The Isocracy Network

In a desperate attempt to deflect attention on their economic incompetence, their war on the poor, the manipulation of the ABC, and the Banking Royal Commission, the current Federal government hopes that it can appeal to nationalism, but condemning Byron City Council for moving Australia Day celebrations one day earlier. The Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, criticised the council for engaging in "indulgent self-loathing", claiming that "Our modern Aus nation began on January 26, 1788. That’s the day to reflect on what we’ve accomplished, become, still to achieve. We can do this sensitively, respectfully, proudly, together."

Most commentators were less than happy with this. My own comment parodied the response; "Let's respectfully, sensitively, and proudly whitewash 250 years of dispossession, rape, and murder. We've achieved so much". Others argued that the account was a parody. Noongar author Claire Coleman reminded the Prime Minister that the day will not be forgotten as invasion day. Others pointed out that even on a technical level the Prime Minister was completely mistaken; "Technically this date is 'Foundation Day; of the Penal Colony of NSW. The Commonwealth of Australia - Australia as ‘Nation’ commenced on 1 January 1901. Before that it was a collection of 'colonies'". Sydney-sider parochialism now unites with white invader imperialism.

Matters took a step to the bizarre when Nationals leader Bridget McKenzie told Sky News, referring to the day, "The reality is that is when the course of our nation changed forever. When Captain Cook stepped ashore, "And from then on, we've built an incredibly successful society, best multicultural society in the world." Marque DC responded in parody: "Capt Cook was a great Australian! He was the guy who rode Phar Lap in a cavalry charge across the open plains of Gallipoli against the Japanese. He got a VC for that action. I saw it on the #NationalPartyHistoryChannel"

The same motivation appears here as did the previous "Isocracy Profile" profile article on Albert Einstein; an attempt to identify inspirational individuals who have contributed to the nascent social and political theory that is isocracy. As with the previous article the same words of caution can be expressed; it is unlikely that anyone would agree with everything that constitutes the Isocratic outlook as expressed on these pages, and likewise identification of a deceased person with a named political theory can only be done on the basis of evidence from their works, rather than their explicit statement of identity - especially when that political theory only sees development after their passing.

Nevertheless, there is some a degree of certainty that Martin Luther King Jnr would be supportive of the Isocracy program, based on the content of the works and their actions. Martin Luther King, Jnr. was, of course, primarily a social activist and a moral theorist. Whilst the former is well-known, the latter is often overlooked. His social activism came from his moral theory, and his moral theory initially comes from an intuitive sense of injustice. The theory rationalises the feeling, ensuring that it is a deeply considered conviction rather than a deeply ingrained prejudice, the activism tests the theory, recursively applying theory to practice, to test its grounding. In one of his early sermons [1], King argued: "This is a moral universe. It hinges on moral foundations. If we are to make of this a better world, we've got to go back and rediscover that precious value that we've left behind". What was the value left behind? It was a moral commitment. Certainly, as a reverend, he phrased them it in religious terms. But nevertheless, they were practical and earthly, rather than metaphysical objectives; "We are reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality." [2]

The Historical Basis of Anti-Abortionist Sentiment

If we put aside all metaphysical and religious dogma and rely only on facts, or objective truths, then it is impossible to arrive at a hard anti-abortion position. Historically, abortion was condemned in Christianity (and in its derivative Islam) because it was believed that ensoulment—the obtaining of a soul—takes place before birth. In Christianity, it was held that ensoulment must take place at conception otherwise the human nature of Christ would have been fashioned in the womb, apart from His divine soul, prior to ensoulment. Since orthodox Christian theology held that Christ was not a man who became God (or a God who indwelt in a man) but rather God incarnate (the God-Man), it was necessary to insist that ensoulment happened at the very moment of conception. Thus, ensoulment was believed to take place at conception. Consequently, any abortion would necessarily constitute murder.

Only baptized individuals were allowed into heaven, which is why the early Church insisted on baptizing infants. Abortion would damn an infant/fetus to hell for all eternity as the souls of the unborn were unable to be saved through baptism. Abortion was also frowned upon by early Christians because of its association with Temple prostitution. This is the religious background for why abortion was viewed as murder. Islam, lacking the concept of a God-Man, held that ensoulment occured four months into the pregnancy. Thus, abortion was regarded as somewhat permissible prior to ensoulment, but not permissible after. The thing to note about these justifications for opposing abortion is that they are anti-scientific. They are based on arbitrary religious dogma and not on objective fact.

