Yesterday I read a thread on ambient artist Biosphere‘s Facebook page that made me reflect on the ongoing economic revolution centered on replication and automation. Biosphere posts that he is weary of his music being pirated and feels resentful (a natural and understandable sentiment) and is met with a flurry of comments.
Most of his fans are supportive, but many roll out the same tired arguments attempting to justify their own stealing or somehow blame the artist, including:
Wall Street bankers enjoying OWS in 2011.
This post is about citizen action, public protest, and being a trim tab. It’s about how the common citizen wields more power than ever before in human history. I’ll get to that. But first I’m going to take a quick look at history from the perspective of the commoner vs. the sociopathic elite.
Five Waves of Coercive Power
One way to look at history is as a series of power struggles between the hoi polloi (the common folk who tend to treat each other decently) and “masters of the universe” powermongers (the far smaller group who tend to be more sociopathic/less empathetic by nature).
The latter group has taken on different manifestations throughout the ages, depending on what kinds of (coercive) power are effective, and who has the subset of skills to accumulate that kind of power.
Warlords, for example, inspire the loyalty of armed strongmen and terrorize the common folk into paralysis and submission.
Somewhat later in history (with much overlap; warlords still exist today), monarchs acquired and hoarded power via feudal rule (with knights and samurai as playground bullies), familial inheritance of gold, land, and title, and to some extent protection of the common folk from barbarian hordes (aka the armies of other monarchs). Some charismatic monarchs inspired romantic loyalty among the commoners (especially if taxes weren’t too high and executions infrequent). Monarch warlords, such as Alexander of Macedon, expanded their territory (and sometimes national borders) in great swaths via epic military campaigns.
Wave three of sociopathic powermongers takes the form of The Church (not the saints and luminaries who have legitimate spiritual awakenings and dedicate their lives to inspiring and helping others, but rather the institutions that ossify philosophy into dogma, punish those who stray from doctrine, suppress knowledge and discovery, and rule by fear). The Catholic Inquisition is the most iconic example of abuse of power by a religious institution, but no religion is exempt. Possessing the official moral high ground is an ideal platform for perpetrating abuse.
Wave four is fascism, which is not a political system but rather a political pathology that occurs when sociopaths within a government consolidate power and attempt to destroy their detractors. The tools of fascism are surveillance (of known enemies, and everybody else to discover unknown enemies), the encouragement of xenophobia, violent suppression of political protests, covert assassinations, and constant war. Fascism can manifest within communist states, democracies, and republics alike (no doubt libertarian or anarchist states could also exhibit fascist tendencies, if such states existed). A total descent into fascism results in a dictatorship (Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, etc.), but “free democratic societies” also oscillate across the fascism spectrum (extreme examples in the United States include McCarthyism, violent suppression of the Civil Rights Movement, covert support of military dictatorships in Central and South America, and NSA surveillance of citizens).
Wave five of power consolidation by the sociopathic elite is corporatocracy, which is not the simple existence of the corporation as a legal business entity, but rather the perversion of the corporate entity into a tool for extracting wealth and labor from the poor, raiding the commons, evading taxation, avoiding personal responsibility for criminal activities, manipulating governments, screwing the consumer, and other shenanigans. Not all corporations do these bad things, and most people who work for corporations are good people. Still, controlling the state via corporate power is the current method of choice for the modern wave of sociopathic elites.
A corporatocracy works in the economic context of capitalism. Picketty points out that unmitigated capitalism is unsustainable, but so is any other form of unchecked power and resource hoarding by the sociopathic elite. The hoi polloi eventually realize what’s going on and claw back most of the power (with institutions like democracy, rule of law, human rights, public services, asset taxation, and distributing power among different branches of government). We’re slower, dumber, and less motivated than the sociopathic elite, but there are far more of us and we work together well once we’ve reached our limit of being abused and exploited.
I think the influence of corporations on government (especially investment banks), at least in the U.S., peaked in 2011. Occupy Wall Street, if it did nothing else, made it clear to the hoi polloi who the elite were (Wall Street investment bankers, mostly). While the investment bankers drank champagne and laughed at the raggedy protestors from their balconies (literally — see image above), OWS paved the way for federal investigation and prosecution of bank fraud, more progressive income and capital gains taxation, and stricter banking regulations.
