How to Stop the Empire

From the ashes of the Second World War and the 25 chaotic years that preceded it, finally, in 1945, there was stability.

America the safe. America the prosperous.

America, haven of the world. 

Also the world’s strongest military after 1945.

Financially, the U.S.' hegemony far passed the former Soviet Union and Communist China. With these funds, an empire was born.

An empire, that, like the British one before it, began with private individuals with private interests.




America's elite offered loans to underdeveloped states. The richest people in the world used their power and influence to establish a system of corporatocracy.

These loans covered engineering and construction projects. U.S. companies, and later, European, Canadian and other "Western" companies were contracted to fulfill these projects.

But the loans and the interest owed were outrageous. Completely disconnected to market time preference. These were, and still are, corporations unaccountable to the U.S. government. 

Rewarded money by international bodies funded by the U.S. government, but unaccountable to Congress.

Trained in business schools and sounding like economists and accountants, the men and women who help build the empire deliver page after page of economic data and projections. They persuade third-world leaders to take loans from the “international community.”

By taking these loans, the leaders are signing off on a debt their taxpayers have no hope of repaying.

The nation’s natural resources are developed by Western companies and profit is shipped back home alongside the goods. The third-world sees none of it, and worse, they owe.

This corporate cancer, backed by the military might of the United States, used to use the ole’ USSR as its justification. Then, it was the drug war and the terrorists. Always with the TV, radio, and newspapers on their side.

Today, thank God, we have the Internet. 

But there is also the “3x5 card of allowable opinion.” To test its limits is wrong. To go outside it is unspeakable. Surely, no arguments are needed since the people who originate such views are beset by white supremacy.

The Empire faltered in the 1970s when people became aware of the West’s reliance on oil. But a Saudi deal for oil smoothed things out. Thanks to Uncle Sam’s secret economic hitmen.

Secret no more — at least one person spoke up. And even if he’s lying, everybody believes in the Empire now anyway. Like the English at the turn of the 20th century. The "Little Englanders" were unpopular in the public debate. The MPs who espoused such views lost their seats. 

It doesn’t really matter if these “economic hitmen” exist or once existed. Or, if they aren't hitmen at all, but human beings with a different set of values. 

After all, who says one must abide by Kant's dictum that people should be treated as ends and not means?

People today have an “international community” mindset with America more or less as its head. They believe crony-capitalism is real capitalism. That price inflation, economic booms and busts, terrorism in the middle east, America world police, state-funded education, government action on climate change, welfare, etc., are a normal part of everyday life.

That it’s okay to bomb countries without pretext because they have bad leaders. 

That it’s okay to enjoy the cheap cost of labour overseas despite needless human suffering. That’s just how industrialization works. (Technically this economic argument is correct provided the state isn’t undermining natural capital formation, which most states are certainly doing.)
 
That it’s okay to trust the secretive “intelligence community” although they’ve been caught spying on regular people. That they've been wrong many times before. That they have questionable ethics.

That it's okay to keep rewarding the already rich and politically well-connected banking, industrial and resource-extraction tycoons.

Generations of state schooling and compelling media content have dumbed down most people.

Some understand the Empire and don’t care, others understand part of it and don’t care, and of course, some understand none of it, and don’t give a flying fuck one way or the other.

Some don’t understand the Empire but do care. Or they understand some of it and still want to do something. Whether for good or ill. And others get it completely and are doing something about it.

What the fuck am I talking about? 

Activists, radicals, and such versus media gatekeepers and academics.

Now, fortunately in the age of the Internet, activists, and media have blended together and made it easy for anyone to consume. 

But this category of media gatekeepers still exist since Twitter, YouTube, Patreon, Facebook and others have started editorializing their social media content.

Even Craigslist will take down a "rant and rave" ad that uses the word cunt.

Prior to the outbreak of the Internet and true dissident opinion, the media gatekeepers and academics kept us in the dark about our 3 favourite issues. The 3 most beneficial to the Empire.

Income inequality — you can blame banks, especially the central bank, for this one. When the central bank does its "open market operations" bit and credits the big banks without debiting itself first, who do you think gets this new money? And even if they did doll it all out to fixed-income seniors and the disabled, is that still ethical?

Use of resources in an unsustainable way — wanna stop burning oil and gas and start recycling garbage for fuel? Adjust the climate like a thermostat? Once again, you’re gonna wanna End the Fed and read Mises.

Corruption in government, business, and banking — Start with banking, they’re the worst. Then move onto reforming government and limiting its power so corporations have no incentive to lobby since there’s no advantage to harnessing the power of the state… unless you’re a defense contractor.

Because that’s all we need a state for — national defense.

And probably not even that.

Now, of course, at this point you’re skeptical. So take some time out and read about that Mises fella I mentioned. Some Rothbard also couldn’t hurt. I’ll be here when you return.

Welcome back.

Now onto this Empire business and what to do about it.

We are witnessing a revolution of minds. We are part of it. People are already questioning the world around them and there’s no stopping the bum rush. But we need to figure out what’s rubbish and what’s intelligent.

Some cunt spouting off about the flat earth, chemtrails or vaccines being bad for you is not worthy of discussion.

And not because it falls outside of some “3x5 card of allowable opinion” I’m imposing on myself, but, because, when you look into these things objectively, they are flat-out, scientifically, 100% wrong. Full stop.

What we need are words, music, videos, pieces of art — change the culture and politics will follow. 

Steering people in the right direction slowly but surely.

Similar to how Mick West suggests we talk people out of their conspiracy beliefs. Or how Peter Boghossian suggests we talk people out of their religious faith.

As far as I’m concerned, that kind of persuasion can happen about the Empire with praxeology.

It’s not that outlandish to read, critique, and understand Mises. No more than it would be read Derrida, Foucault or Rorty.

In the 1950s, a unified theory of casual-realism was delivered by a Jewish professor of economics, a veteran of World War 1, and a refugee of Hitler’s Germany. 

A man who built from the economic and liberal traditions of those before him. From a time before the world wars destroyed Western civilization. Before an entire generations of people were slaughtered.

That is how we stop the Empire. We read Mises. We read revisionist history.

We change the culture.