| CHAPTER 1 |
For the past 150 or so years the central political theory, or philosophy, influencing,
even controlling, the workings of government, application of the laws, economic
theory, morality, ethics, public policy of all kinds and, in general, public discourse,
has been socialism. It has come in many variations and permutations. In short, we
have lived in the Era of the Socialist Paradigm. Indeed we are still living in it.
But we are also in a major shift in the paradigm, evident by so many things, events
and the change in the current of public policy. What is waiting is the explication of
the new paradigm, which will express itself more in terms of how it is not socialism,
and not in what it will be. This book purports to be that set of insights and theorems.
Such a book is needed; that needs to be concise, tying in so many different things
-- defining terms and making, minimally, allusion to all the different nuances of the
paradigm that dominates the world.
First, let us look at this paradigm; the politico-economic concept that predominates
in society. Each field of endeavor, e.g., the law, accounting, theater, painting,
science -- each has a point when the overall view of the field shifts, changes
irrevocably in a major way. This new way will wipe away preconceived notions --
destroy illusions, point out contradictions -- just reorder the current synopsis of what
is to be known and viewed on a subject. This process sets known information
inside a new hierarchy, placing one element before another in consideration -- and
it also reincorporates a new collection of information to be integrated. We need
insights refocusing our view of known information.
The paradigm of socialism rules the world -- in every sphere of human work or effort
socialist theory rears its head. "Socialism" itself will be explicated below, but it is a
thing we can discuss for now as one entity, whenever someone makes a judgment
on a certain subject, or set of facts he orders them according to his perceptions of
that system of analysis he/she holds. It is most likely unconscious in 90% of the
people -- these are the people who toil in some field or another. It does not matter
of what sort, even a financial instruments trader toils, just like a steel worker. The
fact that all toil, or work, is done inside the existing paradigm does not make it
either good or bad, nor make the toil any less toil, within that context. But there in no
doubt that that sort of toil is specific to the paradigm in which the toil exists. The toil
under consideration might not exist under a different paradigm -- but so long as it
exists as filling a need under the paradigm in which it exists, it is good toil.
Currently the paradigm is socialism so toil is viewed in socialist terms, that is,
Marxist analysis, or its weaker counterparts -- class differences, the Marxian
economic theory and the whole package that the word socialism raises.
Now, all this talk of this socialism theory leads to discussion of the socialist theory
as it affects not just politics, but social elements, art music, religion, poor people,
disease, life it all its permutations and particulars.
It is as this stage all these words mean nothing -- for they mean something different
to different people. The socialist theory is wrong and it thus makes people see
things in ways that they know do not mesh with the facts. The intellectuals are too
wrapped up in this medium to pay attention to the overall picture. The politician is
either too stupid to the see the sham or too venal to do anything about what he
sees. The average person intuitively grasps it but cannot totally explain it, and could
not do much about it if he could explain it all.
The very paradigm, or set of theories, commonly referred to as socialism has so
screwed our perception that any explanation is difficult to render. So many of the
words we use are loaded with information we know not to be true. But for which we
know there must be an explanation -- yet cannot satisfactorily explain -- this is both
the paradigm shift itself, and the direct result of the conflicts in socialism. Both
events approach each other from different perspectives: in one, the new order, in
the other, the build up of explanations into a contradictory whole. In many ways they
are the same conclusion reached by different means.
There is a difference in these means. In the case of the paradigm shift being a
conscious effort, such as even this book, it is a positive look into the future, done
with a purposefulness, this is the shift itself.
On the other hand, the inherent conflicts within and surrounding socialism create
reactions by people that necessarily propels a new paradigm to creation. People
smarter than the pundits and intellectuals might think. They see when the order of
things is loused up -- and they set about reordering them into a comprehensible
whole. Then the people await a leader, a politician or hero, to enact the new
paradigm as a policy of the government.
Paradigm shifts are incremental, until these incremental elements reach a critical
mass, and then the shift is complete and sudden.
So, then, where are we now? A few basic elements of the incremental stages are
set here: they happen, these tiny shifts, in organizations, among neighborhood
groups, within professional societies -- in government and financial circles. And
they happen at their own pace within different countries and cultures. Each
increment is a reaction with a context. While each shift might seem isolated in a
certain country they ultimately accrete into one larger shift globally. The realization
among voters in California that lower taxes were better is in the same league as a
Soviet manager realizing that his planning methods were absurd. Each seems
totally irrelevant to each other, and yet both lead to the conclusion that the
government system must change. The context of America led the anti-government
incremental shifts to lead to Ronald Reagan's New Federalism, the context of the
soviet Union led anti-government increment shifts to Boris Yeltsins's reforms.
