That said, I can't help myself when it comes to the recent three-part rant from Jim Quinn over at the Burning Platform. The last installment may be found here, and includes links to the other two parts.
Quinn spends three long, data-rich blog posts documenting how the oligarchs have stolen the middle class's wealth through a rigged game, then he finishes with recommendations on how to un-rig the game.
There are two problems here. First, his proposals for un-rigging the game do not result in the return of the middle class's wealth. The oligarchs he rails against get to keep all their ill-gotten gains to use in his idyllic vision of the "free" markets. Second, his new game is just as rigged as the current game, its just rigged differently. Indeed, the constrained liquidity he demands is even more prone to manipulation and control by the oligarchs, and is sure to hasten the spread of neofeudalism.
Basically, the problem is that Quinn didn't read his history deeply enough to find the truth he was searching for. Instead, he got enamored with Austrian School (i.e., neoliberal) economics and new-agey "Fourth Turning" nonsense and thought he had found some kind of truth. I've said it many times before: the Chicago School and the Austrian School have the same political aims (i.e., neofeudalism), their apparently opposing economic view points both achieve those aims, and they were designed as a one-two punch with the Chicago School's having the aim of stealing the middle class's wealth and the Austrian School's having the aim of keeping the ill-gotten gains. As I've also said before, the Austrian School and the libertarian movement are honey-pots to capture intellectual gadflies like Quinn and neutralize their ability to develop any choices that the power structure does not offer.
To be clear, I don't disagree with everything Quinn has to say. There's a lot of good stuff there. Heck, the data alone are with slogging through his very predictable rant.
My issue is that any proposal to solve the problems Quinn correctly sees must include fundamental reforms to both debt and money, as these are the mechanisms that have been used for millennia to enslave humanity. Any system that rests on those twin pillars will have the same fundamental flaws as the current system.
My favorite part of reading the series is the irony of Quinn's decision to quote Jesse in justifying his decision to proffer solutions developed by people like Ron Paul and other Austrian School devotees:
Sometimes when faced with problems that are confusing and troubling it is easier to think what someone tells you to think, particularly something that touches a deep and dark nerve in your nature, rather than carry the burden and ambiguity of struggling with the facts and thinking for yourself.That's deep, Jim. Did you think of it yourself? Sadly, no. And none of "your" solutions are your own, either, they're just a parroting what you've heard.
