Monopoly Business Model, Reality and the Search for Individual Liberty

OPINION / COLUMN
By LUIS MIRANDA | THE REAL AGENDA | JUNE 16, 2012

It is interesting to read the thoughts from people who were trained in the traditional educational system think about the current global economic crisis. Their explanations are usually filled with theories that they read in their carefully crafted textbooks, which they are more than willing to regurgitate in order to put down someone else’s opinions, as if what they learned from textbooks was an authentic reflection of reality. Unfortunately, college degrees and flashy titles do not provide a real insight into the true reasons why we are in crisis today.

History is shaped by those who wrote it, and therefore it only provides a one-sided reference to which we can look back at. The issue is where should we look in order to have a good idea about what happened and how that shapes what is happening today in all aspects of life.

The current economic crisis is a very broad topic, which cannot be discussed in one op-ed. I wouldn’t presume to be able to explain the current state of affairs the world is in by writing or responding to questions that are usually e-mailed to me by readers. It is much too complicated. That is not to say that I would run away from trying to provide a starting point.

So here it is:

We’ve been under the same economic and financial system for at least the past 100 years. This system was conceived much earlier by very smart people who recognized that monopoly was the best business model for themselves. Since then, monopoly men have controlled every single aspect of human development. They have shaped the very social fabric of modern society by maintaining a tight grip on resources, their availability, development, and as a result, the way markets work. Therefore, we cannot even begin to believe that there has ever been the slightest sign of a free market economy anywhere in the planet.

Throughout human history, people associated themselves to create strong groups that helped them take care of their interests. The success of such groups relied on how much each individual’s needs and rights were respected. Much of the success of the earliest forms of civilization were based on the respect given to natural law and individual rights such as the right to life, private property, self-defense, privacy and so on. The moment one of those rights were violated, or when force was used to limit or otherwise eliminate such rights, civilizations struggled to find the balance again.

These struggles have been permanent throughout history because there have always been individuals who sought not to respect individual and natural rights (natural law) but to find the slightest edge to govern over others. Then came the idea that something called Government could be better at managing what all individuals had done themselves for thousands of years, and so humans entrusted their lives to a group of trusted servants. Later we learned that Government is just an instrument to maintain the monopoly, because it successfully hides the reality we all live in by keeping us busy, working most of our lives to maintain the fraudulent bureaucracy that the monopoly men so eagerly dominate.

The trusted servants were bought and paid for by the monopoly men, who found it much easier to bribe, threaten or manipulate a few good men, rather than bribing, threatening or manipulating whole populations. That is how monopoly men came to be Government. The monopoly business model accompanies humanity up until today, and every day that passed, those monopoly men were more empowered by their far-reaching influence, access to resources, raw materials, technology and political gain. That is where we are today. The monopoly men found a way to legalize the mafia model, which they used in their businesses and that for a long time have applied to Government. It is through this model that they manage to control every single aspect of our lifestyles.

What an economist believes or thinks about what is right or wrong for a country or a continent is irrelevant if that economist doesn’t take into account that the economy is controlled by powerful corporate interests that control it all. No economic theory will be ever successful at explaining why a crisis happened or how to fix it unless it recognizes its real origins. University degrees, economy textbooks and memberships to reputable groups do not help when trying to explain why the world is in the deepest depression in modern history. We all need to recognize that in today’s world nation-states no longer dictate what happens with their own destinies or with that of their citizens. Monopoly men do. And they will continue to do so until humanity awakens to what is behind the curtain – or in this case, who is behind the curtain.

Humanity will never be able to have real Capitalism, Free Markets or Social Justice – whatever all that means – unless we are unable to recognize how the system really works. Keynes, Krugman and all these other thinkers and talking heads bring nothing new to an economic debate, they just repeat what they learned in college or from whatever mode of education they were exposed to. There is really nothing new or beneficial we can get in order to analyze the current state of humanity if we take as our starting point ideologies that have long defrauded us all, which were all invented by the same monopoly men I mentioned above as tools to divide and conquer. The same people who invented the theory of Socialism, are the very same who invented Capitalism, Fascism, Democracy, and all of the other faces of the same die.

There is hope though.

No doubt, a large minority of humans is now aware of this state of affairs, and that large minority will have to once again carry the heavy weight of the large ignorant majority in order to deliver humanity from the evil that a global monopoly has brought upon all of us. If there is anything positive the current economic crisis has brought, is that it has awaken millions of people around the world. This crisis has been an opportunity to open the eyes and see beyond what is being shown to all of us as reality, but that is nothing but a fraud. The early stages of a new struggle for a return to individual freedom is in the works as we speak and just as it happened in the past, it will take a while to conclude.

Since Monopoly could indeed be defined as the lack of equality, equality is not achieved by having a powerful entity taking from the favored to give it to the poor. The poor need to be educated about reality, so that they can rise by themselves and create their own present and future. The moment people understand the concept of individual rights, self-responsibility, self-governance and so on, they will be – by choice – able to defeat the monopoly system.

The people in power today saw a great opportunity and took it; for the worst as we now know. But they had the liberty of taking it. We all need to have that opportunity to be able to take it, but with the understanding that we have the responsibility to take care of ourselves and to forge our own lives, not to steal from others to get ahead. Finally, equality should be a concept that means that we all are equally prosperous, in all sense of the word, not equally poor, which is what the leaders of modern socialism and government interventionism support – sometimes even unknowingly.

On a personal note, I have to add that using force or violence — which is what the monopoly men and governments normally do — to impose views, policies or wishes on anyone will only keep us from achieving the kind of world most of us seek to live in. The moment we all understand that imposing our will on anyone by using force or coercion is the root of all of our problems, is the moment we will be that much closer to solving most of those problems.

That will happen when individuals learn about and understand the concept of self-governance, self-responsibility and respect towards the inalienable rights that we are entitled to as individuals. After a majority of us learns and understands this concepts, we can all sit around and debate economics, politics or any other issue.