Youth Shall Be Served
Greetings Expats in Lisbon! Today we are going to talk about the recent protests that have been going on here in Lisbon. These protests have been against austerity and have been aimed at the Troika in particular. The Troika has demanded more and more austerity and cuts in the public budget in exchange for tranches of bailout money. The problem with this is that it doesn’t solve the real issues behind the struggling economy: high levels of unemployment, wealth inequality, cronyism, and nepotism. Bailouts from central banks to central governments constitutes trickle down economics, because only those who get to spend the money first get the benefit. Governments spend the money first on themselves, on useless submarines, or otherwise waste it. Trickle down economics does not work, in fact it is nothing but an “upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make us all richer, as we were told.” – Ha- Joon Chang, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
Youth unemployment is a particularly huge problem. In Portugal we have over 30% unemployment in youth and almost 50% unemployment in youth in Greece. These statistics are infuriating and ridiculous. Is this Weimar Republic all over again? This situation amounts to a lost generation of desperate youths that will have a harder and harder time finding employment as time goes on. Meanwhile, the 1% keep getting richer while the world falls apart. Isn’t time to do something?
Demand Equal Opportunities in a New Meritocracy
Demanding regime change without a plan to replace the old regime is useless. The current system of free market capitalism and democracy has failed. We need a new paradigm of Social Capitalism and Meritocratic Democracy. What do I mean by that? Social Capitalism will be similar to free market capitalism except that the government will strictly regulate/prohibit certain practices in the market that are outside the function of the market for the interests of all people. The market should be a place where people can test the popularity and competitiveness of tangible products/companies and where legitimate businesspeople and farmers can hedge against fluctuations in price of their required input goods. What the government should prohibit is the excessive speculation in commodities, shorting, and rampant insider trading.
The market as it stands today is more powerful in determining public policy and the direction of society than our elected officials. It makes a complete farce out of democracy. Wall Street financial institutions and private central banks like The Federal Reserve (yes, it’s a privately owned, for-profit institution) wield more power than Congress. How can we let unelected officials wield inordinate power over the public economy? They control the economy and thus control everything.
A system of Social Capitalism would never let this happen and would put mechanisms in place such as abolishing high-risk financial instruments like derivatives, and using psychological profiling to ensure that only middle-aged, risk averse, and cooperative people have the highest power in finance. It would also de-incentivize risk and make financial managers personally, financially responsible for their mistakes with other people’s money. The current system “privatizes profits and socializes losses”. In other words, the Wall Street cabal bets the house, rakes in the winnings when they win and dumps the losses on the tax payer when they lose. This is not a system that can be perpetuated any longer.
A Meritocratic Democracy is different from a regular democracy in the sense that not everyone gets a vote just for achieving the stupendous accomplishment of making it to your 18th birthday (sarcasm intended!). As Plato and other intellectuals have noted, democracy is “rule by the ill-educated mob”. Indeed! Any system that gives mathematicians and Ph.D.s in public policy the same political power as a barely literate 18 year old is a system that is guaranteed to fail over time. We have reached that failure tipping point. There are simply far more stupid and easily manipulated, irrational idiots on this planet than there are sane rational people. Any system that gives these two separate camps equal say in the direction of society is destined to fail.
A Meritocracy is rule by the smartest and the most capable within their respective fields of expertise. In a Meritocratic Democracy only those who have demonstrable merit, intelligence, and experience in a given field are given a voice for policy within that given field. For example, only doctors have a voice in determining a nation’s healthcare policy. Do you want to have a say in how healthcare is run in the country? Ok, get an MD first! The same goes for economic policy, education, energy, and indeed all facets of government. The current system where the President of the United States can appoint his campaign buddies to the highest levels of the aforementioned governmental departments is grotesquely stupid. What do bureaucrats and yes-men know about running a country? Nothing.
Join the Meritocratic Movement.
The Giant Vampire Squid – Goldman Sucks
If there is one institution that is most responsible for the economic inequality and global instability, it is the Giant Vampire Squid Goldman Sachs. This is truly an “evil” institution if evil can be defined has having complete contempt for the well-being of others. Goldman Sachs’ crimes against humanity have been well documented and I won’t enumerate them here. All I ask is that you join me and all others who want a better world in turning Goldman Sachs into the ultimate pariah. Sneer at and insult their name whenever possible. Boo their employees. Make them the face of the 1%. Make them into the walking dead. They deserve it.