The Glass-Jawed Enemy
As enemies of the commoners go, corporations-gone-bad are the easiest opponents so far. Compared to standing up to Genghis Khan, the Vikings, The Inquisition, or the Stasi, fighting corporations is easy!
Consumer-facing corporations often go down after one punch. Michael Moore realized this when he pressured Kmart to stop selling ammunition back in 2001, and succeeded.
These days consumer-facing corporations can be swayed with a few letters or tweets. Target recently reversed positions on customers carrying guns into stores, thanks in part to Twitter campaigns like this one. Target wants moms to shop at Target. If moms don’t want guns in Target, Target says no to guns in the store. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Corporations that don’t deal directly with consumers, like mining companies and investment banking firms, are less likely to yield to public pressure and social media campaigns. So are companies with their backs against the wall, like SeaWorld (the recent documentary Blackfish clearly demonstrated the horrors of keeping orcas in captivity, but without captive cetaceans SeaWorld has no business). But even in these cases, public (or employee) outcry eventually leads to legal investigations, increased regulations, fines, and audits, which for fraudulent companies leads to bankruptcy and dissolution.
To reiterate, corporations are not the enemy of the people. The corporate entity in the context of well-regulated capitalism is an engine of wealth creation, a golden goose that generates marvelous gadgets, streaming entertainment, cheap energy, the world’s knowledge at our fingertips, and other modern wonders. The enemy are the sociopathic elite who use the corporate entity to steal, exploit, destroy the environment, evade social responsibility, and generally be evil.
Tough and Evil
The non-consumer facing, privately controlled corporation (invulnerable to both shareholder pressure and consumer sentiment) is the strongest haven of the sociopathic elite. In this group we find Bechtel, Koch Industries, and Cargill, corporate actors who seem to openly delight in destroying the environment, exploiting the poor, and endangering the public.
Organized crime syndicates that function like corporations (and in many cases are tightly interwoven with real corporations) also generally don’t care about public opinion and social media.
But even those corporations and corporate fronts must operate within the context of nation states and their legal systems. Despite the Koch war against the minimum wage, the minimum wage is going nowhere but up. Cargill may keep ignoring safety and environmental regulations forever, but they will also keep getting sued and fined.
Why not a “three strikes and you’re out” law for law-breaking corporations? Keeping a corporate charter should be a privilege dependent on good corporate citizenship.
Keep Fighting the Good Fight
The important thing to remember when fighting for justice, the environment, and human rights is that corporations are made up of mostly good people who generally want to keep their jobs, cover their asses, and not work too hard. This makes corporations vulnerable and easy to manipulate (even privately held corporations).
For example, if we, the hoi polloi, make it more difficult for corporations to sell products containing bee-killing neonics than not selling them, the corporations are going to go with the path of least resistance. It’s only a matter of time.
Will the Sociopathic Elite Always Rule the World?
Yes, probably. But this isn’t necessarily bad news.
Even in a free democracy that values human rights, individuals who rate highly for traits like narcissism, self-importance, callous disregard for other people’s feelings, and a desire for power will probably end up in positions wielding political and/or economic power. Who else would want these jobs?
It’s the job of the hoi polloi to make sure that no single position or agency has too much power, and that institutions and entities that are ripe for the abuse (lightly regulated corporations) are constrained by law to protect the environment, worker, community, consumer, and general public, and to play fairly against other market entities.
Corporations won’t always be the preferred tool of the sociopathic elite. Eventually the crackdown on corporate bad behavior will be too wearisome to deal with, and the sociopathic elite will find a new entity or institution to abuse. Personally I think it will probably have to do with the abuse of artificial intelligence and/or cryptography (perhaps the sociopathic elite will use BitCoin or similar to avoid taxation and gain unfair market advantages).
Even if there is a macro trend towards the hoi polloi clawing back power from the sociopathic elite with each wave of coercive power, corporate abuses may still get worse before they get better. The outcome depends on citizen action (voting, letter writing, protests, exerting pressure via social media) and the subsequent reactions by our lawmakers, law enforcement agencies, and courts. The outcome is not written.
So if you witness a corporation behaving badly, do something about it. You may find the fight to be easier than expected.
If you have a story about pushing back against bad corporate behavior, please share below.
