Technocrats, the Third Way and the Death of Diversity [View all]

I had some time this weekend to put some thoughts down on paper and started expanding on the idea that we are a technocratic state run by 3rd way types in both parties. I only got this far, but maybe someone can pick up on the theme and do a better job of it.

I'm not talking about ethnic diversity. I'm talking about something deeper. I'm talking about the native and organic aptitude and talent that people are born with. It's what makes a musician and the carpenter and the scientist what they are. It's exactly this human diversity of talent being stripped from businesses, occupations and careers in the US, replaced by a political vision of an engineered society, operating lock-step as a machine, serving the needs of our political elite. I've come to believe that organic human diversity of skill is far more threatening to our ruling oligarchy than any perception of race or sex. If there is going to be a challenge to the status quo, it's going to come from people who have the raw talent to imagine something better than the unacceptable state of our class based society which values wealth over justice and equality. Somewhere in that talent pool are people who share a gift with those who first formed the nation in search of justice and equality. After all, by the standards of their day, they were extraordinarily successful. And that surely must scare our ruling class to death.

The neo-lib and neo-con both have faith in the idea that corporate efficiency can solve difficult social problems. But in actuality, the deference to corporate interests as a legitimate political principal is just a bullshit cover for the dirty business of financing the high standard of living of our political leaders. We are expected to blindly accept the idea that the wealthy leadership of our party represents proof of good, while the wealthy leadership of their party represents proof of evil. But the truth is, political leadership in both parties has dignified, through the use of complex, high-minded semantics, the act of taking cash in return for passing laws and entitlements exclusively beneficial to corporations. From a technical point of view, what could be more efficient than a government that takes cash for service?

To legitimize this corruption within the context of a nation of self-governing people, the corporations simply reclassified themselves as corporate-persons, with the same basic rights of an individual. This recent development is something unlikely to ever be challenged by our political elite because it is an abstraction fully compatible with the core governing principals of a political monopoly, namely that people must earn the right (literally, in cash) to be represented by their own government.

So, here we are. A nation governed by corporations.

If there's one thing corporations know how to do, it's how to apply technology and automation to create a consistent product. We've got it all down to a science. From the moment a child is placed on the conveyor belt, they are moved down a line of corporate designed standard curriculum and quality control tests. Schools automatically filter out the defects, those outside corporately acceptable tolerances. Once pulled from the line, you end up in a bin for discard or recycling. This bin is commonly known as the US prison system.

At the end of the line, a successful product is optimally refined to meet the immediate need of today's market. Of course the immediate needs changes on a daily basis as we try to out smart the corporate forces sending jobs to Mexico one day, China the next, India the next and Vietnam the next in a never ending pursuit of nations willing to enforce rock bottom standard of living conditions for their workers.

The technocrats actually envision a nation where we start each day checking the market conditions for our chosen profession ready to move from electronics technician to carpenter to auto mechanic to computer programmer at a moments notice. To the 3rd way, there are no careers or native talents. Skills are just an abstraction, something bought and sold on the market, like stock in a company. If you get washed out of the American dream, its only because you were too lazy to pay attention and invest in the most profitable market of the moment.

We have come to devalue a career as something you buy from a low wage workforce in a god forsaken hell hole in Asia. The consequences of this reckless and dangerous transition to a "knowledge based economy" is that we are literally losing the ability to innovate in areas that keep the nation competitive. We can't all make a living giving $300,000 "knowledge" speeches on the lecture circuit. By not developing essential hands-on skills we are becoming a highly engineered monoculture, susceptible to a single point of failure.

Consider that our banking system recently collapsed due to criminal activity. Our inability to punish the perpetrators and conspirators, perfectly illustrates this important point. Surely there are skilled individuals with the talent, regulatory background and proper sense of right and wrong who understand how important it is to serve justice to the criminals behind this massive fraud. The sense of honor and patriotism in being able to serve the nation by bringing justice should be motivation enough... where are they? I argue they've been deliberately washed out of our government as adding no value to our nation's newly developed corporate mission statement.

That's as far as I got...