The convergence, of the societal dis-function of Western societies with the multiple side-effects of Western-Modernity, is confronting humanity with a predicament !

Before terminating the revision of "The interactive continuum of the cultural field of societies", I decided to share the first draft of the 3 chapters of its conclusion :

1. Summary of the revised Volume 1.

2. The convergence, of the societal dis-function of Western societies with the multiple side-effects of Western-Modernity, is confronting humanity with a predicament ! (Today's post)

3. How to escape the predicament of Late-Western-Modernity ?

Being shadow-banned I have to ask, if you happen to find this content of interest, to please share it with your friends.

Thanks. laodan.

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I want to show in this Part 6 how the convergence, of the dysfunction of the governance-world in this Late-Western-Modernity with the multiple side-effects of Western-Modernity, is confronting humanity with a predicament of mass-extinction. The sole path out of this predicament is through comprehension of the interactive continuum of the cultural field of societies. My ultimate hope, in this Volume 1, is to share an intelligible map of this path.

The cultural field of societies is animated by a dual process of synchronization : — the perception of the individuals, about their present contextual settings, synchronizes with the historical worldview of their societies, thus generating their daily-culture — the historical worldview of society, that is shared by the individuals, synchronizes with the memes, that replicate in their daily-culture, thus generating the evolution of the historical worldview of their societies.

This dual path of synchronization operates outside of the individuals’ consciousness which explains the ubiquitous confusion about the meaning of concepts like culture, worldview, civilizations, society, and knowledge.

The fact is that in our present Late-Western-Modernity the societies of the West have lost their historical worldviews and their dual path of synchronization was thus abruptly interrupted which played a determinant role in their atomization, The gradual atomization of Western societies imperceptibly destroyed their national unity which resulted in their incapability to undertake successfully any large scale national project like fighting a virus for example, or helping their citizens to navigate the aftermath of a national catastrophe, or winning wars for that matter !

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2. The convergence of the societal dysfunction of Western societies + the multiple side-effects of Western-Modernity ⇒ predicament of humanity !

Multiple factors have gradually shifted Western societies in their present dysfunction. The different Volumes of this series are delving deep in these factors. I will thus not focus here on their emergence and their development. Let us simply observe that the dysfunction of their societies forces Western governance to adopt ever more totalitarian political responses that take the form of : — political correctness — the transformation of the media in the propaganda machine of the state — the militarization of police services — and most importantly the capture of elected political elites, by the administrative departments of state institutions, which are headed by highly skilled individuals who have been formed in the best universities of the world and, as such, are participating socially in “the Transnational Technocracy and the Capitalist Class” with their peers in Trans-National Corporations and in international organizations,

The transnational capitalist class is the characteristic institutional form of political transnational practices in the global capitalist system. Leslie Sklair analytically divided it into four main factions (1) :

Those who own the major transnational corporations (TNCs), and their local affiliates, have the ultimate power and with their servants, the managers of these corporations, they form the corporate faction ;

Globalizing politicians and bureaucrats (political faction);

Globalizing professionals (technical faction);

Merchants and media (consumerist faction).

Taken together, these groups constitute a global power-elite, or a world ruling class, in the sense that was traditionally used to characterize the class structures in nation-states. This implies that national state institutions have been taken over by a worldwide power whose ambition is to force the technical rationality of Western-Modernity to the states of all nations on earth and to their citizens. Leslie Sklair's appellation “the Transnational Technocracy and the Capitalist Class” addresses the sociological dimension of the imposition by this world ruling class of the technical rationality of Western-Modernity. But this does not address who are the men of power commanding its servants in the technocracy.

The 4 categories, mentioned by Leslie Sklair, are the servants of those who own and control the major “transnational corporations (TNCs) and their local affiliates (corporate faction)”. They are the Western big capital holders who command an army of technically skilled individuals serving, among other, as the managers of TNC's and the heads of the administrative departments of state institutions who, at this title, are capturing the political elites who have been designated through popular voting or through other means. This political faction is presently engineering the totalitarian responses, of Western nation-states, and these responses are being implemented by their designated political elites. But these totalitarian responses inevitably clash with the highly educated civil societies of the West who oppose what they perceive to have become a non-democratic and non-rational decision-making process.

