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May 31, 2008
Building Economic and Political Systems based on Reality
By Michael Richards
An intelligent framework for social, economic and political change.
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This is a call for active citizens to build a new community order. A new world order will rise up from the grassroots as we organize sustainable communities at the local level. We will build networks of communication and connection to build the emerging planetary culture. For two hundred years, the human race has been calling for major change. The American Revolution answered the call, however, the admonition from Thomas Jefferson that we “need a revolution in each generation was not heeded. The advances of human liberty have suffered progressively ever since that time. We are now at a crisis in human civilization; are we going to choose the path of liberty again or let fear lead us down the road to totalitarian government?In our current political milieu, Barack Obama may use the word “change” as an empty political slogan, but neither he nor any other present leader is presenting options for real systemic change. All of our present “leaders” are selling some lame version of the status quo that can no longer work. Our present “leaders” are all asleep at the wheel, heading down a one way road to oblivion. We need to have the courage to face the fact that we have no real leaders at present.When there are no leaders in sight, it is time to step forward and lead. A new leader must offer a “new covenant”… a new perception, a way to renew society with methods that work in the real world. Our planet has a clearly defined set of ecological systems that we must integrate with. The problem is, our present leaders are stuck in a past paradigm that is now totally obsolete. They cannot offer any real solutions because they do not have the perception to see new solutions. I step forward as a new leader with a clearly focused new perception. A new way of thinking and a new way of acting. I call out to my fellow evolutionaries to gather in small communities to build a new society from the ground up. Our present economic structures are so corrupt that we must begin anew. We must now create new structures by applying the scientific method to human action and interaction. Our present systems are based on myth, rather than on reality.
Genetics, Physics and Ecology are scientific disciplines that have activated a call for deep systemic changes in our thinking as a global human species. The problem is, this scientific knowledge has not yet translated to human political organization. We are ripe for a quantum leap in evolution, a paradigm shift. This paradigm shift will lead to new economic, political and social structures that reflect the actual reality of life on this planet.
Genetics and Ecology provide scientific data that clearly demonstrate that organisms and environmental systems are interconnected. Physics shows us the relationships between atomic structures, solar systems, galaxies and the universe. Building ecologically connected communities is not a moral choice, it is simply a scientific recognition of the energy matrix of life that we are already embedded within. Our present political, educational and religious institutions do not reflect this scientific reality. Our present dominant human institutions are stuck in an obsolete paradigm based on myth and superstition rather than scientific reality. This reality disconnect creates a huge mental and spiritual inner conflict in modern society. There is reason why we have an epidemic level of depression and mental illness; we are living within very sick political and economic systems that can no longer work. It is time to break free of the past paradigm and live in a world based on our present best scientific perception of reality. Our present political and economic systems do not work, because they are not based on reality. The only way to try to keep a false system in operation is by force, by coercion. A reality based new society will grow up organically, without force and violence. You do not have to force reality into existence. You can start building a new social and economic system from the ground up. We can each choose to opt out of the consumer economy and build an ecological economy.
Individuals do not exist in isolation, but in relationship. There is no life form on earth that can exist apart from the ecology that it is embedded within. Each and every individual living entity is a unique and irreplaceable part of the whole system. The whole system works by celebrating the role of the individual within this integrated whole.
