How to Save Your World: New Democracy – Meritocratic Democracy

How to Save Your World

New Democracy – Meritocratic Democracy

by Armageddon Conspiracy

Join the movement that supports TRUE democracy and true PEOPLE POWER.

Meritocracy - how it works in practical terms

Many people think meritocracy is something vague, but it couldn't be simpler. What it does straight away is to remove the right of everyone over 18 to vote. People no longer have an automatic vote. Instead, a new voting system is established in which people are permitted multiple votes related to subjects in which they have demonstrable ability and knowledge i.e. by virtue of academic qualifications or work experience. Instead of voting for a politician in your geographical area, you vote for experts in your own fields of expertise. So, for example, if you have an economics degree then you are allowed to vote for which people should be running the economy.

Anyone who doesn't have an economics degree or doesn't work in an economics job or can't otherwise demonstrate their expertise in economics, doesn't get a vote regarding economics. If you want to vote, get qualified (citizenship exams will be provided in all major subjects; they won't be as advanced as degrees, but they will allow citizens to demonstrate that they have meaningful knowledge of a subject). Otherwise, you will be deemed ignorant of the subject, hence it would be absurd to give you a vote regarding a subject about which you know nothing. You can have as many votes as your areas of evident merit. If you have no merits, you get no votes.

In a meritocracy, politics based on geographical constituencies and on political parties vanishes. All people standing for elections are independents. Their tasks are restricted to their own areas of merit. The only restriction applied to the policies they devise is that those policies must be consistent with the Meritocratic Constitution. For example, if economists are mandated to ensure that the economy is to be run for the good of the Commonwealth and to ensure that no cartels or elites are allowed to come into existence, any policies they enact that contradict the Constitution will be reversed, and the Meritocratic Supreme Court will fire them. New elections will then be held to find a new set of economists to run the economy meritocratically.

This is a simple system. It abolishes politics as we currently experience it (and endure it). It places merit at the core of the new politics.

The Secret Coup

How did the rich manage to stay in control of the world after the introduction of democracy? Simple. They created an all-powerful entity outside of the political process and gave it a neutral name so that no one would recognize it for what it was. Their ingenious creation was THE MARKET.

Have you ever voted for the market? Have you ever influenced it? Have you ever got rid of anyone from the market? Do you even know what the market is? Do you know who runs it? Do you know what its agenda is? In truth, you are totally ignorant about the market and that's exactly how it's intended to be. No one must ask any questions of the market. It's designed to be a kind of free-floating, anonymous abstraction with Godlike powers that no one dares to challenge.

"You can't buck the market!"

Yet there's no mystery at all about the market for anyone with eyes to see. It's comprised of private corporations, private banks, private insurance companies, private entrepreneurs, private lawyers, private accountants, private economists, private lobbyists, private super rich, private elite dynastic families of supreme privilege.

Only extremely rich right wing people play a central role in the market. We might as well call the market "Wall Street" ... and Goldman Sachs in particular. Why is a Zionist right wing entity allowed to control the economy and the political process? Genuine left wing governments are an impossibility in market-driven nations, and that's the whole point.

The market has no left wing players and rejects all left wing ideas. If you accept MARKETOCRACY - rule by markets - you have guaranteed never-ending rule by the rich. Anarcho-capitalist libertarians are those who want to destroy government and the State completely and have everything run by markets. Their Bible is Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, the sickening right wing hymn to greed and selfishness. All anarcho-capitalist libertarians are on the far right of the political spectrum. They are the friends and allies of the super rich elite. They are all ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE. No decent society should tolerate these people who actively despise society.

"There is no such thing as society."

~ Margaret Thatcher, heroine of the far right

The market MUST be brought under complete political control, under the complete control of the PEOPLE. Unelected and unaccountable private individuals cannot be allowed to control public politics according to their own self-serving, right wing ideology: "Greed is good; selfishness is divine."

"The market" is the most cunning and sinister political takeover in history. It is how the rich bypassed democracy and ruled regardless of who was in the White House.

Wall Street must be defeated. It's time for Main Street to be in charge. Or are the people too scared to assume responsibility for their own destiny?

Meritocracy must replace privilege. Equal opportunities for all must replace rigged systems run by omnipotent cartels of the rich. The disgusting and evil anarcho- capitalist libertarians must be defeated.

What's it to be? Wall Street or Main Street?

Can anyone seriously believe that the Founding Fathers intended that unaccountable markets should run America? Of what worth is the Constitution if markets completely ignore it, or bend it exclusively to their own interests? Of what value is the Republic if it's a sham and actually a Plutocracy? - the impregnable citadel of the super rich.

It's time for a new politics. It's time for true democracy. It's time for real People Power. End the phoney war. Put the people in charge.

The Meritocracy Party is the new face of Democracy. It's all about "meritocratic democracy", as contrasted with "plutocratic democracy" (the current system where rich elites pull all the strings).

We are the supreme DEFENDERS of true democracy because we are determined to give the people real power, rather than the Wizard of Oz's illusory version of power.

The people are NOT in charge in current democracy. Corporations, banks, lobbyists, Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, the privileged elites and markets run nations, not the people or their elected representatives.

Democracy is PEOPLE POWER, and power is exactly what the people are forbidden from having by the markets and the rich!

It's time for "government of the people by the people for the people" rather than "government of the people by the rich for the rich".

