Akbar’s Approach – Slave Solution
1 July 2009
3 CommentsI have been struggling lately to find a sense of what it is we are about here at Globatron, ironically as a result of our own efforts to deconstruct the reality. But I think I have found a way to resurrect a worldview that will grant us a sense of purpose and direction. I was listening to a podcast recently that discussed slavery and the definition of a ‘free man’ and I was struck that we have been taught that such language is lost to history. What would it mean to revivify these terms, and if we did, might we call ourselves liberators? Am I a free man? With this premise I propose the following terms and definitions as a new approach to social consciousness.
Slave : A person whose debt is growing at a greater rate than their income.
Indentured Servant : A person whose debt is likely to remain at a constant rate throughout their life.
Speculative Laborer : A person whose relationship with the debt structure of society is uncertain.
Citizen : A person who has access to work, and those benefits go directly to the growth of that person’s life.
Free Person : A person able to pursue their vocation, and in doing so benefit themselves and their community simultaneously.
Consequential Psychological States:
Slave : Learned hopelessness is common. The inability to dream of freedom is common. Bitterness and apathy are also common.
Indentured Servant : Learned hopelessness is also common, but often with Indentured Servants, there is the bitterness that comes from working hard, having to work hard, in order to die with nothing.
Speculative Laborer : Stress is the most common attribute here. With slaves and servants, there is often an internal code of conduct, these speculative laborers can often act out in aggression because of the tension of living on the brink of 2 realities. Overwork marks them, with all the consequences.
Citizen : Most diverse group. One can respond in any of a variety of ways to this class, as many are either on their way down or up.
Free Person : Happiness.
fascinating post.
as you have it, the definition of slave and indentured servant is a matter primarily of economic position, the difference being degree of debt. hopelessness comes from observations of those in like classes and is reinforced by the social science known as economics, which is essentially the study of human behavior in relation to the idea of the scarcity of those things needed for survival. in other words, our understanding of society is governed largely by a prescriptive science (a larger “equation,” perhaps) that is predicated on the concept of scarcity. while this notion was perhaps valid for much of the modern and pre-modern period, it seems to have lost its basis over the course of the 20th century, particularly with the growth in efficiency of food production and transportation. i don’t mean to oversimplify this, because it is a complex issue. but in the spirit of working in broad strokes as you did in your outline of definitions, i’ll continue in such terms.
the understanding of actual scarcity as a myth–as something that, if it exists, is not a natural condition but manmade and perpetuated in the mind by those with the power to persuade–is something that is hard for people in the first two categories to arrive at. perhaps that goes without saying, but i’m saying it anyway. on the other hand, those who recognize the myth for what it is have done so probably as the result of periodic experiences of leisure, hope, a belief in the possibility of social/economic mobility for themselves, etc. these people are more likely to have gone to college and/or to have spent significant amounts of time away from paid labor and other daily demands on their time and energy. the speculative laborer has social mobility and employment options, an accustomed degree of autonomy at work, but is also likely saddled with a great deal of debt, from student loans, mortgage, transportation, etc. so they have more earning power than their counterparts down the scale but also higher degrees of debt. still, they may expect to retire comfortably some day and thus avoid risking the loss of such a future through their career and investment choices. in this way, perhaps many indentured servants have more autonomy than speculative laborers. The latter have a more “uncertain” (or perhaps ambivalent) relationship with the economy than the former because the latter have more to gain or protect (or lose).
perhaps the overlap between spec. laborer/slave/indentured servant and citizen is one of mindset more than economics. The citizen group is diverse because it contains members from all social/economic strata. Citizens recognize the economic system for what it means to the whole, rather than solely in terms of their group or individual interests. To be a citizen increasingly means to be a citizen of the planet rather than of a “national” or local grouping. Thus to “think globally” increasingly corresponds to an ability to see globally, to interact on a greater scale than was possible in previous generations. This ability and mindset is not confined to the “citizen” category, of course, but the growth of this category in the future is most dependent on the development of those skills and habits of mind. And the category “citizen” is not dependent on a particular political view, but on an ability and will to debate positions about the structure of modern civilization—and, again, to “think globally” in an environment that affords unprecedented global communication. At the heart of the debate is the type of economic structure that should prevail worldwide—and implicit in this question is the very practical question of scarcity in a global society. Citizens are those who take part in that discussion—who work to frame that discussion. As internet access increases worldwide, the role of citizen (open to only a very slim minority today) will open up to people from a great diversity of backgrounds.
