…
Did you hear the one about the conga-line of economists who reckoned unemployment couldn’t get below 2%?
They assumed there had to be Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoWs) and confused ‘temporary labour-market non-participation’ for so-called ‘frictional-unemployment’.
…
The ISIS Outrage
‘Why are we rightly disgusted by those who conduct direct slavery yet accept the modern indirect version?’
Why do many of our most educated, talented and privileged
prioritise obsessing over peripheralities
instead of laser-focusing on the core-centrality? …
‘To refer to this as ISIS is offensive and grossly inappropriate. It fails to respect the relatives of those murdered by terrorists.’ [Full message.]
__________ [Australian Honours] QC
Dear _______
Thank you very much for your message.
First, in your esteemed career, you have been touched by those afflicted by terrorists; however, you aren’t alone – for instance, I previously worked in warzones (Iraq and Liberia); an ex-colleague of mine was taken hostage (for a month), God knows what she endured but, in the end, she was executed.
Second, ISIS, ISIL, IS and Daesh are some of the names relating to Islamic State so there are others that can be used to refer to it.
Third (the main point), whatever Daesh has done, it is a blip compared to what Indirect Survival Income Slavery has caused and is causing – the real problem is it’s yet to be widely grasped, which is why a little controversy may help.
Imagine, no poverty in the world – for one thing, Daesh wouldn’t be able to gather its foot-soldiers. And, for another random thing, Afghanistan wouldn’t have fallen to the Taliban.
If Indirect Survival Income Slavery had been nipped in the bud in 1760 then population growth wouldn’t have exploded (ie from sufferers needing lots of children for captive cheap labour and their old age pension), which means global population would be closer to its 1760 level of 770 million instead of 7.9 billion. Just on this basis (and there are other significant Slavery-abolition environmental benefits, which we have previously addressed), our natural-environment problems would be miniscule.
In 3.4, we mentioned no Cold War [because Marx and Engels wouldn’t have been motivated to write The Communist Manifesto] but, in addition, there also wouldn’t have been the World Wars.
Moreover, currently, we wouldn’t have millions of Australians Unnecessarily-Suffering.
Islamic State is like Ebola – incredibly graphic, gruesome yet prone to being short-lived as it burns itself out. Indirect Survival Income Slavery, on the other hand, is an insidious cancer that our systems are manufacturing for no reason whatsoever except that, as yet, we haven’t grasped its existence.
Furthermore, we believe war is ahead for us unless we abolish this Indirect Survival Income Slavery – either Civil or International – who can tell which will come first or whether one will precipitate the other.
Residing over a decade in China (starting with the end of Jiang Zemin’s reign through that of Hu Jintao to the beginning of Xi Jin Ping), I believe, while Xi’s short-term aim is Taiwan, following that, he would like Australia/Antarctica [‘Universalist 15’] – i.e. he wants its location (Australia faces 3 oceans, which, with China, forms a longitudinal pincer), its land-area, its resources and to thumb his nose at the ex-Colonial British. To repel this, which we believe can be done (even without the U.S.), we must be strong, which, once again, requires eradicating Indirect Survival Income Slavery such that our effective-economy at least doubles to 20% of China’s (including much more manufacturing).
As for Civil War – we have the Left/Right divide, which is already fragmenting into identity warfare – the Left/Right divide is due solely to the presence of Indirect Survival Income Slavery.
In sum, all our Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) catastrophes devolve to Indirect Survival Income Slavery.
Thus, it’s imperative we – especially people with your position and power, which, for example, I don’t have – discipline our minds to resist distractions (and, fermenting distraction) and devote our efforts to foundationally systemically minimising the future victims of all Unnecessary-Suffering’s guises.
Thank you once again for your email.
Best regards
Paul
…
While the Super-Empowered 10 are content because they have rich self-actualising lives and enough personal-wealth to guarantee their Survival-Income, ‘that which shall not be named’ must be named before it can be addressed.
The solution to our perfect storm of Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) catastrophes requires the 2-sides (though, not necessarily these specific individuals) be reconciled via Slavery’s abolition – i.e. by eradicating the conditionalization of citizens’ access to their Survival-Income.
January 16, 2022
Hi
The perfect storm of catastrophes we are facing span:
- The Socio- – for instance, poverty, division, mental-illness and Disempowerment per se
- The Econo- – particularly, inefficiency (including wasted resources)
- The Enviro- – both natural and international
[SEE]
Yet, they all derive from the own-goal of citizen exploitation, which, overwhelmingly, is due to Indirect-Survival-Income-Slavery (ISIS).
