End the Hierarchy

This is the prototype document titled "Boycott Wall Street Permanently" that you can find at the Occupy COMO library.

Although right now it stands as a prototype with many errors and needs to be polished up a bit, it is intended to be used as an educational tool of both the problem and a solution of direct action to build a new global economy from the ground up based on equality and the creation of resilient network of local economies across the world.

Boycott Wall Street Permanently

A technical manual for the public on how to create a thriving peaceful global economy

Table of Contents:

The problem – page 2

The solution – page 9

The problem

Wall Street's economic system has failed the world. It is inherently hierarchical: benefiting only the few at the expense of the many. It explicitly and deliberately creates an “owner class” and a “working class” showing undeniably that its roots dig back to the feudal era and embodies the definition of slavery, or the ownership of human beings. The stock market is the public trading and private ownership of shares of corporations; Corporations, which are businesses that provide people's livelihood in exchange for their labour. When a corporation is sold, the livelihood and labour of workers are sold with it. The private owners of corporations seek only one objective: the maximization of profits, regardless of the consequences on the environment, workers or consumers.

The monetary system-market system itself currently works by producing a finite amount of money by loaning it out to the public. The public then, through the deployment of business organizations, competes against each other for acquisition of this money. Given these truths it is clear what the condition for “winning” would be if the economy were just a game and not actually the complex management of resources extraction, production and rationed distribution to people who require them for their survival: The condition for winning in this competition set up would be to acquire private possession of all of the money and accumulate control of all businesses and resources on the planet. Unfortunately, the recklessness and absurdity of treating the global economy like a sporting event has been missed by previous generations and this notion of winning, of acquiring as much wealth and possessions as possible is not only the sole mission of millions of people in society today but it is culturally reinforced and rewarded as a symbol of social status. To acquire, to buy, to consume and own is defined as success in society today. This single message is continuously and relayed and echoed to the point of cult like worship by the mainstream culture. Wealth and possessions today are the defining attributes of e a person's identity, overtaking individual personality traits and virtues previously adhered to in cultures of the past.

The inherent dangers of this culture and social mentality is made abundantly clear when it is realized that the health of the majority of the population depends upon money not being hoarded in private possession by people who have no need to spend it. For an economy to operate money must be in circulation for those who have no money to earn and spend. It is a problem when all of the money is acquired and not put back in to circulation. This problem is known as the over accumulation of wealth. When it is hoarded or made unavailable and untouchable by individuals who have more than enough, the circulation of money dramatically slows. Businesses lay off workers and slow production and the society enters an economic depression where unemployment and poverty increase rapidly. This is when it is revealed to the public at large that something is wrong. The only response the system has is to an economic crisis like this is to print more money so that people still have something to work for and trade. Of course, this causes a devaluation of the currency, otherwise known as accelerated inflation, which only compounds the problem. It is critical for each individual to understand that depressions don't occur when someone makes a mistake one day. They are the result of a continuous wealth extraction from the economy that takes place over decades. They are the result of a long decline in consumer purchasing power year after year for many years. These trends can be absorbed by the economy for a short while, but the economy requires perpetual growth in spending by consumers. This is inherently contradictory to the goals of businesses: which is to maximize profits and not their worker's purchasing power.

This current hierarchical, profit maximization and wealth hoarding system is driving not only our nation but our entire world in to the dark ages. A single glance at both our national and global income and wealth equality statistics proves this point undeniably. The seemingly never ending expansion of wealth in possession of the owner class (top .1% of the global population) while the other 99.9% of the planet dives in to poverty is a clear indication of what is going on. Post-American International conglomerate corporations continue to acquire private ownership of natural resources across the planet, monopolize entire nation's economies and extract wealth from the

consumerist masses without any inhibition or resistance from the either the worlds governments or their oppressed and silenced citizenry.

American Wealth inequality statistics:

10% of the U.S. Population has 71% of the national wealth.

