Unnecessary Odds

Technical and philosophical aspects of our economy are not necessarily at odds. These analytical dimensions do not need to be artificially forced together. It only appears that way to prevent us from taking an antinomian approach to politics that allows us to verify, rather than validate, the hypothesis that we are all self-determined.

When confronted with both the technical and philosophical aspects of an issue, odds are a person will pick evidence that technically validates a set of philosophical principles.

When confronted with political-economic questions we tend to validate our philosophical principles first. At the same time, however, in the age of science, we also tend to dismiss philosophy as an unreliable, outmoded way of knowing things.

To ensure a sense of objective reliability, analyses tend to focus on the technicals--objective data to verify the knowledge of something rather than a critique of pure reason like Aristotle used. (Ayn Rand, for example, favored Aristotelian logic. By means of pure reason "truth" can be rendered independent of the evidence. While Aristotle postulated a "thesis of independence"--that reality exists independent of perception--Rand uses this working, epistemic hypothesis as a means of synthesizing "the truth" that "objectively" fits her notion of political-economic reality, which is something Aristotle, considered to be the father of science, would have strongly objected to.) Philosophical aspects of the risk proportion beyond what is conventionally prescribed as dogma are conveniently ignored, which diminishes the capacity to conform the technical truth with legitimate, consensual confirmation. (Remember that science relies on replication of the results. If we all experience the same thing by testing and retesting, we consensually experience "empirical" confirmation of a hypothetical that "by the numbers" we objectively, technically, "know" to be true. This is completely different from, for example, Ayn Rand's method for discovering objective truth.) Instead, the legitimate, verifiable means of confirmed self-determination is condemned to a process of validation, until now.

(Understand that there is considerable dispute surrounding whether philosophy is really a determining variable when engaged in technical analyses. When I was defending my Master's thesis, for example, postulating that philosophy determines a probable trend, rather than a trend determines a probable philosophy, was in serious doubt. Since then, we have the example of monetary and fiscal policy technically following the philosophical tenets of Ayn Rand. While philosophical guidance can be argued as an ad hoc component of the risk, it nevertheless predicted the odds--the conviction--of a probable deflationary trend.

While philosophy may not have caused The Great Recession, but adopted ad hoc to justify the means to ends, philosophical guidance signaled the probable direction of a technical trend. The practical philosophy of the risk now in operation accurately predicts the future trend as well, indicated by a changing philosophical aspect.

Understand that Aristotle, like Plato, postulates an ideal reality that exists independent of our temporal perception--the way things are naturally tends, teleologically, to the way things really should be. In other words, reality is the way things should be, not the way they are. Rand postulates, on the other hand, reality is the way things ontologically are despite the way we think they should naturally be. Both expostulate truth as a process of discovering an independent, objective reality, but the objective is fundamentally at odds, which indicates a paradigmatic shift that epistemically conforms to a philosophy of science that in our time, to the dismay of aristocrats, accepts the critique of practical--technical--reason.)

We now have the concept of risk (probable loss legitimately assumed) being operationalized with a philosophical analysis that rationalizes its distribution as a universally objective reality. Capitalists have always maintained that capitalism is at the pinnacle of human development--history ends and because we cannot progress any further we experience the unavoidable risk (the objective reality) of boom and bust (probable loss legitimately assumed). Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, its verifiable legitimacy is, nevertheless, seriously in question.

Despite both liberal and conservative arguments that consolidated capital technically provides the utility of economy-of-scale efficiencies, the utility of cyclical, accumulated risk--probable loss and massive debt--in catastrophic, too-big-to-fail proportions--technically ensuring huge profits for the top one percent--is highly questionable. Technically measuring the utility (the practical legitimacy) of programs and policies that encourage consolidation (often with the ridiculous argument that it promotes a free-market, economic legitimacy when it really resists it) reduces to whose philosophy of the risk conforms to an objective, verifiable reality. (When that objective binomially fails, then the test reduces to who has the most power to demonstrate the detrimental value of the risk, which verifies who rules.) Philosophy (the concept of reality) becomes a critical component of technical analyses predicting the probable direction of the risk. (Keep in mind that if both political parties favor consolidation then the debate reduces to the allowance of deregulation rather than deconsolidation, like we have now. The level of risk is then a measure of bureaucratic control and its probable direction has a more elitist than a pluralistic tendency, which requires a philosophical construction that rationalizes the utility of maintaining an elitist model.)

