed…

Who push Socialism, which is the allocation of your labor and the wealth it generates to feign compassion while they line their pockets with the kickbacks…

Who seek to ride Socialism and then foment calls for either Communism or Fascism as alternatives to the current economic landscape they themselves have created…

Who then place themselves in the Communist or Fascist mindset, be it Government in control of Business or, the latter, Businesses in control of Government…

Who then convince the Slaves which they have cultured to bargain away their own Rights, granted them by God…

Who then use those abandoned Rights to cudgel any resistors into submission, forcing people to turn against their own flesh and blood in appeasement to the Company Store and all the empty laurels, brownie points, virtue signaling, and gold star stickers it provides…

Who turn us against one another with the fear of being called names, often ending in “ism”, “ist”, or “phobe.”

Who then make life a living hell for all those who simply want to be left alone…

These are the antics of the “Noble” Aristocracy who, having formed a Corporate Interest against the interests of the fair and just, seek only to consume at the expense of others.

And it all starts with a smidge of dishonesty, backed by collusion.

Scamming the ignorant.

Lying to get ahead.

Until such a time where those weak and abused Slaves are so desperate for artificial recognition; so desperate for sustenance; so desperate for purpose that they sign away their souls to the Company Store.

All while chanting what they’ve been told to say…

“It is what it is.”

When small businesses work together in a loose supply chain in order to use their capital to acquire that which is not within their sole means to acquire, you have a working Capitalistic system.

When two or more of those small businesses band together to screw over any others, while leveraging their capital to hold the supply chain hostage against the will of The People, and passing legislation that favors them at the expense of a comfortable living for all…

That’s when you have a Corporate Aristocracy.

Monopolies, oligarchies, collusion, racketeering, conspiracies, technocrats, and thievery.

Call it what you will. All these fit under that umbrella term, particularly when they openly and brazenly boast about how important they are.

In short, modern Tyranny.