1% of the U.S. Population has 39% of the national wealth.

.1% of the U.S. Population has 12% of the nations income.

The bottom 50% of the U.S. Population has less then 3% of the national wealth.

40 million Americans are currently living in poverty.

10s of millions more are living in a category termed near poverty.

20% unemployment (if you ignore government censorship)

Global Wealth inequality statistics:

10 million children die every year due to poverty related issues.

7 million adults die every year due to poverty related issues. It is our generations silent holocaust and the greatest injustice of our time.

Accelerated inflation in the costs of healthcare and secondary education industries due to mandatory enrolment, which could be seen as a form of coercion, as well as collusion compound the growing disparity of wealth in the American population. The health and education of the population, institutions of social concern have now degraded to valueless, profit driven businesses that put profits ahead of the community. Any college student who has had to purchase textbooks at over $200 a book from a university will be the first to admit it. These trends of increasing inequality, poverty and unemployment are showing no signs of stopping and as the disparity increases so will a slew of other social distortions such as property crime, violence and theft. As impoverished people become desperate they resort to selling drugs and thus increase the drug addiction epidemic across the country. The response from the law enforcement, who view drug addiction as a crime rather than a health disorder, is always increased crackdowns and a reduction of civil liberties.

The population's lack of faith in the failing social system coupled with their lack of knowledge of how to improve their condition manifests as a public anger that inevitably leads social unrest and riots. The response from government is often curfews and the further erosion of civil liberties in the move towards the creation of a police state. With the continuing budget problems the government often tends to privatize public programs, such as the prison system, (see Corrections Corporation of America – yes its actually profitable to put people in jail now). Local government may be facing such immense poverty and lack of revenues they may eventually even privatize police and fire departments, thus making it profitable for there to be crime and fires, in the same way its profitable for the military industrial complex (Boeing for example) for there to be war. A corporate police state wouldn't be unlike the way the U.S. military hires private mercenary contractors to fight the American government's wars in the middle east. America's wars which, have cost the United States taxpayers over a trillion dollars which is more than enough money than would be required to give

every high school student a full-ride scholarship to an average state university.

The overwhelming accumulation of wealth by the world's owner class is the definitive reason the world's political systems have become utterly corrupt or saturated with uneducated, celebrity politicians who are put in place to maintain the status quo or pursue corporate friendly agendas. It is why both political parties in America are now both totally incompetent. The corporate, private business system has hacked the political system and has turned America and many other once great nations across the world in to plutocracies: systems of governance by the wealthy class in the interest of the wealthy class. This is not just a local or national problem. Statistics show that income differentials are widening for 80% of the global population and of course that makes sense: We live in a global economy. International corporations stretch all across the world. Think of Walmart, McDonalds, AT&T, Exxon Mobile, Citigroup, Apple, General Electric, etc. Every time you see a “Made in Taiwan” or “made in China” sticker it should be a reminder of the ever expanding influence of the non-free, corporate, market empire on to the world.

Were you aware that nearly all television and radio media is owned by about 6 corporations? The question is who owns those corporations? Not the American majority populace – that is for sure.

The entire “bottom” 90% of the American population has less than 10% ownership of American business. The top 1% owns over 50% of American businesses. Keep that in mind when the stock market plunges. All it takes is for the top .5% of the population to decide they want the market to go down and create a sell off. Don't buy the lies. The “publicly traded” stock market, just like the “democratic” political system, is a puppet show. The market moves when the top 1% make it move.

