- Economic and Cultural Revolutions
- Forthcoming transition from capitalism to “post-industrial” society is two folded revolution leading to: a) Replacement of dominated political form of social consciousness with domination of moral form of social consciousness and b) Replacement of “free-market” economy with knowledge based economy
- Society is a living and rational system composed by two subsystems: social being and social consciousness. In applied sciences they are known as economic and culture. Qualitative changes in both subsystems could be considered as revolutions. The revolutions are most dramatic changes in human history. Economic revolutions lead to replacement of socio-economic systems. First such revolution was Agrarian, which took place 10000 years ago and most recent – Industrial revolution few centuries ago. The Cultural revolutions lead to replacement of dominated form of social consciousness: from mythological to religious (polytheism & monotheism); to currently dominated politics. Social Evolution is a process of “amalgamation” of components of both subsystems. The final outcome is well-known socio-economic systems: slavery, feudalism and capitalism. In modern time -- utopian project communism and dystopias like fascism and so-called New World Order.
- Economy and Culture present objective and subjective factor in Social Evolution. Apparently both subsystems are intertwined & internally related and any changes in economic lead to the changes in cultural subsystem and vice versa. Therefore the parallel between economic stages and level of social consciousness is obvious. The mechanics of interaction is interesting and edifying. Subjective factor or social consciousness has two important layers – ruling élite and freethinkers. The ruling élite include the most important official decision-makers. The freethinkers are unofficial, elusive group of people representing the rest of society. In time of peace and prosperity they form and influence to a great extent public opinion, and behaviour. In time of perils they recruit rebels, freedom fighters and dissidents. The ruling élite make their decisions laws, the freethinkers value morality – unwritten laws of social sustainability. Ultimately, the Social Evolution is a clash between objective and subjective factors and social revolutions periodically “correct” the mistakes and ambitions of subjective factor. This peculiarity of Social Evolution is crucial to comprehend the function of objective and subjective components throughout history, Modern society and more importantly to foresee forthcoming changes.
- In the past cultural revolutions precede economic revolutions with centuries. For instance emergence of Christianity is a cultural revolution, which replaced existed polytheism with monotheism, contributed to collapse of Roman Empire and eventually prepared society for transition from slavery to feudalism. The role of newly born Church as institution is controversial. It makes Christianity global and powerful religion. In long run however obsessed with Heavens Christianity gradually degenerate from peaceful religion to Saint Inquisition and eventually – plunged society into religious Dark Ages.
- Italian Renaissance and French Enlightenment turned attention of humanity from Heavens to Earth. These changes of social perceptions make French Revolution and transition from feudalism to capitalism possible; replaced religion with politics as dominant form of social consciousness and eventually give birth to modern democracy. The democracy is balance of powers. It is collective decision-making mechanism, which involve general elections and elaborated voting system.
- Nowadays changes in social being and social consciousness are more complicate due to complexity of society and accelerated speed of Social Evolution. They are near simultaneous processes and very often difficult to be distinguished from each other. Unsurprisingly studying society, most of the researches described ongoing processes selectively from economic or from cultural perspective only, instead to analyse dialectic between them or at least to take into account interactions between both subsystems. This approach inevitably leads to so-called “in-the-box” thinking.
- Modern society is on the brink of transition in social consciousness from domination of politics to domination of moral, respectively transition in economy from Industrial (capitalism) to “post-industrial” (post-capitalism) society and there is a lot of misunderstandings.
- During its existence as economy the capitalism evolve enormously from a simple entrepreneurship to multinational corporations. The capitalism today creates colossal wealth. Privatisation of Central banking system made “invisible hand of free-market” visible for very few people. This is turning point in modern capitalism. Replacing objective self-regulation of economy in particular and society in general with subjective control of economy and society make possible collectively created wealth to be redistributed to the hands of very few oligarchs. Stock Market is a mechanism for redistribution of created wealth and do not contribute to social prosperity and growth.[1] The side effect of that dodgy act is – misery, outcast, drugs abuse, organised crime, corruption, deception, greed, cynicism, media manipulation and hypocrisy in unimaginable scale. Ultimately, financial capitalism creates hierarchy of “self-made” money-masters, posing as permanent unelected government and pretending for world dominance.
- The mechanics of financial capitalism is simple. Society create wealth, financial system (Stock Market) redistribute these resources to the pockets of very few; accumulated money are transformed into political power and returned back to society in form of corruption, destroying democracy and oiling the propaganda machine. Apparently this system does not serve humanity, therefore it is doomed.
