Rich Guy on How Middle Class Are the Job Creators

@ 4:07 “It’s a small jump from job creator to THE Creator.  This language obviously wasn’t [laughter] this language was not chosen by accident.  And it’s only honest to admit that when someone like me calls them self a job creator, were not just describing how the economy works, but more particularly we’re making a claim on status and privileges that we deserve.”

Well said.  That’s exactly what I’m always on about.  That’s the power of myth, baby.

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Joseph Campbell’s “Four Functions of Myth”
From Pathways to Bliss (Novato, CA: New World Library), pp 6-10.
http://www.trinity.edu/cspinks/myth/campbell_4_functions_myth.pdf

1. …the first function of mythology [is] to evoke in the individual a sense of grateful, affirmative awe before the monstrous mystery that is existence.

2. The second function of mythology is to present an image of the cosmos, an image of the universe round about, that will maintain and elicit this experience of awe. [or] …to present an image of the cosmos that will maintain your sense of mystical awe and explain everything that you come into contact with in the universe around you.

3. The third function of a mythological order is to validate and maintain a certain sociological system: a shared set of rights and wrongs, proprieties or improprieties, on which your particular social unit depends for its existence.

4. …the fourth function of myth is psychological. That myth must carry the individual through the stages of his life, from birth through maturity through senility to death. The mythology must do so in accords with the social order of his group, the cosmos as understood by his group, and the monstrous mystery.

The second and third functions have been taken over in our world by secular orders. Our cosmology is in the hands of science. The first law of science is that the truth has not been found. The laws of science are working hypotheses. The scientist knows that at any moment facts may be found that make the present theory obsolete; this is happening now constantly. It’s amusing. In a religious tradition, the older the doctrine, the truer it is held to be.

In the scientific tradition, on the other hand, a paper written ten years ago is already out of date. There’s a continuous movement onward. So there’s no law, no Rock of Ages on which you can rest. There’s nothing of the kind. It’s fluid. And we know that rocks are fluid, too, though it takes them a long time to flow. Nothing lasts. It all changes.

In the social realm, again, we don’t regard our laws as being divinely ordained. You still hear it from time to time, as in the current abortion problem: God is talking to Senator So-and-so, or Reverend Thus-and-such. But it doesn’t seem to make sense otherwise. God’s law is no longer the justification for the nation’s laws. Congress decides what a decent aim for the social order is and what the institution is that should bring that aim about. So I would say that in this secular society of ours, we can no longer really think of the cosmological and sociological functions as a problem.

However, in all of our lives, the first and fourth functions do still play a role, and it’s these that I will be addressing. We are going to find ourselves far away from the old traditions. The first is the problem of awe. And, as I’ve said, you can have one of three attitudes toward it.

The fourth function now is the pedagogical. Basically, the function of the pedagogical order is to bring a child to maturity and then to help the aged become disengaged. Infancy is a period of obedience and dependency. The child is dependent on the parent, looks to the parent for advice and help and approval. There comes a time, however, when the individual has to become self-reliant and not dependent but himself the authority. Now here we come to a distinction between the traditional attitude toward this problem and the contemporary Western one. The traditional idea is that the adult who has moved from dependency to responsibility should take over without criticism the laws of the society and represent them. In our world, we ask for the development of the individual’s critical faculties, that you should evaluate the social order and yourself, then contribute criticism. This doesn’t mean blowing it up. Nor does it mean blowing it up before you’ve found out what it is. ….
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Hanauer has pulled back the veil that masks the true intentions of our modern myth-makers.

Let’s take the functions one at a time with regard to the loaded phrase, “job creator.”

1. Look at the size of their mansions, private planes,  and yachts!  See what wondrous things a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet can do!  They each have more money than God! They’re gods among mere mortals!

2. The Biggest Man up the Highest Stairs (and let’s be clear about this: God’s got the biggest balls of them all) by force and fiat, personally created the cosmos, making it — and us — His personal private property, to do with as only He can see fit. 

3. Since “job creators” are nearer to god than we, the 99%, are; we should bow down, avert our gaze, and let them have their way with society and us.  It is right and proper that the 1% should lord over the 99%.  It’s what God would do.

4. The best the 99% can hope for is to be cared for, cradle to grave, on the plantations of our rightful masters.  To work on the plantation of a a Job Creator is the next best thing to Heaven on Earth.  Going off plantation, being without a job, or complaining about conditions are sure signs of allegiance with the Devil.

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Paraphrasing Shakespeare, the power of myth is to bring into being the world stage on which we play our ever more notorious parts.  The metaphors with which we construct the cosmos, and through which we
enliven it, are the most powerful forces in the human world.  It’s bad enough that the power of myth is being perverted to serve economic interests.  It gets worse.

The awesome power of myth is also being weaponized, putting, for example, the “awe” in “Shock & Awe.” 

Don’t believe that the power of myth is that powerful?  Still think myths are antiquated fancies, the best thing to do with which is to bust them?  Still want to use myth as an intellectual’s grandiose synonym for lie?

Riddle me this: which is more powerful: myths, or nukes?

Answer: We were jacked to war in Iraq by the power of myths about nukes.  Nukes are nigh on useless, but myths about them are more powerful than the weapons themselves.

Just ask Iran.  Or Japan. 

So what are these “investments” that “make the middle class thrive”? Does he know or even care? Is it perpetual war and the domestic police state? That’s what the money always seems to get used for.

As I am very likely the only Anarcho-commie to comment here I would like to point out that this is a bit of very slick propaganda. Whenever the ruling class is in trouble (Arab Spring, Occupy-, Wisconsin, Quebec et al) it first tries to check the spread of working class revolt with liberalism. If that doesn’t work then comes fascism. First the carrot, then the stick. This is the former–we’ll tax the rich. Sounds good and the gullible might fall for it.

Hannauer’s talk is basically correct: The economy is driven  by consumption, but the very end here is what’s important. He claims that taxing the rich will benefit the middle class, the rich, and the poor. The underlying premise being that capitalism is beneficial, can work for, all economic classes.  Essentially the message here is that the interests or the working class and the ownership class are the same.

And that is utter nonsense, and Hanauer and TED know it.

Here’s another example of TED spreading the fertilizer. Professional distorian (that’s dis-historian) Niall Ferguson can be found waxing specious about the Great Divergence here:
http://saveourcola.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/bourgeois-propaganda-alert-niall-ferguson-spreading-the-fertilizer/

 If the morals, ethics and concepts of justice in a society make it possible for there to be a legitimate authority with the power and social-cultural endorsement to tax — forcibly take resources to be used as that authority see fit — taking more (as a sum, rather than a proportion)  from those who have more than from those who have less has an intuitive appeal, especially to those who have less(!)  Even taking more as a proportion is arguably a path toward economic justice.

What we have, however, is a system that takes less as a proportion from those who have the most and from those who have the least (“have” in our case referring to income rather than assets.) The latter seems so appropriate that one rarely sees an argument against it, but how can a society tolerate the taking of less from those who have the most than from those in the middle? Is the answer more likely found in “The Power of Myth” than in the buying and selling of political influence? I don’t think so.

This is not to say that Myth plays no role, but give me the cash to buy the influence which has been so obviously for sale — and seems forever to be in representative democracy — and you take the Myth. You will move the people — who will be largely ignored — and I will move the power structure which will do the ignoring.  Which of us is more likely to have our way?

There’s a very simple reason that infrastructure was not the vehicle for stimulus: It would be far too indirect as a means of bulldozing cash toward the bunkers of those with juice.