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The Alt Centrist Approach To Work And Employment

If politics is about securing the means of a good life, work and employment is how most people primarily achieve this. Both are therefore at the core of the alternative centrist approach.

The average person in our society, not having a spiritual or religious tradition, neither any intellectual or cultural interests, nor any meaningful family connections, imposes order upon their lives primarily through their employment. Prosocial behaviour is taught through the need to cooperate with workmates and submit to the corporate hierarchy. Work gives many people purpose and keeps many bad thoughts away.

The alternative centrist proposal is that the order imposed by the workplace needs to be balanced by an equal proportion of freedom.

The alternative centrist agrees with Julius Evola that spirituality ought to be the primary focus of a life, and a person’s way of earning a living is less important. Productivity is the measure of slaves; happiness is the measure of free people. As such, the alternative centrist state would not indulge in the vulgar GDP obsession that characterises our merchant-ruled age. Although productivity would be important, this would only be as a means to a happy life. The alternative centrist state would constantly emphasise, in contradistinction to a Marxist or capitalist one, the relative unimportance of wealth (see The Alt Centrist Approach To Spirituality).

The problem with work and employment in the West is that we never came to terms with the fact that we now live in an age of abundance. Our economic model was founded in an age when anyone who didn’t labour was likely to become a major burden to their community. The unemployed were mostly left to starve until the advent of unemployment benefits near the beginning of the 20th Century. Now there is so much wealth that there is no need for the workamania of bygone times.

However, the drive of the employer class to pauperise their workers has remained. Hence a battle has ensued, between the representatives of capital and the representatives of labour. Resulting from this battle was a multitude of laws and regulations concerning work and employment. The reasoning is that these laws should provide for a fair balance between the needs of the employer and the needs of the worker, such that the employer gets his profit and the worker gets his means to subsistence.

Unfortunately for the modern Western worker, he has been driven into a state of wage slavery. Even if the job only occupies his body for 40 hours that week, chances are it occupies his mind for many more. Many people go to bed thinking about their work and wake up in a state of dread. Because the alternative is often destitution, homelessness or imprisonment, the worker puts up with his awful conditions.

This situation has come about by design.

The alternative centrist supports a universal basic income (see The Alt Centrist Approach To Welfare). This UBI would be enough for anyone to renounce the world. Thus it would act as a floor on the level of desperation the worker can be subjected to, and finally give him some leverage, for the first time since the advent of neoliberalism and mass immigration.

With a universal basic income, there would be no need for minimum wage laws. So in one stroke, all of the right-wing arguments about inefficiency of minimum wage laws would be accommodated. The right wing likes to argue that they should have the freedom to work for a pitiful wage if they should so choose (e.g. to gain work experience). Under an alternative centrist system with a UBI, you could employ someone for $1 per hour.

There would also be no need for worker protections when it came to security of employment. The concept of “unfair dismissals” relates to a situation where losing one’s job entails a significant disruption to one’s life. A UBI moderates that disruption. Hence an alternative centrist government sees little problem with the “hire and fire” method of employment.

The universal basic income would defeat the argument that agricultural interests need to import cheap labour to do seasonal work. With a UBI, workers would be free to live cheaply in urban areas for most of the year, and then work hard for a season in an agricultural enterprise, before returning to the cities. By this means, the needs of the citizen for income, the employer for labour, and the nation for cohesion can all be met with a maximum of order, freedom and justice.

Anyone who aspires to more than a student’s lifestyle, however, will probably need a job. Unless a person is born into money, a UBI will only pay for the barest essentials. It will cover cheap rent in an undesirable location, basic foods and utilities, some simple clothing and little more. Aristotle noted that desires tend towards the infinite, so there will be plenty of motivation for people to get work and stay employed. Those who argue that a UBI will turn the workforce into couch potatoes don’t understand how unpleasant the student lifestyle is in the long term, and how difficult it is to meet one’s natural social needs without work and employment. The vast majority of people will desire more and they will need to work to get it.

