It's Time For A Global 'Lying Flat' Movement

It’s Time For A Global ‘Lying Flat’ Movement

A wave of young people in China, driven to exhaustion by the relentless demands of their industrial culture, have launched what they call the ‘Lying flat’ movement. They protest their workplace pressures by doing the absolute minimum amount of work possible. This essay will suggest that it’s time to bring the lying flat movement to the world stage.

The lying flat movement is inspired by the idea that a chive lying flat cannot be reaped. In this context, to lie flat is to refuse to be exploited, to disengage from the rat race. The usual path involves moving to the countryside and living as cheaply as possible. Someone lying flat might still work, but they’ll do it for themselves or their family or village instead of some corporate.

The lying flat movement began in China as a reaction to their onerous 996 culture, which insists on a 9am to 9pm, six day workweek. These 72-hour workweeks are incredibly profitable for those who own and run the factories and offices, but, for those supplying the labour component, they’re brutal.

Such long hours are tough even when well-remunerated. A 72-hour workweek leaves very little time or energy left over for recreation. It’s an extreme grind, and will drive a worker to exhaustion in short order.

Unfortunately, the post-nationalist capitalist mentality is that workers are just replaceable parts, and if one breaks down it’s a simple matter of chucking it out and replacing it with a new one. The Chinese industrialists, like the Western industrialists, import outside cheap labour to replace the native labour that they drive into the ground, only theirs comes from rural China instead of everywhere in the world.

The net result is the same, however. An oversupply of labour can only lead to one thing, and that’s a discounted labour price, which itself leads to the impoverishment of the working class. The mass importation of cheap labour has such a destructive effect on native wages that the inevitable end result is a shit life for everyone except for the employers of that cheap labour.

The Chinese have figured out that there’s no winning for workers under these conditions – so why don’t we?

Why don’t we take the lying flat movement to the whole world?

A global lying flat movement would firstly recruit the already rapidly-growing legions of NEETs in the West, and the hikikomoris in Japan. These groups have already dropped out of the industrial profit machine, and are essentially part of a global lying flat movement already. They were the first to realise that the equation of how much was being asked of them to how much they were rewarded did not add up, and their example can inspire others.

The movement would next recruit anyone who works full-time but can’t buy a home or raise a family on their wage. The individuals in this group have not yet suffered psychological collapse, unlike those in the first group, and are still able to labour. However, the equation doesn’t add up for them either. The difference is that this second group is now close to 50% of the working-age population, and higher in the younger demographics.

Before either group can be recruited, a canon of high-quality propaganda must be developed. This propaganda must suggest persuasively that industrialised hyper-capitalist society is in fact evil, and that refusing to power it with one’s life energy is a moral imperative. One example of such propaganda argues that a life on welfare is morally superior to a life as a worker, because the welfare beneficiary uses fewer resources, and resource conservation is now more important than production.

This propaganda will be effective because many who hear it will already be receptive to it. Many are already tempted to drop out of the system, having long ago calculated that their wages will never allow them to save enough to own their own home and raise a family. If they see that other people achieve a higher standard of living by dropping out of the system, they’ll become motivated to drop out as well.

That people will drop out of the system is inevitable at this stage of the cycle. Working hard in the city only makes sense during the boom times, because in the boom times the workers have the leverage, and so they can get a fair share of their own productivity. But capital always outpaces labour (link goes to .pdf), so when the bust part of the cycle hits, the people who own everything will maintain their share by reducing the share of the workers.

If you’re a worker and not an owner, then, you want to be living cheaply in the countryside when the bust hits. This is what great numbers of young Chinese have already figured out. It’s harder to do in New Zealand, because we don’t have villages everywhere, but it’s still possible. The basic leverage equation makes city life less and less worthwhile with every year that passes.

A global return to cheap, low-stress country living would cripple the industrial capital juggernaut, and shift the balance of wage negotiation leverage back towards the worker. Starved of cheap labour, the ruling class would be forced to pay a fair wage or go without producers. It’s time to go tang ping, and bring the lying flat movement to every corner of the industrialised world.