Destroy the power of Wall Street. Destroy the privileged elites. Destroy the markets that have stolen power from the people and then sold it back to them at an exorbitant interest rate as slavery to the Ownership Class of the super rich.

Ever feel like you've been conned? Ever feel that you're one of the suckers? You are if you let your political system be controlled by markets over which you have ZERO say.

Stop being a dumbocrat and become a meritocratic democrat. Free-market democracy is ANTI-DEMOCRACY. Wake up! See what's really going on.

Join the Meritocracy Party.

The Globalization Conspiracy

The rich owe their allegiance to no nation states, only to each other. The rich will go wherever the "price is right". They will transfer factories and jobs from America to China without hesitation if it will increase their profits. They have no loyalty. They couldn't care less about America or Americans. The whole world is the rich man's stage.

The rich are a global superclass who see themselves as rulers of the world and masters of the universe. They intend to use "the market" to dictate to every government on earth. Soon, they will have TOTAL POWER (if they don't already), and not one of these people is elected by the people or accountable to the people. No government has the power or guts to stand up to them. When the American government bailed out the financial institutions and saddled the taxpayers with enormous debts, were the people consulted? Or was it a case of a group of rich people sitting around a table deciding what was best for the market? Whatever happened to No taxation without representation? You can be sure that in every matter that counts, the people are never consulted, but have to pay the taxes anyway.

Globalization is the means by which the Old World Order are becoming the dictators of the world: a super rich dynastic privileged elite that can never be voted out. They are establishing a hereditary ruling caste.

Do you understand how clever they have been? When any politician talks about having to be friendly towards "business" and "the markets", what they mean is that they must do the bidding of the rich.

Rich = Business = the Market.

It would cause a revolution if politicians said that they were deliberately acting against the interests of the people in order to help the rich, so they never do say any such thing. The rich are referred to in such abstract terms that no one knows it's them. To the average person, "the market" seems like something floating in the ether. They don't associate it with groups of rich people doing everything in their power to maximize their profits, no matter how much damage is done to everyone else.

Goldman Sachs plays a huge role in the market. Therefore, when governments talk about having to "help" the market, what they mean is help Goldman Sachs and increase its profits. Virtually every government in the world is advised by Goldman Sachs in one way or another. Who elected Goldman Sachs? No one. But, of course, the market is OUTSIDE political control. The whole point of the market is to give the rich control of the world without being in any way subject to the will of the people.

Everyone unwittingly plays along. No one wants to challenge the markets or undermine them.

The situation is now crystal clear. Is politics about serving the people or serving the market (the rich)? Can there be any conceivable doubt that every politician in the capitalist West works for the rich and would never seek to bring the markets under government control?

The rich have hijacked the political system and made it work for them. All political parties are a joke and all politicians are a joke. They simply act as the front men for the rich. They create the illusion that the people have a say. It never matters who's in power because the world is run by the market and the market is deliberately kept separate from the political process so that the rich can rule without interference.

That is what "democracy has delivered" - rule by the rich. Isn't it time for meritocratic democracy where the smartest people in the world will design a brand new system that makes the market accountable to the people and thus brings to an end the rule of the rich?

Join the true democrats. Join the Meritocracy Party.

The Deserved Death of Democracy

Some political commentators have written in favour of meritocracy and suggested that this should be the big idea that our political leaders rally around. These commentators are right, but not in the way they think. This is indeed the time for meritocracy, but there's one straightforward reason why democratic politicians would be mad to accept the challenge. Quite simply, meritocracy and democracy are incompatible.

Meritocracy is just a new way of saying a very old word: aristocracy - rule by the 'best'. If democratic politicians were not the best individuals to be running our country - i.e. those most deserving by virtue of their talents - what right would they have to lead us in a meritocratic environment? As soon as the meritocratic genie is released from its bottle, the legitimacy of democracy itself is called into question. The democratic voting system - a system in which the only qualification required is that you should have achieved the astounding feat of surviving in this world for at least 18 years - is, and never has been, consistent with any principle of merit. If it were, voters would have to pass exams to demonstrate their merit before being allowed to participate in elections. It's meritocracy's revolutionary challenge to democracy that should become the focus of political debate.

And why shouldn't democracy be forced to justify itself? As disillusionment with politicians grows inexorably, hasn't the time come to try something new? Is it possible to construct an entirely new political system based not on democracy but on meritocracy?

We are bombarded with so much rhetoric promoting the virtues of democracy that people have been brainwashed into thinking there's no alternative. Apart from extremist fringe parties, no one spends any time considering a radical reshaping of our political institutions. Yet through history few intellectuals have spoken supportively of democracy and most have been openly contemptuous of it. The American journalist H. L. Mencken said in 1916, 'Democracy is a form of religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses.' One of his alternative definitions was: 'Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.' He considered democracy actively hostile to free thinking: 'Democracy is grounded upon so childish a complex of fallacies that they must be protected by a rigid set of taboos, else even halfwits would argue it to pieces. Its first concern must thus be to penalise the free play of ideas.'

In this regard, democracy has surely succeeded in its aim - there is little discussion in modern intellectual circles of replacing democracy. That said, a book has just appeared that accuses voters in democracies of being irrational. The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (2007) by Professor Brian Caplan advocates that a nation's economic decisions should be taken by councils of economists insulated from the vagaries of democracy.

