The downfall of freedom and happiness: dependence on institutions out of your control.

MD: First sentence out of the box is a misrepresentation. There never was freedom and happiness to fall down from. The system we have always had was instituted by the money changers and their self declared privileges were protected by the governments they instituted.

I’ve always blamed the government.

MD: Institute a proper MOE process and the government issues you blame go away. Are you ready to do that?

Governments start the wars, carry out the genocides, steal from the people. Governments lay the foundation of an unjust society, by creating a hierarchy from the beginning. Some make the laws, and some must live by them.

MD: And that takes money. Money that isn’t there with a proper MOE process. Money that is now supplied by counterfeiting (i.e. inflation) with our improper MOE process.

But the government is only half of the picture.

I always trusted in the power of the free market.

The free market is the true democracy which responds to the people. It is controlled by demand and quelled by consumer pressures. Economic self-interest ensures a proper check on the wealthy from becoming too evil.

But there is no free market on a macro level. There is only the collusion of the government and industry.

MD: With a “proper” MOE process there is no macro level (no planning and control level). “All” money and thus all commerce is created and controlled by the traders and the marketplace. There is no hierarchy of control. Governments and banks exercise no control whatever. In fact, their natural behavior excludes their participation.

They have positioned themselves as the mother and the father of society. How? By destroying the institutions which once stood in their place.

MD: Wrong. They are the only institutions that have ever stood. They just collapse and then replace themselves. It’s a saw tooth function.

The Marriage of Government and Industry

In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari describes a human transition. Populations went from farming societies inherently based on the sun and seasons, to industrial societies of assembly lines and time tables.

MD: And the farmers migrated freely and naturally. They could obtain a better living in the industrial domain than they could in the agricultural domain … since most didn’t own their land. Owners of the land had no problem in farming.

This caused many upheavals. Warm organic institutions–like family and community–were replaced by cold calculated ones–like factories and welfare. “Most of the traditional functions of families and communities were handed over to states and markets.”

MD: Anyone who has been around most families know they aren’t naturally warm. They are probably warmer in an agricultural setting because they need each other to survive. They “can’t” be independent … so they must be warm.

Of course, this meant dependence on government and industry for survival. The roles of family and community had been outsourced. Now the government would take care of you, and industry would sell you fulfillment. All the structures humans evolved with quickly melted away, or became diluted.

MD: Tell that to Henry Ford. He was a farmer. His family owned the land. He wasn’t interested in farming … but he was very interested in finding mechanical ways to do farming. So he created a factory … an industry. You are flogging the wrong horse here.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the daily life of most humans ran its course within three ancient frames: the nuclear family, the extended family and the local intimate community. Most people worked in the family business – the family farm or the family workshop, for example – or they worked in their neighbours’ family businesses. The family was also the welfare system, the health system, the education system, the construction industry, the trade union, the pension fund, the insurance company, the radio, the television, the newspapers, the bank and even the police.

MD: Look at Ben Franklin’s biography. This was not so as often as it was so. They’re flogging the wrong horse.

When a person fell sick, the family took care of her. When a person grew old, the family supported her, and her children were her pension fund. When a person died, the family took care of the orphans. If a person wanted to build a hut, the family lent a hand… But if a person’s illness was too grave for the family to manage, or a new business demanded too large an investment, or the neighbourhood quarrel escalated to the point of violence, the local community came to the rescue.

MD: Wrong. The person died … the business failed … the neighborhood failed. We’ve come to see it is always cheaper (i.e. more efficient) to just let failures fail than it is to mobilize resources to prop them up.

The community offered help on the basis of local traditions and an economy of favours, which often differed greatly from the supply and demand laws of the free market.

MD: Everybody keeps score in their head. Help someone paint their house but find they can’t work you into their busy schedule when yours needs painting … end of helping each other out. And this is the norm … not the exception. Friend is the “f” word.

In an old-fashioned medieval community, when my neighbour was in need, I helped build his hut and guard his sheep, without expecting any payment in return.

MD: Who is this “I” you speak of. It is certainly not you. Pioneers teamed together to raise their barns … because it was the only way to get it done. If they could do it alone, they would have. If they didn’t need a barn themselves, they weren’t helping.

