Category: Signal Fires

Blog Summary: Oligarchy, The Fall of Democracy in the U.S. & The Fall of Man Worldwide

This blog explores the perilous trajectory of democracy in the U.S. and humanity’s collective descent into crisis. It begins with Adam Mockler, a pro-democracy YouTuber, who highlights President Biden’s Farewell Address as a wake-up call. Mockler discusses an alarming spike in Google searches for “oligarchy,” revealing widespread ignorance among U.S. citizens, even as a slim majority unknowingly voted for one. He contrasts Russia’s oligarchic emergence and its eventual control by Putin with the U.S. situation, urging viewers not to “obey in advance” but to recognize that corrective actions are still possible.

The blog transitions to economist Richard Wolff’s video Last Warning, where Wolff delivers a sobering analysis of the economic systems driving the U.S. and the world toward collapse. He outlines the rise and fall of empires, focusing on the American Empire’s peak from 1870 to 1970 and its decline since. Wolff paints a grim picture of stagnant wages, skyrocketing debt, and systemic denial, comparing modern America’s plight to 1929 Germany—a desperate population driven to extremism. He warns of the dire consequences of repeating history, particularly the risks of escalating conflict with China, which shows every sign of becoming the next dominant empire.

The blog concludes with insights from the author’s book, Sapience: The Moment Is Now, which delves into the psychological roots of humanity’s denial and inaction. Drawing from chapters on how corruption entered human civilization and led to its downfall, the author provides a framework for readers to build the inner strength needed to confront reality. The message emphasizes the importance of empathy, cooperation, and actionable solutions, rejecting blame and violence as paths that would only hasten humanity’s demise. Together, Mockler’s contemporary analysis, Wolff’s economic perspective, and the author’s psychological insights offer a roadmap to facing and addressing the crises at hand.

Adam Mockler Breaks Down What an Oligarchy Is

Adam Mockler’s Transcript

Google Search Skyrocket on What Is an Oligarchy

0:01: All right I want to break down something incredibly important today there's one word that's been skyrocketing in the Google search engine over the past week as Americans across the country try to wrap their heads around its meaning. And I'd like to really do a deep dive on it today. So just to lay the groundwork we all know that Elon Musk is expected to use office space in the White House complex once Trump takes office in a few days. And this isn't because he was elected by anybody. It's because he bought his way in he spent $200 million of his own wealth on Trump's campaign. He rented a headquarters in Pennsylvania so he could go knock doors himself. He also held a giveaway $1 million giveaway for people who voted in red counties. And this was all after he basically blew $44 billion on Twitter as it hemorrhaged money. I guess he didn't blow the money because look where it got him into the White House. Now that also connects with the corporations and billionaires who are bankrolling Trump's inauguration. Some of the richest people in the country have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Donald Trump's Presidential Inaugural Committee. Just listen to this for one second Obama's Inauguration in 2009 was worth $53 million. Trump's inauguration is going to be four times that amount (i.e., $212 million) because people like Jeff Bezos, a founder of Amazon, people like open AI CEO Sam Ultman or Mark Zuckerberg or the Uber CEO or Ken Griffin, who's a hedge fund manager, Elon Musk, they are all donating a massive amount of money to Trump's inauguration fund. And you can probably see where I'm going with this, but I do want to say that rich people meddling with politics has been a thing since the Inception of America.

1:39  It's not always inherently bad people like George Soros have used their money for good. But in this scenario, it's getting quite scary. For example, Bezos the world's second richest man said: "Trump seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation and if I can help him do that I'm going to help him." 

Bezo said: "We do have too much regulation in this country," says the world's second richest man. 

Their message is clear when Trump takes a presidential oath of office on January 20th. His job is to work for them. This dude (Trump) ran a campaign as a populist who's going to help the American people. Yet he has all of these rich people at his inauguration with $1 million tables. And that's why this article was brought to my attention. Searches for what is an oligarchy Spike after Biden's warning.

President Biden’s Farewell Address and Warning

2:23 Biden gave his Farewell Address about two days back.  And he just straight up said it we are turning into an oligarchy. I'll play the clip in 1 second, but after that we saw a massive spike in the Google search Trends. So this website right here is named Google Trends.  It's run by Google and you can see how people search things, what rate they searched at. What is an oligarchy is what I have typed in right here in the interest over time. It spikes from about zero to one or zero to 100 after Biden gave his Farewell Address. You can even see the dark blue states are states where there were extra searches. And we're seeing a lot of searches in red States. So in Indiana you see 89 out of 100 uh in Alabama, 91 out of 100 in Georgia and 86 compared to the interest before [Biden's address] being at about one for a while it was at zero no one was searching for it.

3:12: Then in late December [a little more search activity is shown] and the top related result is down here is Joe Biden. So Joe Biden's Farewell Address directly opened a lot of people's eyes. 

What Is an Oligarchy?

So I'd like to dive a little bit deeper into what an oligarchy is. I know I've talked about a lot on the show. I've drawn parallels to Russian oligarchs and the way that people entrench their power with wealth, but I'm not sure if I've ever done a full video laying out the definition, and then building on top of that to show everyone the situation that we're in. 

So make sure you drop a like [and] subscribe [and] watch this video till the end, and if you're going to share any video with your family or your Maga family members, it's probably should probably be this one.

3:45: I'm not even going to be talking about Trump as much in this video it's just about the broad state of American politics. 

So what is an oligarchy? 

Well, Britanica says "Oligarchy government by the few, especially despotic power exercised by a small and priv group for corrupt or selfish purposes. Oligarchies in which members of the ruling group are wealthy or exercise their power through their wealth are known as plutocracies."

The Example of Russia and Oligarchy

4:10: So, you could also say that we're slowly turning into a plutocracy but oligarchy is a term that Britanica and use so we'll just keep digging in on that. There's also this article that talks about how Putin conquered Russia's oligarchy. They used to be run purely by an oligarchy but Vladimir Putin said to the rich people either you're loyal to me or you go to prison.

4:30: Isn't that basically what Trump said about Mark Zuckerberg? I mean Mark Zuckerberg very clearly began going along with what Trump was saying after Trump said: "He may put him in prison." Trump was even asked "Do you think it's because of your threats against Zukerberg that he's now a Republican?" Trump said: "Yeah, probably." 

4:44: So let me read this really quickly: "In the summer of 2000-21, [some] of the richest men in Russia exited their bulletproof limousines and entered the Kremlin for a historic meeting. In the previous decade, these men had risen seemingly out of nowhere amassing spectacular fortunes as a country around them descended into chaos through Shady deals, outright corruption, and even murder. These rapacious oligarchs, as Russians have come to derisively call them, had seized control of much of Russia's economy and increasingly its fledgling democracy. But now their nation's newly elected President Vladimir Putin wanted to tell them face-to-face who was really in charge."

5:20: Quote, I want to draw your attention to the fact that you built the state yourself to a great degree through the political or semi-political structures under your control. So there is no point in blaming the reflection in the mirror. Putin offered the oligarchs a
deal: Bend to my authority stay out of my way and you can keep your Mansions, super yachts, and private jets and multi-billion dollar corporations. Corporations that just a few years before had been owned by the Russian government. 

5:48: In the coming years the oligarchs who reneged on this deal and undermined Putin would be thrown into a Siberian prison or be forced into Exile or die in suspicious circumstances. 

The USA Is Not Russia… Do Not Obey In Advance!

6:00: Now, this is obviously an extreme example. The US is not Russia and people who are saying that we are already Russia are sort of just obeying in advance. A lot of my commenters are like: "Oh Adam... it's so cute of you to think that we're ever going to have another election again. That is a form of obeying in advance just admitting that that we're never going to have an election before Trump even takes office means in a way you are obeying in advance, and you're
just giving up. You're being that cynical!

6:19: We need to keep fighting.  We are not Russia, and I know people in the comments are going to be like: Adam, we basically are Russia.  We're not we're not Russia yet. Trust me.

6:27:  These individuals have enriched themselves at the expense of the Russian people. The White House said in a recent statement announcing sanctions against over a dozen oligarchs connected to Putin, quote: "They sit a top Russia's largest companies and are responsible [for] providing the resources necessary to support Putin's invasion of Ukraine. So, [in] the so in Russia's case, we can safely say that oligarchs are a small group of unelected individuals who have concentrated their power by wielding their disproportionate amount of wealth, and they use their wealth to entrench their power within politics outside of the formal election systems.

