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Capital Structure Cheat Sheet -- 2nd Draft

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Contributing ideas
It is important to show that systems that have been offered as alternatives to the Capital structure, such as communism, are actually very much the same in that fit much of the capital criteria for accumulation of capital, expansion, exploitation, and general-all-around nastiness. Some are just refinements of Capital, especially Communism (Marx really only had classical texts for reference, the naturally native tribe had not been revived yet by Kropotkin), some are re-branded capital, such as European socially democratic governments that descend from Napoleon's meritocracy, and some utilize only portions of the structure specifically for social control, such as social activism (the original organizer of Earth Day kept his wife in a trunk long after she died).
Capital structure as a model

Modeling is different from the hypothesis/testing approach to Science as it fits natural conceptions, and is the most common experimentation approach; and idea developed in to a concept, and then the concept is applied to real life. If it works, it will produce results. If there are problems, the model gets adjusted, until it provides benefits, and if the model is too far off, then it will probably be abandoned. An example is a business model, where profits easily verify a model's viability.

The idea of Capital as an entity may be difficult for some to accept, especially when the structure is not a culture in the community sense as it is built more as a machine. Capital is referred to in a social sense, such as the financial community; this perception may help some accept the structure as an operating entity and not as a simply as a social phenomena.

Viability of a model is proven in two steps: first the aggregated ideas are applied to the environment where they were developed, and then a template of the model, stripped of local labels, is applied to other similar environments. The model should be able to predict similarities between social structures we have been otherwise told are different, usually because of social biases, or because information is being misrepresented, usually to protect resource exploitation operations.

When we approach Capital structures from the perspective of a culture, we see a "cult of culture" where operators are isolated from the damaging effects of their operations by insulating barriers of misinformation manned by Aaron Beck's "self-appointed mini-guards." Virtually any information structures can be converted into a barrier by perverting its language, but the most useful to Capital have been morally developed structures, such as dominant religions. Widely implemented moral motivators are also easily converted into veils for exploitation. The Roman Church has a long history supporting colonial operations as part of its Roman descendancy, immigrant waves and colonialists in the West descend from the Roman "coloni," and Mumford explains in detail how charity greases the "machine's axles" in what he calls "false charity;" Ronald McDonald being the prime contemporary example, a clown that draws children to dangerously fatty food, and offers lodgings and counseling to their families when they become mortally ill. (Today's most common illnesses did not exist a hundred years ago.)

Since Capital structures in their final developments are huge, usually spanning continents, there are not many alternate environments to overlay with a constructed Capital structure template model.

Implementing the model in conversation
While attempting to describe Capital as a structural entity to a Methodist Pastor who has a ThD, I found that he kept returning to Capital as accumulated cash and home equity. But neither of these are Capital, they are cash and equity, and normal family savings does not usually come from annexation and exploitation, but from hard work with benefits to the community, and sometimes the world. As I slowly convinced him of Capital as a structural entity, he grasped the idea of capital as a culture, which led me to introduce the "cult of culture" ideas.

Debt
A third "family" component that goes with cash and equity is the flip-side of those two: debt. Debt is unquestionably Capital as it is the absorption of the hard work by banks into bank's accounts, in the best scenario. Using real estate as an example, the worst scenario of family debt is the absorption, or perhaps annexation, of the family home into a bank's holdings, often putting the family into the street outside the home with the support of enforcement, the executive branch.

It is important to know that at least half of unresolved debt is medical, and it is with tremendous relief that I think of the many rebellions and revolutions that have prevented Capital, in its component forms of Medicine (in cooperation with Education), from killing people in genocidal proportions by allowing them do die of preventable disease.

Extending this a little further, it is also important to know that the diseases that kill today were nearly absent a hundred years ago, and have been introduced by industrialized Capital in food and the environment. Perhaps Medicine, as a Capital component, has for the most part social rebellion by helping Capital create the linked modern diseases of cancer and heart disease, which can easily be shown to be preventable through abstinence from Capital's obsessive eating habits. Instead of helping remove the problem (and possibly Capital itself) Medicine (in cooperation with Education) works to maintain the problem by treating these diseases chemically; extending life expectancy, but with a severe loss of quality of life. Medicine is a particularly garish component of Capital as it thrives from disease, and hence has no "behavioral" motivation to help mitigate disease.

Is this greed a function of Capital as an entity, or does it reach to the levels of individual doctors in a layered approach? It can be shown that a lack of sidewalks in modern real estate and commercial developments, and further a lack of roadside shoulders,contribute to heart disease by discouraging exercise by walking. The fancy sub-division housing that many, if not most, doctors consider a necessary standard of living have no sidewalks. (Interestingly, it is debt associated with these very sub-divisions that is being blamed for the recent debt-related market crash, though they are only one component of debt, medical debt being the greatest.)

If we can return to traditional life-styles while retaining modern medicines, then old age will become the only fatal disease. Extending the effects of debt one layer beyond family and banks, is international debt. International debt is different, as there is no concept of wiping away national bankruptcy; it originates in personal and corporate debt. The only next step is to hand over the land, or prepare for invasion--but in nuclear world, preparation seems pointless. America, of course, is now entirely living on international debt as a nation, having exported all its important industries, technology and manufacturing, and replaced them with debt driven house building. I talked to a man who sometimes attends my church, who makes a good living exporting health jobs to Australia through the Internet; his response to my international debt concerns was "better we owe them, than they owe us," as if America is getting away with some kind of extreme stealing.

Testing the model internationally as a template
When I attempted to show how a template developed from Euro/American Capital could be used to predict aspects of centralized Asian culture, specifically Confucianism and its highly biased examination systems (only available in Han Chinese), and relate to how humanism is being stripped from Western culture through a switch to pure testing over research and writing (social science and human service masters programs are quickly shifting testing-only modes and away from research thesis requirements), he countered with the idea that testing and examinations are beneficial in that they help organize a central hierarchy, which, because it is centralized and beneficial.

I moved my argument further East to, to show Japan's history of modern Capital. Japan Westernized in the late 1800s after being threatened by the United States for its desire to stay isolated. The American attack was an early example of modern globalism, and resulted as a vehicle for Japan's hawkish Confucianists to dislodge the centuries-long-standing Buddhist government. The Japanese strategy became to "learn the ways of the barbarians," to use Western Capital to defeat the West, and they have succeeded, amazingly, with the help of free market capitalists here in the US, such as the former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan. (This I categorize in the corporate structural model as "foreignist.")

I was able to tie several concepts together when I thought of the Japanese idea of Capital: the corporate family, as well as the Capital entity as a well-defined structure. In their refined and highly successful Capital structure, they have brought together two phases of Capital that are usually distinct in the West, family capital and the corporation, and have been able to implement a form of loyalty to assure life-long dedication towards vertical expansion with colonialist goals--most cars made in America are Japanese.

The Capital family
This is not to say that the Capital family is not as powerful as corporations are; many families have wielded unbelievable power, such as the departing Bush family, a long-standing purely capital entity that actually invested into Hitler's war machine just prior to WWII, and joined Saudi Arabia's Bin Laden family in arms investments as recently as a decade ago.

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I am a worker, photographer, and writer. I am now working on a counseling masters degree focusing on youth and community, neurology and medication, and underlying genetics. My photography is my greatest accomplishment. The style is the art of (more...)
 
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