Basic Foundations of Economics
Let's start with the simplest things. In general, the economy is a system that is designed to satisfy the needs of people, both vital, such as nutrition and protection from an unfavorable environment, and those caused by a person's desire for self-development and self-realization in creativity in one form or another (in this case, I mean normal a person with intact psyche and motivation).
There are 24 hours in a day, of which at least 8 hours a person must sleep, this is a physiological minimum. Thus, 16 hours remain for vigorous activity, of which another 1 to 2 hours a person must spend on eating, hygiene procedures, as well as rest during intense activity. Thus, the total time of active useful activity will be no more than 14-15 hours.
Consider a primitive society in which there is no centralized economy and no system for the redistribution of goods and services. Part of the time from the available 14-15 hours a person must spend on ensuring his vital needs: to get food, to make clothes for himself and his family, to build a dwelling in which it will be possible to hide from the weather, to produce tools of labor and hunting, etc. and only when a person has provided vital needs, he can spend the remaining time on himself and his self-realization in one form or another.
And here we come to the most important question. What is the ratio between the time that a person is forced to spend on vital needs and the time that he can spend on himself in various socio-economic systems?
If we consider a community that lives in the forest by hunting and gathering, for example, a tribe of North American Indians, that is, work in which the time it takes to satisfy vital needs is estimated on average from 3 to 5 hours per day. The fact that the clothes, weapons and household items of these tribes were usually decorated with rather complex patterns and were made of very high quality, in itself suggests that they had a lot of time for this. If you are hungry and you need to get your own food most of the time, then you simply cannot be engaged in decoration, embroidery or delicate skillful carving on wood or bone.
The transition to sedentary agriculture and cattle breeding led to the fact that the amount of time that now had to be spent on farming increased. Objectively, this is due to the fact that if earlier it was required to simply collect ready-made fruits in the forest, now work has been added to prepare the land and plant plants, as well as the subsequent processing of fields and harvesting. If we consider animal husbandry, from the advantages we get the fact that now you do not need to track down and chase prey, but at the same time, livestock must be constantly fed or grazed, protected from predators and robbers, stored food and provided shelter for the winter period where it is cold.
As I wrote above, the problem of protecting sown fields in sedentary agriculture is also very acute. The farmer, unlike the nomad-gatherers, is tied to his field. If he has spent enough labor to plow and sow the field, then it only makes sense if he can then harvest from this field. Moreover, it was he, and not someone else. Therefore, this field must be guarded either by oneself, or by hiring guards for this, and they will need to pay something.
In a slave system, slaves are forced to work as long as possible in order to learn the maximum return with him. Accordingly, they are given a minimum of time for sleep, food and the departure of natural needs, so that the slave can work for the master for 12-14 hours a day. In other words, the slave is forced to work at the limit of possibilities much more than is required to satisfy his own needs, in order to satisfy all kinds of needs of the slave owner, which go far beyond the necessary, and often even reasonable.
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This length of the working day for the majority of the population is preserved both under the feudal system and under early capitalism. In 1741, a decree was issued in the Russian Empire that limited working hours to 15 hours a day. But in practice, it began to be carried out far from immediately and not everywhere.
In 1897, the length of the working day for adult men in the Russian Empire was set at 11.5 hours, but gradually the workers sought to reduce it, and in 1908, a 9.5 hour working day was set in factories in the Moscow province. And the usual 8-hour working day throughout the country was established by a decree of Soviet Russia on November 11, 1917.
But even with an 8 hour working day, a person actually works much more than he had to spend on his livelihood, for example, a representative of the North American Indian tribe. And taking into account the fact that labor productivity today has increased many times due to mechanization, automation and mass production technologies based on a deep division of labor and continuous production, the time during which a worker works out his wages, according to some estimates, averages about 10 -15%. The rest of the time he works in the interests of the employer.
Concluding our consideration of this issue, we need to fix two points.
Firstly, the time during which a person can perform this or that work is limited. In the maximum limit, it is 16 hours a day, since it still needs time for food and sleep. Moreover, in the case of work for 16 hours, sleep will be less than the physiological minimum of 8 hours.
Secondly, despite the fact that today in most countries an 8-hour working day is established, this does not mean that a person must work at least 8 hours to satisfy his needs. In fact, even in the absence of machines, mechanisms and various technologies that seriously increase labor productivity, meeting basic life needs takes much less time than we are forced to work today. It is no coincidence that in his work "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR", published in 1952, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin wrote that one of the tasks set by the USSR is to reduce the working day, first to 6, and then to 5 hours …
Now compare this with the proposal of the oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, who proposed in 2010 to legalize a 60-hour work week instead of the current 40-hour work week, that is, 10 hours 6 days a week.