There are two central problems with democracy. The first is that the electorate by and large are grotesquely ill-informed about the issues upon which they are voting. They are usually guided by emotive arguments, glib sound bites and crude, scare-mongering propaganda. A careful, considered analysis of complex issues never occurs. If I were to ask a typical voter to write a four-page essay on the pros and cons of joining the Euro, or on any other significant issue for that matter, they wouldn't have a clue. In other words, democracy, at heart, is government by emotion rather than reason, which is why it's associated with so much ineptitude.

The second problem is that democracy constantly provides the proof of its own inadequacy. Mencken says, 'Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.' If a democratic government were competent, what would be the point of an opposition? We are supposed to regard the opposition as keeping the government on its toes, but the opposition's unending carping simply erodes confidence in both the government and democratic institutions in general.

Imagine a constructive opposition: one that praised the government at least as often as it criticised it, and only ever censured it in the interests of genuinely better government rather than petty politicking. Such an opposition is inconceivable in a democracy. How could the farce of Prime Minister's Question Time continue if, on a regular basis, the Leader of the Opposition actually supported the government's policies? Yet why shouldn't he? Surely, if the government were performing well, it would be perverse not to.

Why is it that people find it so hard to conceive of alternatives to democracy? Is it laziness, brainwashing, lack of intellect? Even prominent democrats have acknowledged democracy's flawed nature. Winston Churchill declared, 'No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.' In other words, Churchill viewed democracy as the least bad option. Is that really the best we can aim for? - the least bad.

Aristotle defined six different political systems: monarchy, aristocracy, constitutional government, democracy, oligarchy and tyranny. He was no fan of democracy: 'A democracy is a government in the hands of men of low birth, no property and vulgar employments.' The best political system, he said, was rule by a single wise ruler, followed by aristocracy (rule by a group of wise people), then constitutional government (a stable mixture of democracy and oligarchy). The worst forms of government were the mirror images of these three. So the worst political regime of all was a tyranny, where a single bad person wielded absolute power. Second worst was an oligarchy where a few corrupt individuals governed in their own interests. The third worst was the type of democracy which Aristotle regarded as practically the same as ochlocracy (government by the mob, the rabble).

In the modern age, the idea of a great, benign, kingly ruler is absurd. Tyrannies, on the other hand, are sadly not uncommon. What we call democracy is probably closer to the constitutional government Aristotle described, where the interests of oligarchs are well served. (No surprise that we have so many rich foreigners coming to our shores to benefit from the safe tax haven the UK now provides!)

Ludicrously, you sometimes hear the likes of Tony Blair declaring that they are meritocrats. If they had a shred of philosophical decency they'd never dare to mention meritocracy. 'Meritocracy' is merely the politically correct new name for old-style Aristotelian aristocracy. It has nothing in common with democracy, which is rule by the people regardless of their merits.

What shape might a meritocratic regime assume? Meritocracy is a non-sexist, non-racist ideology seeking to ensure that every citizen can rise as high in society as their individual talent allows. People are judged on what they can do; not on the identity, wealth or influence of their parents. "It's what you know" takes over from the currently all-conquering principle of "It's who you know". Meritocracy opposes nepotism, cronyism, and inherited privilege. The House of Commons, currently filled with 646 MPs from various political parties, will instead be populated by independent MPs with no political allegiances. Each independent MP is selected on the basis of merit relating to their field of expertise. So, for example, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is selected from amongst practising economists (and will be elected only by other economists). The Secretary of State for Health will be someone who works in the health field (and is elected only by health workers); the Secretary for Defence will be from the armed forces; the Foreign Secretary a serving official in the Foreign Office; the Secretary for Education a serving teacher/ headmaster/ lecturer. In other words, every MP in the House of Commons won't represent a political party or a geographical constituency, but a particular field in which they have demonstrable experience, expertise and merit; and their constituents/ voters will be people in the same field who can make an informed decision about their ability.

The Prime Minister will be elected by the MPs from amongst their number. Every four years, there will be a general election in which every MP again has to seek the endorsement of their voters, or be replaced. There are of course no opposition parties, or indeed parties of any description (meritocracy is in this sense apolitical; there is no set agenda, no manifesto, that must be slavishly followed). The House of Lords is abolished as a revising chamber. In fact, in the absence of party politics there's no need for a second chamber at all. All critiques of government policy are provided by select committees of MPs. Special committees comprising scientists and philosophers may also be used, chosen because of their critical-thinking abilities and their expertise in challenging assumptions. Committees of artists, designers and entrepreneurs might also be called upon. Pressure groups will be given a prominent voice too since meritocracy welcomes close and searching scrutiny.

The monarchy is abolished since, being based on a hereditary principle in which the identity of one's parents is all that matters, it inherently contradicts the Meritocratic Principle. By the same token, inheritance tax will be raised to one hundred percent (!) since no one can be allowed to use the wealth they have acquired to transmit a posthumous anti-meritocratic advantage to someone of their choosing. As the great Scottish-American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, once the richest man in the world, said, 'By taxing estates heavily at death the state marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life. It is desirable that nations should go much further in this direction. Indeed, it is difficult to set bounds to the share of the rich man's estate which should go at his death to the state, and by all means such taxes should be graduated, beginning at nothing upon moderate sums to dependents, and increasing rapidly as the amounts swell.' Carnegie was strongly of the opinion that enormous legacies to children were harmful to those children. More importantly, they are harmful to the state because they provide an unfair, anti-competitive advantage to some people, thus transgressing the Meritocratic Principle.

