The Neutron Star

It seems that the expansion of credit to the “ineligible” simply masks the underlying economic issue: an inequity of wealth. Of course the opposing political discourses revolve around equity’s existence as mutually exclusive to freedom. Yet, this discourse finds limits in the absence of examples in their absolute forms: there is no absolute equity in the presence of the lack of freedom, nor is there complete freedom in lack of equity. (An exploration into Kant's concepts of Praxis, Theory and Practice is needed)

The limit of inequity was found: people cannot afford automobiles, homes, or tuition. This in turn leads to the loss of flow of capital, which in turn becomes the slow of the economy. This closes down the ability for a free market to perform. Yet the “Free Market’s” function is the consolidation of wealth. Is the thesis its own antithesis? Naomi Klein comes to the fore in this discussion with her idea of “No Risk Capitalism”.“They spend seven years just transferring public money into private hands. Their final act is taking private debt and transferring it into public hands.” – Naomi Klein.

Interesting is American resistance to "intellectualism". The fallacy of defining intellectualism lies in the separation of intelligence from the general public; not to say generality is genius, but that it is the general public that fulfills and alters the narratives by which intelligence and intellectualism is defined.

What is anything that has to do with knowledge other than interpretations of existence: both the objects and situations, and the prior texts that contribute to them? The role of intellectualism is interpretation. What doesn't make sense is the general public's belief of institutional benevolence: both economic and governmental, both secular and sacred. The restructuring of this narrative is the most taboo of them all, as Milton Friedman established in the ideological merger of economic and political narrative in his work "Capitalism and Freedom". Yet, doesn't the recent "crisis" nullify this thesis of absolute capitalism's creating absolute freedom by it's own terms, it's own means? The end of capitalism, both in chronological and machovaliean senses, rests in the consolidation of wealth of the few. Par excellance of Milton Friedman's thesis, political and economic terms act as one: wealth and freedom are in the hands of the few.

The hard task before us, exists in the restructuring of a narrative, of negotiating the conditions of risk as opportunity to rewrite this narrative, of seeking the status of our society not in-itself, but as it is for-itself. The move is from negotiating reality not from the ideological pandering to stasis, of thesies self validating (Biden won/Palin won the debate), and into the dynamic exchange in daily life, in seeking ideology in practice, rather than distorting it with a preconcieved narrative. I know I know.

Late Capitalism

I figure we can truly Emphasize the pun on that phrase now; Late Capitalism. The obituary, however, was written long ago. I've had the feeling, since the debunked Soviet State, that capitalism wasn't far behind. The dissociation between accountability and institution undermines the thesis of credit. I've attempted to study economics on my own, but philosophy has always come first. With an uncited heuristic, however, I'd like to say this: the statement that "the market is not functioning properly" (google it! google it!) furthers my thesis of our valuing stimulus over response. It is not so much that the market is not functioning properly, than we are not responding properly, that is, we lack the sensibility to understand the system changes that the economic model may not support. There's an organizational principle that we fail to grasp and continue to fail while grasping every century or so. The economy is a measure of human behavior, and something in our behavior has changed. I believe it lies in our concept of subjectivity and individualism. I'm getting there. I'm getting there. It got me here, so far. Unlike the economy, I hope not to fall so far that my progress is nothing but recovery of lost memory.

Both morality and economics depend on a standard of measurement in values; the value of actions and the value of objects. The cultural sythesis between economic structure and morality involves the inverse of the Hegelian mutual recognition of freedom; the conditions by which we are permitted pass outside of labor bondage and enter freedom (freedom to choose a vocation, freedom to limit choose, freedom to purchase, freedom to limit labor), as well as the conditions by which we may maintain that freedom. The underlying condition of this freedom, freedom at birth, reifies itself upon the stances of the political parties on abortion. Within the nature or nurture debate, the kernel of truth lies within the mutual conflict between these oppositions upon a single focus: in order to support our innate right to freedom (in actuality the threat of bondage), we must be born free, with equal rights which should support equal opportunity, etc. etc. However, the actualization towards freedom first involves an initiation into a belief system (free market capitalism) and then a form of self measurement within that system.

The system assumes the threat of lost liberty, of freedom limited by non-participation motivates the individual. The motivation of anxiety works no less than it did in the former GDR; the alienation though of another kind. Non-participation occurs not only buy one’s individual choices, but also of a community’s evaluation of one’s position within their given system. This polarizes the critic with the delima: to openly question the system I risk the threat of non-participation and the collapse of possible freedoms. Only now does the threat of the system’s collapse that the converse comes to light: if I do not question the system I risk the loss of my potential and current freedoms. The direction of questioning should direct itself towards a historical examination of values, a geneology of both valuing of objects (property, commodity), and the valuing of actions (moralities, labor). One value left the bartering system, the abstraction of exchange allowed for the possibility of absent accountability. The deviation of accountability from institution is the process at work here. A hyper alienation from the processes of our daily lives. The solution lies beyond our capacity for abstract perception, or does it? Seems I need to write a grant proposal. How naive.

Oh yes! A very facinating note I thought of while on a caffine high; 1764 (War of the Regulation) or 1789 (French Rev.)(60, 80), Revolutions of 1848,(80) Great Depression of 1927, (80) The Financial Crisis 2008. Naomi Klein, anyone? An eighty year cycle of social opportunity for social change? I hate to quantify what seems qualitative in study, but the evidence of a social cycle in our contemprary measure seems possible. Who ever held the meteorologist accountable? Huh?