Elon Musk & Office Space in Trump’s White House

7:02: Can I just go back to this article Elon Musk is expected to use office space in the White House complex. The richest man in the world has bought his way into the White House, and now he gets an office space not because he was elected, he wasn't even born in America. He was not elected by anybody. The location suggests that Mr Musk, who owns companies with billions of dollars in contracts with the federal government, will continue to have remarkable access to president-elect Donald J Trump. 

7:28: Can I just go back to what what Bezos said. Quote: "He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation and if I can help him do that, I'm going to help him. We do have too much regulation in this country."

7:37: This is the second richest man in the world saying: "Hey, this regulation is making it... uh, really hard for me to get rich and exploit my workers."

7:46: Bro -- you're already rich what type of regulations do you want to remove other than things that will just hurt American citizens? 

7:54: So let's watch this video of President Biden during his Farewell Address, now that I've laid out the groundwork. Now I can play this video of president Biden, and we can all be on the same page. I know that you guys know what an oligarchy is but there is something to be said that most Americans had to search this after Biden's farewell address and that this spiked. 

8:09: So let's listen to this that's why my Farewell Address tonight I want to warn the country of some things that give me 
great

Back to President’s Biden’s Warning to All Americans — Red, White, Blue, Brown, Green

8:13: "I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern this is a dangerous con and that's a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra wealthy people. The dangerous consequences [is] if their Abuse of Power is left unchecked today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights, and freedoms. [It also threatens] a fair shot for everyone to get ahead. We see the consequences all across America, and we've seen it before more than a century ago. But the American people stood up to the Robert Barons back then and busted the trusts. They didn't punish the wealthy. [They] just made the wealthy pay the by play by the rules everybody else had to just play by the rules that everybody else has to play by. "

9:11: And let me remind you guys, President Biden is very careful with his words. If I have one criticism of his presidency, [it] is that he was probably too risk averse at certain points. There were certain times when he didn't want to rock the boat regarding Russia or he didn't have the strength needed on the international stage to keep Russia in check, and I think Biden had a great domestic presidency. 

9:30: I mean I think he passed some historic legislation. He is a great human being, but the least I can say is I think there are certain moments where he he he was a little bit too risk averse. And that showed on the world stage but right here, he is being very careful with his words. He would not say the US is turning into an oligarchy if he didn't mean it. He's not just Trump. Trump will bloviate and he'll throw out any word whenever it suits his interest. 

9:54: Trump will literally say anything to anybody. Biden is not like that. Biden is very careful with what he says [and] does because he understands that what he does sends a message. 

10:06: So let's finish off with this article President Joe Biden in his farewell address to the nation on Wednesday warned that American democracy is being threatened by a burgeoning oligarchy. Oligarchs are a subset of the very very wealthy and this is an important distinction right here. Being rich doesn't necessarily make you an oligarch. 

The 1% Is What Oligarchs Are… and Even a Subset of That Super Elite Group

10:19: "An oligarch is someone who influences politics outside of the formal system," explained by Brooke Harrington who studies this exact thing at Dartmouth University. She spoke with the five-minute fix in 2022 when US sanctions were targeting Russian oligarchs at the outset of the war in Ukraine. Quote: "It's someone who isn't an elected representative or Cabinet member but who has the ear of the president." And she said this before Elon Musk was really Maga. I mean in 2022 Elon Musk had bought Twitter, but he wasn't like full onon full-throated Maga yet. 

10:50 She then pointed to the late Sheldon Adon a billionaire Casino Tycoon and Republican Mega donor who did work on US Israeli relations and now Sheldon's wife Miriam is one of Trump's biggest donors and even got the presidential medal of freedom after Trump's first term... that is an example of an American oligarch. Elon Musk almost certainly fits the definition today. No matter where the definition is coming from, whether you're getting it from Marian Webster or even Wikipedia, it doesn't matter Elon Musk almost certainly fits the definition. 

11:23: The tech billionaire has taken calls with foreign leaders. He stopped a government spending Bill in its tracks by sending out a few tweets or X's or whatever the hell [that thing is now], and [he] seemingly hasn't left president-elect Donald Trump's side since the end of the campaign. He's an unofficial leader in the Republican party. Some Democrats have derisively called him Pro co-president but he is he is literally the co-president, and this is an oligarchy in every sense of the term.

11:45: Why Trump tends to attract oligarchs this part is important. Harrington argues there have always been American oligarchs like I said at the beginning of the video, rich people have always been putting their thumb on the scale most of the time. We don't want that we can have a separate conversation about money and politics in general, but what we're seeing is new. This is a different scale from George Soros donating to Obama's campaign in 2008. This is different and I also will say I think Trump will change what the presidency in America means or what it looks like. I genuinely think that in 20 years, being president will mean something completely different. 

12:19: After Trump's term in 2028 the presidency will not mean the same as what it means in 2024. I can make another video about that but Trump has a lot to do with it and a lot to do with why the oligarchy is growing. Many in the business community view him as a purely transactional president. He's a very transactional person and that you get what you give, and so oligarchs and potential oligarchs are growing in influence [abd] in number. 

12:44: And as he prepares again to take [and has taken] office, several Tech Titans are making an almost dizzying amount of business moves that could be easily perceived as being for Trump. [For example] META, Mark Zuckerberg, [is] ending factchecking on a
social media platforms and removing tampons from certain bathrooms... undoing things about pronouns. I mean it's all just posturing, right? 

13:01: Jeff Bezos who founded Amazon and owns the Washington Post,
spiked a comma Harris endorsement from the post editorial board. The Tik Tok CEO will be [and was] at Trump's inauguration on Monday, a day after the platform is expected to be banned. Actually, they'll all be at Trump's inauguration including the heads of Google, the head of Apple they've all donated millions of dollars to Trump's inauguration because, quote: "We're witnessing Tech CEOs scrambling
[to] curry favor, and the Trump Administration has not not even begun," said Maximillian Potter a journalist with the group protect democracy.

13:34: Trump also appears to be integrating his wealthy allies into the government not unlike his first term where many of his cabinet members were millionaires or billionaires. Musk, the richest man in the world, and millionaire biotech entrepreneur V Ramaswami will lead an initiative tasked with cutting government spending and waste with republicans in Congress following their lead [Ramaswami actually quit from DOGE and is running for mayor or governor of someplace now]. 

13:55: And here's what I was saying earlier and I want to make an entire other video about this, but an oligarchy can be hard to stop once it's in motion. I genuinely think that after this Trump term, the office of the presidency will mean something different. It has
long been the case that big money controls politicians, as I said, but Musk and other billionaires growing influence on the system could be a product, a direct result of Americans dissatisfaction with how responsive or the lack of responsiveness from the government over the past few years. 

14:23: Trump and the billionaires with whom he's aligned himself are seen among his supporters as Outsiders who will disrupt the status quo in Washington. Whether we like it or not quote: "Democrats have become associated with the elite with political correctness. There are times when Democrats are a little bit too finger Waggy--no don't do that don't do that..." uh explaining that the party came across during the campaign [and] is more interested in the causes of higher educated, uh urban communities than the rest of America. I don't know if I agree exactly with that perception, but yes, people did think Trump was for them due to a multitude of reasons. 

14:55: Russia is the poster country for oligarchs. There oligarchs are fully embedded in politics. They are directing culture, serving in high-profile governmental jobs... [and] can I just go back to this article one more time, this dude [Musk] is going to have an office in the White House, in the White House. 

15:11: Quote: "There are no laws against a president in a super wealthy cabinet using their power to benefit their own class. There is nothing that compels them to look beyond their privilege to
address the needs of the citizenry. In other words it's going to be up to voters to hold leaders accountable for putting the rich first. And in order to show voters that their interests are being put second, we're going to have to push back relentlessly. We're going to have to dominate The Narrative and that's where you and I come in every single day we're going to be pushing back on this channel. 

15:36: So I'll end off with that drop a like subscribe. I love you guys. I'll see you in the next one and peace out!

