Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
THEY DON'T RING THE BELL AT THE CRPTO MARKET TOP! - 20th Dec 24
CEREBUS IPO NVIDIA KILLER? - 18th Dec 24
Nvidia Stock 5X to 30X - 18th Dec 24
LRCX Stock Split - 18th Dec 24
Stock Market Expected Trend Forecast - 18th Dec 24
Silver’s Evolving Market: Bright Prospects and Lingering Challenges - 18th Dec 24
Extreme Levels of Work-for-Gold Ratio - 18th Dec 24
Tesla $460, Bitcoin $107k, S&P 6080 - The Pump Continues! - 16th Dec 24
Stock Market Risk to the Upside! S&P 7000 Forecast 2025 - 15th Dec 24
Stock Market 2025 Mid Decade Year - 15th Dec 24
Sheffield Christmas Market 2024 Is a Building Site - 15th Dec 24
Got Copper or Gold Miners? Watch Out - 15th Dec 24
Republican vs Democrat Presidents and the Stock Market - 13th Dec 24
Stock Market Up 8 Out of First 9 months - 13th Dec 24
What Does a Strong Sept Mean for the Stock Market? - 13th Dec 24
Is Trump the Most Pro-Stock Market President Ever? - 13th Dec 24
Interest Rates, Unemployment and the SPX - 13th Dec 24
Fed Balance Sheet Continues To Decline - 13th Dec 24
Trump Stocks and Crypto Mania 2025 Incoming as Bitcoin Breaks Above $100k - 8th Dec 24
Gold Price Multiple Confirmations - Are You Ready? - 8th Dec 24
Gold Price Monster Upleg Lives - 8th Dec 24
Stock & Crypto Markets Going into December 2024 - 2nd Dec 24
US Presidential Election Year Stock Market Seasonal Trend - 29th Nov 24
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past - 29th Nov 24
Gold After Trump Wins - 29th Nov 24
The AI Stocks, Housing, Inflation and Bitcoin Crypto Mega-trends - 27th Nov 24
Gold Price Ahead of the Thanksgiving Weekend - 27th Nov 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast to June 2025 - 24th Nov 24
Stocks, Bitcoin and Crypto Markets Breaking Bad on Donald Trump Pump - 21st Nov 24
Gold Price To Re-Test $2,700 - 21st Nov 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks: This Is My Strong Warning To You - 21st Nov 24
Financial Crisis 2025 - This is Going to Shock People! - 21st Nov 24
Dubai Deluge - AI Tech Stocks Earnings Correction Opportunities - 18th Nov 24
Why President Trump Has NO Real Power - Deep State Military Industrial Complex - 8th Nov 24
Social Grant Increases and Serge Belamant Amid South Africa's New Political Landscape - 8th Nov 24
Is Forex Worth It? - 8th Nov 24
Nvidia Numero Uno in Count Down to President Donald Pump Election Victory - 5th Nov 24
Trump or Harris - Who Wins US Presidential Election 2024 Forecast Prediction - 5th Nov 24
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Fascist Star Trek Federation Vs Free Market Aliens

Politics / Financial Markets 2009 May 12, 2009 - 07:00 PM GMT

By: LewRockwell

Politics

Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleJohn Bowman writes: Several years ago, I remember reading an historical analysis of alien movies and other popular media, with an interesting conclusion that went something like this: With a few notable exceptions, during times of war, widespread geopolitical strife or general oppression or misery, E.T. is generally depicted in popular media as a benevolent visitor, yet in times of peace or general prosperity, E.T. is instead portrayed as a merciless invader.


The study tracked several cycles back and forth from aliens being good guys and bad guys, saviors or slavers. I suppose Orwell might have a thing or two to say about that, as would any political skeptic: the masses must have an enemy (even if it is imaginary and lives beyond the stars) in order to keep them "united for the common good" and their attentions diverted from the sleight-of-hand (or "mouth" as it were).

In fact, there is some pretty credible evidence that the entire sci-fi domain (at least insofar as films are concerned) is nothing if not a gentle, alluring introduction to the monstrous tenets of Karl Marx and his deplorable Communism. Take Star Trek, for instance (since a new movie is coming soon – Here I give my apologies in advance to Star Trek fans. My intent is not to taint or diminish your enjoyment of those productions, but rather to leverage certain facts to make what I believe is an interesting conclusion).

By most accounts, very entertaining films, but the undercurrent is this: Mankind has found the workers’ paradise, the mythical Utopia. There are no wars, at least not with each other, but only with villainous sub-species who are thinly veiled metaphors for those ugly creatures who would reject Marxist and Neo-Marxist ideologies of the politburo-esque ("vanguard of the people"), The Federation. There are no possessions either because the proletariat dance in their magical gardens of abundance whether they work or not. This is all due to the technological discoveries of free energy and energy-to-matter conversions. Basically, resources are infinite, so there is no want or need or strife.

We’ve all laughed at the quote that "if the government managed the deserts, there’d be a sand shortage within a decade," but interestingly, in order to successfully operate a communist state (or any statist form or government), one actually must have infinite resources to squander because no finite amount can be enough for the waste and corruption that ensues. Thus, I do suppose that futuristic, high science fiction with infinite resources is indeed the proper platform for Marx’s cultist filth.

Oh yeah, and there’s also no money in Star Trek, which brings me to the point of this note. Yep, this is where I tie it all together, gold, Star Trek, E.T., productivity, and dark ages, all in a single piece, with a common thread and some semblance of coherence. And it’s rather interesting, too, because I’m about to tell you something you’ve never heard before. I’m going to answer, with great authority, the mystery that biologist, astrophysicists, cosmologists, average Joe’s and sci-fi writers of all stripes have pondered to no avail for many years. I’m going to tell you, a priori, what E.T. is really, really like, and absolutely, unequivocally whether E.T. will be friend or foe, and that’s not a jest. I can do so with inductive reasoning constructed from eternal truths of the universe, whereas the pros try to use deductive reasoning (or whim) that is virtually certain to produce incorrect solutions. Moreover, they are all looking in the wrong places for their deductions, because the answer to this mystery starts with the seemingly benign concept in Star Trek, mirroring the petulant tantrums of Lenin, in which money no longer exists.

