Tyranny must hide itself under a flag of false virtue. If it
didn’t no one would accept the personal sacrifices it requires us to make. The
cost it demands for our protection and alleged well being will always come at
the cost of our livelihoods, our privacy, and our bodily autonomy. Which is why
what has happened to Canada makes me ashamed to be Canadian. There is perhaps
more I could have done to speak out against the increasing interference in our
private lives by the government, but it wasn't until 2014 while I was still living
in Norway that I began to understand more fully the influence Critical Theory
has on the West. I couldn’t stand the Borg like need for conformity of opinion in
Norway, so I asked my wife what she believed was behind it. She explained how Critical
Theory had originated in the Frankfurt School of Cultural Marxism among sociologists
who were seeking to rework communism for modern time. Today, many of my family
and friends support Critical Theory's concerted attack on the normality,
morality, and ethics which had once defined the Canadian Zeitgeist. This
ideology is anti-human, anti-nuclear family, and anti-Christian to its Post
Marxist core. So, was it naivety, stupidity, or lack of a moral compass which had
allowed my family and friends to accept these Neo-Marxist lies? How could they have
so easily fallen for the contradictory rhetoric from the WOKE Silicon Valley
shysters and the Globalist robber barons given their Postmodern beliefs contradicted
the values we were taught as children? But now most of the Churches themselves
have succumbed to it. Frankly I ought not to be surprised as to how deep into
this Postmodern, Malthusian, anti-human, post-national, globalist, socially
retrogressive rabbit hole into which we have plunged since we have allowed
ourselves to be led down it by a pack of immoral globalist billionaires who
live Satanically perverted lives!
We must turn away from the
"progressive" globalist technocrats who tell us that there's only one
way to think and to live. All that we have loved, valued, and held dear still
lives on in our hearts and minds. We are living in a time akin to being in a
forest after a raging fire where new green shoots have begun to emerge. Let
us nurture the new growth while never forgetting that it was those very
globalist technocrats who ignited the fire in an attempt to burn it all down in
the name of "progress"!
And for you right leaning loathers of big government, the
LPC is not liberal in any sense of the actual meaning of the word. Liberalism
is a political ideology which refers to "liberty", as in freedom from
statism. We must stop using the left's terms to define our right-wing
viewpoints, for by doing so we're only ceding ground to our ideological opponents.
So let us examine socialist policies effects on society in
practice from the testimony of one who experienced them firsthand. From “Central
planning from the inside—an interview with a Soviet-era economist” published
on May 25, 2024 by the Fraser Institute @ https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/central-planning-from-the-inside-an-interview-with-a-soviet-era-economist?
In our descriptions of socialism in Poland and Estonia,
we often quoted firsthand accounts of Poles and Estonians who lived through the
period. These were workers, consumers, victims of oppression and resistance
fighters. One voice that we didn’t capture was that of the planner—the
government official charged with making the economy work, despite socialism’s
enormous handicaps.
To better understand that perspective, I recently
interviewed Gia Jandieri, an economist who worked for the State Supply
Committee in Georgia from 1984 to 1989.
In 1989 Gia cofounded the very first non-governmental
organization in Soviet Georgia (the Association of Young Economists) to push
for market economic education. And in 2001 he established a think-tank, the New
Economic School, to promote economic freedom. The New Economic School has been
a full member of the Economic Freedom Network since 2004.
Here’s our discussion (lightly edited for readability):
Matthew Mitchell (MM):
How did you become an economist and a Soviet planner?
Gia Jandieri (GM):
It was accidental. In 1984 my mother worked at the
Gossnab (the State Supply Committee for the Central Planning Authority) and she
offered to introduce me to her boss. At that time I was only 23 years old and
had graduated from the Georgian Polytechnical Institute. My knowledge of
economics was mostly from life and family experience (my parents worked at a
metallurgical plant).
But as a student in 1979 I had had what I thought were a
few strange discussions with a teacher of political economy. Like most
teachers, he was no true believer in socialism (it was hard for anyone to
believe at that time). But he was required to teach the propaganda. What
surprised me was that he was willing to publicly agree with me about my
suspicions that the system was failing and might even collapse. This was rare,
and he was taking a risk. But it also inspired me. It is also important to note
that he wanted to hide his hesitation about Marxism and the Soviet system, and
he also wanted me to stop my questions, and/or stop attending his lectures
(which was of course not allowed). I recall he told me: “either I report you or
someone reports both of us for having prohibited discussions.”
When I finished my university study of engineering, I was
already sure I wanted to be an economist. So, when the opportunity arose in
1984 to work at the State Supply Committee, I seized it.
MM:
Tell us a little bit about the job of a planner. What
were your responsibilities? And how did you go about doing them?
GJ:
Our department inside of Gossnab was responsible for
monitoring the execution of agreements for production of goods and government
orders. My task was to verify that the plans had been executed correctly, to
find failures and problems, and to report to the higher authorities.
This included reading lots of reports and visiting the
factories and their warehouses for auditing.
