We can pretend a remarkably over-leveraged, delicate status quo is rock-solid and will provide the goodies regardless of anything short of an alien intrusion or meteor-strike, but pretending will only take us up until now.
I feel that changing the channels of “news”, “analysis” and “viewpoint” doesn’t customize the narrow band of what’s being used. The bullish views are more or less all the very same, and the periodic bearish counterpoint is similarly dull. I keep changing channels however the program does not differ.
This homogenization of viewpoint and analysis is so ubiquitous that it’s challenging to discern. That’s the point, naturally; to present thoroughly pruned and curated “views” and “analysis” that stick to the same tired narratives of propaganda: the flavor changes and the talking heads/ stars modification, but the product remains the exact same: homogenized.
Like tooth paste, the virtually identical media product is packaged into apparently competing “brands” to “distinguish” and “offer consumers more choices” to purchase the same highly lucrative product, engagement, i.e. dependency and derangement.
Fellow independent Mark St. Cyr and I discuss this homogenization and the forgotten worth of experience in our current podcast. The “marketplace” of concepts has actually been corporatized, i.e. minimized to a simulacrum/ facsimile of competitors, as the media and Huge Tech have actually assembled quasi-monopolies of business cartels: a handful of worldwide, politically effective corporations control the whole media: the “news,” social media, etc.
The central state takes a keen interest in the power to control the “competing” stories produced by this business monopoly homogenization. Let’s not call it censorship– such an ugly word. Let’s call it “joy,” a much more palatable and marketable motto.
This homogenization serves to deliver the right mix of “joy”: a little bit of variation, colorizing the usual black-and-white story (Us vs Them), blend in a little bit of spice (the current conspiracy theory debunked), feature the car wrecks and riots, and after that the ending wrap-up of pups, kittycats and kids.
When once again I’m reminded of this Houellebecq quote:
“I have the impression of being caught up in a network of made complex, minute, silly rules, and I feel of being herded towards an uniform sort of joy, towards a sort of joy that does not truly make me delighted.”
What’s been decreased the value of isn’t just really independent thinking– real-world experience has actually likewise been devalued. Mark and I both began earning a living with hands-on abilities– what was when known as “sincere work” that created worth you could really touch and see.
In the rush to globalize, stripmine labor and rush inadequately trained workers into the meat mill– oops, I indicate “efficient manpower”– the kind of experience required to really understand how systems work and fix just about anything that goes awry has rotted. By specializing, segmenting and siloing jobs and skills into narrow bands of know-how, we have actually lost the kind of experiential knowledge that was as soon as taken for approved.
This depth of experience can’t be rushed, packaged or commoditized. It needs to be earned and learned the tough way, by making numerous mistakes in the real world, gaining from mentors and continuously advancing and practicing one’s skills. This level of experience is developed on the structure of pride in one’s work and the worth one creates every day.
We also discuss the value of the old decentralized, intermediary, family-owned biz design that was squashed by global corporate giants. As Mark notes, there used to be a phrase for the wholesaler/ dealership intermediary layer in the economy–“I have this person, I understand this person”– for someone who really understood the field and might get the required parts and materials and might direct the small company owners to whatever fix-it was required.
This layer of the economy has actually been decimated as it was considered “inefficient” compared to vertically organized corporations. Great, but this effectiveness generates a second-order impact– severe vulnerability and fragility as soon as the specialized layers collapse and the system needs individuals who actually understand more than their corporate slot.
Could family-owned business served by localized wholesalers/ jobbers really end up being more efficient than globalized, super-efficient corporations? When the cracks begin opening in globalization and a workforce homogenized into specialization, the hyper-efficient globalized model of operating breaks down. This is presently considered “difficult,” for anybody pointing out the inherent fragilities of this maximizing-profit cartel-corporate system is, ahem, marginalized as an “dissatisfied” and for that reason rapidly deleted/ demonetized impact.
We likewise discuss the value of thinking and acting in an entrepreneurial mindset of costs, advantages, threats, competitors and continuous learning/ adaptation. This is the point of my book Get a Job, Develop a Real Profession and Defy a Bewildering Economy: even if we’re an employee, we benefit from thinking about our career and income in an entrepreneurial context, the core of which is creating worth not simply with our own work but by teaming up productively with others of the very same frame of mind.
Taking control of one’s work and life is the heart of Self-Reliance. We can call this agency or entrepreneurial, the point is the very same: stop purchasing into a system that no longer benefits you and begin decreasing your direct exposure to its intrinsic risks.
We likewise echo management master Peter Drucker’s insight that business don’t have revenues, they only have expenses. Fixed costs specify the risk structure of enterprises and households alike; costs of production constrain what’s possible and what’s sustainable. What’s not sustainable will disappear, despite what we’re told is “impossible.”
It won’t just be components that are on back-order: entire way of lives will run out stock. We can pretend an insanely over-leveraged, fragile status quo is rock-solid and will deliver the goodies no matter anything except an alien invasion or meteor-strike, but pretending will only take us so far.
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