The alternative centrist government would not seek to expand beyond the existing size of Western governments. However, it would maintain a Ministry of Works. This would employ a considerable number of people in national infrastructure projects.

Beyond a Ministry of Works, the alternative centrist government would leave most employment to the free market. The goal would be to facilitate the creation of internationally competitive firms, so as to maximise the nation’s return on the investment in education and infrastructure that made the firms possible in the first place.

Regarding specific jobs, the various schools would seek to link up students to firms in the appropriate industry. In theory, the schools ought to prepare people for whatever employment currently existed in the various realms (see The Alt Centrist Approach To Education). So in the realm of clay, the schools would funnel students towards agricultural, labouring, retail and simple trades. In the realm of iron, towards military, police and security jobs. In the realm of copper, towards more advanced trades, entertainment and the arts. In the realm of silver, towards business and administration jobs. Those in the realm of gold will seldom be employed, other than to learn experience.

This chapter is from The Alternative Centrist Manifesto, the upcoming work of political philosophy that offers the answers to the political problems of the West.

For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms! https://linktr.ee/vjmpublishing
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VJMP Reads: Aristotle’s Politics II

This reading continues from here.

In this book, Aristotle reviews the existing forms of political constitution. Although he is not a fan of democracy, he believes that all groups of citizens must participate in office for there to be justice. The lower classes must get something if they are to support the constitution: “If the constitution is to survive, every part of the city must have a common desire for its existence.” Here also Aristotle emphasises the importance of friendship, which he calls philia, considering it the best defence against factional disputes.

This book contains one of the oldest arguments against communism. In criticising Plato’s proposal for the guardian class of Republic to keep all property in common, Aristotle writes “What is common to the greatest number gets the least amount of care.” and “those who do more work and get less of the produce will be bound to raise complaints against those who get a large reward and do little work.”

Phaleas of Chalcedon proposed the equalisation of property many centuries before Karl Marx. But equality doesn’t work, Aristotle contends, because the educated feel like they deserve more.

The best solution, according to Aristotle, is if property is private, but the owners are persuaded to share the proceeds of it through goodwill. This is primarily the job of the legislator, who achieves this by passing laws that create men disposed to sharing and not to stinginess. Correct regulation of property is also important to avoid factional conflict.

Also Aristotle only hints at this here (he assumes the reader is familiar with Nicomachean Ethics), but part of the solution to politics is spiritual: “It is more necessary to equalise people’s desires than their properties.”

The other leftist dogma to get skewered in this section is the one claiming that criminals commit crimes out of poverty and desperation. Aristotle correctly points out that many crimes are committed for fun: “The greatest crimes are committed not for the sake of necessities, but for the sake of superfluities.”

Those aren’t all of the typically right-wing arguments made herein. Aristotle also argues that changing laws in general is a tricky endeavour because people follow them out of habit. If you change the laws too much, people stop obeying the government.

As in Plato’s Republic, Aristotle agrees that selection by means is characteristic of oligarchy, whereas selection by merit is characteristic of aristocracy. There are several different ways of choosing kings and judges. In Carthage, kings were chosen by election from families that were already outstanding.

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VJMP Reads: Aristotle’s Politics I

Next for the VJMP Reads column: Politics by Aristotle. This naturally follows on from Nicomachean Ethics, which I read earlier in the year. This reading is of Book I.

This section is from where we get the quote “man is a political animal”. Aristotle writes that people naturally form political associations for the sake of securing some good, usually ready access to the means of life. Surprisingly, if one considers how individualistic the West is, Aristotle considered the city-state to be the basic political unit. This is because smaller units are not self-sufficient.

Book I also gives us the banger “Man, when perfected, is the best of animals; but if he be isolated from law and justice he is the worst of all.” This is an incredibly deep insight into human and animal nature. The worst humans really are the worst beings imaginable.

Much of Book I is about slavery, which is hard to make sense of from a modern Western viewpoint.

For example, Aristotle writes “The element which is able, by virtue of its intelligence, to exercise fore-thought, is naturally a ruling and master element.” He goes to argue that those capable of reason are naturally masters, and those incapable naturally slaves. The argument that some people are naturally slaves is extremely unfashionable today.