Richard Wolff’s Last WARNING

Richard D. Wolff is an American economist and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is known for his critiques of economic inequality and his advocacy for worker cooperatives as a way to empower individuals and address systemic issues within the economy. Through his books, lectures, and public appearances, Wolff explores topics such as economic democracy and alternative economic models.

Richard Wolff’s Transcript

A System in Very Deep Doodoo

0:00 Before I start I have to ask you to understand that old adage that if you don't like the message, please don't take your anger out on the messenger. I am going to be describing to you as best I can what the situation is with the United States's economic system, which has a name... it's called capitalism, and it is to give you a hint of where we're going. It is a system in very deep doodoo.

0:30 It is in the greatest difficulty that I have ever seen in my life. And you can tell from my white hair that I've been around a while. I never expected to see what I am experiencing and I imagine for many of you, it is the same unless you are committed to something my psychotherapist wife explains to me as the problem of denial. Not a river in Egypt but an inability to confront what it is that's going on because it's frightening. It's a very human thing to do. It's like a little child who puts his or her hands in front of her face when there's a scary dog in the neighborhood because she still imagines at age three... that if you don't see it it isn't there. And if you don't see what's going on around us then perhaps it isn't there.

1:20 And that is something which our political leaders and our cultural leaders and our economic leaders that's one thing they all have in in common with very few exceptions namely a commitment to denial. 

Why Is the American System in Very Deep Doodoo? Because of Denial

1:41 So my presentation today is going to try to break through
all the mechanisms of denial that surround us in order to tell you what I think is going on. I'm not infallible. I make mistakes like everybody else but this is the fruit of a lifetime of observing US capitalism, which I was born in the United States in Young, Ohio. I've lived and worked here all my life. I have never seen anything like the situation we are in now.

2:12 To give you the framework and then jump in [to my observations], I think that the history of the world is a sequence with interruptions, but a sequence of Empires: the Greek, the Roman, the Persian, the Egyptian, the Chinese. I mean I could go on, and they all have something in common they are born usually out of the demise of another Empire. They evolve and change over a period of time running from a few decades to a few centuries, and then they die. They pass away. 

Empires Fall — They Live & They Die

Empires fall — they live & die

2:36 The most recent one perhaps the most and best studied was the British Empire, which depending on how you want to count goes from around the 16th century to the end of the 19th... more or less so three or four centuries. 

2:56 Depending on how you come and out of the disintegration of the British Empire, literally punctuated by the war the independence war that swirled around Boston right where you are, a part of that Empire broke away. And in an important lesson, the Empire denied that this was building, even though it was building across the entirety of the 18th century. [The British Empire] denied it, and then in 1776 the denial blew up in its face as the colonists here in this part of the British Empire, by the way a relatively small relatively unimportant part of the Empire, wanted its independence. 

3:37 And a war was fought, which to the surprise and nd a war was fought, which to the surprise and chagrin of the British Empire and George III sitting on his throne in England, the British lost. Not to be forgetful, let me remind you that in 1812 they tried again,and they lost again. 

3:56 And with that set in motion the disintegration of the British Empire, which ended in World War I [as well as the Ottoman Empire]. 

4:02 Out of it emerged the American Empire.

4:09 American capitalism across the 19th century resolved certain key internal contradictions holding them back most notably the bizarre coexistence in this country of a capitalist Northeast and Midwest and a slave South that was resolved by the willful destruction of slavery by the capitalists.

4:29  Remember the Civil War is the expropriation without compensation of the single most important wealth of the south in this country the slave. 

4:41 The slave was emancipated, and thereby the White Master impoverished. The very Stark disregard for the sanctity of private property and capitalism having destroyed its competitor with enormous violence took off. 

5:04 Starting in 1870, the United State's capitalism had a century of economic growth the most amazing thing is if you look at the statistics, crude as they are especially in the early years, the United States grew uninterruptedly for that Century.

5:19 Roughly 1870s to the 1970s, every decade real wages of workers were high higher than the decade before. Even across the Great Depression, profits grew even faster. 

5:37 So you had this bizarre situation, quite rare in the world of a capitalism that was able to give Rising profits to its capitalists and Rising wages to the mass of its workers with of course the exception of those workers with the bad luck to not have been born white. 

6:00 Very important [to let] that they sink in [a] while. Why? Because if you do something like this, if you have a century of economic growth under an economic system like capitalism, it isn't So surprising that you think of the United States as exceptional... because in that regard it was. If you're religious, perhaps you think God likes Americans better than he or she likes other people. If you're not religious, you will attribute it to who knows what... entrepreneurship. My professors used to like to say, "Whatever in the world that's supposed to be?"

6:33 But it was exceptional, and Americans, whatever there other orientations, took on the notion that we live in an exceptional place. 

6:46 And they then really ran with that ball, and [they] began
to imagine that this exceptionality was somehow inherent. And so, it would last forever. It was upward and onward... the American economy! And it would carry our culture around the world to become the world's culture.

The American Economy, Onward & Upward Forever & Ever… OH NO!! Help!!!

“AND ONWARD — THE AMERICAN ECONOMY

7:05 Our political system would be the model. Our military would push away those backward people who wanted to resist. It became, and I use this word carefully, crazy. 

7:26 And of course when the signs began to emerge that this Empire,
the United States Empire, after a 100 Year rise up, was beginning to show the signs of decline, of peaking, of breaking... it's not surprising that the leaders of such a system with such a history would be deep into denying what had happened.

7:52 Not seeing what was exploding around them over the last few days, Americans have been confronted yet again with the level of violence committed every day somewhere in this country by the police against the Citizens.

8:13 And again there are people who want to blame it on this or that particular policeman or woman who will not see that this is a social phenomena.

8:26 It has been going on for a long time and it is getting worse. This the same issue. It's the same denial. 

8:34 Okay... what exactly is being denied? Let's begin, and I apologize I'm going to begin with economics, but that is what I know best.

8:41 That is what I have studied all my life. And so if I'm going to be useful to you, I want to share at first what I know best. 

8:58 Over the last 40 years, roughly 1980 to now, we have seen (and all economists of all political persuasions understand this and see it). 

9:03 We all use basically the same numbers, and with a few exceptions of course, always we come to the same conclusion over the last 40 years: There has been a radical redistribution of wealth from the bottom and the middle to the top.

9:23 And the more top you get [the better]... the top 10% have done really well, the top 5% even better, the top 1% even better than that, and the top one tenth of 1% the best of all! 

9:37 And you know them because in our society we adulate them. I'm talking about Bill Gates or Elon Musk or Warren Buffett or fill-in the blank. You know them! Our culture [cult-ure] makes sure you know them!! 

As the Rich Get Richer… and the Rise of Wage Slaves

AS THE RICH GET RICHER… UNDER RIGGED TAX CODES THAT BENEFIT CORPORATIONS & THE RICH… THE POOR GET POORER & THE MIDDLE CLASS DISAPPEARS

9:49 They became much richer. The top 10% became [even] richer. All across those 40 years. This was partly because... and this is very important that you understand this.... it was partly because we changed the tax laws in this country. 

10:08 We relieved taxes from corporations and the rich, and we switched them [taxes] onto the middle and bottom.

10:14 It was done by Republicans. It was done by Democrats. It didn't matter who was in The White House or who was controlling the houses of the Congress.

10:25 The Democrats did it a little less quickly. The Republicans were a bit more intense. 

10:33 Speed varied... content did not. Even more important than the changes in taxes was the phenomenon of the relationship between capital and labor--that is corporations and business on the one hand and the mass of people, employees, on the other.

10:52 As I've told you, real wages went up for a century--1870s to 1970.

10:58 Why 1970, do I pick that? Now I can tell you because that's when real wages in America stopped rising! 

11:06 Absolutely epic making change!! What is a real wage? It's the amount of money you get adjusted for the prices you pay. So for example, if your wages go up 10%, you might feel good, but if all the prices you have to pay went up by 10%... you're no better off with a 10% bigger money wage than you were without it because the prices have adjusted. 

11:32 We all know that in economics, so we don't use money wages, we
use what's called real wages. Wages understood in terms of what it can afford you to buy: Goods, services, food, clothing, shelter, entertainment, education, medical care... whatever.

Americans have not made a real wage… a living wage… since 1978

11:43 Real wages rose. In other words, the money wages workers had from 1870 to 1970 rose more than the prices did. So they really got more stuff that they could afford to buy. 

