In What Ways Has Centralisation Failed Us? ecoTrain QOTW Response
Now there's a question and one which isn't being asked enough. When something is ubiquitous, all-pervading and all-encompassing it can be hard to even notice it. Do people understand what centralisation is, or how it operates? I believe most people have no idea of the depths and effects that centralisation has had. Go and look on youtube and try to find me one decent video with someone explaining the issues at hand? Well, I couldn't!
Did you ever notice that every system of political persuasion ends with the letters ISM. Did you ever wonder what that ISM means, and why it is used to define the dogmatic systems of power that rule our entire planet? And ISM, whether it is Capitalism, Socialism, Marxism, ends in these words? AND isn't it interesting how the word Anarchism is rarely used, and instead people usually say Anarchy? These ISM's are a sign of a centralised and polarised world. When we add an ISM to anything it becomes tainted, even the word Social, which is a great thing in general, becomes tainted and destroyed by Socialism.
Take anything and make it an extreme and you will have too much of it.. And as any wise person knows, too much of anything is a bad thing!
A DEFINITION
A centralised organisationis structured by a strict hierarchy of authoritywhere most decisions are made at the top by one or a few individuals. Information from lower levels flows up to the decision-maker where the information is analysed and synthesised to gain a broader perspective to aid in decision-making. Information flows down to provide directions to the lower levels of the hierarchy where lower levels are expected to implement the decisions with little or no modifications. Examples of organisations utilising a centralised structure include the U.S. Army and large corporations.
So let me see if I can list just some of the most important points that demonstrate how our centralised systems have failed us.
- War
- Child Abuse / Foster Care Abuse
- The best inventions are withheld and suppressed
- Rampant inequality
- Climate Destruction
- Empty Seas/Overfishing
- Mental Health Crisis
- Planned Obsolescence
- Competition is thwarted
- Poor healthcare/medicines
- The high cost of living / rampant inflation
- No ethics in all areas of commerce and politics
- Poor Quality / Toxic Food
- Secretive
- Inefficient
- Inflexible
- High Taxes/Slavery
- Limits creativity
- Rampant Corruption
Now, from this long list I would like to choose a few points that have the most negative effects on our world.
The best inventions will never see the light of day
If you run a medical research company and one of your teams discovers a pill that you only have to take once, and it will give you perfect health for years to come, what do you think would happen to that discovery? If you are researching into new forms of power and discover an unlimited, free form of power that could be made available to all, what do you think would happen to that person?
The point here is that we will never know the extent to which centralised systems have limited and hidden the very best inventions that are today relegated to the realms of conspiracy theory. Any important discovery will be hidden from us, we will never know it exists. This is because centralisation has power as its mast. It's all about power, even before money, and as any good politics student will know, Power Corrupts, and Absolute power corrupts absolutely!
The way this manifests is that great discoveries are used to protect State and not the people. The people become like objects, even legally, and are forced to be subjects of that State without even the right to choose which State they want to have allegiance to. As the State gets bigger and more powerful, its subjects end up having less choice, and more demands and restrictions forced upon them.
Tax, as it stands today, is a fine example of modern-day slavery. We have no true idea where our massive tax payments go, and if you do the math you can discover that State takes just about every penny from everyone who makes money (except the richest). DO the math! If you pay 40% tax on earnings, oh and 17% or so on just about anything you buy.. they already have nearly half of it. But that just step 1! Then you spend that money, buy things, employ people, and they again pay 40% tax on that. DO you see, within a short few steps they take it all from those with least, and facilitate it funnelling almost everything into just a few pockets? It is fair to say that today politics is just an extension of commerce for almost all countries.
No Ethics
Ethics are everything, but in a centralised world, they are irrelevant, and even a hindrance. With so many layers of secrecy and corruption, there is no incentive for people to uphold anything that is sacred. Just look at what we do to our planet, how we devastate our forests, fish our seas almost to extinction, burn dirty fuels polluting our world, poison our food. Any attempt to expose unethical practices are frowned upon, and those brave few that do so will be hunted down! Just look at Snowdon or Assange!
Today things are totally out of hand, with the notion of democracy itself ridiculed by high tech manipulation and brainwashing by elected and unelected people. The Cambridge Analytica scandal has shown us how easily we can be manipulated.