The Soviet economy had been in a troublesome condition
since the 1970s. We (at the Gossnab) had plenty of information about failures,
but it wasn’t useful. We knew that the quality of produced goods was very low,
that any household good that was of usable quality was in deficit, and that the
shortages encouraged people to buy on the black market through bribes.
In reality, a bribe was a substitute for a
market-determined price; people were interested in paying more than the
official price for the goods they valued, and the bribe was a way for them to
indicate that they valued it more than others.
The process of planning was long. The government had to
study demand, find resources and production capacities, create long-run
production and supply plans, compare these to political priorities, and get
approval for general plans at the Communist Party meetings. Then the general
plans needed to be converted to practical production and supply plans, with
figures about resources, finances, material and labour, particular producers,
particular suppliers, transportation capacities, etc. After this, we began the
process of connecting factories and suppliers to one another, organizing
transportation, arranging warehousing, and lining up retail shops.
The final stage of the planning process was to send the
participating parties their own particular plans and supply contracts. These
were obligatory government orders. Those who refused to follow them or failed
to fulfill them properly were punished. The production factories had no right
or resources to produce any other goods or services than those described in the
supply contracts and production plans they received from the authorities. Funny
enough, though, government officials could demand that they produce more goods
than what was indicated in the plans.
MM:
What made your job difficult? Let’s assume that a
socialist planner is 100 per cent committed to the cause; all he or she wants
to do is serve the state and the people. What makes it difficult to do that?
GJ:
There were several difficulties. We had to find
appropriate consumer data and compare it to the data of suppliers (of
production goods mostly). I was working with several (5-15) factories per year.
I needed to have current and immediate information, but the state companies
were always trying to hide or falsify their reports. In some cases, waste and
theft could be so significant that production had to be halted.
The planners invested vast sums of money and time in data
collection and each had special units of data processing.
This was a technical exercise and had nothing to do with
efficiency or usefulness. The collected data was outdated by the time it was
printed. The planning, approval, and execution processes could take many years
to complete, and by the time plans were ready, demand had usually changed,
creating deficits of what was demanded and surpluses of what was not demanded.
The planners, no matter how dedicated or intelligent they might be, simply
couldn’t meet the demands of the customers.
Central planning was not an easy exercise. The central
planners needed to understand what was needed—both production supplies and
consumer goods. But, of course, we had no way of knowing what people truly
wanted because there was no market. Consumers weren’t free to choose from
different suppliers and new suppliers weren’t free to enter the market to offer
new or slightly different goods.
One of the more helpful ways to find out what people
wanted was to look at what consumers in the West wanted since they actually had
economic freedom and their demands were quickly satisfied. The government also
did a lot of industrial spying to steal Western production ways and
technologies.
MM:
Were most of the planners you encountered 100 per cent
committed to the cause? Were they incentivized to serve the cause?
GJ:
Some of the staffers were dedicated to their work. Others
were mostly thinking about how they could obtain bribes from the production
factories as a reward for closing their eyes to mismanagement and failure. The
planners were also involved in more significant corruption to allow the
production factories to have extra materials and financial resources so they
could produce for the black market or so they could simply steal.
Then the revenue from these bribes would be divided among
all personnel from different agencies (like the Price Committee, Auditing
(“Public Control”), and several other agencies charged with inspections). So,
in fact, the system generated corruption as a substitute for official
incentives. If anything was still operating, this was mostly due to these
corrupt incentives and not in spite of them.
The planning system was quite complex and involved many
governmental offices though the main decisions were made by the Communist
Party. Planning authorities would report to the Party leadership what they
thought would be possible to produce and Party leaders would inevitably demand
higher quantities.
Gosplan was bureaucratic to its core, both in principle
and character. Nobody was allowed to innovate other than planned/artificial
innovation. Everyone had to work only by decrees and orders coming from the
political leadership. The political orders and bribes were the only engines
that were moving anything. Market incentives didn’t exist. Bonuses (premia)
were awarded according to bureaucratic rules, and, paradoxically, these
destroyed the motivation of the genuinely hard workers.
MM:
Moving beyond economics a bit, how did the socialist
system affect other aspects of life? Culture, families, relationships, civil
institutions?
GJ:
One of the examples is Western pop-music. Soviet
propaganda tried to hide Western culture. Music schools mostly taught Russian
classical music and some folk music of various Soviet ethnic nationalities, but
it was mostly Russian.
Jazz and hard rock were not prohibited but very much
limited. That of course encouraged smuggling and illegal dissemination, as in
every sector. Soviet music factories were buying some rights to the music (for
instance the Beatles, Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald). But these
recordings were only available in limited quantities and were of bad quality in
order to limit their influence.
Small illegal outfits would make unofficial and illegal
copies of any popular western music (not classical).
Cultural institutions like theatre or cinema were harshly
censored and mostly served the propaganda machine. The people involved in these
sectors did what all producers of goods did. They needed to lobby their
benefactors in the bureaucracy, bribing and currying favour with them in
different ways. It was said that only one out of four films produced would be
shown in the cinemas. The other three films were only produced so studios could
steal the resources and obtain higher reimbursements.