Trapped in the Illusion of Never-Ending Capitalistic Growth

Americans are trapped in an illusion of never-ending growth, which capitalism did from the 1870s to 1970s… but then it stopped

12:04 In the 1970s, that stopped and it has never resumed. The American working class today earns, in terms of what it can afford to buy, the average American worker earns now what he or she did in 1978. 

Americans today receive the same real wage, a living wage, that they did in 1978

12:25 Try to wrap your head around no more real wage increase. For a country that had enjoyed steady real wage rises for a century, this is a traumatic event.

Back to Denial

12:33 How is it handled in the United States? 

12:36 Denial. 

How has this been handled in the US?

Denial

12:39 I won't embarrass you by asking how many of you know what I just said, to be the case. How many of you have dwelt in your mind on what it might do to a population used to a rising wage when it is no longer available.

12:52 There was no discussion at the time or since. No debate in this country... what do we do about all of this?! 

13:05 The closest you got were vague gestures in which somebody says: "Gee the middle class seems to be fading away..." as if this were I don't know some sort of cosmic effect or maybe the result of sunspots or allergies or who knows what.

13:24 But an analysis either of why it happened or of what its consequences were No, no, no... nothing serious.

No analysts of why this happened or the consequences of it has ever been done.

US Women Sent into the Workforce, Enmasse, Due to Denial

13:29 Well let me tell you what some of the results were. 

13:35 Number one, [and] by far the most important socially, the women of the United States left the home, where they had been sequestered for the earlier parts of American history and had to go out and do wage labor on mass.

13:48 The only ones who had been doing that beforehand were black and brown women. They long been doing it cuz they had to and the poorest among the whites. 

13:55 But now suddenly, all women, all the wives and mothers had to go out. There was no other way to sustain the fantasy of growth of the American dream of what had been experienced in the previous Century.

Emergence of Mass Debt to Keep People in Denial

To Sustain the Illusion of Growth — Average Americans Were Allowed to Accumulate Debt

14:13 The second most important effect Americans began to realize that the only way they could participate in further growth of consumption, the way they had been led to believe was somehow inherent in the American Experience besides sending their wives out to work, besides following a career as a worker in a factory you could now go back to work and be a greeter at Walmart's but beside that--you could borrow money. 

14:50 In the 1970s, the banks of the United States decided that the consumer... to whom they had never lent money before... they would now lend money to.

15:03 In other words, the credit card, which until then had been
American Express in the hands of rich people and businessmen, would now become socialized.

15:08 Everybody's wallet would be crammed full of plastic cards... live off them.

15:15 And so, the American working class from around the 1970 to the present accumulated debt. We are a debt ridden society in the way we never were before.

America is a Debt Ridden Society

Pioneers of Debt, Depression, and Denial

15:28 We became Pioneers not in covered wagons going west, but in what we could cram plastic in our wallets. All the growth of consumption in the last 40 years has been based on women's labor women's earnings and debt. 

15:46 Families have become much more complicated institutions. To survive we have the highest divorce rate in the world. We put our families under levels of pressure that would be impossible for anyone to sustain. 

15:56 American women consume more psychotropic drugs than any other population on the planet!

American women consume more psychotropic drugs than any other population on the planet… Why?

16:02 Why? Because they are druggies? 

16:08 No! Because we put them under impossible pressures, which blew up the family, since the mother was what held the emotional life of so many families together, and she was now as exhausted as the husband.

16:20 Coming back from her hours of work, the Empire's Foundation is beginning to crack.

16:27 Well, you keep assuming more debt, which the American working class did.

16:33 It borrowed. It had borrowed with government support for its house. That's how mortgages developed.

16:39 For those of you who don't know, mortgages were never given to working class people to buy a home until the Great Depression.

The Great Depression & Greedy Corporations

Mortgages were never given to working class people to buy a home until the Great Depression.

16:46 To get us out of the Great Depression, the government took the step of guaranteeing the mortgages so the banks could lend without a risk.

16:53 Otherwise they wouldn't have. Cuz they never did. The American homeowner Society is a product of the government not of private Enterprise, which was too greedy and too frightened to ever do it.

Private Enterprise was too greedy & too frightened to make loans to ordinary American citizens, so the government did it.

17:05 Home loaning, then the car had to be paid for with loans because the working class couldn't afford it.

17:12 Then the credit card, so you could buy everything! 

Why the US Government Had to Step In

Government helped banks prop up the people with home mortgages, car loans, and then the credit card.

17:17 And then in the last 20 years, a new indebtedness, the
college student.

17:23 So by now, the family is dying, floating in levels of debt it cannot support because the underlying wage didn't go up... just the debts.

17:31 And it doesn't take a PhD in economics, although I have that, for you to understand that if the underlying wage doesn't go up... you can't keep accumulating debt because the time will come... and it's called 2008... and that's why that song is so appropriate: Cracks in the Empire!

It doesn’t take a PhD to understand that if a person keeps accumulating debt that the time will come when the debt bubble bursts.

That Bubble Bursting is call 2008

Side Trip

I’m not sure which song Wolff is referring to… I am interested which one… but I found these two.

Back to Richard Wolff

Cracks in the Empire

17:42 Cracks... In... The... Empire... this system is so committed to inequality that not only did it grow over the last 40 years as wages stopped rising... of course, where would would workers income go they couldn't grow their wages were flat but they were becoming more productive all the time. 

18:00 The last 40 years are the computer, the robot, artificial intelligence... all of that workers productivity goes up [but] workers wages are flat.

18:13 Wages are what the employer gives you. Productivity is what you give the employer.

18:19 If what the employer gives you is flat and what you give the employer keeps rising... guess what you have:inequality.

Flat Wages = Inequality

If what the employer gives you is flat & what you give the employer keeps rising… guess what you have?Inequality.

18:25 You're taking all your growing out put and giving it to one small class of people employers are 1 2 3% of our population, if that.

Employers are 1, 2, 3% of our population, if that… but they get all the wealth.

18:38 They get it even across Covid-19 pandemic. 

Employers benefit from rising productivity even across COVID-19.

18:38 Inequality got worse. And what did we do to the working class after we gave them 40 years of losing everything... their families falling apart, their position in American society, their growing wealth (a kind of affirmation that somehow you're doing better) [but] all of that's taken away.

19:04 Then we hit them with COVID, then we hit them with an inflation and now we're hitting them with rising interest rates. 

After 40 Years of Losing Everything…. the Middle Class Is…

40 years of losing everything… their families falling apart, their position in American society, their wealth… then we hit them with COVID, inflation & rising interest rates.

19:10 Let me frighten you, if I may... if what I've said hasn't done that job already. 

19:16 There is an example in history of another working class over a
small number of years being hit with economic blows on a scale of what's Happening Here.

19:21 The example is Germany, and here's how it works in the second
half of the 19th century as the British British Empire is declining the United States is not the only competitor looking to replace the British... there is another one, Germany.

Here’s How Another Highly Productive Middle Class/Working Class Society Handled Losing Everything

There is an example in history of another working class over a
small number of years being hit with economic blows on a scale of what’s Happening Here… Now… in America.

That example is Germany

19:40 World War I defeats Germany. Britain with its allies defeat Germany... throw them out of the competition, wipe them out, impose at the end a reparations they couldn't possibly pay.

19:51 The German working class, which had been built up across the 19th century to believe it was creating a whole new globe. In German it's called Das Deutsche Reich.

Throughout the 19th Century, Germans were made to believe they were building Das Deutsche Reich.

20:03 That's like the German Empire, and it had... you know, territories in Asia, territories in Africa, and so on. All that was smashed when the unthinkable happened in 1914 to 1918.

20:19 Germany was defeated. The empire was taken away. Literally, the British took the colonies in Africa away from the Germans and made them British colonies.

20:27 Everything for them [Germans] destroyed. It was a trauma for the German working class.

20:33 It ended in 1918 with defeat. Within four years late 22 to early 1923, literally a century ago, Germany then experienced the worst inflation in modern times anywherein the West.

20:48 In a period of 9 months, the German currency went from six Deutsche Marks to the dollar to 4 trillion Deutsche Marks to the dollar.

