End Of Power And Reduce Scale
During the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, a minority of people invented a way to give themselves power over the majority. We call this invention “civilization.”
For the first time large surpluses of food could be created, counted, and concentrated. Before that we had limited forms of agriculture and animal husbandry. But this time it was different. Instead of supplementing the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, agriculture competed against all of nature in a novel form called “totalitarian agriculture.” Instead of working with the native polycultures, the inventors of our culture found they could create great surpluses if they replaced natural landscapes with human food. This also allowed for the first time denial of food to other species and even wholesale destruction of species that competed for our food.
There is only one catch. You have to work about twice as hard to earn a living under agriculture as you do living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. You literally have to whip people to live an agricultural
lifestyle. So, how do you get people to give up their life of leisure?
You lock up the food. This was the first means of control of the majority by a minority.
The eventual closure of the commons and privatizing of the land gave whoever controls the land an iron clad control over the majority — if you don’t work, you do not eat. It is that simple. The Fall of man was caused by private property. Self-love arose when man started to quarrel over the earth — he would shut all others out.
Control of the land also means control of water, timber, fiber, minerals, and energy. It has worked very well. In England .28 percent of the population owns 64 percent of the land. In the United States the top one percent of the population now owns more than the bottom 95 percent.
A code of rules was needed to enforce privatization of the commons. We call these rules laws. This ensured that society as a whole would enforce this system of privatization.
With the control of natural resources, came the need of an interchangeable system of wealth — money was born. First we had commodity- and precious metals-backed money, then we had paper money, and now with our global financial markets and computers we have valueless virtual money. This has led to the speculative financial bubble that is now bursting. There is now three times as much money in the world as the total value of all goods and services. It has become not the control of money that yields the real power but the control of the “flow” of money.
Money has become the oxygen of our economy that is now the life support system of humanity. This financial system is the lungs of the economy. Whoever, controls the lungs controls the world. It is not the money, it’s the flow of the money that counts. This is why Wall Street got a $700 billion bailout and the auto industry got only a $15 billion bailout. Those in true power have set up private central banks in every major country. The U.S. Federal Reserve is not a government agency; it is a private bank with confidential owners.
Religion has also been a big factor is maintaining hierarchical control. Jesus said “choose,” Mohammed said “submit,” and Moses had the “ten commandments.” God and heaven were invented to rationalize the daily drudgery of our lives. Before modern salvationist religions, all people shared one belief, animism. They just respected the fire of life in all living things. This was a spirituality that has no book, is not a religion, and is not even capitalized.
Power can also come in small amounts. Those who have significant power over you and your family include the boss at work, teachers, admission officers, utilities, credit card companies, airlines, politicians, healthcare providers, the media, the church, and the landlord or condo association.
How do we get out? Who wants to work all day building pyramids for someone else with no guarantee that you will not lose your job tomorrow or your retirement in the future?
First, I am beginning to believe that we cannot actually change our culture — its not salvageable. One of the stories we live by is that “civilization must continue.” Nothing lasts forever, and now at our current overpopulation level it is becoming apparent that our culture is actually destroying our true life support system. Our culture has made humanity a species of uncontrolled growth. It has also made us not only cancerous to our home, while the financial system has made us parasitic. We are now financially consuming our own young with the deficits we are creating today. Our children will have to pay our debts when we are gone tomorrow.
It is humanity’s nature to live in harmony with our home. Every cell in our body knows this. That is why we find no peace no matter how wealthy we become. We have lived in harmony with the earth for three or four million years. It is only in the last 10,000 years that our culture has made humanity toxic to its host.
The answer is new cultures; not one new culture, but many variations. The only way to get there is to become the change we want to see. We have to find communities of like-minded people that can give us the alternatives we seek. For example, a suburban automobile-based lifestyle offers little of the alternatives that a pedestrian permaculture community can.
But we have to do much more than become more interdependently independent. We have to give up power. We have to give up control of anything that can be concentrated including food, land, housing, water, timber, and money.
We also have to give up systems that enable a minority to control the majority. Democracy is a system of tyranny of the majority to placate the masses. It makes us feel as though we get to be in charge of our destiny a little bit. This could not be further from the truth, since our system of governance from the local to the national level grants a handful of people control of everything from spending, laws, and even going to war.