Evaluative measures have been philosophically stuck in the Middle Ages. Dogma (aristocratically derived and determined to be the objective truth) rules political reason, which validates (conserves) the status quo. The "iron law" (the status quo cast into an autonomic, binomial, bureaucratic reality) tends not to be philosophically tested beyond conventional dogmatic influences, which prevents it from being applied in alternative ways, and technically always begs the question.

We cannot on the one hand claim that class is a function of self-determination and on the other claim its deprivation is the measure of success. We can aptly describe this conflated philosophy of self-determined deprivation as "twisted." It is so twisted (it is so irrational) that conservatives must condemn class-identity of the risk as hate speech while maintaining, at the same time, that striving for what cannot be simultaneously achieved is of the highest moral value. It is an 18th Century, utilitarian philosophy of the risk practically maintained today, as it was then, to reconcile the necessity of elite power (a feudalistic, ruling "class" identity) with the revolutionary philosophy of self-determination. The practical effect, as we see today, is to identify the ruling class to be without liability because, as Congressman Ryan puts it, the elite earned their station by taking risk (like feudal lords did), and depriving them of the fullest extent of the reward (like bankrupting everybody else into serfdom) is theft, which is a crime.

The people that occupy Wall Street, then, you see, according to conservative philosophy, intend to commit a crime, and deterring criminals (avoiding "the risk" of liability) requires hard power where sophisticated, philosophical persuasion (right thinking that only elites properly understand) has failed (which is descriptively fascist, and in terms of our American heritage, counter-revolutionary). The protestors, the right wing contends, have only themselves to blame for their deprivation. The victims, you see, are, in reality, the criminals--unenlightened, unruly rabble running the streets like the animals they really are. The perpetrators are not.

According to Ryan and company, protesting the way things are is to oppose the way things should be. The opposition puts us unnecessarily at odds and prevents us from realizing the American dream, which is, as Rand describes it, the only true "objective."

Not only is our practical philosophy of risk contrary, but the practice is fully reflected economically. It is hard to be confident about a system that is inherently twisted, and so we end up playing a game of political confidence. Eventually we forget about the underlying, guiding-philosophy of the risk and focus on the technical signs that indicate the direction of the risk to avoid it.

Being relentlessly risk averse is cause for high anxiety, so we are always looking for ways (technical means with specific indicators) to reduce the risk. Anxiety, then, is being constantly reduced to the gamma (political) dimension where risk accumulates by trying to avoid it. Government, then, despite every effort to reduce it, tends to be a means of reducing anxiety by avoiding consumption of the risk.

Risk, however, cannot be avoided--it is constant and coefficiently presents with the reward no matter how hard we try to avoid it with irrational, philosophical constructions, or technically structured indicators. Class warfare will present whether we refer to it stochastically or philosophically. Nature corrects for ignorance without regard to intention or technical accuracy. The risk of loss is fully assumed--it is fully gamma--in priority.

Consolidation of capital consolidates risk. Not only is the risk economically overweight, but it is also critically political. When risk becomes critically political (when it is not allowed to be managed through the divisible, objective utility of an unconsolidated marketplace, but managed in the aggregate), odds are there will be civil unrest, which causes demonstration of hard power in equal proportion (in the aggregate). These are unnecessary odds. The fully assumed risk of loss does not have to demonstrate with extreme detriment in the aggregate.

Unfortunately, when power consolidates it is forced to demonstrate how powerful it is (this is the gamma-risk proportion). Analysts can give whatever identity to Occupy Wall Street they philosophically want, but technically (objectively, unavoidably) the risk of loss is fully proportioned (it objectively verifies rather than validates). It is ninety-nine percent.

Technical and philosophical aspects of our economy only have the appearance of being at odds. The way it is and the way it should be naturally converge to verify the hypothesis of our self-determination.

Class Warfare Begs the Question

When the war is over, who is the ruling class?

