Welcome to the Machine Part I
The Techne of Progressivism
It is often cited within the Progressive Mythos that free-market principles are the cause of the current alienation of many from their authentic, creative, artistic selves and is responsible for the devolution of the human species into our current collective status as financial, psychological, and even essentially physical slaves now in service to an economic machine referred to as late-stage Capitalism. According to this mythos, the free market naturally gives rise to such systems of oppression as economic competition must produce a clear winner and loser, invariably resulting in the centralization of the means of production in the hands of a very few.
The rest of us, so the story goes, are forced of necessity to subsume our personal desires, hopes, and dreams to this Capitalist machine as we have no choice but to slave away at soul-sucking jobs as part of a materialist automaton, working for a subsistence wage in order to meagerly eke out the finances needed for food, shelter, and other basic life requirements. At the same time, the winners of the Capitalistic game live lives of luxury on the backs of the working class by collecting the profits produced through the toil of others.
Not only that, but the afflictions of colonialism and imperialism are also definitive of this inexorable Capitalist drive. Slaves are sold at a profit, right? Multiple genocides across the planet are blamed on the need to accumulate property and the never-ending drive to deplete resources necessary to quell the unquenchable thirst of the Capitalists in need of ever more expanding markets necessary to maintain top dog status driven by market competition.
The Capitalist system, therefore, is responsible for the vast accumulation of wealth by the few, at the expense of the many. The only solution is to utilize government power to prevent this inevitable sequence of events, by redistributing wealth from the very rich to the very poor. Without such intervention, the losers of the grand Capitalist competition are forced into perpetual servitude to corporate masters that now dominate the once free market and exert complete control over the mass of the population relegated to a state of perpetual serfdom.
This system of alienation has now reached a point of technological advancement where even our very existence as biological beings is threatened. The master class has now become capable of implementing a technocratic system of governance, essentially eliminating the individual’s ability to make personal choices by plugging the bulk of humanity into a virtual machine. We are to become veritable robots. If not literally transformed into cyborgs through a brain-machine interface, then at least relegated to live out the bulk of our meaningless lives inside of a virtual reality Metaverse designed to train the Artificial Intelligence programs destined to build the civilization of the future. In other words, welcome to the machine.
The function of this series is not to prove that this is happening. For those of us who are aware, this truth is self-evident. The function of this essay is to provide an alternative mythos, one more accurately reflective of reality, that posits Progressivism as the locus of modern machine consciousness and offers truly free-market principles as the path forward if we are to protect our very biology against the forces of artificial intelligence and technocracy threatening to overtake the future of humanity.
Bios and Techne
These conversations are often tricky precisely because they are so esoteric, but I think all of us understand the basic distinction between the real spark of life generated through biological being, and the simulacrum created out of inorganic matter designed to pose or even function as a living entity. Ironically, most of the modern myths concerning the advancements of technology containing these perennial archetypes warn of an impending technological takeover. Take a look at any of the movies in the Terminator series. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein creates a monster out of humankind’s Enlightenment-era drive to empower logic over the biological forces of nature. This article from Stanford University expresses how these mythologies have existed within Western culture for thousands of years.
History is replete with examples of the subtle interplay between biological life and technical proficiency. The classic John Keats poem “Ode to a Grecian Urn” asks, “Is beauty truth or truth beauty?” in order to explore the relationship between the logos of truth and the experience of beauty. The ancient Daoist symbol of creation represents the balance between these forces, as the Yang objectivity required for technical understanding forever transmutes into the Yin subjective biological experience and vice versa in a never-ending cycle of creation.
To my knowledge, these fundamental archetypes essentially remained harmonized throughout the ages and cross-culturally until the period now known as The Age of Enlightenment. Occurring on the coattails of Newtonian physics and the empiricism of John Locke, we begin to see a shift in European philosophy and literature towards a utopian belief in the power of logic to transcend perceived fallibilities inherent in the natural world. Percy Shelly writes the wildly popular “Prometheus Unbound” to describe this new adherence to the power of logic and human reason to create a new world where almost anything seemed possible. Philosophers like Rousseau begin touting the use of reason to determine the course of social events through politics.
