Survival__ Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation - Charles George Smith [164]
8. Diffusion of power and the means of wealth/income creation. Widely distributed ownership of the means of production and power is the foundation of a stable economy and democracy. Recall that inequality is lowest when wealth is widely diffused and highest when income and wealth are highly concentrated.
This diffusion does not require any State-mandated transfer of wealth or income; rather, all that is needed is to end the State's current redistribution of the national income and wealth to the Elites. The State enables and enforces countless cartels and monopolies which concentrate wealth, income and power in positive feedback loops which protect and extend both corporate and State monopolies.
The diffusion model calls for widespread ownership of the means of production (land, tools, innovation, factories, workshops, distribution centers, skills, energy production, etc.) and a flexible, resilient network for exchanging energy, ideas, products and services.
9. Base Decisions on an Integrated Understanding. The mass media/marketing complex (i.e., talk radio, TV "news", etc.) is conceived and manufactured to distract, confuse and misdirect "consumers" into conveniently manipulated narrow passageways: false ideologies, simplistic divisions, life reduced to shopping, integrity sacrificed for financial gain, etc., all of which distract the citizen from an integrated understanding of the State's inevitable insolvency and the collusion of the mass media with the financial Plutocracy which owns it.
An integrated understanding rests on these foundations:
A. Ask "to whose benefit?" at every step of an investigation and digging for a complete, truthful answer.
B. Ask where did this good or service originate, how and where was it manufactured, and what are its full lifecycle costs, that is, the costs not reflected in the price tag as they have been covertly transferred to the community at large. (For example, costly-to-clean sludge is dumped in the Bay for taxpayers to clean up.)
C. Be skeptical of answers provided by self-serving mass media, Power Elites and high-caste State technocrats and elected officials, all of which are beholden to the Power Elite's interests; be alert for propaganda, simulacrum and misinformation aimed at masking self-serving Elites' exploitation and dominance.
D. Subject every transaction/purchase/decision to an adult cost-benefit analysis on all time scales, seeking to reveal marginal returns, hidden costs and comparing the value offered by alternatives--including doing nothing, or saving the surplus to be invested elsewhere at a later date.
E. Investigate the consequences of participating in the transaction, purchase, contract or network; ask what else could have been done with your energy, time, capital and skills.
A practical example would be to reach an integrated understanding of food/diet and its effects on human health. One would quickly ascertain that packaged food and fast food contain unhealthy amounts of fat, sugar and salt and thus must be consumed only occasionally and in small quantities.
An integrated understanding of food and diet requires the growing of actual food to understand the process, the work, the disappointments and the joys, and to taste the difference between a agribusiness product (for instance, a tomato) and a garden-fresh tomato.
It also requires learning how to cook and an acquaintance with nutrition--that is, what the human body is selected to find nutritious and what is inherently unhealthy to humans.
Without an understanding of how food is grown, what is inside packaged and fast foods, how to prepare healthy cuisine and what effects food has on health, then one cannot claim to have an integrated understanding of food, diet and health.
Without an integrated understanding, it is essentially