Some people—mostly anarchists—have come to this realization already.
Yes, government, the law, the constitution, all these things have preserved a measure of comfort and safety. But at what cost? Obviously, an acceptable cost until recently. Now many more beyond the anarchist set are seeing the establishment for what it is—a self-perpetuating, self-interest–preserving institution.
Just like everything else in existence.
David Graeber turned me on to the reality that government, debt, corporations, and markets aren’t on my side. Yours either. Since its earliest formations, sovereign rule has been about one thing—preserving its status as ruler. Its preservation techniques have softened over time. It used to be that the Alpha (clan leader, king, emperor) would kill you for questioning his authority. Over time rulers got smart enough to realize that they shouldn’t kill everyone. Who would they rule if everyone was killed off? So they started taking care of you, making your lands safe in return for taxes. Giving you things you could spend the tokens of the king’s reign on (money and markets), rewarding those who helped him maintain civil society (police, armies, merchants), wooing you into compliance, distracting you with stories and riches from abroad obtained through conquest.
Things haven’t changed much since sovereigns took the kinder-gentler approach. It just feels better, and it is. We’re way more comfortable. Stories from abroad have become more alarmist than stories of glorious conquest. Stories from within the kingdom regale too—Super Bowls and other championship quests, disaster stories, and other news.
We’ve traded something for that comfort—the greater comfort of total freedom. Hard to conceive being more free than we are now. It’s much easier for people to conceive of being richer than they are right now, which is another thing we’ve traded for comfort—enormous levels of prosperity for everyone.
That’s changing, though.
I was skeptical of The Shift new agers had been talking about with the coming of 2012. I’m less skeptical now. Probably because I feel I’m on the leading edge of that shift literally taking on something most people on the planet still believes is impossible.
I love doing the impossible.
Yeah, it was news to me that the Establishment is out for itself. I was blind. Seeing is so much better.
Hi Perry! Great to see this in print. I’ve been wanting to express what I got most of all from David Graeber’s DEBT book and you sum it up beautifully here. What a powerful message, conclusion, thesis, he made and you summed it up. Now i don’t have too! thank God! One thing I’d like to add (of course!) You wrote: “We’ve traded something for that comfort—the greater comfort of total freedom. ” I think we’ve also traded a comfort for the sense of self for comfort for sense of other. which is natural and changing very rapidly as the wake up call gets louder and louder. Thanks again for this piece. Erica