Importing From China: A Virus? Or A Totalitarian Model Of Elite Control?

Someone prescient once said, “Those who would sacrifice a little freedom for a little security, deserve neither, and will lose both.” We would do well to remember those words now.

And we are most definitely in the process of losing both, as we speak.

But maybe we aspire to be very healthy, germ-free slaves?

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A friend said to me the other day, “Do you think China has 700 million people under lockdown for no reason?!”

I replied by saying:

China has been a police state for over fifty years, at least since the start of the “Cultural Revolution” in 1966 – the Chinese government prefers lockdown, for reasons of control: any pretext will do.

The thought of China taking such drastic measures to contain this latest virus surely makes many people assume that the virus must truly be terrifically dangerous. Surely China would not take such drastic or draconian measures if it were not. But we just explained why the Chinese government prefers totalitarian control measures, under any and all circumstances – and any crisis, real or imagined, will do for creating the justification for authoritarian measures. (Disaster capitalism is a globalized game endeavour.)

The entire assumption that the danger must be real if the government response is so extreme, simply falls apart upon examination, or the slightest critical thought.

China now has 600 million security cameras for 1.2 billion people – one camera for every two people, and with ever growing, soon to be total surveillance.

China now has a system of social credits, incorporated into its social control system, which is plugged into its surveillance system, and its economy. If you spit on the sidewalk, or jaywalk, are involved in one of the thousands of protests occurring every day, or, heaven forbid, criticize the government, then, low and behold, you find that you are refused for loans, mortgages, even the purchase of a train ticket. (And Facebook is working hard to introduce a similar system for the West. Good ole’ Zuck.)

China has gone headlong, and willfully, into a very consciously totalitarian system of extreme authoritarian control. What the Chinese government does, should not be taken as a good model for our policies, responses or behaviour: China is a police state.

Not only are China’s actions frequently and utterly unacceptable in a free society; but its actions are frequently motivated, not by concern for public health, for example, but by simple control.

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What we should be more concerned about, is not the import of a few germs from China, which, so far, are much less dangerous than the flu: but the import of a totalitarian social model which would make Orwell cringe in horror.

But, then again, we in the West now have our own brand of technocracy, corporate fascism, and Orwellian oligarchy. It’s called the ECB, the Fed, the military-industrial-security complex – or simply, the corporate police state.

We needn’t import anything from China, as far as authoritarian social models go. In fact, the elite from East and West might want to swap notes. And I’m sure that Western and Eastern oligarchs have, and are, busily sharing notes.

After all, the Chinese authoritarians are our business partners now. A shared hatred for democracy and freedom, which is common, and nearly universal among the ruling classes of both East and West, simply seals the pact.

China has embraced neo-feudal corporatism. The West has embraced corporatist neo-feudalism. One is the mirror image of the other. The former has the bureaucratic elite in charge of a corporate capitalist economy; the latter has the corporate elite in charge of the bureaucratic and political-state powers. But although they have different inflections, both represent the merger of business and the state, which, as Mussolini said, is properly called corporatism, which is the proper term for fascism.

So, welcome to the Brave New World, germophobes. Wash your hands before kissing the ground before your masters, please.

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De-industrializing the Western nations, and offshoring production to China and other low-wage regions, was astronomically profitable for the Western business elite. But, it destroyed the middle class at home; destroyed and gutted domestic consumer market demand, thus destroying and hollowing out the economy, which is now ready for implosion and collapse; caused inequality and poverty to soar; has led to a growing backlash and rising social tensions, as well as right-wing pseudo-populist movements of demagoguery and scape-goating (think Trump and co, and even worse); and with the resulting social, economic and political tensions about to erupt, either into revolution, or civil war, as a result. Good plan.

This has been truly great leadership, for the past 50 years. Now, we are reaping the harvest.

Short-sighted would be one word for it. The destruction and collapse of the United States, and the entire Western world, brought on by the greed and egomania, and power-lust, of the Western business and plutocratic elite, would be a more precise and detailed description.

In any case, to import China’s model of authoritarian, Orwellian, and totalitarian social control – based on the full and active cooperation of the new tech giants, and the Western corporate and governmental powers, is, quite simply put, disastrously insane.

We are importing a dark age. And everyone is worried about a few bugs.

Smart thinking.

JTR,
March 9, 2020