NeoSocialism

The Minutes of the Technical Committee Meeting

Of the National Competitiveness Council

From the point of view of a libertarian

Venue: A nice place most likely funded by the European Union Government.

Date: 2008/1998/ 1988…1708, etc…history will endlessly be repeated (by us) unless we choose otherwise.

Attendees: fake intellectuals who show no interest in finding the truth because they—admittedly or not—enjoy and benefit from the current state of ignorance and they display an air of righteousness.

Agenda:

1. Settle which economic policy appeals to most of them based on whims and a mix of ideas, doctrines, emotions, and personal experiences.

2. Sketch out how to channel the power necessary to inflict their pious verdicts on the non-thinking, non-influential majority.

3. Find a way to share their confusion with the biggest number of people; to show them how much they needed this unique variation of darkness and to take credit for this certain improvement.

MINUTES OF THE MEETING:

· Mrs. Government-paid Intellectual (who works for the ministry that was, for no clear reason, chosen to be the one on the hot seat this time around) was fiercely defending her ministry, explicitly saying at one point that the message of the chapter she’s writing in the report is: it is not fair! However, she ascertained repetitively that she will not be naming her chapter: ‘it is not fair!’, nor will she even state it directly in her chapter, but, like only a fake intellectual can, she will manipulate the pliable statistics enough that the naive citizen will automatically draw the conclusion that: ‘the World Government has been unfair to our national Government. We must be more complacent with our national government.

· Mr. Government: made a huge effort to convey the same message that Mrs. Intellectual was saying in quiet the same manner, which is:

a. Something is seriously wrong with the World Government data collectors and statisticians.

b. That doesn’t mean that nothing is wrong with us, it just means that it is not that big a deal and that it mostly isn’t the government fault.

· Mrs. College Professor: had a slightly different version of our social and economic reality than the government people. Her profound message (interrupted by few phone calls from her daughter which she didn’t hesitate to take nor to share with the rest of us) was: There is almost nothing wrong with the current system, except the bad culture, the lazy labor and the system of subsidies that spreads the national income ‘too thin’ among a vast amount of people, so at the end of the day, everyone will get a few pennies. (There must be a proverb that says the same thing as that last bit, but I can’t remember it).

· Another Mrs. Government-paid intellectual (works for the ministry of finance): had another point of view which, like all other different opinions on the table, was different on the surface but underneath it was identical to all the others [1]. She thought that the national government strategy of focusing on ICT and manufacturing was wrong, because we need a more agriculture-based strategy. She ignited a debate among Egyptian intellectuals in the room about whether the secondary and tertiary sectors central strategy was indeed the reason behind our unemployment problem. Sadly the controversy was around the sectors (and whether a strategy should focus on her favorite sector, the others or, as the American expert preferred, all sectors at once.) No one questioned the idea of a national governmental strategy manipulating and altering ‘growth’ as the national government and its hired staff of intellectuals please. There was no controversy there!

· The last Mrs. Government-paid intellectual (works for the National Economic Research Institute): spoke very little, and did not stray from the mainstream like Mrs. College professor or Mrs. Ministry of Finance dared to do. She will do freshman year work of describing the World Government stats in the first chapter.

· Mr. Business Man/Government Supporter: This individual totally eludes my understanding. He strikes me as a sincere person who learned that ‘this’ is the right way to do things in 'this' world. I think this man has set off looking for the truth, he did not give up on doing the honest right thing yet. I just hope they do not break his inquiring spirit, filling his mind with lies about how relative the truth is, how important it is to survive in this jungle by compromising, and how bad his productive honest business would be to the society, if he does not have the network of people, and does not cooperate with different government and government-supporting bodies. His remarks sounded honest. I believe he was the only one on the table who genuinely thinks there is some hope left for Egypt. I am not sure he can keep this thought with them as his companions.

· Mr. American Expert: a sophisticated person. He was the best-indoctrinated, and the most consistent person in the room. I noticed how attentive yet indifferent he was to all the conversations and arguments, like he heard them all hundreds of times before, and like there was absolutely nothing different about this situation from all other situations he’s been in. He looked very secure about where he stands, like he does not need to explain his position. He was so sheltered and unconcerned[2]; he looked like he could fall asleep any minute now, not from exhaustion, but from boredom.

He made the most seemingly-consistent arguments[3], his message was clear and consistent: the Global Government’s stats are sound enough to show an approximate estimate of the country ‘rankings’ and ‘scores’.[4] What Egypt needs to do, instead of criticizing the scores accuracy, it needs to work on its performance, because all countries face the same inexact teacher.

the end

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[1] I heard an argument once that built on that exact observation, claiming that this was a some kind of sign of approaching the truth, or being closer to the mark. This could be true in some cases, and in others, it is a sign of something else, one that starts with a D, and spells D.O.G.M.A, We need to examine other ‘signs’ before we conclude which of these we’re dealing with.

[2] Looking at the different characters sitting at the table, one cannot help but wonder: how did the least interested people and the least capable of achieving anything that amounts to development or growth end up at the table where only real intellectuals and enlightened supporters of mutually-beneficial growth should be present. These people have spend hundreds of thousands of Egyptian money to do a poor job of what a real economist would have done in one week, for free, because he can only speak the truth.

[3] Only seemingly so; because it would take an economist (or an economics major in a good school) to spot the flaws in his arguments. For others on the table, it would only take someone with some reading in history or watching the news to realize they are selling delusions.

[4] We are all students in the Global School: scored, ranked and punished for bad conduct. I wonder what the future may hold, when the school wields more power and less resistance.

Be practical!

“Are you going to be impractical as that?”

“The evaluation of an action as ‘practical,’ Dr. Ferris, depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.”

Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged, 1957

‘Just do the practical thing,’ they all tell you. But what is the practical thing? Is it that which costs less time and effort? Or is it that which has more likelihood of being approved and supported by other people? I guess they are both the same thing, since in communities—and in some communities more than others—the fact that something is supported by others makes it less costly in time or effort.

I am not trying to sophisticate things here, but really think about it, in the most ‘practical’ way possible. Isn’t doing something just because it’s common, without having a clue why you are doing it, costly too? Aren’t there may be some costs other than the cost of having to live with people’s disapproval, or the cost of time, or energy? Isn’t it something that you feel in your life too? Now, wouldn’t that make it ‘practical’ to avoid this unnamed cost as well?

In my life I observed that people talk about different costs all the time; they talk about the cost of standing out and having to face the music, and they also talk about the cost of living in a country where everyone is ready to stab you in the back if it will put them in a more favorable position with their bosses. They talk about the cost of doing something that you really like and to make a living out of it, and they also talk about the cost of just doing the same mundane job that you do not like one bit.

Well, I think we should make up our mind and figure out which is more costly. People view this paradox in amazingly different ways. Some people will tell you: ‘it’s inevitable!;’ we have to choose according to our programming, conditioning, conditions, childhood history, status, ‘the political game we find ourselves in’, race, nationality, etc... (You can fill in with any cause of variation among people you have in mind).

Personally—and there is a bunch of people who would agree with me—this is how I perceive my options; it’s either watching the world around you being shaped by forces outside your will, and shaping you too in their aftermath, or watching the world being shaped by forces outside your will, and slightly influencing your life as well, which might just be fair, because you might be slightly influencing the world too.