Chapter 45: What Are The Goals And Purposes Of This Transition?
What are our goals in this Transition. What is our purpose?
It is most definitely not to replace one ruling group with a different one, to avenge ourselves upon the modern feudal lords who have come to power under the current dysfunctional system, or to transfer wealth from one power elite to another. All of us, from unemployed and working poor to CEO, have all unwittingly, unknowingly perpetuated this toxic paradigm.
It most definitely is to replace pyramidal, hierarchical social structures with flat, peer-based, symbiotic, collaborative ones, to eliminate the possibility of concentration of power, control or wealth into anybody’s hands, to corrupt and shut down anybody’s compassion and empathy circuitry.
The current socioeconomic paradigm was originally thought to be the embodiment of enlightened, democratic, free society. This has not proven to be the case. In country after country, we’ve seen it spawn the same dysfunctional pattern: the formation of a socioeconomic feudal elite, eternally driven by the operating principles of the paradigm to consolidate its control over all resources and its influence on government, ruling over and engorging itself on the fruits of the efforts of an ever-expanding majority of disempowered modern serfs and peasants.
We’ve been doing the same thing over and over, while expecting different results, for far too long. It’s time to admit that this paradigm isn’t working and never will. It’s never even come close to performing as advertised! Like any failed concept, it’s time to toss it on the scrap heap of experience, learn from it, and come up with a better one.
We’re taught to be fair, honest, compassionate, considerate, and caring. The socioeconomic reinforcers in our society, however, reinforce dominance and the acquisition of wealth, power and status, which is directly at cross-purposes with the values we’re taught. Very few laws limit how far one may go in pursuing those ends. There are few to no socioeconomic reinforcers for working together or being honest, compassionate, considerate, or caring. We often need new laws as band-aids to curb new, innovative predatory abusive strategies among businesses and the wealthy that circumvent old laws. Many crimes against humanity committed by corporations and the modern feudal lords are not only not prosecuted, they are legally protected.
Psychologically speaking, reinforced behaviors predominate; non-reinforced behaviors tend towards extinction. Admonishments, exhortations, or punishments cannot overcome this dynamic. It’s unrealistic to think that telling our kids to share and support each other will out-create a socioeconomic environment that strongly reinforces the opposite.
We will design the new post-Transition paradigm to strongly reinforce the best in us, behaviors such as mutually-respectful collaboration and cooperation for mutual benefit, empathy, compassion, effective communication, and social choreography. Mutual benefit will replace the benefit of some at the expense of others as the norm. To do this, we’ll have to carefully consider what reinforcers we build into the new paradigm. Let’s go over the core goals of the Transition:
1) To replace the current win-lose-lose-lose-lose socioeconomic paradigm with a win-win-win-win-win paradigm, designed to reinforce reciprocity, collaboration, symbiosis and mutual benefit among individuals, subgroups, and society at large.
This will involve finding optimal balances between individualism and collectivism. Extreme individualism isolates and alienates us, suppresses supportive interpersonal bonding, and fragments society. Extreme collectivism suppresses individuality and innovation. Both are oppressive. Like intellect and intuition, individualism and collectivism are both necessary, integrated in optimal balance, for us to reach our full potential as thriving individuals in thriving societies.
The relationship between individuals, groups and society don’t have to be conflicted as they are under the current paradigm. We will craft societies that recognize that the good of each, benefits all and vice-versa, where individuals are embraced and appreciated for their unique expressions, innovations and contributions. We will replace “one man’s loss is another man’s gain” with “One man’s gain benefits all; one man’s loss diminishes all.” This is a major, necessary change in our core mindset.
There will be no hierarchy punishing or rewarding us. We will have nothing to fear from making a mistake (from which we will learn), nor from the success or recognition of another. Each of us has our unique talents and passions; in pursuing them, we contribute one another’s benefit, like the cells and organs that make up our bodies.
We will work to become a highly-informed, critically thinking, self-realized people who, freed of hierarchical tyranny, appreciate each other’s contributions. We will become a civilization of mutually-supportive co-workers, co-decision-makers, co-stakeholders, co-problem-solvers, and co-innovators, thriving in an unprecedented Renaissance. Social dynamics will be choreographed to reinforce working for mutual benefit, and to not in any way reinforce mutually predatory or destructive behaviors.
