A Change in Hierarchies

Since the dawn of civilization mankind has been plagued by sociopolitical conflict, corruption, and other problems borne from the very institutions which help organize and shape society. This occurs because it is human nature to respond to fear and trauma by seeking greater control and resources, so many people strive for riches and power in order to better resist the realities of life (it doesn’t work though, which is why even the rich become old, sick, and deranged). But because most humans don’t actually care about being wealthy, and human nature is naturally cooperative and compassionate (otherwise there would not be billions of humans living together on the planet), people are generally willing to put up with some inconveniences and problems caused by corruption and evil actors, but when it becomes to much people finally break and then come revolutions and overthrow of the established orders, systems, and institutions which were used as the vehicle for those corrupt and evil people but in the process also causing significant pain and harm to peoples and societies.

Because this cycle of revolution to institution to corrupt institution and back to revolution occurs time and again throughout history and is extremely disruptive and inconvenient there have been many different proposals and ideologies designed to address it. Religions for instance design codes of moral conduct which attempt to dissuade people from doing wrong through both threats and promises of reward. In Democratic Capitalism it is addressed by distributing power previously held by a small, privileged few (i.e. kings and monarchs) to a larger coalition of capital holders (banks, elites, landowners, etc.), and some elected representatives which would help protect market forces. In Fascist Capitalism the number of participating capitalists are reduced in order to concentrate power and control. Anarchism seeks to have no institutions whatsoever, while socialists and communists believe in removing capital altogether as a feature of the governing class. But what is often missed in this conflict is not whether any ideology is more or less right than others, because ideology is in reality only relative to each individual person and can change in interpretation and execution depending on whom it is who wields it, so even systems which are meant to be idealistic can and are eventually corrupted because any system with power becomes a target for those who seek it, which are almost never the magnanimous, wise, and generous since those people are content to be without power, but the fearful and traumatized. Instead, what actually matters is the exact systems which are constructed and what practical effects they have in the lives of the people. In the United States in the late 1700s, for instance, the people decided that the constitutional monarchy of Great Britain was corrupt and exploitative and so launched a revolution to free us from the the tyranny of monarchy, but most Americans today would likely claim our current system is not working and the political divide occurs after this agreement about what should be done about it and, strangely, though our revolution here in the United States was based on the principle of representative democracy, wherein citizens elect representatives which then convey their interests to government of and by the people, our other institutions such as banks, schools, hospitals and other institutions instead retain the top-down monarchical hierarchy of old wherein a powerful few make all the decisions and hold all the power. For instance all major universities or colleges in the United States are run by a select few appointed to the board, not directly chosen by the people, though elected officials often make those appointments they are not themselves elected and thus are vulnerable to political and personal favors, biases, or even outright corruption which often can and does result in poor management, function, theft, etc., in antagonism of the ideals of freedom and prosperity on which our country was founded.

While business leaders are assumedly of the position that those who created the business are those best suited to run it, any business is in fact dependent on and primarily run by their subordinates, and no business leader can know all the skills or do all the work which is required to effectively and productively operate, and oftentimes the people who are hired by executives are far better at running the workplace than the executives because of both their specialized knowledge and personal stake in the business’s success. When I was formerly employed at a marketing firm in Los Angeles as a graphic animation artist I successfully rehabilitated a major account which brought millions of dollars of income to the company, and yet my greater participation in its structure was actually denied. Eventually I quit the job because of its failure to actually utilize my talents and over time it began to again, predictably, shed clients and lose money.

This kind of dynamic is also painfully and entertainingly apparent in the show Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey, in which nearly every episode an executive’s business is in significant trouble either because they are in denial about their own ability or refusing to listen to their employees whom, being the actual interface and machine of the business, often know exactly what needs to be fixed. In most of those shows the business at issue went under and the owners assumedly lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and would otherwise have succeeded and made the owners money if only the subordinates had been allowed to run it instead.

Just as was the justification for the founding of the United States, institutions are better run when they are run by the people over which they have jurisdiction, and this should not be limited only to government but every institution which seeks prosperity and success, wherein those who work, run, and interface with the institution should be the ones also determining how it is run by occupying the managerial and executive positions through direct democracy and not authoritarian control. This system is often referred to as ‘cooperatives’ or ‘cooperative corporations,' the largest of which is the highly successful Mondragon corporation in Spain, which employs 80,000 people, or WinCo Foods here in the Western USA (not fully cooperative but mostly) which employs over 20,000. Not all cooperatives succeed, but their structure allows them to be more successful as well as stable and reliable because of the expertise and personal investment each member has it the success of the institution, rather than only those at the top whom are also not the ones with the best knowledge, experience, or insight as for how the institution actually operates. In all organized institutions from schools to banks to video game companies, if the hierarchal order is changed so it is decided by the people who actually run and participate in the institution they will generally be more resistant to bias and corruption to become more effective, efficient, productive, and prosperous in the same way the United States became more effective, efficient, productive, and prosperous when it did the same way back in 1776.

Most people reading this might not be in a position to directly affect this kind of change, but in fact our participation in any institution whether it is government, education, or places of commerce is sufficiently consequential to support or invalidate effective systems and institutions. Organizing with friends, family, associates, colleagues, and other similarly interested persons can even more rapidly change systems on a local level which is more important. For people starting businesses they can also be organized from the start into cooperative systems rather than an end goal of selling to venture capitalists and hedge funds, and can be done with all sorts of businesses from restaurants to construction to lawn care and even video game companies. Fuck Portion Control discusses how the endocrine system and physical health contributes to the formation of institutions, and The Perfect Child explains more about the psychology behind human behavior and how trauma causes antisocial behavior, corruption, crime, etc., and institutions and systems which best benefit us both broad and systemic as well as personally in our relationships, friendships, parenting, and families and how to effectively maintain, manage, and care for relationships and systems which benefit us. You might also be interested to know what got us into the current state of things in the first place, why women can’t get into the White House, or about sleazy Democratic politicians funding hate to win elections.