[In The Australian, September 2, 2020, Robert Gottliebsen posed a tremendous question titled, Australia-China relationship: Is there still room for respect?]
‘Humour is the grease of life’s friction, which means those who cannot laugh at themselves have already lost and yet their loss, far from being self-confined, also permeates those within their sphere of influence – i.e. the total loss is proportional to the sourpuss’ power – which means President-for-life Xi is humanity’s greatest ever geopolitical threat.’
Author Context
This newsletter’s author moved to China in 2002 (the sunset of Jiang Zemin’s reign) staying for 13 years – i.e. during Hu Jintao’s governance and the beginning of Xi Jin Ping’s supremacy. In 2015, he visited Uyghur friends in Xinjiang and, in late 2016, he returned to China for a year.
During the author’s first stint, he lived in a small peripheral north-eastern city (just a country town when he arrived) – what the Chinese term a ‘third’ or ‘fourth tier’ city – where he predominantly opened and ran several small businesses.
China’s Change
China’s scale of change is extraordinary – unless one sees it for oneself, it probably defies comprehension – in any case, here follow 4 anecdotes.
- With my 5th floor apartment having windows on three sides, over the next 5 years, as a result of new buildings, my view was transformed perhaps 10 times. In some of this city’s locations, not much above street level, one could swivel 360 degrees and glimpse over 100 tall building cranes – i.e. a cluster of 20+ here and 30+ over there … – probably more than are operating in Australia’s entirety.
- Between this city and another rural town around 40 minutes’ drive away, a new city was created from scratch.
Out of a landscape full of large steep wavy forested hills, which, in winter, had snow yet, in summer, had a tropical super-richness, 24 hours a day, trucks – like ants – scaled the ‘mounds’, filled-up and descended.
Within a few months, the environment was dead, the area perfectly flattened and the soil used to extend vast swathes of the coast so as to further build upon.
At this point, one could stand at the edge and look in three flattened directions as far as possible and only see the foundation for the destined city.
- For my small businesses, while there were no minimum-wages, in 9 years, as per labour market demand and supply, wages needed to be quadrupled.
[No unions, no fair work commission, no minimum wage – just the free-market delivering a quadrupling in wages.]
- Returning in 2016, after only a year away, I discovered pretty much everyone had suddenly shifted from using cash and were now using their mobile phones to pay for pretty much everything – most had skipped the use of cards and gone straight to tapping their mobiles.
China is both fluid and of tsunamic proportions – any story can be written – past, present and, particularly, future.
‘Xina’
Most unlike his recent predecessors, Xi is both a dictator and a tyrant.
Hence, it is posited here that Xi’s China is a ‘China with Xi-nese (dictatorial and tyrannical) characteristics’, which is here termed ‘Xi-na’ (or, ‘Xina’) and pronounced ‘Sina’.
Thus, rather than the battle being against China and the Chinese who, like us, are predominantly Xi’s collateral damage, it is against Xina.
My First Xina Experience
Not long after Xi Jin Ping’s inauguration, I couldn’t log into my Gmail account.
Initially, assuming Google had a problem, it was a few weeks before I realised it was being Firewalled. Banning Facebook, banning the BBC/CNN, banning Google search was something I understood but it never occurred to me the authorities would ban Gmail – no warning, no slowing it down first, nothing to indicate what had happened, just, suddenly, the-cannot-be-connected-try-later page.
This sums up Tyrant Xi’s reign – whereas Jiang Zemin opened-up China and Hu Jintao opened it further, which confirmed the Western expectation that this was the ‘natural’ trajectory, Xi Jin Ping immediately began shutting it far further than they had opened it.
Thus, in the context of their Universalism-violating Authoritarian system, having made himself dictator and then dictator for life, Xi Jin Ping (and his access to Big Brother technology) is the reason the West’s hopes of a liberal China have been ‘put on hold’.
Regarding Xi’s effect on mainland Chinese society, it is ubiquitous – perhaps, it can be summed up as a ‘No Controversy’ policy.
The No Controversy Policy
Imagine, prohibiting the exploration of controversy from abortion to nationalism to …
When controversy is prohibited on every issue, it’s not just that it inhibits truth on each matter, it also inhibits the capacity to think.
Even at university level, the depth and breadth of thinking on non-technical social-issues is miniscule.
There is certainly no ‘critical thinking’ subject.
The result is not just mind-washing but, literally, mass mind-stunting and mind-atrophy – i.e. an obliteration of the populace’s ability to think.
[Xi’s mind is similarly limited.]
In The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation’s view, Xi cares so much about himself, his vision of China and the Chinese Communist Party as the vehicle, he cares nothing for Chinese people who stand in his way
– “Anyone who attempts to split any region from China will perish, with their bodies smashed and bones ground to powder” Xi, October 2019 –
which means, not only would he kill every Taiwanese citizen to capture Taiwan, if he had to sell (not just his grandmother) but all the grandmothers in China to get his way, he would do it and, sorry to express it such, but if it required gassing the 100+ million of them in concentration camps, he would do that too.
