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The Basic Income (UBI) Antithesis by “HighWeirdness” the contrary case:

The Basic Income proposal makes some good points, but also offers a number of suggestions that do not appear to be sufficiently analysed in terms of long-term viability and sustainability.

The goal of Basic Income is to end poverty and that is certainly a worthwhile and necessary goal. In order to make this goal a reality, I think it is imperative that any proposal designed to meet this goal be vetted rigorously in order to ascertain any potential negative outcomes, unintended consequences or unsustainable features so that any such problems may be resolved before attempting to implement the program.

Should such a program have to be brought to a halt because of a lack of sufficient funding or because it has generated too many undesirable outcomes, such an ending could well create far more havoc on society than our existing poverty issues.

As the thesis states that the removal of poverty via the Basic Income would also cause all “negative phenomena caused by it” to cease to exist, we need to remain aware of the fact that there is not always a straight-line correlation between poverty and all the ills of society. Last fall, statistics showed that 15% of Americans were at the poverty level, yet the violent crime rates as reported by the FBI for the same measured period were actually dropping and have been throughout three last three years, a period that roughly overlaps the recession. From this, we can see that the lack of money is not the only cause of crime, as if poverty had a direct causal effect on crime, the crime rates should have been on the increase. Though the removal of poverty may well alleviate a large amount of the incentive for crime, we cannot afford to believe that it will serve as a cure-all. We’ll come back to this in a bit.

The thesis suggests that the Basic Income should be paid to individuals (except for criminals in prison) not households, but then muddies that definition by suggesting that “minimum income limits” would be applied to “different family configurations” or under certain cases, such as having dependents while a student or while working in a low-paid job. If, as stated, ALL INDIVIDUALS are paid a Basic Income benefit, then the amount being paid into any particular household would be the number of individuals in the house multiplied by the amount of the Basic Income. If there is some difference between a child and an adult in the benefits offered in this program, that difference needs to be very clearly explained, as, under the current thesis, it is not clear. Unfortunately, by providing a net increase to the household’s Basic Income for each child in that household, whether as a dependent of an adult or as an individual, the unintended consequence could well be to essentially encourage having additional children brought into the world under less than optimal situations.

If a person is not employed and is dependent upon the State for subsistence, do we really want to create a situation that could encourage that person to create another life that will also need the assistance of the State to survive? Perhaps it would better to seek alternate homes for these children born to non-working parents. I realize that such an option would be repugnant to many, but so too is the thought of another generation being raised by parents who are not sufficiently motivated to attempt to support themselves prior to starting a family. If society as a whole were made up of nothing but truly enlightened individuals then nobody would consciously choose to have children until such time as they could support them fully, both emotionally and financially, but we’re a long way from that point. To believe that some people would not take advantage of this particular “strategy” of having more children to increase the household’s income is naive. How long could the State reasonably support a potentially ever-expanding base of benefit recipients?

The Basic Income as proposed would provide benefits as follows:

Jobless person = Gets basic income.

Person with a job = Gets basic income + the salary from his job.

Student = Gets basic income + “student bonus”.

Pensioner = Gets basic income + pension.

Non-workers could also receive bonuses for various volunteer or community activities. Essentially, this breaks recipients into four groups, which we’ll look at further later. For the moment, let’s just note that only one of the four groups is working.

Which brings us to funding for the program. The thesis first suggests a selection of ‘normal’ funding methods, with which I have no real problem, other than the wealth tax which is not explained. It then goes on to suggest that “when all banks and corporations are nationalized, their revenues will go to the state…” Whether full nationalization is truly a viable way to run an economy is best left for another discussion, but one point should be made in this regard. When a company is nationalized, the burden of the wages of its employee’s shifts to the state and any potential income tax revenue from those employees merely washes against the higher expense of their wage. If a particular company is not operating steadily at a profit, the overall operations of the company will result in a net loss and an increased demand on the coffers of the State.

The next method of funding offered up is that of “Money Creation”. There are some very real problems in this section of the thesis that may indicate a lack of understanding of some basics of economics and banking. The thesis makes the following statement: “Just pause for a moment, think about how the banking system actually works, and you’ll soon realize that all money is created out of thin air. You see, when banks give loans to the people, the loan money is literally created out of nothing. When you spend that loan money, it eventually returns to the bank(s) as ‘real money’, making them and their owners richer. This process is called ‘economic growth’.” Even though many banks may be poorly run today and their regulation not what it should be, banks are still required to maintain certain financial standards in order to continue operation. They are required to maintain a balance in their account at the Central Bank, a portion of which is required reserves.

The reserve rate is set at a particular percentage of the deposit accounts of the bank and must be maintained in order for the bank to remain solvent. A bank’s reserves are the total of the money it holds in its vaults and the funds in its Central Bank account. All checks drawn on a bank are paid through its Central Bank account, so that account must always maintain a balance high enough to cover both in clearing checks as well as the required reserves.

The reality of modern banking is that banks create and destroy debt not money. When a customer makes a cash deposit of $100 into a bank, that $100 cash is an asset and is offset by the liability of the $100 deposit in the customer’s name. The money held in the checking account is a debt now owed to the customer who can return at any time and ask to have that debt paid by collecting his $100. When a loan is made by bank for $1000, the $1000 in cash is given to the customer, the bank’s asset balance is reduced by $1000 and its loan receivable increased by $1000. The money creation aspect of this transaction is simply that the physical paper asset was transformed on the books of the bank to a receivable in the form of the loan. When the loan is repaid by the customer, the bank’s asset account increases by $1000 and the loan receivable decreases by $1000, thus destroying the debt. In terms of the actual money supply, that is, the currency actually in circulation plus the demand deposits at banks, it increases when the loan is made and decreases when it is paid. There is no thin air in the process at all, merely a transformation of the asset form. Since the reserves must remain above the set percentage of the bank’s total demand deposits, the bank is strictly limited in the amount of lending they can actually do. When a large loan is made, it may reduce significantly the amount of subsequent lending that can be done, since the funds to make the loan are pulled from the bank’s account at the Central Bank.

The thesis makes a suggestion that “economic growth causes more work and more debt to the people and more money to the rich”, which seems to be deduced from the earlier statement that economic growth happens as a result of creating money out of thin air by making loans. It would be more correct to say that economic growth creates more debt to the businesses that are growing, a decrease in the reserves of the banks involved, and little to no effect on anyone else, other than any potential new hires by the growing company. Provided the loan for the economic growth does not default, the bank will only receive income in the form of the interest paid on the loan, as the repayment of the principal merely replaces the reserves that were used at the time that the loan was granted.

“But what if the banks would actually give real money to the people instead of loans? Would it really make any difference from an economical viewpoint”, suggests the writer. What, indeed? Well, let’s see, instant receivership for the banks for starters as their reserves are decimated. Since the writer seems to feel that the money is just created out of thin air, perhaps we could just hand out balloons to everyone with dollar signs written on them. Or maybe, we should just ask the Mints to print a whole bunch of bills and we can all look forward to enjoying economic freedom Zimbabwe-style.

OK, then, back to reality.

If the revenues to support this program are to come from the public, there must be a sufficient labor pool at work to generate those revenues, either through a tax base or through the sales of products and services. Because the Basic Income model does not require anything beyond citizenship, it essentially ‘rewards’ those who do nothing at all, a situation that could ultimately undermine the viability of the program. The proponents of the plan have stressed that all citizens should have the right to work only as they choose without any necessity for service of any kind. Such a program was attempted for three years in Canada during the 1970’s and though it did not instantly create a huge class of ‘couch potatoes’, there was a loss of work effort of 1% for males and 3% for females over the three years that the program ran. Over time, I feel that this nearly inevitable erosion of the work force will create an unsustainable position. Some of the proponents of the plan seem to feel that non-workers would not abuse the system and that everyone would want to contribute to the system because they are treated so much better. I find this rather naive – as we know from Plato, a perfect society does not guarantee perfect citizens.

Since I feel we must take human nature into account, I’ll draw a bit on the Steal vs. Split debate that has been presented elsewhere, updated to reflect the Basic Income program.

