The Relentless Momentum of Conventional Wisdom

I have people come up to me and say “OK Mr. Buckett, if this idea is everything that you seem to think it is, why haven’t economists like say Allen Greenspan, Milton Friedman, Paul O’Neil, or John Kenneth Galbraith embraced the ideals of Binary Economics and Capital Homesteading?” And to tell you the honest truth, I had exactly the same questions when I was first run over by Kelso/Adler’s Capitalist Manifesto. I mean to me, it was so obvious and blatantly right that I wanted to know why in the world “the experts” hadn’t picked up on it, implemented it, and made the world a better place?

But the more I looked at the situation, and the more knowledgeable friends I talked with, the more I began to understand why “the experts” WILL BE THE LAST ONES to tune into and endorse this incredible, but highly unconventional idea, regardless of how great it is. The reason is that they have far too much invested in conventional wisdom (far too much to lose) to ever embrace an idea as revolutionary as this. Even if they see it clearly, which most of them don’t, their conventional lock step prevents them from even talking about such things in public.

So What Do They Have Invested
So what do they have invested? Well let’s start with years of education and study, high school, college, graduate school, post graduate school, etc. And then there are the professional papers, the articles, the books, the lectures and speeches declaring their allegiance to and support of conventionalism in a myriad of ways. And ultimately there’s the JOB, which is what gives them value, stature, distinction, and worth in the eyes of their friends, peers, and colleagues, if not their family whose bills are paid by this JOB.

In other words even if one of these well invested experts recognizes that the emperor is wearing NO CLOTHES, they can ill afford to point it out without jeopardizing their lifelong investment, their identity, their JOB. So people like Greenspan and Friedman cannot say that Kelso is right because doing so would be confessing that they themselves ARE WRONG, and that’ll never happen.

This Dilemma Applies To Much More Than Just Economists
In a very real sense, what we’re up against is conventional wisdom itself, and this dilemma applies to more than just mainstream economists like Greenspan and Friedman. Academicians generally speaking, often suffer from a similar, uncontrollable case of conventional indoctrination.

I mean that these people are paid by the state to know the conventional answers in their respective fields of endeavor. They’ve studied the conventional subject matter. They’ve thought long and hard about it. They’ve discussed and consulted professionally. And their students and clients are all supposed to look up to them because they are recognized by convention. After all, these folks are educators and teachers and without the answers, then who the hell are they?

To say this a little differently, academicians are the vehicles that our society depends upon to pass conventional wisdom on to the younger generation, and they (the academics) can easily feel threatened by situations that make them look as if they don’t know what they’re talking about, and they tend to avoid these situations like the plague. One other factor, get below the college level and (public) academics are union, through and through…for very good reason I might add. Most own very little wealth producing capital and unionization is a much better alternative than being divided, pitted against one another, and conquered by administrators like the teachers in most private schools. Anyway, academicians will never be the ones to light the binary fire either.

How About Professional Politicians?
Well then, what about professional politicians? You’d think that there would have been at least a few ambitious players who had read about the solution, understood it, and said “My God, I can ride this one all the way to the White House. I’ll be a national if not an international hero by telling the people I represent about the magic in this 21st century concept.” But to date, there have been no such takers.

Of course the problem with politics these days is that the surest way to victory in the third millennium is to get your hands on lots of money, hire the best PR agency you can afford, and spin your way into office. And when it comes to money people, they only back conventional wisdom, which has obviously worked well for them.

Add to that the fact the professional pols are also deeply vested (books, articles, speeches, reputations, etc.) in conventionality and they can ill afford to announce that Kelso has been right all along, because that would mean that they’ve been wrong all along. So the fate of this concept cannot be left in the hands of politicians either.

How About Professional Journalists?
Inevitably someone will suggest that professional journalists should be ripe for a new, outside the box idea like this. After all, they’re always looking for a scoop, an angle, something with which to surprise, provoke, or otherwise capture a reader’s attention. Why would they be averse to spilling the beans on conventionality and to telling they’re readers what they should have been told decades ago now?

To be honest, there have been a few of these journalistic renegades who have dared to think for themselves including Mike Wallace in a 60Minutes story back in the mid seventies, Bill Moyers in one of his famous interview books, and a guy named Nicholas Van Hoffman whose razor sharp pen and wit allowed him to challenge conventional wisdom regularly back in the day. But alas, these rogues were too few and far between to make a legitimate dent in the armor of conventional wisdom.

Furthermore, conventional wisdom owns the newspapers, the magazines, the TV and radio stations and networks who pay the professional journalists salaries. If they fly in the face of convention too hard and too often, they will not only find themselves unemployed, but unemployable in their chosen field of work…a large risk for anyone who lives and dies by the pen.

And Now Throw In The Totally Frustrated, Demoralized Majority
So far we’ve talked only about the protective layer of experts who are effectively paid to guard the palace gates of conventional wisdom, to repeat the company line, and who are unwilling, unable, or both, to risk their own immediate futures for the futures of generations to come. But let’s take one final step here and throw in the myriads of non-experts who have become so dazed and confused, so thoroughly disgusted and frustrated by today’s politics as usual, that they’ve been labeled the demoralized majority.

These people have lost hope. They’ve stopped listening. They’ve stopped thinking about it because it’s too frustrating, and such a waste of time. They feel totally impotent, and unable to make a real difference in the face of the crushing momentum that conventional wisdom has accumulated over the decades. And if they’ve lost hope, if they’ve stopped listening, and stopped thinking, these folks are playing right into the hands of the same status quo who pays the experts to say and think what they want them to say and think. This group of people also offers conventional wisdom a humongous layer of protection that will also have to be pierced if real change is going to occur.

Layer Upon Layer Of Conventional Armor
So what we’re talking about here is a situation where conventional wisdom is protected by layer upon layer of vested interest which discourages the likes of economists, academicians, politicians, and journalists from entertaining any new paradigm. But if they’re unusually adventurous and they happen to taste the forbidden fruit, they’ll find themselves in a situation where revealing a new-found truth would cost them dearly. They’re simply unable to say THE EMPEROR IS WEARING NO CLOTHES OUT LOUD, without having the emperor chop their heads off…a true dilemma for anyone.

If Not The Experts Then Who?
OK, now if “the experts” will not, or cannot afford to tell the public about this amazing new 21st century solution to 21st century problems, who can? The basic answer is that this revolution is going to depend on many non-experts, courageous and resourceful people whose livelihoods and identities are not owned, controlled, and totally dependent on the bondage of convention.

Using the emperor as our analogy once again, it was the non-expert, (THE CHILD) who revealed to all the wise old experts, (THE ADULTS) that the emperor was wearing no clothes. It’s going to take independent minded people who, like the child, recognize that what we’re talking about here is not some gigantic, mystical mountain, but something that the average Joe and Josephine walking around on Main Street USA can understand if they’ll only trust their own god given intellects and give it a try. Of course failing to try, effectively prevents all understanding.

Average Folks Cannot Afford To Wait For The Experts To Lead
The moral of the story is that the average folks in this nation can ill afford to wait around for the economists, the academicians, the professional pols, and the journalists to lead the way out of the mess that they led us into. We’re going to have to lead ourselves. And if we fail in that endeavor, the future of justice, democracy, peace, and prosperity for generations to come in these United States and around the world is in deep trouble.