But opposition comes not only from Western highly educated civil societies. The political elites of Non-Western-Countries are also resisting this Western dominated new world-order. The rallying, of the global South around China Russia and India, indicates that “the Transnational Technocracy and the Capitalist Class” did not succeed to impose the technical rationality of Western-Modernity to the whole world.

But what is this technical rationality of Western-Modernity ?

The knowledge paradigm of Western-Modernity emerged in the 12th century in the minds of Frankish long distance merchants. This knowledge paradigm reads as follows "the belief in the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation". Over the centuries this paradigm gradually transformed the Zeitgeist, or the spirit of the time, in a technical rationality that serves its outcome which is to grow the profits of the biggest capital holders so as to grow their accumulation of capital.

The Enlightenment consecrated philosophic rationalism and science, as the official instruments of the technical rationality of Modernity. It was the moment when the Zeitgeist focused the conception of national power on mercantilism in order to maximize the accumulation of capital by the national long distance merchants who were effectively the biggest holders of sterile money at the time. The aristocracy and the clergy came to the conclusion that the transformation, of the long distance merchants’ sterile money into capital, would achieve the success of the state and by the same token their own success.

The technical rationality, of “the reason” that is activate in the paradigm of Modernity, was dispersing slowly during the Early-Modernity of commercial capitalism, in the fields of commerce, banking, and among the intellectuals. The Enlightenment widely expanded its diffusion among the wealthy citizens who ultimately implemented the social and economic systems derived from the knowledge paradigm of Modernity.

In the wake of the silent revolution of the 1970’s, the technical rationality of Modernity got massively amplified with the assistance of the ideologies, of Neo-liberalism and postmodernism. But their ultimate failure transformed into the present totalitarian impulses, of state institutions, as has been put in evidence during the botched public responses to Covid-19 when everyone witnessed the departure of societies from the prescriptions of the technical rationality of Western-Modernity. Scientific publications now start to acknowledge as much by publishing papers about the affliction of Western citizens by the ravages, of so-called “mRNA vaccines”, that had been forced on them by too eager public decision-makers !

As a result the trust of the citizens in their institutions has vanished !

The complete loss of trust, by Western citizens in their institutions, has generated 2 forms of institutional adaptation :

The adaptation, of the operators, in the decision-making process of Western societal institutions.
Decision-making, by elected officials, is decisively turning into decision-making, by the technocracy of the states’ permanent administrations. Such a shift had been experimented for decades in the transnational institutions of the EU where decision-makers are non-elected officials who are designated by the council of chiefs of states. All in all we observe that public decision-making is turning into the hands of non-elected officials who are heading non-transparent institutions.

The adaptation, of the implementation, of the decisions taken by Western societal institutions.
The implementation of decisions in the spirit of the social-contract, that had been popularized by Enlightened philosophers like : — Thomas Hobbes — John Locke — Jean-Jacques Rousseau — and other, is now being turned over to the largely faceless administrative units of the state that recourse to penalties and ultimately to the brute force of a militarized police to squelch any velleity of disobedience
The political theories of the Enlightenment, that were in application over the last 2 centuries, justified political power and authority by arguing that it was in the individuals’ self-interest and so their rational consent demanded power and authority. The West has been arguing over and over, that individual self-interest and rational choice had terminated the barbaric state of nature, by replacing it with the technical rationality of societal governance by the people. In light of this how should we label today’s totalitarian enforcement, of the technical rationality of Western-Modernity by a non-representative technocracy ?

2.1. Dysfunction of Western societies

The Enlightenment consecrated the primacy of philosophic rationalism and of science which was the favored instrument of the capital holders. These instruments emerged from the spread of “the reason”, that is at work in the knowledge paradigm of Modernity, to the universities and to the burghers. Both the burghers, and the academics, extended “the reason” to everything there is under the sun and in the process they applied the scientific method to tinker solutions in order to produce imports substitutes that would satisfy the wish, of the 3 social and political estates, to escape the constant drainage of the national reserves of gold and silver.

From the get go the scientific method was thus the favored instrument of capital holders to increase their returns on investments. And so was organized the capture of the scientific method through the systematic financing of scientific research by the capital holders and their public and private servants. This conclusion is inescapable. Had capital holders and their servants not found a manifest interest in funding scientific research in universities there would have been no science to speak of today.