Seemingly disparate events within different cultures and contexts both had one
result: lessening government involvement and control over the life of the individual.
It is this play between government and individuals that is expressed in this central
political theory -- what guides all man's efforts. It is this play between forces that is
at the center of man's philosophical core.
How are we to organize our societies? How are we to view the relevant roles that
society must play versus the roles that individuals must play.
Throughout history, one or another system of beliefs reared up. Each of these eras
lasted just a few hundred years at most, and then was swept away as those
incremental shifts build up. In human history the government has always
overshadowed the individual. It may even be possible that each of these areas is
an incremental shift that is now culminating in even a bigger shift. It seems both
possible and improbable.
Some have already spoken of the end of history. Though this end seems unlikely.
For it has always been shown that recalcitrant elements want to remain with failed
paradigms.
But so far this has all been so much philosophical meandering. The words are
loaded -- they mean different things to different people. Each person arrives at his
meaning through the contexts of the incremental shifts he has encountered. Few
share a common view on all matters. No two people coalesce all their information in
the same way, on the same time line. Towards the time of the big shift each person
is at a different point. The big shift will only occur when most of all the pieces to the
puzzle are assembled with everyone on one side. That point is fast approaching.
The socialist paradigm is collapsing as people face up to its inherent
contradictions. Every day some individual sees his own set of information coalesce
into his own shift. All the incremental stages he has gone through, one day hit him --
and he has dropped socialism. When enough people in a country shift then a
change in government occurs.
And those governmental changes are occurring wholesale around the world. And
yet the socialist paradigm survives, because only the most outward manifestations
of the systems have collapsed. The economic ideas are first to shift, coming as
structural shifts, i.e., a country sells off its state owned companies to private
interests. If everyone still maintains the view of capitalism which Marx set forth, then
the paradigm has still not really shifted, the economic structure shift was only an
incremental shift.
It is the pervasiveness of socialism which still exists in common discourse. The
incremental shifts needed philosophically, linguistically, morally, ethically, are only
now occuring. 150 - 200 years worth of thinking does not disappear overnight.
Efforts are made to shift some parts of the central theory in the face of the many
contradictions which socialism presents. But even these efforts ultimately fail. There
are also attempts to present reordering of the paradigm into a "new" paradigm.
None have succeeded thus far, because they do not alter the way concepts
underpinning the words they use.
The majority of these efforts are based on the idea that neither "capitalism" or
"socialism" works. It is proposed that the way to go is to take the "best" from both --
that a magical mixture of the two will be the new paradigm.
The problem with this theory is that the explanation of what is horrible in
"capitalism," in fact, the whole explanation, is really an explanation of a foil to the
system of socialism that Marx was setting up as an answer to the
monarchist-mercantile paradigm that socialism replaced in the 1850's. That is,
socialist theory first explains what it believes capitalism to be, then says that
socialism is not that. So what we are faced with is an explanation of a system which
never occurred or existed - which purports to explain why socialism is good, having
been created by a socialist (being Mr. Marx) now being put forth as a theory as
something that can be meshed with socialism in itself. Now that's a contradiction.
So that's where we are at today here in America and the world in the 2000's. Bill
Clinton's basic world view was to use the socialist theory of "government knows
best" to help the capitalist system that supposedly cannot function O.K. and
decently by itself. This is not the paradigm shift that is occurring. It is the incremental
shifts building up in America coalescing into a leader who says he has the third
way. George Bush on the other hand seems to have started a major push on the
politico-military front by saying that it's time to get rid of the rest of the despotic
regimes in the world. But most people are still searching for that third way. They
even call it that.
It is this third-way-belief that is allegedly the middle road of saving capitalism by
using a little socialism while at the same time allowing capitalism free reign to
temper the heavy handedness of socialism.
This is the reason behind the recent changes in Eastern Europe, in the joining of a
common market in Western Europe, and in the freeing up of the economy in so
many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The incremental shifts held
individually have accumulated into a call for a change from socialism. The
pervasiveness of socialism means these people still hold its theories of capitalism.
I.e., they are not free of socialism totally and so hesitate to "go to the other side of
the spectrum."
