Chapter 31: The New Paradigm Community and the Political System – A New Kind of Relationship

In planning and executing the Transition, it’s vitally important to be very clear that it is not an overthrow of the government, the Constitution, or the rule of law. We will be replacing the current, dysfunctional socio-economic paradigm with a new one embodying the democratic principles of the foundational documents in economic terms. This will form an empowering, symbiotic social dynamic that will empower every one of us to thrive on a model of win-win, rather than the current model of win-lose.

We will not disrupt the operation of government and the people in it, though we will free them of lobbyists and modern feudal lords who currently do interfere in their performance of their jobs. After the Transition, there will be no ultra-wealthy lords or corporations to bribe, threaten, manipulate, intimidate, or blackmail them. They will at last be able to focus on the jobs for which they are elected. Reinforcers for corruption will be dramatically reduced. We will probably see a whole new breed of human beings running for elected office.

This is certainly true for countries which have foundational documents, based on concepts of government of, by and for the people with egalitarian safeguards of civil rights. In dictatorships (secular and religious), monarchies and other paradigms in which the people are disempowered and disenfranchised under a rigid, abusive hierarchy with no or insufficient guarantees rights and safety, the overthrow of both governmental and socioeconomic power structures (which may be one and the same) will be necessary.

A few countries, including the social-democratic Scandinavian countries among others, which operate using paradigms that produce a thriving, symbiotic society of thriving, empowered individuals, may not need to Transition, or may naturally do so as the countries around them Transition.

In short, the details and needs of each country’s Transition must be determined from within, based on each country’s internal dynamics, culture, unique history and operating principles. We must resist the temptation to attempt to bring about “cookie-cutter” templates for Transition to pressure everybody to follow. Guiding principles: yes; dogmatic conformism: no.

Realistically we expect that some will attempt to suppress or derail the Transition by force and violence. Legislators, executives, or judges may try to define Transitionaries as terrorists or lawbreakers, or pass new laws tailored specifically to provide a mechanism for arresting or attacking us. Military, paramilitary, or law enforcement may be ordered to stop us. We must be prepared to resist firmly, uncompromisingly and unwaveringly, to defend ourselves and each other, physically if there is no other option; but we must never initiate violence under any circumstances. We must never comply with such attempts to reassert the old power structure, but resist resolutely but without malice towards our opponents. Once we have neutralized a threat, by the least harmful means possible, we must immediately render aid compassionately to the injured, regardless of their affiliation. There must be no displays of cruelty, punitive measures, or vengefulness. Our strongest discipline will be required of us, and we will have to support each other in resisting destructive or hurtful motivations. This is the same way that we will respond to CEO’s and other former feudal lords who try to reassert their dominance. They will find that there will no longer be a socioeconomic pyramid for them to rule. There will be only a consensual symbiosis of peers.

The sharply pyramidal socioeconomic power structure of the current paradigm is ruled by modern feudal lords who were not chosen by, and are not responsible to, the people. They almost always parasitize and disempower the people, who have no recourse or channel for remedy, no way to replace or recall the feudal lords. This power structure overpowers and subsumes democratic governmental mechanisms, converting them into enforcers and enactors of the will of the modern feudal lords. Thus this socioeconomic paradigm is incompatible with democratic government of, by, and for the people and must be excised as a life-threatening malignancy.

Once the Transition is complete, elected officials will have only one set of voices: those of the people for whom they work, whom they are entrusted to serve. Those voices will still often disagree with one another, but there will be no groups or individuals privileged above or below others.

While we will not interfere with the functioning of government, the Transition will drastically change the environment in which politicians operate. In the absence of hierarchical power structures, currency, and the reinforcers of corruption, we’ll see corruption all but disappear.

Under the current paradigm, the ultra-wealthy modern feudal lords at the top of the pyramid, and their corporations, have direct channels of communication with Presidents, Premiers, Prime Ministers and all kinds of representatives. We, the modern serfs and peasants, in contrast, have no such access. Elected officials perceive us primarily as statistics. To some degree, this is due to the large number of people who want or need to talk to their officials, too many to realistically be able to accommodate. But the modern wealthy feudal lords are able to get around this. Their voices are heard one-on-one over expensive dinners. Our voices are heard as background noise.