The readiness of funds and the demands, of capital holders for ever more specialized answers, confined scientists in the wells of their scientific departments from where they have been digging ever more specialized tunnels. But in this process science completely lost sight of “the Physical Order of the Universe” and of “the First Principles of Life” and it separated thus from the traditional animist notion of “knowledge pragmatism” that focused on : — the alleviation of individual suffering — the reproduction of societies over the long haul of many generations.

There is no doubt that science became ever more apt at discovering knowings, about the working of bits and pieces of reality in the here and now, that sustain an ever wider range of material productions. And it was the myriad of products on offer, in the market, that ultimately forged the incontestable popular success of Western-Modernity. But the fact is that this success came at the cost of accumulating multiple side-effects that caused an abrupt and accelerating mass-extinction of life on earth !

“The end-Permian extinction, the ‘mother of mass extinctions’ in the seas, was more of a faunal turnover than a mass extinction for insects. Insects’ current biotic crisis has been measured in terms of the loss of abundance and biomass (rather than the loss of species, genera, or families) and these are essentially impossible to measure in the fossil record. However, should the ongoing loss of insect abundance and biomass cause the demise of many insect families, the current extinction event may well be the first sudden loss of higher-level insect diversity in our planet’s history. This is not insects’ sixth mass extinction—in fact, it may become their first.” (2)

The convergence, of the multiple side-effects of Western-Modernity, is causing the extinction of insects and the extinction of insects offers a powerful case-study confirming that a great-convergence is well taking place between the numerous side-effects of Western-Modernity and the destabilization of the governance-world :

The convergence, of multiple side-effects of Western-Modernity, accelerates and amplifies their effects.

“ Here, we present a comprehensive review of 73 historical reports of insect declines from across the globe, and systematically assess the underlying drivers. Our work reveals dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction of 40% of the world's insect species over the next few decades.

… The main drivers of species’ declines appear to be in order of importance: i) habitat loss and conversion to intensive agriculture and urbanisation; ii) pollution, mainly that by synthetic pesticides and fertilisers; iii) biological factors, including pathogens and introduced species; and iv) climate change.

… There is compelling evidence that agricultural intensification is the main driver of population declines in unrelated taxa such as birds, insectivorous mammals and insects. In rural landscapes across the globe, the steady removal of natural habitat elements (e.g. hedgerows), elimination of natural drainage systems and other landscape features together with the recurrent use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides negatively affect overall biodiversity (Fuller et al., 1995; Newton, 2004; Tilman et al., 2001). Recent analyses point to the extensive usage of pesticides as primary factor responsible for the decline of birds in grasslands (Mineau and Whiteside, 2013) and aquatic organisms in streams (Beketov et al., 2013), with other factors contributing to or amplifying their effects to varying extent.“ (3)

The paralysis of the governance-world.

“The past 30 years of international politics have produced at least 32 reports, reviews and treaties looking to implement biodiversity targets (Buchanan et al., 2020; Johnson et al., 2017; Xu et al., 2021). Frustratingly, it is neither novel nor surprising to state that none of these efforts has actually resulted in reverse biodiversity loss trends or meaningful change in how we are exploiting the planet.

Intergovernmental institutions like the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity, the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020, The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) (2005) and the 2020 Aichi Targets have documented insect biodiversity decline, for decades (Forister et al., 2019). ... the combined efforts to respond to these declines has equivocated to “a lot of blah, blah, blah” but no effective response. There are strong economic arguments for an increased recognition that the natural world is both at risk and irreplaceable.” (4)

The “comprehensive review of 73 historical reports”, by Francisco Sánchez-Bayo and Kris A.G. Wyckhuys, concludes that multiple factors are at work that reinforce each other : — the conversion to industrial agriculture and urbanization caused an immense loss of habitat while accelerating the erosion of the top soils that contain the nutrients sustaining the flora and the fauna — the pollution by synthetic pesticides and fertilizers poisoned the earth, the water and the air — biological factors like pathogens and the introduction of new species destabilized the normal interactions of local species with their habitat — and climate change amplifies the impact of these causes.

But as Philip Donkersley writes, while the systems of societal governance recognize, that “the natural world is both at risk and irreplaceable” their “combined efforts to respond to these declines has equivocated to ‘a lot of blah, blah, blah’ ”. So while acknowledging, that the natural world is irreplaceable, the governance-world can’t implement any effective response to the problem !