Centralisation may have gotten us to where are now at, but if you really understand its impacts you can understand why we must find another decentralised way, and soon! We can now use technology to live and operate in a decentralised way in ways that were never before possible. We no longer need banks when we can have our own private digital secure wallets. We don't need to travel for hours every day to be in the same physical space as others to work. We don't need to keep feeding just a few HUGE companies that dominate our economies and wealth. Almost every penny we spend in Best Buy, or Amazon, or McDonalds flies straight out of the local community and far away and hoarded in off-shore bank accounts.
I could write about SO many examples that really illustrate the points I am making, but instead, I would like to let some numbers do the talking! Sometimes numbers say it all, they reveal so much without having to say anything more!
They Don't Care About Us
- In 2017, the world subsidised fossil fuels by $5.2 trillion
Meanwhile...
- 4.6 million people die each year from causes directly attributable to air pollution.- Home solar panel installations fall by 94% as subsidies cut in the UK.
Defending the State Not The People
- The Ministry of Defence's UK's full cost for the Trident nuclear submarine is a planned £205 billion, and that's before taking into account that the Ministry of Defence projects typically go well over budget. It will likely never be used.
Meanwhile...
- The total budget of the Department of Health in England in 2017/18 is £124.7 billion.
Profits Not Ethics
- 97% of USA 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes. It is believed that more than halfof the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority are awaiting trial. 16% of the country's 2 million prisoners suffer from mental illness.
Meanwhile...
- There is almost no effort to rehabilitate prisoners, who are used as slave labour earning $0.50 per hour to work.
- Private Firms Earn $Billions for Services to Incarcerated
Just nine of the world's richest men have more combined wealth than the poorest 4 billion people.
(that's more wealth than half the world's population)
So coming back full circle, I will conclude by saying that decentralisation is only going to happen once we can change our notion of power and we allow it to be spread out over our populations. It is Power that lies behind the desire to centralise, and the ability to control and benefit from others just gets easier the more powerful we become. Looking around, i can see these seeds of change starting to happen, and indeed Steem is one brilliant example of this new paradigm.
SOURCES
https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/richestbillionairescombinedwealthjeffbezosbillgateswarrenbuffettmarkzuckerbergcarlosslimwealth-a8163621.html
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/home-solar-panel-installations-fall-by-94-as-subsidies-cut
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/05/how-much-does-world-subsidize-oil-coal-and-gas/589000/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/air_pollution.htm
https://fullfact.org/economy/trident-nuclear-cost/
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I couldn't find a video either which addresses the question in terms of society. They were all about companies but companies can have owners and that doesn't apply here.
That was a great and thorough answer. This touches on so many things that are fundamental to our lives.. all in a negative way.
Agreed on all counts. Well done.
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Regarding ethics and centralization, what came to my mind was how today the absence of ethics is what is placed in the center. It doesn't make things any better, of course, but think about when ethics, and morals, and norms guiding our lives was also centralized... in the hands of the pope for example. Leave the decision over what's right and wrong to one person, or even a small group on top of the pyramid, and witch trials and crusades become okay. At least today we have gotten away from that notion sufficiently to at least decide for ourselves over what's good and evil. As I said, it doesn't make much of a difference if we can't / won't act on it in practice, but at least I can assume I won't be burnt at the stake for philosophizing.
Yes keep on philosophizing my friend!!! Good point by the way.
The more people start to understand blockchain technology, the more they'll (hopefully) begin to understand decentralized systems and the benefits they provide!
I agree with you. The supremacy of the stings of Power create the illusion that the world is as it is today and that there is no possibility of change. However, there are as many possibilities to do so, as there is a need for us to be less manipulable. Those numbers you show to support your speech are evidence of the extent to which you have reversed the man-world relationship, leaving humanity and the world unassisted, by the mass of the power of a few.
Excellent article, @eco-alex. Greetings and a hug!
The ISM seems to transform an action or a system to a religion. Suddenly is the ISM more important and the human... if you aren't in the ruling status.
well said... governments have become religion. Too many people believe in their gorvernance.
I hope steem currency will increase their value on the #cripto market ?
Promise never, ever, ever! to refer to ecoVillagism. LOL.
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Excellent post Alex, all these things have been so corrupted for so long, it would be hard to pin point where it all started.
I was thinking about what you said on the subject of changing our notion of power. We are all born under this human organization system (all these isms) that it becomes difficult to change because our enslavement seems and feels normal. And then there's the old saying that people have a hard time getting away from:
This is just an excuse to try and avoid the problems we don't really want to solve.
Anyway, nice one... sorry I couldn't write on this yet.