The following is a response to Ken MacLeod's article "The ends of humanity
Socialism is dead, and the transhuman future looms. Is there any way to recover a sense of global purpose?" in the online journal AEON.
The future belongs to what might be called the 'genotopians' because the deep secrets of man are coded in the genes. Socialism failed because its understanding of mankind was cosmetic and plastic. Suppose there is an ugly woman, and we want to rid her of her ugliness. There is the cosmetic way of putting make-up on her face, but all that does is mask her ugliness. It's like spraying perfume on a dirty and smelly person. A more radical way is to put her under the knife and use plastic surgery to improve her looks. Her looks may improve--dramatically or modestly--, but her genes will still coded with ugliness, and so she'll give birth to ugly kids. The only real and permanent way to rid her of her ugliness is to work at the genetic level and change her DNA.
Or consider intelligence. How could we make a dumb person intelligent? IQ is essentially genetic though it depends on how it is developed in each individual. Similarly, though athleticism is genetic, athletes cannot rely on genes alone. Had Michael Jordan spent his entire youth in front of TV and never worked out, he wouldn't have become a great star. Had Einstein never read a book and spent his entire youth lazing around a pool, he never would have made his discoveries. Even so, it's undeniable that Michael Jordan and Einstein had natural or genetic advantages in their respective fields.
Now, some people are born dumb, so how could we make them smart? On the social level, the most we can do is train and exercise their minds with lots of lessons. But the result, in the end, will be cosmetic or plastic. A dumb person may memorize intelligent things to say or conform to the values and assumptions of 'what intelligent people are supposed to think', but he or she will still remain fundamentally dumb, incapable of genuine individual thought and critical inquiry. To turn a dumb person into a truly intelligent person, his genes must be altered. No matter how much were we to educate someone like George W. Bush, he's not going to be Einstein. At most, he can learn to spout intelligent-sounding cliches. But if we could somehow tweak Bush's genes and made them smart, there's no telling what he may be capable of.
The problem of Marxism and socialism was this notion that the essence of humanity is determined by material conditions and consciousness, i.e. material conditions shape one's consciousness, and consciousness, once awakened to the 'scientific truth' of class struggle as the main mechanism of history, would embrace revolution, and then, a new age would dawn.
Problem is the level of consciousness varies from person to person. The consciousness of someone with very high IQ is likely going to be different from those with with low IQ regardless of the social milieu. Also, depending on the temperament, some people might be more content while others are more discontent despite the similarity of social conditions. Consider that Betty Friedan lived in a nice house in the nice suburbs, but she felt miserable and compared her lot to the victims of the Holocaust. But there are women like Anne Romney who love being a wife and mother. There are lots of housewives in Japan who never feel the kind of resentment felt by Friedan even though they have less choice. And there are lots of Mexican women who are economically far less fortunate--in both Mexico and America--than Betty Friedan was in the 1950s, but they are a lot happier and in love with their men. So, the so-called 'consciousness' is never universal. Jews especially seem to be overly sensitive to everything, and so whenever Jews talk about 'consciousness', they are projecting their own especially charged neurosis on the rest of humanity. Marx claimed to express the rage of the working class, but he was really projecting his frustrated rage as an unappreciated intellectual onto the working class as a moral cover. And Freud often projected his own sexual neurosis onto the rest of humanity. He claimed to be studying us, but in fact, he was using us as a screen for his own hangups. So, we should always beware when intellectuals pretend to speak of our 'consciousness'--or 'subconsciousness'.
At any rate, some people are capable of understanding complex ideas and thinking their own ideas; others are only capable of learning the ideas of other people; and some people are beyond understanding complex ideas altogether. This is true in the arts, math, science, philosophy, and etc. The notion that all of humanity could be liberated and advanced though material transformation and 'consciousness-raising' has been naive, to put it mildly. Of course, material conditions and education/media/indoctrination do have profound impact on mankind, but one constant is that most people, regardless of the system they live in, are followers, sheep, puppets, mental children, the duped. Most people are not intellectuals, and even most so-called intellectuals tend to be followers, doctrinaire ideologues than free thinkers, politically conformist commissars than critical individualists. Indeed, for every leading communist, socialist, or Marxist thinker or theorist, there were thousands of hacks, fanatics, and dogmatists who were incapable of thinking for themselves; indeed, that was precisely the appeal of Marxism that supposedly had unified history, science, philosophy, economics, ethics, politics, and everything under the sun. Though there were some vigorous Marxist thinkers, Marxism was really a lazy short-cut to Truth. The appeal was that the great Marx had figured it all out--the formula, mechanism, and destiny of mankind and history--, and all one had to do was study, learn, obey, and spread the gospel.
But in the end, here was the problem. It wasn't only that communism and socialism were less efficient and productive than capitalism. It was that communism/socialism failed to change the nature of man and the fact of man's limitations--especially that most people were mediocre and untalented. No amount of economic experimentation and consciousness-raising fundamentally could ever change the nature of man, and so communism died a slow death.
Though capitalism also failed to change the nature of man, it understood that nature much better and tapped into its potential through incentives and rewards that energized the most skilled and talented members of society. We all know that innovation and progress in all fields are realized by the most intelligent and talented individuals. If communism tended to suppress such talents, capitalism incentive-ized success, and so people with fresh ideas build up businesses, and investors provided the capital. A Steve Jobs would not have been possible in the USSR. Not only would such a person been denounced as a 'greedy capitalist', but his ilk could pose a challenge to the ideocrats--ideological theocrats--who ran the state. Economic freedom could eventually lead to independent forces that may challenge of state monopoly over everything.
