The Pyramid of Illusions

We can only speculate the reasons why the Mayan civilisation collapsed. We have a little more historic record to explain why the Roman Empire collapsed and more recently, the collapse of the British Empire. The record of the current disintegration of Western civilisation into revolution and war is perhaps a little too close for an objective view but we do need to step back and look at what all these power structures have in common. The two main points is that they all share a vulnerability to collapse. This is hardly surprising when you consider the other main factor they all share... and that is a power structure in which the majority of power is held by the elite minority while the labouring majority that build and maintain the infrastructure hold the least power.

This is often erroneously referred to as The Pyramid of Power. I say 'erroneously' because, of course, it is not a pyramid of power but a pyramid of people. The fewest people at the top and holding the greatest share of wealth and power and the vast majority at the base with the least wealth and little or no power. The structure of power is an inverted pyramid. The majority at the top and the minority at the base. When the greatest share of wealth and power is distributed among the smallest minority while the vast majority support this structure with their labour and taxes with little to gain in return, this power structure becomes increasingly unstable.

We have to look at what exactly we mean by power. Every individual, regardless of rank or status has only the true power to make choices. This is effectively a binary power: yes or no, to go this way or that way, to comply or not to comply. No one has the true power to make anyone do anything they do not wish to do. They may have some official authority but this is just part of the illusion of powers beyond the binary power to make a choice. The commander has the authority to command the infantryman to fire but the infantryman still makes the choice to comply... and could choose not to comply. There may be many factors that influence this choice, such as the consequences of disobeying a direct order, but it is still a choice and only the infantryman has the power to make that choice.

This illusion of authority and entitlement is the tenuous foundation on which all such power structures are based. However, this kind of 'power' is not created by those who wield it but by those who submit to it. What gives this 'power' its authority is the ability to manipulate the choice to comply. But it always remains a choice. If everyone exercised the choice not to comply (including enforcement officers), the 'power' is reduced to whomever is physically the strongest. Even then, while it may be possible to beat an opponent down, an order to comply... even under torture... can still be disobeyed. Only the consent and compliance of those who are subject to authority can give it 'power'.

The power of a small select ruling elite to control the vast majority of the labour force is a very fragile illusion and it depends 100% on maintaining that illusion. The reality remains that, while every member of the ruling elite is completely dependent on the labour force to maintain the infrastructure: to build the offices they inhabit, to manufacture the technology they rely on... even to make the weapons that arm the enforcement agencies and, of course, to provide the tax revenue from which to pay the enforcement officers, the vast majority of the labour force depend on the ruling elite for nothing. If the ruling elite were to withdraw their input into society, no one would notice unless they happen to read of it in the news. It would make not a scrap of difference. The trains would still run, water would still flow, crops would still grow. But, if the labour force were to withdraw its labour, everything would grind to a halt. Wild sheep exist quite happily without shepherds... but not a single shepherd can exist without sheep. Sheep farming is only possible as long as sheep do not come to this realisation.

So the structure of virtually every civilisation has been the greatest share of overall wealth and power held by the smallest number of people who provide the least amount of input into society while the greatest number of people who put the greatest level of input into society have the least share of the overall wealth and virtually no power. This is always a recipe for disaster. Without the people at the bottom of this structure, the civilisation's very existence is impossible, whereas, without the people at the top, civilisation remains virtually intact. The greatest power of input and the power of numbers lie with those at the bottom. Unless governed with compassion and consideration, revolution is inevitable.

The only way in which any civilisation can be sustainable is if the power to make law and distribute resources lie with those who provide the resources and maintain the infrastructure. Every section of the structure above must be administrative positions and always answerable to the majority. That way, the majority have a vested interest in making society as functional and effective as possible. When the majority have nothing to lose, the elite minority have nothing to bargain with and either the balance of power is reversed by revolution or civilisation will collapse.

Wealth:

The concept of wealth is pretty much a red herring. It is used as a carrot and its evil twin, poverty is used as a threat, both in order to gain compliance. The Conservative government current at the time of writing have a clear agenda to advance poverty to the extent that working hard for a living is no guaranteed way of escaping poverty. Working hard for a living is increasingly becoming the only means of staying alive as the Welfare system and the National Health System is being dismantled under the guise of 'saving money'. But it is not about the money. It never has been.

Money does not exist except as a system of measuring value. Just as inches do not exist except as a system of measuring length or width. There is no finite stockpile of inches that we consume each time we measure something. By the same token, there is no finite stockpile of pounds or dollars. Yes, money does have a 'tangible' form as coins or banknotes but these are simply symbols just as the markings on a ruler are symbols of inches. It is a visual reference and nothing more.

