Most have heard the conspiracy theories concerning "The Masons" or "The Jewish Bankers" or "The Illuminati" or other clandestine cloak and dagger groups bent on sapping our vital fluids and turning us all into "drones". But unless we subscribe to the notion that political parties are, in fact, conspiracies, then there is no real threat to America from any conspiratorial group. There is no need for melodramatic suspicions of "evil" on the part of any unseen and shadowy organization in explaining our current condition. There has always been and always will be a nucleus of aristocratic intent in every society. And this alone, if left unchecked, will give rise to some form of aristocracy and authoritarianism. History certainly illustrates the rise and fall of all kinds of monarchy, dynasty, nobility, and other forms of aristocratic rule all across the world. The drive to dominate for fear of being dominated is as much a part of human nature as our will to survive. And in a minority of the species this trait will supersede all others and thus control. There is simply no reason to believe that some magic elixir has allowed us to exorcise these tendencies from our American social environment. On the contrary, it is our thesis that aristocracy is very much alive and well in these United States and growing stronger every minute of every day, and that the perfection of such aristocracy does, in fact, constitute "The Hijacking of America".

To understand and appreciate that America has been hijacked one need only reflect upon what The United States was and is supposed to be; the ideals of the nation and its people, the principles that led America to demand its independence from Britain, the idea that all all are created equal and endowed with the inalienable right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Such an ideal, of course, is absolutely antithetical to any form of aristocratic societal arrangement in that such arrangements are always authoritarian, putting the needs of the state and/or the formalization of religion ahead of the need for self determination. And then there is the definition of these United States in a Constitution that limits the power of our central government. Such limitations were part of the definition of our nation precisely because the people of America did not want and were quite fearful and distrustful of a distant and aristocratic caste controlling their pursuits. The primary debates of this formative time are chronicled in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers and other historical records which show us quite clearly the information available to and employed by the people of the time in their decision to ratify our Constitution; the principles of representative government which were portrayed in The Constitution; this idea of a "representative" democracy, or "representative" republic, where aristocracy would be held in check through the election of individuals that would represent the interests of the common people. As we speak of "The Hijacking of America" we speak of the loss of true representation for all but the privileged few. And having lost representation the great majority have experienced the loss of self determination, the loss of personal and individual control over their lives. their own thoughts and opinions and yes, even their prejudices. These freedoms have been lost to us as our supposed representatives control and manipulate the flow of information so absolutely essential to self determination; as they sell false and misleading economic concepts, and as they instill fear and bigotry so as to control the votes of a population deprived of information by a system of two parties that are selling the same lies. The individuals in our society have scant time to conduct the painstaking and meticulous research necessary to see past the well choreographed rhetoric and the posturing. True representation such as that which was presented to the people who ratified our constitution provides for the election of "common" persons to serve in a House of Representatives. And these representatives of the common people were charged with the responsibility of research and found knowledge concerning the activities of our government. They were to be a conduit through which information was to flow in both directions, untainted and unpainted by party loyalties. Even when good people with a few resources take the time to be informed and knowledgeable they can never gain enough political notoriety to combat the well funded two party system. And in those rare circumstances where the people have, by virtue of thought and reflection, made their opinions and desires quite clear, our elected representatives simply ignore this and make law in favor of the aristocracy of which they have become an integral part.

The rise of aristocracy and the assault of such aristocracy on the majority is not some American centric happening or any new development in the governmental history of the world. And what has happened is not the fulfillment of some master plan concocted by a cabal of rich guys so as to steal all the United States wheat fields. The tendency of societies toward aristocracy certainly precedes the founding of the United States, the advent or rise of the economics profession, or the writings of Adam Smith in Europe. But the center of our discussion is economics because this is the crucial element in the rise of aristocracy in the United States. It has been the enlistment of the economics "profession" in the spread of disinformation that was and still is the essential ingredient in the formation and maintenance of aristocratic designs. And it is the abuse of economics and the enlistment of that abused profession in the control of the people of our nation that will have debunked the actual science of economics so thoroughly that it can simply be pooh poohed and ignored by our politicians and and our priests.

