 Welcome to Sensor number 133. The title of the article is a different way by William J. Eisenman PhD. But before I begin, I'd like to read a few verses from the Bible. Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 21. He that oppresses the poor to increase his riches, and he that gives to the rich shall surely come to want. Proverbs 22 verse 16. He that makes haste to be rich shall not be innocent. Proverbs 28 verse 20. As the nail sticks to the stone, so sin sticks to buying and selling. Ecclesiastes 27 verse 2. And now to the article, a different way. There are many people who are turned off by politics and are simply not interested. They merely went to party and have fun. But if we are not interested in politics and do not vote, we let others control us. On Facebook the other day, a gentleman posted a defense of the status quo saying that all of us could attain the American dream and all that goes with it if we just worked hard and followed the rules. It never dawned on this gentleman to question the existing paradigm. Why to attain the American dream must we work for someone else, making them rich instead of ourselves? Who set up this system? Why do the vast majority of us accept this paradigm? It is the system that benefits those who have more than us. Even our government with the Washington Consensus distributes the vast majority of subsidies upward to the haves. This is not democracy at work. According to the Bible, in the millennium, when God's economics will be in effect, every man will have his own land and vine. Micah 4 verse 4. No one will get rich on the backs of others. Standards will never change. No usury. No inflation. No poor. No profitable corporations receiving subsidies. This is quite a contrast to what we now have. There will be true freedom and liberty. Not just the freedom and liberty to shop that we enjoy today. We have six large banks, Bank of America, City Corp, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo. They all took money from taxpayers during the financial meltdown that they caused in 2007 and 2008. We found out that these banks were greedy and quote, weaponized for the war fought by the rich against the poor and the middle class. Unquote. Yes, we are in a state of war. How much interest are you receiving on your savings account? It's below 1%. They want you spending, not saving. In the 1970s, interest paid on savings accounts was 6%. How is it that while they are paying you no interest to speak of, they are charging you high interest rates on your loans and credit cards. They are making a killing on student loans. The big banks got glass stigle and other laws repealed and totally took over Washington D.C. in 2007-2008 financial meltdown. The banks became too big to fail and to date they have only gotten bigger. At the center of all this corruption is the Federal Reserve. The Fed came into existence at a secret meeting of private bankers on Jekyll Island, Georgia in 1910. The aim of the Fed was to smooth out financial panics by giving banks a pool of money they could tap when no one else dared extend them credit. In theory, the Fed is supposed to oversee operations of the banks, keep the value of the dollar stable and make sure Americans can find jobs. The Fed is not a government agency. The Fed can do what it wants. It is clear that the Fed and big banks are in cahoots. After the first bailouts to the banks in the 2007-2008 financial meltdown, the process continued. The Fed adopted a zero to borrow at no cost and quantitative easing allowed the banks to grow bigger. With quantitative easing, the Fed bought securities from the banks such as treasuries and mortgage bonds. And with all this money, the banks speculated in commodities and futures. What we have here is a triumph of private ownership over what is best for the country and its economy. And private ownership is the foundation of American capitalism. This works out to be a bad deal for we the people as all of this outlaw activity goes unpunished. No one goes to jail. Fines in these instances are not punishment. Fines are child's play for those with money. Jail is more appropriate. Not only did the Fed lavish our banks with free money, it gave lots of European banks gobs of money. The Fed even loaned money to the Bank of China. This all was a horrendous misuse of capitalism. Communism is not totalitarianism. A dictatorship. The Soviet Union was totalitarian, not communistic. Communism is a working class party that is economic rather than political. It seeks to abolish private property and all inheritance rights. Credit would be handled by a state national bank. Also transportation and communications would be controlled by the state. Factories would be owned by the state and there would be free education and healthcare. Capitalist production must go on and on increasing and expanding or it must die. This method centralizes property in the hands of the few. Workers are always fearful of losing their jobs and capitalism likes it that way because it keeps wages low. When the worker has no work he will eat what is given to him and if he has no job he will probably do what he's told and won't rock the boat. He is free only to obey. Pure communism meets the needs of the many. According to the Bible competition is of the devil. Satan tried to knock God off his throne. In capitalism competition is worshiped. At the onset of the Industrial Revolution competition was instrumental in creating the working class. Workers were drawn to the towns and cities. Capital was centralized in the hands of the few which created competition among the workers. In these times workers became in all practicality slaves of the property owning class and manufacturing. The working class was left with only the appearance of free choice. The working man had few choices. Starving slowly, killing himself speedily or stealing. The working man is condemned to work. Compulsory toil is a cruel and degrading punishment. Under our form of capitalism we sometimes lose sight of the fact that a working man has the right to a life worthy of a human being. To independent activity and opinions of his own. What we have today is a system where workers are forced to sell themselves. Socialism is not totalitarianism