Today Credit Suisse released its latest annual global wealth report, which traditionally lays out what is perhaps the biggest reason for the recent "anti-establishment" revulsion: an unprecedented concentration of wealth among a handful of people, as shown in its infamous global wealth pyramid …
As Credit Suisse tantalizingly shows year after year, the number of people who control just shy of a majority of global net worth, or 45.6% of the roughly $255 trillion in household wealth, is declining progressively relative to the total population of the world, and in 2016 the number of people who are worth more than $1 million was just 33 million, roughly 0.7% of the world's population of adults. On the other end of the pyramid, some 3.5 billion adults had a net worth of less than $10,000, accounting for just about $6 trillion in household wealth.—Zerohedge.com
Go here for a really detailed breakdown.
Yuck.
Okay, let’s move on to populism. If you do an internet search you quickly find many definitions of populism clearly colored by the person doing the defining.
For purpose of the coloring I’m doing, I’m going to pull the two most interesting definitions to me from the definitive Wikipedia. (That was a joke.) (Sort of.)
Classical Populism: espouses government by the people as a whole (that is to say, the masses). This is in contrast to aristocracy, synarchy or plutocracy, each of which is an ideology that espouse government by a small, privileged group above the masses.—Populism, Wikipedia
I chose this particular definition because it is in diametric opposition to my definition of globalism above, thus furthers my point.
BUT.
And. Oh, I found this definition so interesting …
In the late 18th century, the French Revolution (1789-1799), though led by wealthy intellectuals, could also be described as a manifestation of populist sentiment against the elitist excesses and privileges of the Ancien RĂ©gime.
In France, the populist and nationalist picture was more mystical, metaphysical and literarian in nature. Historian Jules Michelet (sometimes called a populist) fused nationalism and populism by positing the people as a mystical unity who are the driving force of history in which the divinity finds its purpose. Michelet viewed history as a representation of the struggle between spirit and matter; he claims France has a special place because the French became a people through equality, liberty, and fraternity. Because of this, he believed, the French people can never be wrong. Michelet's ideas are not socialism or rational politics, and his populism always minimizes, or even masks, social class differences.—Populism, Wikipedia
Ahem. The bolded segments segue nicely into my own ruminations upon globalism vs. populism. Because, ultimately, there is a “presence” in the Universe. Whether or not you choose to call it god or not, whether or not you choose to practice an established religion or not, you cannot deny in LIFE, there is an animating force which is not you and it is not me. Yet it is within us in some way as long as we are alive. To me this is a fundamental reality which supersedes any government, nation, state, geopolitical reality, etc.
Do we serve our governments our nations our states … or do our governments our nations our states serve us, furthering the evolution of this animating LIFE force within us?
The reasons I love the French and Michelet’s conception of populism are:
- The French Revolution (1789-1799) was birthed by the Age of Enlightenment (1715 to 1789) which was birthed by (among other things) the publication of Issac Newton’s Principia of Mathematica in 1687 (which I intend to further explore in another blog post), i.e. the advancement of knowledge (TRUTH’S MOVING POINT) itself destroyed the globalization efforts of the Catholic Church and the European Aristocracy. As long as they were in charge, your individual sacred LIFE, i.e. that LIFE animated by some mystical force over which the Pope and all the ecumenical hierarchy and monarchs had no control over—other than to arbitrarily quench it—was at stake. Literally, i.e. you could end up burning at the stake if you DISAGREED with their very self-serving ideologies regarding LIFE.
- It acknowledges the “animating force” we actually depend on for LIFE and locates it within the individual citizens of the state (and globe). Pesky, that reality.
It’s an interesting parallel: the aristocratic/ecumenical stranglehold upon global capital back then … and the corporate/technocratic stranglehold upon global capital today.
The problem seems to be: Bossy/greedy folks will invariably rise up using whatever platform/rhetoric will work to convince you, the individual, that they know what is best for you, even though they don’t know you at all.
Hmmm…
In God’s Ecstasy, mathematician and philosopher Beatrice Bruteau, traces the evolution of Earth from “mostly minerals” through “chemistry turning into biology” and the biochemistry of bacteria who “are still the ones who run and regulate the planet” to the development of gametes (sex cells) …
Very fascinating stuff, evolution.
And it seems that LIFE favors:
Replication. The world of self-organizing beings evolves. They experiment with ways of interacting with their environments (both living and nonliving aspects) and the better ways are able to make more copies of themselves and become more prominent in the their populations.—God's Ecstasy, Beatrice Bruteau
Novelty. Even better ways to find better ways are developed, better ways to evolve are evolved. It one long fascinating story of the creation of novelty.—God's Ecstasy, Beatrice Bruteau
Responsiveness. … Be-ing is essentially dynamic. To-exist is dynamic, not static.—God's Ecstasy, Beatrice Bruteau
Viability. The new things build on the old things. And as the better working ones crowd out the poorer ones, the population as a whole comes to be characterized by the innovations. Those innovations then become part of the foundation on which the next round of innovations is built.—God's Ecstasy, Beatrice Bruteau
Variety. We must not attempt to reduce everyone to one single kind, nor should any of us undertake to bring all of us to be like ourselves. Diversity and variation must be preserved, nurtured.—God's Ecstasy, Beatrice Bruteau
Bodies of global governance which have a propensity to manifest as inert and sprawling bureaucracies/hierarchies can hardly be accused of promoting novelty, are largely unresponsive enforcers of static and meaningless regulations, tend to crush innovation in favor of old things, and are incapable of adapting to anything. They do seem capable of replicating … rules … and programs that require funding.
Globalism almost by definition has a gnarly undercurrent of cleansing meaningful complexity at any and every level—including nation, state, and culture—in favor of instituting meaningless and obstructive detail in its place.
Hmmm …
It’s not surprising that the efforts of a few to inflict globalism/world domination upon a massive majority continues to fail. LIFE—the animating force—which—even with all the years we’ve spent on the planet—we’ve been unable to replicate—seems to say: THERE IS ANOTHER FORCE AT WORK HERE.
Spiritual.
Mystical.
Inspirational … as to inspire is to breathe …
Whatever you want to call it … its very essence, which is oddly unpredictable and uncontrollable, thwarts the efforts of globalists again and again in organic and mysterious ways that are simply breathtaking to behold.