The ancient healing arts of alchemy are displaced, and modern allopathic medicine is born. With the invention of the steam engine, the Industrial Revolution is launched and the first factories are built. The Enclosure movement begins, and many who had lived pastorally for generations found themselves displaced and forced into the factory system for survival. The farming and artisanal lifestyles that defined the Middle Ages were no more. These political and economic upheavals continue as first Hegel, then Marx, construct a political philosophy based on historical dialectics that remains the foundation of the left/right paradigm which dominates political theory to this day. For a critique of this movement and the use of reason in dialectics, see my previous essay Dialectic and Dialogue.
In 1818 Mary Shelly warns of this trend in Frankenstein, and by 1849 Henry David Thoreau writes, “And lo, man has become the tools of his tools” in his classic A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Clearly, this trend toward alienation, so prevalent in the modern-day, had already begun. The archetype of techne had overtaken notions of bios, as the building of the current Frankenstein monster of technocracy was already well underway. Though still in infancy, the foundations of the modern Metaverse are laid. It was only a matter of time before the current mad scientists developed the technology to sublimate humanity in the web of digital surveillance, transhumanism, and virtual reality that threatens to completely sever the connection between the individual and the natural world.
So the question remains, has all of this occurred as a result of laissez-faire free-market Capitalism as the Progressive mythos implies? Or is there something else, a different perspective that aligns with clear historical facts representing the rise of the machine?
Feudalism, Mercantilism, Colonialism, and the Roots of Modern Globalism
My first question concerning this Progressive myth revolves around the central thesis that a free market is the cause of persistent inequality and invariably leads to the type of mechanistic, alienating workplace endured by so many. If this was the case, there should be a clear indication in the historical record that there was, in fact, once a free market, and that market transformed into the modern-day Capitalism at the root of our current sociological issues. In my study of history, I can find nothing of the sort.
Instead, there is a clear indication that a small group of wealthy mercantilists, in partnership with European feudal lords, engaged in a massive protection racket ensuring the wealth of colonial empire aggregated in the hands of the few. The precursor to the modern transnational corporation, mercantilist organizations such as the East India Trading Company engaged in the colonization of much of the world and were responsible for the theft and pillage of raw materials for the benefit of those politically connected.
If those advocating a free market system believed mercantilism to exemplify their beliefs, we would see this in their writing. The classical liberals of the time, however, railed against empire and posited the free market as a solution to the unjust vagaries of monopolized wealth. One can hardly turn a page of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, or William Godwin’s Essay Concerning Political Justice without observing a refutation of the mercantilist class in favor of a truly free market. Modern libertarians also refute the historical phenomenon of mercantilism as antithetical to free-market ideals.
This article from the Mises Institute outlines the many myths of history often cited as fact in order to propagate the false belief that free markets were the progenitor of modern alienation and wealth inequality. Myths number six, nine, and ten, provide a concise description of the political and economic developments occurring just after the American Revolutionary War which did not, in fact, favor free markets. Instead, clearly, pro-mercantilist policies continue to influence the American economy long after independence from Great Britain.
Myth number seven continues the critique by pointing out how the late 19th-century American economy was characterized by plutocracy, while myth number eight discusses the intimate relationship between business and government well into the 20th-century. While this article provides a tiny snippet of one author’s account, who can deny that government and business interests have always worked together to monopolize markets for the benefit of those few with connections to the political establishment?
Modern-day economies are nothing more than the extension of this same historical trend. The protectionist policies of Feudalism and mercantilism, far from representing the movements of a free market, have always utilized the power of government in service to those in positions of power. This oppressive system of economy has only evolved through the era of the Robber Barons into the present where corporate/government partnerships dominate and Wall Street rules over Main Street. Old colonial systems have been repurposed in the form of the modern global transnational corporate system. The free market did not create this corruption. Advocates of libertarian principles have been fighting this Frankenstein monster for hundreds of years to no avail.