If you enjoyed reading this essay/article, you can get a compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2020 from Amazon for Kindle or Amazon for CreateSpace (for international readers), or TradeMe (for Kiwis). A compilation of the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2019, the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2018 and the Best VJMP Essays and Articles of 2017 are also available.

If you would like to support our work in other ways, please consider subscribing to our SubscribeStar fund. Even better, buy any one of our books!

The South-Eastern Territorial Imperative

The South-Eastern Territorial Imperative is the name given to the strategy of protecting the high civilisation of the world from the coming catastrophe.

It’s apparent to all that the old order of the world is collapsing. After 20 years of disastrous Middle Eastern military adventurism and 40 years of equally disastrous neoliberalism, only a very few Westerners still have faith in their political rulers. The widespread despair felt today has caused many to drop out of society completely, a phenomenon akin to the behavioural sink of John Calhoun’s Mouse Utopia experiments.

Times like these often involve a massive loss of knowledge and culture. The great risk is of another Dark Age, when the forces of ignorance seize control, and the forces of science and wisdom are marginalised and silenced. Signs of this can already be seen in the New Authoritarianism that seeks to cancel or deplatform anyone who thinks wrongly, where wrongthink is anything that does not serve the interests of globohomo.

The proposal of the South-East Territorial Imperative is that all the K-selected peoples of the world pull back to the territories currently occupied by Australia and New Zealand, i.e. the Anzac Empire, in the Southeastern corner of the map. In practice, ‘K-selected’ refers to high-IQ people who have relatively few children and who look after them properly. This includes, but is not necessarily limited to, Europeans and Far East Asians.

The South-East Territorial Imperative has a precedent in the settlement of America. The population of the United States in 1860 was around 30 million, or roughly the same as that of Australia and New Zealand combined in 2021. By 1890 this had expanded to 60 million, and by 1930 it had reached 120 million. These rates of growth were not surprising given the opportunities available in America compared to the moribund economies and cultures of Europe.

If the now-present peoples of the South-East would spend this decade winning the propaganda battle, we could spend the rest of the century fighting for the South-East Territorial Imperative. If we did so, then we could have as many K-selected people as Japan by the end of the century. With over 20 times as much land as Japan, our Anzac Empire could even potentially become a world force on the order of Russia by 2100.

There are two major advantages with calling the world’s K-selected peoples to gather in the Southeastern corner of the world.

The first is geographic. The Southeastern corner of the world is protected from the world’s r-selected hordes by vast distances. Whereas Europe and America have Africa and Latin America (respectively) on their doorsteps, the Anzac Empire shares no border with Asia or with anyone else. Europe and America appear to be getting slowly overrun by their rapidly-breeding Southern neighbours, but the Anzac Empire would have no border that could be crossed on foot or by dinghy.

Moreover, the geography encompassed by an Anzac Empire would be sufficient for future growth into a world superpower. Australia and New Zealand combined would already have the world’s 11th largest economy, the third largest amount of agricultural land, and the world’s single largest Exclusive Economic Zone. The only thing we’re missing, and which America, China, India, Japan and Russia possess, is 100 million or more K-selected individuals.

The second is pragmatic. The South-Eastern Territorial Imperative is inherently eugenic, and as such seeks to maximise the ratio of K-selected to r-selected people. There are very few r-selected people already in this Southeastern corner of the world. As such, it’s the closest that we can get to a blank canvas upon which to paint our high civilisation.

Our current rulers aren’t just going to step aside, though. They will have to be removed, and prevented from regaining power, by a concerted and determined effort of the Anzac nation.

A revolution that introduced an Anzac Empire to the world stage would inevitably take inspiration from the American Revolution. As such, it would be necessary for a hard-core of individuals, free from slave morality, to put forward a new and comprehensive system of human rights. The best candidate for any such system would be modelled on the Sevenfold Conception of Human Rights, which posits a spectrum of rights encompassing everything from the grossest aspect of life to the most subtle.