The question must arise about these billionaires who truly run the world. Why are they doing what they are doing? Why do they lack empathy? Why are they so aggressively competitive even after acquiring more than they could possible ever need to satisfy their most lavish needs and wants. Who keeps playing after they've already won? Human behaviour in society is very complex. Compared to other species it takes a long time for humans to become established self directed individuals in with in their social group. All evidence points to the theory that these neurotic obsessions displayed by the owner class of the economic system to acquire as much as possible are learned from sub-cultures and specific individual cultural environmental conditions within fringe elements of society and It is this authors opinion that average human beings and average Americans do not normal display these tendencies. Most people, I think, just want to raise a family and live their lives in peace. Their goal is not to conquer the world and reap its spoils. The rulers of the world, those with all the money and power, appear to suffer from a form of addiction. An addiction that is not only a social hindrance but is also unhealthy to them individually. If you consistently need more material possessions and money and power to feel okay then you are not truly happy and surely must struggle to

find peace of mind.

The people at the top of our social hierarchies appear to lack the imagination of what is possible for humanity to accomplish or are not developed enough to understand the depths of the relationship between them and their society, as the inequality pervasive in the world creates such harsh conditions such as to endanger them as well: Nightly shootings in many major cities, drug addiction epidemic and even terrorism could be seen as caused by a lack of education (due to monetary scarcity) and dire poverty.

They seem to have not realized their potential as human beings and lack a valuable view of what it is to be successful. They seemed to have missed out on the message of unconditional love spread by the world's religions and failed to grasp the vision of peace and harmony that we collectively know we could create, as we have expressed it through art and literature it since the dawn of our species and have written about it in so much of our literature. They do not see the potential to use their acquired resources or hoarded wealth to end poverty, resolve conflicts, and raise the standard of living of all of humanity.

This corporate system, where the rules are written by the winners of the game, does not reflect any form of appreciation for humanity and its potential. It does not convey the spirit of unconditional love that humanity has continually tried to teach to itself: not as a destination or something to acquire, but as a journey and a way of life.

Wall Street is the trading of peoples lively hood. Its essentially slavery to those who have no better option. It now creates an Owner Class and a Worker Class. The time has come for us to claim ownership of ourselves and free ourselves from the victim mentality. This current failed system only has power over us if we let it and we must stand up as one now and take responsibility for the economic system and the conditions it creates for us. The time has come for our generation to organize and lead the way for the world's people.

The solution

The standard of living and class divisions that are the cause of so much social imbalance and disharmony in our society today could be viewed as a result of two distinct problems: income inequality within the economic system and unemployment, or total separation of individuals from the system itself, which is further income and social inequality.

The inequality problem - The stratification between people that are a part of the system (are employed)

The Unemployment problem - The division between people that are employed and aren't employed -- people in the system and not in the system.

Thus, bringing about social equality could be thought of as addressing these two parts individually.

Phase 1 - Eliminating Inequality

The solution outlined here focuses on ending income inequality within the monetary-market system first before addressing unemployment for a number of reasons but mainly because of a causality analysis of unemployment. The hoarding of wealth by the owner class is the cause of the economic depression the world faces today. It is the over accumulation of wealth that has caused the scarcity of money in circulation, which has required banks to print more money and thus accelerate inflation dramatically. Thus unemployment could be seen as partially caused by income inequality. So, it makes sense to address it first.

The solution to inequality is very simple once the problem is clearly understood. The dominant business structures in our global economy are responsible for the management of streams of currency flowing away from the consumer aggregate to the small owner class,

as well as the much smaller streams that trickle downward to the worker class, which represents the majority of the consumer aggregate. The obvious way to maintain income equality is to restructure the businesses such that the income streams return directly to the workers and maintain a complete cycle, in which there is a consistent abundance of currency to circulate in the economy, thus avoiding the over accumulation and stagnation of wealth. The current system represents that of a one way pipe upwards with some leaks in it that trickle downward. The explicit goal of businesses to maximize profits represents an intent to constantly patch and seal those leaks in their income pipe. Its like an electrical circuit that siphons the limited electricity it has away from the components it needs in order for the machine to operate. So, to put very simply, the solution is to restructure businesses in such that each worker has an equal share of the revenues generated by the businesses and an equal, democratic say of any changes to that said structure. In this vision of an economic system there is no owner or worker class, but rather a single class where workers and managers come to agreements on how best to share the wealth. Imagine a system where everyone in the work place has equal ownership of the company and therefore there is not authority figure other than the group itself. The group would then work out the best ways to arrive at decisions. To do this requires a rewiring of the economic circuitry. It involves a rethinking of how money is meant to flow through a business and who is responsible for overseeing of that movement of money.