He discusses the possibility that people are enslaved by war, i.e. by force, and considers it illegitimate. Slavery is good and natural when a rational element enslaves an irrational element, but when slavery merely rests on law and force it is not natural: “Just as some are by nature free, so others are by nature slaves, and for these latter the condition of slavery is both beneficial and just.” Aristotle discusses and rejects the might makes right theory of justice.

This fact, when considered, shows that Aristotle was not as pro-slavery as is often believed. Aristotle would likely see a modern workplace, with a boss who presumably knew more about the subject than his employees, and consider it an example of successful slavery.

One idea in particular appears central to European culture. Aristotle considers the relationship between men and women, in barbarian culture, akin to the relationship between master and slave. The woman is subjugated as the slave. But for the Greek, the relationship between men and women is more akin to the relationship between statesman and his fellow citizens. Thus the woman is intermediate between man and slave.

Aristotle is certainly not a feminist. He writes “The male is naturally fitter to command than the female, except where there is some departure from nature.” But his philosophy is vastly more pro-feminine than equatorial culture.

Aristotle speaks out about usury in this section: “Of all modes of acquisition, usury is the most unnatural” and “The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason.” This is very interesting if one considers how totally commercialised life is today thanks to usury.

Being pro-slavery and anti-usury marks Aristotle as an utterly unmodern philosopher.

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The Alt Centrist Approach To Mental Health

50 years ago, mental health was mostly ignored. Today, it’s a major issue. 50 years from now, mental health will be taken as seriously as physical health. The alternative centrist, approaching the midpoint of the 21st Century since the reign of Augustus, makes provisions for the mental health challenges of the future.

A point lost on most today is that ‘psychiatry’ is made up of two words, ‘psyche’ and ‘iatros’, which mean ‘soul’ and ‘healer’. A psychiatrist is supposed to be someone who heals the soul. They are not meant to be someone who prescribes pills and little more. Today’s psychiatrists are primarily concerned with preventing people from freaking out and damaging property. The vast majority of them don’t even believe in souls, let alone have any way to heal them.

As a result, some of those who have been through the mental health system, or who look at the rates of depression and anxiety today, ask if psychiatry has any value at all. One can readily concede it has value sedating people who might kill themselves or someone else in the next 24 hours. But it has much less value in taking the vast numbers of mentally ill people from outpatient treatment to good mental health.

The alternative centrist approach to mental health wouldn’t change much when it came to acute mental healthcare. When it came to chronic mental healthcare, however, a major change in attitude would be made. The approach of the past was that people can take care of themselves; psychological concerns are too subtle to be important anyway. This attitude reflects a grosser, cruder, more vulgar and more ignorant age.

In the time of the alternative centrist, it will be understood that the concept of health applies to all aspects of the human being, from the least subtle to the most. Thus, mental health is as important as physical.

Applying our Aristotelean maxim “the starting point is the fact”, the fact is that most mental health problems are caused by trauma. Another fact is that the chemical imbalance narrative was promoted by pharmaceutical companies who wanted people hooked on their products. The alternative centrist approach to mental health is fully trauma-informed.

The difficulty is that the three Establishment positions have created a system which is inherently traumatising. This has been by design – trauma breaks people, making them unwilling and/or unable to fight back, thereby securing the Establishment’s control. The alternative centrist system is necessarily anti-trauma.

Not creating more trauma is the purview of the other alternative centrist approaches. Fixing the trauma already created, however, is the basis of the alternative centrist approach to mental health.

According to this approach, mental healthcare is the equivalent of maintaining the psychological infrastructure of the nation. This makes it an essential spend, and not a luxury. Thus, the alternative centrist is happy to spend money sorting it out. This will mean, alongside the existing spend in training psychiatrists in acute mental healthcare, also training mental health practitioners about conditions like PTSD and C-PTSD. These traumatic stress-based conditions are rife in the Western World, and their accumulated effects over the past century are the chief reason why our society currently resembles a mental asylum.