Still, the number of citizens that are available for such a discussion depends on the type of education people around the world receive—not in terms just of indoctrination (although that is a factor to consider), but in terms of alternative forms of information—interpretations of a reality, i.e., one that presupposes a humanity divided into territorial groups in competition with one another, that seems to have run its course. The idea here is that once people have been restricted in their choices to a few or a couple carefully-orchestrated options, then freedom has already been predetermined by someone other than those most affected by the determination. I predict that as humanity approaches the category of world citizenry, the effort to define that category for the vast majority prior to their arrival in those roles will continue. In some way, however limited and uncertain our position, we in the West—particularly we in North America—are in the vanguard of defining that category. As such, I see a responsibility inherent in that position. We are, as Akbar often puts it, citizens of globatron and the highest on the mast, looking at the horizon from one of the first ships at sea. And we report to those who will inevitably come after us about the conditions we encounter.
I envision in our lives a compression of the categories Akbar presents, such that slaves and citizens will eventually be the only ones left (full circle?). And the only contested category will be that of citizen. Who are the real citizens? This will become the great political question. And the greatest division will happen within this category. Those with power and their loyal supporters vs. those with the mind, ingenuity, and courage to stand up to that power. The latter category may always be in the minority. But who knows. The power of an idea in the future will result in proportion to the idea’s discussion in the present. So the question to ask—or rather, the category to define today is that of citizen. What is a citizen? This is what I see as the best hope for challenging a spreading fever that seems to be moving rapidly into unsuspecting homes and minds. Just as one man’s terror is another’s freedom fight, one man’s definition of ‘citizen’ could be another’s slavery.
I hope our readers will excuse my obvious Marxian interpretation of Akbar’s outline. I do see far less hope than did Marx for a global revolution that would result in the true communist (I did not say Stalinist) society. Instead, I envision a long series of guerilla engagements that may simply mean an underground existence for some; and it may mean an impressive last show of those unwilling to submit to absolute slavery.
This also comes back to your question of what is it to be human? If you were to remove the economic and class barriers, what class should all humans naturally fall into?
To take it further, in a tribe what class structure is set up? With our first ancestors the African Bushmen, what class structure do they have? It’d be interesting to look at their class structure and compare it to what you have presented.
So are we to ask ourselves what is it to be a citizen or what is it to be a Free Person? And are we asking that as of a global citizens or as citizens of the U.S.?
Or are you asking us what is it to be free and what is freedom?
And to your point of happiness. Do you think it is possible for all classes to find happiness or is it a completely unreachable goal for some because of their class distinctions?
And to the video; the banking system is a cluster. Has been since the birth of our country. But what about before our country? It’d be nice to take it further? What about the first Wounded Knee? What class structure do the Native Americans fit into currently? America and its citizens have yet to face the dirty facts of the Indian massacres and the displacement of an entire civilization.
as far as the compression of these groups go. one could argue that the limited range works to create enough diversity to keep slaves, servants and speculators from feeling united, since they can develop quasi-systems of virtue to tie their hopes and prides to. if they become compressed into a place where the slavery is obvious, it would be easier to organize them. such is the complex game of oppression, to not only enslave people, but worse, to make them guilty of signing up for it, through retroactive responsibility.
the real question i wanted to raise here was whether or not we still cherish freedom, and perhaps we ought to say that freedom is specific to a freedom from indebtedness to upper classes.
and further, if we acknowledge the presence of slavery in our society, are we then charged with the same kind of moral prerogative we ascribe to those in history, when we say things like “how could they sit back and allow slavery to go on without standing up against it?” are we not doing the same thing now?
perhaps the role of globatron, one of the many roles we have given ourselves, is to be a emancipating force, seeking to expose to the slaves the cage, and then seeking to nurture a desire for freedom. it’s a lot like Strauss talks about in his book where the economic elite has dug a tunnel into the cave, whereby we must liberate people twice.
akbar
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