Meritocracy actively promotes the arts, science, mathematics, philosophy, architecture, design etc. It's contemptuous of celebrity culture, and particularly those who are famous for being famous. It's anti-materialistic. Whereas oligarchs are consumed with their desire for material wealth and conspicuous spending, meritocrats are obsessed with culture and the experiences of the mind. An excess of money would be vulgar for a meritocrat, and all meritocrats would bear in mind Andrew Carnegie's warning, 'The man who dies rich dies disgraced.'

Tony Blair's Labour government was put in power thanks to the votes of a mere 21.6% of the total electorate, barely one in five. Is this democracy or an elective dictatorship? Isn't it the case that democratic rhetoric is a smokescreen for inherent incompetence? Meritocratic government would give us the main advantage of democracy (the means to vote people out of office) and none of the drawbacks. Surely it's time for the birth of meritocracy. If you don't like it, think of something else, but at least learn to see beyond the dubious merits of democracy.

The Scientific Cure for Politics

The scientific method is the most successful technique humanity has devised for achieving organised, systematic progress, so why isn’t it applied in other arenas? In particular, why is politics allowed to revolve around inconclusive moralistic debates instead of the tried and trusted steps of the scientific method?

Think of a typical political debate. Politician X stands up in the House of Commons. He moralises, postures, distorts the arguments of his enemies, employs the most transparent rhetoric, appeals to the ‘good sense’ of the people, thanks his voters, and tries to find a suitable soundbite so that he can appear on the evening news and rise up the pecking order in his party. Politician Y gets to his feet on the other side of the House and does exactly the same, except he’s coming at it from the marginally different angle favoured by his party.

This is, we are told, how a healthy democracy operates. Through some miracle it will achieve wonderful policies that will improve the lot of everyone in the country. Nonsense, of course.

The political theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau explicitly warned that political parties were a threat to true democracy because instead of expressing the General Will of the people, they express their own narrow interests. Isn’t this exactly what we see over and over again with the petty bickering between the main parties and their refusal to reach a sensible consensus?

So why not turn instead to how scientists do things? The scientific method involves four steps: 1) observe and describe a phenomenon; 2) formulate a hypothesis that explains the phenomenon; 3) use this hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to provide quantitative predictions of the results of new observations; 4) perform experimental tests of the predictions by several independent teams, using properly conducted experiments. In short, observe, hypothesise, predict and verify. If a hypothesis has been rigorously tested and still proves valid then it takes on the status of a theory, and can be used with a high degree of confidence (though certainty is never attained).

As an example of how the scientific method could work in the political arena, we might consider the debate over the legalisation of drugs. The opponents of legalisation usually contend that such a step would be a disaster: drug use and rates of addiction would soar; lives would be devastated and many abusers would die; NHS bills would grow astronomically; there would be serious policing issues, and social services would be required to get involved with many families that had fallen into desperate straits. But is there any evidence that these claims would be borne out?

Those who advocate reinforcing prohibitions against drug use, redoubling police efforts to crack down on suppliers and users, using good intelligence to stop drugs coming into the country etc. are little different from the proponents of America’s Prohibition policy of the 1920s and '30s, a policy that ended in disaster. Gangsters made fortunes out of supplying illegal liquor, and the law was flouted by millions of previously law-abiding citizens.

Those of a scientific mindset might make the following observations and hypotheses. 1) When popular drugs are declared illegal, people do not stop using them; 2) If the government does not supply drugs, criminals will meet the demand; 3) recreational drug users will have less regard for the law if they are regularly breaking it on a casual basis; 4) if the manufacture of recreational drugs was performed by legal companies, there would be a high standard of quality control (criminals on the other hand aren’t motivated by quality issues); 5) many drug users will die if the drugs they take are poorly manufactured (perhaps containing an excess of active ingredients, or toxic substances that have been mixed in to bulk them up); 6) the involvement of criminals in the supply of drugs leads to even more criminality, and a thriving black economy (more police are required to attempt to control it).

So, the legalisation of drugs might be expected to lead to the following results: 1) A reduction in criminality since the criminals' main source of income has been denied them; 2) A reduction in the size of the black economy; 3) greater respect for the law and law-enforcers by recreational drug users 4) formerly illegal drugs will be manufactured according to the same quality standards as legal pharmaceuticals, leading to fewer deaths (and the government can levy taxes and profit from the use of the recreational drugs; at the moment only criminals profit).

Whether or not overall use of recreational drugs would increase after legalisation is debatable. Cigarettes are legal and yet their use has been falling over many years because of the health risks they pose.

Rather than encouraging an ineffectual debate, a scientific approach would demand that controlled experiments be carried out. In one part of the UK (Scotland, for example), drugs would be legalised. In another part of the country (Wales, perhaps), police efforts would be intensified in an effort to eliminate drug abuse completely. After a suitable period (five years, say), all the data gathered from Scotland and Wales would be compared and contrasted. An informed debate could then be conducted, with solid data and a proper evidential base.

Every significant issue could be handled in the same way. All credible hypotheses regarding any political issue could be gathered and then tested in different regions of the country. After the agreed test period, the results could be analysed and the best-performing hypothesis implemented all over the country. At last, we would have a credible means for testing hypotheses, identifying best practice then rolling it out everywhere.