In general, a general reduction in working hours is possible primarily because with the growth of mechanization, automation and the introduction of new technologies, labor productivity increases sharply. Let's see how this process took place in agriculture and what changes have occurred in this area over the past 100 years.
If we look at tsarist Russia at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, then the situation in agriculture there was depressing. On average, the yield of most crops was CAM-3 or CAM-4. In this case, the unit of measurement "sam" means that one unit of grain weight was sown in the spring, and 3 or 4 of the same unit of grain weight were harvested in the fall. For example, they sowed 1 pood of barley, and collected 3 or 4 poods of barley in the fall. It goes without saying that this value does not have to be whole. It can be up to 3.24 poods per one pood of seeds sown.
In other words, it is the reproduction rate.
For comparison, in 2017, the wheat yield in Russia averaged 29.1 centners per hectare or 2,910 kg, with an average sowing rate of 200 kg of seeds per hectare. That is, today the yield in agriculture is 14.55 samov.
Accordingly, the yield in "sam-3" means harvesting only 6 centners (600 kg) per hectare.
In fact, the "sam-3" yield is a very low indicator, since with such a productivity at least one third of the harvest the peasant has to immediately set aside for seeds for next year. Accordingly, he has only 400 kg per hectare left.
The own need for bread per adult is considered equal to 20 poods per year. The average composition of a peasant family was 6 people or 3.5 adult eaters. Accordingly, an average peasant family required 70 poods of grain (1146 kg). (numbers are taken from here)
That is, just to feed the family members, the peasant needed to cultivate 3 hectares or 3 tithes of land (one tithe is equal to 1.09 hectares). But in addition to his own consumption, the peasant must pay taxes, feed the cattle with something, be able to sell something in order to buy the necessary tools and items with this money, which he is not able to produce himself. For this reason, an allotment of 10 acres of land was considered the necessary subsistence minimum. But more than half of the peasant families had a smaller allotment. As of 1905, 2.9 million peasant households had an allotment of less than 5 dessiatines, 3.3 million households from 5 to 8 dessiatines, 4.1 million households from 8 to 15 dessiatines, and only 2.2 million had allotments. exceeded 15 dessiatines. At the same time, 2.2 million peasant households did not have land at all and were forced to hire farm laborers or landowners,or to those who had a surplus of land.
Low agricultural productivity in pre-revolutionary Russia determined the structure of the distribution of the population between town and country. Only 15% of the population lived in cities, and the remaining 85% lived in the countryside. And at the same time, they hardly fed not only those who lived in the city, but also themselves. Hunger in the countryside was a constant phenomenon practically until the 1930s, that is, until the moment when due to the enlargement of farms, the introduction of mechanization and modern agricultural technologies, the productivity of food production was significantly increased. If we look at the current situation, then about 15% of the population directly works in agriculture, that is, the proportion is the opposite of what it was at the beginning of the 20th century on the eve of the 1917 revolution.
The issue of providing the population with food is one of the most important for any economy, since every inhabitant must eat something every day. At the same time, it is also desirable that this food be of high quality, varied and in sufficient quantity. Interruptions in the supply of food almost always lead to a social explosion and often end in revolutions. The shortage of bread in Petrograd in February 1917 was one of the reasons that led to the bourgeois revolution, the abdication of Nicholas II and the overthrow of the monarchy. The creation of an artificial shortage, which extended to many products, as well as the introduction of a rationing system for the distribution of basic foodstuffs such as butter, sugar, sausages in the USSR in the late 1980s, was one of the factors (although far from the only one).which ensured the consent of the population to the destruction of the socialist system, which took place in 1991-1993. Now, during an attempt to carry out a coup d'etat in Venezuela, the creation of problems with providing the population with food is used as one of the tools.
We can talk a lot and beautifully about the transition to a new technological order, about the need to create a "digital economy", to translate everything and everything into "digital". But after all this reasoning and speeches at the TOK Show, all the speakers go to a cafe, restaurant or just home to eat quite real food, not "digital" food, for which someone has to grow food, collect them, and then cook.
But let's return again to the consideration of the economy of the peasant economy at the beginning of the 20th century, because on its example we can very clearly see the general structure of expenses, which is characteristic of the entire economy as a whole. Another important point will be that in this case we will be able to consider this structure in kind without using money. This is important for us, since Karl Marx postulated the rejection of money in a communist society, which is still one of the key provisions of Marxism.