We must take to heart what we’ve learned about hierarchical social structures and apply it learned to every facet of our social interactions. Hierarchies reinforce and enforce dysfunctional traits of those at the top, and all the way down the command structure. The cliché “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is a fact. Individuals vary widely in their susceptibility to this. Not everybody would become a Hitler or a Stalin; but very few, if any, are completely immune. We see it at every level, from the military dictator of a country, to the clerk, functionary, shift supervisor and office manager who can’t resist flexing their power, which psychologically compensates them for what they suffer from those above them in the hierarchy. Hierarchies are like magnets that pull up our worst potentials and deposit them in the driver’s seat.
Rank and position become sacred. The organization almost always backs up those in power, even when they’re abusive or incompetent. This further reinforces these behaviors and sets them in stone. In a society where disempowerment is the norm, most or many find release in abusing any power they have, no matter how minor, in pulling rank and throwing their weight around. This culture of abused power also suppresses initiative, motivation, engagement, and honesty among those low in the power pyramid. It is hard to imagine a more dysfunctional, non-viable societal paradigm!
What’s reinforced (except for those at the top of the command structure, who are unilaterally and unconditionally enabled) is avoidance of punishment and censure from, and pursuit of favor with, “superiors.” Those in neither the top nor the bottom position, are reinforced to please and appease those above them and to lord it over those beneath them, including taking credit with superiors for underlings’ innovations and shifting blame for their own mistakes and failures to their subordinates. Those at the very bottom are reinforced the same with respect to their “superiors” as those in the middle; but as there are none beneath them, they are reinforced to engage in cutthroat competition among them, creating a toxic, mutually predatory culture at he bottom.
If there were a competition for how to create the most dystopian, dysfunctional society, the current modern feudalism would be a top contender for the prize. The new paradigm will work to create a flat, peer-based, egalitarian social structure with power positions, that reinforces and empowers us to innovate, engage fully, collaborate, take responsibility, communicate effectively, and make decisions by consensus or, less preferable, voting. Be prepared for this to be a challenge at first, for us who have been conditioned to survive in the dysfunctional, hierarchical modern feudalistic societies; but it is a challenge that we can master, as others have mastered it before us in various times and places.
Prior examples include the globally-dispersed but tightly-organized Kasachi people, whose culture is along new paradigm lines for millennia. They are living, durable proof that such a society is possible to us.
The kibbutzim of Israel are another example of a socioeconomic paradigm coming close to approximating the new paradigm in many ways, and there are numerous other examples. In making the Transition and initializing the new paradigm, we must be ready to encounter challenges and obstacles in ourselves and in our shared spaces. Most of us have grown up in cultures with mythical beliefs that any society based on equality, cooperation, and symbiosis is against human nature and doomed to fail. Therefore we may sometimes be discouraged or tempted to give up. We need to go into this great undertaking, consciously knowing and reminding ourselves, and each other, that this cultural myth is based on ignorance, that it is only a myth.
Alongside that myth, let’s look at some facts about the current modern feudal paradigm. About fifty percent of new small businesses fail within five years. Sixty-five percent fail within ten years. Approximately fifty percent of marriages and other domestic partnerships end in dissolution. In multi-level and network marketing businesses, the percentage of participants who make a good, steady living at it is slightly lower than the percentage of people who win big at games of chance. Yet in the societies in which we grew up, people are generally encouraged to start a business, get married, join that multi-level marketing company. We’re not told to abandon the idea because such projects are against human nature and doomed to fail. In fact, we’re told to persevere, take the risk, try and try again. Yet if we propose setting up a society based on equality, cooperation, symbiosis and mutuality, we’re discouraged with a fire hose blast of cultural myth. Ignore that! We must apply the same perseverance, commitment, and determination to crafting and implementing the new paradigm, as we would bring to a new business venture, domestic partnership, or having children.
Over 270 kibbutzim have formed in Israel since 1909. These communities were founded by people who, like us, grew up in both the traditional and the modern forms of hierarchical feudalism and were adapted to it. Like us, those founders had no experience with the egalitarian, democratic paradigm that they were creating. They succeeded, and though they were only about four percent of Israel’s population, they formed much higher percentages of Israel’s Nobel Prize winners, outstanding artists and scientists, agricultural and industrial innovators, and war heroes.
The recent privatization of many kibbutzim does not signify the failure of the paradigm. It is the result of the inability of those enmeshed in the modern feudal paradigm to tolerate, or coexist with, any other paradigm. This dominant paradigm has become dominant in the same way as a cancer metastasizes, spreading throughout the body of the patient, destroying healthy tissue and eventually killing the patient. Privatized kibbutzim are by no means the only victims of modern feudal socioeconomic metastasis. Many cultures similar to the new paradigm have been violently crushed, forced-assimilated, and otherwise killed by the cancer of the modern feudal paradigm. That is why, alongside our strong ethic of respect for all life and never initiating violence, we will need to be well organized and prepared to defend ourselves against any who try to forcibly suppress us or re-impose the old (current) power structure. Modern feudal socioeconomic paradigms must be excised from the body of humanity and prevented from ever recurring, if we are to survive and have any hope of being able to thrive!