ISIS arose out of the Industrial Revolution (c. 1760) when subsistence-farmers transitioned away from self-sufficiency to become income-earning factory-machinists, which meant they lost direct control over their survival needs.
Meanwhile, with the Industrial Revolution immediately delivering massive exponentiating productivity gains, The Universal Survival Income (USI) was immediately affordable (moreover, akin to Universal Education and unlike income-Welfare, it makes society wealthier) yet, until now, never implemented. Instead, with New Zealand the first in 1894, we adopted Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW), which doesn’t solve exploitation and, on the contrary, creates Unemployment/Underemployment, which then led to a host of Band-Aids including our current income-Welfare (incWel) ‘dole-bludger’ system.
Thus, the solution to our SEE catastrophes is ‘The USI-reform’, which consists of substituting The Universal Survival Income (USI) for both:
- Our current income-Welfare system (incWel) – including abolishing Centrelink, Job Service Provider (JSP) contracts and Jobseeker payments
- Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW), which will, in turn, eradicate Unemployment/Underemployment.
Yet, while this streamlining is both simple and pleasant, almost every country has UMHoWs yet none have The USI – Bangladesh, for example, has an UMHoW of 9 US cents per hour.
[“Australia should lead”, we’re perpetually being scolded; well, here’s the mother of all chances.]
Just as we know it’s inefficient for everyone to build their own home or manufacture their own car, it’s also inefficient to have every adult citizen prioritising pursuing their own personal (or familial) survival-income?
So, who is most responsible for this stark failure?
Given all the Super-Empowered 10 (except Philip Lowe) have grounds for pleading naivety, the answer is Economists.
Why?
Because, though intellectually revered, Economists are, virtually exclusively, Double-thinking ‘Schizonomists’.
The Schizonomist Cult
Schizonomists believe in the following labour-market schizono-contradiction of which 1 part (out of 2) is true and the other is false:
- [TRUE] Full-employment (zero-unemployment/underemployment) is achieved when ‘everyone who wants paid-work at the going wage-rate can get paid-work’ – i.e. labour-market demand equals labour-market supply such that there is labour-market equilibrium
[Note: If the labour-market is free then full-employment (zero-unemployment) can always be achieved via changes in the ‘going wage-rate’.]
- [FALSE] It’s ‘impossible’ to have zero-unemployment, which means full-employment doesn’t equal zero-unemployment.
First, Schizonomists aren’t conspiratorial; rather, they’re collectively mind-washed – i.e. they accept this schizontradiction because that’s all they’ve ever been fed and it’s never blatantly laid-out in a manner such as that above and below.
Also, regarding the modern human-mind, it is prone to conformity for 2 reasons (1 natural and 1 unnatural):
- [Natural] We have evolved as social animals, which means the mind wants to be part of the group and so its default is to ‘go with the flow’
- [Unnatural] It is ISIS-moulded – that is:
- Many are directly ISIS-subject (i.e. their Survival-Income, if not guaranteed by personal-wealth, is conditional upon receiving it from an employer, the government or a benefactor)
- All are indirectly subject to the ISIS-elevated social-status attached to economic-prowess.
[For these ISIS-related reasons, the Econo-, though a subset of the Socio-, is distortedly prioritised above both the Socio- and the Enviro-.]
Thus, the ‘schizontradiction’ is the centrepiece of our economic orthodoxy, which is here renamed, ‘Schizonomics’.
Schizonomics is ubiquitous throughout our economic bureaucracies (i.e. from the Reserve Bank across-and-down), university faculties, private-enterprise, ‘think’-tanks, charities, trade-unions and media.
A ‘good’ ‘designed-for-the-lay’ representation of the Schizonomist view is ‘Vital Signs: We’ll Never Cut Unemployment to 0% but Less than 4% Should Be Our Goal’ by UNSW Economics Professor Richard Holden – published in The Conversation, October 30, 2020.
The Conversation regularly publishes polls conducted by The Economic Society of Australia (ESA) such as, on April 29, 2021, ‘Exclusive. Top economists back budget push for an unemployment rate beginning with ‘4’’.
So, what do Schizonomists say about unemployment?
The Schizonomic Unemployment Theory
While, in reality, the Unemployment/Underemployment default is automatically perpetually zero, we’ve thrown the Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW) spanner precisely into our economy’s (and society’s) epicentre – i.e. the labour-market.
[That is, the labour-market is the pivot for both:
- The supply of goods & services – i.e. employees
- The demand for goods & services via wages, profits and taxes,
Which, in turn, is the pivot of all our Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) components.]
With UMHoW a Frankenstein that has no equivalent in nature, it prevents labour-market demand from equalling labour-market supply, which, therefore, results in Unemployment/Underemployment.
