MÁRCIO FAUSTINO
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​​​​Experiences, knowledge and stupidity
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with a lot of grammar errors.
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I have no writing skills to show off. I write because I have to.
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Social Alienation and Capitalism.

13/6/2020

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It is known and unanimously understood by all economic schools, political strands and social science, that because of its accelerated economic growth through credit - which is just another name for debt -  for the competition and betting in the future demands, capitalism eventually creates an over production that exceeds the demand; Which means crises, because the exceeded offer causes prices to plunge under the production and profits level, making business not able to recover their investments.

Keynesian economic policies were introduced after the big economic crisis of 1929, and the Second World War, as an attempt to delay as long as possible the next crisis, by using the governmental purchasing power to create demand and rise prices in the competitive level again; So business can keep working, having profits and hiring workers. But Keynes’ economic theory does not offer a definitive solution to crises, since overproduction and over accumulation crises can only be solved by destruction of the exceeded offer. Governamental investments will spare the economy and its people from the crisis but only for a while because, while business are having profits, competing capitalism will keep increasing and accelerate productivity - as attempt to to reduce production costs, compete against other business with prices, with the goal of always have bigger profits and stability in the market by dominating it - until eventually it floods the market with exceeded production.

Keynesian theory came in the early 20th century but its practice is much older than that. One of the best known examples among many was during the Louis Napoleon Regime, which invested heavily in the modernisation of Paris, in the second half of 19th century, in order to prevent the French economy from entering into crisis. But since the crisis can not be delayed forever governments have been trying many other alternative practices to deal with the production (and money) over accumulation, such as finding more demand abroad and wars. Because wars naturally cause destruction and demand investments, so creating new demands from market production. This is the reason European countries had so many wars among each other during modernity, they were fighting to open each other's market to send their production. This is also the reason countries practice protectionism and the reason trade wars lead to military wars. In short, because capitalism creates overproduction - overconcentration of goods, services and money which causes them to lose value - capitalism is constantly growing. If anything stops its growth, such as limited market, limited money, borders, it enters into stagnation or crisis. So capitalism is always looking for new and bigger markets to grow, which often means in other countries, and when capitalism doesn’t find it governments enter in shock against each other for protecting their markets from each other.

Europe Union and other economic blocks found a solution to avoid conflicts among their countries and unite their markets for a bigger geopolitical influence globally, such as the economic dumping the European Union practice in African countries; Which they promote as a positive free market thing for sending their overproduction and cheap price products to poor countries. What is actually happening is the export of crises; African and other poor countries worldwide are being dumped with products making local businesses not able to compete in their production flooded market.

Many people in developed countries complain about the immigrants “stealing their jobs” or causing a drop in the wages because of excess labor work offered in the market. These people seem to not realise that the developed countries stole the immigrants' jobs first, because countries like Germany and the United States have huge production subsided by the government in order to keep business producing and hiring workers artificially - not because of market demand. This is why milk, pork, fruits and many other products are so cheap. German farmers don’t have any profit with the prices the milk and pork are sold in the supermarkets, so the government keeps paying them to not stop producing and not stop hiring workers. Germany then, through the European Union, dumps the over production in African countries in order to avoid further drop in prices, and so in order to avoid spending more money in subsidies. The industrialized subsidized products made of subsidized milk and pork in Europe floods the poor country market, where local businesses can not compete with the subsidised European products (which are literally free), so local businesses have no profits and close their doors. Workers without jobs and low wage in poor countries migrate to countries where there are more opportunities for work and higher wages, such as the subsidized European market. This is the export crisis Europe and US practice in poor countries.

China has been dumping their dirty cheap production all over the world. On the other hand, it also has been practicing a massive Keynesianism by building cities, roads, and all kinds of structures and industrial subsidies not only in China but worldwide. They can do it because they have a huge capital reserve. It is also the reason China was buying a huge amount of commodities from all over the world, which saved not only China but the entire planet from a worse crisis after 2008. It was the reason developing countries were booming selling huge amount of commodities to China. But once China economy slow down not only the developing countries went into economic crisis but also the developed countries such as Germany and the US.

The later 70’s and the 80’s were characterised by the end of Keynesian economic policy and the weakening of social democracy politics; Instead of using the government purchasing power - to create demand and delay of the crisis - it was decided to face crises and practice austerity. But the changes for austerity were only for the population - for society - not for the big business. As far as big business could keep accumulating wealth it doesn’t matter for them if society is in crisis, so the focus became the speculative market where big business always can invest money when over accumulated, to keep the value up, and buy up when the market is in crisis instead of invest in society. This is why statistics show that the economy is booming when big businesses are making profits despite the impoverishment of the population. Their solution was the guarantee of the stability of the wealthy, since capitalism can not guarantee stability for all. But once such a decision is made it nullifies what capitalism was supposed to be, a competition; Once a group or economic class has stability they are not competing. This is the biggest capitalism contradiction because it is supposed to be about competition, but every competitor in a game is looking to win the game by eliminating their competitors - to become unable to be competed against - and when it happens the game is over.