Slomo — click through to watch the documentary.
Josh Izenberg has made a great documentary about a fascinating man. Watch it … then come back here and share your thoughts if you want.
My own thoughts on Slomo …
Do What You Want To
It’s hard to watch Slomo and not immediately consider what you want to do yourself. Not in a grand, life goal sense, but rather in a day-to-day mundane sense. How do you want to spend days? Slomo wants to skate, so he skates.
I want to read and write, listen to and make music, and play complex immersive games (like Dungeons & Dragons). I want to spend time with my friends and family, and enjoy the good things in life.
What do you want to do?
The Middle Third Of Life
Sometimes I feel that middle third grind. Money comes in, money goes out. People want you to do things (things you’ve agreed to do), but you’re not always in the mood.
There’s a middle way though, between dropping out and grinding away. To walk that path you have to be willing to sometimes put your own priorities ahead of what other people want from you, even if you love those people and want to make them happy. You can’t be a pleaser all the time and still do what you want.
“Not Becoming An Asshole”
It’s a good goal. It’s a good way to evaluate yourself, spiritually. Are you an asshole? Are you kind to other other human beings and animals, most of the time? Or are you so far up your own ass in the pursuit of money, power, and status, that you are in fact an asshole? Or maybe you’re an asshole because you’re tired of shoveling shit, and you need a break.
The easiest way to not be an asshole is do to what you want, more of the time. This will give you a sense of control, and you’ll be happier, and it will be easier to be kind to other human beings because you’ll be in a better mood.
Do You Have to “Escape”?
Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. I don’t know how restrictive your life is. But what would happen if you just started doing what you wanted to, one hour a day? What if you did exactly what you wanted to for two hours a day? Would your friends and family or boss freak out? Would they find that threatening? Maybe they’d be cool with it. Maybe they want you to be happier. Maybe being happier would actually make you more productive and effective and better able to fulfill your responsibilities to your employer/clients/family/friends/country/planet.
Is It Selfish?
Society wouldn’t work if everyone skated the boardwalk all day (you at least need some workers designing and manufacturing rollerblades, right?). But Slomo worked hard for a few decades before dropping out. He chose not to maximize (his earnings, his status, his security). Choosing not to maximize is not selfish. It leaves some work undone for other people to do, and some rewards unclaimed for other people to claim.
Other people might be threatened if you do what you want most of the time. But if they’re smart, they’ll only feel threatened for about ten minutes (when they realize they can do the same).
If everyone in the world spent more time doing what they want and less time grinding, global GDP might drop. On the other hand, with more people dedicating time to rest, relaxation, entertainment, love, creative pursuits, research, exercise, sports, games, tinkering, hobbies, and doing nothing in particular, we’d all be happier, healthier, and the geniuses out there would get more opportunities to create great works of art, invent clever objects and systems, and make brilliant discoveries.
Less maximizing = more optimizing (of human consciousness and potential).
The Inner Ear
Interesting theory about lateral motion. When I produce dance music I move. I know quite a few people whose lives have been transformed by movement (dance, surfing, skating, whatever). Depression gone. Hundreds of pounds lost. That kind of thing. Maybe there’s something to Slomo’s lateral motion theory.
Your thoughts? Please comment below!
In this article from The Baffler, anthropologist/author/anarchist David Graeber makes the point that a “successful revolution” has less to do with protestors taking over the government, and more to do with previously fringe/radical ideas becoming common sense, within a short period of time. The article’s powerful closing line:
And the moment any significant number of people simultaneously shake off the shackles that have been placed on that collective imagination, even our most deeply inculcated assumptions about what is and is not politically possible have been known to crumble overnight.
This got me thinking, what was considered fringe thinking ten or twenty years ago, but is currently entering mainstream thought? The following probably seem like common sense/conventional wisdom to a person in their twenties, but anyone holding these ideals in the “greed is good” 80’s was definitely outside of the zeitgeist.
Attitudes vary by country. The U.S. is fairly enlightened when it comes to gay rights, but is behind on healthcare as a basic right (Obamacare is a small step in the right direction, but saddles middle-class families with unaffordable premiums). In terms of mass incarceration the United States is in a league of its own (not in a good way). Japan is behind on cetacean rights; Thailand is behind on elephant right; China is behind on environmental regulation, and so on. But none of the ideas are “fringe” — Americans who visit England and happen to break a leg are pleasantly surprised when they get no bill for services, and wonder “Why not in the U.S.”?