We are never asked on a ballot to decide how much of our taxes goes to each department. The politicians are afraid we will eliminate the military — the most profitable part of the military industrial complex. We give that power away to a handful people that often vote for what they believe is right and not want the voters want. Congress got telephone calls at about 100 to 1 opposing the $700 billion financial bailout, but they voted for it anyway because the believe they know what is best. (Editor’s note: Congress members were also threatened with martial law if the bailout was not immediately authorized.)
When it comes time to vote, those who make it on the ballot give us relatively little choice — they are still defenders of our culture, Democrat or Republican. Our system of governance is an iron-clad system to control the population from sea to shining sea. Modern nation states are concentrators and protectors of wealth and power.
One of the problems of our culture is its scale. Do we really need a transnational company to flip hamburgers? Do we really need a country a third the size of North America? Everything on a giant scale from corporations to governments are now being rendered failures as we begin to enter the grip of peak oil.
Why not let regional communities decide if they want to be part of the larger nation state or not? Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia describes how northern California, Oregon, and Washington secede from the union to create a steady-state society.
I believe one of the first ways to reduce power is to reduce scale. The system of social organization that is evolutionarily proven to work for humanity for millions of years is not the global corporation, nor the nation state: it is the tribe. Our culture has had 10,000 years to create a just and sustainable society but has failed completely.
Here are some of the steps I envision. Make decisions in your community by consensus — no town councils. Working committees should report to the tribal community as a whole. End private property — put your land in a land trust for the benefit of the community. Work towards eventually replacing government, industry, and private ownership of the commons with local community ownership. Why should your local ecosystem be clear cut to benefit a few wealthy individuals thousands of miles away? Shouldn’t the local community decide how local resources are sustainably used and who benefits from their use?
However, even in small scale, there will be individuals who desire to put themselves in positions of power. We all know these people. Again we must use consensus decision making on a local scale.
Early North American native tribal leaders were largely ceremonial positions. Colonist governments were frustrated because there was no one person “in charge” with whom to make treaties. Many tribal councils or governments were inventions of the white man to take away power from tribal consensus and give it to a few that could be dealt with. Native American tribes that still operate by consensus have the greatest control over their resources today.
So why end the nation state and global power? Don’t they get things done? Well, that may precisely be the point, they get things we don’t want done. Progress is another word for destruction of nature — our only life support system.
Based on my experience working in congress and the Executive Office of the President, and inside industry from fortune 500 companies down to small entrepreneurial companies, participation in local government, and nonprofit work, I would estimate that at least half of every dollar spent is wasted and or concentrated. That means that half of your entire work week is spent on wasted effort.
That is why I believe we should replace large scale systems with local interdependent tribal scale communities. Don’t walk away from our culture, walk toward something better. Maybe there is a blend for those who must be fed by our corporations and those who see that as a false culture and want our own cultures.
I want to emphasize that I am not advocating the overnight tear down of our civilization without developing a replacement and transition communities first. Follow a permaculture principle and be ready to replace a weed before you pull it. Also, hierarchies have great defenses from attack from below, however, they have none for abandonment.
I have suggested in the past that all remaining native cultures should be protected, expanded, and studied as our greatest world heritage treasures. Study in our schools what is truly sustainable about tribal communities instead of studying dead presidents. The important part again is not how tribes live but what makes these communities evolutionarily sustainable.
The solutions to most of our problems lie where there is no concentration of power. We have to let power fade in all of its forms.
Daniel Quinn
The Story of B
Marshall Sahlins
Stone Age Economics
Toby Hemenway
Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture
Ernest Callenbach
Ecotopia
Consensus
www.consensus.net
A Manual for Group Facilitators
Land Trusts
www.cltnetwork.org
www.osalt.org
State of Jefferson
www.jeffersonstate.com
Tags: Agricultural Revolution, control, culturequake, power
Dec 18, 2008
Wow! There are some fantastic ideas here. I can not ague at all with your humane earth centered concepts. What a wonderful world it could be. I wish I could share your optimism and enthusiasm. However, you have left out the single largest factor that works overtime to control change, common sense, logic and just about all rational thought and action: RELIGION! That would mostly include the big three, Christianity, Judiaism and Islam, which are at war now, have always been at war and will always be at war. As long as people look to these religions for what they would call “guidance, truth, and salvation”, the world is doomed. The very nature of these religions is that of a hierarchical power structure of dominace. As man moved away from the earth to manmade cities and “civialization” he abandoned his humanity and all spirituality and created “Gods” of convenience to supply the need to somehow rationalize the drugery of daily life. There is little or no room in religion for spirituality. Spirtuality is the opposite of religion. Generally these religions also are ready to provide rationalization of large scale warfare necessary to insure dominance. We can not go back and there can be no going forward. The ignorace of the self-concerned masses, especially in this country, is a force that only catastropic disaster could possibly overcome. Nature does, however, always find a way of balancing things that get out of balance.
