Tuesday 6 March 2012

Bankruptocracy

The last few months have been interesting in the extreme in the slow evolution in the world of a real, viable form of real, direct democracy.

The visible flaring-up of movements such as "Occupy" last year has now been apparently extinguished as protest camps in the US and UK have been closed down.

This presents a real opportunity for those supporting the ideas behind these movements to take a step back and learn what has been achieved by their actions. Indeed a great deal has been achieved and the core impetus behind the movement is stronger than ever, getting ready for the next phase of the occupation as the weather in the northern hemisphere gets warmer.

While the energy of occupy movements appears to have gone underground for a while, the relentless progress of the factors which the movement have rallied against, continues apace, and with this progress it reveals itself more and more clearly in what it is.

The theatre that is the "euro-drama" displays this in a clear manner and it is best seen in that modern laboratory of social experimentation that is Greece.

Professor Yanis Varoufakis, Professor of economic theory at the University of Athens, has stated that we now live (in Greece at least for now, coming to someplace near to you real soon now!), under a system which he calls Bankruptocracy – rule by the bankrupt banks.

See: Link

In his article he confirms that the people will only ever take back control of their banking system once the middle classes revolt, because only then will the political classes realize that they have no choice but to yield to the masses, otherwise they will themselves disappear.

As it has always been in revolutions or transformations, it is the educated, articulate and thinking middle classes which decide the outcome, the masses as ever merely have to accept whatever outcome these middle classes decide.

In this way, the real powers which will dictate affairs in a world of real direct democracy will come from the groups of the concerned and educated citizens, and not the "idiotes" who are so strongly represented among the masses.

The middle classes are quietly linking, organizing, planning behind the scenes, ready to strike in co-ordinated actions, but they will move in at a time of their choosing, at a time when they have all of the weapons at their disposal to the extent that they know that they cannot lose - for they know and understand that the spirit of the age is on their side - only this time it will be an international effort.

This is illustrated by e.g. Megan Greene, Senior Economist at Roubini Global Economics who writes "bright, young Greeks" are waiting to form "new political movements, untainted by the parties that have gone before."

See: Link

When she asked when this would happen, one young man told her:

We are all on the sidelines waiting for Greece to hit bottom. We do not want to mobilise and get involved now, because the house of cards could come crashing down on top of us. We will wait until the collapse has happened and then we can finally start rebuilding anew.

First Greece, then the others - we truly do live in interesting times.