When I was in need, my neighbour returned the favour. At the same time, the local potentate might have drafted all of us villagers to construct his castle without paying us a penny. In exchange, we counted on him to defend us against brigands and barbarians. Village life involved many transactions but few payments. There were some markets, of course, but their roles were limited. You could buy rare spices, cloth and tools, and hire the services of lawyers and doctors. Yet less than 10 per cent of commonly used products and services were bought in the market. Most human needs were taken care of by the family and the community.

MD: This is no different than building a stockade … with no potentate at all. It’s all about going to the next lower level of affiliation to accomplish things you can’t accomplish on the level you are at. And democracy is employed to get this done. And that limits the size of these affiliations to 50 or less. Democracy doesn’t work with more than 50 people involved.

On a small scale level like that, people were held accountable when they leached off the system. Families and communities were also the enforcement structure of this social insurance. Gossip was an important function of accountability. You can bet people talked if someone balked at their duties. The next time they needed something, they might find themselves in a bind.

MD: Ostracizing and segregation are valid methods of affiliating.

But in addition to the obvious replacements like police, welfare, and corporate jobs, there was the matter of replacing the emotional aspects family provided. Governments and industry teamed up to give us a solution.

MD: Industry and government are not on the same team. Money changers and governments are on the same team.

Markets and states do so by fostering ‘imagined communities’ that contain millions of strangers, and which are tailored to national and commercial needs. An imagined community is a community of people who don’t really know each other, but imagine that they do. Such communities are not a novel invention. Kingdoms, empires and churches functioned for millennia as imagined communities…

The two most important examples for the rise of such imagined communities are the nation and the consumer tribe. The nation is the imagined community of the state. The consumer tribe is the imagined community of the market. Both are imagined communities because it is impossible for all customers in a market or for all members of a nation really to know one another the way villagers knew one another in the past…

MD: With the communications mechanisms we can employ today, there are no needs for nations. There can be many small and overlapping affiliations that do everything a nation can do … especially defense. And you don’t have a crust of elites above the rest of the people picking fights with each other in the “national interest”.

Consumerism and nationalism work extra hours to make us imagine that millions of strangers belong to the same community as ourselves, that we all have a common past, common interests and a common future. This isn’t a lie. It’s imagination.

MD: In the final analysis, there is only “traderism”. We are all traders. We have only one purpose in life: being of value. If we fail in that purpose, out life ends and we perish.

Like money, limited liability companies and human rights, nations and consumer tribes are inter-subjective realities.

MD: You mean “like “improper” money”. Proper money has no such limitation.

They exist only in our collective imagination, yet their power is immense. As long as millions of Germans believe in the existence of a German nation, get excited at the sight of German national symbols, retell German national myths, and are willing to sacrifice money, time and limbs for the German nation, Germany will remain one of the strongest powers in the world.

MD: And as long as the tribe we know as Jews can tell lies to change that perception for the rest of the world … well, the Germans and their society are at risk.

But we can keep what we like about government and markets, and do away with what we don’t. We can form new “tribes” that give us actual mutual aid which communities once gave. We can move to or create villages that match our needs and desires.

MD: Iterative secession. It is the logical first step … and second step … and third step … and probably fourth step. Nation -> State -> County -> Town.

That way, we interact with warm institutions. Structures we are a part of and can influence. They are made up of people we know, and have real relationships with.

The government gives us imagined communities in order to control us. Nationalism makes sure we are ready to fight the next war, providing bodies and wealth to fuel political ambitions.

MD: Remember … governments were instituted by, and are tools employed by, money changers. It’s just that simple. Institute a competing “real” money and both money changers and their governments go poof!

The market gives us imagined communities as a way to sell to us. Apple users are part of an exclusive club that signal they are wealthy and hip. Doesn’t that make you feel fulfilled?

MD: And having never bought an Apple product in my life, I don’t subscribe to that nonsense. But I don’t subscribe to the nonsense of religion either … same concept.