However, unconsciously, Schizonomists have camouflaged their schizontradiction by creating a pseudo-intellectual framework consisting of various ‘types’ of ‘Unemployment’:
- ‘Cyclical’ – related to booms-and-recessions
- ‘Institutional’ – for example, legislation such as Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW)
- ‘Seasonal’ – for example, fruit-picking
- ‘Structural’ – related to technological change such as the transition from the horse-and-cart to the motor-vehicle
- ‘Frictional’ – related to the relatively short period of time would-be employees and employers take to search for, consider, decide and begin employment.
Schizonomists then define ‘natural Unemployment’ as:
Structural Unemployment + Frictional Unemployment
which is their justification for such as, “We’ll never cut unemployment to 0%”.
[Aside: if we are to assume some unemployment is ‘natural’ then, rather than ‘dole-bludgers’ being kicked, why aren’t they being thanked for ‘taking one for the team’?]
And, from this logic, the Schizonomists derive what’s termed the ‘Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment’ (NAIRU), which simplified, states, ‘we need some unemployment otherwise there will be inflation’.
[On this basis, ‘the dole-bludgers’ should be given a medal.]
Schizonomics is vile – there’s nothing natural about Unemployment and, if not for The USI’s absence and UMHoW’s presence, it wouldn’t even be a concept.
The Schizonomists’ 5-Unemployments
Regarding Cyclical Unemployment, rises and falls in the value of production don’t prevent labour-market equilibrium; moreover, with The USI, there would be a higher floor to recessions as it would restrict the fall in Aggregate (total) Demand.
[Note: It is often said wages need to rise to increase Aggregate Demand, The USI does this tri-dimensionally – first, it ensures the least wealthy have enough (and they will spend virtually all of it); second, with no Slavery and zero Unemployment, employers will bid wages up; third, the labour-market will likely expand (for example, the millions of volunteers (paid $0.00 per hour) and retirees may begin earning something).]
Regarding Institutional, with The USI, there’s no need for UMHoW because there’s no longer ISIS-exploitation.
Regarding Seasonal, it is a misnomer – i.e. when, for example, farmers demand more labour, this just means the equilibrium (with labour-market supply) is achieved at a slightly higher ‘going wage-rate’.
Regarding Structural, it is also a misnomer, which, in this case, affects both labour demand and labour supply – for example, the number of motor-vehicle-drivers demanded by employers and the number of people who want to (and can) drive is still brought to equilibrium via the appropriately varying ‘going wage-rate’. In addition, employers can increase supply via ‘on the job-training’.
Regarding Frictional, this is the Schizonomists’ Unemployment bare-minimum – i.e. in their view, even if the economy perfectly accommodates technological change, there will still be some time-mismatch between employers and employees, which is often put at around 2% of the labour-market.
However, with The Universal Survival Income (USI), which allows mobility and risk-taking, and without UMHoW, there would be plenty of paid-work and if a person decided that a particular job or particular employer or particular location or particular wage-rate or particular whatever ‘isn’t quite optimal in terms of what I’m looking for right now and, anyway, I could probably do with a couple of weeks holiday’ then that is not job-searching but job-bypassing, which is not unemployment – i.e. it’s temporary non-participation. In addition, employers – aware potential employees have, effectively, infinite opportunities – would offer immediate starts.
Thus, from go-to-woe, the theory is a crock yet that’s what virtually all our Economists swear by and that’s what is ultimately, via the ripple-effect, causing every one of our Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) catastrophes.
So, how does Schizonomics maintain its façade of respectability?
Maintaining the Schizonomics’ ‘House of Cards’
The Schizonomics ‘House of Cards’ is maintained, firstly, via Economists being respected by association – i.e. due to ISIS, the Econo- is supremely prioritised and, naturally, regarding the Econo-, Economists are perceived as highly qualified professionals with directly-relevant expertise who possess some balance; never mind, they regularly get ‘surprised’ and make erroneous calls.
In comparison to Economists:
- Politicians are often perceived as shallow, ‘spin-obsessed’ and self-interested
- Social-service providers as naïve ‘do-gooders’
- The media as ‘ravenous’ story-hunters (and outrage-concocters)
- Trade-unionists as thuggishly representative of only their members
- Business as greedy ‘grand-mother’-selling profiteers
- Environmental organisations (and scientists) as being narrowly idealistic.
Second, economics is ‘esoteric’ – i.e. it’s only understood (to any degree) by a relatively small number of people with specialized knowledge.