Let’s say that we have an initiative to provide some basic services to all members of a community of 1000 members for a period of time. Let the amount needed to provide these services be $10000. Let the value of the benefit to each member be set at $100. Each member is given the option of either providing $10 (through their work or service) to the initiative or to not contribute.

Here are the possible outcomes and the net to the participants in terms of benefits minus cost equals net position:

I work and 999 others also work: 100 – 10 = 90
I don’t work, but 999 others do: 100 – 0 = 100

Hopefully, this should make it obvious why many would choose not to work – their self-interest will dictate that they stand to gain the most if they do nothing. The worker, on the other hand, stands to only gain $90. Faced with this reality, he may soon choose to not work, as that way, he gets more net benefit.

If we add in the provision that nobody gets a benefit if the initiative is not fully funded, two additional outcomes emerge:

I work but any number of others don’t: 0 – 10 = -10
I don’t work and any number of others don’t work: 0 – 0 = 0

Adding these two outcomes to the scenario makes it clear then that the non-worker would get either $100 or nothing at all, leaving him, at worst, where he started, but the worker would end up with either $90 or $10 in the hole, thus facing a potential loss if he works.

To optimize the system, therefore, it is necessary that everyone works, as that way there is equally shared cost and benefit for all, with losses to no one.

Eventually, many pages later, the thesis says: “In short, in a basic income society the people will want to make sure that it stays intact. They know that if they don’t contribute enough, it’s all over, and the old system based on slavery will return.” So, apparently, there is some acknowledgement that the system must generate enough revenue to support itself, tacit as it may be.

We mentioned poverty’s relationship to crime earlier, but let’s take a closer look now. The thesis states that the cessation of poverty would result in a significantly lower crime rate. To reiterate my earlier statement regarding the crime rate and poverty, despite increasing poverty levels over the past several years, the crime rates, as reported by the FBI, have been decreasing for the last three years in a row. So, while we can probably all agree that poverty and crime have a relationship of some sort, it is not completely clear what that relationship is, so we can’t really assume that eliminating poverty will significantly lower crime rates as well. It is likely that there would be a reduction of some sort, particularly in the area of property crime. Roughly half of all violent crimes are perpetrated by persons known to the victim and though the offenders are more likely to come from impoverished homes, the fact that the offenders performing these crimes appear at all income levels means that poverty alone is not the only factor.

Gang formation is largely driven by poverty, but is also by boredom and peer pressure, so removing poverty is only part of the answer; we also need to work on the other factors at the same time. The thesis has stipulated that criminals in prison would not be eligible to receive the Basic Income, stating that this would be a strong incentive for potential criminals to resist criminal activity for fear of losing their Basic Income benefits. I would hope that the loss of their personal freedom would be enough of a deterrent to crime, but since all their basic needs would be met under either case, it might be well worth the effort to make prison life even less desirable.

We next look at the situation of the homeless. In most cases, freedom from poverty would probably get most of the homeless off the streets, assuming that it was economic lack that drove them to live on the streets. At this point, the writer mentions that someone who had a big house and lost their job might not be able to pay their rent and suggests that a form of “social security aid” (note to US readers, this is not Social Security as we understand it) could be provided to help this poor soul stay in his over-priced house. The writer states that this form of aid would still exist in the Basic Income plan, but Basic Income would replace ordinary income support programs. I’ll get back to this type of scenario later.

Further on in the proposal, the writer suggests that alcoholism and drug use would be lessened, along with prostitution. While I can agree that prostitution would most likely be lessened, alcohol and drug use could be a very different matter. Alcoholism and drug abuse are not respecters of any type of societal class and recovery rooms are filled with people from all walks of life and all income levels. Removal of poverty could well reduce the perceived attraction of going into business as a drug dealer, but its effect on the addicted population cannot be as readily assessed. In the case of a full-blown alcoholic, it could well simply act to further enable their self-destructive behaviour.

The next section talks about the idea of the Basic Income allowing people to take on low-paid, reduced hours jobs that they would not have considered without having Basic Income, stating that this would ultimate cause employers to create better, more meaningful jobs because the ability of people to only have to work if they wanted to would mean that nobody would ever want to do those unappealing jobs. Bad jobs would just go away, apparently, dying of neglect. Much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, there are certain types of work that will need to be done to maintain society and the vast majority of them will probably never appeal to anyone as being ‘meaningful’ in any way, but the fact remains, those types of work will still need to be done.

The thesis discusses the idea that the program will increase psychological well-being. While it is certainly true that the stress issues related to lack of money would largely be removed, the writer also suggests that the root of depression lies in poverty, caused by “lack of security, lack of self-esteem, stress, and so on.” If these ‘causes’ only occurred in impoverished households, then rich downtown psych docs would have gone broke years ago, instead of having their waiting rooms filled with depressed people well above the poverty level.

One of the major complaints I have about this proposed program is its overly idealistic position on human nature. One of its basic, though unstated, tenets appear to be that everyone will be happy because they all have at least their basic needs met. There is no effort made to discuss how the working people might feel about the non-workers, but I feel that to think that there would be no resentment there is simply naive.

All of the four groups of recipients mentioned earlier get the same basic income (if they can stay out of prison), but the guy who works gets the added pleasure of watching the three other groups not work. He probably wouldn’t mind students having their needs covered but that added bonus paid just for being a student might irk him a bit. And if that pension is anything other than retirement savings generated by the pensioner’s own prior income that could be rather annoying as well. But that poor guy who lost his job and gets extra support so he can stay in his house will probably send the poor worker around the bend, because he will probably have a real hard time seeing that as anything other than a reward for failure. How could that sort of behaviour ever be justified in a merit-based society? What makes him so special that he gets to stay in his over-priced house instead of simply finding more affordable housing?

One of the main criticisms of this program has been that it encourages idleness as it requires no duty or service of any kind in order to receive the benefits. The writer answers this criticism with his story about the Good Baron and the Bad Baron and suggests that all would choose to serve the Good Baron because he is generous and good. Here’s part of the story that I find particularly interesting: “Would you feel motivated to serve him, knowing how generous and good he is? Or would you rather start abusing him by becoming a freeloader? Which option feels more “right”? If you had any self-respect, you would choose to serve him. Doing otherwise would mean that you’re just a lazy bum. You would of course be allowed to become a freeloader, but how long could your conscience take it? All the other employees most likely decided to serve the lord too, so you would immediately stand out from the crowd, should you choose to just ‘hang around’. Therefore most likely you too would decide to serve your benefactor.”

The reason I found this passage interesting is because, for the first time, the writer seems to be acknowledging that the non-worker is, in fact, a freeloader. All rational beings would of course choose to work for the Good Baron rather than taking advantage of him, because at the end of the day they do actually have a bit of fear hanging over their head – they know that if enough people do not contribute to the effort, the wonderful benefits will stop. Boom! But, wait a minute, isn’t that a bit of stress again, having to wonder if at some point the whole system might come crashing down because there might not be enough folks helping to keep the system afloat? The writer is apparently convinced that even though there will always be freeloaders, that’s ok in the writer’s view because they will only ever be a minority. Considering that many members of our current society view those that they consider freeloaders in a very dim light and harbour resentment toward them for getting what they feel is a ‘free ride’, why deliberately create a system that allows freeloading to be an option at all?

There are several very easy ways the freeloader option could be removed from the start. Either a set number of service hours of some sort could be set as a requirement, or a time limit for the benefits could be set after which point they would be lessened unless the person begins some type of service. No doubt there are many ways to structure the plan in such a way as to eliminate the parasitic freeloader aspect – the above are merely suggestions as a starting point for further discussion. As was demonstrated very clearly in the Split vs. Steal debate, it is patently obvious that parasites can and will destroy the community we seek to build, and if we deliberately build a system that does not prevent that behaviour, we are essentially condoning it. What is permitted is promoted.