Some economists and theorists and politicians are calling for "capitalism with a
human face" -- much as in the late 1960's the Czechs and others called for a
"socialism with a human face" by allowing some freedoms in.
Essentially though, it is all still socialism. The system we have in America, which
has been building for most of this century is the exact thing which Marx called
"Capitalism"
The communist manifesto first created this system, "capitalism," so that it could
then rip it apart to prove that socialism was the way to go. Within the confines and
context to the 1830's through 1850's, Marx's words and theories were accepted.
Then within the confines and contexts of each individual country, socialism, or
socialism's explanation of capitalism, were instituted. By 1900 most thinkers and
people in power, i.e., politicians, thought socialistically. The very education systems
that reared these people taught socialistically.
This fast acceptance of socialism, or its foil capitalism, was because the paradigm
shift was not as complete as it is becoming now. First, Marx's explanation of
capitalism was more a recitation of the economic and social workings of a
mercantilist Britain and its landed hierarchy of royalty. Much closer to what would
more properly be called feudal. At the same time socialism itself is also a recitation
of the economic and social workings of mercantilist Britain. Marx merely put a new
set of names to the same existing system, and then gave a second set of names to
the same existing system. So one system -- the economic class structure of 1830's
Britain -- both with different names, is at the base of socialist theory.
Who then can pick a path between what is essentially the same system? It is this
conundrum that is at the heart of today's paradigm sift. All of this seeming going
around in circles in the above discussion is all to show just how intermixed and
convoluted the entire discussion has become. And this recircling has to occur
because we are all still describing the same system. At the same time knowing so
much more about this belief system, and how different leaders played with it, and
how different cultures, times, levels of economic development, the distribution of
resources across the globe, religions and a whole plethora of different
circumstance pushed and pulled and interpreted the central political theory that is
explained in the Communist Manifesto.
All the diversity of this planet has affected the belief system set forth in the
Manifesto, and this has produced the vast range of difference in the actual practice
of the Socialist Paradigm. These differences are used to further confound the shift
and play into both the continuance of the existing paradigm in retreat to what we
know, and the destruction of the existing paradigm in a rush to a new
understanding. This mass of differences will be sliced through below.
even controlling, the workings of government, application of the laws, economic
theory, morality, ethics, public policy of all kinds and, in general, public discourse,
has been socialism. It has come in many variations and permutations. In short, we
have lived in the Era of the Socialist Paradigm. Indeed we are still living in it.
But we are also in a major shift in the paradigm, evident by so many things, events
and the change in the current of public policy. What is waiting is the explication of
the new paradigm, which will express itself more in terms of how it is not socialism,
and not in what it will be. This book purports to be that set of insights and theorems.
Such a book is needed; that needs to be concise, tying in so many different things
-- defining terms and making, minimally, allusion to all the different nuances of the
paradigm that dominates the world.
First, let us look at this paradigm; the politico-economic concept that predominates
in society. Each field of endeavor, e.g., the law, accounting, theater, painting,
science -- each has a point when the overall view of the field shifts, changes
irrevocably in a major way. This new way will wipe away preconceived notions --
destroy illusions, point out contradictions -- just reorder the current synopsis of what
is to be known and viewed on a subject. This process sets known information
inside a new hierarchy, placing one element before another in consideration -- and
it also reincorporates a new collection of information to be integrated. We need
insights refocusing our view of known information.
The paradigm of socialism rules the world -- in every sphere of human work or effort
socialist theory rears its head. "Socialism" itself will be explicated below, but it is a
thing we can discuss for now as one entity, whenever someone makes a judgment
on a certain subject, or set of facts he orders them according to his perceptions of
that system of analysis he/she holds. It is most likely unconscious in 90% of the
people -- these are the people who toil in some field or another. It does not matter
of what sort, even a financial instruments trader toils, just like a steel worker. The
fact that all toil, or work, is done inside the existing paradigm does not make it
either good or bad, nor make the toil any less toil, within that context. But there in no
doubt that that sort of toil is specific to the paradigm in which the toil exists. The toil
under consideration might not exist under a different paradigm -- but so long as it
exists as filling a need under the paradigm in which it exists, it is good toil.
Currently the paradigm is socialism so toil is viewed in socialist terms, that is,
Marxist analysis, or its weaker counterparts -- class differences, the Marxian
economic theory and the whole package that the word socialism raises.