But once that process begins, what need is there for politicians? Isn’t it time to get rid of them and rely on the appliance of science? All debates could become data-based, and run by academics according to the scientific method. The method could be applied to health, education, crime, even taxation.

Nowadays, most people would be hard-pressed to identify any real differences between the Tories, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Squabbles between them tend to revolve around minor details of policy implementation. So, if politicians are no longer arguing over anything substantive, what’s the point of them? To use their own jargon, aren’t they part of the problem rather than the solution? And isn’t the scientific method the real answer?

The Welfare State: Modern Danegeld

There was a time when the kings of England paid protection money, known as Danegeld, to Danish Vikings to stop them raiding the country. Arguably, the modern welfare state serves a similar function. Its purpose is to give just enough money to society's underclass to prevent them from turning violent. The French and Russian Revolutions are famous examples of what happens when the underclass becomes so large, so agitated, that it can sweep aside everything that opposes its interests. Had Louis XVI and Nicholas II had the sense to introduce an elementary welfare state, they might have saved themselves and their regimes.

Normally, the welfare state is characterised as providing a safety net for those going through temporary difficulties, or as a grand gesture by a benevolent government towards the less fortunate in society. Yet it’s easy for benevolence to mutate into malevolence. Approximately five million households of Britain – some twenty percent of the total – are heavily in the embrace of the welfare state. Those who begin their lives in this dependency culture often end it in the same way. There are millions of British citizens who have rarely, if ever, been employed. Does it suit the government simply to pay out Danegeld to these people rather than offer them any serious chance of succeeding in life?

Surely the social contract between the government and the governed should, above all else, be about giving everyone an equal opportunity. There’s no such equality in this country. The children of the upper class have vastly better life chances than those of the underclass. Why is this tolerated? For the most simple of reasons – it suits the middle class. Ours is a government fit for purpose in relation to a powerful sectional interest within society – the middle class.

The last thing the middle class want is to have to face a level playing field, where their ability to rig the market in their favour is removed. They proclaim the virtues of competition while secretly despising it. They believe in privilege, in using their money to buy advantage. They send their children to private schools to secure a better education than is available to others. In effect, they pay for their children to be placed above others in society. How can the state claim to be serving all of its citizens equally if it’s actively supporting the ability of some citizens to pay for better treatment, and buy better opportunities for themselves?

Isn't it time to bring two iniquitous systems to an end; to stop allowing rich citizens to rig the market in their favour, and to stop maintaining a welfare state whose sole function is to keep an underclass permanently suppressed?

The work of the radical Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing points to the way forward. He discovered that he could ‘cure’ severely disturbed patients, but when his patients returned home, all of their old problems soon manifested themselves again. His startling conclusion was that it was their family environment that was making them ill. When they were removed from it, their condition improved; when they were returned to it, it deteriorated. The most sacred cow of all – the family – is a primary cause of dysfunction. In most cases the damage it does is outweighed by the benefits it confers, but in a minority of cases, the family home is a catastrophic environment in which to bring up children. The state has a responsibility to intervene, but it only does so in the most extreme cases. Its intervention should be on an altogether different scale.

The underclass is what is created when large numbers of families fail. Using the welfare state to support them isn’t the answer. Instead, the solution implied by Laing’s work should be implemented. This is nothing less than to remove children from the environment that’s destroying their life chances. The state ought to step in and take the place of dysfunctional families. The state should build huge campus boarding schools, to which all children brought up in deprived areas should be sent. They should still be allowed to see their families, of course, but on a much more restricted basis – at holiday time only. Their parents will be freed from the burden that has proved too much for them of bringing their children up well. The children will be saved from the unintentionally malign influence of their parents. The state, by providing far superior educational facilities, will render private schools obsolete. For the first time, the UK will have created a truly meritocratic society where everyone has a realistic chance of leading a prosperous life.

Conventional political parties trumpet the virtues of the family. They promote 'family' values, and insist that the family can cure all of society’s ills. Social problems are caused when the family is undermined, they say. Not once have they ever considered Laing's hypothesis that the family may be the heart of dysfunction, the ultimate form of child abuse for millions of vulnerable kids. The state, far from pronouncing the family sacred, has an obligation to act against the family at the slightest sign of trouble.

No one should forget Philip Larkin’s bleak assessment of the family environment provided in This Be The Verse:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

This is a perfect summation of Laing's findings. Strangely, Laing himself had eight children despite his episodic alcoholism, clinical depression, and the severe abuse he suffered as a child. Given his background and opinions on the family, it's remarkable that he chose to have so many children.

The Tories in particular like to portray the state as malevolent, and are always calling for a reduction in the size of the state and the extent to which it interferes in people’s lives. In the eighty percent of families that function reasonably well, the state should indeed steer well clear, but for the twenty percent of failed families, state intervention should be on an unprecedented scale, to the extent of effectively replacing the family. The Tories’ position is inherently stupid because it treats all families as the same, when in fact there’s no comparison between a nice middle class family and a chaotic underclass family. Any family-directed policy that doesn't draw distinctions between different types of family can’t be taken seriously.