I would regard it as part of the responsibility of the community (or state or whatever the governing body behind the basic income) to make sufficient opportunities available for all members to be able to provide some level of service back to the community as a civic duty. The ideas incorporated into the Basic Income seem to promote that all work must be stimulating and freely chosen, but there are clearly some types of work that need to be done, no matter how much they may lack stimulating aspects or appeal. Do I relish the time I spend spreading cow manure on my garden? Hardly, but I certainly do enjoy the results of my labour’s outcome! If all work is supposedly motivating to us, who’s going to clean out the clogged sewer drains? Why not determine what those really unappealing jobs are and have everyone take turns doing them? Not just the otherwise non-working people, but everyone, the doctors, the lawyers, the philosophers, the musicians, etc. No one should be above getting their hands dirty for the benefit of all.

From my own experience, I know that there is an immense amount of self-worth and self-esteem that comes from building competencies through our own work efforts and from setting and reaching goals. Having grown up on a small homestead where our efforts were focused on living as independently as possible, my brother and I were given many, many opportunities to learn new skills. Those opportunities were not necessarily by choice, in that we did not always get to pick and choose which jobs to do. We knew that they all had to be done and so they were accepted without complaint. We had a very stimulating environment above and beyond our responsibilities helping to run the homestead, though – my mother was a classical pianist and my father an engineer with a profound love for mathematics and philosophy – and we thrived under their tutelage. We had wonderful meals from the foods we grew ourselves and dinner table conversations ranged across an amazing variety of topics, as might be expected from a family of Rationals. We were given opportunities to give our input into any number of projects and to see them to fruition through our own efforts.

To give an example, I was ten years old when we decided as a family to build an in-ground pool in the backyard. As the engineer, Dad drew up the plans and provided guidance and supervision, but I and my brother (13 at the time) did the bulk of the work, including laying the block walls for the sides. It took several weeks as our progress had to be carefully monitored, and I won’t deny that it was hard work at times, but the satisfaction at the end was well worth every bit of our effort. I’m sure that there are some who would be horrified at the thought of a pair of kids doing such physical labour, but I can think of few more satisfying experiences in my life.

Realistically, since my father was well paid for his work as an engineer, he could have simply hired people to do any number of the major renovation projects that we undertook as kids, but he knew that it would be beneficial for us to know how to do things for ourselves. No, we didn’t usually have much choice about the work, but there is no doubting the benefit I have gained from being ‘forced’ to gain those competencies. Had my parents not given us the opportunity to share in the work of our home, they would not have had the time or energy to provide us with the stimulating environment that we experienced. As kids, my brother and I did as we were asked because we understood clearly that our efforts were necessary in order for us to continue to enjoy the benefits of our lifestyle. Should not a citizen’s relationship to the State be regarded in a similar fashion?

To illustrate a bit further, we could say that the State is to its citizens what parents are to their children, given that both the State and parents are charged with the well-being of the citizens and children, respectively. Would any sane person (who wishes to remain so) let their children do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted? As a parent of a young child, would you allow that child to choose only the foods they liked to eat, would you require that they eat everything you choose for them and put on their plate, or figure out a position somewhere between these two extremes? As a teenager, would you let them stay out as long as they wanted or would you set a limit? Parenting theory over the years has run the gamut between the purely authoritarian and the purely permissive, and therapists make good money treating the personality problems resulting from either extreme. Somewhere in between the two lies a synthesis resulting in a viable process, if we but allow ourselves to consider it.

A family is a microcosmic society and, ideally, provides an environment that encourages the development of healthy human beings. The family unit provides a training ground for learning about the interactions between its various members in that small inner world in preparation for interaction within the larger outer world of society as a whole. An overly authoritative parenting strategy could very easily produce offspring that are frozen in fear and despair or openly rebellious, while an overly permissive structure might well produce hedonists continually in search of their own gratification. In many families, children are given certain minor jobs to do to help around the house, with these chores generally evolving into more advanced responsibilities as they get older. In most households, failure to do the chores requested results in a negative outcome of some sort, in many cases a removal of a privilege. Children thus learn that cooperating in the work of the household produces favourable consequences, while not completing their duties in the household generates unfavourable outcomes. As parents, we are expected to provide for our children the basic necessities, keep them in good health, encourage their education and help them to develop into functioning members of society. In return, parents generally ask that their children respect their authority and perform minor duties pertaining to the household, with greater cooperation within the household generally producing a more enriching environment. When the children are carrying some of the responsibility for household duties, the parents have more time and energy to invest in providing more enjoyable and/or stimulating activities for the family.

At the higher level, the State and its citizens, a similar type of relationship might be expected to exist. Just as parents can expect their children to help out with household duties in return for the care they provide, should not the State have a right to expect certain duties or services to be performed by its citizens?

Toward the end of the thesis is a long discussion about the many types of jobs in our current markets and the absurdity of most of them, going on to point out that advanced technology will at some point eliminate the vast majority of jobs. It is stated, however, that the mass unemployment is not a problem, since then everyone will have more time to do all the things they really want and spend time with family and friends, suggesting that’s what “creates real well-being, rather than working your life away”. The writer then suggests that everyone will have a new job called citizen and, of course, get paid just for being a citizen. At that point, I have to wonder where the revenue will be coming from to pay all those parasites, er, citizens.

At a deeper level, what happens to the person who gets to do whatever they want whenever they want? The recent article entitled A New World Order included the following extremely important ideas that address that very question:

“In Freud’s tripartite model of the human psyche involving the id, the ego and the superego, we see the rudiments of a dialectical system. The id, obsessed with its own pleasure and selfish drives, demands instant gratification of any of its desires, no matter how socially unacceptable. If we call this the thesis then it is opposed by the antithesis of the superego, which is concerned with morality, community, altruism, conscience, the rules of society, parental prohibitions etc. The ego, the pragmatic, rational agent that obeys the reality principle provides a synthesis of the conflicting demands of the id and superego.

In childhood and early adulthood, the ego may not be too good at its job, but as life experience and knowledge grows, it gets dialectically better and better. Unfortunately, in the West, we live in an irrational society devoted to instant gratification, so the ego is much more attuned to the id rather than offering a proper balance between id and superego. If we could build into society healthy, functioning dialectical institutions, we could transform the world.” If we create a society or State that readily allows the citizens to follow their own desires at all times, never requiring anything in return, will those citizens truly develop into actualized beings or will they perhaps continue to allow their egos to remain tied too tightly to their id? If the healthy person is one who has learned to balance the opposing urges of the id and superego, thus continually utilizing the dialectic process, does a program that appears to strongly encourage the id over the superego really work in the best interest of the individual?

The thesis states that the Basic Income is fully compatible with meritocracy, claiming no privileges of any kind, but if we recall, it also offered a bonus just to students and a bail out to a guy living beyond his means. These both appear to be rewards that are not based on better performance at all, and in the case of the rent bailout, it is just the opposite.

The thesis writer believes that meritocracy could fail if it “starts to overemphasize merit and talent, rendering all those without these qualities as second-class citizens”. I can only say in response that meritocracy is not a pass-fail system, but rather a system that allows each person to find their own highest attainment. There is no shame in being less than first in a particular field or endeavor – it is simply that the other person had more skills suited for that particular event. Each of us has our set of skills and talents, though many have not yet found them, but I would suggest that it is the dialectic process that remains the best possible tool for reveal those hidden gems of our own worth.

A life without challenging aspects is one that may quickly stagnate for lack of change, as it is the consideration of the opposing view and the integration of the two that spurs advancement to the next level. If we accept that our governing body should be operating in the best interests of its citizens, we must ask ourselves if those programs that we seek to create are to the ultimate benefit of the society they serve. And if the society we seek to create is to flourish, it is imperative that we look at not just its duty to us as citizens, but also our duties to it in return – the relationship cannot be just a one-way street. As a form of social contract, the relationship between the citizen and the state should be mutually beneficial if it is to survive. The eradication of poverty is a very worthy goal and I certainly agree that it is one that we must meet, but we also need to make sure that our program is one will can endure and truly work for the benefit of all. I am not against the idea of a Basic Income program per se, but rather would implement it as part of a social contract, with both sides upholding their side of the agreement by performing their duties to the other. It’s simple and fair, mutually beneficial to all parties, eliminates the potential for parasitic behaviour by spreading the responsibility for at least a minimum contribution of effort equally, and allows for appropriate action to be taken if the terms of the contract are broken.