Of course, given the behavioral trends of those in charge, it would be unwise to expect them to see or support this logic. It would also be inefficient and unproductive to engage in any form of conflict against them, even though protests and mass demonstrations are symbolically powerful and have an important communicative role to play with regards to mobilizing today's docile and sedated population.

What the population needs to recognize, once being alerted to the problem, is that these hierarchical structures are not maintained by the top 1% of the population. Those at the top of the

pyramid have virtually no say in whether their institutions are in place or not.

Their organization's existence is dependent on consumer demand for them. They require that the population spend money on them in order to exist. So, whenever a person spends money at a store they are not only buying a product, but they are voting for that organization to continue to manage society. The need for businesses to maintain consumer demand and have people continually “vote” for them is the reason there is a multi-billion dollar advertisement industry continually brainwashing the public to accept the globalized corporate business landscape as a normal, healthy way of life when in fact it represents one of the most unequal and paralyzing system the world has ever been faced with.

So, with the understanding that people are actually voting every time they buy something, the next logical step for anyone who seeks to be an educated voter of the economy is to begin the process of analyzing the candidates that are running. In analyzing the candidates (businesses) up for election the questions must be asked: how they will affect my community? the workers in my region? The environment? and the consumers?

This is the thought process used to arrive at the solution outlined here. Once we are able to step outside of the victim mentality and see that those who govern always derive their authority, power and wealth through the consent of the governed it becomes clear that any sort of “class warfare” or confrontation with the wealthy or owner class is totally avoidable and easily sidestepped simply by ignoring them and focusing on what sort of economy we want to live in.

Scientific research has shown at this point undeniably that more equal society’s are statistically more stable, happy and secure. They statistically have the lowest poverty rates, lowest crime rates, lowest prison populations, as well as longest life expectancy. Therefore seeking wealth equality is the guiding goal of this campaign. The era of inequality in the world must come to an end.

There are three obvious aspects of any business that dictate whether they are a force for generating equality or inequality. These

three aspects of a business are their:

Size

Structure

Locality

Size

If a business is very large and thus controls a majority of the market share or shares control with a few other companies this is what is known as a Monopoly or Cartel. Without any other businesses to compete with it has been seen that these organizations will collude and engage in massive levels of corruption and collusion. One example being to set the prices higher than what they what their worth. The goal of this campaign will be to mobilize support for the smallest businesses possible.

Structure

If a business is very hierarchical such as are most businesses in society today then they work to benefit the few at the expense of the many. They take without giving back. They allocate wealth and control in to the hands of the few and degrade the condition society without hesitation. The goal of this campaign will be to mobilize support for the most democratically owned and ran, least hierarchal businesses possible.

Locality

The location of the business owner’s headquarters as well as manufacturing plants or distribution centers is something that should also be considered by people when buying products. If the money coming in to the business from the consumers is shipped off to another town then it may not be returned to the community for circulation. Instead the money will be circulated in the community it was just sent to. Keeping money in the community builds a more prosperous local economy that employs a greater number of people.

These three attributes that affects whether a business is going

to perpetuate wealth equality or inequality are the basic parameters off of which a simple comparative analysis can be done to determine the best business alternatives for the consumers to support over Wall Street. If every business in the economy were to be put in to a computer system that proceeded to ask simple quantitative questions to define the parameters stated above, then these system could easily rank every business based on their effect on wealth equality placing the smallest, most local and most democratically structured at the top of the list and the largest, least local and most hierarchical structured at the bottom of the list.

This ranking system could then be posted on the internet for activist networks to copy and spread to their communities for direct action to improve society.