The real world is experienced in biological terms rather than mechanical ones, in terms of interacting planetary processes and energy fields rather than as isolated things. A functional human society must work through an extended ecological community rather than in terms of essentially separate, competing individuals that vie for political power. The notion of the self as ' independent ' is a delusion, a myth, an illusion that is not based in reality.The cultural delusion of “separation” is very strong and has led many to blatantly exploit others for their sole benefit, and self aggrandizement. This ill advised behavior is expressed on both the level of individual economic interaction and by nations that engage in empire building. Such a false system, either in a single business or an empire building nation must collapse, because it is not based on scientific reality. You can only try to prop up a false system for so long before it collapses. Every exploitive business will eventually lose customers and employees and fail. Every empire in history has collapsed. You cannot sustain an unsustainable system. In contrast, a sustainable system is self-sustaining. During the last one hundred years, the powerful elites that have usurped control of the human species through force and violence have tried to prop up two equally false systems; One false system is state enforced socialism. State socialism sets out to build a "society that works for all”... a laudable intention, but with a very false methodology; by denying individual value and trying to force free organisms to function as mindless mechanical cogs within a false, mechanistic state system. All major attempts with this system have collapsed during the last one hundred years of human history. The other false system is corporate capitalism that uses the force and violence of the state to give false advantage to a corporate oligarchy through "subsidies" that are awarded to the financial elite in control. The costs of these corporate subsidies are paid by forced taxation of the majority. All subsidy is theft and distorts real economic process. This present dominant system uses propaganda based on "free market" terms and language, but it is not a "free market" system at all. It is a forced system of feudal power. This false system is now collapsing with a global financial meltdown fueled by a society that is fueled by finite fuel! Where is our intelligence? We need to apply scientific principle to human organization.For one hundred years, both of the false systems described above have raped the ecology of the earth to try to gain economic advantage for their respective oligarchy of controlling elites. Both false economic systems of the last one hundred years only regarded ‘nature’ as a storehouse of economic resources to be exploited. Both of these false systems only regarded the mass of human beings as another resource to exploit. The information feedback systems of nature now communicates to the human species; you have reached the natural limit of an unnatural system.
The false idea that man must dominate nature emerges directly from the domination of man by man… But it was not until organic community relations of human clans, tribes and villages dissolved into global market relationships that the planet itself was reduced to a resource for economic exploitation. Gaia now shrugs with global warming and other systemic reactions that will not tolerate further human indifference to natural systems. The planetary ecology will not support a false system that works toward destroying the host ecology. There are systemic controls built into the system of nature and the planetary atmosphere itself that rejects such abuse. Human life that does not live within the sustaining systems of life will not be sustained. A false economy not only pits humans against each other, it also pits the mass of humanity against the natural world. Just as men are converted into commodities in both of the false economic systems described above, so every aspect of nature is converted into a commodity, a resource to be manufactured and merchandised indiscriminately. The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by both of these false economic systems that have dominated our planet for a century. A new system of ecological economics and political community must replace the false systems that are now collapsing.
Both of the false economic-political systems noted above have been perpetuated through manipulation of mass perception or 'myth' through well organized propaganda and information control. Our present social and economic systems are based on the shifting sands of delusion and illusion of the dominant myth. Such myth functions as a cultural filter. This filter determines how adherents of different perceptions perceive the environment at present and in the past. Through the mythical lens of recorded human history we have been taught that human experience takes place outside of nature. Nature is seen as a commodity. Other people are seen as commodities to produce profit. This is obviously not true, so the falsehood is now collapsing.
To build a new society and economic structure where all of humanity and other living species can survive and thrive, we must first review our assumptions, our shared group perceptions, our cultural filters. It is important that we develop a scientific ‘social ecology’ whereby we learn to exist in cooperation with each other, other species, and with the environment. With this clear perception of reality, we will also build an ecological economic system. This requires political organizing on the “organic” grassroots level of action.
When we learn to accept our interdependence and interconnectedness we will work together for our mutual benefit by protecting each other and the environment in which we live. Reality based knowledge that replaces the dominant myths of the past paradigm will bring a new society and new economics into being through scientific understanding, not by political force and coercion. Knowledge will set us free. The planetary internet is a powerful network to disperse this knowledge. You can copy this very article that you are reading and send it on out to thousands of others to disperse this knowledge. You can use this very essay as a cultural meme to seed a new society. Just like plants propogate, you can send these words out as political pollen to seed a new human reality.