Our Comments:

We thank our two contributors for their well-argued cases and all of their hard work.

Before we provide our own analysis of this important issue, we need to clear up a few misunderstandings. The thesis states: “when all banks and corporations are nationalized”. That, of course, describes a socialist policy, not a meritocratic one. The system we advocate may be called public or social capitalism. Its central idea is that rather than capital being concentrated in the hands of a tiny number of super rich, it is relatively evenly distributed across society. Profits do not go exclusively to the privileged elite but instead to everyone – or at least everyone who’s willing to work hard.

The banking system will be under public control but will nevertheless have capitalist features. Competition is one of the essential drivers of capitalism, and meritocracy will seek to identify the optimal ways of harnessing competition (in current capitalism there’s some healthy competition but also a great deal of wasteful competition and inefficient replication). The new banking system will be based on a large number of competing banks, all of which will have the opportunity to adopt different banking strategies. No bank will be allowed to be “too big to fail”, but each bank will have significant autonomy and the employees of the more successful banks will make more money than those of the less successful. Similarly, the corporations of present-day capitalism – where the ownership class earn inordinate amounts of money – will no longer exist. Corporate ownership, like capital, will be much more evenly distributed.

We have said all along that the system we advocate is a synthesis of socialist and capitalist elements, and it should absolutely never be characterised as purely socialist. No socialist would recognise our system as belonging to their ideology. We are essentially capitalists who assert that the State should dictate to private capital rather than private capital to the State.

In the UK, the banking leviathan HSBC has threatened to relocate its headquarters from London to Hong Kong because it disapproves of what it sees as anti-banking measures being taken by the government. It is utterly unacceptable for any private institution to blackmail the State and demand preferential treatment. Our version of capitalism would kill off arrogant institutions like HSBC and replace them with capitalist institutions that owe their existence and loyalty to the State rather to the paradigm of “stateless Globalism”.

Contemporary capitalist multinational corporations have become extra-national i.e. they operate beyond the reach of any State. This means that the OWO – the super-rich elite – can tell States all over the world what to do. This cannot be tolerated. Groups of private individuals cannot be allowed to favour their particular will over the General Will of the people. Our “State” version of capitalism reins in capitalism and re-establishes who’s in charge – the People, not small, privileged elites. Public capitalism recognises its obligations to the State. It does not immediately relocate to another part of the world if it fails to get its own way. Public capitalism is about ensuring that the citizens own the means of production. So, if American citizens are the owners of their own companies, they won’t be relocating to Mexico or China any time soon, will they?

A rich capitalist couldn’t care less in what nation he chooses to locate his sweatshop factories. He simply wants to maximise his profits and screw everyone else. He has no commitment to his fellow citizens whatsoever. We seek to eliminate that kind of international capitalism and replace it with national capitalism, based on a nation’s capital residing with its people and not with an itinerant elite who have no national loyalty. German capital should remain in Germany, British in Britain, American in America, Finnish in Finland, and so on. We don’t want any international playboys moving their money around at will to maximise their personal profits regardless of the interests of their home nations.

Our project is about reforming capitalism by removing the bulk of the capital and power from a tiny elite and redistributing it amongst the people. To do so, we need to introduce socialist elements, but these are simply to allow the State to regain control of the economy from private individuals, not to start nationalizing everything in sight and creating huge, inefficient, uncompetitive State monopolies and bureaucracies that ignore markets. Given that we support all of the essential features of capitalism other than that private individuals should dictate to the State (as they do in contemporary capitalism), no one could validly accuse us of being socialists.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild said, “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws.” What he ought to have said was: “Give me control of a nation’s money and I will make her laws.” In other words, the people with the money are the power behind the throne: the secret lawmakers who make the world dance to their tune. But why do people let them? It’s not as if stopping them is hard – you simply prevent private individuals from controlling the banks, hence the money. You put the banks and the economy under the control of elected, accountable officials. What could be easier? We are the advocates of the truest form of capitalism – the version that operates according to the General Will of the people and not the particular will of the elite. Public capitalism is the only acceptable form of capitalism.

“In other walks of life, people can take pride in their world without expecting to earn huge salaries. They feel good about themselves because of what they do, not what they are paid. And they take satisfaction from contributing to the public good as well as their employers’ profits. None of that applies in banking, which has been reduced to a narrow calculus of profit and bonus. It is this blinkered view of the world that has made bankers unable to understand why they have to change. They live in a parallel, self-perpetuating universe in which they meet very few people outside their tiny circle. They work so hard that they rarely have time to socialise, and, when they do, it is with other stratospherically rich bankers and lawyers. Their views all reinforce each other’s. And the few outsiders they do encounter, they tend to disdain – usually because they have less money. Bankers are used to getting their own way, because they can wield a chequebook, and collectively, because of the importance of their sector to the economy.” — Mary Ann Sieghart, The Independent We cannot allow the elite to dictate to us. We will dictate to them. If they don’t like it, they can leave, but they will then be declared enemies of the State and never allowed back in. They will become pariahs. That’s exactly what they deserve and they have brought it on themselves.

******

The thesis also states that people in luxury homes who fall on hard times should have their rent or mortgage paid for them by the State. Well, the State certainly isn’t in the business of subsiding luxury lifestyles. Citizens must cut their cloth appropriately.

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The thesis provides the parable of the benevolent lord and evil baron. It commits the error of putting “good and evil” on equal terms. There have been benevolent employers before – people like Robert Owen in Britain in the 19th century – but they manifestly failed to overcome the prevailing system. Why? Because if there are 19 wicked barons to one benevolent lord then the latter doesn’t have a prayer. The evil cartel can put him out of business one way or another. How do you imagine the Old World Order came to power in the first place? Robert Owen bought a chain of textile mills called “New Lanark”, near Glasgow. He created a village for his workers and provided a school, healthcare, childcare and so on. His employees loved him. He wanted his workers to receive all their needs as part of their working conditions, very much in the manner of the benevolent lord described in the thesis. Although he has been described as one of the founding fathers of socialism, he was really just a conscientious capitalist. As soon as he died, his worker communes collapsed. No one else supported his model. The benevolent lords always lose to the more numerous evil barons. The only way to beat the barons is to make it impossible for them to exist, by taking control of the levers of wealth.

******

The thesis states: “Quite frankly, the masses don’t want to study the teachings of Nietzsche or Hegel or hear scientific theories about the nature of the universe. Instead, they want money. Money is their prime motivator, so we should concentrate our efforts on it. Imagine huge crowds holding up signs with the red M-logo in them and shouting time after time: “We want money! We want money!” What an exciting vision! And it can be transformed into a reality. It has been truthfully said that the people can be bought, so let’s buy them.” This is in danger of being the most cynical and mercenary statement ever made. The super-rich have traditionally bought the people in one way or another. Now, our response is supposedly to offer money on a much wider scale than ever before.

WE WANT MONEY! WE WANT MONEY! That sounds like the slogan of Wall Street, not of any movement connected with meritocracy and the spiritual improvement of humanity. Instead of creating a society where people DO want to study Nietzsche, Hegel and science, we are simply to bribe the masses like the cheapest hustlers.

It is not our ambition to pander to what is lowest in people. There are plenty of others happy to do that. We are the party of excellence, of quality, of a higher type of humanity. Our cause is utterly lost if we reject the highest culture – as represented by the likes of Nietzsche, Hegel and science – and spend our time dumbing down to the lowest common denominator.

It’s true that the masses couldn’t care less about the truth of their lives, the world and the cosmos. It’s true that many people would rather shop, watch TV and gossip about celebrities than contemplate the fundamental nature of existence. It’s true that the masses are sheeple, not people.

Nevertheless, it is not our place to join them in their desperate race for the bottom. We are ascending to the top. We are not in freefall in the bottomless abyss of consumerism and celebrity culture. We are the people of the summits, of the highest heights. We are those who seek to see further than ever before. We look to the stars and beyond. And we look inside. Because there we will find God.