He is a serial-murderer crime-against-humanity leader who, rather than being Communist, is Fascist – i.e. far more Hitler than Stalin or Mao.
Yet, perhaps our greatest challenge is that the mentality of people such as Xi is still so alien to most of us, we are unable to collectively contextualise the threat they pose such that we ask questions like, ‘Is there still room for respect?’
September 21, 2020
Hi
Robert Gottliebsen’s article, which explores potentially mapping-out a Grand Bargain with Xina, is pitched right where we are currently at – both in terms of the current paradigm and our collective attitude.
In addition, there is the underlying dual assumptive conundrum:
- We cannot do without Xina’s trade; and,
- We are powerless to stop Xina progressively impacting our sovereignty.
However, the article below argues both these assumptions are erroneous and, rather than this circumstance requiring incremental management, it requires paradigm-changing leadership.
In sum, herein lies a Universalism plan to defeat, if not eradicate, all-the-grandmothers-in-China Tyrant Xi and emancipate the world (including China) from his scourge.
The Xina Threat – No Cold War Repeat
The threat humanity faces from Xina cannot be exaggerated and is no Cold War repeat.
First, whereas the post 2nd World War Soviet Union had tremendous pride in its history, including from having just withstood and defeated Nazi Germany and expanded its territory, with China’s recent history a humiliating procession of being conquered and occupied, Chinese nationalists such as Xi are impatient to seize their revengeful ‘destiny’ and ‘rightfully restore’ Chinese national superiority, which, ultimately, can only be satiated by subjugating the US.
Thus, for Xi, the current global Covid-19 context – in which many Western governments, unlike Xina, appear muddled, foolish and deeply damaged – is ‘prophecy’-consistent and confidence-fuelling.
In the US, the decay is particularly stark as Universal Empowerment Infrastructure (UEI) is more lacking than in any other Western nation – i.e. it is the most flawed Western democracy, there is no Universal Healthcare, it has an incredibly heterogenous education system and extremely limited income support.
This UEI disaster forms the foundation for ever-increasing disempowerment as it conflates with political-polarisation, non-civilization-appropriate gun laws, immigration-injustices, BLM rioting, fake news, social-media excess, cancel culture, malevolent foreign interference, a suffering economy and the narcissist-Trump/addled-Biden electoral farce
Second, while the Soviet Union didn’t have a land, resource or, initially, an environmental problem, China, while very fertile, has horrendous environmental degradation such that it cannot ongoingly support 1.44 billion people (57 times Australia’s population) at their current standard of living let alone support them at an Australia-equivalent standard – in 2019, China’s per capita income was only 1/6 of Australia’s.
Thus, choice territorial expansion (and it is not alone) will be a socio-political necessity, which means a Hot War.
Third, regarding its economic capacity and potential, in 2019, Xina’s GDP was 14.1 trillion USD (compared with the US of 21.4 trillion) and Australia’s 1.4 trillion USD.
[So, currently, Xina’s economy is 10 times larger than Australia’s – certainly significant but not nearly so much as many think.]
With Xina growing by around 6% per annum, its economy is expected to double by 2032 and, should that occur, then it will be comparable to (or, have surpassed) the US.
Of course, in 2020, regarding Covid-19, while Xina’s economy is flatlining, it has done and is doing dramatically better than the US, Europe or Australia.
Fourth, there is the unwritten pact between the Chinese populace and their rulers, which trades continued Communist Party control so long as there is continued economic stability-prosperity.
However, the Chinese ‘economic miracle’ is a misnomer – i.e. it’s easy to catch-up when starting from a comparatively low base yet, these days, even with all their technology theft, economies of scale, deregulated labour market and having a goods and services market so large as to be unignorable by multinationals, they are barely able to grow GDP at 6%.
This is because it has massive built in inefficiencies, which include:
- Financing the police/military state such as the ubiquitous surveillance (street level imagery; Great Firewall of China; social media etc.) and, because of the government’s fragility, the need to use the military internally instead of just externally;
- Suffering The Firewall – for instance, the banning of Google search means using the vastly inferior Baidu search, which is a massive ubiquitous drag – even if one uses a VPN to bypass the Firewall, it is slow and drops out such that, in the author’s case, one way or another, it used to waste at least one eighth of working time;
- The lack of competition, the lack of transparency, the corruption and the state ownership, which is still about 2/3 of the economy compared to about 1/3 in Australia; and,
- The mind-washing, mind-stunting and mind-atrophy, which means, though Chinese are typically phenomenally industrious, there is a bias toward repetitive tasks or those contained within an instruction manual.
Hence, in danger of breaking the compact, Xi needs scapegoats (The West) and other distractions of which the easiest and most obvious are nationalistic and expansionist.