So what ideas are currently fringe/radical, but might enter the mainstream in ten or twenty or one hundred years? I would suggest the following are plausible:
We can see Steven Pinker’s expanding circle of empathy taking humanity to places that seem strange now, but may make perfect sense later.
Of course, even if the long-term trend is towards more cooperation and compassion, short-term collapse and cultural regression is just as likely. Consider the millions of starvation deaths that resulted from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, or the political and economic events (and xenophobic attitudes), that led up to the Holocaust.
Still, there are hopeful ripples in the way human beings are thinking about alternatives to consumer capitalism, which is Graeber’s main topic. Not every detail of the “sharing economy” vision is worked out, but green shoots are visible. Wage slavery and the ruthless exploitation of human labor no longer make sense to most of us. The tide is turning.
Where’s the Justice League when you need ’em?
Ambushed By An Article
Yesterday morning I was happily drinking coffee and reading the New York Times, when I came across this disturbing article by conservative think tanker Arthur Brooks.
The piece starts off as a bland rehash of “the latest” happiness research (trotting out studies from the seventies). Nothing new, but nothing offensive either. Towards the end, the piece takes a sharp right turn as Brooks champions free enterprise as the solution to both personal happiness and global poverty. The bogeymen of socialism and collectivism are trotted out as the usual enemies. Perhaps as an apologetic concession to liberal NYT readers, Brooks does acknowledge that social mobility and economic opportunity are on the decline in the United States (at least as compared to Canada and the Scandinavian countries — ironically all collectivist social democracies). The whole piece is a confused mess.
Personal Development Hijacked by Corporate Ideology
So why am I writing about it?
This blog is subtitled “Systems for Living Well.” I agree with many of Arthur Brooks’ conclusions about personal happiness (a spiritual life, strong relationships, meaningful work, and connection to community are all important). But I want to distance myself from Brooks (as well as bloggers like Steve Pavlina, Gretchen Rubin, Tony Robbins, and Tim Ferriss) who approach personal happiness and life satisfaction in a “bubble” context, ignoring social and political issues as if they didn’t exist.
Too often, self-help philosophies function as a justification for right-wing ideology. Ignore the bad cards life has dealt you, and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps! Pursue your passion and beat the economic odds! Be a winner not a loser! A credo of personal accountability ties in neatly to ideals of free enterprise and anti-welfare sentiments.
In a similar vein, advocating gratitude and forgiveness as spiritual practices is usually good advice (in terms of emotional health and personal empowerment). But the same philosophy can be twisted to imply that workers should be happy with (and feel grateful for) whatever is doled out by their employers, instead of negotiating for better wages, benefits, and working conditions, or fighting against corporate crime and corruption. It’s one thing to forgive the CEO of a Wall Street company that swindled tax-payers, so you don’t have to live with hate in your heart. But it’s another thing to lie down and let them do it again.
I believe in personal accountability, the value of hard work, establishing effective habits, practicing gratitude — all the same things that the Pavlina/Rubin/Robbins/Ferriss types are pushing. But I also believe that if we truly want to live well, we should fight against the injustices that prevent others from living well.
So what are the injustices we should be fighting against? Well, for starters:
Maybe, if I’m not happy, it’s because my conscience isn’t clear. Maybe I’m not working hard enough for the right for others to get a fair shot at the pursuit of happiness. Yes, we’re all responsible for our own happiness and sense of meaning in life. But if we ignore injustice, others may not even get the chance to pursue happiness.
Call To Action
To writers, bloggers, economists, psychologists, and social scientists who are exploring the topic of happiness, here’s what I’m suggesting:
I do understand why self-help writers want to steer clear of these topics. If you write about political issues, you potentially lose half your audience (or more). And I want to give credit to Ferriss and Robbins especially for raising money for schools, fighting poverty, etc.
But it’s delusional to think that we can *all* pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and visualize (or optimize) our way to an ideal life, when income inequality is so high, and social mobility so low, and we live in an age of rampant unchecked corporate irresponsibility.
Please share your thoughts below.
Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén