Chapter 29: The Transition – Guiding Principles and Criteria

When we transition from the current feudalistic power structure to the new peer-based symbiotic socioeconomic paradigm, we must be clear about what our guiding principles, criteria, goals and priorities are and be guided by them constantly. The most well-intended paradigm can devolve into an oppressive, dogmatic distortion of itself if guiding principles are missing or ignored and the effects of implementation on people is not taken into account. No system, religion, ideology or philosophy is immune. It’s happened with tragic frequency in human history.

Karl Marx saw religion twisted to justify the oppressive power of and abuses by feudal lords, and set out to expunge it from our psyche. His goal was to empower and free people from manipulation via religion. Then his own philosophy was in turn warped into an oppressive distortion. Every religion and ideology has at some time persecuted every other.

During the Cold War, many brutal, murderous dictatorships were actively supported by both the United States (in the name of Democracy) and the Soviet Union (In the name of Communism and Socialism). Democracy has been used countless times as spin, under the term “free enterprise,” to justify promoting the interests of mammoth corporations at the expense of local working people around the world. This always comes at the expense of the will and well-being of the people in the affected areas.

At our current level of maturity as a species, we need some kind of laws and principles to prevent us from descending into chaos on one hand, or being ruled and terrorized by bullies on the other hand. Let us not confuse anarchy with chaos. When we are ready for it, anarchy could be the highest form of human society: one in which people overwhelmingly interact respectfully and supportively without the need of formal laws and enforcement to make them. Perhaps the new paradigm after the Transition will start us on the path to being ready at some point.

For now, we still need laws and guidelines. Which ones will serve us best, and how do we define the criteria for what that means? To be considered viable, a law, implementation or policy must foster one or more of the criteria below, without compromising any of them:

1) Fosters the life, safety, freedom, well-being, empowerment, and quality of life for all individuals and subpopulations. Actively promotes psychological and sociological research to better understand what promotes the above and how best to translate findings into practical expression. 2) Fosters symbiotic, synergistic cooperative interactions and does not promote or reinforce hierarchical interactions and power structures. 3) Implements sustainable practices in achieving quality of life. This includes phasing out environmentally destructive technologies and practices in favor of sustainable, renewable ones; re-casting energy generation, food production and other suitable endeavors based on distributed small scale, community and individual based production in place of the current centralized large-scale for-profit models; ending built-in obsolescence; ending the need for currency, thus ending the self-devouring cycle of forced overproduction and overconsumption that’s needed to drive profits under the current system. Goods and services will need to base themselves on real, authentic needs of the people, rather than on the artificially induced “needs” currently used. For example, people will generate their own authentic, individual “fashion statements” and aesthetics, rather than consuming products that they were programmed to buy via advertising and social reinforcers.

Profit motive will be replaced with pride of workmanship and striving for excellence and the access of every person to goods and services that satisfy their needs and desires. All goods and services will be the best that the state of the art allows, will be designed to be easily serviced and easily upgradeable to new emerging technologies. The new paradigm will reinforce these behaviors; thus they will predominate. Only things that contribute to the thriving of human beings and communities will remain in service; those that don’t, will phase out.

Everything from cars to clothes to electronics to food will be the best possible implementations, designed to last as long as possible and to be easily upgradeable. Once everyone’s needs are met for a given product, production will scale down to just that needed to cover products damaged, defective, or needed due to population growth. Across all industries and sectors, this pattern will quickly lead to a reduction of the needed work-week, leading to dramatic increases in quality of life for everybody. Having more free time and less oppressive work environments, people will be more able to pursue their dreams and talents, which will in turn translate into greater contributions of individuals to their societies.

We will also greatly reduce our energy and other resource consumption rates: yet another beneficial effect of the new paradigm. More efficient technologies and materials will be universally available. Waste will plummet.

4) Phases out and eliminates hierarchical social structures; replaces them with peer-based, collaborative, synergistic ones. Since it’s been established that hierarchies reinforce and magnify our most destructive potentials, we can see that in any hierarchical structure, at least some of those who are high up on the pyramid, will inevitably abuse their power. In order to initialize a truly thriving society of thriving individuals, we will need to eliminate as many hierarchical social structures as functionally possible.

Recent psychological studies and controlled experiments have confirmed and clarified what we’ve all observed since pre-history: power corrupts, even a little power. Researchers have observed that the very fact of being in a position of power over others, actually inhibits or shuts down our brain centers for compassion and empathy over time. This happens, regardless of how subjects come to such a position. Susceptibility and severity vary from person to person, but it always happens.

The upshot of this knowledge is that hierarchical social structures reinforce our most destructive potentials and suppress our most constructive ones. In other words, hierarchical social structures go against our innate psychological makeup, thus they are incompatible with our well-being as individuals and as communities. The current dominant feudalistic socioeconomic paradigm is severely hierarchical; thus it is not viable and must be scrapped if we are ever to achieve thriving societies of thriving, empowered, fulfilled individuals engaged in democratic self-rule.