The family is a tiny unit with a narrow range of qualities and skills. The state is a vast enterprise that can call on the skills and qualities of millions. There’s only one sense in which the state isn’t invariably superior to the family, and that’s in its inability to provide deep-rooted love to children. This is a family’s most important function, and it should be encouraged and harnessed as much as possible. It’s for this reason that even underclass parents shouldn’t be cut off from their children.

The state must also fill the discipline vacuum that’s emanating from families. In sink estates, the children of the underclass have no discipline at all, to their severe detriment. Discipline is even breaking down in middle class families. Discipline is the bedrock of the state and all forms of serious endeavour, and it should be near the top of any sensible state’s list of priorities.

At the moment, the government largely ignores twenty percent of the population (the underclass) and focuses on the other eighty percent. It provides the welfare state as a life-support system for the underclass, but many of them are perilously close to the vegetative state, and others are on the verge of total lawlessness, Danegeld or not. If this twenty percent could be properly addressed by the government, the whole of society would be transformed for the better.

The state spends a fortune on the underclass for all the wrong reasons. Apart from benefits and tax credits, the state has to squander a fortune on police, the criminal-justice system, and social services – all of which would scarcely be required if there were no underclass. This money – the cost of failure – should be used instead to break up the underclass once and for all by weakening the harmful link between the parents and children of the underclass.

It’s time to stop paying Danegeld to the underclass, and instead welcome them into the mainstream.

The Puppetmasters

If you have doubts about the existence of the Old World Order, they ought to vanish when you read Taibbi's article.

You will see how an organisation makes itself so powerful (and is allowed to do so) that it effectively becomes a global government and bank, shaping the world's economy and politics for its own selfish ends.

If Goldman Sachs were attempting to create a New World Order that would raise humanity to a new, higher level, its mission might be welcomed and embraced. But it is doing the opposite. It is the Old World Order seeking to maintain a rich, privileged elite in perpetual wealth and power, with everyone else reduced to humiliating roles in a supporting cast of hangers-on, suckers and slaves.

As Taibbi says, "The bank's unprecedented reach and power have enabled it to turn all of America into a giant pump and dump scam, manipulating whole economic sectors for years at a time, moving the dice game as this or that market collapses, and all the time gorging itself on the unseen costs that are breaking families everywhere - high gas prices, rising consumer credit rates, half eaten pension funds, mass layoffs, future taxes to pay off bailouts. All that money that you're losing, it's going somewhere, and in both a literal and a figurative sense, Goldman Sachs is where it's going. The bank is a huge, highly sophisticated engine for converting the useful, deployed wealth of society into the least useful, most wasteful and insoluble substance on Earth - pure profit for rich individuals."

Taibbi is absolutely correct. Goldman Sachs is an engine for generating obscene profits for the super-rich. Why is such an engine allowed to exist?

No nation on earth would explicitly entrust its armed forces - its defence - to a powerful commercial company with rich shareholders that, independently of government, could declare war. In such circumstances, the army might be sent off to fight ridiculous wars that would enormously boost the value of companies in the military-industrial complex, handsomely reward the shareholders and do nothing whatever for the benefit of the nation. Think about the Vietnam War. Cui bono? Think about the American and British armies in Iraq. What were they doing there? Were they defending America and Britain? Or were they carrying out the will of a commercial organisation and its wealthy shareholders, all of whom profited massively from the war?

If a government declares a war that isn't necessary for the defence of the nation then you can be certain that forces behind the scenes that wish to engineer war for their own private interests are manipulating the government. The Iraq War is the classic example, a war that has proved disastrously counterproductive for America and Britain. Goldman Sachs was behind that war.

Goldman Sachs is a Zionist organisation and one of its great aims is to secure the defence of the state of Israel. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a serious threat to Israel and so had to be removed. Control of Iraq would give Goldman Sachs access to plentiful cheap oil. Goldman Sachs wanted to seed the Middle East with western capitalist democracies over which it could then extend its dominion. It anticipated a "domino effect" - first Iraq would become a model of western values amongst the Arab nations of the Middle East and then, one by one, the other Islamic nations would adopt the same model. As each domino toppled, Israel would become safer, Goldman Sachs would get more oil, more influence, and more power. Its reach would extend further than ever before. The Iraq War was perfect - for Goldman Sachs. And that was why George W Bush, a puppet of Goldman Sachs, declared war and dragged the American people (and the British thanks to Bush's poodle Tony Blair) into an idiotic war that has achieved nothing.

Now consider the Credit Crunch. During the height of the crisis when banks were on the verge of collapse because of the irresponsible and reckless gambles they had taken, what happened? Did the world debate what needed to be done? Were ordinary people consulted? Did everyone implicated in the financial meltdown get fired? Or did a tiny group of elite, privileged bankers, economists and politicians - the very people who had caused the Credit Crunch in the first place - gather in a cabal, far from cameras and public scrutiny, and decide what actions to take? Did the people appoint these bankers and economists? Were the bankers and economists carrying out the people's will? Like hell they were. They were members of the Old World Order, protecting and advancing their own interests. Business as usual.

The biggest scam in history has taken place right in front of our faces and we have done nothing. Already, huge profits are flowing again through investment banks like Goldman Sachs and they are once again paying outrageous bonuses to their greedy staff. Not a single thing has changed. Not a single demonstrator is out on the streets to protest. Such is the power of the OWO. Such is the weakness and cowardice of the people.