Fifth, Xina also has an increasingly voracious appetite for food and other resources – so, for someone such as all-the-grandmothers-in-China Xi, if it can be taken, why pay for it?
Sixth, while already an empire with pre-Xi additions including Tibet, Xinjiang and ‘Inner’ Mongolia, Xina is also demonstrably expansionist having territorial disputes with most (up to 18) of its land and maritime neighbours.
Seventh, does mutually-assured destruction still hold?
For instance, if Xina launched a limited nuclear attack on a US ally – especially if there was some confusion over exactly what occurred such as preceding provocations and the possibility of an unintended accident – would it necessarily automatically lead to the US replying with a nuclear attack on Xina?
Eighth, there is the so-called ‘nine-dash line’, which, though trashing international law, is not threat but an already conquered fact.
The Nine-Dash Line Fact
Notwithstanding the US’s so-called ‘freedom of navigation’ exercises, Xina has already annexed the greater portion of the South China Sea as per the nine-dash line.
After all, does the US plan to disembark even briefly on one of the Xina-claimed atolls or islands? Will it physically stop any fishing, drilling or building? Perhaps, but it hasn’t done any of that yet.
From Australia’s point of view, the nine-dash line has gone a long-way to bridging the Sino-Australia geographical gap – i.e. the lines’ southernmost tip already marks a halfway point between the Chinese and Australian mainlands and a midpoint between Beijing and, in Australia’s west, Perth and, in Australia’s east, Mount Isa.
Regarding Taiwan, though its indigenous population is such that Polynesians are descendent from Taiwanese – i.e. they are vastly ethnically different to the Han – the Chinese have been utterly mind-washed into believing Taiwan has ‘always been part of China’, which is a proposition so preposterous as to be akin to, except for the relative distances, if Britain pretended Australia had always been part of Britannia.
Yet, a typical Chinese is so emotionally tortured over this issue, there is, possibly, literally, no more pointless conversation on Earth than attempting to rationally discuss it.
Moreover, the mind-washing is so complete as to be uncontrollable by the central authorities such that Xi cannot survive without progressing the taking of Taiwan. However, while there can be no backward step, there aren’t many, if any, interim ones left.
Hence, on this issue, Xi both wants no choice – i.e. all-the-grandmothers … – and has no choice.
Thus, with the still superior yet increasingly in-disarray US constituting the only bulwark stopping Xina’s ambitions, in a parallel minus-the-US universe, Taiwan would already be part of China, Japan would be in deep trouble and every country in the Pacific and between us and China would be, at least, client states such that Xina’s expansion may well have already eclipsed that of 2nd World War Japan.
In sum, as we all wait for the next Xina sucker punch, there are 3 interim conclusions:
- The current trajectory will not stop short of war;
- Psychopath Xi and Xina cannot be ‘managed’; and,
- The only way for the trajectory to be changed is via a paradigm shift.
So, for Xi, what of the prospect of Australia becoming ‘Xi-lia’?
Xilia
Via invading and annexing Australia, Tyrant Xi would gain an island-continent whose mainland territory of 7.7 million km2 is 80% as large as mainland China’s 9.6 million km2.
Moreover, in addition to Australia’s room and relatively pristine environment, as Xina’s demand for Australia’s resources and agriculture demonstrates, perhaps more than any other country, the latter has near-perfect complementarity to the former.
[For environmentalists who are laser-focused on Australia’s 2050 global-warming target, please consider:
- The Universal Survival Income (USI) is a prerequisite for solving all our environment problems (not just global warming);
- The USI will do infinitely more on global warming including via global leadership – for example, in the developing world, it will mean much smaller families and far less subsistence-farmer land-clearing and, globally, it will streamline economic efficiency (preventing wastage) plus sideline materialism-driven wanton destruction; and,
- If we don’t get our systems in order then Xi will likely gain control of Australia, which, among other things, will result in mining and carbon release like there’s no tomorrow.]
Yet, this is just the tip of it.
On a typical China-centric map (such as that below), which country is more centric and prominent – the Middle Kingdom or the Great Southern Lucky Country?
[How is it, in 2020, we are still so stuck in the North Atlantic paradigm, we don’t typically use Australia-centric maps? How can it be many Australians have never seen one, which means, insidiously, they have never seen Australia as it geo-strategically really is? All Australian school-children should be exposed to it.]
Mainland Australia has 2.5 times the coastline (35,900 km) of mainland China (14,500 kms) plus it faces 3 oceans rather than just 1 – i.e. whereas China only faces the North Pacific and in no sense geographically commands it, Australia, as well as also facing the North Pacific, faces and commands the South Pacific and monopolises its vast portion of the Indian and Southern Oceans.
Imagine, what a Xilia ‘dash line’ could look like – a new expansively double-digit one.
Thus, Xina and Xilia would create a (common-longitude similar-time-zone) northern-southern-hemisphere-spanning pincer of unparalleled strategic value.