- Social consciousness was changes as well. Unsurprisingly it is under control due to fearsome propaganda and deliberately manipulations about ongoing process called Globalisation. Money controlled American’ stile of “democracy” (i.e. corporatocracy) made general elections and voting system farce. Politics as dominated form of social consciousness is in disarray and decline. Political parties are near identical. There is no “left” and “right” wings any more. Politicians are considered by many international polls as most corrupted part of society. There is no trace from politicians of extraordinary abilities like Founding Fathers of the United States, Disraeli, Gladstone among many others, servicing their nations according broadly accepted moral values and political ideas. Nowadays politicians are bureaucrats, mediocre minds, corrupted and manipulative people working for themselves. Just look around. Both political parties and politicians are divided between sponsors and voters. That “split of personality” is near pathological. Global politics is most destructive force on Earth. The general elections are meaninglessness. Politics today lead society inevitably to political Dark Ages.
- So, as obsessed with Heavens Saint Inquisition destroyed Christianity, obsessed with money modern financial capitalism destroys dominated form of social consciousness and lead society to moral crisis. This crisis originates in a long-lasting flirt between power of money and political power. Unfortunate marriage between both powers gives birth to financial capitalism, which at the beginning abandoned geographically based colonial system, replacing this barbaric system with more sophisticated financial imperialism. Later on created multinational corporations and Sock Exchange, secured total control of society and finally elaborated sophisticated and evil plan to fix this system as New World Order. Now money are not simply economic tool, they are lever for control of politico-economic system and world spread religion.
- Modern society is gravely ill. It suffers from “cancer of morality”, which destroys very fabric of society and inevitably lead to radical changes in both subsystems – transition from Modern society to “post-capitalist” society and this process is underway. In fact there are two processes –
- Globalisation and Globalism
- Terms “globalisation” and “globalism” sound similar, but they have completely different meanings and disambiguation is crucial to comprehend Modern society. The globalisation is natural process of evolution of society starting with Agrarian revolution an assimilation of thousand tribes into two hundred nations and nowadays unification of those nations in single social organism known as humankind. This is entirely objective course of Social Evolution. The globalism is an attempt from power élite to manipulate deliberately this process of integration and create social-economic system working in favour of money-masters, which is pure subjective project. Therefore globalism is just one more “ism” or another name of carefully mastered New World Order.
- Apparently there is a contradiction between globalisation and globalism. However dramatic clashes between objective laws and subjective ambitions of ruling elites run like a scarlet connecting threat through history. The differences come from level of complexity of society and peculiarities of subjective factor or mindset of ruling elites. So, which process – globalisation or globalism will prevail eventually?
- Theoretically there are two alternatives – society will transit smoothly, peacefully and successfully from “Industrial” to “Post-industrial” structure according to objective laws of Social Evolution or alternatively - New World Order will put under control the rest of the population according to the already elaborated plan. No doubt there is a room for a lot of speculations, but history teaches us that:
- - Objective laws of Social Evolution are more powerful compare with subjective ambitions and aspiration of ruling elites. Nowadays power élite is not an exception.
- - Ruling elites become increasingly inadequate to new reality, which is suicidal reflex.
- - All ruling elites have been swept out of Social Evolution in times of perils and replaced with new one more adequate to realities.
- - Society is extremely complex system and cannot be pre-designed by human mind. Throughout history from Plato’s Republic to Orwell’s Big brother society, could be counted around 50 man-made projects called utopias or dystopias. No one was implemented. Therefore, as men-made project the New World Order is doomed.
- - Unfortunately the mindset of rulings elites always has been inadequate during times of qualitative changes. Therefore possibilities the modern power élite to trigger major disaster with terrible consequences, including outbreak of nuclear holocaust is very high. Such unfortunate even could destroy part of society or even humanity as a whole.
- After Wall Street Capitalism – What and How?
- Eventually current corrupted financial capitalism as form of socio-economic and political system (corporatocracy) will collapse as all artificially created structures. Nowadays politician’s mantra is “There Is No Alternative”. However it is a modern myth that liberal capitalism is the “end of history” and if communism is not an alternative to capitalism, hence there is no alternative to capitalism at all. This is profoundly naïve if not stupid view. Nothing last forever and evolution always has an alternative.
- For good or bad human mind cannot see deep in the future, but in our case it is not necessary. In eighteen century nobody had clear understanding how future capitalism will look like and how emerging democracy will work; not to say how unfortunate marriage between money and political power will destroy democracy to level of plutocracy. Once again – society is very complex system and cannot be pre-designed, it just happened. Therefore the future “post-capitalist” society could be outlined only in very general terms:
- - Money and decision-making process will be separated in principle.
- - Economy will be knowledge based, not profit-maker. “Free-market” will serve society instead to be master.
- - Redistribution of created wealth will be redirected to society itself, instead to the pockets of few oligarchs.
- - All natural and created resources will be controlled by society.
- - Dominated form of social consciousness – political will be replaced by domination of moral social consciousness. Hence political parties and leaders gradually will disappear as medieval religious orders and half-literate monks.
- - Collective decision-making mechanism will be “upgraded” to collaborative, which is higher form of democracy.
- - Society will be self-governing system without institutionalised ruling élite. Nowadays power élite will disappear as aristocracy of eighteen century.
- - New élite will be knowledgeable people.
