“Become who you are!”
―Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra:
A Book for All and None
There is another, albeit subtle, difference between a Market Economy and a Command Economy, a Mixed Economy and a Planned Economy. The secret is in the concept of Currency: money serves as the means by which we issue orders to others in the state of Total Mobilization. We can opt for Kapital and Schuld under the Incentives of Supply and Demand or Arbeit and Geld under the Intents of Command and Obedience. There can be a command within a Market Economy and a market within a Command Economy, but neither will a command turn the former into a Mixed Economy nor will a market turn the latter into a Planned Economy.
Everything depends, as Vladimir Lenin correctly concluded in justifying “New Economic Policy” (NEP), on what shall be controlling the Commanding Heights of the national economy and why it shall be in control. Who decides what to produce or how much is to be made are irrelevant within this Blog post and the SMP Compendium has proven this to be a fact.
In what manner shall a market take its form in the VCS Planned/Command Economy? In what mode of Being shall this market assume in the digital realm as well as offline?
We begin our quest to answer those questions within the State Council’s motions in the newspapers, on the TVs and radios, and on our smartphones. So-called “Privatization” has a lot in common with playing the Lottery–a clandestine taxation policy. Privatization is like being with Thomas Jefferson in the final months of his life: how he hatched a plot to sell Monticello to the Virginian Lottery and failing to find enough Kapital to pay off his inherited Schuld. To ‘privatize’ any enterprise involves passing on the costs and burdens of the command to the Totality as a “hidden Tax.” If the Totality cannot pay the Taxes, the closure of the enterprise is inevitable.
What the Socialist nation-state under the Work-Standard deserves is a type of economic organization neither Soviet nor Chinese but Prussian-American. The American people have demonstrated to Prussia and the entire Socialist world why the “shopping mall” and the US military’s “PX Exchange System” can only be practical with Socialism, not Liberal Capitalism. What is missing in this American “Marktrecht” (Right to Market) are the “Duties of Marketeers.” Markets in the VCS Planned/Command Economy need the kind of Command and Obedience which gave Alexander Hamilton an Implicit Intent to write the following in regard to Lotteries:
The rich or adventurous can then purchase a greater number to bring their chances to the same ratio with higher prices; and the less rich or more cautious can take a chance without putting much to risk. Everybody, almost, can and will be willing to hazard a trifling sum for the chance of a considerable gain.
That there be rather a small number of large prizes or a considerable number of considerable prizes than a great number of small prizes; for adventurers would as leave lose altogether as acquire trifling prizes and would prefer a small chance of winning a great deal to a great chance of winning little. Hope is apt to supply the place of probability and the imagination to be struck with glittering though precarious prospects. It may be suspected that in this country the middle course will best succeed; that is a considerable number of considerable prizes. Moderate sums will appear here great to far the greatest number of adventurers. And if the sum that may be raised should be raised successively, it may be well to have such a number of prizes as will raise conversation of winnings within a number of little circles.
Granted, I ought to preface that the State Council is referring to the Socialist nation’s Ranking System where medals, commendations and promotions are conferred to all citizens, from the students attending secondary schools to the already deceased. If a citizen can receive such awards, why not specific enterprises within the industry of an economic sector? If anyone cannot realize why a market is meant to exist in the VCS Planned/Command Economy, they need to (re)read the SMP Compendium because what I am discussing here is drawn from topics mentioned therein.
There are a few variations of where I am going with this Implicit Intent. I have about five different scenarios where I could see the Implicit Intent at play. Competition under Socialism is always going to be predicated on the best-possible Quality of Arbeit thanks to the Work-Standard. One of my case studies involve revisiting our teenage years (or better yet, the general plotline of a YA novel), reimagining and projecting our experiences onto the SSE of this Socialist nation-state.
In our secondary school years, we are constantly reminded by our teachers and upperclassmen that nothing is stopping us from the university or vocational training except ourselves. Our education, just like our healthcare and the childcare for teenage mothers, is free: the State covers the costs of each and every student. The only exceptions include food from the cafeteria and our school supplies. Half of our school life is spent with some of our peers in the classroom, the other half with the rest of our peers in the workspace; those peers may be in either or both places.
Today is Friday; we have no school on Saturdays and Sundays. Have we already decided how we are going to spend our afterschool hours? Remember that Technology and the state of Total Mobilization affect which choices are available and how we arrive at those conclusions. To determine how different it truly is, we compare this new-old school life with the one we most likely had or are having under Liberal Capitalism.
In Liberal Capitalism, we could either attend “afterschool clubs and sports,” “study in the library,” “go with a scouting group,” “clock-in at a part-time job,” “visit the mall with friends,” or “head straight home.” The majority of plotlines in American YA novels and movies as well as various Japanese light novels, manga and anime feature some variation of those activities. We can expect a very similar set of plotlines among the EU/NATO member-states in Europe and under Liberal Capitalist regimes in the Liberal International Economic Order (LIEO). What is being encountered in our teenage lives and in those types of media are depictions of Parliamentary Democracy. Our so-called student government is not a legitimate Student Council like in Socialism; it functions more like a “Student Parliament” minus all of the governmental procedures, the political parties, the petty (bi)partisanship, corporate lobbyists, billionaire donors and other special interests.
It is only more of the same from hereon. Our student parliamentarians are adamant about the fact that the school life is boring. Our guidance counselors are equally adamant about why we need “study hard” and “pass the placement test to our university of choice.” The Implicit Intent from both is conveying that “we need to make the greatest Quantity of Kapital, so we will never be bored under Liberal Capitalism.” A boring school curriculum for a boring school life personified in John William Godward’s 1900 painting, Idleness.
