Article by Colonel Nogov on Feb. 26, 2015
Through out history, the ruling class has always tried to keep their subjects uneducated and ignorant in order to acquire and maintain wealth and power. It’s no different today. Just because the ruling class today rise to power through elections and not military force doesn’t make them any less the rulers. The ruling class today keeps its subjects ignorant about economics. This, I believe, is the one last barrier humanity must break through, and when it does, humanity will be free. Then, the world will exist in the natural state of anarchy.
I read to my daughter from a book called, “the story of the world”. It’s a broad overview of world history. There is a passage in the book about the first emperor of china and the building of the great wall.
“One day Shi Huangdi sat on his throne, thinking about his new empire. He had been careful to stamp out rebellion inside his borders. All of his enemies lived near his palace, and Shi Huangdi had sent his soldiers to guard them and to report on all their activities. He had burned the books that might encourage his people to rebel. He was safe from revolt.”
The above passage refers to 220 BC. The rulers never change. They spy on their citizens and censor information to prevent rebellion. That’s what rulers do. This information alone should make anyone realize that the U.S. government is the modern version of the ruling class and not some sort of [oxymoron ahead] “representative government”.
We obviously know the U.S. government spies on its citizens. The overt spying has been all over the news for the last several years. There are many more subtle methods the government uses to spy on you. Driver licenses are one such way. You’re required to give your home address to the DMV. You’re required to tell the DMV if you change your address. The government has your height, weight, age, eye color, hair color, a current photo of you. This is to keep track of you, nothing more. Your social security number is your tracking number.
Censorship is a little more difficult today for the government. People know censorship is bad. People know book burning is bad. People know they have (or should have) a right to free speech. Censorship today has to be done covertly, without alerting the peasants to the censorship. This is accomplished in two ways.
Licensing (and regulating) is the first method of censorship the government uses. I’ve written a short article here about how licensing is censorship. The internet has not yet been censored. The internet took off faster than the rulers could keep up. They haven’t figured out a way to dupe the people, to censor it. They’ve tried. The old playbook doesn’t seem to be working at the moment. The play where they appeal to people’s emotions and fears about protecting the public, and the children of course, from sexual predators, cyberbullying, pornography, underground drug markets, etc. Their latest attempt is this “net neutrality” garbage. I don’t know if they’ll get any meaningful control over the internet, but I’m always hopeful they won’t.
The second method of censorship is by simply dumbing down the population through the compulsory government school system. The government schools, which approximately 91% of children attend, teach only the things they want the children to learn. They censor by omission, propaganda, and teaching logical fallacies. When the children complete their compulsory indoctrination, the government’s propaganda media(the mainstream media) reinforces the childhood brainwashing. Very few will seek out the truth at this point.
This brings us to economics. The government schools do not teach economics. They have classes called economics, but it’s consumer economics, government economics, keynesian economics, not real economics. Real economics is marginalized by calling it Austrian Economics or The Austrian School of Economics. This is propaganda attempting to paint the real economists as crackpots to the indoctrinated masses.
Real economics is being censored from the people. It’s being censored in the covert ways described above. First the children are being dumbed down about economics in the government schools and then the licensed media use propaganda to promote keynesian economics and attack real economics. The rulers do not want the people to understand real economics.
If the people were to understand real economics, they would see the rulers selling them a bill of goods, fairy tales. They would see the theft. They would see how their living standard is being stolen from them. They would see the lies being told to them. They would see how they are being cheated. They would see their economic enslavement. When they can actually see how the inflation and the corporatism/crony capitalism/fascism is screwing them over, I think this will break their indoctrination. The study of economics was key in breaking my indoctrination.
Here is what John Maynard Keynes said about inflation. He knew what inflation did, yet supported it. A central tenet of Keynesianism is inflation and government spending. This is pieced together from Keynes “The economic consequences of the peace”. He’s partially quoting Lenin, but says he agrees with him. It’s not being taken out of context. Read the entire passage here. I encourage you to read the entire passage, it’s quite informative.
“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some….The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”.
The negative consequences of keynesianism is conveniently omitted from the government schools.
It’s my goal and I think it should be your goal and every anarchist’s goal to study and teach real economics. Currently branded Austrian economics. Education, as always, is the key to empowerment. The government’s suppression of real economics speaks for itself. The rulers don’t want the people to have this knowledge. They put forth great effort in an attempt to censor and discredit it. The study of real economics and freedom go hand in hand. The general public’s economic ignorance is what keeps the rulers in power.