If you do not have values then you have nothing. If we have to resort to distributing money to the masses to gain their support – if that is the sum and substance of our vision – then what’s the point?

We will appeal to the highest aspirations of people, not their basest instincts. We seek to make all people into Gods, no matter how retarded, deluded and dumb they may be at the moment. We will transform their consciousness. When we are finished, it won’t be Hegel and Nietzsche who are unknown amongst the masses, but the vacuous celebrities.

There will come a day when statues of Hegel and Nietzsche are in the centre of every town and city, and there will be no celebrities and no super-rich. In that sign we shall triumph, or victory is not worth achieving.
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6/8

Academia Iluministă (93)

The village with two employers:

Here is a parable that demonstrates how basic income works.

Imagine that you live in a small medieval village. You have just moved into the village a few days ago, and you don’t have a job yet. Living there costs approximately 10 gold coins per day. You’re running out of money, so you decide to get a job. There are two employers in the village and the first one is a nasty baron. All his employees are forced to do everything he orders them to do, because if they don’t, he’ll fire them on the spot. However, as long as they serve him, he’ll pay them 20 gold coins a day, and provide housing to them. But if they decide not to serve him, he simply kicks them out onto the streets.

The second employer is a benevolent lord. His employees are always given a choice whether to serve him or not. Those who decide to serve him are paid 20 gold coins a day, and he provides housing to them. Those who decide not to serve him get 10 gold coins a day, and to them too he provides housing. The reason for this arrangement is that he believes every human being has a right to receive something he calls “basic income”, which ensures that your basic needs are always taken care of, no matter what the circumstances.

Now, which one of these two employers will you choose to serve? The nasty baron? You must be joking. Everyone in that village would of course want to serve the benevolent lord rather than the nasty baron. Okay, so you decide to offer your services to the benevolent lord first. It turns out that it’s your lucky day, one of his employees had just moved away, so there’s one vacant spot. After a short interview, the benevolent lord decides to hire you. Then he tells you the rules of the house, which you already knew, since almost everyone you had met in the village had told you how good this man was.

Okay, so now you’re faced with those two options. You can either decide to serve this man, and receive 20 gold coins a day plus housing from him. Or you can decide not to serve him, and receive 10 gold coins a day plus housing from him. So what will it be? Would you feel motivated to serve him, knowing how generous and good he is? Or would you rather start abusing him by becoming a freeloader? Which option feels more “right”? If you had any self-respect, you would choose to serve him. Doing otherwise would mean that you’re just a lazy bum. You would of course be allowed to become a freeloader, but how long could your conscience take it? All the other employees most likely decided to serve the lord too, so you would immediately stand out from the crowd, should you choose to just “hang around”. Therefore most likely you too would decide to serve your benefactor.

This parable shows us why basic income works. You see, there is a law of nature, which goes like this: “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

All intelligent beings obey this rule. To disobey equals madness. If you decide to bite the hand that feeds you then you’ll be left without food, and this decreases your chances of survival. In our parable, choosing not to serve the benevolent lord equals biting his hand. One freeloader alone couldn’t of course ruin his economy, but should enough of his employees become freeloaders, then he would become bankrupt. This in turn would mean that every villager now has only one option left: they must accept the nasty baron as their master. Where is the difference, you might now ask. Both guys pay you 20 gold coins, right? The difference is this: under the benevolent lord you had a guaranteed, unconditional income waiting for you, should you become unable to work for some reason. Under the nasty baron, you have no safety nets at all. Should you become unable to work while serving him, you’ll just be fired and left with nothing. So all those who decided to serve the benevolent lord, had a good reason to do so. By serving him they maintained a “system”, that genuinely cared for them. If they wouldn’t serve him, that system would be destroyed, and replaced with the nasty barons system, which treats them inhumanely. Their motivation to serve the good lord could be defined as “joy of service”, because they are happy to serve a master that serves them back.

In short, in a basic income society the people want to make sure that it stays intact. They know that if they don’t contribute enough, it’s all over and the old system based on slavery will return. And also, if someone cares about you unconditionally then your instincts tell you to show similar care towards that person. So here you have the reason why basic income won’t create a “lazy society”. In fact, motivation to work will be higher than in our current society. Just think it through for yourselves. Which one of these two reasons would you choose as your prime motivator: “forced to work” or “joy of service”? The answer should be obvious.

Now imagine that the people hold elections in that village, to decide which one of those two employers should be the supreme leader of the village. Who do you think would win? Only an insane person would vote for the nasty baron. So they elect the benevolent lord as their leader with a unanimous decision. Now the benevolent lord controls the village and all of its businesses and resources. Soon he decides to implement his basic income system on a larger scale. Every citizen in that town will now receive 10 gold coins per day as an unconditional basic income, which is enough to cover their basic needs. And again, there is no work requirement; you get 10 gold coins for just being a citizen. However, if people decide to do work then they will receive 20 gold coins per day.

Now every citizen in that village is facing these two options: they can choose to contribute to the community that cares for them, or they can choose not to, and just hang around with their daily 10 gold coins. Would the decision be any different from the previous one? Once again, the same instinct would kick in: don’t bite the hand that feeds. Everyone knows that if they don’t contribute enough, their utopian system will crash and it will be replaced with the old one. Therefore most villagers would definitely choose to contribute.

Then imagine that one day their wise leader announces to them that he plans to implement a 100% inheritance tax. This law would guarantee that everyone will have equal starting positions in life, no matter what their surname is, and also all super rich family dynasties, like that of the nasty baron, will be destroyed. Also, this tax would ensure that the basic income system will have enough funding in the future, and everyone would get free education and free healthcare too. Then the citizens are allowed to vote on the issue. Again, who in their right mind would vote against it? The nasty baron and his friends perhaps. But all ordinary citizens would definitely vote for this tax to be implemented. The nasty baron would be destroyed at last, and the society would be even better than what it was before.

But let’s go backwards in time a little bit. Imagine the village election again. What if the nasty baron had somehow won, through a fixed election perhaps? In that case the village would be led in the same way as our current society. Everyone is forced to contribute, because if they don’t, they’ll lose their only decent source of income and their lives would basically end there. Most villagers would therefore choose to contribute, but there would also be many who would try to do their best to avoid serving the nasty baron. As a result, there would be crime, tax evasion, gambling and general laziness. Everyone would just drag along because they’re forced to, but there would be no real motivation behind their actions.

After a few months in the office, the nasty baron finds out that some of his people are planning to overthrow him. He then asks his advisor why it’s so, and the advisor answers: “Because many villagers are extremely poor, crime rates are high, and nobody really wants to serve you, because they think you’re a cruel dictator”. The baron then asks his advisor what to do. And the advisor replies: “Create a welfare system of some sort, which will give something to the poor and unemployed. But make these benefits conditional, so that if someone is without a job, he must continuously seek one, and if he doesn’t, his benefits are taken away from him. Create an office that will watch after the unemployed at all times. And if they don’t seek jobs, or refuse to accept one when offered, then we’ll take their benefits away from them. In addition, there could also be a second system, which would give something to those who refuse to seek a job, because otherwise they would be left without any income, and this would cause them to turn rebels. We could call this second system “social security”. But let’s make this benefit so small, that one can barely stay alive with it. Also let’s make it so that they have to beg for it regularly. This will cause them to turn into beggars and social bums, rather than into rebels.” And after hearing this, the baron calls his advisor a genius, and quickly creates this “welfare system” he described.

And now the village has a welfare system very similar to the modern equivalent. But the people’s motivation to work is still the same as it was before the welfare system: they’re forced to do it. However, this time they won’t lose their whole income should they lose or quit their jobs. Instead they’ll immediately get another “job”, which could be described as a “job seeker”. And if they’re “fired” from this job for one reason or another, then they end up as “state sponsored beggars”, who are forced to beg in order to get their meagre income. Previously they begged on the streets, but now they have to do that in an office, which was founded by the state just for this purpose. This ensures that even the beggars stay “inside the system”, making them less likely to rebel.