That kind of upbringing is enough to leave people feeling depressed and for others to lose their mind. Responses may range from the mundane like gravitating around subcultures and fandoms on Reddit, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or YouTube by being socially alienated (what Karl Marx had called “the Alienation of the Worker”) to the more drastic ones like getting arrested for petty crimes by the police or being implicated in a school shooting. Americans remain unaware of how often this has been occurring since Jeffersonianism reached the of its height of power in the 20th century. Nothing is going to be resolved by “gun control legislation” or railing against “violent video games” as Jeffersonianism’s chosen scapegoats, the behavior of which is no different than Hitlerist fruitcakes scapegoating Jewish people for allegedly ‘causing’ Liberal Capitalism. Those “active shooter drills” and “drug-free zones” describe the freedom-security dialectic as being integral to the curriculum in most American educational systems (there is no unified SSE under Liberal Capitalism), reminding everyone of the fact that the Liberal Capitalist SSEs reflect their Privatization (even as the Liberal Capitalist regime is subsidizing them with Kapital).
That is life in the countless different Liberal Capitalist SSEs to be found under a Liberal Capitalist regime. No democracy, no inward freedom and inward security, no Arbeit and no Geld. One deceives themselves into believing things will “become better” at the university level because it is only more of the same. There is no Arbeit and Geld at the university, only Kapital and Schuld. Is this dystopian Utopia depicted in 1984, Brave New World, A Clockwork Orange or even Atlas Shrugged? No, this is an expanded description of the following from Prussianism and Socialism:
Such are the perennial provincialists, the simple-minded heroes of the German Bildungsroman, who may undergo a certain amount of inner development but who display an astounding lack of talent when it comes to dealing with things of the real world. Such are the portly gentlemen of our bowling clubs, our beer halls, and our parliamentary assemblies, who excuse their own lack of ability by griping about the governmental departments they manage so badly.
There is a reason why the Socialist nation-state’s Ranking System and all of its awards are available to citizens as early as their teenage years. Being a teenager is supposed to include a rite of passage into adulthood with the full recognition of the State. We can finally begin to imagine how our teenage years will look like in a true and unified SSE within the Socialist nation-state.
Our school life at the secondary school stresses the importance of Arbeit and Geld through a vast range of activities. Every student begins with the lowest Rank in the Ranking System and how they intend to live their lives will determine whether they ascend the Ranks or remain at the bottom. Half of our time is spent in the classroom, learning theoretical knowledge and our other half spent in the workspace learning practical knowledge. The workspace is the school itself; we are supposed to be ‘students’, are we not?
The school has its gymnasium, its library, cafeteria, classrooms, infirmary, courtyard, and various other facilities. There are patrols of student prefects and others interacting with various electives and youth activities that translate into different Vocations. The student government learns early on about why they and the student body share an Intent to become upstanding citizens through a shared sense of Command Responsibility. The headmaster/headmistress needs volunteers to look after the school because they cannot rely on teachers to do everything. Students who accept the offer will receive Geld and eventually a promotion or medal from visiting State functionaries. If the student body fails to take the initiative, the consequences will stem from their own actions. Let us not forget that the educational system in the Socialist nation-state is governed like a genuine Council Democracy, where everyone will be held accountable for their own actions, no matter who they are or what their place is in Life.
Assuming all Duties pertaining to the workspace have been fulfilled, the student body will have plenty of free time afterschool. The usual afterschool activities are still with us and the same is also true for the youth activities that the State is also funding for us. There will be time for us to socialize with students from other schools (and even universities) at the youth palaces. There will be time for us to realize who we are and why we exist in this Socialist nation-state in one way or another; it is up to us on how we would like to proceed from this day forward.
If our Rank is high enough, the student government will inform us that they have approved our application to participate in a Kontor or draw loans from the Reciprocal-Reserve banking System. What was once considered “minimum wage” and “menial jobs” have been turned into our chances to save the Geld we will be needing later on. The same is true for the bank loans of those who feel competitive enough to start their own State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) or Public-Owned Enterprise (POE). The competition gets even more rewarding if we are working together toward the same goal, which we found out together back in our classroom. We could start with a small PDE like a cooperative before graduating up to NSEs like department stores, and that is not the only way we can go about living our lives. Again, it is up to us on how we wish to live.
For rest of us who could neither afford the “Service Fees” of NSFIs nor has the respect of a Kontor’s “Office VI,” our SSE has its own market for live training exercises, both online and offline. We and the rest of our peers are going to be paired with others as part of a student organization. The competition is rewarding and fulfilling as we are pitted against other student organizations from different schools from within our own SSE for best-possible Quality of Arbeit from within our own professions. It starts locally, escalates to the cities and surrounding regions until we are finally in command of an NSE just waiting to enter the VCS Economy. And if our nation exists in a Socialist world order, the State may be inclined to consider offering us a chance to enter an “international market” under the terms of a Real Trade Agreement (RTA) with another Socialist nation-state.
We are constantly reminded by the instructors at our SSE’s market that the “markets” in our nation (and in this Socialist world order) resemble “a tournament of jousting knights” as opposed to “an invasion of pillaging vikings.” The latter is what defines the Liberal Capitalist conception of competition. There is no need for the markets to readopt that version for we already have our own. Competition under Socialism is all about the Arbeit of every Vocation before the Geld that comes afterward. The well-being and performance of every young person is decisive.
Categories: Blog Post, Philosophy
The Fourth Estate 
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