Furthermore, the internet could be used to allow people across the world to help build this list of alternatives through a Wikipedia style user created interface, thus creating a central database of the global “local” economy. Through the development of an online system that allows anyone, anywhere to assemble or add to their own local database of businesses operating in their community a new network of business owners and consumers will emerge and will hopefully be able to form new processes and collective structures that provide further tools and mechanisms for the people to use to solve their problems.

How the online system would be created:

A user would simply go to the website and select the region they either want to help build the database in or they want to shop in. Then they select "submit a business". The system would then request details on 3 parameters about the business. The parameters would primarily be the Size, Structure and Locality.

This information is necessary for the online database to automatically rank each business according to its estimated effect on wealth equality, placing the smallest, most local and most democratically structured at the top of the list and the largest, least local and most hierarchical structured at the bottom of the list.

How it might appear to consumers:

The database would be presented as a list of distributors in the consumer's community. Each distributor would also be able to expand to present a list of producers represented at that distributor, allowing the consumer to support the most equality generating distributor and producer. This hypothetical database-system, if created, could be called The Prioritized Economy, it is a tool that could be used to bring about wealth equality and raise the standard of living for the entire world if they finally unite and decide to move towards a common goal.

Please note that the locality parameter of this system requires that each region/city have their own Prioritized Economy list. A map that displays the locations of the distributors would also be helpful for the user as well. This system would be most effective if turned into a mobile device and tablet application for ease of access for the users.

The goal of this phase would be to continually shift the dominant businesses in the community from large, hierarchical

businesses to small, local, worker-manager joint owned businesses.

The worker cooperative business model is a model in which relevant decisions about the company are made democratically by both the workers and managers: one person, one vote and because cause of this structure wages turn out to be relatively equal in these businesses because the group empathy usually votes to share the profits equally.

Please understand that this does not mean that there will not be a manager in charge making important decision. The business would still have someone running it in the traditional sense. The only difference would be that workers would have a voice in relevant areas such as what to do with excess revenues, individual's pay and employment and the long term direction of the company.

Addressing Unemployment

Currently in the United States there is unemployment of over 18%. Once you are unemployed longer than six months, you cease to be counted by the United States as unemployed, hence the low numbers. This is essentially a propaganda/censorship program by the United States government.

The main cause of such unemployment is structural, which is essentially means that the skills that the public has been trained in are no longer in demand by the economic system to meet its production needs. Take the agricultural sector for example. In 1776, Agriculture made up roughly 95% of people in the nation worked in the Agricultural sector. Now, due to the advancement of technological, most notably the combustion engine less then 3% of the population works in the economy. The economy, meaning the consumers, began demanding new products. This increased the demand for manufacturing jobs during the industrial revolution. Of course, then came the robotics, computer and information revolution which automated many of the manufacturing jobs and opened up new sectors in information and the service sectors. Unfortunately, we are now faced with the continuation of the advancement of technology in to the information and service sectors and people are

now left with no sector to move in to. This is the true cause of unemployment. Of course there is corporate outsourcing of jobs to third world countries where people will work for less money, however, that will only persist as long as automation remains too costly to implement. It is a fact now that human employment in an industry and productivity are inversely related: meaning that as the number of people lose their jobs in an industry the MORE productive the industry is becoming. The truth is a forced labor system, a system in which to live you must work for money, was created during times of scarcity when we were not productive at all. It was a virtual garuntee that with everybody employed the population might still struggle to meet the needs and wants of itself.

However now we have entered the era of mass production, the era of abundance. We might only need say 50% of the population working in order to meet the needs of the population. This is a serious problem for a forced labor system and its going to require new creative solutions and new forms of collaboration and effort on the part of the public to overcome this steepening hurdle. Advancements to automation show no signs of stopping, so the number of needed labor by the population will only decrease and we must expect this to happen.