It is strange that you would mention the need to study Native American culture. The largest, and nearly succussful, genocide in the history of the world was that perpetrated on Native Americans almost exclusively by Christians. Somewhere between nineteen million and thirty million Native Americans died so we could have WalMarts, MacDonalds, and the four lane divided highways that connect them! I can not believe that a sin against humanity of that magnitude could, would or should be forgiven by nature or by any man made god.
Dec 18, 2008
You need a proofreader
Dec 18, 2008
Please consider correcting these two sentences:
Do we really need a country a third the size of North America?
Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia describes how northern California, Oregon, and Washington succeed from the union to create a steady state society.
Dec 18, 2008
The Emperors of Japan found a interesting way to concentrated power AND even the playing field. Wonder how they did it? They ritualized a decentralized and localized the warrior class (Samurai), then empowered them with ‘certian’ rights of stewardship and control of the ‘Emperors’ land.
Oh… and their primary method of keeping everyone from overempowering themselves over others – they made possession of wheeled carts used for locamotion punishable by death. Yessirree, until 1860, if a Samurai caught you with a wheel, it was an instant trial, judgement and sentence and off went your head.
The interesting thing… it somehow made sense… not the killing, but the scaling of human power to a strictly human level formally enshrined in ritual practice at the core of their society. Instead of nature toppling humanly contrived overempowerment, strictly trained masters of body, mind and emotion did it on behalf of the ‘Emperor’s’ world.
That ‘worked’ in the sense that their little island empire was populated by only those who could manage under their own power and the power of a few creatures they managed to domesticate. And that scale of self imposed allowable human power led to centuries of incredibly intelligent mastering of what was at hand in the landscape of the mind and the land itself.
Too bad we changed their pattern for them. Within just two generations of white euros sold them on the wheel, they had lashed out … and now we have the bomb.
Perhaps we can imagine a world of all folk living and working at such a scaled down level of authority in the land… but if truth be told, a pattern of ultimate control and reason must be in the population. Their is no real way around that. We all ‘learn’ harmony as a solution to our maturation out of the necessaryly blind cycle of birth. Until we are irrestibly attracted to a perfectly oriented example of rightful livehood that comes not from the backs of others kept deliberately from the truth – then we are doomed to more and more benign forms of instituted ignorance.
You offer an end view, but what will be the calling card that draws us that way… stuff, rules, reasoning, emotion… ?
The fact is that as currently set up, very few on the planet are capable of exercised personal vision sufficient to manage any kind of social sea-change in their region, let alone between their ears. But until some do, it’s the tower of babel and the blind leading the blind – over and over and over again. With living examples of autonomous folk living in universal harmony, we will all swirl around endlessly following lost followers. That’s the human condition. As long as we are not leading the way, we follow and wonder where we are going.
And from where do you think a perfect, irrestible example of right livelyhood is likely to emerge? The Pied Piper of this age must emerge in the personal experience of us all… That’s the question we need to start asking the mirror every morning. But don’t take that blank morning look as anything but your true position. The fact is, until we, ourselves, are actively engaged in revealing the potential gradient to excellence in all things that surround and sustain us, we will continue see little more than that collective ‘blank look’ in the mirror. That’s more or less where we are now… at the ‘blank look’ stage.
We need an ignition source to get off our ass and onto the job of being the true, complete human that destiny continually promises. Got a light?
Dec 18, 2008
Here’s a demo of a seeker learning to boostrap themselves out of pre-cognicent darkness:
The Way of the Infinite Explorer
Dec 18, 2008
Your ideas are excellent.
I don’t care if they seem lofty and out of reach.
They are proportionate to how far we have sunk.
It is comforting to know that someone else understands the complexity of this dire situation we have all been born into. Your vision is parallel to my own.