While the British taxpayers were being ordered to bail out the banking leviathan RBS from the financial catastrophe it had brought on itself and the nation, Sir Fred "the Shred" Goodwin, the discredited chief executive, instead of being fired on the spot without any compensation, was sitting in a luxury boardroom working out the terms of a highly lucrative severance package, including a fabulous pension that he could enjoy immediately despite being only 50.

If the ordinary people were allowed into that boardroom rather than Goodwin's friends, allies and cronies, he would have been unceremoniously thrown out without a penny. But that never happens. The people are never consulted. They are never represented in the boardrooms of power. The Old World Order would never tolerate their presence. Their entire game is to ensure that the people are always excluded.

Ask yourself this question. Are the interests of rich bankers the same as those of the nation? Are bankers committed to doing what is best for the nation or what is best for themselves and their shareholders? The latter is self-evidently true. Do the bankers have a decisive influence over the economy? Unquestionably yes. Banks are the core of any nation's economy, providing the lifeblood (money) that flows through the system and keeps it alive. Are any bankers elected by the people to represent the people's interests? The answer is no. Therefore no one can deny that the economy of a nation is allowed to be in the hands of individuals unaccountable to the people who have different interests from those of the people. Whatever happened to "no taxation without representation"?

Does it make any sense for any nation to permit its economy to be outside the direct control of the people? Bankers serve their own interests, not those of the people. To allow them to run the economy is as ridiculous as allowing Coca Cola to run the US Army. You can't have unelected, private corporations dictating to the people. The entire basis of the banking system is wrong and contrary to the healthy functioning of the economy.

The financial meltdown would never have happened if the banks were tasked with serving the efficient running of the economy in the interests of every citizen. The meltdown was caused by a few greedy people taking enormous risks to bag themselves vast profits beyond the dreams of Midas. And no one stopped them. Why? Because these unelected individuals are the true power in the land. The government does their bidding. And when disaster comes along, the government turns to them to decide what to do next. It's as insane as asking Jesse James's gang to become security consultants at Fort Knox just after performing the biggest robbery in history.

No taxation without representation is the most ironic statement ever. The American people are, to all intents and purposes, entirely unrepresented when taxation decisions are being taken. The Old World Order - the fat bankers of Wall Street, unelected and contemptuous of the public - are the people who decide taxation policy. And Goldman Sachs is at the heart of the evil cabal.

When will the people wake up? Banks must be brought under the nation's direct control just as the army (supposedly) is. The army defends the nation and the banks support the economy. What could be simpler? No one should vote for any political party that is not committed to making banks accountable to the people. The banks' CEOs should be appointed in the same manner as Supreme Court justices, with a remit to serve the public interest. Their salaries and bonuses should be comparable to those of government officials, namely good but far from spectacular.

According to the International Monetary Fund, the global credit crunch has cost governments (and hence taxpayers) more than ten trillion dollars. Why is no one in jail for causing that amount of damage to the economy? If terrorists had caused a fraction of that damage, they would be hunted until doomsday. Yet no one lays a finger on the big, fat bankers, other than sacrificial offerings like Bernard Madoff, the Jewish super con man whom no one could possibly defend.

"There will be no whitewash at the White House," said disgraced President Richard Nixon. In fact, that's all there is at the White House. No real decisions are taken there. Go to the boardroom of Goldman Sachs if you want to be present at where American and world policy is actually decided.

There should be a Supreme Economic Council - analogous to the Supreme Court - which explicitly sets out the nation's economic policy and the role of the banks. Imagine the latest crazy derivatives product, or the latest whizzy idea to sell sub-prime mortgages to people with no money, having to be okayed by Nobel Prize winning economists on the Supreme Economic Council. All of the mad money-grabbing schemes would be killed at birth.

Imagine a Council with a complete overview of everything every bank is doing. The Council would immediately see if any bank were acting in a destabilising manner. The Council would tightly regulate the salaries and bonuses of finance staff. Sober, risk-averse, modest individuals aware of their responsibilities to the nation's economic health would replace cowboys, "masters of the universe" and "big swinging dicks". Financial stability would be the onus of the Council's remit. With effective regulation of remuneration packages, you could be sure that boom and bust would vanish forever. But that's never going to happen, is it? The Old World Order will brook no interference in the extravagant amounts of money they pay themselves. Unless we stop them. They often refer to their financial package as "compensation", as though they are enduring some terrible trauma in horrific conditions, for which vast amounts of money are the only way to make their nightmare tolerable. They should try working down a coal mine, or in any minimum wage job. Then they will discover what a nightmare really is.

Never again during a financial crisis should a cabal of unelected individuals be able to conspire behind closed doors to "fix" the disaster that they themselves engineered. How stupid are we to allow them to get away with it? How long will we endure this situation? When will we do something about it? The economy, like the military, is too important to be left in the hands of groups and individuals outwith the nation's control.

A government-controlled banking system can still be competitive and innovative. In the same way that military chiefs - without being paid stratospheric salaries and enormous incentive payments - can compete and innovate to produce more effective tactics and strategies, so can banking bosses. The military should be the model for the banking system: public servants serving the national good, people for whom duty and service to their country are far more important than personal profit. Generals and admirals are comfortably off, but don't belong to the ranks of the super-rich. Why should it be any different for bankers? Why can't they serve the nation rather than themselves?