The only immediate remedy to this problem as of right now si something called Job Sharing. Job Sharing is where workers hours are reduced so that more workers may be hired. This may sound somewhat unfair. However, if we were in an economy where wealth income was being distributed more equally the income of average workers would be much, much higher and as such… this method of job sharing would be more feasible.

As society becomes more productive the amount of work hours needed should be expected to decline while the standard of living of everybody steadily increases. Quite possibly very soon technology will be so advanced that everyone only has to work 3 or 5 hours a week and will have a high middle class income. At this point the integrity of having a monetary labors system should be called in to question as 3-5 hours of work a week by every individual could probably be ran by a volunteer labor system enabling a system of

distribution of unrestricted access. Just as air is in a hyper abundance with no effort by the labor force to be created the same will inevitably happen with all goods and services. Our technology will be so advanced that creating enough of everything for everyone will not even present a challenge and everyday goods and services will be freely available like air. This will be the most radical shift in the society and culture that has ever occurred. People will no longer see any value whatsoever in material items and possessions. The need to own things will no longer exist as in a state of abundance… who will steal? Without the requirement of a job at one location why would ever stay in one place especially if houses are easily constructed by advanced construction robotics technology. This economic system could be called a Resource Based Economy. The only sensible approach would be to orient the economy via the scientific method with the goal of meeting the needs of all people as efficiently as possible.

This system, which we naturally evolve in to, as the need for a labor system at all begins to fade, will present new forms of efficiency never thought possible as in the current market system efficiency is costly and displaces both opportunities for employment and profit. For example, The electric car is more efficient than the combustion engine. However, establishments in place would lose much power and profit through the implementation of electric cars. What about cellular phones? Isn’t it inefficient to be producing low quality phones for the poor, designed to be obsolete compared with modern capabilities, and designed to made as cheaply as possible so that they can be used, broken and thrown away in a rapid succession? These phones are made with precious, finite resources mined from the earth. In a scientific based economy all phones and all products would be made as high quality as possible. The segregation of society in to classes of those who deserve the good stuff and those who deserve the cheap products will be shattered.

This is the direction that the non-labor, automated economy is taking us. However, we must be aware of the decreasing need for human involvement in the actual production and distribution process due to technological advancement as it is moving incredibly fast at

this point.

More creative economic systems need to be created that put the interest of profit aside and instead focus on meeting the needs of the population. Online networks of businesses and consumers of workers and managers as well as all people are going to need to form to brainstorm and develop creative and dynamic structures that allow for more effective and involved self-governance through the cooperation and solidarity. Job sharing will be a tricky thing to manage. It will require a great effort and intelligent management to insure that it is being done fairly so that people all people are profiting fairly and giving up their fair amount of income for time off allowing for the employment of everybody.

Job sharing will not be the only solution though. As everything becomes automated, the required jobs will become narrower and narrower to computer, science and engineering disciplines. Do we really want to force our entire society to conform and be trained in these three specific areas? Are they the new elementary understandings that we must begin teaching our children about in grade school? Or should we begin developing an economy that focuses less on giving people relevant industry jobs to do, but rather develop a system that redistributes wealth to allow people to pursue careers and jobs more specific to their interests and passions?

The unemployment problem is very, very complex and cannot be answered in a pamphlet by one individual or even one group of individuals. It must be meditated on, it must be understood and it must relentlessly be talked about. This is not anyone’s fault or any one economic or political policy issue. It is a natural evolution of our social system away from a requirement for labor system in a time of scarcity to the inability for there to even be a full labor system in the era of abundance. We can no longer be so dogmatic and closed minded so as to think that we will always have a system that uses our previous invention of currency. As new forms of self-governance and organizations emerge through the information and computer age currency may become an obsolete tool for meeting the needs of the population. So too must we also expect the model of representative democracy to grow in to the same obsolescence.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Some Questions

Friday, October 7, 2011

Boycott Wall Street Permanantly

Greetings.