The Essential Handbook for Engineering an Unequal Society, a Manifesto by Corp Dollars

What follows requires an intense dedication to spirit of WEM (The Wondrous Efficiency of Markets).

A Successful Engineer will have to learn to refrain from falling victim to foolish feelings of justice or sympathy, both of which threaten to undermine WEM.

The architecture of inequality must be carefully constructed. As the founding fathers of the United States clearly understood, democracy must be kept in check.  For this purpose, they invented the Electoral College to prevent the president from being elected by popular vote.

To ensure an effective electoral system, an obsequious media must be skilled in drowning the public with a flood of misinformation to maintain a constant level of fear to make them more likely to side with the CS (corporate system).

Knowing that the media is not currently up to the job of managing the electoral system, even with a generous flood of money from the CS.  In order to protect the WEM, sophisticated methods are required. Gerrymandering almost essential by placing groups of people, too ignorant to understand that WEM, in districts where their votes will be inconsequential.

Now we get to a more important part of the architecture: the legal system.  For example, courts in the United States agreed that corporations are people, deserving all the rights of an upstanding citizen. Moreover, the electoral system insurance that the appointment of judges will be restricted to those people who are sincere believers in the WEM.  Their role is essential because some legislators get out of hand and create abominable regulations that undermine the efficiency of WEM.  Some benighted members of the judiciary are too lackadaisical to rule these regulations as unconstitutional.  For that reason, CES must offer very lucrative employment to the regulators who are intelligent enough to see the wisdom of WEM.  Consequently they ignore the foolish regulatory structure.

Regulators are not the only ones to see the benefits of working with the CES.  Politicians who resign or are defeated are almost inevitably destined to enjoy the benefits of their dedication to the WEM with the returns from taking a rewarding position with a major corporation, lobbying, or even a lucrative contract to write a book that virtually no one would want to read.

When done correctly, this system works magnificently, although it periodically it seems to fall apart until the detested government apparatus rescues it.  In the meantime, huge amounts of wealth and income fall into the hands of the top 1%, the people of greatest importance, while the rest of the public can enjoy watching the spectacular performance of the CES, a reward worthy of their place in society especially because envy of the wealthy brethren will obviously make them work harder to succeed, adding to WEM.

All power to WEM!

4 comments so far

  1. […] By Michael Perelman, a professor of economics at California State University, Chico who also writes at Unsettling Economics […]

  2. mark hansen on

    thank you Michael.
    it is seldom that anyone speaks the truth.
    it should be interesting to see if Bernie Sanders is the eventual nominee of the democratic party.
    if either Bush or Clinton gets in there will be little difference for the one percent.

  3. BUP BE TINH DUC on

    thank you Michael.
    it is seldom that anyone speaks the truth.
    it should be interesting to see if Bernie Sanders is the eventual nominee of the democratic party.

  4. Tim on

    …And assiduous incessant propagation of a proliferation of distracting irrelevant side issues and details, sensationalism, identity politics, anything to prevent critical thinking that would impair the marvelous efficiency of the WEM. All hail the WEM! Long live the WEM!

    Then a little boy said, “But Mommy, I can see under the fig leaves, the naked base drives of the WEM!, it isn’t wearing any clothes!” So the spell was broken, and the mass delusion propagated to enslave the people began to crumble, turn to dust and blow away in the wind. Everyone turned to the better things that they had to do, and the WEM became a byword, a proverb, like Ozymandias.


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