If some people are 'greedy' for money, others are 'greedy' for power. And communist intellectuals were greedy for power. Che Guevara and Stalin may not have cared much about material wealth, but they wanted the power to decide who gets to live, who gets to be sent to the gulag, who gets to run the state, who gets to work on the fields and factories, and who gets shot in the back of the head. (Indeed, the main attraction of communism to the Third World was not justice but power. Third World nations felt weak in relation to the West, and many came to regard communism as a kind of Instant Hammer with which to drive out the imperialists and build a powerful economy. In most cases, communists didn't care how many people they killed in the process. What they prized in communism was not compassion but ruthlessness. They knew Stalin killed a lot of people, but the fact is Stalin built a superpower, and Third World leaders hoped to the same. Anything was worth it--even a mountain of bones--as long as their nations gained greater power.)
And contrary to what MacLeod says, there was an element of greed among ordinary people in socialist/communist states as well. Their greed may have been modest but greed is greed. Greed isn't necessarily want of great wealth or great power but want of something for nothing at somebody else's expense. Thus, if I choose to drop out of school, get pregnant in my teens, sit in front of a TV all day, and expect the tax payers to provide me with welfare, I'm being greedy. I may not demand great wealth , but I want something for nothing. And if society were to become filled with too many such people, its economy will eventually go under--as is the case in Greece, Italy, and Spain. Indeed, that was why the USSR finally unraveled. Stalin was murderous, but he understood the true nature of communism: As there were hardly any material incentives for working hard under communism, people had to be forced to work hard with the bully whip. So, Stalin killed millions but he built a superpower. But after the death of Stalin, the USSR sought to practice a more humane communism that was less coercive. In time, Soviets worked less and less but expected more from the state. Even if they didn't expect much, they were still expecting more than what the Soviet economy was able to produce, i.e. what they worked to produce. Since Soviet communism became more 'humane', it was easier for workers to slack off, do very little, get drunk on the job, and so forth. They were no longer being accused of sabotage and sent to the Gulag(all of which were closed in the late 50s), so why should anyone work hard at anything? So, it was the accumulation of modest greed among the masses that undermined the Soviet economy. Everyone was slacking off and producing less and less but everyone wanted higher living standards. For awhile the Soviet economy could sustain the illusion of economic stability with petrodollars--earned from selling Soviet oil to capitalist economies!--, but when the price of oil plummeted, the Soviet economy had no legs to stand on.
And so, capitalism won. But capitalism has its own delusions and problems. Many Americans like to believe in the power of the individual. They say that freedom and liberty combined with ambition and hard work produce great success, and this is indeed true... if you have natural smarts. But the problem is most people don't have natural smarts, and different groups have different levels of general ability. While American freedom can produce men like Henry Ford, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, and many others, the fact is your average man or woman has no chance in hell in becoming very successful. Now, one can argue that great innovators and entrepreneur, even as they get richer, make the pie bigger for everyone. And this is true enough to a large extent. Henry Ford didn't just make himself rich but paid good wages and enabled Americans to own cars. Cars meant faster travel and more trade and thus affected all other industries. And the advent of the telephone also had a great impact on communication and business. And all these enterprises created lots of new jobs, and that meant more spending power for everyone. And indeed, even poor people in the West are materially better off than most people around the world.
But we cannot escape the problem of inequality around the world, not least in the West, and this has serious implications for the future, especially as income levels tend to correlate with race and ethnicity. It's one thing to be a poor white person in a white nation. You may feel economic resentment but not racial resentment. But in a nation where income and race/ethnicity go together, there's likely to be both income and racial resentment, and that could be especially dangerous. Leftists like to believe that all races are equal in talent, but this is not so. The reason why Jews are only 2% of the US population but own up to 40% of the wealth is due to higher Jewish intelligence. Average Jewish IQ in the US is 110-115. White gentile IQ is, on average, 100. And black IQ ranges from 85 to 90.
So, unsurprisingly, Jews are the most successful people in America. 50% of Jews earn more than $100,000 a year. As Jews get richer and richer, many other groups get poorer and poorer. The idea that blacks and increasing numbers of Mexican-Americans will eventually reach the income level of whites, let alone Jews, through more education and training is becoming ever more delusional. Though white, Jewish, and Asian liberals may officially spout all the politically correct nonsense about IQ being nothing more than a social construct, the facts speak for themselves. Jews arrived as dirt poor immigrants in America, but within several decades, they've ousted the Wasp elite and become the ruling elites of America. Jews now control Wall Street, law firms, elite universities, media, courts, US government, etc. Would this have been possible if not for higher Jewish IQ? Though it's true that Jews have a culture that prizes intelligence, it's partly because they are intelligent enough to appreciate the worth of culture.
In sports and physicality, blacks have a decisive advantage. Evolution made blacks stronger and more aggressive. That's why blacks dominate basketball, football, and many top professional sports. That's why so much of the racial violence is black on white, black on Hispanic, black on Asian, black on Arab, and etc. Even most liberal whites prefer not to live in areas with too many blacks. Thus, there's a lot of anti-black sentiment among non-blacks even if it happens to be repressed as our society deems no sin as graver than 'racism'. Though white liberals will claim to love the Negro, most of them prefer to gentrify neighborhoods by jacking up real estate prices that drives out blacks.