Beyond these old religious dogmas, the main argument against abortion is that the fetus either is human or has the potential to become a fully-developed human. This, though, is also non-scientific and non-objective. It is based on a vague sentiment and usually also on the speciesist assumption that human life is somehow more valuable than all other forms of life. This sentimentality and speciesism that lies beneath anti-abortion sentiments is really, in my opinion, based upon subconscious religious assumptions that have become ingrained in us through cultural and social conditioning—we, knowingly or unknowingly, assume that we are the greatest of all creatures, alone created in the image and likeness of God.

Socialism proper refers to the advocacy of some sort of collective, social, or public ownership of industry/enterprise and, usually, of land as well. We find many different varieties of socialism. Ricardian socialists advocate replacing private ownership of the means of production with worker-owned cooperatives. Marxists advocate public ownership by the State, which in turn would be run by the proletariat. Lange-Lerner socialism advocates public ownership of enterprise within a market system with central planning. Then there are the libertarian socialists, like Proudhon and Bakunin, who advocated worker-owned cooperatives alongside public ownership of land at the municipal level. Kropotkin’s variation of libertarian socialism had communal ownership, like decentralized Marxism minus the State, rather than independent worker-owned cooperatives as with Proudhon's mutualism and Bakunin’s collectivism. But all varieties of socialism have one common characteristic: they oppose private ownership of the means of production in favor of some sort of social ownership.

Capitalism, unlike socialism, refers more to the condition of things than the precise form of ownership. Capitalism is not private ownership and markets. There are countless examples of market economies with private enterprise that we would not regard as capitalism. Feudalism is a key example, as was medieval distributism. An essential characteristic of capitalism is the division of society into two classes, haves and have-nots, where the have-nots must work for the haves as wage-laborers in order to survive. Under capitalism, most people do not have any share of private ownership over the means of production, meaning that a small group of capitalists and landlords essentially rule over the masses. The vast majority of people under capitalism are not capitalists, which means that they must sell their labor to the capitalist class in order to survive. Wage-slavery is an essential characteristic of capitalism. For a system to be capitalism, it must have money, markets, and private ownership. It must be industrialized. Those are necessary but not sufficient conditions for classifying a system as capitalism. To be capitalism, wage labor must also be the normal mode of survival. Markets, private ownership of land and enterprise, and wage-slavery are the three necessary conditions that must be met in order for a system to constitute capitalism. There are other systems that also have division of people into haves and have-nots but do not constitute capitalism. Feudalism may have markets, private property, and division into haves and have-nots, but it doesn't have wage-labor as the norm and does not have an industrialized economy, so it is not capitalism.

Exclusive interview with Om Amran on her Displacement from Daraa

Edited by Joanne Roberts

Last time we spoke with Om Amran she was in Daraa after being displaced by Assad for the fifth time. When asked whether she thought she would be displaced again. She said "No...... do not worry". Little did she know at the time that her days there were numbered.

I do not think the World let alone the Syrian people thought that Bashar Al Assad would actually empty another town of all it's inhabitants. Displace thousands of families and for what? Their only crime in this conflict was that they spoke the truth and spoke up against oppression and war crimes.
They asked for Freedom.

Q1 Whilst in Daraa is it true that the regime dropped leaflets asking you all to surrender or die? What did you think when you saw these threats?

About two months before the invasion of areas outside control of the regime in Daraa, the regime's planes occasionally dropped leaflets. The leaflets included messages from the regime which called on the people to fight terrorists and insurgents and promised that the militants would die if they did not lay down their arms. The words and phrases used by the regime were sometimes nice but often violent, included was the threat of death and murder. It should be noted that the areas where leaflets were dropped became areas of de-escalation under the truce declared in South-west Syria on July 9, 2017. It was under the control of the armed opposition factions that were not classified by the International community as extremist or extremist terrorist groups or extreme Islamic groups.

The longer this war goes on the more Assad tries to silence the truth. While he displaces thousands of Syrian families they never have the chance to speak out. What was it like in Daraa? What was it like to lose your home yet again at the hands of the President and the Russians? Where do they go? What do they do?

These people have fears and worries and nobody seems to listen nor care. This is not the first time these people have faced displacement. This is just a continuation of homelessness and fear they have suffered for the past seven years. Nobody spoke up about Aleppo, nobody spoke up about Eastern Ghouta. Nobody spoke up about Daraa. We are asking you please to speak up about Idlib.