What most aristocratic apologists of the current economics "profession" will not confront is that economics is a religious proposition. This does not infer that people must be believers in a supreme being an after life so as to be aware or to be conversant or appreciative of (or disdainful of) economic principles. But proper economics is normative and therefore does require a definition of "good". And any definition of "good" is a religious position. It is not even possible to prove there is any such thing as "good". Even if one makes the presumption that the existence and ascent of man as a species is "good" then we are still left with the definition of "ascent". Is "good" that which pleases God, or is "good" that which makes life on earth better for man? Though not an endorsement of Ayn Rand, the following is most illuminating in this context:

'If a person or group or culture or creed wishes to believe that an afterlife will offer eternal rewards that are proportional to one's Earthly poverty, sickness, disfigurement, ignorance, and brevity of life, then a system of rules promoting Earthly prosperity, health, and longevity would be inappropriate. If, however, one seeks rules that are likely to optimize or maximize "life on Earth," these rules must at least be consistent with, or respect, the natures of "life" and "Earth."' --- Ayn Rand

In our treatment of economics we will assume that pleasing God, while it may be a fine thing to do, is not the province of economics. We will maintain that the ascent of the species as addressed by economics will be seen as the easing of man's earthly burdens and the improvement in man's comfort while living in this universe. We believe in man as a species and that man can rise above himself and continue to create a better world. And real economics is a tool to be used in giving man the relief from drudgery and discomfort that will allow such fulfillment. Even as men may seek to better understand God and to seek ways to better please God, real economics can provide more time for this and more time to address particular beliefs concerning an afterlife. Without this definition of "good" or some other definition of "good" a claim that "the economy is good" is meaningless rhetoric. We must have some idea as to what is to be achieved before we can possibly adopt any economic rules to get there or any tools with which progress or the lack thereof can be measured. Most certainly "the economy" in the advanced civilization of today is "good" for somebody or some sector of the civilization or we would not hear the talking heads proclaiming this "goodness" over and over again. Someone or some group seems to be going to great lengths to assure us that the economy is "good" whether it is or not. And that group of course is the group currently in power, i.e. the current aristocracy. This is not a new invention.

It is important to understand that this undefined nature of "good" is a key element in the "whole cloth" of current politics and economics. When there is no agreement about "good" then there can be no actual goals and as such the politicians and the priests can claim whatever might serve their aristocratic purposes. Using improper (but well marketed and accepted) metrics, it is possible to promote rules of economic control which are merely in the best interest of the established order. Rules which are anti democratic and anti social and which unduly burden the common people to prevent their Ascension. And it is this missing definition of "good" that is the root of the current hypocrisy. Without such a definition it is impossible to have any discourse or progress in the field of politics or economics. At the same time it is essential to agree on terminology such that actual information can be exchanged. For without precise meanings for words, the aristocrat will forever mislead. In this regard we would seek to reinstate a proper economics terminology that has been purposefully destroyed. The destruction of the terminology and the adoption of metrics that fail to reflect the common good are the major building blocks of our current aristocracy allowing such inanities as "We have a labor shortage", or "We need more immigration from Mexico to fill those jobs that Americans do not want to do". And the greatest hoax of all, the infamous "We need tax cuts for the rich so they can provide jobs". By seeing the duplicity, misdirection, and outright falsehood inherent in these inanities the ever present prostitution of the economic profession itself is revealed.