Every human undertaking involves risk, uncertainty, obstacles, challenges and the unexpected.
Any social paradigm works best if it strongly reinforces the behaviors and attitudes upon which it’s based, and avoids reinforcing contrary ones. The new paradigm is no exception. Please remember that reinforcer is not the same as enforcer. Reinforcement means that selected behaviors tend to bring positive results, while unreinforced behaviors do not bring positive results. Enforcement means using force, intimidation, manipulation, or coercion to induce desired behaviors. The two approaches give rise to extremely different social environments. It’s crucial that we implement the new paradigm in ways that ensure that there’ll be strong reinforcement for working together symbiotically for mutual benefit for each and all.
In a society where options and access to resources are systematically scarcified by a few who control them, cutthroat competition and the pursuit of immediate gain or advantage are strongly reinforced; working for mutual and long-term benefit are not reinforced. That’s what we have now. In a society where resources are as freely available as the physical environment allows, and where concerted effort for mutual benefit is reinforced and brings the best results for each and all, collaborative, cooperative, symbiotic behaviors will predominate.
For example, imagine two scenarios in which there’s only enough food for one person on the table, but plenty for all present is out of reach, up in a high cupboard. In one scenario, a few people control access to the out-of-reach food. In that scenario, what’s reinforced is currying favor with, and not offending, the ones who control access. If those who control access are very restrictive in granting it, creating an enforced shortage, then destructive competition is reinforced. In a different scenario where nobody prevents access to the food cache, where all have direct access to it, what’s reinforced is working together to get at the food to bring it out where all can eat.
In a peer-based workplace, if I think of a way to do twice the work with half the effort in half the time, sharing it with everybody benefits all of us, and I gain the appreciation and high regard of my peers. Sharing for mutual benefit is reinforced. In a hierarchical workplace such is common in modern feudalism, sharing my idea may work against me. My manager may shut it down, or more likely they or a coworker will take credit for it publicly and with their superior, resulting in increased production quotas. In such an environment, I’m better off keeping my idea to myself so that I’m producing twice as much in half the time than my coworkers, making me a lot more likely to be promoted than my peers when a promotion is available. Getting an advantage over one’s peers, AKA competitors, is reinforced. The scarcer the resources and opportunities, the more dog-eat-dog the norm. When a promotion means the difference between forever fighting a losing battle to survive, versus being able to actually thrive some, “looking out for Number One” is the reinforced norm.
In a typical business under current modern feudalism, decisions come from the top and are propagated unquestioningly downwards throughout the command and power pyramid. If an initiative or change were decided and implemented from the bottom or middle of the hierarchy, and propagated laterally as well as up and down from there, Management would treat it as a threat to the their authority, as insubordination, and would swiftly suppress it. The idea would most likely be rejected out-of-hand, simply because of how it was introduced. Even if the innovation were adopted, whoever came up with it would most likely be fired, demoted, disciplined, or at the very least sternly lectured on the sacred imperative to “respect the chain of command.” Even if the idea proved to bring tremendous benefit to the employer in that case, those benefits would not be passed on to the employee who originated the idea. Most of the benefits of such an innovation would go directly to wealthy stockholders, and to whatever manager claimed credit for the idea after it was adopted.
Which kind of work environment would you prefer? We have the power to choose, and change, how we do things. We’ve done it before. What we’re doing now clearly isn’t working, as we see literally more each day, as we see looking back generations in the past and see the same pattern duplicated every time. It is time for us to make an historic change in the fundamental operating principles that guide our choices, actions, logistics, and interactions as societies.
We are aiming to form symbiotic, compassionate, empowering, dynamic, evolving societies where every one of us can thrive and have the best achievable human experience, and to maintain it in sustainable ways that don’t damage our environment and the ecosystem that sustain us.
Some folks who criticize egalitarian, cooperative socioeconomic models, claim that they stifle individual expression and initiative, generate a culture of lazy mediocrity lacking reinforcement for innovation or productivity, and cause socioeconomic stagnation or even regression. People who think that way, like to cite educational philosophies that emphasize validating every student for who they are and what they can do. They ask, what good is it to tell every student that they can be anything they want to be, and give them A’s and B’s for C, D, or F work, thus setting them up to fail in college, trade school or the “real world,” by giving them unrealistic expectations? They say that such an approach also hurts students who really do A or B work, who may feel devalued and unmotivated. These questions are valid and deserve relevant answers.