Drums of Revolution
Marching into Praça do Comércio
I have to say that protests here in Lisbon are far different from protests in other parts of the world such as Spain, Greece, and the United States. Protests are allowed to happen and police are there to ensure the safety of the protesters. I have never personally seen police brutality against protesters in the three protests that I have gone to. Here in Lisbon, protesting is a party!
Band Stage at the Protest
So, is this a protest or a concert? Both! This would never happen in the United States. There is no way that the US government would ever allow a protest group to set up a band stage and play anti-establishment songs for the entire afternoon. But it happens here in Lisbon. How cool is that?
Rockin’ Out
Protests in Portugal
Che Makes an Appearance
There was another protest a week after the one above that was much in the same vein, but this time it was in Praça da Espanha.
Que se Lixe a Troika
Austerity got you down? Interested in Meritocracy? Leave a comment below and I will send you more info. Thanks again fellow expats in Lisbon and until next time. Ate já!
This was really interesting! I’m an expat in Barcelona and they’re protesting a lot too because of the same issues. Like you said, the Portuguese ones do seem pretty different because of their lack of police brutality. Some of them in Spain are like these ones in Lisbon. I think it’s the ones that are officially organized by unions or political parties. The ones that declare Catalan independence also get police protection, as did a small fascist one (I assume because they probably would’ve been attacked for their beliefs).
I’m looking forward to hearing more about the LIsbon protests and how they develop!
Hi Jessica! Thanks for commenting. I visited Barcelona this summer for the first time and I really liked the city. So much movement! Anyway, how is the situation there? Is it chaos everyday like Greece or is it pretty stable? You should visit Lisbon if you haven’t already
I’ll have to visit Lisbon soon, I’ve never been!
The situation here is pretty stable, but Barcelona is one of the richest areas of Spain so they aren’t as badly off with the crisis as they could be. Having said that, there are protests regularly (maybe once or twice a month).
How often are they protesting in Portugal?
Jessica, there is either a protest or a strike every two weeks or so. It’s getting a bit crazy here! But things are still pretty peaceful. Over the weekend there was a situation outside of the parliament building where some protesters set fire to some barricades.
If you haven’t been to Lisbon it needs to be your #1 vacation destination next summer! If you like Barca you will love Lisbon.
It is of course nice that so many people become active but demonstrations will not change much. A direct attack on the (private ) living situation of the real power bearers, the 1%, is needed to prevent them to benefit from the huge gains they got in this system.
But the proposition to replace the present system by a meritocracy is useless. Besides the fact that it is impossible to establish who should be the best to lead the country and the problem who should choose these superhumans, again there is no program in meritocracy who controls these leaders. We need a Fourth people ‘s Power that will be capable to control and eventually punish the leaders who threaten the well-fare and the freedom of the 99%. See also http://downwithelite.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/the-fourth-peoples-power/
Dear Joost, thanks for your comment. I disagree with several of your statements. You say that “a direct attack on the…1%…is needed to prevent them [from] benefit[ing] from the huge gains they got in this system” while later saying that a “proposition to replace the present system by a meritocracy is useless.”
This is a rationally untenable position because you first acknowledge that it was the current “system” that allowed the 1% to gain incredible money and power while later attacking a new system that would prevent such a thing from happening. You don’t explain why a meritocracy would be “useless” on an ideological basis because how can rule and leadership by the smartest and most talented within their fields be useless? If it is indeed “useless” like you assert then what do you call the current failed system of hiring inexperienced and untalented bureaucrats to lead the nation? Worse than useless?
You also claim that it would be “impossible” to find the people who could best lead a country meritocratically. Here you suffer from a catastrophic lack of imagination. In practically any professional field there are peer organizations within that field dealing with issues and advances within that field. The American Medical Association is one such example and I could name many more. Using these existing organizations to choose amongst themselves who is the best to meritocratically lead the nation on a given area of expertise would not be “impossible” at all.
You then try to assert that some “flea attack” method would somehow be more effective in overthrowing the 1% than an aggressive paradigm shift to Meritocracy. The link that you provided lead to an article that basically regurgitated the “philosophy” of the Occupy Movement. The reason that movement largely failed is because they had no ideological rallying point such as Meritocracy or 100% Inheritance tax to make the movement into a coherent and unified, and thus politically powerful force. The Occupy Movement employed this “flea attack” method you speak of and largely has faded into oblivion.
There’s no point in trying to change the system within the system. What is needed is for a complete system overhaul and a replacement with a new paradigm: Meritocracy.