Just as many non-blacks fear blacks, many blacks resent being avoided by non-blacks. While we can understand the frustration of law-abiding blacks, there's no denying that the high rates of black crime and violence owes to (1) blacks knowing that they are tougher than non-blacks who make easy prey (2) higher levels of black aggression due to bio-chemical factors (3) lower black intelligence that prevents many blacks from making the economic climb. Especially with whites--both liberals and conservatives--favoring the more docile and less uppity Hispanic labor over the more troublesome black labor, there's bound to be ever more racial problems in times ahead.
Another problem is the rise of globalism. While international trade is nothing new in capitalism, the main mode of capitalism used to be national capitalism, i.e. "What is good for General Motors is good for American workers." Not anymore. With the expansion of trade treaties, networks, and communication, America-based companies can easily contract and hire much cheaper labor around the world. Thus, while the profits of globalist corporations go through the roof, the middle class and working class in America feel more pinched than ever. If you're of high intelligence and creative/innovative potential, you can prosper in the New Economy, but if you're average or mediocre, there's only the service or servant industry. And it just so happens that most people are naturally mediocre. We keep hearing that Americans must be more 'creative', and while that's true, the problem is most people are never gonna be creative since they are of limited intelligence and talent. Even among trained writers, few are very good. Even among trained artists, few are really talented. Even among trained scientists, few really come up with new discoveries and ideas.
But the myth of American individualism that says anyone can 'make it' with work ethic and dedication continues to fill a lot of people with false hope. And it is increasingly becoming a dwindling hope as more Americans realize that the new global economy is really a boon only for the smart and 'creative' than for all Americans. In the past, the smart and creative Americans mostly built their factories in America and hired American workers(who were often unionized). And so, the employers and employees were one people. Today, there is no such sense of national purpose among the elite globalist class, and so the American middle class is becoming more hollowed out.
And things got really wild when Wall Street bankers played fast and loose and sank the economy, and then used their puppet-boys in government--Bush and Obama--to 'bail' them out at the expense of the already squeezed middle class. Of course, Wall Street was able to get away with such outrage since Jews control all the top institutions. Jewish oligarchs own the media, Jewish sharks own Wall Street, Jewish agents control both the Democratic and Republican parties, Jews run the top law firms, Jews run the academia, and Jews run the courts. So, all those powerful Jewish groups all watched each other's back, and so the Jewish elite banksters on Wall Street got away with the crime of the century. But we cannot speak of this truth because Jewish media will destroy anyone who dares to speak truth to Jewish power.
There is no social, material, or intellectual solution out of the current problem. No matter how much we spend on education, blacks and Mexican-Americans are not going to be the intellectual or economic equivalents of Jews and Swedish-Americans. And no amount of politically correct propaganda is going to rid non-blacks of their fear of blacks since the fear in this case is totally rational and sensible. Fear of blacks among non-blacks is the product of black thuggery, violence, crime, and bullying, and many blacks act the way they do because they very well know they are stronger/tougher than other races and also because they're naturally more prone to be aggressive and less inhibited.
The only REAL solution is genetic. All other solutions are cosmetic and/or plastic. We can pretend that Michelle Obama is a 'smart black lady', but honest people know she's a mediocrity who was generously favored by 'affirmative action' at the expense of far more talented individuals.
If we could use genetic science to boost the IQ of all people to the level of Ashikenazi Jews, there would be more equality. Notice that the most equal states in America tend to be more homogeneously white. This is so because white gentiles tend to share not only a similar set of values but similar range of abilities.
The greatest inequalities exist in places like NY city and California, and why? Because high IQ Jews in NY hog most of the wealth while blacks, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans have a difficult time making the social climb. California is one of the most liberal and 'progressive' states, but it has huge income gaps and why? Because Jews in Hollywood and Jews/Asians in Silicon Valley with their high IQ earn huge sums while the growing number of Mexican-Americans remained mired in mediocrity. It doesn't matter how much California or NY spends on education or 'consciousness raising', or whatever. Indeed, just about everyone in Hollywood and Silicon Valley is a very politically correct liberal. Yet, despite their ideology, certain groups--especially Jews, Asians, and some whites--keep getting richer and richer while other groups keep falling through the cracks more and more. And Charles Murray noted this trend among whites as well: Richer whites with higher IQ tend to marry one another while poor whites with lower IQ tend to marry one another. It wasn't always so, but now, the white race is being more divided permanently--genetically--among income/intelligence lines.
The only solution is to work on the DNA. If everyone could genetically be given the IQ of Bill Gates or Sergey Brin, the world would be more equal. And in athletics, genetic therapy might produce greater parity among the races. China spent huge sums on track and field, yet it won medals only in the Walking competition. And China is a nation of 1.3 billion people. Tiny Jamaica produced more track stars than China and all of Asia put together. At this point, only the most politically correct fanatic/idiot would deny the racial-genetic factor in sports. If races can be different in the field of athletics, surely they can be different in other areas as well.
We can spend tons of money on Mexican-American athletic training, but will it make Mexican-Americans the athletic equal of blacks? Though Mexican-Americans will surely improve their game with more training, most of them simply won't have the genetic material to become NFL or NBA stars.