Just as in the whole cloth there is no need for a conspiratorial group in the halls of economic academia to ensure the adoption and spread of false economic principles. The root of this prostitution and the bindings are the same aristocratic tendencies as we see in the whole cloth. This desire to dominate lest we be dominated, this fear of becoming just another one of the herd and this need to be seen as a leader and felt. This disease is as acute in the economics profession as it is in the political arena. And for the proof of our thesis what better place to start our critique than Great Britain in the 1700's and a long look at Adam Smith. Though a visit to the Phisiocrats prior to Smith would illustrate our point more vividly the Phisiocrats are much less familiar and much less publicized. Smith will serve. The supposed father of capitalism and a staunch supporter of the market economy, Adam Smith, was smart enough to create a "science" of Political Economy wherein the "sovereign" was to be enriched as the people became more productive. And it was this enrichment of the sovereign that accounts for the great acceptance of Smith's work by the aristocracy of his day. Had Smith not promoted the interests of the aristocracy he would not have been recognized by it and his master work would probably have sat on a shelf forever. Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations", though an exceedingly insightful and monumental work, and Smith himself would probably have gone unpublished and unrecognized had he not so pleased the aristocracy by convincing them of the power and wealth that would be theirs by subscribing to his "rules" of political economy.

To see how Smith accomplished this bedazzlement it is only necessary to examine his fundamentals. Within his "science" Smith created three magic "factors" of production being land, labor and capital, and to the supplier of each of these factors there was a "return" or payment. And all of Smith's proclamations and theories are built upon these terms. The most interesting of these factors to the aristocracy was land and the return to providers of land which was called rent. The king and the nobles were most certainly intelligent enough to understand that since they controlled all the land, then they would be the recipients of this rent. And they were equally aware that they would need to perform very little in the way of productive service to receive this "return". By legitimizing this rent collection as "science", the king and the nobles could be maintained in their stations as the benevolent suppliers of the means of production. The other essential (as opposed to being "invented" by smith) "factor" of production is labor. And, of course, labor is totally and absolutely worthless without access to the land. It is utterly impossible to produce anything that will sustain life without having access to land. For the third factor, it will be observed that "capital", while a very good thing, does not share the absoluteness of land and labor. A man alone in an equatorial jungle can survive on bananas without any "capital" at all. Though it might be better to have a hut in which to live and some tools to help harvest these fruits (these are capital), the existence of these items are not absolutely essential to production or life. This subject of essentials is a point to which we will return, but our current interest in all this seeming digression is to illustrate that the economics profession and the professional economists will forever create whatever smoke and bubble machines are needed to legitimize the flow of rent into the hands of the aristocracy. Ask yourself always: "Who pays the professional economists?"

We see Smith's "kissing up" to the king and his court when we step back and look at the reality instead of the rhetoric. The land will have existed with or without any "providing" by the king or the nobles. Land is all that is naturally occurring. This includes the air and the water and all the fish and vegetation and the animals that naturally exist. Land exists in spite of men and will exist after men are gone and there is no "providing" to be done. And if land is deserving of rent paid to an "owner" or "provider" then perhaps we need to send a check to The Almighty, or maybe the check should be made out to Mr. Big Bang. Or better still, perhaps we need to sacrifice a virgin or two as payment.

The other primary factor of real economics is man himself and man's labor. Most unlike land, man's labor must have a return to the individual owner (the man himself) or no labor will be forthcoming. The return to a man's labor of picking a berry from a bush or from harvesting a coconut or a banana is the food itself and that is called wages. Wages are any article that we "want" or that we believe will enhance our well being and which we earn by our own hand and mind. And in a world where there is no ownership of land and no force that would compel others to labor in our service, the object of our desires will not be ours to own or to consume until we pay with our own labor to attain it. In a world without force and rent the labor will be our own labor and not someone else's. With the following observation we see that rent is simply an award to one or more privileged members of society even though these "owners" provide/produce nothing at all. If individual land owners were stripped of their land rights while a "government" managed the tenant rights to land more directly based on the free market demand for land use then the land would still remain, would still be just as useful and usable as before and would still have the same capacity to fulfill human needs as before. The essential point is that the ownership of land by any particular individual or group is not a contributing "factor" of production as is the ownership (the return) of at least some part of one's labor and the fruits thereof. If we do not benefit from our labors (if no return) or if all the fruits of our labor are confiscated by some privileged caste (as rent) then we will simply not labor, we simply can't labor because we would starve and cease to exist. But if, on the other hand, we confiscate all the rent for the use of land and burn it in a furnace the quality and quantity of land will not change, and the land will most certainly not sink into the oceans as the city of Atlantis. And while land is most certainly a necessary factor of production just as labor is a factor, a "return" to a privileged land "owner" is unnecessary.