Thanks for your comment and I really encourage you to do some more homework on what Meritocracy actually is before you brand it as “useless” and “impossible” to implement. If there is a will there is a way.
See http://www.armageddonconspiracy.co.uk/The-Meritocracy-Party(2543605).htm
for more information.
~Expat in Lisbon
Justin, I have done my homework and I know what meritocracy is. I have seen never in any writings about meritocracy that the 99% has any influence. That can be proven with the (btw bad example of meritocracy, you obviously do not know this kind of organisations) of the American Medical Association. There is no influence on the top of the organisation from common doctors and patients. They at the top decide and the rest has to follow. This kind of organisations I know of in my country do not elect the best men on top. There are many other reasons why people rise to the top. But more important is the idea how a meritocratic world will look like. There are some smart ones at the top and the dumb ones down under. But just as in the present society there will be a separation between the dumb ones and the smart ones in the first place because the dumb ones do not have any power to penetrate in the world of the smart ones. They are even less involved in who rules them than in the present society. That is my remark that I should not know how you (who?) can ever ascertain who is the smart one and who are the dumb ones. It will be a selection between peers who already belong to the organisation, who have climbed up. But the 99% at the bottom have no power instrument – as in the present society – to influence decisions at the top. So why should the top talk to the bottom? That are dumb people and maybe they are dissatisfied down under but we know best and they have to adapt. I do not agree. I see now that the men at the top are fairly clever but when I look at the decisions they take they are inspired by the environment they live in and that environment excludes for the greater part the 99%. I do not want a society in which the best measures are taken, but a society in which the measures are taken that satisfy all active and involved people, even when the measures later prove to be wrong ones. That is a society of living beings, you propose a society in which the 99% are put in a straight jacket by some people at the top who say they are right (just as Obama or Romney
.
Joost, you say that you “have done your homework and I know what a meritocracy is” and then you say “I have seen never in any writings about meritocracy that the 99% has any influence”. This is true. Meritocracy doesn’t want to give “influence” in the direction of society to the 99% because the vast majority of people are completely unqualified to make any rational decisions on how a country should be run. You seem to champion the 99% and want give everyone an equal say as to how the country is run. This is called democracy and it is our current system. The same system that has allowed the 1% to gain inordinate power, the same 1% you call for a “flea attack” on.
This isn’t to say that Meritocracy doesn’t care about the 99%. In fact, via 100% inheritance tax, Rousseau’s Social Contract, and leadership via the most qualified, Meritocracy guarantees equal opportunities for everyone while allowing that differences in talent and hard work will let the cream rise to the top. Meritocracy is all about smashing the institutionalized system of privilege, nepotism, and cronyism that has destroyed our world. The 1% have used the guise of “democracy” to put puppet politicians in places of power and get the mostly gullible public to vote for them.
This is brilliant psychology. You won’t try to overthrow a guy you voted for. When the 1% can provide all the candidates for an election it really doesn’t matter who wins. Their guy gets elected no matter what.
As Plato, Socrates, and other philosophical greats have aptly observed, democracy is the rule by the “ill-educated mob”. If you look at the average American you can see that this is quite the case.
Your comment on the AMA being a “bad example” because there is no “influence from “common doctors and patients” was pretty funny for many reasons, but mostly because it proved my point about Meritocracy. Doctors have to prove their merit within the health field to have a decisive say in the AMA and thus health treatment procedures and policies. Also, why should patients with no medical training influence the top of the AMA, other than as statistics regarding certain diseases or effectiveness in treatments? This is a typical half-baked, poorly thought out attack by someone who clearly doesn’t understand a meritocracy even though he claims to have “done his homework”.
I can see your argument though. You are trying to say that everyone should have some say in the direction of society. There are particular wills and then there is the General Will of Rousseau. Society should reflect the General Will, just like Rousseau argued. Meritocracy agrees. The General Will must be reflected in the actions of society’s leaders. Running society according to the General Will is much more likely if leaders are chosen meritocratically instead of the current system of nepotism and cronyism.
The difference between a Meritocracy and our current system is that in a Meritocracy leaders are chosen because they are rationally the best candidates in their field and not chosen because their last name is Bush or because they were members of Skull and Bones. How to choose leaders in a Meritocratic society? A simple vote by their peers in their fields of expertise will suffice.
Our vision of Meritocracy is based on Rousseau, equal opportunities, rewarding talent, education, and giving leadership to those most worthy of it.
