I post frequently about the complex, over-specced, shoddy and generally overpriced monopolistic crap that emanates from the globalist producers and distributors. Time and time again, however, the comment thread at The Slog suggests that quite a lot of you think I’m an idiot “to continue buying the stuff”.

Clearly, I’m not getting my message across here; and equally clearly, many threaders are not clear about why they come to this site. So allow me to spell it out one last time. There are two key points:

1. I go into a store with a reasonable reputation, I buy a product. It might be an American pc, a Chinese tool, a French spiral staircase, a Dutch beer, a Spanish washing machine, a German vacuum cleaner, or a Japanese phone. But either the instructions are superficial/impenetrable, or the thing ceases to function at any point between 2 weeks or three years.

When I blog about this, I get lots of know-all hahahas about what a silly-billy I am and how I don’t have the inside track. This seems to me both missing the point and selfish. A perfect segue, in fact, into my second point….

2. A large proportion of the European and North American population lack both the financial and IQ means with which to demand something better. They have no choice but to put up with this force-fed sh*t. Folks like me and wiseassed threaders are the small minority; that minority keeps on telling me that our unwillingness to buy is the best way to make exploitative gavagistes change their ways.

Frankly, that’s complete and self-evident bollocks. Only when the 60% have the power (and motivation) to eschew what’s on offer will 3rd-rate crap stop being produced.

The truth is that globalist producers fill up multiple retailers with their stock, and each side then uses its power to insist on certain outcomes – where the only thing absent is what the consumer wants.

………

Let me give you a mercifully brief resumé of recent mass-market purchases I have made.

* A duvet cover, in which two out of the four pop-in closure buttons fell off after the first wash

* Paint where separation had occurred to such a extent, it was unuseable. (The distributor refused to offer me a replacement product)

* A laptop and a notebook, requiring a further €150 of intermediary help before either would function in a manner that was even vaguely intuitive. (The distributor offered no software alternatives, being under orders not to)

* A Michelin tyre (sold on durability) where the wall – not the tread – of the product cracked, creating irreversible air-loss within 18 months

* A flexible vacuum-cleaner pipe (claiming to be interfaceable with all major makes) that does not fit either Siemens or Miele. Clearly then, these are unpopular makes

* A spiral staircase whose design was so compromised, I had to ask the local menuisier to fix it

* A multifunction wet/dry/suck/blow vacuum cleaner where the entire explanation of the multifunctionality consisted of a series of idealised pen drawings in which users were depicted variously washing cars, blowing away leaves and altering the Earth’s axis

* A car-tyre foot-pump where the mechanism got so twisted out of shape after two uses, it could no longer pump air into the tyre. (See above under durable Michelin tyre).

Here’s what’s lacking in all of these products: quality, durability, good value, and honesty.

…….

We are reliably informed by politicians, the mass media, big business and global banking that – should we be crazy enough to even think about it – there is absolutely no alternative in 2014 to doing things this way.

Let me expand on what ‘this way’ entails.

Badly made products are manufactured by drones with no motivation to produce something better, because the process doesn’t fulfil them, and offers no ownership – metaphorical or otherwise.

As mechanisation, computerisation and automation increase, most of those drones are finding themselves dumped onto the streets where there are only welfare handouts….handouts that the people who put them there bitterly oppose.

Large multinational producers are in over 95% of cases quoted on stock markets. The Chief Accountants appointed to ensure that the markets always get what they expect know only one strategy: reduce the cost of production. This produces two results: increasingly diluted product quality, and jobs moved to the latest low-cost producing Asian tiger.

This ‘no-alternative’ system has produced banking failures we are expected to bankroll, economies that refuse to recover despite having our money thrown at them, huge increases in wealthy inequality, and a massive transfer of power from labour to capital.

The operation of this system is obsessed with low margin, high volume distribution. This denies access to the small creative entrepreneur who needs time to establish a franchise of consumers…time during which end users can appreciate the quality, and come back for more.

Acceptance of ‘this way’ neoliberal economics can have only one inevitable outcome: the macro economic colonisation of the micro community. This means less say for all of us in what’s being done in our name. More generally, it means the privatisation of politics….and ultimately, the destruction of liberal democracy. It means the victory of Big Process at the expense of Small Creative.

…….

When the human race prefers 25% ROI on investment every year to the voyage of discovery, then our species has reached a dead-end and must go into a self-destructive decline. The core value of capitalism is capital risk.

Risk brings failure, but it also brings fantastic reward. We have a model of capitalism in play at the moment that avoids risk and rewards dysfunction. The chief opposition to it is a model of socialism that has been time and time again shown to reward bureaucrats, squash initiative, and disable regeneration.

This forbidding thing is what joins neoliberalism, the CIA, and socialism at the hip: for each system prefers known, robotic process to human invention.

There is, and always has been, a genuinely better third way: to embrace workforces and inspire their input by offering them financial and creative fulfilment in a range of honourable aims. Smaller companies with a clearly defined culture will always offer an honest, well-made product of which they’re proud…at a price that keeps them competitive.

Mutualised companies are the fastest growing company form globally. But not enough financially ‘comfortable’ consumers in the West know how to access the output of such concerns. The neoliberal media/distribution élite ensures that big companies with big numbers, big ambitions, and big PR budgets are the only ones allowed to compete.

I am (with others) in the early stages of researching the excellent products available from central, east and south-eastern European countries – products made by small concerns in small communities. Not only do they deserve a chance to do well, they offer higher quality at lower prices with better guarantees.

If you want to be involved in this as producer or consumer, get in touch on jawslog@gmail.com.

This is not a charity donation request. It is the beginning of a solid commercial ‘marriage bureau’ designed to show that the ‘no alternative’ globalist model is in fact an inferior offer on economic, social, and worker/consumer satisfaction levels.