When western industries migrated to the cheaper production costs in China, western countries started deindustrializing and along with this change - which caused the weakening of labor unions and left wing parties - unemployment rised and of wages stagnated, causing the losining of workers rights and temporary or mini jobs increase, resulting in a big population of working-poor in the US, UK and Germany. This situation created a socio-economic insecurity in the population leading to populist political influences and political extremists gaining numbers in the political arena. What also happened was the middle class becoming more supportive of the minorities courses, since the bigger social gap between rich and poor approaches the middle class, now more poor, to the working class. So the racism and political violence which has always been a problem, emerged in the mainstream political fight today, among many other political causes in support of the so-called minorities (the economically excluded).

Many people complain that big businesses have been increasing profits while the population wage has not accompanied business productivity growth. It is as if we don't know that capitalism never meant to pay workers for their labor productivity, reason why workers are paid by working time - which literally makes workers’ labor cheaper the more productive they are. The labor productivity gain if for the capitalist to keep as their profits, which is what the socialist and communists movements fight against.

The fact is, insecurity creates many expectations for people who hope, through their effort and means, to overcome what their insecurity fears. When the person doesn't archive what they hoped for, the change they were expecting, or what they want to maintain - maintain their jobs, the wages, their home, their routine or just their confidence - they become frustrated, and from frustration comes hate.

Every feeling is a somatic experience. It means that whatever we feel is the mental state created by our body condition - muscles stress, heartbeat, body temperature, etc. We have many names for what we feel but only because we know the context which created the feeling. Often all the different feelings come from the same somatic state (with its diverse levels). Frustration is the feeling a person has of hating the self, for being unhappy with the expectation not archived or fearing not having the acting power to archive; It is a somatic irritation or discomfort for feeling powerless. When the person lose hopes of the power of his act, they tend to give up further expectations as a way to avoid further frustration in acting in it and, in such mental perspective, the person tends to have his attention to his past experiences; The less we have the Will to act, to experience life with our body,  the more we tend to spend our time thinking, experiencing life in our mind - often to withdraw from reality for feeling powerless in it (and so excluded from society where one feels belonging through their acting in it). The excess of thinking leads to depression.

The frustration can have another shape though. In order to protect oneself from self-hate the person tends to project their hate to the external world, where they will find a target which they will tend to blame for their frustration, wanting then to destroy the target, transformed into an enemy, as a symbol of destroying (overcoming) their frustration. This is the scenario which brings populism to the political stage; The promise of a hero who has the acting power that promises to destroy an enemy, which symbolizes a group's frustration.

Every act of frustration - and so hate that tends to be projected on something external as protection from, or react to, self-hate - tends to the wish, and act, of destruction. The destruction is not only a hope to destroy the frustration project on it but it is, before anything else, a hope that from the destruction, and chaos it creates, somebody with an act of power appears to put order which will ease the person's frustration. Because frustration is the feeling of internal chaos together with the feeling of not having power to act and  to put order in their emotional chaos; Insecurity, the feeling of not trusting their own acting power, so feeling weak, to guarantee the realisation of their expectation.

Populists leaders use the masses insecurity and hate, by helping them in creating an enemy to become their target, in order to obtain their support in their political and economical agenda, and one of these agendas is Fascism.

When people talk about fascism they talk about their political propaganda and mythologies and not what it really is or its goal. Its roots date back from the end of the Medieval economic system, where artisans and craftsmen’s markets were protected by guilds that guaranteed their socio-economic stability. The same for land owners who had their socio-economic stability guaranteed by their land and their private army. Wherever social position the person was born in they would remain in that position for all their lives, as did their ancestors, as if it was their divine, blood or family natural rights or fate. Capitalism made it possible for people to climb the socio-economic ladder through trade. The rise of steam industries attracted many traders who would transport the goods from producers to consumers. National States with their governamental army could protect the territory, private lands lands and contracts, so industries, traders and customers could have the  safety to do business. A family could own land without the need of a private army to protect it and without the worry of losing their land and goods to someone else's private army. It was in this change - from a no competitive society to a competitive one, to climb the social ladder, to make as much money as possible, so to fight for the bigger market by beating their competitors, all in order to guarantee their socio-economic stability against their competitors - that many people started claiming their supposed natural rights to land, to money, to social position, seeking more stability for their socio-economic position, against the capitalist and central government economy that led the middle class (the artisans in the medieval system) living in the constant risk of becoming working class or have a pile of debts obtained in order to compete in capitalism. This is where the pan-european movement came from. Campaigns to return to the stability for the medieval system was propagated by the old land owners and had much support from the middle class. In an attempt to stop people from supporting the return of the old system, governments implemented politics of market protection, blocking the borders from foreigners business and workers, implementing welfare systems and using their political power and army to gain foreingn markets, all to give people, especially the petite bourgeoisie and farmers (the middle class), the guarantee of a minimum socio-economic safety against free market competition instability. This is the root of Nationalism and other things fascism fights for.