Suppose that a peasant family of 7 people, of which 2 are adults and 5 children, has an allotment of 10 dessiatines, which is approximately 11 hectares. In the year under review, they managed to obtain a yield of 3.4 "samov", which amounted to 680 kg or 41.5 poods per hectare. With a total of 10 acres we get 7480 kg / 456.7 poods of grain.
From this volume, the peasant must immediately withdraw and set aside 2200 kg for seeds for next year. This is a reproduction fund. If he does not, then next year he will have nothing to plant.
Remains 5280 kg.
Based on the size of the family, he needs to set aside 80 poods or 1310 kg of grain for food for the family. This is the necessary minimum of food, without which the family and the peasant himself will die of hunger.
Remains 3970 kg of grain.
He also has a horse and a cow. The grain rate per horse was 8 pounds per day or 1314 kg per year. The standard for cattle and pigs was two times less, that is, 657 kg. In total, another 1971 kg should be left for livestock feed.
There remains 1999 kg of grain or 2 tons.
These two tons of grain is the profit with which the peasant must, first, pay taxes. And what remains after that, he can sell or exchange for what he needs. The profit from the total volume of the harvest is only 26.7%.
At the same time, we took the very minimum for food for the family and feed the cattle and did not foresee any reserve "for a rainy day", which, for good reason, is also necessary.
One way or another, the excess harvest will eventually go to feed someone else, since the peasant will have to get rid of this excess in one way or another. Sell to pay taxes and taxes, or exchange in kind for the services of a blacksmith or miller. And if we look at the volume that we got in the remainder, then this is at most one more family that has only a horse, or two smaller families in the city that have no livestock at all.
It should also be noted that the grain, which will be sold in order to pay taxes and taxes, will be redistributed among the residents of cities, including those very civil servants who live at the expense of these taxes.
We can express all this in money, taking a certain cost per kilogram of grain, but the essence will not really change. We will always have three main components: the system's reproduction fund, the population's survival fund, and the remainder that we can spend for the wrong needs: invest in expanding the system, invest in the study of new technologies in order to increase the efficiency of the system explicitly, or on creation of a common infrastructure in the form of roads, etc., in order to increase the efficiency of the system indirectly, by reducing transport costs, to spend on non-production areas, for example, on defense or culture. Or we can take and build ourselves a new palace with golden toilets or a new luxury yacht with a railing made of dinosaur bones.
Thus, the difference between feudalism, capitalism and socialism is only in who and in what way appropriates the surplus of resources produced by the economy, and then decides on what to spend this surplus of resources.
Under feudalism, this is a class of feudal lords who, in one way or another, secured the right to land, which in this historical period is the main resource that can generate the main wealth of that era - food. Accordingly, the surplus of food produced from the peasants is withdrawn mainly in the form of payments for the use of land and other resources, such as pastures, forests, etc., which formally also all belong to the feudal lord. Whether a particular king, prince or master (underline the necessary) from the point of view of the population is good or bad, is determined by whether he leaves something to his peasants beyond the subsistence level or scrapes everything clean.
In a medieval economy, food is the main resource, everything else is secondary. And since land is the main resource for food production, the ruling elite, in order to ensure for themselves the fullness of power, must establish control over the land as a key resource.
The situation changes under capitalism. New technologies and mechanization can dramatically increase the efficiency of agriculture. This, in turn, allows people to be freed up and sent to cities. But sending them to cities only makes sense if you can keep them busy there. Again, new efficient technologies in rural areas cannot be applied without the constant production of fertilizers, machines and mechanisms that in practice ensure this increase in efficiency, as well as the constant supply of machines and mechanisms with the necessary spare parts and fuel.
Thus, these very factories and plants, as well as machines and mechanisms that provide economic growth, become the key resource in the economy. That is what Karl Marx called "means of production." Accordingly, those who control the means of industrial production acquire real power, since everyone else, including feudal lords, turns out to be dependent on them. If the capitalist at his plant does not produce fertilizers, or tractors and spare parts for them, as well as fuel and machine oils, then the feudal lord will again sharply decrease the efficiency of his agriculture, which means that the feudal lord will receive fewer products due to which he forms his own wealth and position in society.
When we talk about socialism or communism, then the produced surplus of resources in one way or another turns into public property, after which it must be distributed in one way or another for the benefit of society as a whole, and not in the interests of a narrow circle of oligarchs and their servants. And for this, appropriate public institutions must be created, which must be empowered to manage public resources. How they will be called, a socialist state, councils of people's deputies, communities of local self-government or something else, that's another question. The name does not change the essence of the matter, since there is a certain task that someone must solve. Therefore, when Karl Marx writes that under communism the state should die out, he is mistaken. The parasitic state must die out,which protects and serves the interests of the ruling parasitic elite. But society still needs social institutions that, on the one hand, will distribute the public resource, and on the other, control the correctness of its spending. Otherwise, parasites will simply find another way to parasitize on a public resource.