Initially, money represented effort... or rather, the value of effort. It has taken many forms in various cultures from rare shells, rare stones, even rare feathers and eventually to rare metals such as gold. Rarity was important because it had to rely on either effort or extreme good luck to obtain these tokens. Searching for these items required effort with no guarantee of success but they could be obtained by exchanging goods or services for them and their value was universally accepted. It was a much more reliable system of exchange than barter, which relied on finding someone who (a) needed what you had to offer and (b) was able to give what you wanted in exchange. A universal token is something that everyone would want because they can exchange it for whatever they need.

But money is no longer in the form of rare items or metals. The Gold Standard has long been abandoned and it has become a means of controlling wealth and poverty. In nature, there are times of plenty and times of famine and drought. These affect everyone. Those who put in the effort to store food and water supplies stand a better chance of surviving famine and drought that those who don't. This was not dependent on wealth. But, with better cultivation and water conservation methods, we are no longer at the mercy of the whims of nature. Furthermore, Western society is now largely secular and, despite an undercurrent of religious conviction to some degree, we are no longer in fear of the 'wrath of gods'.

Because civilisation has always been based on this inverted pyramid structure of illusion, it has always been necessary to exercise control of the labouring majority and this has always been achieved with fear and intimidation. Initially with the fear of gods and the human agents who enforce 'God's Will' (which, interestingly, always conforms to the will of the ruling elite). But, in the absence of vengeful gods and devastating famines, there is actually little to fear. These universal dreads have been replaced with money. The promised rewards of wealth and the threatened horrors of poverty keep the masses under control.

Poverty is, in effect, a form of artificially targeted famine. Unlike natural famine, it does not strike everyone. But, as long as poverty is avoidable by simply having a job, it isn't enough of a threat. Wealth has always been difficult to achieve of course but, in theory, poverty should not be difficult to avoid. But here, we encounter the fundamental differences between political agendas. The initial agenda of the Labour party was to close the gap between the wealthy and the poor by limiting the ways in which the wealthy could exploit the poor and enhancing the ways in which the working classes could improve the quality of their lives. This paved the way toward a system in which the country could move away from traditional Rule of Lineage in which those born of wealthy and privileged families (often with family ties to the monarchy) with inherited wealth were effectively 'born to rule'. Union leaders and others with working class roots could become politicians. Through successive Labour governments, we saw voting rights, public welfare, education and public health systems put in place. The working majority had a voice.

Labour's commitment to the working majority ended with the election of Blair, a right wing politician with the clear agenda to rid the ruling elite of this stone in its shoe by changing the agenda of the Labour party with New Labour, a slightly more moderate version of the Conservative party... becoming progressively less moderate as his period in Office continued. New Labour's agenda differed from the Rule of Lineage agenda of the Conservative party in that it took a purely self-interested line of wheeling and dealing for personal gain. This played into the hands of the conservatives to some extent as it put pretty much the same policies in place. The culture was get in, make your pile and get out. Prior to Blair, it was not uncommon for a serving Prime Minister to be facing a former Prime Minister on the Opposition benches. But Blair entered politics as a well-to-do middle class lawyer and departed Westminster a multimillionaire... never to be seen in the House of Commons again. New Labour was not about class or lineage. It was purely the Del-Boy objective of 'a nice little earner'. But Blair did some of the conservatives work for them by reinforcing a culture of fear and paranoia and stripping away many of the public liberties that traditional Labour had fought so hard to earn.

Now, with the present Conservative government in power, the essential agenda of Rule by Lineage is back on track and the climate is becoming increasingly like some mythological fight between Good and Evil. David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn could not be more diametrically opposed. Corbyn is a traditional Labour stalwart intent on restoring Labour values, the Welfare system, the Health service, British manufacture and nationalisation of vital industries. Cameron's agenda is to scrap the Welfare system, privatise the health service, abolish Human Rights laws and strip workers of any rights or protection from exploitation. He is systematically putting education into the hands of private corporations with a clear objective of limiting education to that needed for industry and no more. He is increasing tuition fees for higher education so that it falls once again exclusively into the hands of the privileged. One must consider what the word: “conservative” actually means. It refers to the conservation of traditional social classes with the wealthy elite ruling the labouring majority by right of noble birth.

The British political system is not and never has been a democracy. The term has certainly been borrowed from the Greek model most notably of Athens in the 5^th Century BC, but it differs from the Greek model in that laws are created by government and imposed upon the people. In the Greek model, it is Rule by the People for the People with the base of power being the electorate. Laws were devised, reviewed and, where necessary, amended by the people and enacted by an administration of representatives. What we have is a Parliamentary Rule of Law and this is the model on which the US system is based... albeit as loosely as the UK system is based on the Greek model. The only element we have actually taken from the Greek model is elected officials. But, beyond election, the people have no control over the workings of government.