In the current paradigm, one’s rights, options, access to resources, degree of freedom and of respect afforded one, quality of life and more are directly, rigidly determined by one’s place in the socioeconomic hierarchy. When that pyramid is no more, we will all have the same access to resources, options, and, yes, those elected by us to serve the good of us, the people.

Under the current socioeconomic paradigm, it is virtually impossible for politicians to be in touch with the people whom they are charged to serve. In the new paradigm, people serving in government will be more keenly aware of their responsibility to the people who elected to them. There will be no competing input to confuse or distract them. Their very challenging jobs will become much less difficult. With the dissolution of hierarchical power structures, people in government will have to adapt to the fact that they are peers serving their peers, not rulers ruling over subjects. The very concept of leadership will be fundamentally redefined.

In the new paradigm, there will be no need for any form of currency. All persons will have direct access to all of their needs. None will be privileged above or below another. There will be nothing that a potential lobbyist could use as inducement or “perks” to influence politicians.

There will probably still be some lobbyists, but of a very different sort. The new breed of lobbyist will speak to elected officials to express the authentic needs, feelings, and positions of the various groups and subgroups that make up a society. There may be advocates for youth, the elderly, artists, laborers, residents of different areas, etc. The only message they will be able to deliver, however, is the concerns they are sent to express, to present merits of their arguments.

The Prime Minister or legislator will still have a challenging task, though much more straightforward than it is under the current paradigm. Making things happen will be much more direct and efficient. There will be no concerns, struggles and machinations over funding or the lack of it. If a bridge needs to be repaired and the materials are physically available, it will be built. If a new hospital, school, or distribution center is needed and the materials are available, it will be built.

The new paradigm will bring the level of disparity between different individuals and groups very close to zero. All members of the community will have the same degree of access to their elected officials. None will be privileged above or below the other.

In the new paradigm, the populace will not be conditioned to respond to advertising (as a form of propaganda. There will be no advertising. Such a populace will be more empowered, self-actualized, and resistant to propagandistic manipulation. Such people will naturally be more engaged with government and more inclined to hold their representatives responsible for their actions. Bad-faith politicians will tend to have very short careers. Opportunities and reinforcements for corruption will be close to nonexistent.

Post-Transition politicians will have to be keenly aware of their roles as servants of us, the people, not as privileged rulers over us. The previous stratification will be absent. Thus, their jobs will be much simpler than they are now. They will be responsible to the people, and to only the people. Our voices will still disagree about many things, and they will still have to honestly try to make the wisest considerations and compromises. If they fail to serve the public good, they will be voted out, recalled, or impeached. They will be relieved of the intense pressures and conflicts that new beset them, between the good and will of the people, and the will and interests of the modern feudal lords of the economic power structure.

One benefit of the new paradigm will be the end of taxation. When there’s no currency and no need for it, taxation becomes unnecessary and serves no purpose. Resources will be directly accessible.

Elected officials will still have challenging issues to resolve: how to manage resources that are actually in short supply, deal with rising sea level and climate change, and resolve conflicting needs and claims of different groups and more will still demand their best skills. Such issues will be resolved among peers, not between a privileged aristocracy and a disempowered populace.

With a very different sociopolitical environment, politics will almost certainly attract people of a very different mentality than now. People driven by genuine passion for serving and improving life for the people, will predominate. The behaviors of such people will be strongly reinforced in the new paradigm, which will strengthen them. New political behaviors will be of a kind that reinforces and nourishes the new, symbiotic, synergistic win-win empowering paradigm, to the benefit of each and all.

We will still have to be ever vigilant for the possible dangerous emergence of toxic, charismatic, domineering demagogues of various stripes. In the new paradigm, there will be far less reinforcement for such personalities to form, yet given the wide range and variation among us, some such will still come along.