It begs the question.

Change of elites renders beta and gamma risk (high anxiety), not alpha risk.

The more alpha the risk proportion the less anxiety. The more alpha, the more confidence there is about one's fate legitimately self-determined, which is fundamental to consent of the governed and what it means to have a government that governs least.

While conservatives postulate that small government reduces the gamma-risk proportion, it does not. It actually increases the anxiety of what they consider to be illegitimate loss of value--the margin of profit earned by means of self-determination--in the gamma dimension.

Analysis of the risk proportion, as previously discussed, reduces to a philosophical conundrum of legitimate power and the technical indicators that reliably measure and signal its probable direction. If the measures are conflated so that a verification is next to impossible, then we rely on less empirical measures in the dimension of politics. Legitimacy of outcomes becomes a function of validation, rather than verification, in the gamma dimension where war is waged between self-determined classes.

(At the extreme of the gamma dimension, without counter-measures to reduce the risk, the risk becomes so dense, the gamma bursts. The result is the needed distribution, but the stochastic event--warfare--is catastrophic. Analytically, we can refer to this as "critical density of the gamma-risk proportion" to predict, and avoid, a gamma burst. Currently, monetary measures are reducing fiscal-policy density.

Keep in mind that a burst begs the question. Although a distribution occurs, the potential of the risk proportion is conserved because it is still consolidated to fight the war, or manage the risk. What was being fought over--distribution of the risk--is conserved. The empirical--objective--cure for this problem of conserved value is not warfare, which begs the question, but deconsolidation.)

While the outcome in the gamma dimension confers (validates) the winner with power, the legitimacy of the risk proportion is still unconfirmed (not yet verified). Both the winners and losers are set up for a failure of expectations determined by their own devices, which confirms the gamma risk as the "iron law."

With the risk of loss fully assumed, and thus bureaucratically managed to avoid it, even more risk accumulates. Instead of ensuring the power to self-determine, bureaucratic management of an oversized risk proportion serves only to diminish the ability to confirm a self-determination. Evidence to verify the culpability of one's self is subjected to political interpretation rather than its objective reality.

Ayn Rand, for example, postulates an objective reality corrupted by political interpretation, but concludes with an objective reality that serves to validate (or prove) her premise. A capitalist, she argues in true Aristotelian (aristocratic) fashion (in spite of the evidence), economically earns a profit and government politically steals it. Epistemically, however, as any modern (non-aristocratic) logician will tell you, declaration of objective truth without verification merely begs the logical question.

Accordingly, Ayn Rand submitted that the Soviet Union, for example, verified her premise that government is the problem and not the solution (argued post hoc). Both the capitalist model she advocates (her premise) and the socialist model (the evidence that proves her premise), however, operate with an economy-of-scale efficiency. Not only does she rely on a post-hoc argument, but her analysis lacks the objective depth she so strongly advocates to advance an anti-communist sentiment. Both methods of argument are characteristic of aristocratic philosophy and rely heavily on Aristotelian logic to "prove" a premise rather than "verify" a hypothesis.

It is not difficult to understand, then, why conservatives tend to reject science as a legitimate form of knowlege. Instead they rely on arguments structured to validate their principles (typically post hoc) which includes, for example, devalidating regulations that derive from scientific data.

(Remember that a post-hoc argument fallaciously argues a temporal sequence to prove a causal relationship. Rand's argument is: since government provides welfare, government is the problem, not the solution. "After this, therefore because of this" is a logical fallacy, yet Rand maintains it is a verified hypothesis--welfare is a self-fulfilled prophecy that defeats self-determination and predicts low productivity.

Yes, welfare does predict low productivity--what classical economists called overproduction--but it does not cause it. A harvest moon, for example, signals--or correlates with--the time to harvest, but does not cause the harvest.

Remember, when applied to risk, a post-hoc accumulation of error results in a post-hoc fallacy of the risk proportion and punctuated, stochastic events like the Great Depression and the Great Recession. Remember, we have welfare in reaction to the Great Depression, and the overwhelming proportion of the current budget deficit is the result of the financial crisis--application of Ayn Rand's philosophy--and the Great Recession.)