Conservatism is traditionally opposed to “the interference of Parliament” and its primary objective is to return the “divine right of monarchs” to rule overall and attribute authority among the nobles according to lineage and birthright. Although modern conservatism has distanced itself from this stance, it remains its essential objective. Cameron, Osborne and Johnson all have a lineage of British nobility with Cameron and Johnson having family ties to the Queen. There has always been close family ties between the monarch and senior members the Conservative party.

Despite negative press (the media not immune to government influence), Jeremy Corbyn's popularity with the public is unprecedented in British politics. His integrity and apparent incorruptibility poses a serious threat not only to the Rule of Lineage agenda of the Conservative party but also the powerful corporations that have always benefited from a mutual back-scratching relationship with monarchs, dictators and governments throughout the world. This places Jeremy Corbyn in a very dangerous position. Although it would be naïve to completely rule out the possibility that Corbyn's persona is a front to garner sufficient support to win the 2020 election with such a powerful majority that he could put through corporate-friendly legislation and policies with little resistance (after all, it worked for Blair), my personal view is that he is the Real Deal. I trust him. Unfortunately, this implies that he is unlikely to survive to take Office in 2020. Too many far too powerful people have too much at stake to allow that to happen. By that time, he will be 72 and an untimely death could too easily be attributed to his age.

I feel it is vitally important that a man of such integrity must survive. But that can only be made possible through revolution. We cannot leave it all to one honest man. Corbyn alone cannot halt the inevitable path toward totalitarianism. The gloves are off and the government no longer conceal their agenda to strip away the rights and protection for the people that has been so hard won. Although I am not alone in this view, we are a long way from the unity needed to bring about the change required to create the society we want to live in and want our children and grandchildren to grow up in. The majority of the people could be likened to the man who, having fallen from the top of a 50 storey building, could be heard to say as he passed each storey “So far, so good”.

There are dark days ahead whether we take action or not. But, if we do take action, we can have some control over the destiny of our children and grandchildren. The major defence of The Establishment is the illusion of entitlement and power to control our lives. The major weapon of The People is to see through the illusion. But, of course, we have a lot invested in that illusion. The primary target must be the illusion of money. This is the Dragon's underbelly. The source of all power to control and oppress is the shared illusion that money is an actual resource. But the more of that we have, the more we have to lose. While the pay-cheque's in the bank and beer's in the Fridge and Strictly Come Dancing is on TV, there is the inclination not to rock the boat. I'm afraid that the boat must not only be rocked but overturned entirely and we must rely on each other to keep us all afloat. Before we can pull the illusion out from under the feet of the Ruling Elite, we must abandon it ourselves.

We must share skills and resources and refuse to acknowledge money. Barter if we must or devise some other system of exchange that does not allow the transfer of currencies into the new system. The objective of this is to render money worthless... or rather, acknowledge its worthlessness. It's just paper and meaningless data. We have to take shared and mutual possession of resources and distribute them according to need. We have to become a People's Assembly and decide what constitutes value. Those whose only claim to 'power' was money will effectively have nothing. We have to take over the running and maintenance of the infrastructure. We do that anyway... but we have to do it on our terms. This means national strikes, alternative 'currencies', occupation of industry and a period of chaos is inevitable.

This must also spread virally throughout Europe and the US (this latter will certainly be our most formidable adversary). It will be difficult and frightening and we will be up against intimidating forces. That is why we must initially take control of our own economy. Those who already rule by virtue of wealth will have nothing of value with which to pay enforcement personnel.

This is no longer just a matter of protest. The time for protest has passed. We can no longer continue demanding that they bring about the change we need. They won't and we must. The time has even passed to say act now before it's too late. It was too late last year. It was too late the year before that. It has been too late for a long time while we have been dumbed and numbed by TV, apps and online games. Oil corporations are poisoning the oceans with impunity. Government officials have been (and probably still are) raping children with impunity. Poverty is being forced upon everyone not born into inherited wealth and we are being systematically lied to, oppressed, and forced into submission. What exactly does the government have to do to convince you that you have nothing to gain and everything to lose? Jeremy Corbyn is justifiably being hailed as our last hope. But, in this present climate of kleptocracy, corruption, surveillance and 'Black Ops', it would be naïve in the extreme to believe he will ever be allowed to take up Office. I would like him to live well beyond 2020. However, if Corbyn is seen as our 'last hope', we must recognise that we are his last hope. Without us, he is surely doomed.