In a period of 9 months, the Deutsche Mark went from 6 Marks to the Dollar…

…to 4 Trillion Deutsche Marks to the Dollar

21:01 Prices doubled over weeks at a time, every hour of the day, any savings accumulated by a German family, and they were very frugal, were wiped out.

21:13 [During this time, after] six generations of saving money, [they] had enough money put away to buy a quarter pound of butter. They were done.

21:19 And five years after that, in 1929, the Great Depression hit Germany. It was too much. You cannot hit a working class, even the German working class, which was the best educated, most productive and, most progressive working class anywhere in Europe.

21:38 No contest. Even that... it was too much. And in 1932, those German people overwhelmed by what they had been put through, turned around and supported a little Austrian with a black mustache Adolf Hitler...and you know the rest of the story...

It was too much. And in 1932, those German people overwhelmed by what they had been put through, turned around and supported a little Austrian with a black mustache.

Here We Go Again… This Time in America

21:56 We're just living out... here we go... the same sad scenario: denial, not explaining to people the foundation of what they're assuming, not talking honestly about its disappearance, the cracks what it means when your Empire has that fun ride up... [then] begins to be replaced by the much less fun ride down. We're in very deep trouble,

Here we go… the much less fun ride down… in denial all the way!

22:27 The last half century, we have benefited enormously by the fact that there's one international currency money: It's the US dollar.

22:35 It's as good as gold because it literally functions like gold.

22:41 That's over. Ukraine simply speeds up the process. China, Russia, now Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, and many more countries are signing up for another International currency.

22:56 It shouldn't come as a big surprise whose currency that is... it's the currency of the People's Republic of China.

23:10 China shows all the signs of a rising Empire, matching all the signs of a declining Empire here. 

The Day of the US Dollar Ruling Are Over

The days that the US dollar rules the international currency is over.

23:18 You may not like that information. You may be upset by it... that's your business. But to pretend it isn't there... let me give you just some numbers... 

23:30 I'm an economist we do that. One of the things we do as economists is we look at the size of an economy to gauge relative economic power. And the number we use it's crude, like all numbers, but it gives you an idea it's called GDP. It stands for gross domestic product.

23:49 It's a measure of the output of goods and services in one calendar year.

23:54 So it helps us if we look at it and we measure it. And it's measured for every country on this Planet. It gives us an idea of the relative size.

GDP

GDP is how economic power is measured worldwide.

24:00 Okay... let's now do a comparison of three countries Russia, China, and the US to get a sense of their economic wealth their economic power.

24:13 Their economic footprint, if you like, in the world to give you an idea of... and if you didn't know this, think about what that might mean. So I'll start with Russia.

24:26 The GDP of the most recent year for Russia it's about 1.5 trillion dollars. The GDP of the United States last year was $21 trillion dollars. 

24:49 Do you understand Russia has never been and is not now anything like a serious economic competitor of the United States. It never was. It never came close. 

24:54 It may have had some nuclear weapons to worry about. It may have had political influence but like an economic unit? 

24:59 Only people [who] systematically denied the simple statistic I just gave you could believe that 

25:09 Russia has $1.5 trillion GDP. The United States alone [has] 21 [trillion GDP]

25:13 You know who has a bigger economic footprint than Russia? Italy 

25:18 United States is allied with Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and, many other countries against Russia.

25:25 If you put them all together, it's like 30 maybe 35 trillion dollar against Russia with one and a half... what are you talking about a war? 

25:37 This is a war between David and Goliath, and you're not going to be happy with who is playing which role. Think about it.

Russia GDP $1.5 trillion dollars

US GDP $21 trillion dollars

25:47 Now China... what's the GDP of China? Ready -- $17.5 trillion.

China GDP is $17.5 trillion dollars

25:47 $175 trillion... that's a competitor, not Russia.

25:53 China that's the Empire emerging, not Russia. China.

25:59 And why? Easy to explain. Over the last 25 or 30 years annual growth of GDP, how fast is the economy growing. Here in the United States is 2% maybe, slightly more 2.5 to 3%, somewhere in there. Let's be generous 2 to 3% US average annual growth.

26:19 China's average annual growth is 6 to 9%. End of conversation. 

26:27 That's why China went from being one of the poorest countries in the world to being the competitor of the United States, one of
the richest.
 
26:32 You know what it's like? It's a story a little like the colony in North America being a place for Furs, and then becoming the new Empire 

26:44 So that the roles between Great Britain and its Colony were reversed.

26:49 Now Britain is our Colony, as any honest appraisal of the relationship between these two countries would immediately acknowledge.

26:57 In Britain, one of the most common jokes you can hear is that when the United States tells Britain to jump, the response of Britain is: How high?

In Britain, one of the most common jokes you can hear is that when the United States tells Britain to jump, the response of Britain is: How high?

27:05 China has overtaken the United States in dozens of fields, particularly the highest Tech ones. 

27:17 Young people around you are using TikTok... that's Chinese, as a social media. What's going on? 

27:23 The United States doesn't know what to do. Having not learned the lessons, having not understood what denial means... for a long time they denied because to see the rise of China is to take a step in the direction that might make you confront what's happening to you and that's a taboo.

27:42 Finally, the United States figures it out and what does it do as if it learned nothing from its history. It tries Warfare. 

How the US Deals with the Fact that Its Capitalistic Systems Are Declining & China is Rising

The signs of denial are all around…

27:55 It tries to slow down, to stop, maybe even to reverse history... just like Britain did. Mr Trump declared a

28:03 Mr Trump declared a trade war against China. You remember... it's not that many years ago he applied sanctions, he applied tariffs, he did everything he could to stop to reverse it.

28:14 None of it worked. It was one big fat failure. 

Big Fat Orange Failure… and that Was 4 Years Ago!

None of what Trump did worked 4 years ago… It was one big fat failure.

28:23 Now, we are in a war, we the US and its allies, with the most important ally China had, Russia.

28:29 That's what's going on in Ukraine. It has got nothing whatever to do with that sad country suffering this war. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

28:42 The truth of Ukraine, all the rest is propagandistic Foolery on both sides.

28:49 This is about weakening the Ally of China, which Russia is. 

The Truth About Ukraine from an Economic Perspective

28:55 When the war started, Mr. Biden predicted the Russians couldn't last a few weeks 

29:01 With this Armada of countries and weapons and wealth, and new name it, he referred to what they were doing as the Mother of All Sanctions, which it was greatest sanction program ever apply, [that] Russia wouldn't last.

29:15 The ruble would be valueless within weeks. 

29:24 All of that 100% wrong. The Russian economy bubbling along pretty well took a dip right after came back most of the way.

29:30 You know why? Because the sanctions mainly stop buying.

Russia is an exporter of oil & gas… when the West stopped buying China, India, and Suadi Arabia bought more…

29:35 Oil and gas, which is Russia's Lifeline, that's what Russia is an exporter of oil and gas. I'm exaggerating but it's the basic story.

29:42 [While] Europe said we wouldn't buy it anymore, and that would have crippled Russia, except Russia found other buyers.

29:48 It's not a complicated story. China bought more. India bought tons more. Saudi Arabia is reorganizing its economy. Pakistan is making important agreements with the Chines

30:00 And the Russians on... The World Isn't, guess what?

30:06 Controlled by the United States. It's over. It's all around you. The United Nations took a vote on Ukraine, the majority of countries did not agree with the United States.

30:19 They either voted on the side of Russia or they abstained they refused to participate. It's over.

Will they help or not?

30:25 But you live in an environment which needs to deny it. The divisions in our society become worse with each passing day.

30:33 Because they're grounded in a reality that isn't changing inequality

Systemic Denial Persists in the USA

30:39 As I'm speaking to you... [it] is continuing to get worse. 

30:45 Corporations are working as hard as they ever did to pay no taxes. The mass of people are suffering on a scale that is unspeakable.

30:51 The inflation we're still [in]... at prices are going up roughly twice as fast as Wages

30:56 That's a destruction of the working class. 

31:03 Prices are going up twice the rate of wages. This is impossible. You can't do this without explosions. Now the explosions are happening in our country.

31:16 So they explode, how? By taking it out on one another... crime,
bitterness, resentment, a politics of scapegoating. 

31:28 I mean how else explain Preposterous Notions that become serious? 

31:35 This is a country, United States, of 325 to 330 million people. 