But what about a community of people who are all passionate about farming, making their own products, and trading goods and labor? We can keep our smart phones and internet access, just like 10% of the village economies of the past relied on outside merchants. But when it comes to our water, electricity, food, hygiene products, and even entertainment, it is already quite easy to provide all that on a community level.

MD: It is even easier to provide it on an individual level. I’ve done it for 14 years with no difficulty at all.

Now that the world has been so voluntarily centralized by the internet, we can decentralize in ways that benefit us. We can create little communities without becoming hermits. We will be free to come or go as we please, no forced labor, false choices, or communist utopia. Just voluntary groups who offer warm alternatives to dictatorial and industrial institutions.

MD: By instituting UWB (Ultra-Wide Band) at layer 1 and ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Method) at layer 2, we can institute a completely decentralized internet with independently owned nodes. Our phones and computers themselves become nodes in a universal mesh network. They are linked by short run physical and wireless connections. This topology and technology can make a huge number of short hops in a connection-oriented fashion. Our current topology can only make 20 hops in the 1/8 second demanded for voice communication … and thus requires a backbone (carrier owned and government controlled) for the long haul. ATM can make 10’s of thousands of hops in 1/8th second. No backbone needed nor desired.

I don’t want my barber to remove my appendix when I get appendicitis. But I wouldn’t at all mind my neighbor providing my children’s education, with the help of the countless resources on the internet.

MD: Why not provide your children’s education yourself. You could be working from your house unless you work on an assembly line or in the trades … which very few people do. Even assembly piecework could easily be done in the home. And if 3/4ths of the fruits of your labor, you spouse could be the educator. You would get an immediate x4 pay raise to cover the cost.

We are now in a position to meld the best of both worlds. We can reach back and choose what was great about pre-modern community governing structures. And we can hold onto the technology and civilization that we like in today’s world.

Society is like a pendulum which swings from one extreme to another. But each sway loses some energy and brings us closer to equilibrium.

MD: Wrong. There is no naturally stabilizing negative feedback mechanism. The reverse is true.

The advance of industry gave mankind countless benefits. But at some point, it went too far. We need to learn how to reintegrate warm institutions into our lives, without doing away with the benefits that large scale industry has provided.

MD: It hasn’t gone too far. As long as people choose to work in industry as opposed to their other options, it hasn’t gone too far.

In a sense, humanity was once so dependent on small scale warm institutions that we stagnated, and could not advance. People suffocated as the pendulum stopped and reversed.

MD: Nonsense … actually, nonsense to the second or third power.

Once we finally did break free, we lost all touch with warm institutions. Cold institutions replaced the family, and now many feel alienated and depressed.

MD: I am now an institution of one. Am I cold or am I warm?

Can we find an equilibrium? Can we meld markets and governance into family and community life in a way that both frees us from the tyranny of government and corporations, but allows us to remain free individuals?

MD: A proper MOE process guarantees perfect equilibrium of the money. And it is the money that enables trade over time and space. And it is trade over time and space that is the economy. Institute “real” money and poof! Your issues disappear … forever and ever.

The Pendulum is Ready to Swing Back

Radical experimentation in governance is required to heal society and correct the trajectory. Stagnation is the best we can hope for with the current model of government and corporate collusion.

MD: Removal of government is the best recourse. What is it good for? Government workers! Government dependents! That’s it. But then when you know that 3/4ths of the fruits of everyone’s labor goes to government, we’re going to have a little disruption when we tell government to take a powder. The real productive people will see their income quadruple. But the non-productive people … government workers and dependents will see their income go to zero.

We need to restore the community structures of the past. We cannot simply do away with institutions people rely on and expect no turmoil. Rather, a model of a better society needs to be created.

MD: Iterative secession: You have your space and do it your way … and I’ll have mine … and the likes of you won’t want to be in mine … and mine won’t want you to be in it … and that’s just fine for both of us.

This is why the next movement that will drastically improve civilization will be a period of decentralization of institutions, marked by voluntary association.

MD: If you want to drastically improve civilization, institute a “proper” MOE process. Most of your other issues (if not all of them) will immediately disappear. Just consider how many of your issues right now are caused by money changers and the governments they have instituted.