It seems to me that the nature of the ultimate revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this, that we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy, who have always existed and presumably always will exist, to get people actually to love their servitude. This seems to me the ultimate malevolent revolution...
— Aldous Huxley, The Ultimate Revolution

I think what is going to happen in the future is that dictators will find, as the old saying goes, that you can do everything with bayonets except sit on them! That if you want to preserve your power indefinitely, you have to get the consent of the ruled, and this they will do partly by drugs as I foresaw in “Brave New World,” partly by these new techniques of propaganda. They will do it by bypassing the sort of rational side of man and appealing to his subconscious and his deeper emotions, and his physiology even, and so making him actually love his slavery.
— Aldous Huxley, The Mike Wallace Interview: Aldous Huxley, May 18, 1958.

Coerced Servitude: The World’s Oldest Hustle

Perhaps the most realistic way to view a wage earner, or an aspiring wage earner, is as a prostitute for “free-market” capitalism’s so-called “flexible labor market.” As in the “world’s oldest profession,” wage whores are divided into several castes: the unskilled and marginally-employed are the “labor market’s” streetwalkers. Skilled tradespeople, middle-class professionals and other petit-bourgeois are its “incall/outcall massage therapists.” Upper-income managers are its “escorts,” while the “high-end call girls” (both male and female) are found in the executive ranks.

Employers, of course, are the labor market’s “johns” or “tricks,” while large institutions--the major media, government, large corporations and business organizations--are its no-nonsense pimps. Police, courts, military services and other public and private security apparati are its ruthless enforcers.

Babylonian Beauty
Another consumable commodity in the global “flexible labor market.”

Why is the “labor market” necessary in a “free market” economy? To answer this question, it is first necessary to define what the “free market” is. Here the term “free market” is used to identify the “Washington Consensus” brand of neoliberalism, currently the globe’s dominant “free market” economic ideology. In this economic system, certain free market “players”--like large, multinational corporations, for example--wield much greater power in the “marketplace” than others--such as a single wage earner inhabiting the “flexible labor pool.” This allows the free market’s most dominant players to dictate the terms for how this economic system operates.

To put this into perspective, let’s substitute “free love” for “free market,” and make total destitution the penalty for not participating in “free love.” This kind of “free love” would give society’s biggest brutes the legal and economic power to demand any kind of sexual favor from anyone they consider part of the “flexible pool” of “free love workers.” Assuming you’re a member of this global pool of labor concubines, you would have little choice but to submit to the whims of the least horrible brute who would “have” you, assuming you could find any who would. Either that, or face total destitution.

How Flexible Are You?

What is lethal for a market-based order is violent instability, because this severs the connection between effort and reward. Keynes understood this better than anyone....
—Robert Skidelsky, “What’s wrong with global capitalism?”

Bald eagles have powerful, sharp and deadly talons. The eagle’s talons come in handy as they swoop down to snatch a salmon out of the water. Holding the fish with one claw, the eagle with tear it with the other to eat their prey. If the fish is too heavy to lift, however, the eagle will be dragged into the water, where its powerful wings might help it swim safely to solid ground. Unfortunately, some eagles--once pulled into the water--either drown or succumb to hypothermia.

“Rogue Economics: Capitalism’s New Reality”

Italian economist, journalist and author Loretta Napoleoni argues that recent events on Wall Street indicate a much larger upheaval and could “signal the end of the ‘Roaring Nineties,’ nearly two decades of easy money, cheap credit, and soaring global debt.” It’s an argument Napoleoni develops in her latest book called Rogue Economics: Capitalism’s New Reality.

Some argue the bald eagles hold onto their prey--even if it’s so heavy it drags them underwater and drowns them--because the particular birds that succumb to this fate are on the edge of starvation anyway, and thus are motivated by extreme hunger to take the risk. Others say the predator’s talons won’t release their prey until the bird lands on a solid surface. Once the eagle reaches solid ground, its talons can then unlock.

Flight? ... Or Fight?

We have just noted how the bald eagle is a powerful predator. But if the bird is weakened through starvation, or by misjudging the size of its prey, it may perish. This is especially the case if the bird is unable to reach solid ground in time, but instead is pulled underwater.

Like the eagle, humans are capable of profound self-sufficiency. This is particularly so for people living in cooperative and highly-functional human communities blessed by abundant natural resources. But throughout the many epochs of human existence, human communities have fallen prey to being overwhelmed, destroyed, exploited, enslaved or otherwise dealt grief, suffering and catastrophe through the actions of other humans. Some of the most desperate people living in the most horrifying environments found all over the world today are descendants of some of the most prosperous and peaceful communities of ages past.

The presidential election of Barack Obama is a milestone in American history, deeply significant for two reasons; firstly, he not only represents the non-white population of the US, but also the poor and oppressed in a way that no candidate has promised since Roosevelt. Secondly, his campaign was driven by a mass mobilisation of grassroots, popular support that is unprecedented in US politics. The most crucial question that remains, however, is more dependent on the actions of US citizenry than the policy decisions of Obama’s administration in the months and years ahead. Will the American public be further mobilised to influence the necessary and momentous turnaround in global priorities that must inevitably be led by the United States?
—Mohammed Mesbahi, “America: The Choice Ahead”

In our time, the most brutal destroyers of human communities are ideological players in a global game of predatory economics. Living beings, including humans, are considered commodities fit only for exploitation, production and profit-maximization. The profit motive demands that human labor, like any other commodity, is “bought low” while any extracted productivity is “sold high.” The endgame is slavery or abject servitude for the vast majority, and unimaginable riches for a tiny few at the top.

Most sane people just want to get along in life; they strive to support themselves and their families, while hoping to enjoy as much of their brief lives as they can. The last thing they want is to find themselves fighting for their lives. So when oppressive forces appear, most folks just try to adapt as best as they know how, while hoping that the dark clouds eventually part to drive the darkness away. But what if the oppressor refuses to leave, but instead relentlessly makes a person’s (or community of people’s) struggle for a decent life continuously harder--or even impossible? When would you turn and fight? Would you condemn yourself, your children or your decedents to squalor, servitude and endless suffering?

Dysfunction & Delusion

Nowadays one can squander countless hours indulging one’s self in an endless array of fantasies, delusions, diversions and cultish belief systems of one sort or another. Watching commercial television, for example, is among the worst of these worse-than-useless pastimes; it manages to rot both the mind and destroy the soul. And if a rotted mind and hopelessly damned soul weren’t bad enough, television-induced stupification and passivity impair our ability to see the cliff in front of us, or to stop our lemming-like march over its edge. Will we even know what to think, or even how to think about what’s happening to us as we plunge into the abyss?