2.1.1. Western citizens lost trust in the governance of their societies

Trust is the corner-stone that has traditionally sustained the reproduction of the institutions of power-societies over the generations. Today’s vanishing of trust, among the citizens, brings us back to the millennia, that preceded the emergence of power-societies in the TCA about 5,000 years ago, when the men of power were systematically unable to reproduce their institutions ! Let’s remember that it was the cooperation of the men of power, with men of knowledge having a large following, that finally fostered the reproduction of their institutions. In other words the sharing, of a common worldview by the citizens, is what ensured the rise of cities, kingdoms, and empires that eventually expanded their system of societal logic in civilizations spreading to the territory of multiple nations.

"The world’s first God-Emperor, who was not only the powerful ruler of the world’s first empire, but also the very first to be worshiped as a great god in the official state religion during his own lifetime, was the great Akkadian Emperor, Naram-Sin. He was a mighty warrior and conqueror, who ruled over the ends of the known world. His unequaled and mighty deeds were not only recorded on steles erected throughout the empire, but these deeds were also recounted in epic songs performed by court bards.

… Naram-Sin reigned during the latter part of the 3rd millennium BC in ancient Mesopotamia. After his massive victory during the Great Revolt that took place early in his reign, he was officially honored as one of the great gods of Sumer and Akkad, a great god who became manifest in the person of Naram-Sin. (5)

In Late-Western-Modernity Neoliberalism pushed hyper-consumerism while Postmodernism pushed the termination of grand narratives. As a result within a short few decades Western societies had abandoned their societal worldviews and the individuals' meaning of life had been reduced to consuming until obesity. The poverty of the mind resulting from such a program ended with rampant anxiety. The absence of any available answers to peoples' existential questions separated the people from one another and their anxiety turned into loneliness and distrust of societal authorities.

Today’s complete loss of trust, by Western citizens in their societal systems of governance and in their fellow-citizens, is by no means a small matter. It happens in a context of hyper-inequality, of societal atomization, and of the inability of Western nation-states to successfully undertake any large scale national projects like fighting a virus for example, or helping the citizens recover from a natural catastrophe, or winning a 3rd World-War for that matter !

In this context nobody agrees to answer the call of distrusted decision-makers. Only individuals, who have been excluded for years from a decent income, have nothing to lose and could thus eventually think of taking on a soldering job. But these individuals are generally unfit for the job as was demonstrated in a recent study by the Pentagon :

“...77% of young Americans would not qualify for military service without a waiver due to being overweight, using drugs or having mental and physical health problems”. (6)

The fittest, in all societies, come from the top richest 10-20% of the population. Their minds received the best education while their bodies were given the best nutrition. But the probability that they would enlist, in the present Western context of distrust to fight for their nation, is near zero.

The 77% who, the military says, are unfit come from the poorest, at the bottom of the social ladder, who represent 50 to 70% of the population.

It should not come as a surprise that, in light, of the desecration of the social contract by rampant distrust, the highest Western military leaders are opposing major conflicts with peer competitors. In the present economic and social context, of their nations, their simulations give America as the looser of any big conflict. Their opposition to lead their soldiering kids, to an inevitable butchery, is commendable but this begs the question if they will have the wherewithal to resist the eschatological drive of their political decision-makers to unleash barbarity to try to keep their power ?

The fact is that Western big capital holders, and their technical servants, are the real decision-makers and they view the rise of China and the turning of the public opinions in most countries on earth, from TINA to TIDAA, as an existential threat to their further accumulation of capital. The other obvious fact is that the axioms of their civilization, and their societal worldview, are formatting their minds to view “the otherness” of “the other” as an existential threat. Both these facts explain why having a reasoned conversation, with the technocracy that manages Western-Modernity, has become a loss of time.

But, as our recent history has amply demonstrated, while they have the power to decide the ultimate path of their nation, they can’t change its Zeitgeist, which explains why all their initiatives against their adversaries are always ending in disaster.

2.1.2. From hyper-inequality to societal atomization

I have always appreciated the intellectual depth of the writings of Karl Marx. But while I started to write this series it appeared ever more evident in my mind that Marx’s thinking was a pure product of Western-Modernity. And as such it was logical that his Judaeo-Christian revolutionary morality would have rooted for the defense of the down-trotted.