So, if we really want to make humanity more equal and successful, we must work on the genes. Indeed, the fastest way to build up the Arab economy would be by taking high IQ Jewish sperm(or someone like Sergey Brin) and inseminating it into 100,000s of Arab women. Then, the Arab world will almost overnight produce many geniuses in science, math, law, and etc.
And the easiest and cheapest way for China to have its own super athletes in track would be have some powerful West African guy hump a 1000 Chinese women. You can spend billions on educating mediocre children, but they are not gonna be Einsteins. If you want an Einstein, just take high IQ Jewish sperm and impregnate a woman with it. It's so much cheaper and quicker. Biology trumps sociology.
As for social-democracy, its economic system was far closer to the fascist model than to either communism or full-fledged capitalism. Like fascist economics, social-democracy accepted the role of capitalism but also upheld the role of the state in regulating the economy and/or managing certain sectors of the economy. As such, both social-democracy and fascist-economy were forms of the Third Way. Not for nothing did German National Socialism provide all Germans with universal healthcare. National Socialism also created extensive job programs, indeed on a bigger scale than attempted in the US under FDR's New Deal.
If communism saw economics as a war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, both social democracy and fascist economics believed an understanding could be reached by the two sides. Also, both social democracy and fascist economics accepted the reality of classes and economic differences. Some people, being smarter, more talented, and more industrious, were simply going to earn more. Even so, both social democracy and fascist economics believed that all people should be provided with certain basic needs.
Where social democracy and fascist economics differ is in their view of the human soul. The holistic model of fascism sees every member of the state as being spiritually linked with the sacred national family. So, the socialist aspect of fascist economics wasn't simply materialistic but deeply emotional. For a German National Socialist, eating a loaf of bread wasn't just a case of case of eating something made of flour. The bread was regarded as the product of the sacred German soil and prepared with honest German toil. Thus, the central concept within fascist economics was that you, as a sacred member of a sacred family, must do your best to be a productive member of society. As you eat sacred German bread from the sacred German soil prepared by honest German toil, you too must do your part for the good of the sacred motherland/fatherland. In other words, there was a conditional aspect to National Socialism. The nation gave you stuff, but you must give back to the nation. The nation is not just the government but a kind of family. Since you were 'spiritually' bound with all other Germans and with your sacred nation, it was not enough for you to feel entitled and demand stuff as a self-interested individual. And German National Socialism would have worked had it remained 'national'. But instead, Hitler got greedy and aggressive and veered into international imperialism when he invaded Eastern Europe. The problem of National Socialism was not its nationalism but its violation of the nationalism of other nations. A true nationalist loves his or her nation but also respects the love that other peoples have of their nations. Hitler violated that rule of nationalism, and henceforth, National Socialism was doomed to failure.
The problem of social democracy is it tends to be unconditional and materialistic(or soulless). According to fascist economics, even the lower classes should be provided with jobs, opportunities, purpose, and basic services, BUT the lower classes should reciprocate by working hard as part of the national family. No one should slack off. No one should feel entitled to free stuff just because he or she happened to be born. You must contribute to the nation if you want something from the nation. As such, there is a sense of shame in fascist economics. You must work, want to work, and contribute to the nation as a whole. You mustn't just demand free stuff. And in this respect, fascist economics had one thing in common with communism. Communism too demanded that people had to work and contribute to the nation. Ideally, communism was only for workers, not shirkers.
But welfare socialism that developed in Europe and America sent out the soulless--and soul-destroying message--that everyone was entitled to stuff for free and without any strings attached. So, even if teenage girls in America messed up in school, dropped out, got pregnant with some moron boyfriend, and sat in front of a TV all day, she was entitled to free housing, free food, free clothes, free medicine, free everything. Even free cell phones. There is no 'spiritual' sense that she should be responsible and work hard and contribute to the system to the best of her ability. Instead of give-and-take, it creates a lazy, parasitic, and decadent mind-set that goes for take-and-take.
Today, even a chubby-faced privileged white girl(Sandra Fluke) who attends an elite university--she must be person of some means--expects free birth control pills. With educated people setting such a decadent and rotten example for the rest of America, we can see where this country is headed. In the 30s, it made sense for decent people to sympathize with Okies looking for jobs in California. It made sense to feel sympathy for people who stood in lines for jobs. It made sense to provide welfare for widows with children. But we can sympathize with the man who wants to work in the humanist film BICYCLE THIEVES. And we feel pity for the old man in UMBERTO D, another neo-realist work from the early 1950s.
But in today's America, we are to believe that not providing free birth control pills to some privileged chubby faced girl attending an Ivy League college is 'war against women'. We are supposed to believe that all those black, brown, and white trash girls who mess up in school and get pregnant with one boyfriend after another and live off welfare are 'victims' deserving of sympathy and more freebies.
This is socialism without a soul, without a sense of mutuality and reciprocity. Under fascist economics, people got some 'free stuff' from the nation, but everyone was reminded that he or she was part of the national family, and as such, owed something in return. One should feel gratitude to the national family for what it provides for you. Since the national family provided you with bread, education, and universal healthcare, you should try to be a good person, work hard, contribute, and etc. (And had National Socialism operated within Germany, it would have worked. But the radical racial-imperialist ideology of Hitlerism led to insane murderous ventures in the East.) But there is no soul in social democracy and welfare socialism. Even a bratty, soulless, and lazy slob in America or Sweden can lay back and say, 'gimme free stuff'. And do such people feel even an ounce of gratitude for the 'free stuff' made possible by tax payers? No, they just bitch and whine and demand more. They complain that it's unfair that other people have more; never mind that other people worked for what they got. Complainers and moochers will keep complaining and mooching.