People who abuse positions of power aren’t “bad” people acting badly. They are ordinary people responding to the operant conditioning present in the societies they live in. These operating principles reinforce and amplify destructive, hurtful, harmful behaviors to the point where they become the norm. It affects CEO’s, functionaries, managers, supervisors, and soldiers with any rank above Private.

While some individuals are “natural leaders” due to big-picture perceptions and the ability to bring people together, motivate and inspire them, experiencing that position of influence or leadership will tend to shut down their centers for empathy and compassion. The leadership qualities that brought them to a position of influence will wane in favor of egotistical, arbitrary exercise of power. If this happens in a defined hierarchy, the dysfunction becomes set in stone. If, instead, there is no formal hierarchy, no ranks or special perks or privileges to go with them, then such a person will decline in influence and “power” as their empathy centers shut down, and someone else whose empathy and compassion centers are fully operational will take their place. After a normal “reset period,” the person’s empathy and compassion centers will reactivate and return to normal. Thus, in the absence of any formally defined hierarchy, the empathy shut-down phenomenon will be limited in scope and duration, and prove to be reversible. It goes without saying, that anybody who tries to gain power or influence by bullying, manipulation, or power of personality will find no power positions to grab, and will be limited by an unreceptive social environment. Along these lines, we will want to integrate this knowledge into school curricula and allocate significant resources to research to better understand our inner workings, in order to better craft our operating principles to support and facilitate human happiness, well-being, and symbiosis.

5) Maximizes the mutually-beneficial relationship between individual and community, empowering the individual to develop their passions and talents, leading to them making their best contributions to their communities in a positive feedback loop. 6) Fosters a pluralistic socioeconomic landscape that allows a range of variations of the new paradigm to thrive harmoniously side-by-side. This may include kibbutz and moshav-like collectives, individual family units similar to what is the current norm (but without the socioeconomic hierarchy or need for currency), tribal cultures, experimental social paradigms, and even small communities of consenting adults who are unable to feel at home in the new paradigm. They will be able to carry on the old paradigm in small communities as long as they don’t try to expand it into non-consenting communities or individuals. 7) Is set up to be self-evaluating and adaptive, identifying and strengthening its features that are working in terms of human happiness, well-being, empowerment and harmony, and identifying features that aren’t working and working to replace them with laws, policies, practices and mechanisms that will work. The new paradigm will generate a culture where individual and community re-evaluation will be reinforced and become the norm, rather than the reflexive homeostasis typical of most current cultures. When it’s found that something works for some people and not for others, then restructuring will occur to accommodate the multiple variations, instead of arbitrarily attempting to make everybody fit one mold. Redefines definitions and concepts of ownership, legally, institutionally, and culturally, to guarantee and sanctify the right of each individual, family or other social unit to own their home, workplace (collectively), and other resources that they directly use. Makes it legally impossible for one person or social unit to own or control resources that are used by others, or to obstruct or block the direct access of such resources to those who use them. Requires persons or social entities who now “own” multiple facilities to choose one as their own and release the others to those who directly use them. Redefines public resources such as roads, utilities, manufacturing facilities, distribution centers and such as publicly owned, along the lines of the pre-Medieval concept of the “commons.” Defines such facilities, such as power generators, large farms and the like as the joint property of those who work them, to be jointly governed by democratic vote or consensus, transparently to and overseen by the public. Designates hotels, motels and the like as public inns, freely open to all travelers up to their capacity. Thus, people who must travel frequently won’t be negatively impacted by having to give up a second, third or fourth home. Defines all non-public land not currently occupied (including what are currently holdings of wealthy people and corporations but not being used for anything directly or as “investment properties”) as open for use by individuals or social units who need a place, while placing sensible limits on how much can be claimed by one individual or group and establishing equitable legal mechanisms for filing claims and resolving disputes between multiple claimants. Allocates all former exclusive luxury facilities, such as executive lounges and apartments, private or corporate jets and yachts, as shared property for use by all members of the social unit or community in the context of which these resources exist. Zoning laws will mostly stand, since it’s not in anybody’s best interest to locate, for example, a steel refinery, an elementary school, and a residential neighborhood in too close proximity to one another. 8) Establishes legal requirements for sustainability and environmental stewardship, ensuring that activities damaging to the environment do not occur. 9) Legally codifies the fundamental rights of every individual and family to a safe, suitable place to live, access to transportation, food, water, medical care, education and all other resources. 10) Functionally and legally abolishes all forms of currency, along with all institutions and transactional modes that require it. 11) Clarifies that one person’s rights do not include the right to control another’s rights, establishing boundaries and limits to ensure that it becomes difficult to impossible to infringe on one another’s rights. For example, you will have the right to not eat pork, but not the right to restrict my access to it. I will have the right to dress according to my aesthetics or beliefs, but not to compel you to do so.