Fascism aims to limit competition among social classes, making it harder or impossible for the working class to compete with middle class and capitalists, as well as making it harder for the middle class to compete with the upper class for their socio-economic position, by plastering them and guarantee social stability to the middle and upper class. The reason Fascism also gives strong rights to workers, for them to become more pleased with their social position and less willing to compete among other social classes in the attempt of climbing it, for better life condition and stability in life.

The rise of fascists tenancy, with the right extremists gaining political attention among the population, specially the middle class, is because they feel socio-economic insecurity in this political austere and so-called today’s free market - which, as explained, it is not really free, since today’s governments work in taking financial risks in the name of big business, to protect them from risks by speculate in the debt market as well as sports and tourism events, for example, in order to attract big business, and, if it works it last not enough to recover the government speculation that uses the taxpayer money to guarantee big business profits.

The reason fascists, Nazists, the KKK, or whatever use  the claim of their natural superiority and so natural rights above other people rhetoric, is because they need such ideals about themselves in order to hide - first from themselves and then to oders - their insecurity about themselves and the frustration of feeling individually powerless in their act to overcome their insecurity. Such insecurity is essentially socio-economic. The fear of others taking their social and economic position in society, and so the fear of being not able to compete in order to not become poor, homeless, in financial debt or socially left behind.

As an attempt to overcome their frustration - which means self-hate for feeling powerless in their individual act - they create the imaginary and mythological idea of their natural superiority and natural rights, in order to have a reason to gain self-love again and so project their hate to a target outside of their own, which they will blame as the reason of their frustration and attempt to fight against and destroy, as a symbolism of the destruction of the chaotic feeling they have in themselves that generate their frustration.

Nothing this is new. It is the reason for Christianity to come, as a promise to guarantee, for all, a natural eternal safety, against all mundane odds, in the afterlife paradise, through Agape love; The love for God through people and the love for people through God, unconditionally. Through such love one becomes able to recognize themselves through others, so being able to love themselves where they find God. In other words, It's to find God inside yourself through empathy and consequently you will find god in others. It means not feeling alienated from other people, and so not feeling threatened by them. But much of it is lost through the competitive materialist society that puts people against each other for their own individualist interest, creating a social phobia.

​For this reason, I don’t believe we can fight hate or any popular or political movement based on hate. Once one becomes the hate target fighting hate seems only to lead to more frustration and more hate. Instead, I think there is only one way to fight hate and it is through creating socio economic stability, but, not through segregation and alienation of people from each other. And this is the biggest challenge in a society that only found a way to create and accumulate fast and huge wealth through self-interest competitive associations’ instability.

​There is a fundamental process in the use of our senses that is the confirmation of ourselves through the interaction with other people and information that we capture. Because everything we have contact with causes a somatic reaction, which when analyzed by our mind and transformed into feeling says something about ourselves to ourselves. Therefore, we seek information, in general, not to seek knowledge but to seek certainty - Knowledge demands doubts and questioning while certainly not. That is, to confirm to ourselves about who we are or what we believe to be; The biggest emotional pain one can have is the uncertainty about who they are and where they belong to, the place, people and tradition which they perpetuate themselves in their act. Our mind was not made to understand reality and the world beyond our reality. It was made to guarantee our existence (quick adaptation for our self-preservation and self-perpetuation). For very long, it was believed that before agriculture humans were miserable for constant living in starvation and fear. Only in the middle of 20th century, through archaeological findings, researchers found out that humans had a much happier and healthier life before agriculture, for having better and richer food varieties, plenty of free time and the pleasure of their exploring instinct. What we call evolution is actually leading us to the so-called evolution trap, because we convince ourselves about becoming more happy when in fact we are becoming more miserable. Happiness is not a state of being, is not what remains but it is felt in changes and so in the achievement of our acts. We have archived a lot in our act to make us feel happy, but such acts are mostly to overcome the miserable conditions that we created in today’s society and that we can not be completely free from.
Marcio Faustino

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