And, with South East Asia suddenly wedged between the Xina-Xilia pincer, all of its states – including Indonesia (population 274 million – the world’s fourth largest) – would become vassal states.
What a boost for the Belt and Road with, potentially, a giant globe-splitting Xina-Xilia maritime tollway.
Moreover, ‘ownership’ of Australia would deliver Xi ownership of New Zealand and the rest of the South Pacific.
And, taking the ‘great-historical-humiliator’ Britain’s former colony, which is still dominated by British descendants and British societal-systems and which still has the British monarch as head of state would have untold propaganda symbolism.
Does anyone think all-the-grandmothers-in-China Xi has any sentimentality for Australia’s citizens’ interests?
And, stuck down here half-a-world away from London, Berlin and Washington, as well as being the most desirable Western nation on Earth, we are the most vulnerable.
Also, from Europe and North America’s point of view, only indirectly affecting them, Australia and New Zealand are the most relinquishable.
So, from Xina’s point of view, why worry with Confucius Institutes, trade disputes, spying, questioning on human rights, calls for Covid-19 enquiries and being subject to the market on iron ore pricing, when the entire paradigm can be obliterated through appropriation?
Yet, there’s far more than even this – i.e. there is, Antarctica or, potentially, ‘Xi-ctica’.
‘Xictica’
On Chinese world maps, in addition to Australia being prominent, so is Antarctica.
Once again, for some reason, perhaps it’s the Europe/North America attraction again, always looking north, Antarctica is not at all prominent in Australian minds yet we have the largest claim – 42% and 5.9 million km2 – with the largest threat.
Like Australia, Antarctica is also an island-continent yet ‘Downest’ is nearly twice the size of ‘Downunder’ (14.2 million km²), even more pristine and, at this point, its resources can only be imagined.
Also, with global warming, improving technology and the depleting of other resource sources, it will become increasingly economically accessible.
And, while most of the continent is claimed, China doesn’t recognise any claims.
If Xina took Australia, it would also get, at least, Australia’s portion of Antarctica.
The Australian mainland plus its Antarctic portion encompasses a land-area 1.4 times greater than mainland China – the second largest national land-territory in the world behind only Russia.
1 and a 1/2 continents – and, with no current Southern Hemisphere-based world power, perhaps 2 continents – for the price of, potentially, not much.
A Xina-Xilia-Xictica common longitudinal pincer.
Far-fetched?
On Antarctica, China has 4 bases – Great Wall (1985) was the first and since then, focusing on their own longitude, they have built 3 in Australia’s Antarctic Territory (Zhongshan (1989), Kunlun (2009) and Taishan (2014)), which, as per the map below, equals the same number as Australia has.
In addition, there is a new one due for completion in New Zealand’s territory on Inexpressible Island (2022) within a penguin’s waddle of Australia’s territory.
Moreover, in 2014, following Brisbane’s G-20 conference, all-the-grandmothers-in-China Xi made a trip to Hobart – the gateway to Australia’s Antarctic territory.
When has a senior foreign dignitary, let alone one as ruthlessly focused as Xi, ever gone to Tasmania?
During his Hobart stay, Xi visited a Chinese icebreaker and unveiled his strategy of ‘understand, protect, and use’ Antarctica.
2014 photo of Winnie, in Hobart, visiting a Chinese ice-breaker.
So, perhaps, instead of wholesale annexation, Xina will decide to cherry-pick some of Australia’s remote resource, farming and/or strategic regions.
Perhaps, they will bypass their Darwin port and Darwin’s US soldiers and sail into Hobart and Launceston, take the island (and the Australian Antarctic territory) and, even, ‘humanitarianly’, sail all Tasmanians to the mainland instructing, “Accept it and leave Tasmania and Antarctica to us or else”.
So, whether because of its landmass, surrounding waters, resources, geopolitical location, propaganda value or just so as to neuter a constant irritant in his backside, Australia is fully in Tyrant Xi’s sights.
Can’t imagine PLA soldiers on our streets?
Fair enough – can you imagine Xi imagining it?
If it happens, inevitably, it will be prefaced by a pretext story.
Xilia: A Xina Pretext Story
Tibet, Taiwan and the nine-dash line all have pretext stories.
Mongolia is an interesting one – because, at one point, Mongolia conquered China, therefore, it should be part of China – on that basis, China can also claim Europe.
Regarding Australia, possible pretext stories may relate to commercial interests such as Australia ‘breaking’ contracts, which could legitimately happen for commercial or national security reasons.
It could be something to do with our ethnic Chinese residents, who, at the 2016 census, numbered 1,2 million or 5.6% of those nominating their ancestry – for example, recently, Xina warned those of Chinese ancestry are suffering increased racism in Australia.
Russia has already made a precedent out of ‘protecting’-through-annexation those of common ethnicity in neighbouring lands.
And, if NATO won’t protect non-signatory Europeans against Russia, would it do anything significant to protect Australia against Xina?