Prices are going up twice the rate of wages. This is impossible. You can’t do this without explosions.

Immigrants Are Not the Problem People… MAGA Is Lying to You to Keep You Deaf, Dumb, Blind and Very Obedient to the Oligarchs

31:41 The biggest estimate I've ever seen of undocumented immigrants in our country says 10 million. Okay... there's no way 10 million of the poorest people there are, immigrants from Central America, are the cause of the difficulties of a capitalist economy of 330 million people.

31:58 That's silly. That's on a level, you know, that an elementary school kindergarten kid wouldn't come up with something as off the chart as that.

There’s no way 10 million of the poorest people there are, immigrants from Central America, are the cause of the difficulties of a capitalist economy of 330 million people.

You Are Desperate… I Understand… but Denial Won’t Help You

32:04 You're desperate.

32:10 I understand that. You've been suffering, you have, you have a right to be angry and upset, no question you do.

32:17 You have been screwed in this system, having been led to believe by those 100 years that the opposite was waiting in store for you.

32:23 Instead, you're being being slapped and whacked and deprived with no end in sight.

32:32 I teach at the University. I'm surrounded all the time with people in 18 19 into their 20s. They are not happy this generation.

32:40 They don't see good jobs. They don't see good Futures. They don't see any of it. They were led by their

32:48 They were led by their parents and this culture to expect what they now know they're not going to get.

32:53 And they want some answers too. The most recent Gallup poll indicates that a majority of Americans polled, randomly, [who were] 35 years of age and younger, when asked would you rather live in a capitalist or a socialist economy? the majority say

33:14 The majority say socialist. 

33:19 You know after half a century of ideological pressure against everything social that I grew up in, I'm a product of that, this is amazing.

33:25 That the point of view could be twisted like this and when you talk to students as I do about this all the time, I quickly learn the polling is correct.

33:32 But it's not that they like socialism, they haven't a clue what it is. 

33:39 Those votes that polling is [revealing is] because they are angry at Capitalism. They know that that system is not for them. socialism I mean let's try that but

33:48 It's not that they like socialism, it's that they don't like capitalism, but that has to be faced. I'm not making these

33:54 I'm not making these numbers up. You can't come away from what I've just said with an imagination that all is well in this Empire.

33:59 But I'm not done. Now, we're blaming Russia. What? 

34:06 Russia invaded. I've been a victim of war in my own family. My own life. I'm against war. War is no way to solve problems.

34:13 The Russians shouldn't, could have done something else, should have done something else. I get that, but like with every war you have to ask why did it come to this?

34:20 Russians have suffered from war as much as any other country in the last century.

34:25 They're not going to go into a War easily and quickly. They're not like the United States upon which no war has been fought in the last century.

34:33 Both world wars killed more Russians than anybody else.

34:38 They know. So why? You have to ask why? We don't. 

Why So Much War

WHY?

34:45 So let me end with military. Since the end of World War II, the United States has invaded small countries repeatedly, violating norms-rules based international order.

34:59 It invaded Korea. It invaded Vietnam. It invaded Iraq. It invaded Afghanistan. It lost all of them.

35:07 The wars were lost: Korea, Vietnam, they all were lost. 

35:13 The Communist Party of Vietnam took over that country. The Taliban took over Afghanistan. I could go on.

35:18 They lost. They didn't win. They lost and if you look at the line between the Russians and the Ukrainians it has moved Westward. 

35:28 There is there is no question of who's winning and who's losing.

35:35 Only in the minds of people committed to denial are these things going on. 

35:41 I'm not asking you to endorse either side in this war. I'm not asking you to endorse China or the Chinese system. 

35:47 I'm just asking you, and I do this with all my public speaking, I'm asking you look at the reality you have in front of you.

35:53 Don't be afraid. 

35:59 The danger lies in denial, not in facing it, and if we face it there is a lesson to be learned from the British Empire.

36:05 After two attempts to militarily force the United States back into the British Empire, after those two efforts had failed the British Empire stopped trying and decided instead to try to work out a relationship with the United States, which it did, not the greatest job but did a pretty good job.

36:30 The biggest waffle came in the US Civil War. When the British seriously considered siding with the South.

36:38 They didn't, but they came close. After that though... once they could see who won there, they went with the winner.

36:43 A very courageous move [said with humor] Once the war was over. 

36:50 But maybe we have to learn that we have to live with the People's Republic of China. It has virtues. 

36:55 We could learn from them, just as they could learn from the United States. And that [could] be a better plan than what they're doing now.

37:03 American 7th Fleet is in the China Sea. There is no Chinese Fleet on our border.

37:08 We are there. We are threatening them. We always have. 

37:14 This is a country that is now our economic competitor. Its Global political reach is extraordinary.

37:21 And it has four times the number of people we do, and now that they're close, mostly allied with India, you're talking about the two largest countries by population on this planet.

37:32 You better come to terms with them.

37:39 Because the prospect of defeating that in a war... that's a war everybody loses.

We Must Stop the Denial or We Are Toast

We have to stop the denial & face what is going on… or we are all toast…

37:46 You don't have that option unless you're crazy. We have to stop the denial and face what is going on otherwise we are going to get ourselves into one mess after another.

37:58 And who's going to do it? The corporations that are profiting from this system?

38:04 Unlikely. 

38:10 The rich who have become richer for 40 years, are they likely to question the system that has rewarded them that way? Unlikely.

38:16 You know who's going to do it, if anybody does, it's the mass of the people, the employees of this culture, or if you allow me the old language: the working class... because it's their ass that's on the line.

38:28 They're the soldiers and they're the taxpayers who keep the system going and that's probably why denial has won over honest confrontation with our reality. Marx once said that the

38:44 Marx once said that the capitalist class will in the end destroy itself the question for all of us and all of you is: Will we let that system take us down with it?

Will we let “the system” take us down with it?

Dr. Richard Wolff from a Different Angle

Min 9:41: “We are watching a billionaire government doing what’s good for them… for the business class they represent… for the super wealthiest among them and their Savaging working class families.“

D. Mann — Sapience: The Moment Is Now

Chapters on How the Corruption Entered Human Civilization Leading to Humanity’s Fall Over the Climate Cliff… a fictional future that doesn’t seem so fictional now… pages 138- 147

The Corruption

Mother called the artery clogging disease that kills civilizations the Corruption. It cuts up cohesive cooperation with selfish self-interests. Money often lies at the root of the Corruption. Money is the shiny, bright object, often presented as a bribe or a false promise of prosperity (but only if…), that lures people to do bad things. The Corruption entices good, peaceful people to do bad things, things that benefit only a few people, not the good of all people living in a system who rely on cooperation to survive.

As the Corruption goes to work eroding cooperation, cohesion, and unity, the shared lines of a civilizations conscious awareness begin to clog with the hard plaque of fear, anger, and pain. People get hurt. People don’t know who to trust. People grow cynical. This toxic brew fosters an internal inferno where even more sticky and toxic plaque gets forged and deposited over the first layer of hardening, rigid consciousness. This second layer of plaque is uniquely human for it can transcend or descend the guard rails of instincts. The toxic plaque deposited over fear, anger, and suffering is hate, greed, envy, and revenge. 

When enough civilizing lines of cohesion get clogged or a main artery becomes blocked, the inner crisis quickly manifests into physical reality. Such a blockage initiates destructive metabolism or catabolism. This is a systematic death within the Mental Model that destroys all systems the people living within the civilization depend upon to survive. Left without any means of keeping themselves alive, the people must flee or die. It is a catastrophe. It is the ouroboros who has eaten its own body up completely.

This is why mother travelled into the Western arteries of consciousness. This is why she met her father. This is why her parents were working on a book combining their knowledge and wisdom. Being a person herself of two radically different cultures and tribes of men, Rain understands from Grandmother’s stories the Ojibwe know how-to live-in harmony with their inside world and outside world. They have always known and still know. But they were subjugated and sidelined by the overwhelming virulent collective force emanating from Europe.

This is where one of the most virulent strains of the Corruption migrated at a time white Europeans figured out how to cross the ocean and were intoxicated by their own technical know-how and abilities. A competitive edge that would have devasting consequences for the rest of the world; consequences that would put the world squarely in the jaws of fate, the Ouroboros.