One factor concerns the relationship between the individual and the community. When individualism becomes too extreme, community fragments, alienation, distrust, and adversarial dynamics proliferate, and it becomes ferociously difficult for people to work together cohesively. When the community becomes to rigid, conformist, and inflexible, individuals are oppressed and suppressed; the community stagnates for lack of engagement and innovation from its socially strait-jacketed members. The new paradigm will require finding balanced dynamics between individual and community, such that we all are supporting and strengthening each other, consciously working to empower each of us to thrive, and, in reaching our full potential though living our passions, make our greatest contribution to the community. In such a paradigm, self-actualization and contribution to one’s community go hand in hand. The community and the individual are pulling mostly in the same, rather than opposite, directions.
The principle of equality is crucial to strive for when constituting a democratic, free, empowering society governed of, by and for its members. Any kind of hierarchy, castes, classes, or disparity is inherently arbitrary and directly, functionally in conflict with such goals. They generate and normalize the most destructive behaviors in all castes, precluding any possibility of forming a free, democratic, empowering, and thriving society. It makes no difference whether castes are defined and enforced by financial, hereditary, occupational, racial, political or any other set of criteria and means. The result is always the same: a stilted, maladapted society populated by crippled, maladapted individuals displaying their most destructive behaviors.
Since equality is centrally important, we must have a clear understanding of what it means and how we interpret and apply it. There are many possible interpretations.
One interpretation what we need to discard from the start is the one that strives to make ourselves into identical copies of each other, the “one size fits all” approach. This approach dehumanizes us, suppresses our individuality and subjugates all of us to an arbitrary abstraction of what makes a “perfect human being.” We all know of attempts to apply this interpretation that have failed to evolve into the intended thriving communities, which are popular ammunition among defenders of modern feudalism, who cite them to imply that they prove that all egalitarian, cooperative societies follow those negative examples. They couldn’t be more seriously mistaken!
Another flawed interpretation of equality is the one that pits a 130 pound school teacher against a 250 pound professional boxer in the ring, or a minimum-wage employee against their massive mega-corporation of an employer in a court of law, and pretending that they are contending as equals.
We are richly varied in our personalities, abilities, strengths, weaknesses, needs, and other traits. Each of us makes a unique contribution to our environment and finds fulfillment in a unique way. One serious flaw in the current socioeconomic feudalism is that it only reinforces only a very narrow range of behaviors, abilities, traits, and personalities, which effectively coerces each of us to try to fit those moulds as best we can. Those who are best at fitting those templates, become the modern feudal lords and their vassals. Those of us who don’t, become the modern serfs and peasants. Ultimately, all of us develop into lopsided, distorted caricatures of our authentic selves.
Most of us end up chronically disempowered, stressed, and unfulfilled. Our societies fail to benefit from our best contributions, stilting our existence individually and collectively in a vicious cycle. The only behaviors that are strongly consistently reinforced are those that lead to getting money, wealth, and power. How well we do this, determines our options, freedoms, quality of life, and the amount of respect that we’re given. Regardless of official or cultural ideology, all such societies are impoverished and anemic, both individually and as societies.
A case in point is current cultural concepts of beauty in the United States and much of the world. Thin body types and a narrow range of facial features are exalted as standards to follow, a mould for all to strive to fit. Few naturally fit it naturally. Some who do, become celebrities solely or partially on how perfectly they personify this cultural concept of beauty. They are also pressured and reinforced to develop only or mainly those specific traits, at the expense of developing other traits as well, to become a well-rounded person. Those who don’t naturally fit that mould are disadvantaged socially and economically, feeling pressure to jam themselves into the mould, resulting in epidemic eating disorders, serious and unnecessary health and psychological damage, and meager hard-earned pay spent on fashion and status products. None of this scenario really benefits anybody, not even those who naturally fit the mould.
Multiple parasitic industries exacerbate this dysfunction by reminding people of the “need” to fit the mould, and offering goods and services for a (high) price that they advertise as ways to fit the mould. The cosmetics, fashion, cosmetic surgery, and the weight-loss industries are a few examples. The higher they can manipulate the demand, the higher the prices they can get away with charging.
This creates an environment that demoralizes and marginalizes those who don’t, or don’t easily, fit the mould. These vulnerable people are “collateral damage” in the obligatory quest for profits. A chubby, short person who truly feels good about who they are, just as they are, won’t likely see any reason to pay for designer clothes, expensive cosmetics, or plastic surgery. An insecure, demoralized person is a much more profitable crop, to be perpetually harvested and milked as much as possible, “fertilized” by being kept perpetually insecure and self-doubting.