Both a nominally free-market and a nominally socialist state rely on government to manage consolidated risk in reaction to class warfare. If this verifies anything it is that government is necessary to reduce the risk of class warfare (the effect of consolidated power).

Rand argues, nevertheless, consolidation that results from capitalism is a more efficient means of resource allocation despite its natural tendency for class envy (and class warfare, which results in reactionary tendencies--government; that is, her scheme causes the very thing it abhors). Her argument begs the question into oblivion, which gives rise to the conservative argument that perpetuation of class distinction (and warfare) drives a productive incentive that makes capitalism far superior to any model that structures for economic equivalence and thus stasis (lack of a productive, and therefore meaningful, existence). The argument is presented as risk averse, but it is really risk prone; so prone, in fact, that warfare is the likely, verifiable result.

Megadeath (full employment) so that productivity (overproduction and the profit derived from boom and bust) does not die is not exactly the ideal model for a meaningfully productive existence. It is, in fact, dystopic!

To subdue the tendency to violent aggression, Rand proposed that non-aggression is categorically imperative to maintain a meaningful, productive existence. So, we presently hear conservatives aristocratically argue it is immoral to incite class warfare. Rhetoric that advocates raising marginal tax rates, for example, will "loot" the wealth of the nation and deprive us all of a meaningful, productive existence (the absurdity of the argument is only surpassed by its shameless self-indulgence). Despite advocating for a system of incentives that make aggression the likely "reaction" (which demands government authority), Rand's "Objectivism" is but a convoluted, ideological bias created to make the abusers look like the abused--up is down, down is up, left is right, right is left, good is evil and evil is good.

Technically, the practical result of Rand's philosophy is to cause the risk it is supposed to prevent (big government). Since it argues for the efficiency of consolidated power (the tendency to class warfare), the risk proportion must be argued post-hoc to render its "objective" identity (Rand's "A is A" proposition). Technically, however, Rand's objective proposition is but a classic case of fundamental attribution error that twists the technicals into what only appear to be freely random, ontological, stochastic oscillations. Objectively, these stochastics (frequency of the boom-bust cycle that "twists" the position of the risk and turns equity into debt) are really the product of an aristocratic, teleological, predetermination.

Any economic system technically structured with Rand's philosophy of risk (I dare say) cannot expect to be anything but twisted. "Operation Twist" is an apt expression for trying to control the verifiable, risk-prone philosophy of Ayn Rand in political practice.

Objectively, Rand goes wrong limiting politics to government. Her so-called "Objectivist" argument is fallaciously post-hoc and begs the question.

Consolidation of industry and markets out of self-interest is a highly political (meaningfully self-indulgent) activity. It has political consequences--it accumulates risk that must be managed (post hoc) in a political (gamma-risk) dimension or it will deconsolidate under the free-market conditions Rand, for example, advocates. The political and economic realities are objectively the same thing. They have the same objective--consolidation of power, which is the outcome Rand says government wrongly interprets to be inimical.

(Business executives--owners and operators--are politically self-indulgent. Having enjoyed the success of meaningful productivity, aristocratically enjoying administration of power from the top down, altruistic public service is, as Ayn Rand points out, an extension of that self-indulgence, but she wrongly reasons this to be a general, principle motive for a meaningful self-determination. Rand's objectivism characteristically begs the question.

A person that is motivated by selfishness is a slave to appetite and spoiled, emotional disturbances. Eric Cantor is a good example. Such a person does not demonstrate the freedom that is characteristic of self-determination, but is a prisoner of an irrational exuberance that is antithetical to an altruistic existence. This renewed, Randian philosophy of meaningful, objective, self-attribution is inimical to the objective of a peacefully prosperous pluralism that aligns, and confirms, altruistic attributes with the rewards of a meaningful, self-indulgent existence.

Recognizing that a free-market structure is aptly suited for a meaningful, productive, and safely legitimate self-determination does not require trading off attributes, like doing the right thing despite your appetite, that determine the accountability--the identity--to attain it. Saying the ability to defeat the means of self-determination is the measure of its attainment is just irrational, elitist nonsense.

