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Since we stopped being tribal organizations of hunter-gatherers and started “Civilization,” the tripod that has supported Civilization consists of three elements: Community, Coercion and Capital. Community is people; Coercion is brute force, and Capital is the liquid representation of “wealth,” whether it is sea shells, wampum beads, gold or goats. We devised parable and metaphor to deal with abstractions, and so far, it has served our purpose.
The question determining our survival now is an economic one, the balance between Community and Capital. The distinction between “real” and the symbol that represents it is important, especially now. Population or community or a labor force is “real.” The armed labor force is “real.” “Money” is an illusion that works only because we believe it does. Today the thread between “real” and illusion is near the breaking point.
What is extremely important now is to recognize the “power dynamic” between Community, Coercion and Capital… which is precisely like the children’s’ game of “Rock—Scissors—Paper.” The population trumps brute force, brute force trumps wealth, and wealth trumps the population. Without the soldier/laborer, there is no army; without the army (or police) there is no protection/ creation of wealth, and without pay there is no labor force.
Now we come to the grand experiment of the “Free Market,” or “Free Enterprise System,” and whether the system is a misinterpreted good idea or a conspiracy of the “wealthy elite” is irrelevant. The point is that the grand 30-year experiment with “deregulation” and “privatization” in the USA to foster “competition” and “innovation” ended up stifling both. Regardless of origin, the system has taken on a life of its own.
Now the force of law, the only part of the triad capable of controlling Capital is now subordinate as both police and military are mercenary, conjuring into reality the words of Jay Gould who said he could pay half the working class to kill the other half. In the Communist empire, Community and Coercion trumped Capital nearly out of existence. Now in the Capitalist Empire, Capital and Coercion have suppressed the Community.
We are slaves to inhuman abstraction. We are “consumers” and “human resources,” chasing the capital carrot on the end of the police state stick. The load grows heavier, the reward remains elusive, and we bray for the bulls and bears dancing in our heads like sugarplum visions. We rush back to the Middle Ages, to a new Feudalism where Church, Crown and Merchants struggle for power and use the peasantry as fuel.
We labor in our corporate fiefdoms, clinging fast to the illusion that we are free. Our choice is between serf or soldier, the only alternative is to become a priest in the Church of the Invisible Hand, where we teach on command fellow peasants to parrot the dogma of supply and demand. We are doomed to re-learn the lessons of the Enlightenment, that the longer Illusion suppresses Truth, the heavier the price we shall pay in fire and blood.
In our postmodern malaise, we have either embraced uncertainty or ignored it completely. The balance between Truth and uncertainty has always been mitigated by Reason, and when Reason is lacking, mitigated by might. Coercion has always held the balance between Community and Capital, and when reason and Rule of Law is lacking, Coercion becomes a struggle between mercenaries and mobs. War is the greatest sign of human failure.
We must evolve to a state where Coercion is no longer necessary or we fail as a species. Evolution has given us our brain as our primary tool of survival. We must use it or lose it. We must find the universal balance between Community and Capital, and if we do not, Civilization will not survive. It remains to be seen whether Civilization is necessary for our survival as a species. Tribalization will be our last stop before extinction.
Today in Western Culture, Capital must be regulated… by Reason if possible, by force if necessary. The suicidal consumer binge of unchecked greed has catastrophic consequences that no amount of chest-thumping, flag-waving or throwing a virgin into a volcano can deter. The mythical “war” that dupes, stooges and fools bawl, proselytize and glorify will become real and dwell among us, the final supremacy of Coercion, and the death of Civilization.
When the relationship between Community and Capital becomes fantasy, we die.