First, I can tell you, unequivocally, that E.Ts., unlike captains of the Enterprise, have money, and they use it every day for almost every transaction, and they make a lot of transactions. Further, the money will almost certainly be a rare, metallic element, such as gold or silver, or an indestructible, painstakingly created alloy.

I know this because the full spectrum of investigation into the matter does not end with Hubble, the patentably absurd Drake equation, or the wisecracking goof, Carl Sagan. Rather, it is rational figures from Aristotle to Adam Smith who have guaranteed this aspect will be evident.

For example, [I paraphrase from a John Lee economics article] Aristotle discovered, formulated, and analyzed the problem of commensurability (how to compensate another and therefore make a fair transaction). He wondered how ratios for a fair exchange of heterogeneous things could be set. He searched for a principle that makes it possible to equate what is apparently unequal and non-comparable. E.g., how does one compare apples to oranges? Or decide whether the go to school or to work? Well, it’s all but impossible (or I should say quite inefficient and uncertain) without money.

Aristotle claimed that money, as a common measure of everything, makes things commensurable and makes it possible to equalize (or relatively value) them. He states that it is in the form of money, a substance that has a telos (purpose), that individuals have devised a unit that supplies a measure on the basis of which just exchange can take place. Aristotle thus maintained that everything can be expressed in the universal equivalent of money. He explained that money was introduced to satisfy the requirement that all items exchanged must be comparable in some way.

Most people take money for granted, like air, and very few truly stop to think about the importance of money for society. It is more important than the invention of the wheel, and even more important than a written language. For example, without money, what we know of today as trade, but really any imaginable transaction between individuals (whether human or alien), would be quite nearly prohibitively expensive, whether buying things, going to work, or getting married and raising children. Of course, Adam Smith (a great villain to communists), revolutionized the world with an economic framework that accounted for true productivity and rise from poverty with what he described as division of labor, today termed as comparative advantage. In effect, if you are good at growing grain, while your neighbor is good at mending appliances, you can leverage the optimal skills of both through trade. This comparative advantage results in revolutionary amplification of productivity on a grand scale, and it is what prosperity is all about. We can all master every field of endeavor, merely by devoting ourselves to one field and trading for the skills, labor, and talent of others.

Of course, comparative advantage cannot exist for long without a sound, honest currency. In a word: money. Accordingly, without money, the human race would never, no matter how long one observes, evolve even to hunter-gatherer state, much less to agrarian society. The same applies to E.T., and last time I checked, it would take a highly advanced, productive, and wealthy society to conceive and accomplish a flight of light-years through empty space to visit our blue planet. Yet, without money, there is no such thing as an advanced, productive, and wealthy society, and probably not really even a "society" at all.

Hence, E.T. must have money, which appears to be an immutable requirement. Furthermore, the money must be "honest" such as gold or silver, rather than irredeemable fiat promises to pay or any form of debt-based money. Our own history is rife with examples of the failures of paper money going back to 600AD. They all collapse, and with them the underlying society or civilization. Civilizations that turn to paper money simply do not last long enough: on average a mere 39 years, which is not long enough for a civilization to develop the technological and productive wherewithal to start exploring space. And with each collapse, they must rebuild anew, sometimes from scratch, like our own Dark Ages circa 500AD to 1500AD. A THOUSAND YEARS to recover just to the standard of living that previously existed before Rome debased its currency and imploded thereafter, while Constantinople stood throughout with the rock-solid, honest, gold Bezant.

So I can practically guarantee that when E.T. does land in the UFO, he/she/it will have silver coins in its pockets with a lovely profile of some antennae beauty, and further, being a refined diplomat and all, will display great tact to avoid laughing out loud at our demonstrably ignoramus notions of paper money. I can also tell you that E.T. will decidedly NOT say "take me to your leader."

You see, that phrase is the tyrant’s vision, not the hallmark of a free society, where individuals decide their own course and are not the property of the state, the government, or "the leader." Moreover, it takes a free society to have peace, prosperity, and liberty – you know, the ideals behind the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Only a free society, with the notions of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government will ever, ever, ever rise to the level of space exploration and beyond. With very few exceptions, government does not ever produce anything of worth, much less innovate great technological advances. That is all done in a free market by private individuals and entrepreneurs, unhampered by government regulation. Government does, however, destroy these things, most times quite effectively with high taxation, heavy regulation, and bribes to the politically well-connected; or as Mises famously stated, "Government is essentially the negation of liberty" which means the negation of prosperity, the negation of peace, and the negation of great civilizations and accomplishments.

No, our E.T. friend will not come from a "Federation" or some government-sponsored entity, but will be a trader or explorer with great curiosity, and also great kindness and benevolence, having been reared by a free, prosperous, and peaceful society that disdains intervention and coercion. If any of those elements are not present in E.T.’s host civilization: freedom (which is a prerequisite for), prosperity, and peace, E.T. will never, not ever get off the ground to find us across the vastness of space. We certainly have nothing to fear from belligerent, totalitarian races out there (e.g., the Borg). They will never get off their own planet, not alive anyway, even if they do evolve to something higher than an ant colony.

May 12, 2009

John Bowman [send him mail] lives in Washington State.

http://www.lewrockwell.com

    © 2009 Copyright LewRockwell.com - All Rights Reserved
    Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in