This welfare system ensures that the nasty baron no longer has to worry that much about being overthrown by the people. Most poor people have lost their willingness to fight, because they now have enough money for at least food and water. And they of course know that this money comes from the state, so they’re not so sure anymore whether the current leaders really are their enemy or not. So they give up their rebellious ideas and become relatively obedient workers, hang rounds and loafers, who gradually lose all their interest in radical thinking and politics. In time, their children will inherit this attitude. The “I don’t care” generation has been born.

Imagine then that the benevolent lord appears to this new “I don’t care” generation, and started explaining how things could be so much better if his basic income system could replace the current rat race. Would they even bother to listen him? They would just think: “He talks about politics and we don’t care about that because it’s boring”. And should he mention the 100% inheritance tax as a possible solution, he would probably be stoned to death.

This is exactly where we are today. Most people are too lazy, ignorant and sedated to rise up thanks to the various welfare programs. The elite has turned welfare into a mind control method. But it doesn’t need to be like this. The tale about that village described the two ways to use welfare:

1. In the positive and liberating way as an unconditional reward.
2. In the negative and controlling way as a conditional reward.

This is why it’s important to have an unconditional basic income. If there are any conditions, the whole idea gets diluted, and we end up with the old system.

More work = more well-being?

The critics also say that the people’s work effort will decrease under a basic income system. And in this they’re right. When basic income is implemented, a small decrease in the people’s general work effort is to be expected. Because basic income gives people more free time, they’ll of course use it. This means that the people won’t be working as regularly as they now do. There would be “gaps” in the person’s work history, as they would periodically just enjoy their free time. Also, it’s expected that more people will choose “non-productive jobs”, such as becoming a writer, musician or an artist. These could be called “soft jobs”, as opposed to “hard jobs”, such as producing more consumer items to the world.

There have been some experiments and pilot projects on basic income, and in all cases work effort decreased by 1 to 5%. In the Mincome experiment conducted in Dauphin, Canada between 1974 and 1977, work effort decreased 1% by men and 3% by women. But this isn’t as horrible as it sounds. These figures simply mean that people have more free time. When you’re enjoying your free time, you don’t work, so your work effort decreases to zero. When the whole population is enjoying more free time, this can be seen as a general decrease of work effort in the statistics.

Let’s compare those figures with some other examples. Assume that you are forced to have two jobs in order to survive. Then your economic situation gets better, and you quit one of those jobs. Doing this, your work effort decreases by 50%. Here is another example: Imagine if the standard 8-hour workday were shortened by 1 hour. That would mean a 12.5% decrease in the nation’s work effort. So a few percentage points’ decrease in work effort doesn’t mean a thing. Even if it decreased by 10%, we would still have 90% remaining. The most important question here is: does more work really mean the same thing as more well-being?

Just think about what many jobs in our current system actually are about: producing, delivering and selling more stuff to the consumers. Supermarkets are full of useless junk that people buy with their fiat money. After a while, the things they bought become obsolete, causing them to discard them and buy new ones. And so the circle goes on. Is this really what brings us well-being? Making and consuming new stuff as fast as we can? What well-being is this? We are just destroying our planet with our consumer/producer mania. Do we really need new “versions” of various items every year or every month? Think about cars for example. A car model made in 2011 gets you from place “A” to place “B”. But a year 2004 model does the same thing. Or think about toothbrushes. Have you ever wondered when the perfect toothbrush will finally arrive to the market? Well, it’ll never do that because we already have it.

Toothbrushes are such simple items that you can’t really improve them from what they now are. But still we keep “inventing” the same thing all over again, and sell them as “new”. And we advertise them too like they were something amazing. Normal TV programs are halted on a regular basis so that people can see these ads. An emergency stop so that you can stare at the latest toothbrush? Give me a break. The same goes for toothpastes, not to mention everything else. Just think about how much unnecessary work we are doing in order to keep the capitalistic consumer mania going. Terrible amounts of construction, producing, transportation, advertising and selling, just to keep the insane merry-go-around spinning.

If all this unnecessary work were eliminated then we of course would have mass unemployment. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It would mean more free time to everyone. That’s what we really want, right? More free time to be with your family and friends and to do all the things you always wanted to do. This is what creates real well-being, rather than working your life away. And it’s good to remember that we’ll face mass unemployment in the future for another reason too: increasing automation. For this reason, unemployment will become commonplace. But the solution is simple: we just create a new “job” called “citizen”. Everyone gets paid for being a citizen and that’s it, problem solved.
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Is Basic Income compatible with Meritocracy?:

The definition of meritocracy goes like this.

1. Everyone starts from the same line. No privileges of any kind.

2. The better you perform, the higher rewards you’ll receive.

3. All important positions in society will be held by the most talented and most meritorious individuals.

It’s hard to see how an unconditional basic income would conflict with any of these. Because basic income is paid to all, rich and poor alike, and the only requirement to get it is to have a citizenship. This means that it’s not a privilege. Also, there is no conflict with the Number 2 since basic income won’t affect normal salaries in any way. Performing well still earns you higher rewards.

It has been said of meritocracy that it is not “any kind of woolly, soft, liberal, caring, sharing ideology. It is radical, tough, hard, ambitious, demanding and it has the greatest expectations of people, which they are expected to fulfil. The lazy, snivelling and inept won’t be able to hide in a meritocracy.” This statement contradicts with the idea of basic income, which could be defined as “unconditional caring and sharing”. But it all depends on how one defines meritocracy itself. It can be seen a hard ideology, which despises all those who are lazy or without talent. Or it can be seen as a more “soft” ideology, which while expecting a lot from you, will still care about you if you fail to meet these expectations.

It’s our task to decide what meritocracy will mean, and what kind of a future we want to build for ourselves. Communism failed because it was too “sharing”; everyone got the same rewards, no matter how much they contributed. Similarly, meritocracy could fail if it starts to overemphasize merit and talent, rendering all those without these qualities as second-class citizens, who are then left with nothing. Therefore, it’s important to include the “caring factor” in meritocracy; otherwise it will be unable to bring salvation to the world.

I see meritocracy and basic income as a perfect pair, which complete each other. Together they ensure that our message will be heard by the masses. Money is the thing the people want most. If we promise to give them just that in the form of unconditional basic income then the masses will hear all the other things too what we have to say. Most people reject outright concepts such as 100% inheritance tax and the nationalization of all privately owned businesses because they don’t see how these things would benefit them at all. They suspect that this would mean a dictatorship of some sorts. But if you say to them that this is to ensure that each citizen will get 1000 dollars or euros per month as an unconditional basic income then they’ll accept our message more easily.

Quite frankly, the masses don’t want to study the teachings of Nietzsche or Hegel or hear scientific theories about the nature of the universe. Instead, they want money. Money is their prime motivator, so we should concentrate our efforts on it. Imagine huge crowds holding up signs with the red M-logo in them and shouting time after time: “We want money! We want money!” What an exciting vision! And it can be transformed into a reality. It has been truthfully said that the people can be bought, so let’s buy them.

Summary:

To sum it up, unconditional basic income ensures the following:

– No poverty.

– Reduced crime rates, less homelessness, less prostitution, etc.

– Less alcoholism and less drug use.

– Allows people to develop independently and autonomously.

– More free time and less stress: increased psychological well-being.

– Increased work motivation.

– More sensible labour markets and more jobs.

– Employees will have more power, so employers must provide good working conditions and sensible jobs.

– Government saves money in many areas, such as in crime fighting and maintaining prisons.

– Less bureaucracy.

So vote for the unconditional Basic Income and Meritocracy! Want more money? Join the Movement!

“We want money.”
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5/8

Academia Iluministă (92)

Academia Iluministă (91)

The Australian Atlantis?:

“CS” sent us the following amazing tale:

My discovery was made in 2004 on an island off the coast of Australia. I had already read some material about crystal skulls and I was convinced that if there were any more “genuine” ones on the Earth, the Aboriginal elders would probably know about it. I was on Magnetic Island off the coast of Townsville (central North Queensland) and I met a guy in a hostel. I found out that this guy was living on the island with a friend and he had heard of the crystal skulls too and we got chatting. He said that he wanted to show me something very interesting in the bush but he would need to ask permission from the Aboriginal elders before we went “off the beaten track”. He went away and said that he would meet me in the same place to embark on this bush-walk. Sure enough the following day he turned up saying that it was OK.

