Survival__ Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation - Charles George Smith [16]
The eighth point is that a terribly ironic mechanism gathers force: since free markets are inherently risky (that is, ontologically based on risk and return and shifting supply and demand), the Plutocracy and State functionaries/parasites both have compelling incentives to escape exposure to market forces via exemptions.
Thus State functionaries buy political support for public-sector wages which are two or three times higher than market wages, and healthcare/pension benefits which are unmatched by private enterprise. Parasitic firms such as defense and healthcare contractors gain "guaranteed contracts" or other exemptions from market forces, while the Plutocracy gains exemptions via public guarantees (backstops, bailouts and low-cost loans) of risk-laden private banking bets.
The irony is that Neoliberal Capitalism supposedly reveres free markets: but that is mere propaganda. A counterfeit free market is erected for middle class consumption but behind the veils of obscure tax laws, sweetheart deals and the like, the Plutocracy and State functionaries both avoid any exposure to actual market forces which might limit their share of the national income.
The ninth point is that reality does not respect the intellectual constructs of the Elite (let's call this dominant ideology Neoliberal Capitalist Democracy for want of a more accurate term). As a result, as reality increasingly conflicts with this understanding of "how our world works," then that intellectual framework must increasingly substitute carefully designed simulacra for authentic structures (for example, elections in which 98% of all incumbents win re-election) and work to derealize any direct experience which runs counter to the Plutocracy's narrative.
This process of bridging the widening gap between what we experience and what we're told we should be experiencing via the substitution of simulacra for authentic structures is central to this entire analysis.
Why are the State and the Plutocracy (two sides of the same coin) substituting simulacra for authentic structures and truthful accounts? Let's answer by asking: what would a truthful accounting of cui bono-- to whose benefit?--reveal?
A truthful accounting would reveal that the status quo benefits the rentier-financial Elite and high-caste technocrats at the expense of the rest of us. (For a detailed account, please read It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street by Wall Street insider Nomi Prins.)
That is, the 99% who do not own 2/3 of the productive assets of the nation and the 75% who do not belong to the State/technocrat upper-caste which serves the system for its own self-aggrandizement.
In sum: a truthful accounting of cui bono would result in the exposure of the over-reach, exploitation, deception, fraud, mismanagement, malinvestment, manipulation and self-aggrandizement of the Plutocracy and its high-caste State/corporate technocracy (two "masters," one system). A truthful accounting would result in the shattering of the illusion that supporting the status quo is in your self-interest.
Maintaining this illusion is the key to maintaining the Plutocracy and the State's share of the national income. This explains why the Plutocracy and the State (two sides of one coin) are obsessed with creating sham structures and narratives designed to lull the citizenry into the comforting illusion that they are the beneficiaries of:
Democracy (when 98% of incumbents win re-election, can that be authentic democracy?)
Free press (when a handful of corporations own the vast majority of the print/broadcast/radio/web media and the State manipulates statistics without media challenge, can that be an authentic "free press"?)
Higher education (a factory for producing high-caste overseers/enforcers for the State/Plutocracy Plantation)
Healthcare (a quarter of the citizenry have no healthcare,