This set of arbitrary cultural concepts of beauty, directly impacts survival. Regardless of laws banning discrimination based on physical characteristics, countless studies reveal that overweight people are less likely to be hired than thin people. Other characteristics are also disadvantaged for hiring, housing or business loans, and advancement: skin color, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age (old and young, for different reasons), and gender identity are common examples. Even where such discrimination, which isn’t even always conscious, is illegal, it is ferociously hard to prove in court that it occurred. The burden of proof is on the plaintiff, who is most likely unemployed or underemployed and unable to afford a good enough attorney (if any) to go up against an army of top-notch corporate attorneys on retainer. Most employers’ attorneys have already advised them on how to make it impossible to be sued, whether or not discrimination occurred. Arbitration clauses in employment contracts may even make it legally impossible to sue.
To reiterate, even those of all genders who naturally fit the culturally defined mould of beauty, do not escape serious negative effects of these constructs. They are strongly reinforced and pressured to emphasize only their physical attributes. Attempts to focus on other areas of who they are, are not only not reinforced, they are actively discouraged. Such conditioning engenders dysfunctional behaviors and traits such as manipulation, egotism, arrogance, bullying, and superficiality. They may even feel insecure, since their “success” is based on narrow traits that may change over time. They may feel like they aren’t “good enough” or appreciated for who they are, but only for their face or body. What if that changes? Then what?
Other demographics also experience this kind of stress: people with “marketable” talents and abilities, such as outstanding singers, dancers, athletes, mathematicians, and others may similarly feel the pressure to develop into lopsided versions of themselves. Keep in mind that this kind of cultural pattern could still appear outside of the modern feudal paradigm, which certainly amplifies it and codifies it dramatically. Any culture can develop concepts and attitudes that result in some characteristics being selected for or against in the cultural behavioral model. Such constructs usually develop unconsciously. Regardless of which paradigm we’re living in, for best results, we must always be alert to identify disempowering patterns and correct them when they occur. Under modern feudalism, however, this phenomenon directly impacts our survival, options, quality of life, access to resources and opportunities, and how we’re treated. This translates into vastly, endemically, systemically enforced and perpetuated damage to the health, vibrancy, and viability of a culture or society and the people living in it.
How to counteract or manage the social dynamics involved in this phenomenon outside of modern feudalism is best covered in a separate work, written by specialists in psychology, sociology, anthropology and similar fields. It is mentioned here, primarily to illustrate the damage caused by strong reinforcement for only a narrow range of traits.
The current modern feudalistic socioeconomic paradigm most strongly reinforces making money. Those who excel, rise on the pyramid, depending on how well they excel. Those who aren’t good at making money at what they do, are disempowered and marginalized, no matter how great their talents and abilities, no matter how much they contribute to their fellows and their community. If you can’t find a way to make money at it, then you will not be reinforced, you will not be rewarded, and, in fact, you may find it difficult or impossible to survive. Only a very tiny subset of the population, actually excel at making money. The rest of us are, by design of the paradigm, out of luck.
Our implementation of the principle of equality in the new paradigm, must strive to benefit from our rich, vast diversity by reinforcing and empowering each of us to find our best niche in our community, where we can authentically express our talents and passions in ways that are fulfilling to ourselves and beneficial to our fellows and our communities. The new paradigm must be designed to be adaptive, dynamic, and flexible enough to empower individuals and communities, regardless of wide cultural and individual variations. We must learn, adopt and normalize attitudes that foster this.
By analogy, think of the vast diversity of the cells and organs that make up your body. Other than sharing common DNA, heart, brain, lung, bone, skin and all other cells are far more different from each other, than we are from each other. Each cell acts according to its nature. Each organ acts according to its nature. The biological choreography of your cells and organs, is what makes up your unique existence as an organism, as a person. Neither you, nor your cells and organs, could survive by preying upon each other. Such a condition would be fatal. If we cast our societies along similar lines, symbiotically interacting organically as our authentic selves, then our societies will become thriving social organisms comprised of thriving human beings and sub-communities.
Under current modern feudalism, countless numbers of us are never able to fulfill our passions and potentials and make our greatest contribution to our community. If we don’t quickly find a way to make enough money at our passion or talent, then economic pressures force us to make a living at whatever we find that we can get paid to do. Usually, that means we end up surviving by doing something that is meaningless to us, and for which our abilities are mediocre. This inevitably produces an oppressive, lackluster society of unfulfilled people, a living incarnation of mediocrity and futility at every level. We are even seeing the vast, unexplored frontier of space being devalued into a tawdry near-earth playground for the wealthiest modern feudal lords while meaningful research and humanity-driven exploration is fading and billions of people are barely surviving.
