Political power & the mythologies of economics

The theories of economics are not definite and provable like the rules of mathematics and physics—they are mythologies (lies and fiction) imagined by the “neo-priests of modernity”: the economists. Like the philosophical and theological arguments of metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics and religion, the theories of economics cannot be proved or disproved. 

As they cannot furnish the ultimate proof for their theories, the economists rely on political power to forcibly impose their ideas. The boundary between economics and politics is blurred, and every decision taken in the name of economics is a political decision. The true purpose of economics is to ensure that the political establishment has access to unlimited funds. 

The bureaucracy needed to impose a free market system is as large and coercive as the bureaucracy needed to impose a communist system. The bureaucracy in so-called capitalist countries is larger than that in any communist country. Even multinational corporations, which are regarded as the symbols of free markets, have huge bureaucracies. 

Like the political movements, the so-called free markets are impacted by the prejudices, fantasies, irrationalities and delusions of the ruling class and the masses. Without political power and a large bureaucracy to maintain order, the free markets cannot exist.

The mythology of land of the free and the logic of capitalist exploitation

The belief that a perfect society can be brought into existence through communism is, at its core, a modern secular mythology. Yet capitalism is no less mythological. It, too, rests upon grand narratives and articles of faith disguised as self-evident truths. Its so-called twin pillars—individual freedom and free enterprise—have been elevated to the status of moral absolutes, but they are as historically contingent and as vulnerable to abuse as the tenets of ancient cults and religions.

When a political leader proclaims his desire for a “free society,” what he often means is a society free to conform to the norms, values, and hierarchies of his own culture. The annals of history are filled with instances in which “freedom” was wielded as a weapon—a moral justification for the subversion, domination, or assimilation of other cultures. Similarly, calls for “free trade” have rarely meant a neutral exchange of goods and services; more often, they have signified an ambition for one nation’s corporations to penetrate foreign markets, commandeer natural resources, exploit local labour, and in many cases, influence or control the levers of political power abroad.

The uncomfortable question thus arises: can a capitalist society truly flourish without plundering the resources of weaker minorities—both within its borders and beyond them? Historical evidence offers little reassurance. Capitalism has yet to produce a sustained model of prosperity and contentment that does not rest upon the exploitation of humanity’s voiceless underclass.

The United States has long styled itself as the exemplar of capitalist virtue and the “land of the free.” Yet its history tells a more sobering story. The violence inflicted by European settlers upon the Native Americans—ranging from dispossession and forced removal to outright extermination—was every bit as brutal as the Bolshevik terror unleashed on Russia’s bourgeoisie after 1917. Nor was the exploitation confined to indigenous peoples; the transatlantic slave trade brought millions from Africa in chains to labour for the enrichment of the colonial and later industrial economies.

By the close of the 19th century, with the Native American nations subdued and their lands expropriated, American ambitions turned outward. The 20th century saw the United States not only participate in but play decisive roles in the First and Second World Wars. It has, with remarkable consistency, been at war somewhere on the globe for most of the last century. Its foreign policy record is replete with covert interventions, engineered coups, and the installation of pliant regimes—often at the expense of democratically elected governments—in order to safeguard American geopolitical and corporate interests.

If the world’s major nations were to emulate the American capitalist model in both spirit and method, the prospects for peace would be grim. The competition for resources, markets, and strategic advantage would almost certainly accelerate the slide toward large-scale conflict, perhaps even a Third World War.

This week, I finished reading John Perkins’s semi-autobiographical Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, a work that offers a shadowy glimpse into the machinery of economic imperialism. Perkins claims he was recruited by the engineering consulting firm Chas T. Main, allegedly connected to American intelligence, and tasked with persuading leaders of developing nations to accept vast loans for infrastructure projects—loans designed not to foster genuine development but to ensnare them in cycles of dependency and control.

I am not persuaded that Perkins’s account is wholly reliable. At times, his narrative drifts into the realm of the overheated conspiracy theory; at others, it veers toward the rhetoric of the ideologically committed activist. Yet even if one approaches his work with scepticism, his central critique—that capitalism and corporatism often operate through coercion, manipulation, and the calculated entrapment of vulnerable nations—rings uncomfortably true. In that sense, his book stands as a reminder that beneath capitalism’s shining myths lies a machinery as capable of subjugation as any ideology it claims to have superseded.

