Decentralisation of Power — A Different Solution
The undercurrent of our lives is increasingly becoming apathy. It seems there are a thousand things to fear and that we are headed for either dystopia, climate catastrophe, or war. Yet, what we have forgotten is the importance of our own choices in the determination of the future. So let me help you remember.
Where we are
With the inauguration of Joe Biden, many seem to be feeling a renewed hope, or at least relief. Donald is out, Joe is in, and now we are on the right path. That seems to be the narrative sold by most mainstream media, yet nonetheless it is an illusion. Trump was a terrible president, but in our disdain for him we made a critical mistake. We created the ultimate bad-guy, meaning that defeating him was all that mattered. Even if that meant electing another senile old man, who while lacking a history of financial fraud like that of Mr. Orange, has stood for failed crime-bills and warmongering in the Middle-east.
There is much to blame Donald Trump for, but believing he has been some sort of uniquely horrible president is misguided. His seemingly eternally shocking rhetoric is among the few things that separate him from any former Republican President. We collectively projected our internal shadows onto this one man and his supporters, without realising that he is merely a symptom of a fundamentally broken societal system. He somehow became the number one enemy for many of us, yet what we have failed to recognise is that people like him don’t rise to power in a well-functioning system.
And how pathetic is it that we structure society this way? Where the best we can hope for is to elect one of two old people to have considerable influence over the world? We may look back at Obama as an example of a decent President, but we would be ignoring the fact that U.S. warmongering was increased in the Middle-east and Africa during his terms. Nonetheless, settling scores about which side of the isle has the worst president is both an exercise is futility and also a waste of time.
On a planet with an abundance of food and space we have created a society that is on the brink of completely destroying the natural world. Where resources are artificially scarce for most of the world and centralised to an extreme degree in the hands of literally a few people. In all of this, we are still told to have faith in the current societal structures, institutions, traditions. It’s almost funny. Almost. Until you realise the severity of the situation.
Our lacking understanding
It is quite easy to pick an enemy in this world. There are no shortage of religious or political groups ready to tell you who is to praise and who is to blame. All of them completely convinced that they are in possession of absolute truth and moral superiority. Arguably the most relevant one is that of Donald Trump and his supporters.
From as early as Trump ran for office, this group of people has become a collective scapegoat for society. Whether it’s racism, xenophobia, or egotism, they have become the main target for blame of most kinds. Yet, what is rarely thought of is why they would support a man like Trump. For decades the dominant economical development in western countries, labelled Neo-liberalism, has ensured that much of the production takes place in countries where workers hardly have to be paid, resulting in millions of working people finding themselves with stagnant wages of which they can hardly pay their bills or even losing their jobs entirely. These devastating decades have understandably made millions of us so desperate and disillusioned that anything resembling real change is welcomed.
The foundation for Trump’s election and his support, is at its core quite similar to that on the other side of the political spectrum. The same way people leaning left experience being abandoned and held down by the political structure, Trump-supporters have experienced being sold out by the political system, being left with fewer job-opportunities and wages that have stagnated since the 70's. The xenophobia seems almost to be based in rightful anger that is misdirected towards people who are in a similar situation, that being people from countries ravaged by militias and cartels, who in turn often are enabled by western governments.
Leftist, right-winger, refugees all suffer under the same dysfunctional societal structure, yet nonetheless, we have been convinced that some opposing side is the ultimate source of our problems. Our main objective then becomes to ensure our side controls government so that things can finally get better. We blame each other, and in the chaos the large corporations sit victorious, free of any real blame.
And it is for this reason that we need to think bigger, and be willing to challenge even the fundamentals of our societal structures. For how can we ever hope for progress when we approach the world as a zero-sum game? The answer is that we can’t. The only result that comes from this attitude is war.
Decentralising power back into our own hands
The current system is driven and controlled by two main players; the state and large corporations. They shape the structures of society and what we are seeing now is the culmination of what they are capable of creating. Whether the state is bigger or smaller in a given state is generally irrelevant, as the important part for this structure is that there are a small group of people controlling the whole of society. Whether they sit as ministers or board members is a matter of formality, as in praxis politician’s campaigns are funded by large corporations and thus have a dual allegiance. There are examples of exceptions to this rule, but for the most part millions are taken from industry for there even to be a chance of winning office.
There is a top of society, where wealth and power is centralised in the hands of politicians who mainly serve the interests of capital, and we are convinced it has to be this way.
Pretty pathetic.
Nonetheless, this framework seems to capture all thought and effort put forward, meaning that there are many ideas and proposals for change that are accepted, as long as they don’t disturb this fundamental structure.
And this is why the world feels so immutable. Why it feels so hard to change it. We are limiting ourselves to an extreme degree, largely relinquishing the power of our own lives and instead believe that any change has to happen from the top down.
This centralisation is laughably and obviously a completely misguided way of constructing a society.
We ship foods all around the world instead of growing what is ordained by our local climate and season, so that a few food-companies can make a profit.