In other words, we must say that the new socialist or communist state must be filled with a new content and meaning of its activities. On the one hand, the functions that this socialist state must solve must be clearly formulated, and on the other hand, real, rather than fictitious, mechanisms of control over the activities of officials of any level by the whole society must be created. We need really working and feasible procedures for recalling both deputies of any level and governors, heads of administrations and even the president. It is necessary to introduce liability, even criminal, for false pre-election promises. And there can be no secret ballot procedure either in the State Duma or in legislative assemblies of any other level. All voting protocols must be published by name, so that society knows its "heroes". And if someone is afraid to openly express his point of view, then he should not go to the parliament.
There are only two main forms of interaction between people in society:
The first form is communal, when the resources and products produced by society are distributed in the interests of the whole society as a whole.
The second form is parasitic, when a significant part of the resources and products produced by society are seized in one way or another by a relatively small group of people, after which they are spent to meet the needs of an exclusively given small group.
There are no other forms of interaction. Everything else is just derivatives of these two, or their combination in one proportion or another.
A parasitic model of relations arises when a certain group of people begins to live at the expense of the rest of society, taking more from the social system than it invests there. Caring for their own interests and well-being is more important for this group than caring for the interests of the rest of society. When such a group occupies the position of the ruling elite, then all processes in society are restructured in such a way as to meet mainly the needs of this group.
The parasitic model of interaction can take various forms, including being combined with the communal model, when at the level of the parasitic elite a certain analogue of the community is formed, that is, an organized group that acts in the common interests of this group. But such groups are always small in number, compared to the society in which they parasitize. Another version of the parasitic model at the macro level is the colonial states, when the entire state as a whole begins to live at the expense of parasitizing the colonies, pumping out resources from there to the metropolis. In this case, the elite of the metropolis transfers the main burden to the inhabitants of the colonies and reduces the level of parasitism on the inhabitants of the metropolis, as a result of which the standard of living in the metropolis rises for all categories of the population. To designate this form of parasitism, there is even a special term "chauvinism", which refers to the ideology of national superiority, which substantiates the right of one people to exploit and oppress other peoples.
The community model is based on the fact that the interests of society as a basic system come first. We all collect resources to solve those problems that are more effective to solve together. We then transfer these resources to the management of people whom we trust and whom we elect to be the managers of common resources and products. In such a society, its own elite is also inevitably formed, that is, people who have higher abilities in certain areas, and who are given certain rights to dispose of public resources or the right to make certain managerial decisions, but their main task is to act and to build all processes in such a way that the development of the whole society as a whole, and not just their narrow group, proceeds.
I want to make an important point right away that when it comes to the communal model of interaction, this does not mean at all that resources and products will be distributed equally to everyone (equalization). The distribution takes into account the current economic and political situation, the contribution of each to the common cause and the position of this or that person in a given society. At the same time, the position in society is determined not by the amount of accumulated wealth, but by real services to this society. There is no concept of private property in the community. There is only communal property and personal property. Anything that is not personal property belongs to the community as a whole. All other things being equal, the communal system and common ownership of the bulk of the resources and means of production allows resources to be allocated more rationally, which is critical during periodswhen the amount of resources becomes limited for one reason or another. The proof is very simple. All countries, regardless of the form of government, during the war, which is the most acute form of crisis, fully or partially move to the socialization of resources and the introduction of restrictions on the right to private property or its temporary cancellation.
In the communal model, there are only two types of property. Personal property and communal property.
Personal property refers to what is necessary to support the life of an individual or family, and which can be managed by that person or family alone. The house, clothing, household items, personal transport, small workshop can be personal property, as they can be created and used by one person or his family. A plant or factory cannot be privately owned, since one person is not able to build or use a factory or factory without involving other people, as well as additional resources from the community redistribution fund. Therefore, it is always communal property.