Another pretext story could involve our indigenous population – i.e. Xina could contrive a situation whereupon an Aboriginal leader – even a peripheral one – citing Aboriginal Australia’s disproportionate disempowerment (which, by the way, would be reconciled (Gap Closed) via implementing The Universal Survival Income (USI)/labour market deregulation policies), calls on Xina for help.
For example, consider what Xina bribes have ‘achieved’ amongst Pacific Island politicians.
Also, in August 2020, at the National Press Club, Xina’s Deputy Head of Mission Wang Xining spoke of ‘centuries of interaction and association between our peoples’ so given most Chinese are convinced Taiwan and Tibet have always been China’s, similarly, they could be convinced Australia has always been China’s.
In the meantime, Xina can soften us up.
Xina’s Weakening of Australia
Currently, Xina’s attempt at weakening Australia has two main prongs:
- Increasingly substantial political interference; and, beginning recently,
- The use of economic interference.
In 2019, Xina took 30% of Australia’s exports (by value) yet they now wish to roll that off a cliff – imagine the extreme, no more Chinese demand for education, tourism, beef, agriculture, wine, iron ore, coal or gas.
Wouldn’t this have a massive deleterious spiralling effect on:
- Jobs;
- Tax revenue; and,
- The exchange rate?
So, don’t we need to ‘be pragmatic’ and appease Xina?
After all, unless Xi is deposed/assassinated (perhaps by a brave China-patriotic member of his inner circle as was attempted against Hitler) or some such, what hope do we have?
Yes, assuming both Xina and Australia continue down their ‘current paths’ then Australia is doomed – probably before we get our first new, non-nuclear powered, diesel-electric sub sometime in the 2030’s – fancy paying tens of billions so one can bring a knife to a gun fight, especially when already outnumbered.
For Australia, this potential for suffering a vastly lower standard of living has two conceptual scenarios:
- Becoming comparatively poor yet maintaining our sovereignty; and,
- Becoming comparatively poor as a prelude to losing our sovereignty.
But why the ‘Australia … current path’ qualification – i.e. what can Australia do to adequately defend against Xina?
The Defence of Australia
First, if Xina invades Australian territory, Australia will have some advantages including:
- While we cannot rely on receiving significant help from other nations (including the US), assuming we fight, we will get at least some international help; and,
- Initially, Xina will be disadvantaged by distance both regarding troop movement and supply lines.
Second, potentially, we can transform the paradigm.
But, what can Australia possibly do to shift the paradigm against Xina?
Answer: Due to non-optimal societal infrastructure systems, Australia is operating vastly sub-optimally – i.e. it is operating on a maximum of 2 out of 4 cylinders – which means we can focus on enhancing our societal-systems.
The Optimal Society & Its Infrastructural Systems
Can you and I agree (many, perhaps most, will not), ideally, our core aim should be to:
Maximise our society’s ‘sustainable stability-prosperity’?
Also, can we agree that:
‘Sustainable stability-prosperity’ may be segmented into Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) components in which the enviro- includes both:
- The natural environment; and,
- The international environment – such as that relating to Xina?
And, given the SEE components are all interrelated, can we agree, when evaluating a policy’s efficacy, we must do this, not only on the basis of its direct effect on the particular objective, but also on its holistic indirect SEE ripple effects, which means we must avoid add-on Band-aids in favour of universal infrastructure solutions?
In addition, can we agree that ‘maximising our society’s sustainable stability-prosperity’ requires:
Implementing systems that maximise the good faith earnestness and capacity of citizens to, natural-morality, put ‘society before self’?
Moreover, can we agree this starts with:
Universal citizen empowerment?
And, in a post-Industrial Revolution socio-economy such as Australia, can we agree ‘universal citizen empowerment’ is predicated on the 4 Universal Empowerment Infrastructure (UEI) cornerstones:
- Universal Survival Income (USI) – all citizens must, without stigma, have what they need to sustainably survive;
- Universal Liberal Democracy;
- Universal Healthcare; and,
- Universal Education?
Can we further agree – and not for own-sake-sentimentality – while traditional societies – such as Australia’s pre-colonial indigenous ones – cultivated ‘society before self’ systems, modern societies, despite their undoubted benefits, have in this sense devolved?
That is, ironically, didn’t ancient tribal systems create a base civility, which modern societal systems only patchily replicate?
For example, isn’t this reflected in our wholesale whole-of-planet environmental destruction compared with ‘primitive’ indigenous sustainable land, resource and fire management?
Hence, if pre-colonisation was Australia Mark 1 (Indigenous societal-systems) and, currently, we are operating Australia Mark 2 (British societal-systems), in order to optimise Australia’s societal-systems we need an Australia Mark 3 (Indigenous-Western Fusion societal-systems), which can lead us (and, the rest of the world) into a ‘society before self’ sustainable stability-prosperity maximising future.