Marx focused thus on the dualism of Western-Modernity that is at work in the social relations between : — the capital holders on one side — and their slaves on the other side. In the context of mid 19th century the slaves were primarily blue color workers so Marx’s projected his radicalism on the proletariat who was essentially composed of blue collar factory workers..

Being an acute observer of the reality of his time we can be sure that, if Marx had been living until today, he would have adapted his definition to the changing economic context.

The biggest owners of the capital, of Trans-National Corporations and of their national affiliates, form the capitalist class while the proletariat includes all those who receive a salary, or a remuneration, in exchange for their labor which is the case of both blue and white collar workers as well as independent workers. But Marx would not have gone as far as adding the mass of scientists to the proletariat.

Growing up in the first part of the 19th century, when science got separated in specialized departments, he lost touch with the traditional approach that knowledge is rooted in “the physical order of the universe” and “the First Principles of Life”. This traditional approach of knowledge studied humanity in its physical whole and in the continuum of its societal cultural field. Following this approach the study, of the working of societies in the 19th century, would have searched to comprehend how “the belief in the reason, that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a process of capital accumulation”, emerged in the first place and how it evolved into the normality of a totalitarian technical rationality.

In contrast the specialization of science, in the wake of the Enlightenment, positioned humanity in the context of the day that had gotten separated from the order of the universe and from the evolution of society.

Comprehending humanity’s condition, in the optics of science, was thus best derived from the separation of its parts. This is what Marx and the other classical economists did. But their focus, on the social and economic aspects of humanity's condition, hid the big picture of Western-Modernity in their minds. Marx concentrated thus his attention on the dualism of capital holders (owners) versus workers (slaves). These dual opposites animated his deconstruction and this is how his views shifted away from the traditional system of knowledge formation that focused on the paradigm of the system and its logic of development. Stuck in Western-Modernity Marx failed to comprehend that it was the 2nd development phase of power-societies and without knowing it he subscribed to the technical rationality that emerged from its knowledge paradigm.

Sociologists and politologists who study the distribution, of our present world’s wealth, are following in the path of Marx' failure and they are focusing on the dualism 'power versus people' without understanding what is the paradigm of the system and the ontology of its logic of development.

Sociological studies of the distribution of the world's wealth fail to measure the input by capital holders in the investments of the world’s largest funds and "Asset Management Firms" (AMF's) for the good reason that they are not legally obligated to publish the names of their depositors. So they are solely acting the managers of the funds and AMF's as their capital holders !

The Swiss Federal Institute published a study (7) in 2011 that analyzed the different forms of ownership in 43,060 trans-national corporations (TNCs). Its researchers found that some 1,318 companies form the core of the global economy while 147 control 40% of their total wealth and the top 25, among these 147, are the world’s top "Asset Management Firms", and they concluded that these 25 can “be thought of as an economic ‘super-entity’ in the global network of corporations”.

“The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability. So far, only small national samples were studied and there was no appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the architecture of the international ownership network, along with the computation of the control held by each global player.

We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic “super-entity” that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers.”

By pointing to the role of "Asset Management Firms" as the real decision makers, the authors, of the study by the Swiss Federal Institute, were hiding the role of the minority, of capital holders, who owns the controlling stake of their capital and of their voting rights

The real owners, of the assets invested by asset management firms, are not only hidden their investments outside of those asset management firms are also invisible in the study.

In the Western globalized world those who own a controlling stake of the world's capital base, or world wealth, are the masters of the universe :

Credit Suisse puts the total global wealth as of mid 2017 at $280 trillion

Peter Phillips puts the total world wealth in 2017 at 255 Trillion US dollars (8) Phillips further states that some 66% of this wealth is owned by EU and US capital holders! This shows how the weight, of past capital accumulation, is still weighing so heavily on the present reality...