or dictatorship. Under socialism society takes possession of the productive forces and the means of production become state property. In a democracy that would mean that we the people thus state would own and operate all the manufacturing and businesses. It seems like a simple and fair economic setup. It is no secret that under our form of capitalism the worker is exploited and that there is a war between workers and manufacturers. The property owners appear as vampires. It is a war between capital and labor. In this economic setup all the conditions of life are measured by money and many of us do not understand that social conditions create poverty. We want in all cases to blame the individual. Even from the beginning we turn the power of government against workers. Any goodness shown to workers are a business matter. Many of us believe as did Malthus when he said the right to live is nonsense. Some regard poverty as a crime that must be punished by starvation. We have manufacturers who believe that the purpose of workers is to be exploited. They believe that workers are chomping at the bit to work for slave wages. They believe this way because they can. What is forgotten in this war on the poor is that capitalists cannot exist without workers. And the huge flaw in capitalism is hardly ever spoken of. The capitalist extracts more value from what the worker produces than what the worker is paid. This creates constantly increasing amounts of capital to accumulate in the hands of the possessing classes and forcing wages down to a starvation minimum destroys a home market. What we need is social regulation of production and a plan adapted to the needs of the community and of each individual. Also, being without employment should not be being without existence. Socialism goes back about 300 years. For much of human existence, feudalism was the dominant economic system. It was eventually replaced by a market system. But many men dreamed of a utopia where there existed no private property. There was a universal obligation to work and an equal share of society's wealth along with equal rights under the law and state management and control of production. Some sought to have authority based on wisdom, prudence, and courage. Not on wealth. Soon it was discovered that the true source of wealth was labor. Modern socialism has its roots in the mills and slums of the Industrial Revolution. Falsely attributed to Marx, it was actually St. Simon who said, From each according to his ability to each according to his need. At this time the ruling classes did not want the masses to be well educated and well fed because then it would be impossible to control them. Karl Marx always said that the workers had nothing to lose but their chains. There has always been oppressors and the oppressed. Humans must eat, drink, have shelter and clothes. These are basic needs and once these needs are met we are free to turn our attention to politics, science and religion. A hungry man doesn't give a damn about politics and keeping him hungry keeps in docile and obedient. The state, by its nature, is a tool of capitalist oppression. Before workers can create a new means of production they need to be economically independent of both the state and the capitalist system. Only then can new forms of social organization be brought into being. At the present time the worker is not free enough to do this. In America socialism was synonymous with the labor movement and police and national guards and private security teams were used against strikers. Eugene Debs and Victor Berger formed the American Socialist Party in 1901. After a railroad strike Eugene Debs was sent to jail for six months for contempt of court and conspiring against interstate commerce. Debs was also in jail in 1920 for criticizing the federal government's use of the 1917 Sabotage and Espionage Act. Today America has no substantial socialist organization and no prominent figure. Only Bernie Sanders. And of course the right wing ridicules Bernie and socialism. Today the goal of socialism seems to be devise a framework that will support left of center social values within a thriving capitalist economy. Today Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics have won the day. Forgetting of course that consumption is an inherent part of capitalism which creates unnecessary and wasteful commodities at the expense of needs in pursuit of profit. Before leaving these subjects it might be fitting to discuss how another man made economic government set up fascism. Extreme nationalism is a hallmark of fascism. Fascism is totalitarian. Fascism is a marriage between government and the corporations. Hitler's National Socialism Party was socialism in name only. Hitler was not a socialist, he was a dictator. In Italy the fascists, the black shirts, broke up strikes and killed labor leaders. George Orwell called the fascists a bully. There is one more economic system worthy of our attention. God's economics. God's economics are outlined in the Bible and they are prophesied to go into effect during the millennium when Jesus returns and rules from Jerusalem as king of kings and lord of lords. Micah 4 verse 4 offers a glimpse of what things will be like as does Isaiah. Every man will have his own land and vine. There will be no usury. Standards will never change. Debt will be cancelled after seven years. If you sold your land, you get it back after 50 years. No one will get rich up the backs of others and much more. People will work for themselves, not the man. Most jobs are boring and enslaving. Capitalism does not provide a framework for people to work less. Workers lack the time to enjoy life. Socialists in the 1840s tried to battle some of the harshness of capitalism. But a mass socialist party never came into being. Americans seemed to be baffled and frightened by socialists. Our notions of socialism came out of the Cold War. Capitalism is good, communism is bad. But communism and socialism are not the same. And government paying for things is not socialism. There must be a turnaround in the way we view work and business. We must come to understand that it is not the worker who desperately needs a job. It is the business that needs the worker. The end.