Despite the declared, technical primacy of a self-serving identity (and the tendency to "run with the herd"), it is not at all impossible to serve the self through selfless service. The notion that public service and self service are mutually indulgent is unenlightened. To be intellectually honest, actualizing an identity that is not at the base, but at the height, of a moral existence not only serves the public, but indulges the knowledge of the self.)

While Rand is right that government is the reactionary element, she is wrong to identify it as categorically left-wing. Even the left-wing elements of government react with policies and programs that keep the risk proportion consolidated (conserved).

Rand "axiomatically" postulates we are all selfish, which determines our political fate. Despite how evil selfish outcomes may appear to be, in reality, she says, it is the only common objective, so it is objectively immoral to victimize those that attain the measure of success we all aspire to achieve. Selfishness, then, is a categorical imperative and government should act in priority to protect its attainment rather than interpret, or affect, its otherwise "objective" (Aristotelian), independent reality.

Contrary to the Randian axiom, however, the risk assessments presented on this website do not postulate government is inherently evil because it prevents us from being liberated (creative and productively self-determined). Instead, government authority is the means (Constitutionally endowed) to prevent a dystopic vision that, when pursued, profiles the Randian risk--a philosophy of risk that accumulates the risk to be prevented by liberal pursuit of its practical attainment.

Objectivism is a function of empirical analysis, and having been tested, Rand's vision tests positive for dystopia. Her philosophy accumulates the political risk--the only evil--it purports to prevent. It predicts the objective reality it is supposed to resist. It begs the question because it ignores the risk of loss fully assumed, which selfishly consolidates power (categorically classifies it as a moral imperative) to politically prevent its inevitable objectivity--the common, axiomatic right to self-determine.

Hayek, for example, concluded that the class with the most economic power has the most political power (and risk to be managed to prevent its loss, fully assumed). If we are to use his measure of power (economic power is political power), then, as Hayek argued, it is necessary to keep power diffused (non-exclusive) in a pluralistic (non-elite), democratic (not a republican) proportion. (The more indivisibly alpha the risk proportion, in other words, the more divisibly self-determined.)

Conservative philosophy always begs the question, and Hayek, for example, made it clear that he did not subscribe to it like Ayn Rand, for example, later did. Instead, Hayek suggested there be a minimum, guaranteed income so that everyone has the means (the power) to self-determine.

A minimum, guaranteed income would allow every citizen to logically act with collective, self-determination. Both the means and the ends would be highly divisible, easily verifiable, and directly accountable measures of a free-market process that never begs the question, but intuitively (with an inevitable, rational, ontological legitimacy) provides answers through a naturally occurring, empirical process of continuous improvement.

Such a process of continuous improvement is the means for less government, but not less governance. "The risk" would be redistributed so that it is more self-determined instead of existentially obtained in a high-anxiety, too-big-to-fail dimension. Doing this, however, as we have explored on this website, requires deconsolidation of the risk proportion in priority, which requires government intervention--what conservatives are, in priority, opposed to.

The conservative argument for less government is always post-hoc and begs the question. Reducing government without deconsolidation does not decrease, but increases the need for government; and in the same way, cutting government spending without reducing the need for it just increases the need for more debt. Thus, Hayek, for example, says government is causing debt, but the argument is a post-hoc fallacy.

If, instead of trillions to bail out big (horizontally and vertically integrated) banks, government spends to pluralize the system rather than keep it consolidated, the political means to self-determine increases and the need for government (what Schumpeter described as accumulation of "exogenous errors") reduces. The reason we, instead, allow for continuous consolidation is not because it efficiently (more selfishly) allocates capital, but because it structures power for elite self-indulgence (accumulation of errors rendered unaccountable--or the risk of loss fully assumed), aristocratically identified as the liberty to self-determine.

Hayek agrees that self-determination (the fundamental measure of utility that determines the legitimate use of capital) is not possible if the measure of attainment is its deprivation. Hayek said he is not a conservative because the measure of its utility is fundamentally irrational, which is why his philosophy tends to be "classified" as "liberal."