The alternative centrist frees up money for healing trauma by not spending it on hopeless cases. This will involve euthanasia for the incurably feeble-minded. Anyone so mentally disabled as to be a permanent burden will be given a dignified death. This will also include those suffering from a dementia, a hellish condition with no cure. Doing this implies a complete rejection of Abrahamic morality (see The Alt Centrist Approach To Religion).

This approach of euthanising the hopeless cases, in order to free up money to spend on those with hope of a decent life, is similar to the alternative centrist approach to law and order. Herein it can be seen that alternative centrism is far from being a weak compromise position like establishment centrism. Alternative centrism actually achieves the goals of both the Establishment Right and the Establishment Left here (viz. order and freedom) specifically by avoiding the middle ground. This would not be considered cruel, and would not violate the Fourth Rejection, because it would be considered merciful.

This proposed massive expansion of the mental health apparatus would occur not so much in a clinical sense as an everyday spiritual sense.

Absent the Abrahamic influences, there is no need for the alternative centrist state to separate psychiatry from spirituality. Without the danger of mental healthcare practitioners trying to convert vulnerable patients to Abrahamism, the emphasis could fully be on the healing of the soul. The patients would be encouraged to see their conditions as primarily spiritual phenomena, and not personal failings.

The teaching would be that abuse, neglect and nihilism damage the soul. The ten major forms of adverse childhood experience would be learned and taught as part of the fundamentals of mental healthcare. This would extend to schooling: young students will be taught the basics of mental health and mental illness, so they can recognise it in themselves and others. They would also be taught not to see mental health as a taboo subject.

Healing of the soul, in the alternative centrist conception, is based on forming quality relationships. The first step is a relationship with the true self. Patients and students alike would be taught that the true self, more fundamental than either body or mind, is a fragment of God consciousness, and that each one of us is an expression of divinity (again, a complete rejection of the Abrahamic approach). From there, they would be encouraged to interact with the rest of society on that basis.

The alternative centrist psychiatrist would teach that consciousness is the prima materia and that its natural state is one of perfect bliss, and therefore there’s no reason to be afraid of anything, because all suffering is temporary. Healing trauma is, to a major extent, a matter of unlearning false ideas about oneself and about reality. The alternative centrist mental healthcare worker would encourage meditation, self-inquiry and other spiritual practices.

The alternative centrist state would put a lot of money into psychedelic research, recognising it as a trend of the future. At time of writing, there are regularly new breakthoughs in psychedelic medicine: the most recent is the potential for using LSD to treat anxiety. A 2024 Nature article wrote that “The clinical investigation of psychedelic medicines has blossomed over the last 5 years.” Less harmful alternatives to the common pharmaceuticals, which themselves often have horrendous side-effects, are desperately needed.

As per the alternative centrist approach to recreation, communities for mental health support could be expected to form naturally given the universal basic income. In situations where this was impossible, the Ministry of Mental Health would try to make it possible.

Because the alternative centrist approach to welfare involves a UBI, psychiatric patients would no longer need to see their psychiatrists as enemies. Under the existing system, psychiatric patients are dependent on psychiatrists to get approval for disability payments, and as such have to be extremely careful about what they say to them, suspicious that the psychiatrist is looking for reasons to deny the claim. The UBI would allow the patients to be more open with what they told the doctors, leading to better mental healthcare and a better society overall.

A UBI would also alleviate a great deal of work stress, the misery of which itself causes trauma, and so the alternative centrist approach to welfare has flow-on effects to mental health.

In short, mental health would be taken as seriously as physical health by alternative centrists. The taboos against talking about it would be shattered.

This chapter is from The Alternative Centrist Manifesto, the upcoming work of political philosophy that offers the answers to the political problems of the West.

For more of VJM’s ideas, see his work on other platforms! https://linktr.ee/vjmpublishing
For even more of VJM’s ideas, buy one of his books! https://www.amazon.com/author/vincemcleod

If you enjoyed reading this piece, buy a compilation of our best pieces from previous years!