This Mark 3 Fusion is a partial separation from the Europe/North America paradigm, which, given their problems and given our location and influences – Aboriginal, Asian, island-continental, southern hemispheric, unique natural environment, Antarctica, Xina threat and being a regional power – is overdue, because, though, in many ways, we are already ahead of most other Western nations (just look at our 3 comparatively robust UEI cornerstones and superior response to Covid-19), still we constantly look to them for leadership and to confirm to ourselves we are on ‘the right track’.
Lastly, can we agree that competition is societally beneficial provided it is contained within a cooperative framework?
That is, whereas the Cooperative-Competition of robust sport or study assessment is fine, Uncooperative-Competition such as street-brawling and cheating is not.
If we can agree on the lion-share of all this then the next step is to consider Australia’s current societal characteristics.
Sub-Optimal Australia
Currently, contrary to being unified and having universal empowerment, aren’t we afflicted by entrenched and increasing division and disempowerment?
Regarding division, don’t the fights amongst ourselves include:
- Left versus right, which has feudal roots that were entrenched by our reaction to the Industrial Revolution;
- Identity group versus identity group; and,
- Even a glorified materialistic selfishness of Make Number One Great Again (MNOGA) versus MNOGA?
Isn’t each an example of ‘self-before-society’ Uncooperative-Competition?
How can our society thrive, if each cylinder is misaligned, each wheel is pointed in contrary directions and we are each fighting over the steering wheel?
In economic terms, aren’t these own-goal costs likely to be vastly more than our exports to Xina?
So, in order to achieve an optimised Australia Mark 3 societal-system fusion, we need to:
- Seek out our non-optimal societal-systems; and then,
- As appropriate, recalibrate, discard and insert societal-systems.
Seeking Out Australia’s Own-Goal Societal-Systems
Given both left/right societal-factions dominate our governance and government legislation is the source of societal-system infrastructure, we should look at their interaction.
‘The Left-Right Societal Factions’ Historical Self-Before-Society Dance to Dystopia’
At the Industrial Revolution’s beginning, the Right (in the form of the privileged elite) advanced prosperity but – instead of magnanimously ‘society before self’ implementing The Universal Survival Income (USI) so that all disempowered (including the fleetingly) were automatically taken care of without any stigma or means-testing inefficiency – did so by exploiting its workers;
Then, the Left (in the form of workers) – also, instead of fighting for The Universal Survival Income (USI) – self-absorbed, fought for and won minimum wages;
This Left/Right failure to implement The USI infrastructure is ‘The Original Error’ and the policy of national and industry (rather than enterprise) minimum-wages is also infrastructure – however, it is ‘self-before-society’ infrastructure – which has created colossal tsunamic Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) distortions;
Minimum-wages, in addition to dividing the disempowered – i.e. there were the disempowered with paid-work and those without – also formalised the absence of The USI, which meant social-status, rather than exclusively being a function of societal-contribution, increasingly also became a function of one’s command over resources – i.e. one’s wealth, income and career – which, rather than maximising society’s ‘sustainable stability-prosperity’, systematically spurred Uncooperative-Competition in the form of MNOGA Materialism;
With Materialism defined here as ‘consumption not for its direct benefit but for the indirect benefit of gaining ‘look at me’ social-status’, it spurred:
- Massive social problems including neglect of family, malevolent human interactions, the fermentation of distrust, identity-warfare and MNOGAism;
- Massive economic-related problems including the perception of the economy as being more important than whole-of-society sustainable stability-prosperity; and,
- Massive environmental degradation via the glorification of consumption over and above environmental considerations;
In addition, perversely, all these phenomena ferment a selfish enthusiasm against The USI;
Then, as is theoretically expected, with the minimum wage above the market equilibrium, the Right (in the form of business) responded by employing a quantity of labour below the labour market equilibrium, which thereby produced unemployment;
Meanwhile, with the extremes of Left and Right both dictatorial, Universalism began evolving in the form of one-citizen-one-vote Democracy;
With Democracy, in turn, producing Universalism-based electoral pressures, governments increasingly adopted various social-policies;
However, while Healthcare and Education could be Universalism-based, regarding Income-related policies, the Left and Right, instead of rectifying The Original Error, created non-Universal non-infrastructure Band-Aiding policies;
With Income Band-Aid social-policies – for example, pensions and social-housing – consisting of conditional benefits based on targeted means-testing (i.e. income/wealth-testing), while they directly addressed symptoms, they didn’t address the root cause, which, thereby, created other unintended Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) problems, which, in turn, resulted in ‘distortion-fixing-and-managing jobs’;
And, while these distortion-fixing-and-managing jobs added to GDP, they subtracted from society’s ‘net productivity’, which produces a diabolical GDP/net-productivity divergence;