Now, all this talk of this socialism theory leads to discussion of the socialist theory
as it affects not just politics, but social elements, art music, religion, poor people,
disease, life it all its permutations and particulars.
It is as this stage all these words mean nothing -- for they mean something different
to different people. The socialist theory is wrong and it thus makes people see
things in ways that they know do not mesh with the facts. The intellectuals are too
wrapped up in this medium to pay attention to the overall picture. The politician is
either too stupid to the see the sham or too venal to do anything about what he
sees. The average person intuitively grasps it but cannot totally explain it, and could
not do much about it if he could explain it all.
The very paradigm, or set of theories, commonly referred to as socialism has so
screwed our perception that any explanation is difficult to render. So many of the
words we use are loaded with information we know not to be true. But for which we
know there must be an explanation -- yet cannot satisfactorily explain -- this is both
the paradigm shift itself, and the direct result of the conflicts in socialism. Both
events approach each other from different perspectives: in one, the new order, in
the other, the build up of explanations into a contradictory whole. In many ways they
are the same conclusion reached by different means.
There is a difference in these means. In the case of the paradigm shift being a
conscious effort, such as even this book, it is a positive look into the future, done
with a purposefulness, this is the shift itself.
On the other hand, the inherent conflicts within and surrounding socialism create
reactions by people that necessarily propels a new paradigm to creation. People
smarter than the pundits and intellectuals might think. They see when the order of
things is loused up -- and they set about reordering them into a comprehensible
whole. Then the people await a leader, a politician or hero, to enact the new
paradigm as a policy of the government.
Paradigm shifts are incremental, until these incremental elements reach a critical
mass, and then the shift is complete and sudden.
So, then, where are we now? A few basic elements of the incremental stages are
set here: they happen, these tiny shifts, in organizations, among neighborhood
groups, within professional societies -- in government and financial circles. And
they happen at their own pace within different countries and cultures. Each
increment is a reaction with a context. While each shift might seem isolated in a
certain country they ultimately accrete into one larger shift globally. The realization
among voters in California that lower taxes were better is in the same league as a
Soviet manager realizing that his planning methods were absurd. Each seems
totally irrelevant to each other, and yet both lead to the conclusion that the
government system must change. The context of America led the anti-government
incremental shifts to lead to Ronald Reagan's New Federalism, the context of the
soviet Union led anti-government increment shifts to Boris Yeltsins's reforms.
Seemingly disparate events within different cultures and contexts both had one
result: lessening government involvement and control over the life of the individual.
It is this play between government and individuals that is expressed in this central
political theory -- what guides all man's efforts. It is this play between forces that is
at the center of man's philosophical core.
How are we to organize our societies? How are we to view the relevant roles that
society must play versus the roles that individuals must play.
Throughout history, one or another system of beliefs reared up. Each of these eras
lasted just a few hundred years at most, and then was swept away as those
incremental shifts build up. In human history the government has always
overshadowed the individual. It may even be possible that each of these areas is
an incremental shift that is now culminating in even a bigger shift. It seems both
possible and improbable.
Some have already spoken of the end of history. Though this end seems unlikely.
For it has always been shown that recalcitrant elements want to remain with failed
paradigms.
But so far this has all been so much philosophical meandering. The words are
loaded -- they mean different things to different people. Each person arrives at his
meaning through the contexts of the incremental shifts he has encountered. Few
share a common view on all matters. No two people coalesce all their information in
the same way, on the same time line. Towards the time of the big shift each person
is at a different point. The big shift will only occur when most of all the pieces to the
puzzle are assembled with everyone on one side. That point is fast approaching.
The socialist paradigm is collapsing as people face up to its inherent
contradictions. Every day some individual sees his own set of information coalesce
into his own shift. All the incremental stages he has gone through, one day hit him --
and he has dropped socialism. When enough people in a country shift then a
change in government occurs.
And those governmental changes are occurring wholesale around the world. And
yet the socialist paradigm survives, because only the most outward manifestations
of the systems have collapsed. The economic ideas are first to shift, coming as
structural shifts, i.e., a country sells off its state owned companies to private
interests. If everyone still maintains the view of capitalism which Marx set forth, then
the paradigm has still not really shifted, the economic structure shift was only an
incremental shift.
It is the pervasiveness of socialism which still exists in common discourse. The
incremental shifts needed philosophically, linguistically, morally, ethically, are only
now occuring. 150 - 200 years worth of thinking does not disappear overnight.