The occurrence of such aberrations will likely be a lot fewer and farther between than now, for several reasons.

First of all, the current paradigm doesn’t generally recognize such aggressive, domineering “Type A” persons as suffering from a personality or psychological disorder, though from an objective viewpoint, they most clearly are. Yet instead of being diagnosed and treated, the current socioeconomic paradigm (and the cultures shaped by it) strongly reinforces, lionizes, and promotes such behaviors as success stories, holding such persons up as role models. Such people tend to rise to the highest echelons of the socioeconomic power structure. Others are drawn to these individuals and become their vassals, the executors, enforcers, and enactors of their will.

Thus the pathology is entrenched and institutionalized in stone. Those lacking such characteristics and low in the socioeconomic hierarchy are seen as “losers” and looked down upon. In such rigidly hierarchical cultures, people are conditioned to defer to those above them in the hierarchy and to lord it over those below them. Those at the top are reinforced in exercising unrestrained control. Criminal acts that would land any of us serfs or peasants in prison, almost always go unpunished in a feudal lord.

Many such cultures also suffer from a concept of “respect the office.” Even if the person holding a position of power is incompetent, abusive, corrupt or otherwise destructive, one is forcefully expected to obey and defer to them and not to challenge them. This makes as much sense as allowing a drunk pilot to continue flying the airliner, just because he or she is the Captain. In such intensely hierarchical cultures, many people develop a conditioned predisposition to defer to, and fall in line behind, such “type A” personalities. In the post-Transition world, such personalities won’t be lionized or reinforced. They will be diagnosed and treated, no differently from people suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disease, gambling addiction, or schizoaffective personality disorder. They will be treated with the same firmness and compassion as any person suffering from any psychological or personality disorder.

Another co-factor in the vulnerability to charismatic demagogues in the current paradigm is our constant immersion in and inundation with advertising, to which we are conditioned to respond from childhood. Part of this phenomenon is the programmed conformism that creates in us a “need” to keep up with the latest fashion, technology, and trends. This conditioned response mechanism is easily exploited by such domineering personalities to sell at least a significant percentage of us on the rightness and justification of their claim to power. In the new post-Transition world, this conditioning will quickly fade, as it will no longer be reinforced in any way, and will have no existential support. Thus we can reasonably expect that such a demagogue will find a much less susceptible audience.

Yet another point of vulnerability in the current paradigm is the way every one of us is kept isolated in a state of perpetual siege in a socioeconomic reality where we must constantly struggle to come up with currency to ransom our lives and stave off the unstated default negation of our right to exist. We can feel powerless and overwhelmed. When an assertive personality comes on the scene who promises to make things better if we just let them lead us, it can become compelling for many.

After the Transition, all of the above factors and mechanisms will be absent. We will, of course, have to be alert and heighten our awareness of ourselves and of our responses. Long-held habits and conditioned survival responses will take time to go to extinction, especially in a societal context. With no reinforcement, the old patterns will steadily weaken and fade; in the meantime, we’ll need to consciously, purposefully, diligently create the patterns and implementation of the new paradigm, which will strongly reinforce collaboration, co-operation with acceptance of diversity, symbiosis, and synergy. Let us keep in mind, patiently, that reinforced behaviors predominate, while non-reinforced behaviors trend towards extinction. That is a scientific reality that we can apply to our advantage in initializing an empowering, thriving society emerging into a new Renaissance.

Those of us who are already of age at the time of the Transition will still carry the old patterns of the current paradigm – for a time. With no reinforcement and no relevance or survival value in the new paradigm, they will fade in time. In support of this cultural transition, we will benefit from vibrant, active public discourse to raise and maintain our own self-observation to help further facilitate the shift. We will probably want to develop counseling modalities to assist those who find the Transition challenging, to ease and facilitate their finding authentic niches to thrive in the new paradigm.

Generations coming of age during and after the Transition will not be saddled with the task of having to overcome and transform the dysfunctional survival mechanisms acquired under the current paradigm. They will be the first generation to be fully empowered, free and self-realized.