Now is the time to prepare for such a move. America was populated mostly by those who felt that Europe was lost; the Anzac Empire will be populated by those who feel that both America and Europe are lost. Any citizen of either civilisation, once they realise that the future of both places are grim, could be encouraged to pull back to the South-East. If we could attract enough high-quality people looking for a fair deal, we could become what America was 120 years ago.

The difference is that, with enough wit and will, we can prevent the mistakes the Americans made. The worst of their mistakes, and the most important for us to avoid, was the Hart-Celler Act, which opened American borders to the world’s r-selected. In the Anzac Empire of the future, it will be a crime punishable by 20 years imprisonment to agitate for the mass importation of r-selected cheap labour.

The ultimate goal of this nascent empire would be to terraform the Australian interior to the extent that a great inland sea occupied what is now empty desert. This would alter the climate of the desert such that it was habitable for modern Western civilisation. With this achieved, the population of an Anzac Empire could reach 500 million or more. And this would be 500 million of the world’s most K-selected people: the most intelligent, the most rectitudinous, the most industrious and long-sighted.

If you would like to support our work in other ways, please consider subscribing to our SubscribeStar fund. Even better, buy any one of our books!

VJMP Reads: Gaddafi’s Green Book II

This reading carries on from here.

Part II is titled ‘The Solution of the Economic Problem: Socialism’. This is divided into seven chapters.

In the first, ‘The Economic Basis Of The Third Universal Theory’, Gaddafi calls for the abolition of the wage system. He states that “Wage-earners are but slaves to the masters who hire them.” The producer has a right to that which they produce – a secondary benefit through the improvement of society or through wages is inadequate. Inequality cannot be tolerated as it leads to exploitation.

Gaddafi repeats Adam Smith’s rule that economic production is the result of raw materials, capital input and human labour. He claims that all three of these components are necessary to produce anything, and therefore all three should get an equal share. Gaddafi also notes that the working class is declining owing to scientific and technological advancement. People are, however, the basic component in any production process.

In the second, ‘Need’, Gaddafi notes that a person cannot be free if their needs are controlled by others. Need leads to the enslavement and exploitation of those who need. Conflict is caused by one group controlling the needs of a second, giving that second an incentive to rebel. Need is a problem inherent to life.

In the third, ‘Housing’, Gaddafi opens with “Housing is an essential need for both the individual and the family and should not be owned by others”. A person cannot be free while living in a home owned by someone else, whether or not they’re paying rent. Fiddling with rents won’t help – the important thing is ownership. People won’t have the right to own multiple houses, because to do so is to control the needs of others, which is exploitation and cannot be permitted.

In the fourth, ‘Income’, Gaddafi declares that income is an imperative need. In a socialist system, there are no wage-earners, only partners in the production process. Income should not be a wage in exchange for having one’s production taken away.

In the fifth, ‘Means Of Transportation’, Gaddafi declares that transportation is also a necessity. Therefore, it’s subject to the same restrictions from being controlled as housing and income. Like housing, transportation may not be owned for the sake of renting it out.

In the sixth, ‘Land’, Gaddafi begins by stating that “Land is the private property of none.” He believes that the land ought to belong to whoever works it. Gaddafi’s aspiration is to create a society that is happy because it is free. This comes about via the liberation of people’s material and spiritual needs from the control of others.

Gaddafi is aware that wage-earners have little incentive to work. Neither do poeple who work for the common good. The self-employed, however, have plenty of incentive to do so. Gaddafi sees the economy as a zero-sum game, because, for him, there is no reason to produce beyond one’s needs. The industrious and skillful have no right to lever this advantage to take from the shares of others.

An especially diligent or intelligent person may meet their needs with less effort, but they may not acquire more than they need. Happiness is a matter of material and spiritual freedom. Profit itself must be eliminated, as it inevitably will be as the socialist process continues to evolve.

In the seventh, ‘Domestic Servants’, Gaddafi states that domestic servants are a type of slave. The Third Universal Theory offers freedom to both wage-earners and domestic servants. Household services should be carried out by employees, not by domestic servants. He concedes that it isn’t easy to assign a share of production to service workers.