See: Rousseau’s General Will, and Meritocracy’s FB page: http://www.facebook.com/meritocracy4earth
Justin, I think we agree about many things though I do not agree with your idea that the 99% have any influence on what happens because of elections. I am not a democrat. But you are in favour of an elitist society and I am against such a society. I do not see much difference between meritocracy and and the 1%-society because in both cases people are not considered to have the same status. It are both elitist societies in which different people are treated in a different way. When the 99% do have hardly influence (as in the present society) the top-group will tend to favour the own group of like-minded people. There is no control mechanism. People are chosen to enter the top when they agree with the sitting leaders, comply with the rules that regulate the top. Society will stagnate and a new kind of 1% will arise.
But there is another objection. Einstein was a very clever man – and so there are many clever men who clearly are on top of the world in their profession – meritocrats. But I do not trust an Einstein to take decisions that touch also other people. In science he is unique but some other people should decide on which research project money earned by the whole population should be spend. The activities of Einstein around the atom bomb were rejectable. So you want peers to decide about how he spend that money while all people are influenced by his work. And with the Einsteins we talk about very specialised work but when we talk about economy I think that everybody is a peer or better said nobody is a peer. There are many clever meritocrats in the economic field and hardly anybody has foreseen that a crisis was looming. Of course because economy is hardly a science and many other factors influence decisions. But you want to exclucde factors that live under the 99%. Only what the meritocrats experience in their restricted surroundings is what counts. The wishes of The People do not penetrate in the circles of the meritocrats, it is an elitist group that decide and everyone decides because of what he knows – and when you live among your peers you know in the first place what lives under your peers. I repeat there is not control mechanism of people who experience the decisions of the top. The voice of The People is not heard (as is now the case) and they have no way to bring their voice with force up to the meritocrats. Thanks for the discussion, I will combat a meritocrat society just on the same way as a 1%-society. By advancing ideas (and practice) to give the 99% an own independent power.
Joost, I no longer am able to follow your argument. You say you aren’t a democrat and yet you argue that the “99%” need to have their wishes catered to. Sorry, this is a democracy, and it is our current system that has allowed the 1% to take control via phony elections, like I said in an earlier comment. How else would the “99%” have their voices heard if not in a democracy? And how are you going to give the “99% an own independent power”? Are you going door to door to ask everyone their opinion on each topic? Impossible. Are you going to elect a system of representatives to speak for the people, like in the current system of democracy? You say you aren’t a democrat and yet you advocate exactly all the central tenets of democracy, the system that has failed and the same system that spawned the 1% who you are attacking.
In any society you will always have separation because PEOPLE ARE INHERENTLY DIFFERENT. In a Meritocracy people will separate and distinguish themselves based on their merit, talent, and hard work instead of in the current system, democracy (the one you advocate from analyzing your arguments) that distinguishes people based on popularity, marketing skill, and privilege. You say that the wishes of the “People do not penetrate into the circles of the meritocrats”. You clearly didn’t read anything at all about Rousseau’s General Will that I was advocating before. The General Will is only possible in a Meritocracy! If you don’t understand the previous statement and why it is self-evidently and rationally obvious then we have no more to discuss.
I am not a democrat. Democracy as is introduced by the Greeks was the rule of the few. Plato said it could only work with about 3000 members and even in Athens most people were excluded to take part – women, foreign labour,etc. Not yet 10% of the people living in that city participated. So it was more a rule of the Happy Few, the 1% then of The People.
Montesquieu introduced the Trias Politica. He was a member of the French elite and he did not care for The Peolpe. He wanted to settle peacefully conflicts within the elite instead of using Machiavellian methods. Only a few members of the Trias (in the executive) are elected and most of them are co-opted and controlled by the 1%. There is no People’s Power. I have nothing to do with this kind of dictatorship.
And also not with your meritocracy., I give some examples out of the medical profession. I decide if I want to have an abortion and not a physician who at the most can say that it is dangerous for my life (if I was a woman of course). They are only the mechanics and also with my car I decide and not the mechanic if the car is made. The same with euthanasia. I decide and not some medical doctors. And when there is a discussion about these subjects (about very private matters) I should be involved but in your meritocracy only the experts are involved and I am excluded. When the sitting powers (be it meritocrats or not) are allowed to choose their successors then you have the principles of the 1%. I want to be involved in any subject I am interested in. And that is not possible in a democracy and also not in a meritocracy. I reject both. I indeed did not read Rousseau tough I have some books in my library. He is too much for me (maybe I am prejudiced) a member of the elite at that time. But it is not only that The People will be heard – as you write – but that The People have the power (the Fourth People’s Power ) to make their wishes real and not to be dependent on some overlords that decide over them and not with them. It is not I who goes from door to door to translate the wishes of The People to the rulers, that is a kind of idealistic democracy and I think also meritocracy though in the last system I suspect that the rulers do not have to go from door to door because they are the top and they know already. How I see the People’s Power is a long story and I have written about it among other things based on the ideas of Jean-Paul Marat by the use of temporary autonomous clubs of interested, involved and active citizens that control, reject propositions (if necessary) and even punish wrong leaders.