Whiny, Violent, Petulant Thing

Rain understands from Father’s and Mother’s stories that the Corruption started long ago in civilizations developing in and around the Fertile Crescent. Due to the abundance of civilizations evolving there, once the Corruption killed one civilization, it had already infected another civilization—violence, fear, and pain are its vectors. Each time it jumps; it mutates and grows more virulent, more noxious, more pernicious, and deadlier.

The Corruption did not just infect civilizations in the Fertile Crescent. Wherever human cultures grew lopsided, cultivating violence, fear, and pain, it had emerged. But it was the Cradle of Civilization where the Corruption grew most virulently, where it mutated for more than 5,000 years. Where it grew into a disease of consciousness capable of creating catastrophes that only grew bigger and more terrible with time. Where man applied his mind to make weapons of mass destruction, instead of making sure everyone in his civilizations were fed, secure, and sheltered.

The Corruption is the disease that will stop the collective heartbeat of humanity on Earth. White European culture is the tip of the spear that made the Modern world, of course, but this Thing now holding all life for ransom… it is something far deeper… something far more pervasive… something existing inside all humans, of all times, of all places, and of all cultures.

This is why Mother travelled into the darkest and most dangerous realms of human consciousness. And it is why Father studied history and religion. And it is why Yong Xing-li knew the final stages of the Transformation were essential to prevent the world from turning right back around and heading over the Climate Cliff.

This Thing is a whiny, violent, petulant, and very thin, polluted stream of human consciousness. It was, as Mother discovered, not just Western Civilization responsible for the ruin of the planet… Western Civilization simply controlled and imposed by brute force the economic systems that would come to define the Modern World. And the Modern World would readily agree to play by these rules because economic supremacy provides a legitimate, nonviolent means to rule the world!

The Long Game

In this game, everyone willingly agrees to cede power and authority to the person or entity who amasses the most money. By winning the money game, a person or an entity can claim the number 1 spot on the playing board… which is round, not flat, is 71% water, and has an oxygen rich atmosphere. A person or entity in the number 1 spot gets to define the parameters by which everyone else must play the money game, that is… until they get knocked off by someone or something that amasses more money.

The money game is the survival game but with a twist of malevolent satire. It is played on the Field of Mind, which exists anywhere a human can walk or go. People call the money game: Economics. It is a long game. And to play it well requires intelligence, acumen, wit, comprehension, reason, acuity, alertness, cleverness, insight, intuition, talent, and ability. It is a game defined in the early days of civilization, and it was complicated then. In the 5,000 years since, it has only become more complicated and harder to play.

Those who lack mastery or ability to play the game resort to brute force, deception, and violence. These are quite frankly weak, incompetent people who are willing to do anything to win. Incompetent people can only win by cheating, but cheaters are a dime a dozen if the rules of the money game are thrown to the wind. So, the most arrogant, greedy, and crafty incompetent people devised ways to subjugate the Model of Mind used by every modern economic and political power system to cheat at the money game, so they always win.

Pyramid Model of Mind

Masters of Time Fail to Master the Mind

The most powerful Model of Mind is the Pyramid Model, of course. It was conceived long ago by peaceful people who loved life, loved their land, loved their homes and children and culture. People who were mastering their minds and coming together to live in bigger and bigger groups growing into civil societies.

Civil societies grow to become civilizations. It is something that happens naturally like flowers growing in a field or rainbows appearing in the sky whenever rain and sunlight mix. They are the inevitable next step once Homo sapiens grew beyond the embryonic sac of instincts when they learned how to sing to themselves. Civil societies just happen because being civil to each other is how humans survived this long. And when a civil group of people start cooperating more broadly with other civil groups of people, they grow into civilizations.

Many civilizations all over the world conceived of the Pyramid Model of Mind. And many used it to mold their civil societies into a unified collective that can act as a single being. Such unanimity creates the living entity called civilization, which is what Mother came to believe civilizations really are, creatures. The more undivided in belief and behavior, the greater coherence of collective action can be conducted as a large group of people acting as one, like a God or a super being or a monster.

It was the ancient Egyptians who perceived first of the opposite side of growing into a great and glorious civilization. They perceived of a looming and growing danger capable of destroying a civilization no matter how great or glorious it had become. Because of this awareness, they took great care in mastering and perfecting the Pyramid Model of Mind, not just as a mold for their society, but as a way of protecting themselves from the Ouroboros, and then as a way of transforming their collective consciousness when they realized there was not a way to avert their fate once they passed a certain level of civilization.

They were the first to master the Pyramid Model of Mind, and they were the first to decapitate it. What they did not realize then was the Ouroboros is thought, specifically the circular thinking required by civil societies so individuals can specialize. Repetitive thought opens the door to a sort of sleepwalking through life; no longer did a person need to worry about getting food, water, shelter, or how to avoid being eaten—their civilization insulates them from all of that. All they needed to worry about was doing their specialized task really well and following along in the mainstream of their civil society’s norms and behaviors.

Playing Thinkers for Fools

And here is where the Ouroboros plays the thinker for a fool. People who can play the money game reasonably well enough to live and willingly obey the rules become sitting ducks for people who lack access to or mastery of the money game. These are also the people most susceptible to the venom of the split aspects of the Ouroboros—the White snake and Black snake, the Narcissist, and the Psychopath. These are people who flip the rules of civil society into their opposite form and turn the transformative power of the Pyramid Model of Mind into a penitentiary.

It is people corrupted by the Ouroboros who play the systems of their civil societies in reverse. Rather than looking out for the good of all, they look out only for the good of one, themselves. They are attracted to power like a magnet is attracted to nails. And wherever they land within the structure of their society, they punch holes in it like an earth auger. Get enough of such people in a civil society, and they eat away at the fabric of cooperation and civility like a colony of very hungry termites. They do this by infecting others with fear and doubt. They go around blaming and shaming others for their own fears and failures. They play the blame game to create a smoke screen: Blame the other guy for the very things they are guilty of doing or want to do! All the while, they are stealing from, impoverishing, and generally putting the lives of people who wish to live in peaceful, cooperative societies in danger, sometimes grave danger.

Decapitating the Pyramid

Get such a person lodged in the upper rungs of the flow of power in the Pyramid Model of Mind, and you get a person who not only knows how to use the rules of civil society to trap and imprison another person, but you get a person who has access to the very systems responsible for maintaining a civil society. This is very dangerous. Because corrupted men in powerful positions quickly find ways to divert the flow of power to themselves. Then, they consolidate power, wealth, and prestige at the very top, where there is only room for one, themselves. And that is when they strike like a snake, decapitating the flow of power.

This is how the Pyramid Model is decapitated and turned into a prison rather than a system of transformation. Dictators, tyrants, and terrorists tend to decapitate the pyramid it at the soldier level, using violence, fear, and terror to control everyone living below them or to imprison forever or kill those who do not agree with them. They call their new, improved economic game communism, totalitarianism, and despotism. Monarchies, oligarchies, and democracies tend to decapitate the pyramid social order at the scribe level, who in modern societies are intellectuals who use their thinking skills to confuse, baffle, distract, or outright deceive ordinary people from what is really going on. They call their new, improved economic game capitalism. And there are hybrid decapitations too such as commie-capitalism.

Decapitated Pyramid Model of Mind

Just before the Fall, not only was there an abundance of ruthless corrupted rulers eager to rule decapitated hierarchies, but there was an abundance of people who wanted to be ruled by them. What they share is a rigid, aggressive mindset that disliked subjectivity and imagination, and one that is extremely superstitious and views others through simplified stereotypical biases. It is a mindset obsessed with projecting idealized images of their own grandeur, power, and toughness. It is a mindset that takes credit for all the good things that happens and blames others for the bad. It is a cynical and destructive mindset to the point of feeling hostility towards anyone who does not believe exactly like them. Anyone thinking outside of their bubble of belief is assumed to be insincere, self-centered, and dangerous, which is really all the things that they themselves are but refuse to admit, and so they blame the other guy.

In short, these are humans standing in toe-deep water of their consciousness; everything beyond that on their islands of one is believed to be wild and menacing, not to be trusted. Lacking access to and understanding of their own most basic instinctual drives and emotional impulses, they cast their worst nightmares onto everyone else, becoming especially concern with sexual on-goings of others, never taking responsibility for their own short-comings and inability for self-reflection. These are fearful humans, sad humans, pitiful humans who fall victim to the Dark Triad over and over and over again, which is really a Dark Tetrad because there is a fourth hidden, malicious personality that was propagating like hot cakes just before the Fall.