Dec 19, 2008
culturequake – in so many ways I agree with that writing, the harm of doministic forms of agriculture, that power resides in the flow of money, and a movement away from “Democracy.” Response to any one of these could be a lifetime pursuit with little guarantee of change en masse. However, I do believe that IT IS ONLY by dedicating our lives to TANGIBLE manifestations of change will we really be serving our communities and future generations. Thank you for spreading knowledge, and I support every single one of you out there actually walking their talk towards a Sustainable and Just world…
SWIRL
Dec 22, 2008
I find it interesting when you talk about “needs” (”Do we really need a transnational company to flip hamburgers? Do we really need a country a third the size of North America?”). This is something that has been on my mind recently–how disconnected we are in this “culture” from our basic needs: food, shelter, water, and community. These needs have become distorted in the capitalist culture, and transform into “need” for a larger house, a television, a new car, computer, etc.
Dec 22, 2008
I not only agree with your arguments, I am part of a group putting them into action (in our own way). However, I would add that it is not enough for people to “decide” to do these things. It has been our experience that people cannot make this leap directly because the attitudes and expectations of modern society/materialist culture are embedded deeper than the intellect. We have found that a period of retraining is required during which participants can redefine basic assumptions and establish new attitudes that will support the sort of tribal system you propose. We have also found something else: most people fail. They fail because it is too easy to revert to their birth conditioning.
Only a few people will likely be able to achieve this kind of radical shift in perspective. The majority of society is likely to cling to its conditioning. History also teaches us that those who are “different” become the scapegoats for those unwilling or unable to shift paradigms, and the fledgling tribal communities will have to be prepared to deal with this, also. And this is where things get tricky. You don’t want to fall into a “militia” mentality, but at the same time history gives us few examples of peaceful peoples who are able to withstand onslaughts by those willing to use savagery and brute force to achieve their ends. So… This aspect remains to be addressed. The only answer we have so far is to make ourselves visible within the local mainstream community by providing needed services (healing, for example) on a volunteer basis. Our hope is that while helping us readjust to the needs of this new culture, we will also be establishing our real intentions in the minds of those around us who may not subscribe to our views…
However, the risk of being made scapegoats by the floundering power-brokers (local or otherwise) in their efforts to deflect blame away from themselves is a risk we must take if we are to maintain our own integrity and survive. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this.
Dec 23, 2008
Thanks for the inspired words. They mirror my own (less organized) thoughts, and the message i have been hearing on a regular basis lately from friends, strangers, videos like the ones from the Zeitgeist Foundation, countless books, plays like one i recently saw that revolved around Buckminster Fuller… it’s all around us. “Optimism and enthusiasm” are only courage. Look at it that way and you will find it a lot less acceptable to live without them.
Dec 25, 2008
What a concise synopsis of the general problem in our world. I have stated for many years what we truly lack is community…not more new technology or money. We have shifted the burden of caring for one another onto the back of government agencies so we can needlessly and endlessly pursue our own pursuits without being disturbed by our “slighly inferior” poorer neighbor. Are we not all equal? Have we forgotten how to care?
Your words could be considered quite radical. Indeed they are. However to return from where we came is where we need to go. Money, technology and a better centralized government will not ever save us. We must learn to live simply again and find a sense of community once more. There is no risk we will destroy our world if we don’t. Risk would indicate destruction may not occur however the destruction of our earth and society is inevitable if we continue the path we trod. One need only wander the jungles and deserts of our globe to find evidence of highly organized, advanced, agrarian societies that came before us. They all failed too.
Dec 25, 2008
Uhh. . .
“You literally have to whip people to live an agricultural lifestyle.”
That is completely ludicrous. . .
While I agree with many of your ideas, and especially your previous post on permaculture/gardening (I’m also a student of Jane Mt. Pleasant) – This post is a poorly-written rant. It will also seriously offend anyone who doesn’t already agree with you. I mean, it’s even kind of offensive to me, and I mostly agree with you. I suggest some real-world experience in coalition-building and organized, persuasive writing.
Also, for a reality-check on Native Americans I suggest Shepard Krech’s “The Ecological Indian”. Certainly we have a lot of lessons to learn from them – but they weren’t eco-angels, either.
Mar 21, 2009
Hi guys. You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients.
I am from Micronesia and too bad know English, tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Our lowest price guarantee on airline tickets, hotels, cruises, and travel packages let.”
Thank
Zuleika.
Mar 21, 2009
Hi guys. There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
I am from Guinea and also now teach English, give true I wrote the following sentence: “Discount airfare cheap air tickets.”
THX
, Garson.