When you permit that leaders in a certain profession only decide without interference from others from other professions you get chaos (the wrong kind of chaos) then are ruled by vakidioten (in Dutch) (idiots that only know their own trade) will rule and that is not right. I know some of them even in my family. A genial professor that is called to be the head of the faculty though the only thing he knows is his scientific field and outside that he was as dumb as I have seldom seen. There is no way how to decide who will be a meritocrat when there is no control mechanism from the people who are involved and affected by their decisions. That is also happening in a democracy, the differences between both systems is not very big, The influence of The People is in both systems minimal.
Joost, it is interesting that you bring up the French Revolution and Jean-Paul Marat. The French Revolution succeeded mainly due to the efforts of outstanding individuals of supreme merit such as the Robespierre, Saint Just and the aforementioned Marat. It succeeded due to the meritocratic selection of army commanders and the aforementioned social leaders that allowed the common herd of people to rally around them. Without these transformational leaders of supreme merit and strength the French Revolution would never have happened.
You try to refute Meritocracy while actually building a case for it. I will show you why. You said you support “the use of temporary autonomous clubs of interested, involved and active citizens that control, reject propositions (if necessary) and even punish wrong leaders” as the way to run a society. This is an extremely naive view point and is doomed to fail for two rather obvious reasons: Legitimacy and power.
How could “temporary autonomous clubs” (a few people) have any sort of legitimacy over public policy over ALL PEOPLE in a state? How are these people selected? How do you expect the majority of people outside these clubs to recognize the legitimacy of the clubs to make sweeping policy decisions? Do some “concerned citizens” get together and decide that they will be running economic policy for a country from now on? Does everyone else just say “ok sure” and let them get on with it? And in what way other than violence would they be able to “punish wrong leaders”? There are no rational ways to answer these questions.
Addressing my second point of power, all things in existence obey Nietzschean Will to Power. All things are continually seeking to increase their power and avoid having their power diminished. IF your “temporary autonomous clubs” were to succeed, (probably after fighting long and hard to win legitimacy), do you honestly expect them to give up their power and legitimacy after the “job is done”? No way. Not going to happen. Your “temporary autonomous clubs” if they succeeded would turn into rule by a small number of elite over the vast populace, i.e. an oligarchy, the same system of governance that we have today, and the same system you are fighting against!
The French Revolution (that you brought up with your reference to Marat) did over throw the French Monarchy and the ruling elite class. The problem was that the Terror that they instigated was pretty much a dictatorship by the Committee of Public Safety (much like one of your autonomous clubs) until Robespierre was captured and killed. Then after the fall of the Jacobins the Directory assumed power and a proto-democracy was installed that was supremely unpopular with the people. Look at France today. It still remains an extremely class divided nation where the people have little say over public policy. This is what history dictates will happen if your vision of society tries to play itself out again.
Within any group of Meritocrats (lets use scientists since that was your example) there exist those that have management abilities and those that don’t. There exist members that want to lead and those that don’t. It’s pretty easy to identify these people and get a vote going for the former by the latter. The same goes for society as a whole. There exist people who are leaders (the minority) and there exist people who are followers (the vast majority). Meritocracy seeks to find those leaders and give them leadership within their field of expertise. It recognizes the fact that not only are most people incapable of leadership but they are in fact UNWILLING to lead others. Most people are sheep. Don’t ever forget that.
Your idea of government has already been tried and it failed. Meritocracy has never been tried. Ever heard of Hegelian Dialectics? Free-market capitalism/democracy in the West is the Thesis and Communism/Authoritarianism in the East is the Antithesis. Meritocracy is the higher synthesis that takes the best from both and rejects the bad from both. It’s time a for a new paradigm. Meritocracy is it.
Thanks for a most lively discussion Joost, but I believe that there is no rational way to refute Meritocracy. You certainly can’t use history because it has never been tried. All other alternatives have been tried and have failed. Why don’t we take the scientific approach and see what happens?