The Dark Triad is the embodiment of narcissism or psychopathy in a human being, and when narcissism and psychopathy are contained inside one human skull, you get the third embodiment, which is a Machiavellian demon being. If sadism is added inside this same skull, you get one of the most disturb personality disorders to have evolved among humans: the Dark Tetrad. These are people who openly tell others that trolling the Internet is their favorite activity; a full-time Internet troll finds pleasure inflicting pain on others and the Internet is their favorite playground.

But given real power over other people, the Dark Tetrad becomes the most venomous vector of the Corruption. It can awaken and activate these same qualities in other people, twisting and contorting their public performances into violent, selfish, gruesome displays of ignorance. This is essentially what personalities are, the performance of a person’s consciousness in public. Through a person’s personality, it is possible to tell how mature or immature consciousness has developed within an individual human being. A mature consciousness can navigate between the extreme opposites arising from inside and choose civil, life promoting action; an immature consciousness cannot. Such a person is susceptible to the pull of extreme points of view, and no matter what side a person takes, uncivil, non-life promoting action results.

With the modern world increasingly revolving around a tiny screen people carried around with them 24/7 connected to a global audience with the ability to be anonymous, uncivil performance became a contest too tempting for most people to resist. Anyone having a bad day could blow off short-term frustration, disappointment, or anger with hostile, pithy comments. And if they get a lot of likes from other frustrated, disappointed, angry people in the world who like them are having a bad day, a culture that cultivates hate arises that soon turns into an addiction, an excuse to not take responsibility for one’s own anger, limitations, bad decisions, and consequences for the bad choices and actions they, and only they, made and acted on.

Rather than work to understand unconscious, underlying motivations and beliefs that feed their inner demon and allow it to take control of their thoughts and actions, people increasingly ignored the root causes of their irritations and anger. More and more people preferred to attack other people who they have never met and will never know or who they have dehumanized, so they feel no responsibility for their wellbeing. And because children like to run in packs, such individuals attract the following of other disaffected people around the world… no longer did losers run in packs of 2 or 3, now millions belonged to a growing cohort of people increasingly uncomfortable in the real world requiring real interactions and real relationships that take real time to grow and that also require taking responsibility for oneself.

Just before the Fall, there was a tidal wave of fake news, trolling, and hate culture exploding on city streets and propagating on the world wide web. This paved the way for the spread of the Totalitarian mindset. It took root in the minds of ordinary people everywhere in the world. People who had conditioned themselves not to take responsibility for anything, and so when “Big Daddy” comes along saying: “I will take care of everything for you!” … losers, haters, trolls of the world bow down and follow because they have trained themselves to be followers.

Mindsets are different than Models of Mind in that they form inside the overarching shape of a civilization like dust or pollen do in the natural world. Mindsets float about and coat ideas emerging within a civilization covering them with a fine layer of goo. Mindsets can obscure good ideas with thick layers of mucky thinking. And they can make ordinary ideas rigid and inflexible. They can also make bad ideas very sticky so that they clump together to create very, very bad ideas, lopsided ideas, extreme ideas, dangerous ideas that fail to see where the real danger is emanating from… and usually, in the world man made, it is coming from inside.

Mindsets require people capable of communicating the key features, traits, qualities, and ingredients of the mindset for they are basically scripts to stories that people are supposed to follow. This is why you can always recognize the difference between a mindset and a mental model because mindsets prescribe, advise, direct, urge, command. Mental models only provide a shape that an individual can choose to stay within or not, and if they choose to stay, it is up to them and their quality of mind how it is filled.

Because of this difference, mindsets must always have creators and purveyors of the mindset. And then, to work, mindsets need followers. The more charged with emotions a mindset is made; the more people are attracted to them. Once fused together, like a shepherd to his sheep, a preacher to his parishioners, or a cult leader to his cultists, it is very hard to separate people from their mindsets.

The Totalitarian mindset is one of the most aggressive, cruel, mean-spirited, spiteful, malicious, nasty, callous, pitiless, savage, cold-hearted, hostile, and beastly mindset ever hammered out inside the human mind. And it was spreading faster and infecting more people than ever just before the Fall.

Game of Isms

Another way to spot a mindset is if it ends with an ism. The Modern world operating underneath decapitated pyramids, aka corrupted hierarchies, ruled by corrupted men was speckled like a face full of pustules of isms just before the Fall.

Isms are thinly veiled attempts to legitimize the corruption that the people on top use to ride roughshod over the rights, opinions, and feelings of the people they have imprisoned in their decapitated pyramid. For people exhausted from just trying to survive, adhering to an ism is easier than going against it if it has gained enough momentum to become the prevailing wind in a system or civilization.

However, what a corrupted person really desires is that people believe in the ism and commit to it before they really understand what they are committing to. Corrupted people work hard to make an ism especially appealing to the hard-working people in a decapitated pyramid. Such isms promise good things to people who follow its teachings or script. These isms have a way of spreading far and wide before an antidote is found for them. By then, it is too late to inoculate the people who have succumb to such isms. Reality itself cannot dissuade a person from the false promises, covenants, and guarantees people believe they will receive if they follow the ism obediently and precisely.

The sad truth is anything that gets infected by an ism, even if it begins as a very good idea, tends to grow to be more stringent, drastic, exhaustive, and insane. This is because isms tend to grow ever more reactionary, fanatical, and revisionary over time. Isms decay like this because their core ideologies must continually warp to keep people trapped in the shallowest regions of their mind, and this is exactly where the Totalitarian mindset want people to be.

Just before the Fall, the Totalitarian mindset was disguised by every make and model of an ism a person could dream up. It came in every shape and color, every creed and system of belief or narrative. Some isms cast longer and darker shadows than others. But all must spin spell-binding stories out of one ism or another—liberal socialism, radical conservatism, crazed conspiracism, or the more standard models of communism and capitalism.

Saving A Dying World

It is decapitated pyramids, cynically called functional hierarchies, that came to rule the survivors of Earth under totalitarian minded CEOs and Multis. Yong Xing-li was unique because he had mastered the economic game using his intellect. But he also possessed compassion, caring, and patience, which is the essence of heart and heart is the home of wisdom.

Yong Xing-li understood it is the combination of intellect and heart that wins the long game of economics. His understanding combined with his intelligence and innate empathy secured Yong Xing-li the number 1 economic spot in the world. But it was a dying world. Rather than capitalize on death, Yong Xing-li used his economic position to do something about it, to change the fate of the world ruled by civilized humans.

In a way, Yong Xing-li is the closest thing the world had to Buddha or Jesus Christ at a time the world needed a savior more than ever. But like Jesus, he was killed for his passion to save people. Yong Xing-li’s mastery of the long game did not make his task easier. In fact, it probably made it a lot harder.

Rain remembers Father often saying with a downcast smile, “If Jesus was alive today and trying to do what he did 2,000 years ago, nobody would care, nobody would listen to him, nobody would follow him, and he would probably end up in prison or institutionalized because everybody thinks that only they, and they alone, know how to fix and rule the world.”

Rain knows now why father always said this with a sad, downcast smile. She not only knows what father knew, but she feels it too. Just like father, mother, grandmother, and Yong Xing-li she feels the suffering of people in a world brought into being based on greed, hate, and violence; a world most people had no hand in making but have been forced to submit to serving.

Conclusion: A Call to Action

As we confront the convergence of political, economic, and psychological crises, this blog underscores the urgency of understanding where we stand and how we got here. Adam Mockler reminds us of the immediacy of our democratic struggle, urging us not to accept the current trajectory as inevitable. Richard Wolff provides a sweeping historical and economic perspective, showing the fragility of empires and the devastating consequences of denial and inaction. Finally, Sapience: The Moment Is Now offers a way forward, emphasizing the power of empathy, cooperation, and self-awareness to confront these challenges head-on.

We stand at a crossroads. Blame and division will only accelerate our decline, but there is hope in recognizing our collective responsibility and capacity for change. The choice before us is stark: to repeat the mistakes of the past or to rise above them, working together to shape a sustainable and just future. The time for action is now.