Even so, Sweden has fared rather well because of the built-in quasi-fascist cultural character of Germanic/Nordic peoples. Having been tempered and hardened over the centuries by the work ethic, discipline, thriftiness, social order, and dedication inherent in their culture, Germans and other Germanic peoples became more orderly, efficient, thorough, clean, and committed to work and craftsmanship than most other peoples.
Culture does matter in human achievement and social stability, and this is something fascism very well understands. Marxism and socialism tend to focus on material factors, but culture always played an important role in the relative achievements of peoples. Though IQ has been a decisive factor in Jewish success, Jewish culture of intellectualism and scholarship cannot be ignored either. And the Confucian ethos of East Asia played a key role in the success of East Asians over there and here. Confucian ethos emphasizing education and social harmony has given East Asians an edge over other Asians. East Asians have a better sense of priorities on what it takes to succeed in life.
Similarly, the reason for the differences between Northern Europe and Southern Europe is due to the different cultural values. Northern Europeans, especially of the Germanic and Protestant stock, developed a more sober temperament, seriousness of purpose, greater bonds of trust and civic duty, a deeper sense of personal responsibility, and mutual reciprocity. In contrast, the Latins and the Greeks are known for their pettiness, self-interest, clannish distrust of others, culture of corruption, and mutual recrimination. So, even if Sweden has been politically liberal/leftist through most of the 20th century, the Swedish character that had formed over many centuries tended to be 'fascist'--orderly, disciplined, responsible, dedicated, etc. And this can be said for the Dutch as well. Paradoxically, the most successful liberal and libertarian nation-states tend to be homogeneous ones with a deep culturally 'quasi-fascist' heritage. They were better able to handle their freedom and freebies because their cultural character was rooted in work ethic and responsibility. Germans especially have been known for their orderliness, thoroughness, and discipline. Indeed, even German greens are more orderly and sober than Greek or Southern Italian conservatives.
Fascists understand and value the power of culture, but socialists do not, and so the very cultural character/qualities that made Northern European success possible are being chipped and eroded away. Eventually, even an hardy people will become soft if corrupted with soulless materialism--and social-democracy and welfare socialism, along with consumerist-capitalism, are forms of soulless materialism. Worse, modern Germanics have swallowed whole hog the false god of 'diversity'. They fail to understand that Sweden has worked as well as it did because it was mostly populated by Swedes of shared culture, more or less equal talents, and common values. Swedes, in embracing 'multi-culturalism' and 'diversity', have opened their nation to hordes of low-IQ immigrants with high birthrates, criminality, backwardness, laziness, and parasitism. As such, whole areas of Sweden is now beginning to look more like Detroit. And Netherlands isn't looking any better.
Thus far, Swedes and the Dutch have done well for themselves in the modern liberal order because their national character had been forged and hardened through centuries of Protestant work ethic, culture of sobriety, culture of self-restraint, and culture of mutual responsibility. Even as the politics got more and more decadent, the core culture and its habits still remained in sufficient number of people to keep the economy working. But as those nations fill up with ever more low IQ people from backward nations, they will turn into cesspools of mediocrity, and no amount of preening politically correct propaganda can refute this dire truth.
Culture matters. All white ethnic groups arrived in America under the same conditions, but some groups rose faster than others. Despite the problems of discrimination, Jews achieved more and faster success than all other groups. And Swedish-Americans are more successful than Italian-Americans who, due to their cultural background, were more likely to be involved with organized crime. Fascism understood the nature of culture, but the soulless materialist ideology of socialism sought to understand everything in terms of economic data. Leftists often say that some kids score higher on the SAT because their parents are richer and because they attended better schools. But then, why is it that Japanese-Americans, who were dispossessed and 'interned' and had to start from scratch after WWII, became among the most successful groups in America? Polish-Americans and Italian-Americans weren't dispossessed during WWII. Shouldn't they be making more money than Japanese-Americans? Again, we cannot understand such social phenomenon without addressing the issue of culture(and values associated with particular cultures). And many kids from poor Jewish immigrants, though having nothing like the advantages of the WASP elite, did extremely well academically. And even Jews who were denied entry into Harvard and other elite schools achieved remarkable things at CUNY. The advantage of higher Jewish IQ notwithstanding, we cannot understand Jewish success without understanding the culture and values of the Jewish community.
In a way, this lack of understanding of culture accounts for the decline of socialism. After all, ideologically the most 'leftist' and 'socialist' group in America are the Jews. Yet, they are also the richest and most privileged. When a Jewish leftist like George Soros is infinitely richer than a white conservative who believes in Austrian school of economic theory, it's obvious that the world conforms to the reality of the power of culture and biology than to any set of ideological principles. Jews may be overwhelmingly liberal and leftist--ideologically egalitarian--and vote Democratic, but the fact is Jews are getting richer and richer while non-Jews aren't so lucky. And to understand this, we need to look at the real causes of social inequality. They are culture and IQ. Jews have a culture of sobriety and intellectualism and discipline; they also have higher IQs. While non-Jews can learn from Jewish culture and values, they cannot adopt Jewish IQ. .. unless there is a method of genetic therapy in the future that can boost the IQ of all groups at the genetic level. But then, would Jews--even leftist Jews--really want that to happen if it means the erosion of the Jewish advantage over non-Jews?
One of the reason for the demise of socialism is that Jews had long been the ideological leaders of socialism, but the power of Jewish IQ and culture made Jews too rich and successful--even leftist ones--for them to really take stuff like Marxism, communism, or socialism seriously anymore. If anything, Jews are secret neo-fascists who want to gain greater control of the government in order to manipulate us into the kind of people who will readily obey them.
It's long been a truism that in the contest of ideologies, fascism died an ignoble death in 1945, and then, the grand conflict had been between capitalism vs communism, with the former finally triumphing in the 1980s. But seen in another way, fascism didn't die 1945. Instead, the fanatical strain of radical racial fascism as defined by Hitler crashed and burned--and along with it Mussolini's Italian Fascism because Mussolini, unlike Franco, didn't have enough sense to stay out of the war.
To understand the true history of fascism, consider the post-war era when the East and West offered their respective solutions to the problems of the Third World. What was the victor in this game of power? Communism? Capitalism? Or Fascism? It certainly wasn't communism. Anyone who knows anything should know what communism did to China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and African nations. It was one big story of oppression, mass murder, and deprivation. So, did capitalism win in the Third World? Not quite. The most successful Third World nations in the Cold War were fascist Asian nations like Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore. Of course, they dared not use the term 'fascist' since it was associated with the much loathed Axis powers, but their system of governance, ideology, and economics were essentially fascist. It was capitalism but heavily under state control and guidance. And they were very nationalistic and ethnocentric and promoted patriotism. But like Franco, they were non-aggressive and had no plans to conquer other nations. (Had Hitler followed the same path, National Socialism would have thrived within Germany.) Also, the fascist East Asian states emphasized the importance of tradition while, at the same time, adopting and promoting modernity. The original ideal of fascism was to balance the various elements instead of seeing history and society in terms of constant conflict where one side had to totally demolish the other. The problem of Marxism was its Manichean tendency to see everything outside its ideological construct as an enemy to destroy. So, communists destroyed entire churches, entire populations, entire cultures, entire classes, etc. In contrast, fascism saw no reason to destroy all traditional institutions. Instead, tradition was to be honored as a part of national and cultural heritage. At the same time, fascism rejected reactionary-ism and was open to modernity and technological progress. Communists insisted that the bourgeoisie class must be exterminated. Fascists said classes were natural and would always exist, and so, what was ideal was finding a way to arrive at some kind of compromise among the classes--and in this sense, FDR's New Deal was a kind of liberal fascism.
Communism preached World Revolution and dreamed of smashing national walls to create an ideologically homogeneous community singing the same anthem and worshiping the same god of Marx. In contrast, the fascist ideal was for each nation to have the right to rule itself and maintain its national identity and pride. Of course, Mussolini couldn't resist invading Africa since the price of admission of being a 'great power' back then was to have imperial possessions. Since France and UK had so much, Mussolini figured Italy should have some imperial spoils too. But fascist imperialism was never as extensive as democratic-capitalist or communist imperialism. After all, most of Africa was owned by democratic France and democratic UK. And it was democratic UK and US that encouraged Japan to become an Imperial power long before Japan joined with the Axis powers. And US was created by Anglo-imperialism against the American Indians. Russians had long been expanding their empire over the centuries, and communists took it even further in creating the massive Soviet Union. In a way, WWII was a conflict between the established-giant-imperialist powers--UK, France, US, and USSR--versus the up-and-coming imperialists who felt that they'd been cheated out of the international spoils system.
Anyway, after WWII, a much smarter and more sober form of fascism--though never called 'fascism'--developed in parts of the Third World, especially in East Asia. Though most progressives and liberals in the West thought the future belonged to communist nations(at least in the Third World), history turned out very differently. The fascist East Asian nations made the greatest social and economic progress. They were the first to produce the educated middle class that would eventually push for democratic reforms. In contrast, communist East Asian nations remained not only mired in poverty but committed mass murder and created vast prison states of drabness. It was the success of East Asian fascist nations and overseas Chinese that finally convinced many Chinese Communist leaders that they had to change course. And since then, China has essentially become a fascist state, which again proves the rule that fascism is many times more useful than communism--and even democratic capitalism AT LEAST IN BUILDING UP THE ECONOMY for the rise of the middle class that may eventually push for democratization. As Samuel Huntington realized, a truly working democracy needs a firm foundation, and that happens to be the educated middle class. Thus, having democracy before economic development may be like putting the cart before the horse. While economic growth doesn't necessarily guarantee democratization, a democracy without a solid well-educated and well-informed middle class is like a horse with broken legs. Indeed in Europe itself, economic development preceded the expansion of liberties and the eventual rise of mass democracy. With more economic growth came more political reforms.
At least from the example of the Third World, fascism was more effective in bringing about economic growth and building up the middle class than communism and capitalism(without state intervention)were. The Chinese Communist Party will never admit to being 'fascist' and still continues to use that word as an epithet, but when we look closely at China since the 1980s, it can only be called a fascist state. In the economic sphere, instead of communism, it goes for state capitalism. Instead of radical universalist rhetoric, it goes for Chinese nationalism; its message is, "We are proud to be Chinese, so leave us alone, and we'll leave you alone. Respect our national sovereignty, and we'll respect your national sovereignty." Ironically, the new fascist China has fought no wars while democratic America has been engaged in a series of wars since the 90s, beginning with the Gulf War. Democratic United States even invaded Iraq, a nation that had done nothing to provoke it. And Obama and other democratic leaders decided to use NATO to attack Libya and bring down Gaddafi. Democratic nations like to boast that democratic nations believe in peace and don't wage wars on one another, but they sure love to wage wars on non-democratic nations(even while being very close to other non-democratic nations).
Instead of smashing old culture(as under Mao), the new fascist China reveres the idea of Chinese culture, Chinese heritage, and Chinese history. And unlike communism that banned all religions and made itself the sole faith for all Chinese, new China allows all sorts of religions and a degree of cultural pluralism. If China under Maoist communism remained mired in utter poverty and oppressive paranoia, China since the 1980s has made great progress in leaps and bounds in many fields. Fascism has been a great success. In the end, the new China learned more from tiny fascist Singapore than vice versa. China seeks to become a giant Japan, Taiwan, or South Korea than revert to the old communist ways. But Chinese fascism is smart. It's not Hitlerian; it has no ambition to conquer neighboring nations. It balances internationalism with nationalism. It earns and learns from the world but maintains the sovereignty and national integrity of China.
Another fascist power of the post-cold war is Putin's Russia. Russia's 70 yrs of communism/imperialism has been a failure. Communism in the end brought much ruin to Russian heritage and culture. And Soviet imperialism brought much devastation to Eastern Europe and Central Asia. After the fall of communism, Russia opted for fast-paced liberalization managed by international Zionists, but all it did was hand Russia over to a cabal of cutthroat Jewish oligarchs working in tandem with their tribesmen in NY and Israel. And Russia became one big whorehouse for the West. It was Putin who used a form of Russian fascism to restrain the oligarchs, to promote Russian pride, to restore a degree of discipline. Putin understood that communism was a failure, but he didn't want to hand over Russia to a bunch of international laissez faire neo-liberal capitalists. He insisted on the primacy of Russian sovereignty, solidarity, culture, heritage, identity, and tradition. He encouraged nationalism and higher birthrates among Russian women. Even as the new Russian state rejected communism, Putin encouraged pride of the achievements during the Soviet Era. There was no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Of course, Putin will insist that there's nothing 'fascist' about Putin's Russia. This is par for the course since Russia fought a horrifying war against German fascism, and the word 'fascism' has become synonymous with Eeeeeeevil. But an objective look at Putin's Russia reveals that it isn't communist, it is not democratic capitalist. It is fascist. It balances capitalism with socialism as a kind of Third Way. It promotes Russian pride and nationalism. It defends traditional institutions like the Church. But it also embraces modernity and learning from the rest of the world. It is like early Italian Fascism that was unencumbered with nutty racial theories.
Now, it may well be that while fascism has been effective in building up economies in the East Asia, the eventual thrust of all modern nations is toward liberal democracy. This may be true, but even with the arrival of political democracy, one can argue that the continual success of a nation depends on a degree of cultural fascism. Take Japan for example, one of the biggest economies in the world. After WWII, it was transformed into a democracy by the Americans, and it remains a democracy to this day. But one can argue that Japan's success cannot simply be attributed to democracy. After all, there are many democracies in the world that remains mired in poverty. If democracy is the key to success, all democratic nations ought to be richer than non-democratic nations. But fascist China has done a lot more than democratic India. Chile under the fascist Pinochet achieved more than many democratic Latin-American nations. Taiwan under military rule achieved a lot more than many democratic African nations.
So, we cannot attribute the success of a nation to its political system alone.
Japanese through the centuries have developed a culture of order, discipline, unity, trust, shame, and obligation. While there's been a dark side to Japan's value system--and it continues to plague Japan--, it is indisputable that the Japanese national character played a significant role in the rise of Japan from the ashes of WWII. Democracy allows open debate, criticism, and will of the people, but economy grows from hard work, diligence, industriousness, dedication, and the culture of sobriety & responsibility, and those qualities cannot be achieved through democracy alone. If anything, democracy can make things worse. Blacks always had the shorter end of the stick in American history, but blacks used to believe in the dignity of work. And out-of-wedlock births among blacks were relatively low even in the early 60s. In the 50s, many blacks aspired to become middle class and respectable. But the combination of cultural libertarianism and the massive welfare dependency ushered in a new era of blacks acting wild, crazy,and lazy, and now 80% of blacks are born out of wedlock and a massive black underclass dependent on handouts has developed. Democracy offers more freedom, but freedom is only as good as the people using it. If used stupidly, it can do more harm than good. Democracy can make people more free, but it cannot guide people on how to use that freedom. Such guidance comes from family, tradition, social pressures and values, from the church, from education, and etc. But the family is in decline, kids are addicted to trashy pop cultures, schools impart the politics of resentment and blame than the culture of learning and responsibility, and many churches--especially black ones--are more like discoteques or rock concerts than spiritual institutions. When freedom becomes rotten and decadent, things will fall apart, and people will look for new solutions.