Those of you living in countries with freely elected governments may be wondering why we should take on the daunting task of overthrowing and replacing the socioeconomic paradigm, instead of using civil disobedience, strikes, demonstrations, petitions, referenda and other mechanisms of civil government to pressure elected executives and legislators to initiate the needed changes.

Such strategies have been effective at various times in many countries around the world. Yet the success of such tactics depended on a strong current in the zeitgeist of a sense of urgency and priority in curbing abuses and advancing human rights, social justice and equity. An aggressive, objective, fearless press dedicated to finding and publishing the truth (regardless of whom it may please or upset) was also crucial to the success of such movements in initiating meaningful change. When both of these conditions are absent, these strategies are largely ineffective.

These approaches often work where the following conditions are present:

1) The press and all media are unfettered, aggressively truth-seeking, nonpolitical and objective. 2) Open and free public discourse on controversial subjects is safe and possible, in a social climate of mutually-respectful dialog, and where all parties earnestly seek the betterment of society and all of the people in it. 3) A social climate in which many people are strongly outraged by, and unwilling to tolerate, corruption, abuse of power, injustice and disempowerment. 4) A governmental paradigm in which the government is in some major way beholden and responsive to the people.

Examples where this was the case include the Civil Rights movement in the United States, the Indian independence struggle, and the women’s wage parity general strike in Iceland.

Where the preconditions are missing, such tactics are almost always ineffective. Examples include Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, the Soviet Union under Stalin, Spain under Franco, Tiananmen Square in China, and the current situations in Hong Kong, Myanmar, and Afghanistan.

In such contexts, the oppressive regime controls the media. All dissent and protest is violently, brutally and lethally suppressed. If dissent is reported in the press at all, it is presented as the actions of criminals, traitors or terrorists. Whole cities have been obliterated and millions have been murdered under such regimes with little or no consequences.

Currently, in the United States and other similar countries, traditional tactics for nonviolently forcing social change have been rendered largely ineffective in the following ways:

1) The modern feudal lords and their corporations are highly skilled in the use of propaganda to manipulate the populace, built upon their experience in advertising and marketing. Most media are now mega corporations owned by mega corporations. Thus, despite the appearance of free press, the press rarely reports anything much that goes against corporate interests. Protests tend to be underreported, not reported, or reported with a negative spin on protesters. 2) People are so constantly inundated with stories about violence, human rights abuses, injustice, inequity, and corruption that they are, much as soldiers can become desensitized to the violence of war. People have become numb to, and unmoved by evils that, short years ago, would have galvanized them into action.

Psychologically, the effect of overexposure to violent content such as is common in both news and fiction has been shown lead to indifference and apathy. Furthermore, the sensory overload that we live immersed in, further leads to a kind of emotional and mental paralysis. It’s more than the brain can process.

The kinds of demonstrations, strikes and other tactics that were very effective in the 1960’s, 1970’s and even before, now barely register. People are chronically overloaded and overstressed. Our personal struggles tend to overshadow bigger societal issues in our hearts and minds, even when those issues directly affect us. We just don’t have enough left at the end of the day, to engage bigger issues.

Modern feudal lords have also become very adept at “counter-insurgency” tactics, including infiltrating peaceful demonstrations with fifth-columnists tasked with initiating violence, vandalism, and other behaviors meant to discredit the whole movement, setting the stage for media and government to portray demonstrators as criminals or terrorists. Hitler used the same tactics very effectively when his people burned the Reichstag, disguised as Communists and painting Communist slogans and symbols, so that he could present himself as the one to save Germany from the Communists.

In the current highly-charged and divided U.S. sociopolitical climate, demonstrations for justice and humanity are always met by counter-demonstrations. Sooner or later someone throws a punch or an object, a brawl ensues, and the message is lost in the chaos, which is all the public usually sees.