Efforts are made to shift some parts of the central theory in the face of the many
contradictions which socialism presents. But even these efforts ultimately fail. There
are also attempts to present reordering of the paradigm into a "new" paradigm.
None have succeeded thus far, because they do not alter the way concepts
underpinning the words they use.
The majority of these efforts are based on the idea that neither "capitalism" or
"socialism" works. It is proposed that the way to go is to take the "best" from both --
that a magical mixture of the two will be the new paradigm.
The problem with this theory is that the explanation of what is horrible in
"capitalism," in fact, the whole explanation, is really an explanation of a foil to the
system of socialism that Marx was setting up as an answer to the
monarchist-mercantile paradigm that socialism replaced in the 1850's. That is,
socialist theory first explains what it believes capitalism to be, then says that
socialism is not that. So what we are faced with is an explanation of a system which
never occurred or existed - which purports to explain why socialism is good, having
been created by a socialist (being Mr. Marx) now being put forth as a theory as
something that can be meshed with socialism in itself. Now that's a contradiction.
So that's where we are at today here in America and the world in the 2000's. Bill
Clinton's basic world view was to use the socialist theory of "government knows
best" to help the capitalist system that supposedly cannot function O.K. and
decently by itself. This is not the paradigm shift that is occurring. It is the incremental
shifts building up in America coalescing into a leader who says he has the third
way. George Bush on the other hand seems to have started a major push on the
politico-military front by saying that it's time to get rid of the rest of the despotic
regimes in the world. But most people are still searching for that third way. They
even call it that.
It is this third-way-belief that is allegedly the middle road of saving capitalism by
using a little socialism while at the same time allowing capitalism free reign to
temper the heavy handedness of socialism.
This is the reason behind the recent changes in Eastern Europe, in the joining of a
common market in Western Europe, and in the freeing up of the economy in so
many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The incremental shifts held
individually have accumulated into a call for a change from socialism. The
pervasiveness of socialism means these people still hold its theories of capitalism.
I.e., they are not free of socialism totally and so hesitate to "go to the other side of
the spectrum."
Some economists and theorists and politicians are calling for "capitalism with a
human face" -- much as in the late 1960's the Czechs and others called for a
"socialism with a human face" by allowing some freedoms in.
Essentially though, it is all still socialism. The system we have in America, which
has been building for most of this century is the exact thing which Marx called
"Capitalism"
The communist manifesto first created this system, "capitalism," so that it could
then rip it apart to prove that socialism was the way to go. Within the confines and
context to the 1830's through 1850's, Marx's words and theories were accepted.
Then within the confines and contexts of each individual country, socialism, or
socialism's explanation of capitalism, were instituted. By 1900 most thinkers and
people in power, i.e., politicians, thought socialistically. The very education systems
that reared these people taught socialistically.
This fast acceptance of socialism, or its foil capitalism, was because the paradigm
shift was not as complete as it is becoming now. First, Marx's explanation of
capitalism was more a recitation of the economic and social workings of a
mercantilist Britain and its landed hierarchy of royalty. Much closer to what would
more properly be called feudal. At the same time socialism itself is also a recitation
of the economic and social workings of mercantilist Britain. Marx merely put a new
set of names to the same existing system, and then gave a second set of names to
the same existing system. So one system -- the economic class structure of 1830's
Britain -- both with different names, is at the base of socialist theory.
Who then can pick a path between what is essentially the same system? It is this
conundrum that is at the heart of today's paradigm sift. All of this seeming going
around in circles in the above discussion is all to show just how intermixed and
convoluted the entire discussion has become. And this recircling has to occur
because we are all still describing the same system. At the same time knowing so
much more about this belief system, and how different leaders played with it, and
how different cultures, times, levels of economic development, the distribution of
resources across the globe, religions and a whole plethora of different
circumstance pushed and pulled and interpreted the central political theory that is
explained in the Communist Manifesto.
All the diversity of this planet has affected the belief system set forth in the
Manifesto, and this has produced the vast range of difference in the actual practice
of the Socialist Paradigm. These differences are used to further confound the shift
and play into both the continuance of the existing paradigm in retreat to what we
know, and the destruction of the existing paradigm in a rush to a new
understanding. This mass of differences will be sliced through below.
| Jim Hlavac |
The Socialist Era
| Poltics, Theory & Economics |
