Herbert Marcuse: The One-Dimensional Man (tags)
"Manipulation of needs" is one of the control instruments. Rulers change needs through manipulation. False needs are needs imposed from above like production and consumption of useless things. The need for freedom no longer exists in developed capitalist countries.
Carl Schmitt and the New Right (tags)
The intellectual New Right may be more a loose network of persons, political projects, publications and publishers than an organization or party. The plebecite is used to overcome pluralism and parliamentary democracy. The goal is identity democracy based on homogeneity.
Unemployment and New Ways (tags)
The rise of unemployment worldwide has reached unparalleled dimensions. In 1999, 700 million were affected. The neoliberal economic theory promotes the prosperity of the rich, not society as a whole. Profit maximization is often the only goal. Reducing working hours is vital.
The Perfect Totalitarian Rule: Orwell (tags)
The security state is different than the constitutional state and is marked by the generalization of fear, de-politization and forms without substance. In 1984, Orwell warned of totalitarianism where the past was erased and the Party created a new language.
The bizarre billionaire becomes epic disaster when regulation is demonized, social necessities like food stamps and Medicaid are cut in the hundreds of billions and taxes for corporations are cut in half. The failure of the media was manifest when no one asked about Trump's tax plans.
The Unending Story of the Achievers (tags)
All personal and corporate success depended on state investments in roads, schools, hospitals, community centers, airwaves, food safety and water quality. The achievers' myth ignores this, Austrian researcher Bruno Rossmann explains.
Growth Criticism and Social-Ecological Transformation (tags)
Unlike a chair, an idea can be shared by a whole people. Words can be like spears breaking frozen souls. (Kafka) Education is the great transformer (John Kenneth Galbraith). Economics as taught today is like brainwashing. (Ulrich Thielemann) Incentives to investing in the real economy are vital after the phase of credit- and bubble prosperity.
The industrial countries practice a lifestyle of non-sustainability and consume the resources of the earth too quickly. This is true for energy, raw materials and metals. Still the knowledge of oil's finiteness cannot be evaded. We should use this time to develop alternative energy infrastructures.
The Liberal-Regressive Modern Age (tags)
The financial crisis of the states-dramatically intensified by the costs of bailing out the banks-shifts the costs to the broad population without touching the wealth of the economic elites. Political governing is increasingly uncoupled from the approval and influence of citizens.
The strength of the democrats is the folly and mean-spiritedness of republicans. Programs to support the economy were rejected every time with the sole goal of bad economic data. Romney/Ryan rely on the short memory of voters who blame only Obama for the faltering economy Obstructionism should be the issue.
Cooperatives and the Good Life (tags)
The rights of businesses in exploiting resources end in the rights of nature according to the constitution of the bien vivir. This understanding of the person-nature relation surpasses the rationalist model of rule over nature realized in capitalism's globalized praxis. Art 395 of Ecuador's constitution affirms sustainability.
The Financial Crisis and the Failure of the Modern Economy (tags)
The US government debt shot up from 2.9% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2008 and 11.9% in 2009. At the summits of Washington, London and Pittsburg, the goat was made the gardener. Ineffective rules were resolved that hardly helped regulate the financial markets.
The October 2 "One Nation" demonstration in Washington DC is a call for government job creation in the face of mass unemployment and human pain. FDR's creation of 4 million jobs within 4 months is an example of government responding to crisis.
Welfare State and Inner Security (tags)
The punitive side of welfare state reform is read as a success. Problems result because firstly there is not enough work and secondfly thoser integrated in work can often hardly live from that. Massive exclusion and precariousness exist everywhere.