Once we render all forms of currency unnecessary, all persons will truly be, both theoretically and practically, guaranteed the rights to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and access to all existing resources necessary thereto. There will be no money-barrier, no toll booth, no paywall blocking access. None will control resources that they aren’t directly using. We will all be co-decision-makers, co-stakeholders, co-beneficiaries, co-responsible-parties. Most likely some variations on the new paradigm will emerge spontaneously. We will thrive best, however, if we consciously steer ourselves in the direction of symbiosis, mutual respect, mutual benefit, effective communication, and collaboration.
If you’re afraid that the new paradigm will be some version of a state-controlled monopoly, that your home and other possessions will be taken away, then be assured that you have absolutely nothing to fear. Personal autonomy and ownership of resources will be respected, more strongly than now, though some concepts of ownership will be redefined.
Each of us will own our home, car, clothes and other resources that we personally use, though reasonably flexible limits will be placed on how much one person, family or social entity can own, in order to prevent hoarding. You’ll have direct, unobstructed access to electricity, water, Internet, and all other utilities. You’ll be able to get anything you need or want from the nearest distribution centers. Hospitals, schools, and similar facilities will welcome and treat or teach you directly with no obstructions. You won’t need money! It will be obsolete.
Coworkers at any production, distribution, research, or other facility will jointly own and operate it as co-equal peers. A universally-accessible web site will allow “producers” and “consumers” to coordinate supply to meet actual demand. The quality of all goods and services will be the highest possible at the state of the art.
Public lands and other resources will be held in common by all people in the community or country. Non-public lands and other resources will be available for habitation or other use by any who need them, subject of course to reasonable zoning and environmental considerations, and with legal mechanisms in place to sensitively and fairly resolve any disputes. Nobody will have to be homeless, shoeless, hungry, or thirsty.
No person, social entity, or governmental entity will be able to own or control any resource used or needed by another, or to restrict access to, or hold hostage such access, of another. If you are currently a landlord, you will lose ownership and control of your rental properties, and you will keep your home that you live in. Your current tenants will legally own their residences. Don’t worry that you’ll be hurt by the loss of rental income. You won’t need currency, any more than your former tenants will. Anybody will be free to move when they wish, via public web exchange and physical bulletin boards where people will be able to exchanges home, with legal mechanisms in place to facilitate the process. New homes will also be built, and old ones torn down and replaced if they are unlivable or beyond repair. Unoccupied dwellings will be available for claim, via an orderly, simple, and accessible legal process.
The sanctity of the individual, family, and other social entity will be upheld and respected to a degree impossible under current modern feudalism. It may be hard for you to imagine a society that functions without currency of any kind, and without any kind of hierarchy. There are, however, multiple examples of societies that have functioned along similar lines: Israeli kibbutzim (and some Moshavim), the globally-distributed Kasachi people, many of the cultures in the Americas before the European genocidal invasion, and numerous examples around the world at different times have thrived with no currency and no hierarchy. You cannot dismiss them as “primitive.” Not all of them would fit the definition, which is an arbitrary one at best. (Which is more primitive, for example: a technologically sophisticated culture that practices slavery and accepts casual cruelty and brutality as normal, or a technologically simple culture where mutual respect, collaborative decision-making and problem-solving, and an accepted norm of empathy, compassion, and mutual support are central?) If you don’t know of such examples, it’s because, like most or all cultures, your culture teaches you that it is the highest, best, most superior human society and paradigm. Your history naturally features cultures similar to your own. Modern feudalism goes even farther: it not only promotes its paradigm as the pinnacle of human endeavor, but it utterly invalidates and devalues any society that’s fundamentally different from it, to the point of justifying the violent suppression and destruction of those societies in order to turn them into markets and workforces to be exploited for the profits of the modern feudal lords.
Consider the following:
Under current modern feudalism, most land is owned by a tiny sliver of the population. The rest of us must pay them, directly or indirectly, for the “privilege” of occupying space.
The current paradigm, in practice, makes it impossible to live without constantly coming up with a steady flow of currency. Money acts, not as a medium of exchange, but as an instrument of control by which access to everything from space to occupy, to food, to medical care is blocked and held hostage by feudal lords and their vassals who control them. If you don’t pay, and keep paying, then, by default, you have no access, no options, and no rights. Money doesn’t facilitate the flow of goods and services; it obstructs them.