When we observe the birth of the United States we see that there was much available land and little if any coerced rent. If a man found the demands of a land owner too high then he simply moved west and lived on the free land. Many an historian will tell us that one of the primary reasons for moving to America was to escape the rents of Europe. So the move westward continued for primarily the same reason. In many cases the land to the west was of superior quality to the land in the east anyway. In Europe, of course, there was very limited "available" land. All the land was owned or controlled by some "sovereign", and the sovereign decided who would have the right to collect rent (or not) for the use of the land. In the USA today we have much the same arrangement. The US government ultimately controls who will have the right to exclude others from the land and to use the land in production or to collect payment for the use of the land from those who do use it. The abundance of free land at the time of the formation of the United States contributed much to the lack of concern on the part of those who ratified our Constitution for the possible rise of aristocracy in the new world. The issue of representation was largely left open to the "good sense" of Congress, but the Congress was very much controlled by the states and the people. Prior to the 17'th amendment the state legislatures appointed the senators and thus the interest in state politics was quite high indeed. And then there was the 16'th amendment to the Constitution that allowed a direct income tax as opposed to apportioning taxation among the states as based on population/representation. Prior to these amendments and the limitation of House membership to 435 voting members, politics at the state level was very serious business and the people were very much involved. But these amendments and adjustments stripped the states of power and in so doing stripped the common people of any real control. And the result is exactly what the people of this nation did not want: A distant and aristocratic government that employs outright lies and false economics in the lust for more and more power. Our Congressional representatives, in their lust for power and station will, at the behest of those with financial power, follow specific "tenets" of economics that hide and legitimize "rent". And the economists in the favored "schools" will seek to legitimize "rent" so as to maintain their position in the "profession". And as such the American voters are continually misinformed in such a way as to lead them to vote in a manner contrary to their own best interest, in a manner that rewards the aristocratic members of the society at the expense of the common people. While goods (the fruits of labor)are not zero sum, power and control absolutely are. Aristocracy does not seek the creation of more goods through sustained use of natural resources; Aristocracy does not seek to eliminate toil and discomfort among the common people; and aristocracy does not seek to improve the utility of the earth for the benefit of mankind. Aristocracy seeks to empower the aristocrats by subjugating the common people. All gains for aristocracy come from limiting freedom and self determination and thus expropriating control from the rest of the population.

But to understand how economics is the key to this chicanery one must have a general understanding of economic terms and fundamentals and a working definition of "good". And it is difficult to say which one should precede the other. We will always assume that economic "good" is achieved when the freedom and comfort of the common people is improved. This is a utilitarian goal and it is at odds with systems of aristocracy and egoism in that it insists on maximization of freedom and liberty for the greatest number of people. This definition may also be at odds with certain religious tenets that insist on busy hands and minds that do not have time to think and to question authority and dogma . But religion nor patriotism are not part of utilitarian goals and thus not the concern of economics. And in accord with our definition of "good", economics is not about laws that reward or punish personal morals but about rules of order that increase the freedom and comfort of the common people of the society during our tenure on this earth.. What we will call real economics does not support or deny an after life or religion or morality, or employ economic rules as a tool in the realization of any version of "good" other than that stated in our definition of the term. Our stated definition of "good" is utilitarian. And having thus defined the goal it is possible to define and refine a terminology and some yardsticks by which progress can be measured.