These are not terrorists as Assad makes out. These are human beings with families and children and they need our support. These are the thoughts of a lady in her 40's that was displaced from Daraa and found herself displaced in Idlib with the threat of Assad and Russia breathing down her
neck.

Somebody said that the Alt-Right isn't really gaining popularity as much as it seems. Instead, they insisted that people like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson are becoming more popular. To be clear, Shapiro and Peterson are Alt-Right. They're part of the same phenomena that gave us Richard Spencer and Steve Bannon. They aren't explicitly white supremacist like Matthew Heimbach and Christopher Cantwell, but they do give a nuanced and sophisticated critique of anti-racist, feminist, and anti-fascist ideas.

The right-wing in America had three factions historically. There were the classical liberals, libertarians, and traditional conservatives. The classical liberals and libertarians were substantially different, but similar enough that they are often lumped together. They were the advocates of free-market capitalism. On the other hand, traditional conservatism was rooted in Christianity and saw God as the basis for morality. Social ethics and politics were to be rooted in Christian values.

After some decades of incremental progress following the end of the Cold War, there is doubt over the future of Europe, illustrated most dramatically by the rise of ethnocentric political parties in a number of European nation-states, and the "Brexit" referendum of 2016. To understand this current situation and examination of the context of Europe is necessary, and how European unity has threatened traditional superpowers in such a way that it is in their interest to weaken this unity. For those whose political allegiance is towards individual liberties and social democracy, the fate of Europe is critical, as this is the region which has shown greatest commitment to these ideals.

Eurocentrism

Some Eurocentrism is justified, as the European peninsula of the Eurasian continental plate is central to modern world history, that is c1500 onwards. Prior to that traditional civilisations such as that of the Chinese or Arabic societies were well in advance of Europe. However, after this point, there were dramatic changes in Europe that continue to influence us today.

I am not a proponent of laissez-faire, but I do advocate free trade. Effective and beneficial market systems require a certain amount of government intervention. I believe, like F. A. Hayek and Hernando de Soto Polar, that government intervention should be non-arbitrary and designed to create rules and order that allow for rational economic planning. Markets only work if there is a system of law governing property and contracts and a system of courts, judges, or tribunals for arbitration and dispute resolution. De Soto has made the observation that “property rights is the precursor to addresses.” Enforcement of contracts is very difficult, if not impossible, without addresses. If you want to file a civil suit against someone that ripped you off, how are they going to summon the other party to court without an address to deliver the summons to? And how would you send the police after someone that robbed you without an address? So, government creates this framework for property and addresses that makes law-enforcement and adjudication possible. Furthermore, government creates the legal framework that allows corporations to issue shares, which allows businesses to get money to do what they do. All of these things that are basically necessary components of market systems are products of government. For markets to work efficiently, government must intervene but it must not intervene arbitrarily—that is, government intervention must follow predetermined rules that allow individuals to plan accordingly. The government must not have the authority to arbitrarily interfere in economic affairs.

Many people refer to social democracy as "socialism," so that is probably where I should start. It is, for the most part, inaccurate (or meaningless) to call social democracy "socialism." In the modern context, the term is either just a slur devoid of substance or virtue signaling. Social democrats that call themselves socialists do so because it makes them sound more radical than they really are, which makes them feel cool, whereas people on the right use the term because it is a term of derision in their estimation. In either case, the term is devoid of any substantial meaning. Back in the day, social democracy was regarded as "socialism," because socialism just meant any critique of, or alternative to, the status quo in industrialized society. When Eduard Bernstein—the father of modern social democracy—was writing, his ideas were considered socialistic. At the time, the term "socialism" was so broad that advocating laissez-faire was considered socialism. Libertarian socialists like Benjamin Tucker and Ricardian socialists like Thomas Hodgskin actually advocated free-markets as the alternative to capitalism. You see, "capitalism" just meant actually existing economic arrangements in industrial societies, while "socialism" just designated anything other than that. Referring to social democracy as socialism harks back to a time when laissez-faire was also considered socialistic. Historically, it was correct to say that social democracy is "democratic socialism," but it is basically inaccurate to refer to social democracy as "socialism" today, even though some social democrats like Bernie Sanders do so. To refer to modern social democracy as "socialism" is anachronistic. "Socialism" isn't quite an accurate description of social democracy in our modern age. Language evolves over time and the definitions of terms change with it.