Communal property is something that belongs to the whole society as a whole, but this communal property in a large state should be divided according to levels in the same way as the communities themselves should be divided. This requirement follows from the fundamental principles of the organization and functioning of large social structures. It is impossible for one person or even a small group of several tens of people to manage a society of hundreds of millions of people. For this, the necessary governing structures must be formed in a given society. The principles of building these structures may differ slightly, but ultimately it will be a hierarchical system, when at the lower level small groups of people are formed - communities or labor collectives, which then unite into larger and larger associations. In most, like today's states,and in the same USSR, this hierarchy was formed according to the territorial principle. Now in the Russian Federation, the territorial principle of organizing power is also used, when municipalities are at the lower level, federal subjects (oblasts, territories, republics) are at the middle level, and the Russian Federation as a whole is at the upper level. In general, an essentially similar system was in the days of the USSR, where there were local and regional councils of people's deputies, and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was the highest authority. In general, an essentially similar system was in the days of the USSR, where there were local and regional councils of people's deputies, and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was the highest authority. In general, an essentially similar system was in the days of the USSR, where there were local and regional councils of people's deputies, and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was the highest authority.
At its core, the new socialist state should be a community of communities. Accordingly, communal property should be distributed in a certain proportion between these communities. At the same time, one important point must be realized here. In practice, it is not so important who owns the property right, the main thing is who owns the right to dispose of this property or resource. The most telling example from life is the sale of a car by proxy. Formally, the car seems to belong to the old owner, but another person owns the car and gets a "profit" from owning it.
Another example from the times of the USSR, where the absence of private ownership of the means of production was formally declared. But at the same time, the actual power in the USSR belonged to the party elite, which occupied all the key management posts both in the economy and in the political system of government. In the post-war period, the party elite began to gradually turn into a parasitic structure, which began to take more and more resources for its existence. At the same time, she began to isolate herself from the rest of society. For them, there was a separate supply and service system, separate houses with improved apartments were built, a system of official and unofficial privileges was formed that were not available to the rest of the population. And the higher a person climbed up the party pyramid of power,the more privileges he was entitled to. By the way, at one time Yeltsin B. N. gained his popularity among the people precisely due to this very "struggle against privileges", for which he actively advocated. Although in reality all this turned out to be a lie, since after the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s, the Yeltsin family received such "privileges" that the party nomenclature of the USSR never dreamed of, but this is already a topic for another conversation.
So, we come to one important point to which I would like to draw special attention. The absence of private ownership of the means of production in a socialist society of the times of the USSR does not protect against the emergence of a parasitic elite in such a society, which begins to direct an ever greater part of the resources produced by society to satisfy the needs of its narrow group to the detriment of the rest. The party elite of the USSR did not have private ownership of the means of production in the USSR, but they had the right to dispose of the resources produced by society. It was they who decided what the level of wages would be, that is, how much of the produced resources to direct to meet the needs of the population itself, and what to spend for other purposes. It was they who decided where and what factories should be built, what technologies should be developed, and which ones should be stolen,that is, what to spend the total "profit" that is formed by the country's economy. It was they who formed the imbalance in the economy between the sectors of the economy, which ultimately led to a crisis in the production of consumer goods and the formation of the so-called “deficit”. At the same time, this crisis did not concern them themselves, since they were provided through a separate closed supply system, which did not formally exist, but everyone who lived in the USSR knew perfectly well what it was and how to use it through the so-called “pull”. At the same time, this crisis did not concern them themselves, since they were provided through a separate closed supply system, which did not formally exist, but everyone who lived in the USSR knew perfectly well what it was and how to use it through the so-called “pull”. At the same time, this crisis did not concern them themselves, since they were provided through a separate closed supply system, which did not formally exist, but everyone who lived in the USSR knew perfectly well what it was and how to use it through the so-called “pull”.
And, finally, it was the ruling party elite who decided to dismantle the socialist state and restore capitalism, destroying and crushing the USSR, regardless of the opinion and desires of the population. And they were able to successfully implement this decision of theirs due to the fact that they had real power to dispose of resources, law enforcement agencies and the media. Moreover, this power of theirs was controlled only by themselves, but could not be controlled by the rest of society, since the corresponding mechanisms and procedures were either absent altogether or were inoperable, such as, for example, today's law on referendum, according to which it is almost impossible to hold a referendum if you do not have support from the current government.
If a parasite appears in a system, then the processes that occur in this system begin to degrade and lose efficiency, since the parasite withdraws certain resources from the system, either giving nothing at all in return, or giving very little, in comparison with others. When there are too many such parasites, the system eventually collapses.
The main task of the parasite is to remove as much as possible from the system, giving as little as possible in return, ideally not giving anything at all. At the same time, parasitism in society can take a variety of forms.
The most primitive and obvious form of parasitic relations in society is the slave system. The parasitic elite takes away from the slaves almost all the product produced, leaving them only the minimum that ensures physical survival. At the same time, they also try to deprive the slave of his rights as much as possible, putting him in complete dependence and submission to the owner.