Building the Machine: A History of Progressivism
Conversely, the history of the Progressive movement is replete with influence from the very business interests it professes to deny. Far from a grassroots movement of the people, early 20th-century progressivism is defined by an influx of funding from billionaire tax-exempt foundations continuing the centuries-long tradition of unifying the power of monopoly business with government enablers. Heavily influenced by Marx’s “scientific socialism” and ideas of social Darwinism, these progenitors of modernity quickly began all manner of social engineering projects which ultimately determined the course of human events spanning the next one hundred years.
Modern allopathic medicine replaced traditional naturopathy, first through billionaire funding, then government decree. Captive markets created through outright socialization or other imposed barriers to entry for those seeking alternative healthcare options became normalized. Public education was implemented based on behavioral conditioning techniques mastered first by Pavlov, then psychologist B.F. Skinner. The efficiency movement, first invented by Fredrick Taylor and popularized by Henry Ford, introduced the modern factory system and the ideas of “Scientific Management”. The “father of modern American journalism”, Walter Lippman, openly espoused the use of propaganda to influence the mass mind.
For more information concerning this history and its upper-class connections, listen to this recent interview with documentary filmmaker Duane Hayes, and go to his History of Propaganda channel on YouTube. This history covers Progressive connections to Eugenics, the Anglo-American Empire, and the fortune of Cecil Rhodes.
Perhaps even more controversially, clear upper-class connections can be made with Socialist, Communist and Fascist movements the world over. This interview with Patrick Wood discusses the work of his mentor Antony Sutton. Sutton describes in detail how Wall Street financiers were involved in the funding of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia as well as the rise of National Socialism in Germany. Patrick Wood has continued the tradition by writing extensively on the progressive roots of the Technocracy movement.
Finally, I point to the book Tragedy and Hope by University of Georgetown professor Caroll Quigly which describes how the powers of international business have used government power to build an empire. Starting with feudalism and mercantilism and eventually experimenting with Communism, Fascism, and Socialism as systems of the scientific management of the human population. All of these ideologies can be connected to Progressivism in one form or another.
Conclusion: A Libertarian Historicity
In light of the clear historical evidence, I offer a different interpretation than the commonly held belief that history has been determined by mechanistic forces of a free market inevitably producing a “Capitalist class” profiting wildly off of a centralized means of production. The problem with this theory is simply that, at least since the dawn of European colonization, there has never been a free market. Nor is there indication that proponents of free-market theories ever advocated for the type of working conditions, educational systems or technological advancements designed to alienate humans from their authentic, organic selves.
Conversely, there is ample evidence to suggest that those in positions of power have used government violence to centralize markets into the hands of a powerful elite. This elite then used the combined power of capital wealth and government control to build a Progressive system designed to impose social control on the very lower classes it purports to liberate. This system, scientifically designed and implemented through behavioral education and advanced propaganda techniques, is the very system responsible for the creation of the machine world that now threatens to subsume human bios into the techne of transhumanism and technocracy.
On top of that, rather than a grassroots uprising against the supposed naturally oppressive forces perpetuated by free-market policies, Progressivism has been supported and propagated by the very “Capitalist class” it is supposedly designed to destroy. Who is building the machine here? The upper classes have never supported free-market principles but instead continuously promote a Progressive ideology which not only centralizes production into the hands of a public/private partnership, but imposes the very alienating, mechanistic systems often blamed on free-market policies.
Part II of Welcome to the Machine will focus on the bios of libertarian systems firmly rooted in natural law grounded in ideas reflective of the state of nature. It will also cover how free-markets emulate self-organizing systems frequently found in natural processes.
Please consider subscribing if you are interested in learning more about my perspective, and I look forward to engaging in the broader conversation as those of us resistant to the technocratic takeover continue to seek a healthier relationship with life, the planet, and each other as we move forward.
For more information about my work and to find all episodes of my podcasts, go to www.theshiftnow.com. Paid subscribers to The Populist Papers will receive a subscription to “The Shift with Doug McKenty” and have access to all feature-length versions of the show.