The Ethics and Economic Foundations of the Majority

The idea of free and open markets, personal liberty, and economic self-determination is the foundation of prosperous societies. In a world where individuals are free to spend their money as they see fit, where entrepreneurs create value and the market decides their success, and where small government (with minimal interference and red tape) allows innovation to flourish, economies grow, and people thrive.

Yet today, these principles are increasingly at odds with the reality we live in. The UK and much of the West operate more like socialist economies, with centrally planned policies, top-down money manipulation, and relentless currency debasement. Governments have expanded far beyond their intended role, directing capital flows, distorting markets, and redistributing wealth in ways that stifle growth and innovation.

How Did It Come to This?

1. Government Capture & the Gravy Train

The state has grown to the point where vast swathes of people are financially dependent on its expansion. From bloated public-sector bureaucracies to the explosion of compliance-heavy industries built around Net Zero and ESG mandates, many jobs today exist not to create value but to perpetuate policy-driven inefficiencies. There are now too many people riding the gravy train to challenge the system.

2. A Culture of Silence & Compliance

Rarely do we hear what people truly think—especially on professionally biased platforms like LinkedIn, where virtue-signaling and compliance are the dominant social currencies. Instead of speaking up, most people telegraph adherence to the prevailing ideologies—whether it’s Net Zero, DEI, or whatever the latest corporate mantra dictates. The incentives are clear: dissenting voices are punished, while those who play along climb the greasy pole.

3. The Death of Critical Thinking

The education system no longer produces independent thinkers. Schools and universities train students in compliance rather than curiosity. Instead of encouraging debate and exploration of different economic theories, they push one-sided narratives that justify government expansion and intervention in every aspect of life.

4. Austrian Economics: The Forbidden Knowledge

The Austrian School of Economics, despite its clear logic and historical validity, is rarely taught. Instead, Keynesian economics prevails because it serves as an intellectual justification for big government. Keynesianism allows governments to print money, manipulate interest rates, and intervene in markets under the guise of “stability” and “stimulus.” It justifies endless deficit spending, expansion of the state, and the handing out of favours to politically connected industries.

Austrian economics, on the other hand, promotes free markets, sound money, and limited government intervention. It highlights the dangers of monetary manipulation, debt-fueled booms, and state interference. But teaching these ideas would undermine the very system that has allowed governments to amass the control they have today—so instead, it remains buried, ignored by mainstream academia.

5. The Financialisation of Everything: A World of Rent-Seekers

When the US abandoned the gold standard in 1971, it severed the last tie between money and tangible value. Since then, we have seen the financialisation of everything. The cost of capital—once a meaningful economic force—has been distorted beyond recognition.

In a world of sound money, capital is a scarce resource. Banks would lend only what they had, and entrepreneurs and businesses would compete for that capital based on their ability to generate real economic value. But in a fiat system, banks no longer need deposits to lend; they can simply type numbers into a computer and create money out of thin air.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in mortgages.

The Great Housing Scam

When you borrow money to purchase a house, you don’t actually borrow existing money from someone else’s savings. Instead, banks create the loan out of thin air, charging interest on something that did not exist before the transaction. Over time, you end up paying back nearly as much again in interest—to a financial institution that did nothing except issue digital credit. This is economic rent-seeking at its finest.

This is the reason two incomes are now required to raise a family. This is why home ownership has become out of reach for younger generations. When you have unlimited money creation and a limited housing stock, prices can only go up. Affordability then becomes a question of monthly repayments, not total cost.

People don’t think about the total amount paid back over the life of a mortgage—they’re just told they need to “get on the property ladder.” That’s the trick. The game isn’t about buying a home; it’s about getting locked into a debt system that forces people to sacrifice decades of their lives paying off money that never existed in the first place.

This could not happen in a world of sound money. When money had real value—when it was backed by something tangible—lending had constraints. But in today’s system, capital can be created at zero cost, meaning people are being charged rent on something that should never have been scarce in the first place.

6. The 2008 Crisis: Papering Over the Cracks

The 2008 financial crisis was a moment of reckoning. The global financial system was collapsing under the weight of its own excesses, and in a sane world, the worst offenders would have been allowed to fail. But instead, governments and central banks intervened, bailing out failing institutions and doubling down on the very policies that had caused the crisis in the first place.

Since 2008, we’ve lived in a world of permanent intervention. Instead of letting markets correct, central banks have engaged in relentless money printing, suppressing interest rates and creating asset bubbles to keep the illusion of economic stability alive. The result?

• Real wages have stagnated. The average worker is not wealthier than they were in 2008. Meanwhile, asset owners—who benefit from artificially inflated stock and property prices—have grown exponentially richer.

• Debt has exploded. Governments, corporations, and individuals are now more indebted than ever before.

• Currency debasement is accelerating. With each new crisis, the money printer runs hotter, reducing the purchasing power of those who earn in fiat.

This debasement of currency leads to rising inequality, social unrest, and declining faith in institutions. We’ve seen this before—notably in the Weimar Republic of the 1920s, where hyperinflation destroyed the German economy, eroded trust in the government, and created fertile ground for political extremism. We all know how that ended.

Where Does This Leave Us?

We are now in an era where economic reality is secondary to political narratives. The policies that have led to stagnation, inflation, and declining living standards are defended because too many people’s careers, reputations, and paychecks depend on them. There is no incentive to challenge the system—only to perpetuate it.

But economic reality doesn’t care about ideology. In the end, the laws of supply and demand, of productivity and value creation, will reassert themselves. The question is whether we correct course before further damage is done or if we double down until collapse forces a reckoning.

Those Who Understand How the World Really Works Have a Choice:

• Speak out, knowing that the truth is unpopular.

• Stay quiet, secure in their job, but complicit in the charade.

The incentives for silence are strong, but the cost of compliance is a system that continues to deteriorate. If we want a better future, more people need to break the cycle of conformity and demand an economy built on truth, rather than illusion.