You may have noticed the news flow beyond the hot war in Ukraine is largely focused on\u00a0capital<\/em>:<\/strong>\u00a0financial capital<\/em>\u00a0(markets, liquidity, interest rates, commodities, central bank tightening, etc.) and\u00a0political capital<\/em>\u00a0(geopolitical maneuvering, sanctions, revising energy and defense policies, etc.)<\/p>\n Notice who’s left out, unnoticed and invisible?\u00a0The serfs<\/em><\/strong>, the bottom 90% who have been\u00a0decapitalized<\/em>\u00a0in the developed world and exploited in the developing world for the past 45 years.<\/p>\n With capital ascendant, the vast majority of financial and political gains flowed to\u00a0the top tier of speculative capital<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(banks and billionaires) while the purchasing power of labor (i.e. wages) has been in a 45-year descent. (See chart below)<\/p>\n This disemboweling of labor transferred $50 trillion from labor to capital in the U.S. alone.<\/strong>\u00a0Financialization and globalization devalued labor and working-class assets such as savings and boosted leveraged speculative bets only available to financiers and corporations, for example, stock buybacks funded by the tsunami of\u00a0free money for financiers<\/em>\u00a0unleashed by the Federal Reserve and other central banks. (See chart below)<\/p>\n Even though the corporate media gives it no notice,\u00a0serf-expression<\/em>\u00a0will become increasingly consequential.<\/strong>\u00a0No,\u00a0serf-expression<\/em>\u00a0is not a typo for\u00a0self-expression<\/em>, the core doctrine of modernism. By\u00a0serf-expression<\/em>\u00a0I mean the serf’s expression of what is no longer acceptable. Another term for this is\u00a0cultural revolution<\/em>. I address social and cultural revolutions in my new book,\u00a0Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n Is a Cultural Revolution Brewing in America?<\/a>\u00a0(April 9, 2021)<\/p>\n When the serfs no longer believe in the\u00a0divine right of banks and billionaires<\/em>, then the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of the few will no longer be acceptable<\/strong>, regardless of the fawning rationalizations being offered by the toadies, sycophants, enforcers, apparatchiks, minions, lackeys and other apologists for a status quo that benefits the few at the expense of the many.<\/p>\n Serf expressions are not organized by centralized political parties; they are self-organizing revolts against a failed religion worshiping capital and a failed system of centralized authoritarianism and exploitation.<\/strong>\u00a0Serf expressions arise without warning and cannot be controlled by centralized authoritarianism, as the revolution is in the sphere of values and what’s no longer acceptable, rather than in the sphere of politics.<\/p>\n Serf expressions will surprise a ruling order that reckoned the serfs would docilely accept any level of exploitation.<\/strong>\u00a0Alexis De Tocqueville’s trenchant description from his classic book,\u00a0Democracy in America<\/em>\u00a0(1840), comes to mind:<\/p>\n \u00a0“The will is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy… it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes and stupefies a people, till the nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Eventually the “flock of timid and industrious animals” changes their minds about how much exploitation by the few is acceptable.<\/strong>\u00a0Every repressive move by centralized authorities will only harden the resolve of the serfs that the\u00a0divine right of banks and billionaires<\/em>\u00a0is false and the exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few is no longer acceptable.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/Fed-temple_1.jpg?itok=TUAO1LG8\")
<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\n