You may live a life of service to your fellows, contribution to your neighbors and community, and uplifting all of your surroundings; but if you don’t find a way to make good money doing so, then you are automatically denied respect, access, options, and liberty. Under modern feudalism, you are branded a “loser.” Conversely, you may live by destructively exploiting your fellow man and the environment, bullying, and manipulation, leaving a wake of suffering, misery and ugliness; but if you’re making good money at it, all doors are open to you, as long as you avoid provably violating any “inconvenient” laws that may try limit your excesses. Under modern feudalism, you are validated as “successful.”
The earth, the land we live on, and the sun were here log before we came along, and will be here for a very long time, until the sun consumes the earth in a few billion years. Virtually all energy on earth, comes from the sun. Neither the earth, nor the sun, has ever charged us for rent or utilities. They never will.
By biological, physical, chemical and technological means, energy from the sun becomes food, electricity, habitable temperatures, and more. To build or do anything, for life to function, work must be done. Action must be performed.
Now, picture that on an agreed-upon day, at an agreed-upon time, in any country, money gets taken out of every equation and transaction by people working in every sector, industry, and endeavor. Rent an mortgage will ever be paid again. Crops are being watered, tended, and harvested. Power continues to be generated. Factories keep producing their products. Trucks, trains and planes continue to go on schedule. But from this day forward, nobody will charged for any goods or services, and nobody will pay. If anybody offers, or demands, payment, they’re firmly but respectfully informed that payment is obsolete and won’t happen. Those whose jobs under modern feudalism are to bill, pay, collect, cut services or repossess, are re-tasked with marking all accounts as paid in full and keeping all goods and services flowing unterrupted, at least until software developers have had time to remove all financial functionality from all business software, and effort which will have begun before the Transition in order to simplify the logistics. Where necessary, systems are hacked to circumvent all financial functionality. Destruction of all financial records, in all media, begins immediately.
When people from up the chain of commend, from managers and all the way up to CEO’s, show up to object and reassert their dominance, they’re respectfully but forcefully informed that they’re no longer in control, that the operating principles have changed, and that they are invited to find a new niche in the new paradigm. Every one of us has our cell phones and camcorders ready to record and stream events to the world. If the deposed feudal lords and their vassals, or police on their behalf, try to forcefully, violently restore the old hierarchy, the whole world will be watching. The whole world will see that the Transitionaries are the reasonable, productive, civic-minded party intent on keeping life flowing, and the feudal lords and their minions are the terroristic thugs trying to shut things down.
In the wee hours of the morning of Transition, all financial institutions: banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, collections agencies, stock markets and the like are physically blocked by massive vehicles, their power and communications cut and jammed, and any nighttime personnel respectfully evacuated. A Declaration is sent out to literally everybody, via every medium, explaining that’s going on, and calling upon all in the military and law enforcement who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, to protect and defend the people, urging them to support and not oppose the Transition, as it is in fact removing an unconstitutional, anti-democratic power structure that has been subverting democracy for generations. They are informed that it is literally their duty to support the Transition, and why.
Unlike during a traditional strike, goods and services keep flowing, work continues as normal; but all financial sectors and functions are forever shut down. Coordination and consensus was arrived at via the Internet, person to person, and through all media, virally, until enough people are on the same page and a day is chosen to put the Transition into action. The modern feudal socioeconomic wealth-and-power hierarchy totally depends upon most or all of us voluntarily playing our part as serfs and peasants, obeying the chain of command, collecting our pay and paying what we’re charged for everything. Once we change our behavior, change the game, cease to behave within the parameters set by the feudal paradigm, that paradigm will crumble like the house of cards that it is.
We employees, modern serfs and peasants, outnumber the modern feudal lords and their vassals by millions to one. As we change the way the game of daily life is played, they cannot prevail over us. Unlike traditional strikes, which have become much less effective than they were decades ago, the Transition does not involve disrupting production or distribution, does not initiate confrontation or conflict, and does not inevitably involve hardship, danger or privation.
