The Revolution

A revolution is coming. It will be a quiet revolution, no one approves of the other kind any more. And it won't be a political revolution, politics has all but lost its significance in the modern world. It will be a cultural revolution, an economic revolution, a revolution of thought and deed at an individual level.

Why ? There is too much injustice in the world, too much inequity, too much hurt and too much harm. There always was and always has been, but we chip away at it generation by generation. This generation's contribution will be to shift the future of the world from a self obsessed orgy of consumerism to a more economically just and equitable society. I don't know if you can feel it, but I believe I can. The tide is turning and momentum is gathering for a revolution of world shaking proportions. What used to be a fringe view about the ills of our society is slowly building into a widespread malaise that is the ferment for revolution.

In the prevalent ideology of the modern world we have managed to tap into the innate self interest in every human to turn our economies into power houses of production, efficient machines which turn out goods and services at any ever increasing rate. We have devised a system, reinforced by layers of complicated constructs, which sharpens every the avarice of every member of society until we are ruthlessly efficient in our pursuit of personal goals which in turn fuels an economy dedicated to fulfilling those personal goals, this is known as capitalism.

The best thing about capitalism is that it is ruthlessly efficient. It takes the available resources and turns them into wealth and prosperity for more people more efficiently than any other system we have thus far devised. The worst thing about capitalism is that it is short-sighted. The second is that it is competitive and the third that is that it is out-of-date.

The first failing means that a small percentage of the Earth's population are rapidly exploiting ever diminishing resources in a race to stay 'ahead' of each other. If we continue the way we're going we're going to reach a crisis in water, food or energy that will derail our whole society. If we reach an equilibrium with the planet's environment we might be able to hang around long enough for our species to enjoy it. The second failing means that it makes people selfish, cruel and self centred. There is no reward, in the system, for helping others or for altruism unless you make a buck for yourself. This has lead to an erosion of our social values and our social identity that I shall expound later. Finally, I believe capitalism is out-of-date because I believe the playing field has changed and it has not. When we had nationalist economies, capitalism was the best option to provide for the citizens of those economies. But now, so we're told, we have a global economy. While capitalism is providing spectacularly well for certain developed and developing nations it's leaving a lot of people behind.

I don't honestly know what will follow capitalism or what it will be called but I do know that it will not have these shortcomings. It will probably have a whole lot of new shortcomings, but that's for another generation to deal with. I'm not a socialist, or a greenie, or a commie, or a luddite or a bleeding heart liberal. In fact I've never studied, believed in or subscribed to any particular ideology - economic, political or religious. As an example, I used to think I was an atheist but then I coined the phrase "apathist" to indicate that I didn't care whether or not a god existed, the question had no relevance for me. Similarly I've grown up as a political apathist for the very simple reason that there is so little to differentiate modern political parties that I regard them all as shades of grey. They are populated by masters of the expedient and have sacrificed so many of their personal convictions to get where they are that they are indistinguishable. Politicians are, like the rest of us, relentlessly efficient practitioners of the mechanics of their trade, but with no higher purpose.

What I am is what a lot of people are. I am disaffected. I am dissatisfied and disillusioned with the society I live in. I am a relatively normal individual of our society that has lost any sense of purpose or contribution to a greater good. I have lost contact with our society and what it means.

To give you a little history I was born to middle class parents in a middle class suburb in a middle class city in a first world country. I studied dutifully in school and then at University in a technical trade so I could go out and earn a decent wage. I was not without a certain passion for my trade and I believed that I could make a significant contribution to the human race through pursuing my chosen area of excellence. Indeed, in a very modest way, I have excelled at my chosen profession, and have been recognised for it, both financially and personally.

However in the past couple of years I have increasingly begun to question how much of a contribution I was actually making to society. Within my own profession, my group of peers, superiors and subordinates, I think I was recognised as a valuable contributor. I was certainly effective and at times ruthless. I hated seeing a job done badly and did my best to do see it was done well. However, none of this really made me happy. "Mid-life crisis!" I hear a few of you shout. Possible I guess, but if you're going to think like that you can bugger off now and not bother reading the rest of this story. It won't reach your narrow, pig headed brain so you can save us both time and effort by going and reading the sports column or polishing your BMW.

Anyway, I wasn't happy. Out of this I developed a theory I called the theory "immediate gratification". In any job, I theorised, you get rewarded by seeing the end product of your labours being accepted and appreciated by someone. Money is one reward, but on a personal level, we all like to hear someone say "Thanks that was great!" or "Well done!", which is what makes us get up and go to work every day. No matter how well paying the job you have to be particularly mercenary to go every day to a job where you're not appreciated and acknowledged.

The problem with most of my jobs, I theorised, is that I was too far removed from the end product to get that reward. I was, I'll admit it, a middle manager most of this time. My job was to manage people who manage people who actually do something. Since I never got to see the end user of my labours I never got the pat on the back, except from peers and co-workers and they felt a little bit hollow. I wanted to do something for someone who would directly reward me, I wanted 'immediate gratification'. This, I thought, would renew my faith in my profession. It would reinvigorate me and re-engage me in my role in society as a good hive-worker. If I could find a job where someone directly appreciated what I did and 'rewarded' me for it I would be fulfilled.

But the more I thought about it though the more I began to suspect that it wasn't true. Talking to people who worked in industries where they had 'immediate gratification' they seemed as disaffected and dissatisfied as me, in fact more so in some cases. The cases of negative feedback soured the positive, for every "That was great!" they got a "You suck!". It seemed like a pat on the back was as transitory and meaningless as... well... a pat on the back. Then I hit on a revolutionary idea. Maybe what I was looking for didn't in fact revolve around my own gratification, maybe it revolved around the gratification of others. Maybe there was actual worth in making other people happy.