Also, unique amongst disciplines, Economics is a ‘super’-discipline – i.e. it extends across the full Human-Organisation, Science & Technology (HOST) spectrum to include philosophy, sociology, human-psychology (including, game-theory), evolution, the environment, species’ survival/extinction, human-societal-history, mathematics (including its own statistics of econometrics), genetic-engineering and efficiency.
For instance, although the Accounting discipline is massive, it is a relatively minor subset of economics.
Hence, while a bachelor degree is good enough to be an accountant, to be regarded as an Economist, arguably, one should have a PhD.
Third, demonstrating the incredible human capacity to solve what we prioritize, it accommodates both the UMHoW-sentamentalist Left and the ‘Something-for-Somethingist’ Right – i.e. in it, UMHoW is an unquestioned given and something-for-somethingism is incorporated within the manualised goal of striving for quasi-full-employment.
Thus, in an example of ‘relationship over truth’, Schizonomists have kept the relationship with both Left and Right while sacrificing the solution of ‘The USI-reform’.
Fourth, Schizonomics’ flaws (including its wanton wastage) are being hidden by extraordinary Human-Organisation, Science & Technology (HOST) innovation.
Consider this, though our lives are dominated by the Econo- and, since the Industrial Revolution, Human-Organisation, Science & Technology (HOST) potential-productivity per person has increased around 10,000 times (including more than doubling since 2010), ‘First World’ Australia has a per capita income of around just 216 times that of Burundians, who, as the poorest in the world are poorer than the 1760-era British.
Thus, most of the potential-productivity improvement is being squandered, which means our economy is becoming increasingly inefficient, which, in turn, means the environmental damage being inflicted in order to produce our current need/desire consumption is, as a proportion, increasing.
One tell-tale of this is so-called ‘asset-inflation’ – for example, increased housing prices – when consumption-good-prices are comparatively stable.
Fifth, not a single Australian university economics faculty teaches The Universal Survival Income (USI), which explains why, of all economic concepts, it is the least understood by Economists and, therefore, the least mentioned and, when mentioned, usually, erroneously referenced through the prism of our current inefficient income-Welfare paradigm.
In sum, the problem devolves to our Economists not realising their theory’s flaw, which means they don’t look deeper.
If they did, in addition to discovering that UMHoW is causing our Unemployment/Underemployment, they would then also discover the existence of Indirect-Survival-Income-Slavery (ISIS). And, having got to the source of our SEE problems, they would then be led to the solution of ‘The USI-reform’.
The USI-Reform’s Ramifications
The USI-reform promise: ‘everyone – Left, Right & Centre – gets what they say they want’.
The USI-reform’s ramifications are holistic across all Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) components.
First, with Slavery abolished, the Socio- returns to its natural position as our top priority, which, paradoxically, assists both the Econo- and the Enviro-.
Regarding the Econo-, instead of it increasingly being purposed with creating jobs – i.e. for creating jobs-for-jobs’-sake paid-work – it becomes vastly more streamlined and productive as it returns to ‘exclusively, without exploitation, efficiently producing and distributing the goods & services we need/desire, which we cannot or don’t wish to produce ourselves’.
That is, the Econo- becomes, akin to Sport, Coopetitive – i.e. Cooperation first and foremost with Competition a treasured second.
Thus, the reform is a PUSH-eradicator – i.e. it eradicates Poverty, Unemployment (and Underemployment), Stigma (‘the dole-bludger’ narrative including its racist and disablist variants) & Harassment (‘mutual obligations’) (PUSH).
Imagine, no more ‘Jobs, Jobs, Jobs’ (Triple-J) politics.
Regarding the Enviro-, with the Socio- (including the Econo-) automatically taken care of such that people’s first priority is no longer obtaining their Survival-Income, there will automatically be prioritisation of the Enviro- – both natural (sustainability) and international (sovereignty).
For instance, with full-employment, neither coal mines nor Adelaide-built weapons-systems are needed for Jobs.
Regarding Authoritarian-Illegitimates, their citizens will, for the first-time, see an optimised Coopetitive system, which, inevitably, they will demand for themselves.
Conclusion
Although the status quo has many friends, Australia requires just 1 more Citizen Empowerment Infrastructure (CEI) ‘guaranteed and unconditional’ cornerstone in addition to the 4 it already has:
- Universal Rule of Coopetition-maximising Law
- Universal Liberal Democracy
- Universal Education
- Universal Healthcare
– i.e. it requires The Universal Survival Income (USI) reform.
To Economists: your voice is sorely needed.
Thank you.
Best regards
Paul Ross
Founder
The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation (CDO)
The Civilisationism Organisation (TCO)