Also unlike in traditional strikes, we Transitionaries aren’t assembled in large groups that can be easily targeted for suppression. We are dispersed throughout every sector, every workplace, every part of every industry and every community. Those who seek to suppress us, cannot corral us, single us out, or paint us as malcontents, disruptors of society, criminals, or terrorists. Since our agenda is to keep the processes of life working, freed of the toxic entropic drag of currency and modern feudalism, there’ll be no groups confronting each other in the streets. Even where our opponents infiltrate us with spies and fifth-columnists, the social dynamics of the situation give them little or nothing to do to undermine us. We easily recognize such people and contain them. Our strong ethic of nonviolence contains not only the violent deposed former feudal lord trying to reclaim their lost authority, but also any among us who try to lash out violently at those deposed feudal lords. The world is seeing the “players” for who they are. Images of Transitionaries at their jobs, focused and disciplined, respectful and helpful, are already streaming to newscasts around the world, contrasted with some isolated but dramatic images of deposed feudal lords and their vassals acting like the thugs and jonesing addicts that they are, viciously attacking people who are just doing their jobs, only to be matter-of-factly restrained, contained, rendered aid when necessary, kept out of the way, and treated with humanity and empathy. The “optics” speak for themselves. Most media are themselves corporations, or are owned by corporations who resist the Transition; so we cannot count on them to report events honestly. We must continue to be our own reporters, at least until the Transition is complete among those who work in the media. Once the Transition is complete among the media, they will become reliable, accurate channels; but it may take a few days for this to stabilize.
The chain of command, which is also the chain of our disempowerment and subservience, is forever broken. The deposed feudal lords of the Corporatocracy make some furious efforts to put out propaganda painting the Transition as something nefarious and dangerous; but livestreaming facts speak more loudly, and the propaganda fades as media workers cut their mics and cameras, take down their content, and contain them.
The only way the out-of-work feudal lords could re-impose the old chain of command, would be to violently shut down every factory, truck, hospital, office, airport, and farm, and to arrest literally millions of people. Such a reign of terror would very quickly work against them, however. The entire world would see their brutality, criminality, and inhumanity and would side against them. Logistically, there is no way for a few hundred or thousand people to control hundreds of millions who are determined not to cooperate with them. It’s unlikely they’ll try it on any large scale.
Of course, when attacked, we are prepared to defend ourselves and won’t hesitate to do so. In that case, our goal is always to neutralize the threat, with the absolute minimum of harm to any and all, and to render aid to all who need it, once the situation is de-escalated or contained.
We may also need to employ some degree of civil disobedience, nonviolent demonstration, and similar tactics where people in government try to support the power of the deposed feudal lords. We may need to disrupt communications or logistics in come cases. We are prepared to use “soft” guerilla tactics such as misdirecting and disinforming our opponents, hacking their computer systems, and obstructing them. For a little while, we need to put our heads together to come up with creative solutions to countering attempts by the deposed feudal lords to regain control, and all solutions must be in harmony with the principles of the Transition and the new paradigm. Our task is to shut down the current modern feudalistic hierarchical socioeconomic paradigm, while simultaneously implementing the new peer-based, symbiotic, win-win paradigm designed to empower each and all to thrive.
Our goal is both to establish a new, democratic, synergistic socioeconomic paradigm of, by and for the people, but also to embody a new set of guidelines and approaches for how to force a paradigm shift. One such principle is to empower each and all to thrive in a society of mutual respect and benefit. We absolutely must refrain from, and resist all urges to, acts of revenge, vigilantism, lynchings or anything of the sort. Former serf, former vassal, and former feudal lord must learn to respect each other in a new context, where none is a threat to the other. The slate is wiped clean. It is a new beginning. Let us not drag the demons of the past into the present and future that we’re building.
To reiterate: we must never initiate violence. When we must defend ourselves, we must always use the minimum violence, causing the minimum harm, necessary to restore a safe situation. The modern feudal lords probably expect us to come after them to brutalize them, as has happened in many historical revolutions. This is what they would do to us if they were to regain power, and they expect the same from us. They are afraid and resentful. They are convinced of their superiority to the rest of us. Remember that they are also addicts who have just been deprived of the object of their addiction: power, wealth, privilege, and opulence. Like any addict, they fight like berserkers to get their fix.
Once we have disarmed any who attack us, we must be scrupulously, rigorously act according to our principles of compassion and respect for all, including our opponents. We must treat our disarmed foes with the same respect as we treat each other, and restrain them if necessary in the same spirit with which we would restrain an impaired coworker from trying to drive. That must inform our words and our actions. This sets our society, in the new paradigm, on a course to a future of unparalleled peace, prosperity, empowerment, quality of life, and thriving. The rest of the world will see this and will want the same for their own societies. We will show all of humanity that the only way for government of, by, and for the people can truly thrive is when the economy is of, by and for the people as well. Our living incarnation of the new paradigm will inspire the people of the world, by virtue of the superior human experience that it fosters. One by one, humanity will Transition to the new paradigm and experience an unprecedented Renaissance!