To bring a single organisation - Goldman Sachs - to its knees would deliver a fatal blow to the Old World Order and finally liberate humanity. Every time another fat cat banker grabs another vast bonus from the enormous money trough, it is a nail in the coffin of the ordinary people. We can't allow ourselves to be treated this way any longer. Isn't it time we set to work to pull down the temples of money where the high priests of Mammon hold sway?

The Meritocracy Party campaigns to replace democracy with meritocracy. Democracy has become the single biggest obstacle to the rise of the most meritorious. In the USA, no matter your talents, you cannot become President unless you have access to vast wealth to fund your campaign. In Great Britain, social mobility - the opportunity to improve your social standing - has gone into reverse. If you are born into a poor family you are statistically almost certain to remain poor, regardless of your merits. If your parents are rich, you can start looking forward to a prosperous future, again regardless of your merits.

The Meritocracy Party seeks to remove the link between parental wealth and children's outcomes in life, and to eradicate nepotism and cronyism, the dual drivers of privilege. The Meritocracy Party is "viral". You don't need to join anything, seek anyone's permission, go to any meetings or pay any money. If you're broadly in tune with the meritocratic ethos, all you have to do is go out and spread the word.

The world can be changed: conversation by conversation amongst intelligent people.

This webpage concentrates on the British political system, but the same arguments apply in every country. The idea is to have a Meritocracy Party in every country, all of which are affiliated to create the first global political Party. With global capital forcing down costs (people's pay) while increasing their own profits, only a global political response will suffice. Whatever country you are in, start building the meritocratic future.

https://youtu.be/k-7CeMoulbw

The Five Meritocratic Principles

1) NO NEPOTISM

It's not who your parents are, it's who you are.

2) NO CRONYISM

It's not what others can do for you, it's what you can do.

3) NO DISCRIMINATION

Sex, race, religion, age, background are irrelevant. Talent is everything.

4) EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

You start from the same point as everyone else, and you go as far as your talents take you.

5) REWARDING MERIT

The highest rewards for the highest achievers.

Aims

1) To implement the five Meritocratic Principles.

2) To abolish the monarchy since it contradicts the first Meritocratic Principle. In a monarchy, the only thing that matters is the identity of your parents. In a meritocracy, your parents are irrelevant. The advent of meritocracy is accompanied by the automatic abolition of the monarchy. No meritocrat would seek the 'permission' of a monarch to govern.

3) To abolish the House of Lords (the House of Cronyism), which contradicts the second Meritocratic Principle since it's the product of patronage. In a properly constituted meritocratic system, there is no requirement for a second House.

4) To abolish Party Politics. Political parties are irrelevant in a meritocratic system. Parliament will be populated entirely by independent, meritocratic MPs with no set political affiliations (other than their commitment to meritocracy).

5) Each independent MP is selected on the basis of their merit relating to their field of expertise. So, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is selected from amongst practising economists (and will be elected only by other economists). The Secretary of State for Health will be someone who works in the health field (and is elected only by health workers); the Secretary for Defence will be from the armed forces; the Foreign Secretary a serving official in the Foreign Office; the Secretary of State for Education a serving teacher/headmaster/lecturer. In other words, MPs in the House of Commons won't represent a political party or a geographical constituency, but a particular field in which they have demonstrable experience, expertise and merit; and their constituents/voters will be people in the same field who can make an informed decision about their ability.

6) The Prime Minister will be elected by the MPs from amongst their number. Every five years, there will be a general election in which every MP has to seek the endorsement of their voters, or be replaced.

7) To abolish Cabinet Collective Responsibility. The principle that people should promote views with which they privately disagree is absurd and ipso facto brings politicians into disrepute. Why haven't they resigned if they disagree with a policy? How can they defend a position that they themselves don't believe in? If they publicly support a policy they privately reject, they are hypocrites.

8) Critiques of government policy will be provided by select committees of MPs. Special committees comprising scientists and philosophers may also be used, chosen because of their critical-thinking abilities and their expertise in challenging assumptions. Committees of artists, entrepreneurs and designers may also be called upon. Pressure groups will be given a prominent voice too since meritocracy welcomes close scrutiny.

9) To abolish the 'moralising' approach to politics (what's 'right' and what's 'wrong' - the politics of principle) in favour of the scientific method (what works and what doesn't - the politics of pragmatism).

10) To increase Inheritance Tax to 100%. No one should be able to posthumously transfer an advantage to another person of their choosing. The state should acquire all of the assets of the deceased and should reinvest them to advance the public good, particularly via education.

11) Education is the bedrock of merit, and should be accorded the highest importance in the meritocratic state. The current education system is a demonstrable failure and should be overhauled in every respect. Our education system is designed to produce shoppers (these being what capitalist democracies require to sustain their economic model). True education is the opposite of shopping. It liberates the mind, not the credit card.

12) To promote the ideas of the most radical, free-thinking, independently-minded philosophers e.g. Nietzsche, Baudrillard, Rousseau, Diogenes, Camus, the Situationist International.

13) To provide community-based alternatives to the family (based, for example, on the Kibbutz model) so that if a family fails, its members can be nurtured in a different, constructive and productive environment of psychological and educational well-being.

From: http://armageddonconspiracy.co.uk/

Article: The Meritocracy Party

Via Ronde Tafel @ http://rondetafelbeleid.nl/meritocracy

For more information about democracy see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/democracy

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