- So, how current corrupted politico-economic system called financial (or Wall Street) capitalism will transit to post-capitalist society is a speculative question, although some lessons from history are clear. The collapses of Roman Empire and recent collapse of communism is a blueprint for destruction of unbalanced powers. Those are not only economic blunders; those are destruction of social consciousness, moral degradation, which lead inevitably to radical changes in both subsystems – economy and social consciousness or to Economic and Cultural revolutions. The most fundamental changes are presented in the mechanism of their interaction:
- 1. Ruling elites tend to conquer society and modify in a way to serve their own interest making decision in favour of themselves, instead of society as a whole. However increased complexity of society insists changes, which contradict to ruler’s interest.
- 2. Mindset of ruling elites become increasingly inadequate to the level of already achieved complexity of society. Behaviour of the ruling élite destroys morality and push society into “dark ages”.
- 3. Only solution is Cultural Revolution, which change social perceptions and values to more adequate to the level of social development. Normally this is replacement of existed dominated form of social consciousness with new more relevant one.
- 4. Cultural Revolution provokes Economic Revolution, which replace existed ruling élite with new one, more adequate to new realities.
- Most influential theory of economic revolutions is based on K. Marx ideas of class straggle and working class as an engine of social revolutions and “gravedigger” [2] of capitalism. Russian revolution makes this view more visible but more controversial, distorted and misrepresented due to Lenin’s theory.
- Cultural revolutions are another matter. They are triggered by “critical mass” of freethinkers and in this case “class division” is not so important factor. (Buda was prince, Jesus – carpenter). For instance Christianity has been initiated by “critical mass” of 12 disciples. For three hundred years Christianity grows, destroyed polytheism, laid foundation of monotheism and contributed to collapse of Roman Empire. In fact set of tem moral values known as “Ten Commandments” transformed polytheism to monotheism. “Critical mass” of dozen Italian artists (Renaissance) and dozen of French philosophers (French Enlightenment) “enlightened” social perception, replaced domination of religious form of social consciousness with domination of political form of social consciousness and inspired leaders for French Revolution. Once again entire philosophy of changes is concentrated in one principle – separation of powers (executive, a legislature, and a judiciary) and three moral values: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. “Critical mass” of very few Russian dissidents has shown the ugly face of totalitarian system and contributed enormously to recent collapse of communism.
- All artificially or men-created projects like communism and fascism have been elaborated with ambition to rule the world at least 1000 years. It is pure irony of fate that they ended infamously with destruction of their creators – the ruling élite. The agenda of New World Order is set up in same way by greedy, egocentric and corrupted sociopaths. It is an attempt society to be divided into “patricians” and digitally controlled slaves, creating Roman Empire in 21st century. As a men-made construction like communism and fascism the New World Order is simply weapon for self-destruction of ruling élite. The communism has a life spam of 75 years, the fascism just 12, the New World Order most likely is to be born dead.
- “Division of labour” between objective and subjective factors in Social Evolution is simple. The objective factor create the new socio-economic systems, the subjective factors just trigger this process outlining the new moral values and principles of society. If ruling élite pre-design new social system, for sure it is a weapon for self-destruction.
- The logic of Social Evolution suggests that radical or revolutionary changes in society started with changes in social consciousness, triggered by freethinkers. The world is ruled by creative ideas. Therefore forthcoming revolution is primary Cultural by nature and need only two little steps: a) “critical mass” of very few freethinkers to collaborate in outlining basic principles and moral values for new society, and b) planted these values in the public domain “enlightening” [3] social consciousness, nothing more. The rest of the story is a chain of domino effect changes known as Economic revolution (not necessary bloody uprising) or replacement of one socio-economic system with another. Simply this is a course of Social Evolution.
- Notes
- 1. Today 2/3 of all economic growth went to top 1%. The top 1% of wealth holders owns 41% of all the assets in the US alone while the bottom 40% own absolutely nothing. Equality is not the point. Some differences are necessary for healthy competition and motivation, but the gap between reach and poor, which feudalise society, is out of question.
- 2. Perhaps Marx will be astonished to realise that nowadays “gravediggers” of capitalism is a power élite instead of working class!? However the ruling elites of all times eventually destroyed themselves. That happened in Roman Empire, Absolute monarchies and recently totalitarian communist’ system. This is so because society is extremely complex system, comparable only with human brain. The wisdom of Mother Nature is unquestionable and beyond doubt. If she created human brain as heterarchical structure, society and economy should be restructured from hierarchy to heterarchy.
- 3. According to Kant “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity”. (Immanuel Kant - An Answer to the Question: “What is Enlightenment?” a philosophical essay, 1784. http://philosophic.li/kant/what_is_enlightenment/). Only difference between eighteen century “self-imposed immaturity” and twenty-first century “self-imposed immaturity” is that in the first case immaturity is due to obsession of society with Heavens and in second case - obsession with money.
- London, January 2010
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