Whereas net-productivity is akin to profit (i.e. net-revenue, which is ‘revenue minus cost’), GDP is akin to the nonsense concept of ‘revenue plus cost’ – i.e. crash your car and pay for its repair and GDP increases, which, according to that madness, means all our economy needs is an all-in Australia-wide demolition-derby or a war;
Hence, net-productivity – not GDP – is the relevant measure as to what can be consumed, saved, invested and taxed – imagine a business that only measured its total ‘revenue plus cost’ figure and was happier the higher it is;
The preventers of complete catastrophe are:
- Fiscal discipline;
- The inflation rate;
- The exchange rate; and,
- Individual businesses, which are profit-focused;
Regarding income-related Band-Aid social-policies vis-à-vis the ‘society before self’ infrastructure of The USI, this creates a need for more justice and health workers (i.e. vastly more cost) yet, while this adds to GDP, it detracts from society’s net-productivity;
Meanwhile, because there was unemployment/underemployment, governments (both Left and, reluctantly, Right) were electorally pressured to directly create and subsidise jobs, which, particularly occurring via the Public Service, resulted in raising taxes and implementing a jobs-for-jobs’-sake strategy;
And, since we only use the GDP measurement to count economic activity, these jobs are erroneously counted as a societal benefit;
In turn, the jobs-for-jobs’-sake strategy produces more inefficiencies, which requires still more ‘distortion-fixing-and-managing jobs’;
Then, the Right, also rather than redressing The Original Error, harassed benefit-recipients (unless they were land and/or capital owners) – for example, they called one segment ‘dole-bludgers’ and then progressively raised the hoops;
Meanwhile, the lion-share of the burdens for both labour market regulation and tax fell on private business, which made vast industries unprofitable – especially tradable manufactures such as our car industry – which, in turn, has resulted in an exceptionally narrow economy, which means, reliant on imports, we are particularly vulnerable to, among other things, both an exchange rate freefall and, specifically, a Xina withdrawal of purchasing;
Alas, with Australia’s economy’s structure one of the world’s most regulated – i.e. it has the ‘highest’ (in 2019, according to the OECD) most invasive national minimum-wages structure in the world – and with the Left now advocating for Raise the Rate (RtR), the Job Guarantee (JG) and Magic Monetary Theory (MMT), if we double-down on these additional add-on Band-Aid policies, our net productivity will collapse under the weight of tax, inefficiency and corruption, which will, in turn, one way or another, lead us into Sovereign loss.
We already have a problem and Raise the Rate etc. is putting out the welcome mat for Xi.
……
Or, we can optimise Australia’s societal systems.
Optimising Australia’s Societal-Systems
‘The Universalism Dance’
If both the Left and Right societal-factions act in good faith and become appropriately educated then there is the potential for a Grand Universalism Bargain, which will maximise our society’s sustainable survival-prosperity;
That is, by adopting The Universal Survival Income (USI) and labour market deregulation, both Left and Right will get what they say they want – i.e. the Left will get a no-harassment no-stigma Safety Net Income, guaranteed full-employment, the capacity for all to say ‘no’ to employers, a saved environment and universal empowerment yet the Right will get freedom, deregulation, vastly reduced non-GST taxes, a happy productive workforce, a massive rise in living standards and an easily balanced government budget.
As the saying goes, we don’t need to work harder; just smarter.
……
So, what would this mean for Australia’s capacity to resist Xina?
Optimal Australia’s Xina Resistance
With The USI and labour market deregulation, we will all but maximise our sustainable stability-prosperity, which will, in the short-term, at least, double our net productivity – i.e. make us at least twice as prosperous – the equivalent of a 3 trillion USD economy.
In this way, at least halving the difference between our and Xina’s net productivity, it will have massive defence-enhancing ramifications.
With our 2019, defence budget $38.7 billion (1.9% of the budget), with a doubling of prosperity, if need be, this could easily, for instance, be quadrupled.
Also, particularly with full-employment, if we wish, immigration can be significantly increased, which, over time, to our already unified universally-empowered full-firing society, can add an extra cylinder or four.
Furthermore (and, most importantly), via implementing sustainable stability-prosperity maximising systems (including the Universal Empowerment Infrastructure (UEI) cornerstone of The USI), which maximise the good faith earnestness and capacity of citizens to, natural-morality, put ‘society before self’, in contrast to the current Western mess, we will attract the world’s admiration (including that of mainland Chinese) and, thereby, show the way to how they too can achieve societal optimisation.
Hence, the perfection of our own systems will be the greatest humanitarian (and environmental) gift to the world of any nation ever.
And, in the unignorable glow of its exposure, as Chinese mainlanders also demand Universalism, they will turn against Xi.
Thus, optimisation of our societal systems, will indirectly, yet markedly, internally weaken the tyrant.
But, how much time do we have?
Not much – usually, by the time one knows for sure there’s a problem, it’s already too late and we all already know for sure there’s a problem plus we still need to persuade our society’s ‘not for turning’ Left/Right factions that Universalism is the way – the only way.
Conclusion
This manuscript constitutes a Universalism plan to eradicate all-the-grandmothers-in-China Tyrant Xi, defeat Xina, emancipate China and save Australia.