He gave me a brief history of the island, how it is one of the last islands that the Aboriginals have continued to “own” since “white fella” came along. The island is known as Magnetic Island due to the fact that compasses cannot work properly anywhere near or on the island; the island is granite and exhibits at least four different types of this rock. There was an Australian Naval Artillery battery built there in 1942/43 and it operated from July 1943 until the end of WWII. Its forests are about 2,000 years old and it is one of the only remaining places in Australia where there are wild koalas. There is also a large Tiger shark breeding ground near the northeast coast of the island. My guide said that there were sacred sites for the Aboriginal people on the island and that seeing as they trusted him, we were allowed to go exploring. So we packed up our stuff and left early the following morning.

We started on one of the main tracks up one of the many hills on the island; it was a beautiful place to be. As we walked higher and higher, I noticed that more and more rocks appeared. I then noticed something that seemed out of place. There was a great piece of granite amongst vines, sporting a flat top and two straight edges joined at a right angle. The more I looked around, it was obviously a piece of something much larger that had broken off. I knew that a fort had been built on the Island, however we were not in the right area and this was not concrete! It was granite, and the perfect right angle with smooth flat sides and edges. My friend said that if I thought that was cool, wait until we got higher. I took a photo of this rock but it never turned out. Funny, eh?

So we kept walking up and up and I saw more and more scattered rocks and boulders everywhere. We then came to an outcrop with an amazing view of the valley and hills beyond. My friend said, “Why not take a seat on the Throne?” and motioned to the most amazing stone “bench” I had ever seen. It comprised a large, flat-topped rock that was protruding out of the ground and, behind it, creating the most amazing back/ shelter to the ground rock, was a huge piece of flat granite slab sporting another obvious right angle coming out of the ground. This big piece of granite looked like it had been carved/cut to be a perfect slab about a foot in depth but had obviously been broken and was sticking out of the ground at an awkward angle, as if it had fallen down the hill and got wedged by the other rock. It seemed to be buried pretty deep (as with the flat stone that made the seat) and so much vegetation was growing that it was hard to work anything out. However, I knew this had nothing to do with any of the WWII installations, and it certainly didn’t look like Mother Nature had done it on her own.

I sat on the “throne” and marvelled at the scenery. My friend bent down next to me and pointed towards the smaller hills in the valley. He asked me if I noticed anything about them. I strained hard and came to a slow realisation that all the hills in the valley were roughly the same height and shape. I imagined stripping the trees and there was no question that what would be left behind would be pyramids! I looked at the big rolling hills behind them and saw the beautiful curves of nature. I then looked back at the “hills” and saw straight lines. If the trees weren’t there, I would bet my life that there are pyramidal stone structures under that 2,000-year-old forest. However, it’s very unlikely that anyone, including me, would want to burn away the forest, koalas, wallabies and every other creature that lived there just to see if I am right! We counted the structures and there were 7 in total. My mind was buzzing. What had been here before?

My friend motioned that there was much more to see and that from now on we were going off the track. We headed up behind the throne, and when I say “up”, I mean a 60-degree incline up!! We were climbing up through the bush in places that no man has set foot in for a very long time. It was hard going because by that point there were so many rocks and boulders to climb and we rarely had “solid” ground under our feet. We then found ourselves on another path. It had not been created like the tourist trails on the island. It seemed to be built into the hill and it took a leisurely climb following the hill’s contour. It felt much older than WWII. I got the distinct impression that this path had been very busy at some point in its history. I just had the “feeling” it had seen a lot of feet.

So we walked along this little path, slowly ascending until I looked up and spotted something peculiar and awesome. It was a “tower” made of large cuboid-shaped granite boulders plonked on top of each other. Imagine a little set of wooden bricks piled up in a tower – this is what it looked like but on a much grander scale. I would say it was at least 30ft high if not more; I had to strain my neck and shield my eyes in order to see the top. Did these people have cranes? I was starting to realise that I was seeing another wonder of the world that seemed to defy our understanding of “primitive” people; Stonehenge, pyramids, standing stones all have this same “wow” factor that I experienced that day on seeing the “tower”.

There was another structure about four metres away, same principle but shorter and there were granite rocks everywhere. I was compelled to keep pressing forward and as we did so I started to think about my wooden brick analogy. You know when you build a big tower and it collapses? Well there are always “foundation” bricks left where the structure once stood and then there would be bricks lying around, scattered. Most bricks land quite near to the foundations but there would be a few bricks further away. Now put this brick tower in a steep hill. When the tower collapses some of the bricks fall around the still visible foundation and some bricks would spill out further down the hill. Put this in a real situation with a stone structure on top of a hill and the effects would be the same; whatever the nature of the structure’s demise there would be remnants of the foundations with much debris near the foundations and then there would be scatterings down the hill. It appeared to me that we were nearing what could be the foundation remains of a very big structure indeed.

As we got closer to the very top of the hill, there was an amazing amount of giant boulders towering over us, huge great things proudly dwarfing us and the only thing dwarfing them were the trees. To refer back to my original observations about 90-degree angles I was aware that granite has a way of cracking and splitting that can create some amazing effects. It cracks and splits kind of like a tree can split depending on its grain. Granite also has a grain so it can shed great sheets off itself, break into big pieces, seemingly “sliced” like onion layers. These granite boulders around us were showing signs of this, many plunging gaps between pieces that had obviously been whole at one point, slices that looked like onion layers slowly cracking off. However there was still a “natural” air about it, there were no absolute straight lines and no 90-degree angles. I looked further up to the top of the hill and saw that there were no more trees, just great concentration of rocks and boulders; A “foundation” perhaps?

Instead of going up, my friend decided we should head a little way down the other side of the hill and he pointed out something on the side of the neighbouring hill, on the coast. There was another large stone formation facing out to sea and my friend said “That is known as “The Sphinx” and when you’re on the island the only places you can view it are from where we are standing and from the nearby coast.” It’s not like this thing had any distinguishing features of being a sphinx, no head or anything, but I did see two main rock formations that could have been resting “front legs”. What was going on? Aboriginals building pyramids, stone towers and sphinxes??

We pressed on downhill and I realised that we were heading down towards the coast. We came upon a huge flat granite rock that protruded out of the hill, probably about 20 square foot. You can walk out onto the rock and look down upon a sheer drop off the edge. Balanced in the centre of this flat rock was a standing stone probably about 8ft tall. Not something you see every day and it was an interesting addition to my already crazy day!

My final discoveries on the island were on the coast. We had descended down the hill and arrived at the rocky shore and decided to head along the coast. I noticed a big “rock” because there was something different about it compared to the seemingly endless stretch of rocky coast. I got closer to it and the nearer I got I thought “nature does not make perfect “s” shapes, does it?” I looked all around this “rock” and found the head, and the carved eyes were still visible even after water, wind and salt erosion. It was a stone snake, not a doubt in my mind. There was something about it that said “human made” and not “nature made”. We kept walking and a bit further along the coast my friend pointed over to a rock on the shoreline and I went to check it out. At first I didn’t see anything but then I tipped my head upside down and looked again. It was a canine type head. It was lying with one eye out of the water and the other side of the head looked eroded in the water. The structure of the head was like that of a jackal or dingo: long snout, nostrils, a clear “mouth” line and there were even stumps where the ears should have been but they had broken off. One carved eye was still visible. However, the other side of the head in the water had started to wash the features and head away.

My friend motioned for me to look up and said that we were below the boulders on the top of the hill that we had visited before. Sure enough I was looking up at where we had been standing. Viewing it from down here made it look like the formations had been something once. The fact that a “head of a canine type creature” was directly below this formation and that another formation was already known as “The Sphinx” really got me thinking. After this amazing bush walk, I went to the Townsville library and asked to see everything they had about the island. The librarian was very helpful and was interested in what I found. She found the geology reports from when the island was first discovered by white men and it was an interesting read. It is one big granite rock and has three other prominent types of granite on its surface. I scanned the article trying to find any other findings like my own but to no avail. According to geologists and scientists, all the granite formation are natural. Normally I would accept that; there are many natural examples on the island of granite rock splitting and shedding layers. However, there was no mention of perfectly flat surfaces, straight lines and right angles in any of the documents.

