It's really not quite accurate to describe it as "slavery," but it's close enough (maybe "indentured servant" is better). And you know who I am talking about. Of course, not for all. But for enough.
There are two ways to look at these concepts: top-down command-and-control and bottom-up evolution (which originally meant "unfolding," as from within instead of directed from without). The first is the province of the State and involves attempts at planning by a minuscule group of people (whom Thomas Sowell referred to as "the Anointed") and the second is unplanned evolution through competition and the free market. The second is what creates innovation. And it for all practical purposes it involves everyone.
Wars and chaos are characteristics of the State and unplanned order is characteristic of the free market. I am in fact amazed how far humanity has come considering war appears to be the natural state of mankind with a few breathers in-between of peace and advancement.I wonder how far we would have come without all these wars and destruction?
I sometimes think we're about two thousand years behind where we should be.
Where's my flying car so I can travel to the moon on weekends? It should have been here 500 years ago. Instead I have a Chevy Lumina, on which I just changed the catalytic converter while cursing the entire time.
It comes from reading all that science fiction when I was 12. At the age I read a story by Robert Heinlein called "Waldo," in which a man flew to the moon on a spaceship not much bigger than a broomstick. I remember going "AARGH!"
Everything that is based on top-down command-and-control never works (I will again point out "libertarians" who believe in open borders believe in top-down command-and-control because it takes a ginormous federal government to overrule the states, counties, cities, neighborhoods and people).
Take education, for example. Our school system in based on the Prussian model, which Prussia adopted after being stomped by Napoleon's troops. Students were taught to be obedient little automatons, to make them good soldiers. The whole thing was top-down command-and-control and the students were supposed to be transformed into the Borg.
The whole sit-march-sit-ring-the-bell comes from Prussia. And what the hell are we doing using some model that comes from a totalitarian society?
In fact, there were Prussian mercenaries during our First War for Independence. Some who were captured wanted stay here instead of being repatriated. "Freedom! A wife! Land!"
Our whole educational system needs to be junked so we can go back to the original American model - education was done by the free market. It worked just fine then. And more money is certainly not going to fix the problems today.
Let's take the internet. It evolved on its own from the bottom up, contrary to the hallucinations of Al Gore that he helped invent it. And it's done amazing things for education and the free disemination of information. It's not a "revolution" (which are always bad) but it is a super-fast evolution.
There is a concept known as "steam engine time." When it was time for the steam engine to be invented, then it was invented. If James Watt hadn't done it, someone else would have.
It's amazing how many things were invented/discovered at the same time by several different people. Yet we are taught about the "great man" concept. Some do exist but they are vanishingly rare.
I pointed out recently the internet has caused barriers to entry to come crashing down. Many newspapers have gone out of business, and I am smiling about it. These papers were run by incompetents and could not keep up with the changes.
I know this because I worked for three newspapers and all of them are now out of business.
The same applies to politics. Before the internet - say in the last 15 years - Trump would have never stood a chance. More than anything he is a creation of the internet, and the soon-to-be¬¬¬-dead Mainstream Media is howling in agony about how everyone is ignoring them and their hatred of Trump.
Trump is an example of "steam engine" time. If not him it would be someone else like him. It's about a bunch of different factors coming together at the time.
The idea is of a vanishingly small minority trying to impose their views on citizens from the top down is on its way out.
Leviathan (the most oppressive thing that has ever existed) is in trouble and as always I am smiling. Grining, actually.
No comments:
Post a Comment