To make matters worse, some in government have introduced laws designating most strikes, civil disobedience, and nonviolent demonstrations as “economic terrorism,” as well as laws permitting individuals to drive their vehicles into peaceful demonstrators with impunity if they can claim afterwards that they were “afraid.” As unconstitutional as such laws are, when the feudalistic economic power structure conflicts with democratic modes of government, the interests of the former nearly always prevail.

People are also diverted from concerted, purposeful action to bring about fundamental change, by the myriad distractions and diversions easily available to us. A concert, movie, sporting event, new purchase, or episode of our favorite TV show takes our focus away from difficult, often overwhelming issues. Outrage over a celebrity’s or politician’s personal foibles and screw-ups takes the place of outrage over actual, consequential abuses and systemic dysfunction of the socioeconomic paradigm. Most of us don’t have the time or energy to be outraged at both. This is by design. It also keeps us spending time and currency on those products (thus supporting the feudalistic power structure), rather than on forcing a change in paradigm.

Since pretty much all previously-effective modes of socioeconomic change have been largely neutralized, out only option is to take direct action, from the ground up, to (non-violently) force a change of the fundamental paradigm upon which most of society’s functioning is based.

The current sociopolitical situation in the United States has revealed a vulnerability that wasn’t foreseen by the founders of our nation. The checks and balances built into the Constitution assume that two or more parties will balance each other in the various branches of government, and that all involved parties act with the good of the nation and the people in mind, even if they disagree on many things. In the past four years, however, we’ve seen what happens when one party, single-mindedly motivated by power-lust, greed, and fanaticism, gains control of all three branches of government and proceeds to abuse them as instruments for solidifying their power and blocking all opposition. This scenario brought us perilously close to an authoritarian takeover by extremist, fanatical, power-hungry extremists. The danger is not past. We will need to quickly strengthen and reinforce the checks and balances in place to prevent this kind of coup attempt from having any chance of succeeding.

The United States has a major impact on the rest of the world. An authoritarian takeover there would embolden other similar actions elsewhere. On the other hand, the Transition of the United States to the new symbiotic, non-hierarchical, win-win paradigm would strengthen such movements around the world. It is crucial that to protect against the former and ensure the success of the latter.

The authors of the Constitution did an excellent job of protecting against many abuses and setting the country on a course guided by an overarching commitment to human rights, dignity, and equality. It has empowered us to evolve and upgrade to more closely embody those principles, as our awareness has grown. The founding principles have guided us through ending slavery, ensuring women’s suffrage, ending southern apartheid, increasingly protecting the rights of employees and consumers, and much more. Even dysfunctional aberrations were corrected fairly quickly, such as McCarthyism and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

It’s clear that the Founders intended the United States to be a place of empowerment, dignity, freedom, symbiosis and well-being for all who live there. Until recently, there has been slow but steady progress to more closely embody those values. In the past four years, however, a collection of power-hungry, fanatical Machiavellian authoritarians managed to take control of the White House and both houses of Congress, and to pack the Supreme Court with ideologues loyal to their agenda above the Constitution. They then embarked on a program of subversion, bypassing, and repurposing of the democratic mechanisms in such a way as to neutralize their ability to impede authoritarian rule. Concepts were redefined in ways contrary to the intentions of the Founders. For example, the concept of “religious liberty” was redefined to enshrine the “right” (AKA power) of employers, landlords, lenders, insurance companies, healthcare providers and others to discriminate against individuals based on “religious beliefs.” Government agencies were repurposed in direct opposition to their missions: the Environmental Protection Agency was used to roll back environmental protections and allow energy and other companies to pollute and destroy habitats, the Department of Justice was used as the personal legal outfit protecting and enforcing the president and his agenda at all costs, and the agencies protecting employees and consumers were redirected to enforce the power of employers and manufacturers, at the expense of employees and consumers. The president claimed to be immune from prosecution, even for publicly visible crimes committed while in office. Those in other branches of government who sought to hold him responsible, were unable to prevail due to the one-party chokehold on the mechanisms of government. The attack on democratic institutions went so far as an attempted violent overthrow of the government on January 6, 2021, an attempt that is still ongoing. The safeguards built into the Constitution were short-circuited. The question that remains is whether or not sufficient safeguards are still operational to neutralize the putsch, and whether the neutralized safeguards can be restored and reinforced to prevent future similar occurrences. In order for safeguards to work as intended, the people in government have to have the will and respect to use them as such. Otherwise we see a façade of democracy hiding a dictatorship, a much more pernicious version of the Wizard of Oz on steroids.