One of the main disadvantages of the slave system is that it is based on physical coercion. That is, the slave owner must have the ability to physically force the slave to obey his orders. It goes without saying that this cannot be done alone, therefore in the slave system there will always be a fairly large number of punishers. But in order to ensure their loyalty to the owner, they will also need to be included in the parasitic system of relations. As a result, a hierarchy begins to build, when the top-level parasites begin to spend part of the seized resources to buy themselves the loyalty of punishers and overseers. Thus, we are beginning to build a parasitic pyramid of power.
You don't need to be a great mathematician to understand the fact that such a system will have limits to growth. As the number of slaves increases, you need not only to increase the number of overseers and punishers, but also to build a hierarchy of subordination within, because otherwise you simply cannot centrally manage a large number of people. But the addition of each next level of the hierarchy will mean that those at the top of this pyramid will receive less and less of the withdrawn resources and products.
The second serious problem is that it is not enough to buy the loyalty of the participants in this punitive system. Each higher level must constantly demonstrate to the lower level its real ability to harshly suppress insubordination or, even more so, an attempt to rebel. And the larger the pyramid of power becomes, the more difficult it is for the upper level to keep it subordinate.
And, finally, the third serious problem of the slave system is that it has a serious internal contradiction in terms of managing the entire system.
On the one hand, the slave owner is trying to deprive the slave of his own will, he needs unquestioning obedience to the will of the owner, an obedient and obedient slave.
On the other hand, when a slave is turned into an obedient executive animal with a broken will, he ceases to show any initiative.
In other words, if the slave owner parasitizes on slaves economically, then the slaves, in turn, begin to parasitize on their masters from the point of view of managing the system. If the owner did not give the order in time or made a mistake when giving it, the slaves do not give a damn about it. We did what we said, we didn’t say anything, we do nothing. And here the point is not even that the slave, turned into an obedient performer, does not want to take this initiative. He physically cannot do this, since in the process of forming the correct slave from him, the necessary skills and abilities were either not formed, or were suppressed in one way or another.
Thus, the main contradiction of the classical slave system is that, on the one hand, in order to ensure maximum control over slaves, it is necessary to suppress the will of the slave and the desire to act independently, and on the other hand, to increase the efficiency of activities and reduce management costs, it is necessary to increase the independence of the slave's activities and create a system of motivation for activities in addition to fear of punishment.
Within the framework of the classical slave system of the so-called "Roman law", this contradiction cannot be resolved. And without his permission, it is impossible to increase the size of the system. Consequently, new models of parasitism had to be formed, more efficient in economic and organizational terms. And such models actually appeared.
Above, I have already said that there are only three ways to force a person to do something to his detriment.
The first way is violence in one form or another. This method was originally used in the slave system.
The second way is to create dependence on some vital resource. A feudal system is built on this method, in which land, which is the main resource, without which it is impossible to provide oneself with food, is declared the property of the ruling clans. At the same time, the feudal ruling clans are inherently armed gangs that are ready to rob their neighbors at any opportunity, as a result of which there is also an urgent need for the population who lives and works on the land to protect and protect their land plots and the future grown on them. harvest. That is, there is another important need for protection from strangers.
And the third way is deception, when a person is convinced in one way or another that the actions he performs are very beneficial and useful to him. A certain scheme of action is proposed, a model of behavior, following which any person supposedly can get rich, increase his social status or satisfy any of his other explicit or secret desires. The capitalist system uses deception as the main way to force a person to act, and to act independently, on their own initiative. Moreover, such a person begins not only to act on his own, but also in one way or another to organize those people for whom this desire to act has not arisen, and if necessary, even compel them to such an action.
In general, if we consider the system of parasitism that has formed by now, then it uses in one form or another all three methods of coercing people.
From those people who believe that it is possible to "get rich honestly" and also possess the necessary managerial and organizational knowledge and skills, the lower level of the parasitic pyramid is formed. They are the main drivers of the economy, organize and manage the processes of creating material wealth and ensuring the functioning of the technogenic life support system. It goes without saying that such people are allowed to have a standard of living slightly above average. But the main part of the product produced by such a person is actually confiscated from him under one pretext or another. In the form of payments of interest on a loan, payment of taxes, payment of various fines, as well as due to the need to purchase more expensive "elite" goods and services in order to "correspond to their social status", the price of which is artificially inflated.
At the same time, so that a person does not understand for as long as possible what is actually happening, an appropriate ideology of "liberalism" is created, the task of which is to form in these people a worldview that will justify their model of behavior, including parasitism on other people.