There are two kinds of social order: order-from-within and order-from-without. The self-regulating and self-shaming order-from-within operates among citizenry that is responsible, sober, and serious; people have an inner sense of right and wrong, of how to function in society. Such sense of inner order comes from family upbringing, schooling, communal life, a sense of sacred belonging to the community--a sense of give-and-take--, and cultural heritage. People with order-from-within will not steal even if they can steal because their inner compass shames them if they were to even entertain the idea of stealing. Successful societies are populated mostly with citizens with order-from-within. If everyone is committed to stealing as much as he can, there isn't much the system can do to stop it. This is why so many shopping malls have closed down in the black community. Even with all the security guards and surveillance cameras, it's impossible to stop and catch all the thieves. It's made considerably worse by the fact that many black employees feel no sense of inner shame or order-from-within and will themselves steal as much as possible. And in most black African nations, everyone treats stealing like a national pastime, from the ruler on the top to the beggar on the ground.
Where the culture of order-from-within is weak and too many people cannot control themselves, it becomes necessary for the system to impose order-from-without. Imagine a population that is wild, rowdy, disruptive, irreverent, irresponsible, selfish--take-and-take instead of give-and-take--, and obnoxious. Since they have no self-control, they must be controlled from the outside. The problem of democracy is it cannot instill rotten lunatics with proper values. As democratic freedom permits people to be stupid, nothing can be done about women who choose to be single mothers, parents who neglect their kids, kids who watch trashy TV and listen to ugly music all day, etc. When that kind of attitude and culture spreads--and there are no cultural or social counter-forces to check them--, liberal democracy is headed for decadence and decline. And it will continue to decline until things gets so bad that massive civil unrest erupts from which a new authoritarian order arises and uses its iron boot discipline to instill people with the values of order-from-within.
One way to control and restrain the idiots and lunatics is by shaming and shunning, and this may still be effective in parts of democratic Asia where the culture remains pretty conservatives and people--especially the young--still respect older people and feel ashamed of being regarded as morons. But in culturally libertarian America, even shaming people is seen as 'oppressive' and 'repressive'. And so, America has become a shameless nation of ever growing number of slobs and lunatics. The one thing that American society shames is 'racism', but this is as damaging as helpful. If attacking 'racism' meant shaming blind bigots who just like to hurt people of a different race, it would indeed be a good thing. But anti-racists throw the baby out with the bathwater. They even shame honest critics and observers of racial problems, and so, a courageous discussion of America's racial problems has become nearly impossible. And if we can't address the real problems of race, we cannot arrive at any solution. Can a doctor treat cancer if he's not allowed to diagnose the true nature of the disease? Since blacks are the most irresponsible and destructive people in America, shaming 'racism'--especially among whites--will do nothing to fix the problems of black pathology. Even if all whites were to stop saying 'nigger' and look up to Obama, the problems of black crime, violence, and pathology would still remain. The cult of Tolerance tells people how to treat others, but it doesn't do anything to address a person's individual integrity. Can a person be said to be good if he or she's lazy, dishonest, irresponsible, corrupt, obnoxious, and deceitful BUT doesn't say 'nigger' and adores MLK? This is why liberalism has failed as a value system. It preaches the correctness of outer attitudes but it fails to address the inner virtues that make a person a constructive and productive citizen in life. There's shame for a hardworking white guy who mutters 'nigger' but absolutely no shame for blacks who attack people, beat up teachers, burn down neighborhoods, rob stores, and act like animals in public. The 'hate crime' of saying 'nigger' is more serious than the real crime of actually robbing, raping, and murdering people according to modern liberalism. Liberalism also fails to understand that much of anti-black hate is justifiable since blacks act in hateful ways that incite hate in others.
If more and more Americans turn into lunatics incapable of control-from-within, US will have to turn more and more into an Orwellian state that manages the populace through control-from-without. And we are already seeing that in the UK. As the people have become more vulgar and trashy, the British state has installed many more cameras and other surveillance systems to monitor people at all times. Also, increasing diversity means more racial and social strife. The sensible thing for UK would be to end immigration and expel criminal elements among the immigrants, but political correctness bans anyone from speaking out against the cult of diversity, and so more immigrants arrive each year, and there's bound to be more problems. And since things will fall apart even worse with more people being incapable of order-from-within, there will be more efforts and means to control them from without.
Ironically, the return to political fascism is being enabled by the politically correct ideology and policy of 'diversity' and 'progressivism'. Indeed, the supreme irony of the current era is that liberals are becoming more politically fascist in their efforts to control society. Liberals who once championed free speech are now clamoring to shut down 'hate speech'. Liberals who once disdained fascist iconography are elevating people like Obama into a kind of Nietzschean godman to be worshiped and obeyed by little children. Leftists who used to disdain and rebel against the Establishment and the powerful institutions are now firmly entrenched in those very institutions and cooking up ever new laws and regulations to control what we say, what we eat, what we smoke, and etc. And Hollywood, though owned and controlled by liberals, have appropriated fascist imagery and iconography. But many people are blind to this because they equate fascism only with 'Aryanism', when anything and anyone can be presented via fascist aesthetics.
But political fascism as an armor for cultural Marxism will only be an empty shell. For there to be genuine moral regeneration, what the West now needs is cultural fascism that restores the 'spiritual' link between man/woman and his/her sacred realm.