Civilizational apocalypse and preservation of relics and ruins from the past

When a civilization becomes obsessed with preserving the ruins, records and artifacts of ancient civilizations, which fell and disappeared centuries ago, it is because its elites are gripped by the fear that their own civilization is in an advanced state of decay and decline, and their way of life is about to vanish from the face of the earth. 

The elites realize, subconsciously or consciously, that their world will soon join the list of history’s dead civilizations. This dreadful realization of civilizational apocalypse fills them with the longing to preserve the bits and pieces of the civilizations which died in the earlier ages. 

As they squander massive amounts of resources in studying, venerating and preserving the relics of long dead civilizations, they are filled with the desperate hope that they will not be forgotten, and that when their civilization dies, its ruins, records and artifacts will be studied, venerated and preserved by the civilizations of the future.

The unnatural does not exist, only the natural does

What does the word ‘natural’ mean? It means everything, mental and material, that exists in the universe. Nothing that exists is unnatural. Everything that has ever existed, every event that has ever happened, and every thought that has ever sprouted is natural. 

The idea that there is a difference between the natural world and the man-made is a myth. Human beings are as much part of nature and as any rock, insect, bird or animal. Since we are part of nature, every human action, every human creation and every human thought is also a part of nature, as are the mental images and acts of other creatures. 

The religious, political and cultural movements, the wars, the massacres, the quests for God and heaven, the quests for earthly utopia and perfect life, the philosophical arguments and the scientific discoveries—all of these and everything else are natural. 

Slavery is as natural as freedom, individualism as natural as collectivism, theism as natural as atheism, morality as natural as nihilism, poverty as natural as prosperity, brutality as natural as compassion, anarchy as natural as rule of law, communism as natural as capitalism and the Stone Age is as natural as modernity. 

Man is incapable of doing or creating anything that is unnatural. The unnatural, by definition, is that which cannot exist anywhere in the universe.

Lies and fictions are the fountainhead of civilizations and cultures

Truth is of value only in the realm of science and mathematics. In philosophy, religion, politics and culture, which are the fundamental building blocks of every civilization, past or present, it is lies and fictions which play the decisive role. 

To build a civilization, you need to unite people under the banner of a common philosophy, religion, political system and culture. It is impossible to unite people by telling them the truth. 

The masses will never unite, they will never agree to make sacrifices, if they are told that 2+2 = 4, or E=MC2, or the motion of all heavenly bodies in the universe is determined by the laws of motion and gravitation. To unite people you need to provide them with an imaginary, mythological and fictional view of the universe. The masses have to be told fictional stories which will enable them to imagine a universe that is far from reality. 

Mankind is a fiction telling creature. We have an immense power to tell fictional stories and accept these fictional stories as the ultimate universal truth. 

Billions of humans might come together and become ready to sacrifice everything, including their life, if they are told that the universe is controlled by one God who grants the wishes of all those who worship him and fight holy wars for him. They will come together if they are inspired by fictions on how the universe was created and mankind was saved from a great deluge. 

They will rush to fight great wars in which millions will be killed if they become convinced by the fictional stories and accept that their God wants them to destroy the infidels. 

In the modern secular times, philosophy is doing what religion used to do in ancient and medieval ages. The modern philosophers are developing creative fictions which enable people to come together to work for a common cause. Ideologies like imperialism, racism, the Enlightenment, socialism, communism, capitalism and other philosophies are creative fictions. 

The communist idea that a perfect society can be created through the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” is a creative fiction. But so is the capitalist idea that a perfect society can be created through something called a “free market.” There is no way of proving or disproving the fundamental tenets of communism and capitalism. Both are mythologies. 

The ability to weave and accept fictional stories or lies as the greatest truths is not mankind’s weakness. This is our greatest strength. Mankind has created powerful civilizations and come to dominate the earth because of our ability to lie and to accept the lies as the universal truth.