Guest Post: The Grand Narrative: Legitimize The Authoritarian State

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

As the status quo crumbles, the state responds in the only way it knows: expand control and become increasingly authoritarian.

The Grand Narrative of the 21st century is the legitimization of the authoritarian state. The authoritarian state comes in many ideological flavors, but retains the commonalities of central control. It may label the system it controls communist, socialist or capitalist, but these distinctions are semantic: the authoritarian state controls the system, by one means or another.

Regardless of which version of the 9/11 story you believe or disbelieve, the reality is the same: the U.S. is engaged in an Orwellian global war without end, a war that doesn't just justify monitoring every communication on the planet but actively requires monitoring every communication on the the planet.

The Federal Reserve has extended its control of the U.S. economy, transforming it into a wealth-skimming machine for the top 1/10th of 1% with access to the Fed's credit creation. The Fed claims independence from the U.S. government, but this is also merely semantics: the Fed and U.S. Treasury are simply two facets of the authoritarian state.

We see the same narrative playing out around the world. In socialist France, the central state is extending its control over what little of the economy is still quasi-private; in nominally communist China, any weakening of the economy that can't be papered over with bogus statistics is soon followed by nationalist propaganda hyping one red-button issue or another (Senkaku Islands, etc.) to distract the populace from the increasingly fragile "recovery" in China's asset-bubble-dependent economy.

As the status quo crumbles, the state responds in the only way it knows: expand control and become increasingly authoritarian. This is of course a key dynamic in why things are falling apart: increasing central control only further distorts the mechanisms in the economy that seek equilibrium by self-correcting means.

Why is the authoritarian state illegitimate? Among the many reasons, we can start with three: the authoritarian state is the enemy, always and in all places, of individual liberty and free expression/the free press, and the authoritarian state is intrinsically a failed state, for the mechanisms of centralization and authoritarian control are ontologically destabilizing, regardless of the ideological flavor of the system the state controls.

Comments

[smacker]

"It may label the system it controls communist, socialist or capitalist, but these distinctions are semantic: the authoritarian state controls the system..."

Nice piece which confirms what I've always said. There's very little difference between ideological flavors of authoritarian government (which quickly becomes totalitarian and destructive). Whether it be commie, softer socialist, fascist or whatever, they are all ultimately totalitarian on the far-left of the political spectrum and are the enemy of personal freedom and liberty.

[Polymarkos]

In my long term view. I see this as a reaction to the coming disruption of the digital revolution, collapsing the old order. The old order is sensing this, like a blind thing, and it is reacting by trying to do what it always does: grab more power, more control. Soon, the machinery will move beyond control by the likes of Google, beyond what the gubbamints can lock down at will, beyond what can be policed. The power grab is manifesting itself as the Google-Microsuck-Facebook spyring, as the desperate concentration of the banksters in the central banks, in the ham handed and idiotic police/anti-"terror" apparatus.

All of that is obsolete now, useless. The greatest Change is coming since the Agrarian Revolution took us out of millions of years as hunter/gattherer savages. The foundation blocks of the Old Order have turned to sand all at once, and no one knows what to do or how to behave. Patterns of culture built on 12000-15000 years of Agrarian society cycles are now obsolete, the old Industrial Revolution patterns just don't quite fit any more. Everyone is a bit frightened, uncertain.

This momentary vogue of totalitarianism is just the last gasps of the Industrial Revolution patterns. In under a century, the Change will have tossed them in the trash. Shorter term, in the time spans that matter to a human bean alive right now...well, one COULD wind up spending the rest of one's life span under such a totalitarian regime with all the extra potent UberNAZI trappings the digital tech will enable.

I say we fight. That's a rock solid old-pattern solution! They want to play the old games instead of letting go and leaping toward the new, then I say we give 'em a real gutful of the ugliest of the old ways. After all, that's what they're planning for us.

[kurt]

"You're Gonna Know When the Bullet Hits the Bone"

Too bad you didn't act now against authoritarian rule: THIS is the before-time!