The more self-determined the process (the more pluralistic the predictive model) the more genuinely legitimate the outcome. We will be more peacefully prosperous (free of class warfare) if "the risk" and its otherwise classified proportion is more fundamentally legitimate.

If the risk proportion is always being divisibly formulated as verifiable hypotheses politically self-determined (pluralistically accountable rather than aristocratically authoritative), the errors naturally reduce. The measurable utility of capital investment can then be "freely" determined without warfare.

In the alpha dimension, in priority, instead of one big, catastrophic correction in which we are all victims of our selves (dystopically Randian) in a too-big-to-fail proportion, change we really need is dialectically fluid and continuous. It is peacefully legitimate in a proportion that is small enough to be productively innovative without being, as Rand described it, "looted" and "victimized."

As Hayek, for example, recognized, the technical aspects of economics presents with a philosophical conundrum that cycles an empirical test of political will (i.e., what this website refers to as accumulation and inevitable, ontological distribution of gamma risk). It is a technical puzzle that analysts cannot avoid being philosophically engaged. It is what gives the discipline of political-economy its technical complexity.

Instead of supporting what is too big to fail, which always begs the question, use the value accumulated to deconsolidate the risk proportion and the war is over.

Toward a Consensual Working Model

If the average American income is being reduced by lower pay, declining asset values, and higher prices for food and fuel, it is absolutely imperative to reduce the tax burden for the average-income class.

It is essential we increase the income of average Americans if we want to emerge from this persistent, recessionary trend. Increasing the income of upper-class Americans, despite Republican rhetoric, does not, will not, increase income for everyone else. If recession (declining demand and rising debt) is what you want, tax cuts for the rich will surely get you there.

Empirically, we see the rich getting richer at the expense of everyone else. The effect is a high demand for government spending while revenues are declining because, philosophically, in spite of the evidence, we must have tax cuts for the rich to increase income and reduce the demand for government debt (which is one of the more dogmatically mind-numbing tautologies of Republican logic and rhetoric to validate otherwise disconfirmed hypotheses).

Empirically tested, the tax policy we have now will keep us in a recessionary trend. The policy is so detrimental--the wealth is so accumulated--that even a massive, government stimulus plan did not pull us out. If we want to reverse this trend, it is necessary to reverse the "effective" tax policy: progressively higher rates toward the upper margin and lower rates toward the lower margin with the nominal rate being the "real" rate collected with no exemptions, deductions, or subsidies.

Increasing income toward the lower margin reduces the need for government spending. If we want to reduce spending, this is the way to do it without causing an even more massive rate of unemployment. Remember, unemployment produces a massive, systemic benefit for the rich. Your job and your assets are liquidated and sold back to you with money you borrow from them at a high rate because you are--by deliberate, systemic determination--a bad credit risk. Equity is effectively turned into debt, and if you are not the beneficiary of the lower, marginal tax rate, which includes tax-incentives to even have a job that you pay through the public bonding authority, you suffer even more to make the rich even richer. By all accounts, empirically, despite what Republicans preach, tax-incentive programs for the rich are not Pareto Optimal because your loss is their gain.

The Republican agenda calls for both spending cuts and tax cuts at the high margin, which is deflationary. It will increase the need for government spending while revenue is declining (like we have now), so it cannot be considered a serious plan for debt reduction despite being declared "The Path to Prosperity."

Since the average-income class is the vast majority, Constitutionally endowed with the power of popular consent, how come there is not a clear and decisive consensus to confirm its self-interest with the force and legitimacy of public authority?

The reason we do not have a clear, political consensus is because, as described and explained in previous articles, there is a complex conflation of political philosophy combined with technical theory and practice. These elements combine to form a complex working model, and while it may appear impossible, modifying it toward a clear and decisive, middle-class consensus is not really that difficult. It appears to be impossible because, for example, when Democrats gained a majority and captured the executive as the Great Recession transpired, the first thing they did was raise taxes to finance healthcare and dickered with an unfathomable healthcare plan while Americans lost their jobs, their incomes, their homes.... Democrats literally fiddled while Rome burned!