Before Soviet rule, Georgia was a property rights and
ethics-based society. We have ancient proverbs that testify to this. The
Soviets killed the ethical leaders, the property-owning elite, and confiscated
their property. The stolen property was supposed to be held in common. In fact,
the bureaucracy took it.
State ownership of property opened the way to waste and
theft of construction and production materials, office inventory, fertilizer,
harvested agricultural products, etc.
In Georgia, one bright spot was underground education.
Georgians succeeded in growing a network of informal tutors who effectively
operated despite very harsh efforts by the authorities to quash them. These
skillful teachers prepared the young people for university exams. This was so
widespread that some successful young people (including my wife and friends,
for instance) started offering private (completely illegal) teaching services
when they were university students.
MM:
To this day, socialism remains alluring to many in the
West, especially young people. What do you have to say to the 46 per cent of
Canadians aged 18-34 who support socialism?
GJ:
Very simply, it is a mistake to think socialism fails
because of the wrong managers. This mistake allows people to think that it’ll
work the next time it is tried, if we just have better people. In fact the
opposite is true—socialism invites the wrong managers. It doesn’t reward a
great manager who tries to improve the system but a person who can adapt to and
accept the corruption, waste and theft. Socialism also encourages corruption.
When more resources are in the control of politicians and the bureaucracy,
there is more favouritism, privilege, and discrimination. Jobs and business
opportunities are based on privilege rather than market competition. This means
naïve people will always be cheated by brazen liars and manipulators.
Poor people are told that the state is under their
control but in fact the bureaucracy and political hierarchy control everything.
In socialism, nature and natural resources are abused and
wasted. The Tragedy of the Commons runs rampant without private property,
voluntary cooperation, and ethics. The government tries to manage everything
centrally and totally fails because it lacks dynamic information, competitive
discipline, and proper incentives.
Author: Matthew D.
Mitchell
Yet Neo-Marxist ideology has been taught as viable political
theory in our universities for decades at the expense of Canadian taxpayers yet
the citizens, perhaps mostly out of ignorance, tolerated it. Therefore, it is
remarkable that many university graduates remain either ignorant or complicit
in perpetuating its negative effects on our government, its bureaucracy and
society writ large starting with this ideology’s attack on the nuclear family
and hence our children. A remarkable majority of postgraduate educated people
have swallowed Cultural Marxism hook, line, and sinker for one reason, they
believe that by embracing Neo-Marxist ideology makes them more moral than God.
There will be a world of hurt if and when a Poilievre government is elected. He
will of necessity have to lead massive spending cuts starting with the
bureaucracy, then drastically cut foreign aid, particularly aid sent to abet
proxy wars that are unwinnable. All lobbying and central planning must cease.
No more crony capitalism with the government getting deep into bed with
multinational conglomerates like Big Pharma and the investment bankers who are
members of the WEF. Government run programs must be forced to operate within
budget and demonstrate that the end user is receiving value. It is going to be
an unholy shitshow. And I can already hear the screaming Greenies who hide
under the false flag of climate catastrophizing and the host of those who have
been taught to view themselves as perpetual victims crying like unweaned
emotional infants demanding to feed off the public teat!
Klaus Schwab, the founder, and executive director of the
World Economic Forum, has used the term “Build Back Better”. In an interview,
Schwab spoke about what the newly elected Biden-Harris administration means for
global capitalism. He mentioned that the Biden-Harris administration gives a
necessary final boost, a faucet switch from a shareholder-oriented capitalism
into a stakeholder-oriented capitalism. The phrase “You will own nothing and be
happy” originated from a 2016 video of the WEF, of which Schwab is founder, which
summarized an essay written by Danish politician Ida Auken. The video made
several predictions about the world in 2030, including the statement
"You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy. What you want you’ll rent, and
it’ll be delivered by drone". Yet the Global Elite’s sole contribution has
been to label the West itself is a patriarchal tyranny guilty of “Post-Colonial
Oppression”. The elites have but one goal, at the core of their ideology is a
desire to tear it all down which will leave them to reign over the ashes of Western
Civilization.
So, though the worst is yet to come there are many causes
for hope. For by now far too many of us have begun to see the nature of the mouthy
little wicked wizard lurking behind the curtain who ought to be featured in
Austin Powers’ next rendition of Dr. Evil while petting a cat. As I stated, we
must turn away from the "progressive" globalist technocrats who tell
us that there's only one way to think and to live. All that we have loved,
valued, and held dear still lives on in our hearts and minds for we are living
in a time akin to being in a forest after a raging fire where new green shoots
have begun to emerge. It is time to rage against the machine that seeks to
dehumanize us and frankly our fight against this godless agenda is a Godly one!
Humanity was created to serve Him alone not mammon and false idols, no matter what
false flag behind which their actual agenda has been hidden!
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