The Work-Standard (2^nd Ed.) was written to convey two important topics. The first topic is to describe the theoretical and conceptual basis for the Work-Standard, thereby laying the foundations of the next three Treatises, The Third Place (1^st Ed.), Work-Standard Accounting Practices (1^st Ed.), and The Digital Realm (1^st Ed.). The other was to articulate the historical basis behind the Work-Standard, particularly how and why it has become relevant to America and the rest of the world since the 20^th century. The latter in particular would culminate in the discussion about America and why any serious applications of the Work-Standard would eventually affect that country on the world stage. To account for the possibility that America might someday be compelled into adopting the Work-Standard, regardless of whatever the justification happens to be, the need to understand its Destiny within World History became imperative. As this article is being written in local US time, today marks the 247^th anniversary of American Independence, and it is rather fitting moment to address America’s Destiny.   

To begin, it is necessary to discuss some fundamental questions that have constantly been posited across various Entries of The Work-Standard. Has America always been a bastion of Neoliberalism, of Liberal Capitalist Parliamentary Democracy since the American Revolutionary War? Why has America been dominated by the same Party for two centuries, whose current form just happens to be split into two lesser “parties?” Was America meant to become a world hegemon over Latin America, Europe and Asia (“Eurasia”), Africa, Middle East and Oceania? Are the political-economic and socio-cultural problems of contemporary life in America the manifestations of something older and yet instinctually felt by the American people? What are the possibilities that a different political, economic and social order in America is capable of emerging? If so, exactly what form would it assume and why?    

In contemporary America, what passes as “ideologies” within political-economic and socio-cultural discourse are consistently presented as variations of Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is shaped by a Social Liberalism and an Economic Liberalism that are both guided by a shared Political Liberalism. There is certainly a political tradition, legacy or worldview ultimately driving this phenomenon for centuries. It also accounts for why one could hold contradictory Socially Conservative and Economically Liberal or Socially Liberal and Economically Socialist, when logically the Socially Conservative and Economically Socialist or Socially Liberal and Economic Liberal tendencies belong together.    

Much has already been written and pondered over by a multitude of people over the centuries. So many have concluded that America is forever destined to be this stronghold of Neoliberalism that anything to the contrary comes across as fantastical or ridiculous. Everyone recognizes that America plays an important role in promoting Neoliberalism throughout the world. Everyone also recognizes that there is something inherently wrong about the country in one way or another, except nobody knows what that wrongness might be. But nobody is inclined to know whether another political tradition, another legacy, another worldview possessed enough influence and clout to guide America in a direction away from Neoliberalism in favor of other ideologies.

When an American begins to entertain notions of an America sans Neoliberalism, they may consider the multiplicity of foreign, non-American ideologies in other countries in the past century or two. Social-Democracy and Christian Democracy, Toryism and Fabianism,  Marxism-Leninism and Maoism, Italian Fascism and Spanish Falangism, Titoism and Juche, Pan-Germanism and Pan-Arabism. Some might decide to embark on more dubious ventures such as the variety of pseudo-nationalisms centered on questionable claims regarding race, religion, region and locality. Both are never taken seriously by the American people because neither are products of the American Essence, of what makes America a political idea worth striving for.

But there are no such ideologies outside of America that could lay claim to knowing the American people on an interpersonal level and can be entrusted on to further their interests, whether at home or abroad. The problem is that there is a lack of a coherent vision of what America is and what it shall become, a vision that is not Neoliberalism. Yet most Americans, especially those critical of Neoliberalism from a variety of different viewpoints, do not realize that there is another worldview that is just as old as the one that currently defines America and can be called upon to bring about another conception of America. In fact, it is neither Republican nor Democratic insofar as it is more Federalist than Democratic-Republican. This Author is of course referring to the Federalist Legacy of the old Federalist Party.

The early years of the American Union following the Revolutionary War was not as peaceful as the school history textbooks tend to portray it. An important rivalry erupted between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, giving rise to the Federalist and Democratic-Republican Parties. Their rivalry was driven by something far greater than either the role of government or the question of slavery, even as these matters have become intertwined with the grand question that sparked their rivalry. Is America a “Republic” or a Union of States – a “United States?” Is America founded on some self-proclaimed mission to promote an “Empire of Liberty” across the world or is it just one nation coexisting among various independent nations? Is the Federal government supposed to forge an American National Consciousness, cultivating an American National Identity defined by something else besides the Constitution? Where does America stand in relation to the Western world and the rest of humanity by extension?

As I have discovered in the months since completing the second edition, many of those persistent questions that anyone could have about the US began with those two men and their opposing parties. For every question that one could ask, there is always an answer waiting to rediscovered and retold to others. The third edition of The Work-Standard will revisit those questions again with new information, drawing other conclusions that were not apparent at first in the previous editions.     

Categories: Blog Post

Tags: Economics, Finance, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Socialist Finance, Third Place, Work-Standard