Following all the economic fiddle-faddle, political folderol, and garishly self-aggrandized gamesmanship, voters had enough. The vote effectively de-selected the conceit that a select few should mandate what consumers are going to buy at a government-negotiated, economy-of-scale price which, empirically, by past experience, means we do business with firms because we have to, not because we want to, at a no-bid price we have to pay because we can't say no!

Democrats came up with a healthcare plan that is ripe for expensive corruption and abuse because it is effectively non-consensual (by mandate) and, thus, inherently unempirical (unaccountable). It is a plan that needs to be de-selected because it represents a largely non-consensual working (Hamiltonian) model despite all the legitimate, democratic process associated with it. Hence, voters elected a counter-party presence conflated with the element of a third-party accountability because Hamiltonian modeling has driven us to the point of uncontrollable debt in an unrelenting crisis proportion!

People can't buy healthcare because of insufficient funds...and mandating they buy it, despite all the technical mumbo-jumbo, is not the solution to this problem! So, when Republicans assumed the majority position, they summarily lost their counter-party mandate to de-select the healthcare bill and went right to validating what keeps us from affording to buy healthcare at any price--insufficient income! According to the new, Republican majority, its mandate is to ensure tax cuts for the rich and cut welfare which, on the heels of the Great Recession, will turn the recession into a full-blown depression!

I do believe "The People" have had enough, and so it will be up to the technocrats to keep us from gravitating toward a more consensual, working model.

Much of what prevents consensus is its being mired in abstract, technical analyses promulgated by a bureaucratic, administrative elite that average Americans cannot verify or disconfirm with a popular vote. This working, administrative, bureaucratic model has a more elitist than a pluralist aspect, and so it tends to produce elitist benefits validated, rather than pluralistically verified, with the force and legitimacy of state authority (See the article, "The Bureaucratic Model of Power and Political-Economy" on this web site).

Sociologists tell us that a bureaucracy is an organization structured for stable, routine tasks. When we have high inflation, for example, the Fed routinely raises interest rates to reduce it. The bureaucratic effect is equally stable and routine--it produces a predictable, structurally reliable result that we all bank on. Why, then, is there so much uncertainty and all that systemic risk (angst) associated with our inherent, economic existence? It would seem, then, that the risk is not an unavoidable ontology, but is structurally (purposefully or, that is, teleologically rather than ontologically) engineered to operate with predictable, bureaucratic, reliability. Technically, it is both.

While risk is structurally teleological, it has an ontological dimension, nevertheless, which I refer to as the "gamma" risk proportion. No matter how hard we try to avoid it, the risk will always present with real, empirical value representing the ontology (the categorical imperative) of a teleological, and needlessly angst-driven existence (being that we are more than economic animals). Since we are endowed with moral intelligence, we have the freedom to choose whether we model risk into a diffused, pluralistic, non-catastrophic proportion, or not.

The risk, remember, cannot be avoided. It is always there, ontologically (it does not care how we perceive it or how we structure it, it just "categorically" is what it is, and it is up to us to choose what is "imperative"). While it cannot be avoided, it can be allowed to accumulate in order to be structurally managed into a predictable, reliable distribution, like when we experience massive unemployment and massive transformation of equity into debt (a huge public debt to be managed by our "prudential regulators" or the bureaucracy). This, of course, results in an alienated complexity (and anxiety) that appeals to authority with less and less accountability--it becomes a working model that is progressively more authoritarian and less verifiably consensual.

The trend to establish an evermore authoritarian state is a trend that can, nevertheless, be reversed; and contrary to what Republicans want, it does not require deconstructing regulatory authority but operationalizing it to fit a more pluralistic, working model.

Clever economic and political manipulations to gain value by causing detriment is not the measure of sophistication. Causing the Great Recession and then telling baby boomers they are an unaffordable liability is the height of arrogant stupidity. Growing old is not a liability we cannot afford, but an asset in which to distribute accumulated wealth into sustainable, post-industrial, economic growth; and if you are too greedy to see that, you are philosophically determined to the unavoidable risk...an economic animal unwittingly snared in the detriment of his own devices.

The purpose of life, we come to find out, is to always do the right thing and be creative about it...not to do the wrong thing and innovate clever structures to get away with it as a confirmative demonstration of power.