For the rest who do not want to take the initiative and run on their own like a squirrel in a wheel, the second method is used and a system of dependencies is formed, which forces them to integrate into the system. In the modern world, this dependence is based on a man-made life support system, in which everything you need for life can be obtained only for money. That is, if a person refuses to get a job himself, then he actually loses the opportunity to survive, or will be forced to agree to a very low standard of living.
The basis of this dependence is urbanization and deprivation of people not only of the right to land, which is the only independent source of food and various natural materials, but also the skills of life support in the natural environment, including the cultivation of those very products or their extraction by gathering and hunting. …
Finally, for those who are trying to actively resist and fight the existing parasitic system, the first method of coercive suppression is used both officially, through the formed system of legislation and monopoly on the use of force, which are controlled by the ruling parasitic elite through state institutions, and covertly, through criminal structures., which are an indispensable part of the parasitic system (I will dwell on this in more detail a little later).
Parasitism is based on the simple fact that it is easier to take someone else's than to create or produce your own, provided that the victim cannot, for one reason or another, fight you back. To do this, the victim must be either weaker if using force or addiction formation, or stupider if using deception. And ideally, if the victim of the parasite is weak and stupid.
But it is difficult to count on the option when the parasite will always be weaker than its victim, if it acts alone. Especially when you consider that it is desirable for the parasite not to receive damage in the event of a violent collision, since this immediately weakens it, which makes it difficult for it to follow the parasitic model of existence for at least the recovery time. Therefore, parasites usually organize into groups and work together. At the same time, it becomes extremely important for them that their victims, on which they will parasitize, are disunited and act alone. Therefore, the main principle that all parasitic systems follow is the “divide and conquer” principle. The more disunited human society is, the easier it is to parasitize on it.
For example, a certain gang seized control of the only source of drinking water in the district and began collecting payments for the use of that water. This gang is stronger than each of the tribes that live in this territory. Therefore, while these tribes are disunited and each act for himself, they will have to pay tribute for the opportunity to use this water. To defeat the gang, they need to unite. The gang, in turn, in order to retain its ability to parasitize on the inhabitants of a given territory, must in no case allow these tribes to unite, or even better, create conditions under which these tribes will break up into ever smaller groups.
The contradiction that arises in this case is that further division and weakening of these tribes will inevitably reduce the "food base" of these parasites. But in a situation where the question arises of what to choose, to lose part of the income due to the weakening of the tribes or even to lose the ability to parasitize due to their strengthening and possible unification, the parasite will always choose the first option, since the possibility of parasitizing in a smaller volume is better for the parasite than lose this opportunity altogether.
Interestingly, when the parasitic elite begins to build the parasitic pyramid, then one of the main tasks of maintaining control over this structure is not to allow groups at lower levels to grow excessively. And in cases where such growth occurs, it is timely to divide such groups into smaller parts. For the same reason, the basis of those ideologies that are imposed on the population by the parasitic elite, for example, liberalism, is individualism, when the interests of an individual are declared above all, and the main principle of relations is the principle “every man for himself”. At the same time, the fact that parasitic governing structures are united in both formal and informal communities and in fact act together is carefully hidden.
When I began to seriously analyze and analyze the topic of parasitism in human society, very interesting things began to unfold in a new light.
For example, it became abundantly clear that the destruction of the North American Indians by the Anglo-Saxon civilization that colonized America was inevitable and natural.
In fact, the social organization of the tribes of North American Indians was a union of many communities, where each tribe was a tribal community of hunters and gatherers. The formation of a parasitic model of relations in such a society is impossible for several reasons.
Firstly, since the Indians were primarily hunters, almost everyone, including women, was good at handling weapons, especially with a bow and arrow. Accordingly, in such an environment, it is impossible to build a parasitic model based on forceful subordination.
Secondly, despite the fact that the territories of North America were divided between tribes, unlike the same peasant agricultural communities, in their way of life the Indians were not tied to a specific territory. If you look at how the life of the North American Indians was organized, then they did not build capital structures and were nomads who could freely move from place to place. Accordingly, in such an environment, it becomes difficult to build a parasitic model based on the formation of dependence. If we consider the example of the seizure of control over the only source of drinking water by a certain gang, then in the case of the North American Indians, if for some reason they cannot defeat such a gang, they simply leave for another territory, but they will not pay tribute to the bandits.
When the seizure of the territory of North America by the parasitic European civilization began, which at that time was developing along the colonial path, that is, the parasitism of the "developed" European countries at the expense of the colonies they had seized and the peoples living in these territories, it very quickly became clear that obedient slaves from North American Indians do not work.