Science is presently providing the knowledge of a reality structure that will be the foundation of a new society and new economy. We need to have a 21st century society that reflects 21st century knowledge. Our present political structures are based on myths that have been obsolete for decades. We must correct this profound dissonance in our reality structure.
In June 2007 the United States National Human Genome Research Institute published the findings of an exhaustive four year research project, carried out by 35 groups from 80 research organizations across the world. These findings challenged the traditional view of the way genes function. These teams of genetic researchers found that the human genome might not be a tidy collection of independent genes after all, with each sequence of DNA linked to a single function. Instead, genes appear to operate in a complex network, and interact and overlap with one another and with other components in ways not yet fully understood. Biologists have recorded these network effects for many years in other organisms. But in the world of science, discoveries do not become part of mainstream social thought until they are linked to humans. We need to organize human social systems into freely forming networks that reflect the reality of our one nature. This would require new systems of ecological economics within sustainable social systems.
This new scientific knowledge causes us to challenge the current mainstream view of human independence and individuality and accept the interdependence and interaction of humans within complex economic and social networks. We can now consciously build social and economic systems based on these complex networks. We need a global reality check and a major paradigm shift. Our survival as a species depends on how effective we are with making this urgent shift.
The science of physics is at present the most radical of all the movements in the academic disciplines. The new perceptions of physics are far-reaching, questioning the nature of all scientific inquiry. Physics indicates that it is time to radically shift our concepts of self and others to build a new human culture on earth that can actually work in the real world.
To move forward as a species, human society must incorporate the implications of quantum physics into our notions of the physical world and how we organize our society and our economic systems. Modern developments in Physics are questioning our present ways of interpreting the world, and the things around us, suggesting that our present perceptions are incorrect. We cannot support our future based on the obsolete myth and propaganda of the past.
Albert Einstein stated that we cannot solve problems with the way of thinking that created the problems.
Einstein also observed : "A human being is part of the whole, called by us, universe."
Our present society operates with a very false perception of our experience, thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest of the universe and the natural ecology; we have been seeing our world through an optical delusion of very limited mythical consciousness. This delusion is a perceptual prison, restricting us to our individual desires and to familial connection with just a few persons closest to us. Our present human task is to free ourselves from this perceptual prison by widening our circle of compassion and connection to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty and awe inspiring reality. Wake up to reality.
The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the selfish self. The Bodhisatva consciousness is a base standard for all human beings in any human community that will survive into the next century. We now require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive the threats of global warming, environmental collapse and violent global war. We now face a choice; a world that works for all of us, or a world that works for none of us.
Developments in physics suggest that our delusions, myths and fantasies are not restricted to human values. Our perceptions of the external world are very distorted as well. Just as many aspects of our physical reality require the theories of quantum physics to explain them, this applies also to our understanding of the social world, because human reality is not separate from the rest of the world. Our present economic and political systems are a false construct that cannot survive the test of reality.
Although quantum theories of the Universe are somewhat challenging to fully comprehend, these theories are making it possible to think that the separation into ‘me and we’, ‘thou/I’; ‘self and others’ is intellectually suspect. Once you conceive of all living bodies as particles and waves , then individual humans are understood as a continuum in which ‘the one’ is an aspect of ‘the many’. This knowledge induces us to create new social and economic systems based on reality.We must devise systems where we value the survival of the whole as much as survival of each self. Our present political and economic systems tolerate starvation for 10,000 children each day. Future generations will look back on our present political paradigm as totally incredulous. Threats such as global warming and global terrorism both rise up out of the same ignorance of our irrevocable connection with each other and our host planetary life support system.
Our new understanding of genes and DNA demonstrates that each individual is a product of all
unions since the first spark of life in the universe. There is only one family on planet earth. We live as one unbroken chain of being that stretches in a mobius circle that connects past and future. We live within one whole system. The ‘Quantum message’ is that it is not possible to identify ‘out there’ and ‘in here’, only states of fluidity and merging. This message indicates that any certainty of the independent, autonomous self; of the solid, independent object is an illusion.