Just as in Medieval times and in Nazi Germany, this junta melded fanatical religion and ethnic vilification into government and distorted jingoistic parodies of patriotism, in order to manipulate a large segment of the population to follow them. This conveniently keeps that sub-population primed as a weapon against opponents of the regime, even when that same population is as much harmed by the regime as others are. That is the power of propaganda and brainwashing.

As long as competing parties or factions have more or less similar levels of influence in government, they tend to keep each other in check. As long as they all agree on respecting democratic governing principles and the good of the people, regardless of their philosophical or political disagreements, then democracy is safe. But when one party or group, who see the mechanisms of government as merely means to the end of cementing their power and forcing their agenda on the nation, then government of, by and for the people is in peril. Immensely stronger safeguards are urgently needed, and will need to be a priority in the post-Transition paradigm as much as now.

The Transition to the new paradigm, with the end of any need for currency and of the hierarchical socioeconomic power structure, will vastly reduce potential and reinforcement for abuse of power. There will be no modern feudal lords or corporations to override the voices of the people. Yet it would be over-simplistic to assume that it will completely eliminate such potential scenarios.

Besides strengthening and clarifying checks and balances, we might need to add new mechanisms, laws, and avenues to deal with abuses of power. We might benefit from a legal or Constitutional mandate requiring any elected official who commits a crime in office, to be immediately prosecuted, while protecting and empowering those investigating their conduct to do their due diligence unimpeded, with further safeguards on those researchers to prevent them from abusing their role to commit political assassination via “manufactured” evidence. All parties will need total transparency to the public.

We do and will need to put the highest priority on safeguarding elections and other government functions from domestic, criminal, and foreign hacking and cyber warfare. We have not yet updated our security systems and organizations to keep pace with cyber threats, as recent ransomeware attacks and the Russian interference in the 2016 elections show.

We might benefit from placing a limit on how much control any one party can hold, possibly mandating new elections and/or establishing a mandatory, broadly empowered non-partisan body tasked with overseeing all branches of government to identify any abuse or attempted abuse of power or corruption and take appropriate action in the event that such abuses occur. Members of this body would be rigorously screened and vetted to verify mental and emotional stability and objectivity, not just upon appointment, but periodically thereafter. Any members falling short of objectivity standards would be replaced, not punitively, but in the same spirit that grounds a pilot if their vision is too compromised.

Further benefits would flow from term limits on all members of both houses of Congress as well as Supreme Court; from a freeze on appointment of Supreme Court justices when one party has disproportionate control; from holding all candidates to the court to rigorous standards to ensure that they are guided by the Constitutional principles and not ideological or religious beliefs; from making all proceedings and communications among members of congress, the executive branch, the Supreme Court and all government agencies open-source and easily visible to the public; from eliminating the “shadow docket” entirely; from eliminating all arbitrary perks and privileges currently given to elected officials and their staffs. Even under the current socioeconomic paradigm, we would see great benefit from requiring all elected officials to live on slightly less than the median income of those in their constituency, with their personal wealth held out of reach during their term; but under the new paradigm, such measures will be unnecessary, since currency and the need for it will no longer exist.

It is imperative that we act quickly and decisively to bring about the Transition globally, country by country. Like a cancer, the current modern feudalism is siphoning ever more resources into the hands of the few modern feudal lords, which is pushing the rest of us into a downward spiral of disempowerment on every level. If we wait too long, we’ll have neither the strength, nor the ability, nor the will to act. It is past time. We must mobilize quickly and Transition as soon as possible, if we wish to avoid a modern feudal Dark Ages that could last a very long time, possibly hundreds or even thousands of years.