Regarding fundamentals and terminology we will begin by recognizing that there are probably 4 "factors" in real economics as opposed to the 3 defined by Smith. These 4 factors are land, labor, capital, and political force. It is the addition of political force that provides the return to owners in the form of rent. And while political force is absolutely essential to the concept of "property rights" and the division and specialization of land and labor, such force is also the factor that returns rent. In a world where land is not scarce we can observe and illustrate all 3 of Adam Smith's factors. But in the rudimentary state of existence land, while certainly a necessary factor, receives no "return" at all. The fourth factor of production plays no part because there is "enough and as good" for all. Rent is actually a return to political force as opposed to being a return to land. We entreat upon such a rudimentary existence in "The Berry Patch". And here we can see real capital as it emerges quite naturally. We can label the return to capital as "interest" (as did Adam Smith) and much like wages the purpose of interest is to provide comfort. Such comfort is provided by increasing our leisure, our freedom from drudgery. And it is this return as it delivers us from toil that enables us to learn and to progress and to make this world a better place. The real return is the discomfort saved by virtue of the development of the capital. And it is at this level of human development that we can best see what capital actually is.

In the presentation of The Berry Patch we did not have competition for access to the berries. No force was needed because there were no other contenders for the land. Even if we were to add a few contenders the situation would not need to change appreciably. Since the berries occur naturally and there is no need for labor in the actual "production" of the berries, then there is no "investment" that would be "attached" to the land. Therefore, each newcomer to the berry patch can take berries at will and there is no economic conflict. So long as there is "as much and as good" for all contenders there is no need to "allocate" or administer access to the berry patch. Only when there would be more contenders than the available berries will satisfy would there be a need for administration of tenant rights on the land and a need for the enforcement of property rights. Please note that "property" as we use that term here and forever is the basket and the harvested berries and not the naturally occuring land or the naturally occurring bushes.

We want to define the term real capitalism in contrast to the current definition of this term in the standard dictionary. We will do this because "capitalism" as defined in most dictionaries is simply equated with the private ownership of the means of production. And since the means of production will include land then we have a very big problem with such a definition. As a matter of interest there are those (including the author) who believe (with much justification) that this dictionary definition of capitalism is purposefully employed to remove the distinction between land and capital. But if we are to address the reality then we must insist that real capitalism is a political organization designed to advance the creation of "capital". To the extent that private ownership of capital will promote the creation of more capital then to that extent is private ownership a good thing and we support the idea that private ownership does promote the creation of real capital. The objective of this organization is not the capital itself, or the ownership of it. The objective is the release from toil and drudgery that real capital will inevitably yield. It will be seen that the dams and the bridges and the highway system in the USA are certainly not privately owned. Yet these are real capital when we apply the correct definition of that word. These things were not created by individuals out of their own savings and were not the result of saved up labor and are thus not privately owned. Yet these things reduce the toil and drudgery in the provisioning of goods and are thus real capital. The dictionary definition of the word "capitalism" is also wanting because the "means of production" will include labor as well as land and capital. Rent aside we certainly own the results of our labor just as we own our bodies and our minds. The point, of course, is that no one else owns our labor because it is an inalienable part of our being. And land, of course, is a different proposition altogether. As capital is always the fruit of labor not consumed but invested in the hope of future productivity increases it is certainly possible to enhance the creation of capital by providing for private ownership of it. Much like wages, if the capital is not privately owned then there is less individual incentive to provide it. Recall that land needs no "incentive" to exist and that private ownership of land will not increase or decrease the amount of land.

It is important to understand that rent as we have discussed it thus far cannot exist without adequate population and political force. If there is "as much and as good" for all to have access to good land then there is no such thing as land rent. Each person will find good land and use that land to support himself and there will be no competition for land. There will be no reason to enforce land rights and no reason to pay a land "owner" for the use of "his" land. It is only when the demands of population outstrip the choice/best resources that rent becomes possible. And the enforcement of ownership (whether land or property) like it or not, is a political contrivance. This is true even if each one of us must spend the bulk of our time standing over our possessions guarding them with a pointed stick. One man one pointed stick is as much a form of governance as any other. We found a long time ago that the division of labor and trade were the real keys to productivity and the use of sharp sticks is no different. It is much more efficient to let the people that are good with the sharp sticks do the enforcing while the rest of us concentrate on creating goods. This is what government is in the real world and the problem is in controlling this bunch of stick wielders.