The separation of traditional subject boundaries melt in the quantum world which has so far not been integrated into mass human understanding, but presents fascinating possibilities for re-thinking and reframing our pursuit of knowledge, culture, society and human existence.
Conservationists and environmentalists and peace activists have long been warning that if we continue to pursue individual gratification by consuming global resources indisciminately, then there will be no sustainable future for our children, grandchildren and our species as a whole. We could extinguish our own genetic pool as a species. How do you define economic success? Success first requires survival. We are at the point where we have to merge our motivation for individual and community survival. Wealth and commonwealth are one and the same.
Ecology is a rational and provable model for the basic metaphysical structure of the world. With the perceptual framework of ecology, we can see that the identities of all things- whether at the level of elementary quantum particles, living organisms, or galaxies, as logically interconnected: all entities are determined by their relationships with all other entities. Applying this principle of interconnectedness to the human race, it becomes apparent that the individual denoted by ‘I’ is not constituted merely by a body or a personal ego or consciousness. We are a unified living system, so we are required to live in that manner to perpetuate our species.
I am partially constituted by my own individual physical and mental structures, but I am also constituted by my ecological relationships with the elements of my environment and my human community. I am a holistic element of my native ecosystem, and of the concentric circles of systems within which my local; ecosystem is contained. Our present culture offers us a very inaccurate conception of the self and the context of the self. It depicts the personal self as existing in competition with each other and in opposition to nature .
As a species, we have so far failed to realize that if we destroy our environment, we are destroying what is in fact our larger self. Our present global human society that is structured with islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty is unsustainable. This fact demands radical change. This major change can be guided with intelligence and scientific principle. This can best be carried out by conscious evolutionaries. The era of violent revolutionaries is as unworkable and obsolete as the economic and political falsehoods that gave rise to such movements in the past.
For the first time in recorded human history, human society has the capacity, the knowledge and the physical resources to eradicate poverty and violence. We have the scientific understanding of the world we live in so that we can create a human society that works within the ecological reality of planet earth. We can organize the material and energy of our planet in a way that sustains life with sustainable systems. This can only be done with human beings that understand the reality of how life works on this planet. So where do we begin to build a new ecological social organism that can operate an economic structure that supports us without destroying each other and the environment? We can only begin at the beginning. A human society needs several elements for basic life support; soil, air, water and physical materials to build shelter. If you have a few million dollars in your bank account, then you can build a sustainable ecovillage on a shared land trust plot. If you are like most of us, that do not have access to such financial largesse, then organize your present neighborhood to plant community gardens, carpool and share resources in an efficient, energy conserving system. As you work together to organize such shared life support systems, you’ll rediscover our most important human value: each other. Every city in the world can reorganize as sustainable, ecological structures by changing our perception of what community and wealth really means. We can all build a “low consumption/high value” society in our own back yards. Once you have a foundation of family and community, then build new sustainable business models that offer your fellow human beings the essentials for life support; whole food, comfortable clothing and energy efficient tools, transport and shelter. Forge alliances through small business partnerships, cooperatives or community ventures to accomplish this. What you cannot accomplish alone, you will accomplish as you work with others. Opportunity knocks. Open the door.What is the real wealth in your life? Once you have adequate food, water and shelter, all additional human value is created through love, connection, community and culture not through acquisition of temporary things. In our present sick system, a celebrity that builds a 50,000 square foot house to prove that they are a success are only building a monument to their own spiritual poverty and deep existential emptiness. You can lead the way to build a society based on sustainable human value. Start small, thing big and grow our new world order one healthy seed at a time. "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” Robert F. Kennedy -US Attorney General 1961-64This essay is offered as a catalyst for community discussion and action by;Michael Richards, Founder, Sustainable Ecological Economic Development (S.E.E.D.) author of;SUSTAINABLE OPERATING SYSTEMS/The Post Petrol Paradigm (available at; www.amazon.com)