To give you an example, in one of my jobs I was responsible for managing a team that made sure a junk mail could be accurately and cheaply delivered to your door. It can be dressed up all kinds of ways in all kinds of rationale but that was its raison d'etre. The product was meant to make sending junk mail, bills, invoices and receipts much more efficient.

Now in one light, this product enormously improved the efficiency of a large sectors of the economy and this could be seen as a great contribution to a society dependent on making and distributing goods. On the other hand, who did I really benefit ? Most of the consumers wouldn't want more junk mail, or even targeted junk mail, despite what the marketers would say. Most of them probably didn't need the things they were buying and they certainly wouldn't need to get the bills any faster, they wouldn't appreciate that. I probably wasn't saving any trees either. Oh, the mail would probably get to the right people faster and we would save a few trees that way. But marketing budgets rarely contract (for long) and clever people would find clever ways to spend the money returned by new found efficiencies. Businesses which don't reinvest usually aren't around for long. In fact that's who I was benefiting really, the companies.

And here we come to the nub of it. By making this product I was making it easier and more efficient for companies to produce stuff and to collect money. Okay, so companies are owned by individuals, called shareholders. These individuals are rewarded for their supply of capital through the payment of dividends and through the increase in value of their investment. By making companies more efficient and competitive I was rewarding these individuals by returning more money to them. Right ?

Well kind of. I mean by contributing a little bit to a companies bottom line, I might contribute a tiny little bit to an individuals hip pocket but that's as far as it went. If I managed to kick a few more cents in to you bank account you'd just have to go out and find a use for it. And let's face it, if you're a member of a modern industrial society you wouldn't be going out to feed your family or save a life, you'd be out buying an Ipod or an LCD television or a DVD player, this perpetuating the whole cycle. For every cent I kick to you a fraction of that would go to the government and probably filter down into something which would make a serious contribution to the quality of life to someone somewhere.

They say that capitalism redistributes wealth, but the pyramid of infrastructure keeps getting wider and wider and the distribution of income more and more inefficient. Those at the top can always claim it redistributes wealth but does it really ? For example, I made something that helped someone distribute marketing material for some company that makes something that someone might want, possibly. From that some shareholder might collect a couple of fractions of a cent in dividends. For a system that's supposed to be efficient at distributing wealth it looks remarkably inefficient.

Now I collected a fat salary while doing this, and the government collected nearly half of that to distribute to starving refugees in Africa or people sleeping on the streets. But did they ? Even governments are getting mercenary now. They're getting more and more efficient at extracting money and not spending it. Homeless people and foreigners don't vote so there's not much percentage in spending money on them. Politicians are managing the economy like a business and becoming ruthless capitalists in their pursuit of the holy grail of 'growth'. Perhaps we don't need growth, perhaps we need equilibrium, equity ? Here's another revolutionary thought. How about if every industrialised nation that makes a surplus gave half of it to a third world country ? How would that change the world ? Would you vote for someone that did that ? I would.

I would because I believe that there's more to being a capitalist than accumulating wealth. I believe there's such a thing as social capital.

Early on in my career I ran out of things to spend my money on. I could buy an Ipod or a DVD player or a new camera. But I found that I used those things for a while and then tossed them in a pile because I was bored with them. Worse still, companies and 'fashion' kept dictating I had to upgrade to the latest and greatest model Ipod/DVD player/camera or face obsolescence. I got sick of trying to keep up and finding that each upgrade brought an incrementally smaller improvement for the same amount of money. I stopped buying things. Especially Microsoft Windows.

There was nothing (and is nothing) I'd really like to own that I can't buy now. However if I evaluate what I 'want' seriously most of it falls into the category of buying a 'bigger' or a 'newer' thing, I don't actually need any of it. Consequently I have a large sum of cash burning a hole in my bank account and no real incentive to spend time growing it bigger. On the other hand if I spend the time to help an old lady cross the street, or perhaps persuade a few people that helping old ladies across the street is a good idea, then I get a reward that's not easily measured and makes my life worth living.

I don't mean karma and I don't mean Christian charity. They revolve around an external judgement of your actions that implies an abdication of responsibility and an adherence to someone else doctrine. You have to decide within yourself what you believe in, find like minded people and make a contribution. Those people will recognise that contribution and reward you for it and when you die at the comfortable old age of 97 you will be able to say you lived a 'good' life.

I believe that the desire for this is more prevalent than many people realise. The revolution is coming. 'Altruism' will not be an oddity, it will be de rigeur. 'Charity' won't be sentimental it will be sharing. 'Success' won't be wealth it will be social recognition. I believe you can see this in all facets of our society at the moment. I think disaffected people all over the world are turning away from traditional themes of our society to pursue alternatives which are more socially just. You can see it in the world economy where people are protesting over third world debt issues and economic assistance. You can see it in environmental issues where support for environmental protection and reform is becoming mainstream.

Politicians and executives alike would do well to note the trend and pencil in a future date for the revolution. There will be a time when the success of governments is not measured by their ability to grow economies and the success of business by their ability to generate ever increasing profits. There will be a time when these things will not be the concern of the majority but of an ever shrinking minority. The majority will be concerned with issues of equity, justice and welfare for all. The majority will be concerned not with accumulating personal wealth and possessions but with ensuring a basic level of dignity and quality of life for all humanity.

I hope to be part of that majority but I am sad to say I think the revolution will come after my life time. I say this in part because I know that I don't know how the 'new' capitalism is going to work or even what it is going to be called. I say this because I think my children or their children will name it and make it work. I'm just trying to lay the foundations for them.