We outsource most of the means of production to countries with poor populations, using the people as wage-slaves, and ultimately we end up with countries that can barely produce anything locally. Again this only goes to serve a small group of people, and as i mentioned earlier, has been a key element in the foundation for Trump’s election.
When you realise the severity of how horrible the situation actually is, it seems bewildering why we would trust a system that has created this result. For what could possibly be the benefit for anyone in upholding this structure?
Well, if you are among a handful of the owners of the biggest industries, there exists immense interest in keeping things as they are. After all, profits are soaring, monopolies are strengthening, empire is expanding. This is not some conspiracy-theory. It is simply an observation of what is happening globally.
The thing is, that this structure only functions as long as we give our consent to it. It needs our collective consent, usually manufactured, in order to continue. This consent is of course a mostly passive process for us as we have since childhood simply been presented with the world as it is, yet nonetheless our passivity ensures the very functioning of the system when we don’t make any changes. This means that by recognising our own part, we find that we actually have much more influence than we realise. For it may feel like large corporations or the states have all the power, but they really only have what we give them. They are just people as well after all, and if a large majority of people simply ceased recognising their authority, it would be gone.
Now, stating that they are just people is a key point, because I’m not trying to create a new polarity here, that being between “elites” and “ordinary people”. Because while we may realise that the actions of said elites are destructive, they can only be this way through our collective consent. We are all to blame for how the world is. This is a key point because while it may feel tempting to have a dragon to slay, it would really only amount to a witch-burning. There is no enemy to fight, only a realisation to be had. The realisation that we are all individually in the process of the creation of the world, and that we shouldn’t allow some imposed institutions to rule over us. Therefore, we can both accept and understand that the main source of our problems originate in the power grabs of a few people, and at the same time know that they only hold as much power as we give them.
This means that we need not overthrow governments nor fight other people and corporations, but instead we need to begin making choices that are conducive to bettering the world.
We cast votes intentionally when it comes to electing politicians, yet forget that what we do every day is in itself a vote for what we wish to see. For example, if we buy from large corporations we are voting for continued slave-like labour, chemical fabrication and mistreatment of workers. Therefore, simple changes like that of buying locally and directly from individual producers is significant. As more people chose to trade responsibly, Amazon and other giants will simply not be able to contend.
No violence needed.
And it goes for everything in our lives. From all that we purchase, who we work with/for, how we treat others (and ourselves), it all matters immensely when more and more of us act differently.
It might not feel impactful, as it can often feel like we are just throwing leaves against the wind, as if we would need superhuman powers to really create change. It might feel inconsequential in the big picture how we choose to live our lives, but it is absolutely not. Think back to those few people in your life that really made a difference, like a teacher that really inspired you. That teacher was simply doing what he liked to do, yet that alone was enough to uplift you as well. These ripple-effects are often forgotten, yet profoundly important, as everything we do will create them. It is the ripples of our current actions that have created the world we now find, and thus choosing different actions is not just a positive thing, but the determining factor for our future.
This also means that there is no reason to wait.
We can choose already now whether we buy local, organic, plant-based food.
We can choose to buy less stuff in general and seek to buy from individuals and small businesses.
We can choose how we treat others and ourselves.
We can choose to get together with people and build community.
We can choose to try to understand those we consider to be our enemies, and look for how we relate to them. This point might be the most important one, as we will begin to see how much of our frustration and powerlessness originates in our misunderstandings of those we consider opposition. We might realise that the conservative people who don’t believe in climate change, might still care immensely about protecting and caring for nature, and that, when the political context is removed, we can actually find agreement.
These choices we make can seem insufficient, but even basic neoclassical economic theory will tell you that this will have an influence via the principles of supply and demand. In a similar way to how we vote for politicians with ballots, we vote for which types of businesses we wish to support with our money, and we vote for what kind of society we want through how we treat others.
Even still, cynicism might tell us that it doesn’t matter what we do, since everyone else will just act selfishly, and while you can certainly find proof of this happening, it is by no means an absolute. It can just be difficult to see clearly due to confirmation bias, which for me at least, has mostly been tilted towards the negative. Nonetheless, the potential remains for both the positive and negative, and pretending that positive outcomes aren’t even possible, is really just a way to cope with disappointment. It’s staying down, so we can’t get knocked down again.
Yet, if we do want something better for ourselves, we’re going to have to get up. This is no small feat, as apathy has for many of us become our default state of being, but if we stay down, someone else will run the show, and quite clearly, they will not have our best interests in mind. And what do we really have to lose? We are going to die sooner or later anyway, might as well make the best of it until then.
Either way, our choices do matter, and it is entirely up to us whether we decide to give up and accept dystopia, or reclaim the reins and chose to according to our actual needs, desires, dreams.
Just about everything about how we live needs reinvention, and we all have a say in what we want to see. So let’s build something better.
Change starts with us.
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