Many have probably heard stories about the "stupid Indians" who once sold the island of Manhattan for cheap glass beads. Even if this story is true, then the North American Indians dealt with this form of deception very quickly, and then a real large-scale war began, which, unfortunately, they lost. Moreover, they lost primarily due to the technological superiority of the invaders, as well as their meanness and methods of waging war, for which the Indians were simply not ready.
I will not now dwell in detail on the description of how the Western European states jointly carried out the genocide of the North American Indians. There are already many articles on this topic. I want to say that in the parasitic colonial model of relations that the Western European civilization is building, and it is still building, their destruction was inevitable.
Firstly, because by the time the active seizure of North America began, Western European countries first of all needed a new territory, not people, because at that time and with the same level of agricultural technologies and organization of agriculture, there was overpopulation in Western Europe. That is, they had enough people of their own.
Secondly, the colonial model, in its essence, is a modernized slave system, in which not its own population, but the so-called "natives" from the occupied colonies act as slaves. This model of relations makes it possible to raise the standard of living of the population in the metropolitan countries, thereby strengthening social stability. At the same time, for this scheme to work, a local parasitic system must already exist in those territories that are being captured. As a result of the seizure, which, in fact, is possible mainly due to the technological superiority of Western European civilization, especially in the military field, the parasitic superstructure changes, while for the common population nothing fundamentally changes, except for increased exploitation. At the same time, its own parasitic elite in the captured colonies is partially destroyed, and partially incorporated into the parasitic pyramid of the metropolis.
If we look at how the colonization of almost all territories took place, then we will see just such a picture. That part of the local elite who agree to work for the occupiers in order to maintain their elite position are integrated into the metropolis. Their children study in the metropolis, they keep their fortunes in the banks of the metropolis, they invest the earned capital in buying real estate in the metropolis.
So it was during the colonization of India and the territories of the former Persian Empire by the British, so it was during the colonization of the territories of North Africa by France. And if it comes to that, then exactly the same thing happened quite recently, when, after the collapse of the USSR, Western countries turned Russia into a raw materials colony, moreover, by the hands of the local former party elite, which from the regime of latent parasitism in the late Soviet Union moved to open parasitism after its destruction …
But back to the colonization of North America. This model did not work with North American Indians. And it did not work for the simple reason that in their society at the time of the beginning of colonization, parasitic forms of relations did not exist, so the Western elite had no one to rely on. It would take too long, if not impossible, to form a new parasitic elite. Thus, the Western European states had only one single way out, to completely destroy the civilization of the North American Indians, who cannot be turned into slaves in order to free the territory from them. And in their place, bring representatives of those peoples from which good slaves are made, for example, the same blacks. Why are Negroes good slaves? But because the slave-owning system of relations in Africa was formed even before the arrival of Europeans there,since there are many territories on the territory of Africa with a lack of certain basic resources that contribute to the emergence of a parasitic model of relations due to the formation of dependence.
And now let's remember what has recently been heard quite often from the lips of the so-called "liberals"? Many of them complain that the territory in Russia is good, there are many resources on it, but, alas, they were not lucky with the population. The population in Russia, they say, is "bad". Too "lazy", and even a "scoop" of them rushing at every step.
If we translate this into normal language, then in fact they are complaining that the Russians are bad slaves. They do not want to work for small salaries and all the time they talk about the social justice hated by the liberals ("scoop" and rushing).
From this, taking into account the above, a very simple conclusion follows. If bad slaves are obtained from the local population, then it must be destroyed in one way or another, and a new, more suitable one must be brought in in its place. And this process is actively taking place in Russia right now, it is enough just to break away from the "zombie", throw off the veil of propaganda and look around with a sober gaze.
Why are people from Central Asia brought to us? First of all, because they agree to work for low wages, and also will not be indignant and defend their rights, as most of them are here in an illegal or semi-legal position.
Why are they verbally telling us about the "national health program" on TV, but in reality there is a rapid decline in the provision of normal medical services, primarily free? Because the local population should die out as quickly as possible.
Why do all the "reforms" of education only lead to a deterioration in the level of real knowledge of graduates? Why waste resources on training those you seek to exterminate? Moreover, it is more difficult to deceive a fully educated person, which means that it will be more difficult to parasitize on him.
Thus, if in the very near future the population of Russia does not wake up and remove the current ruling parasitic elite from power, it will simply be physically destroyed, as the multimillion population of North America was destroyed.
Dmitry Mylnikov