(Permission to reprint expressly granted.)

THE GRAND CONSPIRACY

by Jay Hanson -- www.dieoff.org

"Beware of greeks bearing gifts."-- Anonymous

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LAISSEZ-FAIRE POLITICS

The great thinkers of the 18th century discovered that "laissez- faire" economics and free trade led to peace and social justice (we now know it's because laissez-faire allows individuals to maximize "inclusive fitness"). In short, laissez-faire compels both peasants and tyrants to "unwittingly" lay down their weapons for beads and trinkets!

In his Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith made elaborate economic arguments for laissez-faire, but the attentive reader can find the hidden political arguments here as well:

"the king was ... incapable of restraining the violence of the great lords... They [made] war according to their own discretion, almost continually upon one another, and very frequently upon the king; and in the open country ... [was] a sense of violence, rapine, and disorder... [but] for the gratification of the most childish, the meanest and the most sordid of all vanities they gradually bartered their whole power and authority [and] became as insignificant as any substantial burgher or tradesman in a city."

"... commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government, and with them, the liberty and security of individuals, among the inhabitants of the country, who had before lived in almost in a continual state of war with their neighbors, and of servile dependency upon their superiors."

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THE TROJAN HORSE: DEMOCRACY

In order for Smith's laissez-faire to do its work, its true purpose had to remain hidden from view. To that end, James Madison and others (mostly unknown by me), but certainly the most-influential Framers of the American Constitution, invented a political model that was nothing but a hoax -- a "Trojan Horse" designed to propagate a laissez-faire economic system around the world.

As part of the ongoing deception, an economic theory was invented that 1) made no sense; and 2) could not be disproved (was unscientific). In short, the ostensible political system (so- called "democracy") did nothing, while the true political system -- the economic system -- was obscured by circular arguments and nonsense. Neoclassical economics really was, as Hazel Henderson wrote, "nothing but politics in disguise".

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CONCLUSION

We have seen WHY America's political system is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent. It's because it was DESIGNED that way. We have seen WHY economics is a nonsensical social science instead of a true science. It's because it was DESIGNED that way! We have seen WHY laissez- faire brings peace and social justice. It's because it allows individuals to maximize inclusive fitness.

The fatal error is that our economics was invented before thermodynamics was incorporated into physics. The first law of thermodynamics: "no creation". In other words, the world is a "fixed pie" with respect to energy -- fixed stocks and fixed flows. The second law: every economic activity wastes energy.

We now know that the faster society pisses-away what's left of its energy, the faster it will collapse into anarchy and chaos [ Joseph Tainter; http://dieoff.com/page134.htm ]. The question then becomes: "How should society spend what remains of its fixed pie of energy?" My answer is the same as Smith's: as "a means of control."

Jay -- www.dieoff.org

(Was it just a coincidence that Wealth of Nations was published in 1776? I wonder...)

-- MDK (devolution@in.action.org), January 15, 2001

Answers

HECK JUST READ THE STORY[IN-BIBLE] ABOUT THE TOWER OF BABEL!! AND NOW WE HAVE THE=N.W.O--let's all be 1 deal!! man is master-captain of his fate[chuckle] ''the fool falls into the pit he dug for the innocent'' man proposes----------------------GOD disposes!!

kickin back-watchin it happen.

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), January 15, 2001.

What foolishness...

They ought to call this the "Club of Rome" error, or the "Malthusian" error. It is the notion that there is a fixed "pie" of resources and that the consumption of these resources is a simple matter of time.

Malthus made the simple observation that the production of food increased arithmetically while population increased exponentially. It was inevitable, Malthus posited, that mankind would face great famines.

Malthus, the Club of Rome, Paul Erlich and the other flawed thinkers on the "Hallyx" web site were wrong. They failed to factor in the impacts of technology. We now grow enough food to feed the world, although this food is poorly distributed. The doomsayers have been wrong time and again... and yet they always find enough material to cob together a few graphs and charts. They always manage to sell a few books.

Furthermore, the author's application of the first and second laws of thermodynamics are laughable. The first law is not "no creation" but conservation of matter. The second law states that you cannot finish any physical process with the same useful energy that you had to start with. Problem: The earth is not a "closed system." The largest source of energy in our solar system, the sun, will eventually burn out. Of course, this will not happen nearly fast enough to justify the predictions of anyone on Dieoff.org.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@att.net), January 15, 2001.

ken decker- i (a lurker) appreciate you. your well thought out contributions are refreshing. thanks

-- gary (garys359@aol.com), January 16, 2001.

Gary, Thanks.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@att.net), January 17, 2001.