When I was studying the landscape on our trek up the hill I was looking closely at the way the rocks were lying, the placement of the rocks, trying to work backwards to work out how they came to be where they are. It looked like a lot of these rock placements were debris, a real mess of rocks and chaos and many pieces had fallen in such strange and awkward angles that it looked like a disaster zone that had been taken over by forest. “The Throne” was a great example because the only reason the “backrest” was in that position was because it was jammed up against the “bench” rock. It reminded me of the aftermath of 9/11 with mountains of building debris piled up so high. Imagine if a disaster zone like ground zero were to be left unattended for 2000 years. Eventually nature would take over and it would become a beautiful hilly forest and perhaps only the tops of these “hills” would be open to the air. However, only through clearing and digging would the true nature of these hills be revealed.

The fact is, the only way I or anybody could be sure is to clear away all the greenery to reveal what’s underneath. If there are skeleton/remnants of life, they are well buried under an ancient forest and no one has ever dug to find out. Hidden under those trees in the valley, there may be seven pyramids in a similar formation to those in Egypt and Central America. However, the likelihood is that nothing will ever be uncovered because it is a protected forest and my observations are certainly not enough to instigate any sort of archaeological expedition! But to this day I know I found something truly remarkable, and although I may never be able to “prove” it, my intuition on the matter is far more important to me and I look forward to my next visit to Magnetic Island.

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Our Comment:

If CS’s intuition is right, it would imply that something like the Mayan civilisation once existed in Australia. In fact, Magnetic Island is listed amongst a large number of sites in Australia with puzzling features and artefacts that hint at an extraordinary, untold history. See, for example:

http://www.awarenessquest.com/html/australian_archaeological_anom.html

It has been speculated that the ancient Phoenicians may have established colonies in ancient Australia, or even the lost tribes of Israel.
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The Pilgrimage:

“C” wrote to us with the following message:

We don’t know each other, but I trust you. You’ve changed my life. Every single thing I believed before now makes sense. I haven’t subscribed to The Movement yet because I need to be sure that what I believe is not just a new “faith” and to think what I can do for The Movement: that means for myself and all the others. You’ve said you don’t need someone with a blind faith and I agree. I’m still evaluating your words because there’s so much in my heart but I’m not strong enough with all the stuff you say about science.

I’ve begun a letter for you, it was in my native language and I’m still translating it, and it is because you were able to touch all my senses, not only my brain, not only my heart. I’ve had the desire to join you, but I don’t know if I’m good enough. Even if you don’t accept me, I’m feeling one of the Illuminati, because you have told me the truth and because I can’t help feeling part of this. In the past, it has been so difficult for me because every time something new was in front of me I asked myself: “Is it definitive? Is it the only truth?” and I don’t know how and why but it was so clear that it wasn’t. When I dropped in your website, I knew immediately it was the truth, and I don’t know to explain to you why. For me it is so self-evident. I’ve spent more or less five months wondering even stupid things about you: how you have recruited people in the past, because you speak during your meetings so that means you must have a common language, and in the past maybe it was Latin, a lot of time thinking of the way I can create my own religion, a lot of time using the brain to understand r >= 0 and not only intuition; last year I walked the Camino de Santiago for the first time because I was strong enough to do it just for myself, without subscribing to any religion.

I began to be interested in magic and esotericism, reading books of mythology and magic, then moving to all that stuff that seems to be by chance and instead there’s a reason if you stumble into that stuff. The Templar Order has been so fascinating for me in the past, but I didn’t know the truth; now that I know the truth I’m so much happier! I began to be interested in the anthroposophy because of the biodynamic agriculture and it’s so obvious to go from Steiner to Goethe. His theory (Goethe’s) about colours fascinated me, and then I’ve found out he was one of your Grand Masters! Now almost everything is clear! I’m preparing to walk the Camino again in a month just to be alone with a rucksack and the sky and all your words printed (please, don’t delete the website, you are the only person that explained to me these concepts so easily). It costs me time and money, of course, I have to leave my job, but otherwise what’s the point to life if I don’t feel alive? I moved to London in order to study English because I need to apply for a Ph.D. in Anthropology of Food, and now I’m not scared anymore because I know you really exist and you are still there.

Now it’s difficult to be at work every day because I understand that something is even more wrong than what I thought before. Zeitgeist Addendum and the Venus Project are still in my mind and I talk of it with everyone, I read the Meritocracy website slowly, writing my thoughts in order to ask or to communicate with the guy in charge of it for everything I think could be helpful or if I’m in doubt. I’ve written to my former Professor at University to get the name of some authors of theories regarding Leadership that could be important in order to make people understand who really is a leader, not just someone in charge of something. I’ve even contacted Pho’, thanking him for his music, because – as he said to me quoting one of you – people need physical evidence of an idea to believe.

Gentlemen, you’ve existed since the beginning of time; you are the witnesses of the truth. I understand you can’t reveal the secrets because if someone is not “pure” or he is evil then he can use the same secret in order to ensure the world is enslaved or maybe to kill God in the same way Solomon wanted to kill Satan. I can only guess why Freemasonry is one of your biggest regrets. You have taught part of the secrets for good reasons and thinking to help humanity but people instead just decided to get even more power. I understand that you say mind and matter are just two aspects of the same thing; we are here made of matter and we have to act with the mind and knowledge. God is pure mind and he is in the kingdom of the mind. That’s why he can communicate with us just with the mind and knowledge. My first step into this was an Italian, Gustavo Rol. I’ve read a lot about him and what he used to say. I don’t know if he was honest or what, but there are a lot of things that made me think of God, of matter and spirit, of desire without desire, of the Universe.

You said there’s a music that only God can hear. I understand this. I think it’s true, and I remember that Rol once said there’s a link between the colour green, warmth and a concept in music that I can’t translate (la quinta musicale). I can’t understand what that means but the 3 “items” here look like possible. You can see I’m quite poor with my reasons and my experience. I’m here naked in front of you, trying to be quick, writing in the best way possible for me, saying just a very little part of what is in my heart and my mind. I know I have a long path to walk. I would prefer to have more time, and to tell you more of me and to have more teachings from you, but because maybe you are disappearing forever I’m here asking you to teach me. Teach me what you can teach me in order to understand. I’m not rich and I need a guide to get to the point. Is there anything you can suggest to me, a list of books for example (I’ve found a lot of books on your website and I’ve written all the references) or any other suggestion?

I will walk my path, but if there’s a guide I can feel better. I’m passionate about mountains, so the concept of a guide is so important to me: someone that can help you, can warn you, can show you the way, but YOU have to walk it, you have to see and to look around, you have to understand, otherwise once you’re alone you’ll be lost. I hope you are not leaving at all, I hope you will leave a track somewhere, not just in my heart and my mind; this is the most important, I know, but I hope I can meet you again. Just tell me that The Movement website and the Meritocracy website will be still there at least. Just 40 serious people, you said. No, it’s not correct, it’s 41.

Our Comment:

We thank “C” for her poignant and spirited comments, and we also encourage everyone to emulate her example of going on a pilgrimage. You can follow an existing route just as C did, or create one of your own.

The Camino de Santiago – the Way of St James – is a collection of old European pilgrimage routes that reach their end at Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. Pilgrims have been walking these routes for over a thousand years. Catholicism, no matter its faults, has produced wondrously beautiful cathedrals, churches and art and even when Catholicism and Christianity have vanished, the artworks will remain. Pick beautiful, spiritual places for your pilgrimage. Ancient ruins, natural beauty spots, mountains, lakes, forests, cathedrals, picturesque villages, medieval walled towns, poignant battlefields, places of romance, horror, history, magic, and delight: anything that heightens your feelings, senses, spirituality and intuition.
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