If you would like to support our work in other ways, please consider subscribing to our SubscribeStar fund. Even better, buy any one of our books!

VJMP Reads: Gaddafi’s Green Book I

Muammar Gaddafi’s The Green Book was published in 1975, and was intended to be read by everyone. Gaddafi was murdered in 2011 for opposing the same people that Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy opposed, i.e. globohomo. This book is therefore of immediate interest to anyone else who opposes globohomo.

Part I is titled ‘The Solution of the Problem of Democracy: The Authority of the People’. This is divided into ten chapters.

In the first, ‘The Instrument of Government’, Gaddafi points out the inherently tyrannical nature of electoral democracy as practiced in the West today. Up to 49% of the population can have a government that they did not vote for imposed on them. He writes that “dictatorship is established under the cover of false democracy.”

In the second, ‘Parliaments’, Gaddafi decries the parliamentary system as a “misrepresentation” of the people. Democracy must mean the authority of the people, and not an authority that presumes to act on behalf of the people. As soon as the election is over, the representative assumes sovereignty from the people. The people have the right to destroy the parliamentary assemblies that have taken their sovereignty away.

“The most tyrannical dictatorships the world has known have existed under the aegis of parliaments.”

In the third, ‘The Party’, Gaddafi decries the modern political party as “the dictatorship of the modern age”. He states that “A party’s aim is to achieve power under the pretext of carrying out its program.” Any party not in power will seek to harm the nation so as to undermine their opposition. Moreover, a country governed by one party is not meaningfully different to countries governed by one sect or by one tribe.

In the fourth, ‘Class’, Gaddafi argues that leadership based on class suffers the same problems as leadership based on party, tribe or sect: it can only ever represent a minority. Even if the working class replaced the others, differences in material wealth or prestige between working-class factions would soon lead to the old class system reasserting itself. As before, so after.

In the fifth, ‘Plebiscites’, Gaddafi observes that the people’s expression is limited to ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Referendums are often used to cover up for the failures of democracy. The solution lies, he writes, in finding an instrument of government that is not subject to either internal conflict or underrepresentation of the people it governs. This instrument can only be the authority of the people.

In the sixth, ‘Popular Conferences And People’s Committees’, Gaddafi declares that direct democracy is indisputably the ideal form of government. It’s just impractical. Gaddafi’s Third Universal Theory divides the population into Basic Popular Conferences, each of which chooses a secretariat from among their number. The population then appoints People’s Committees to replace government administration.

In the seventh, ‘The Law of Society’, Gaddafi contends that the natural law of any society must be based in either tradition or religion. Constitutions are artificial, thus invalid. He argues that human beings are essentially the same everywhere, and therefore natural law is applicable to all. Ruling systems must follow natural law, and not the reverse. So all laws must be grounded in tradition or religion.

In the eighth, ‘Who Supervises The Conduct Of Society’, Gaddafi appeals again to his Basic Popular Conference model. No one group can claim the right to police society, therefore society has to police itself. If the people organise themselves into Popular Conferences, however, they can supervise themselves.

In the ninth, ‘How Can Society Redirect Its Course When Deviations From Its Laws Occur’, Gaddafi notes that if a system is dictatorial, resistance to it must take the form of violence. Because the use of Basic Popular Conferences and People’s Committees means that the system is not dictatorial, it can be reformed without violence. Because the system encompasses all, there are no outsiders to direct violence against.

“Violence and revolution are carried out by those who have the capability and courage to take the initiative and proclaim the will of society.”

In the tenth chapter, ‘The Press’, Gaddafi states his belief that the press is primarily a means for society to express itself, and therefore does not belong to individuals or corporate interests. He points out that media sources can only ever speak for their owners and not for society. As such, private publishing or information enterprises must be banned. Only People’s Committees are permitted to act as the media.

Gaddafi finishes this first part of the book by noting that the strongest party in the society is always the one that rules.

If you would like to support our work in other ways, please consider subscribing to our SubscribeStar fund. Even better, buy any one of our books!