In order to minimise the possibility of Australia’s territory being invaded, we must maximise our preparedness for war by doing what we should do anyway, namely, getting our societal-systems in order.
Change the paradigm via transcending left/right societal-factionalism and embracing Universalism.
Thank you.
Best regards
Paul Ross
Founder
The Universal Empowerment Organisation (UEO) Australia
The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation (CDO) Australia
https://citizens-dividend.org/
https://www.facebook.com/paul.ross.798
https://twitter.com/paulross2
Humanity is being confronted by a perfect storm of Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) Catastrophes including:
1. Social:
a. Internal: mental illness, domestic violence, drug & alcohol abuse etc.
b. External: our weaknesses boost Democracy’s enemies, which is currently enhancing international rivalry such as with China, Russia, North Korea and Iran;
2. Economic: absolute poverty, relative income inequality, unemployment, homelessness etc.; and,
3. Environmental: ecosystem destruction, species extinction, human population explosion, plastic islands, climate change etc.
Hypothesis: This is due to a single foundational ‘Society-Individual Interface’ contradiction whose deleterious effects are cascading through every facet of society.
The relevant contradiction is the partial absence of the natural-morality-derived ‘Universal Empowerment Infrastructure’ (UEI), which consists of the four cornerstones:
1. Universal Liberal Democracy – [In Australia] Yes;
2. Universal Healthcare – Yes;
3. Universal Education – Yes;
4. Universal Basic/Survival Income (UBI/USI) – No, not yet.
The Socio-Econo-Environment-Harmonising Universal Survival Income (USI):It’s not that it is the solution;
It’s that its absence is the problem.
The Taxpayer-to-Citizen-Transfer [Note: Unlike the Current System, this is not a ‘cost’ but a ‘transfer’.]Around $20,000 per year x 18 million (non-incarcerated in-country adult Australian citizens) + $5,000 x 4.5 million (children) = $386 billion (2018 figures).
This may be achieved by:
1. Reallocating $150 billion of the $175 billion Social Services budget (yes, we are already spending half of what we need), which still leaves $25 billion to top up pensions and disability payments;
2. Abolishment of the Tax-Free Threshold ($35 billion); and,
3. Insertion of a 20% full-breadth GST (no – it’s not regressive if the disempowered are net beneficiaries; also, the wealthy and multinationals’ capacity to avoid a GST is particularly limited), which results in $200 billion minus $60 billion (from the current 10% gap-ridden GST) equaling an additional $140 billion.
In addition to this $325 billion total, there will be massive human-capital, efficiency, societal-involvement and trust gains, which means, not only is the USI easily afforded, we will be, at least, twice as prosperous such that it will amount to a win-win-win in which all community segments – the wealthy; the middle-class; and, the currently disempowered – all win.
In the process, the economy will also be transformed from an ‘environment-destroying jobs-for-jobs’-sake’ ‘own-goal’ one to ‘an efficient production of goods and services we desire’ one.
Then, there is the massive permeating benefit of achieving full-employment.
That is, with everyone both taken care of and invested with the freedom to say ‘no’ to an employer plus the rectification of the present social-status premium on paid-work over unpaid-work, which will dissipate the stigma of not having paid-work, this means there will be a massive flow of power to the disempowered and working classes, which will result in a workers’ paradise.
Yet, this workers’ paradise will enable significant labour-market deregulation (i.e. everyone is already being looked after so, while we may continue to feel an emotional attachment to, for instance, economy-wide minimum-wages, in practice, there will no longer be a need for them).
And, this means our (pre-Covid-19) 5.7 million volunteers can get paid something and our young, elderly, relatively unskilled, disabled, unpaid-carers, 600,000+ unemployed and 1.1 million+ underemployed can, if they desire, get paid-work (or, more work) and, generally, there is full-employment such that ‘anyone who, at the going rate, wants a job, can get one’.
In addition, the USI will eradicate the current welfare-to-paid-work distortion where there is a disincentive to acquire paid-work because, in doing so, one loses one’s welfare.
Furthermore, full-employment will result in wages and conditions being bid-up.
And yet, business, as well as benefiting from deregulation, rather than having to tolerate the current crop of unhappy conscripts, will benefit from an army of volunteer workers, which given, with regard to morale and productivity, ‘one bad apple spoils the barrel’, will deliver massive productivity efficiencies.
This means our tradables’ sector – especially manufacturing – will roar back to life.
The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation’s Commitment (August 1, 2019):
1. Short-term (interim) – At the 2022 Australian Federal Election (unlike in 2019), at least one registered political party will have the USI as its signature policy such that the USI is an election issue; and,
2. Medium-term (end) – At the 2025 Australian Federal Election, the winner has a mandate for the implementation of a USI, which it then prosecutes.
Without The Universal Survival Income (USI),
It’s Impossible to Save the Environment.