Leslie Sklair (9) sheds some light on these figures by clarifying their underlying social texture.
Sklair does not subscribe to a classification of power under the label of “technocracy”. He writes that the ownership of the invested capital is the defining character of “transnational capitalism” and classifies the men of power as an “Transnational Capitalist Class” that divides into four main factions :
- 3.1. Owners and controllers :
  Big capital holders do not generally invest their capital in their own names. A big chunk, of their investments, is managed by large AMF's that act as controllers for the owners who remain hidden…
  Seen that the real owners of the capital remain hidden sociological studies focus on : — the managers of the assets management firms (funds) — the managers of the Trans-National Corporations.
  These asset management firms are thus presented as the “super-entities” whose managers are the masters of the universe. This is how they get surreptitiously classified as the controllers at the top of the technocracy ladder.
- 3.2. Globalizing bureaucrats and politicians :
  Those who write the rules of the globalized game and implement their execution.
- 3.3. Globalizing professionals :
  The managers of the corporations that have received investments by capital holders or by their controllers.
- 3.4. Consumerist elites :
  The scientists who search for knowings that corporations can transform into products. The designers and public relations specialists who customize and package the products. And the merchant networks that buy and sell the goods of the corporations and spreads the ideology of hyper-individualism and hyper-consumerism.

Because the real owners of the capital, that is managed by AMF's, are hidden behind a veil of secrecy sociological studies, about the distribution of the world’s wealth, face a dilemma. They can’t quantify the wealth of the biggest capital holders who are hidden behind the legal right of the AMF's to not identify them. So researchers are thus inclined to align their quantification of strategic capital holdings with the managers of the “Asset Management Firms”. But this practice is not only evading the naming, of the world's biggest capital holders, it is also denaturing the reality of the ownership of capital.

The hidden reality, of the capital ownership of our globalized world, suggests a deliberate strategy to hide not only the identity of the real men of power but also their secret strategy of spreading the technical rationality of Western-Modernity to all aspects of life throughout the world !

The fact is that the biggest capital holders are owning the system of Western-Modernity and their decisions are being implemented, throughout the system, by their servants who form the “technocracy”. So logic suggests that we assemble the capital holders and the technocracy as the implementers of the forcing the conversion of the national populations to the technical rationality of Western-Modernity.

In light of this I personally divide the world population into 4 social classes :

The masters are the biggest capital holders.

The capital holders and the technocracy form the modern class of "free individuals", who are, in order of importance :
- 1.1. The Transnational Capitalist Class (TCC) of the owners/managers of Trans-National Corporations (TNC’s).
  
  At the top of the TCC are the owners, of the assets managed by top “Asset Management Firms” (AMF’s), who control both these firms and the most strategic part of all the world’s wealth.
  As mentioned here above the 2011 study, by the Swiss Federal Institute, shows that among the 43,060 TNCs some 1,318 form the core of the global economy while 147 control 40% of their total wealth and the top 25 among these 147 are the world’s top asset management firms.
  
  These 25 top AMF’s control thus a very significant portion of the capital invested in TNC’s. But more importantly those TNC’s are the most strategically important creators of novelty which attracts speculation. Unknown capital owners have the strategic control of the voting rights in the AMF’s. This gives them the strategic advantage of deciding what TNC’s will get the investments of their AMF’s.
  
  But these unknown capital owners are also outsourcing the control of other portions of their assets to other channels which implies not only that their identified investments are largely undervalued but that their strategic positioning procures them : — a disproportionate share in the profits of the TNC’s — a disproportionate power in the governance of the technical rationality of Western-Modernity.
  
  In sum unknown capital holders are controlling the TCC by detaining the strategic voting rights in :
  - The AMF’s
  - Other investment vehicles like those that are active in the take-over of nature under the guise of greening the world (10)
  - Family funds
  - Personal investments
- 1.2. The managers of International organizations >
- 1.3. The elected national politicians and the managers of state institutions
- 1.4. The managers of national corporations and the chief scientists managing the most important research projects.
The class of non-free workers = the modern slaves

The modern slaves are the white and blue collar workers, as well as the mass of independent workers, who receive a monetary stipend to cover their costs and their daily-life expanses. Their job is limited to the execution of orders while their daily-life is limited to subsistence.

Technologists and futurists are presently filling the media with prognostications about the threat, to the jobs of these modern slaves, by Artificial Intelligence and robotics.

The useless class

The citizens who don’t belong to the technocracy, nor to the non-free workers, are socially forgotten souls who Yuval Harari designates under the appellation of “the global useless class”. (11)

A new class of refuseniks is fleeing the system for building their daily-life autonomy

More and more citizens are tired of the technical rationality of Western-Modernity and they are fed up by its outcome on society and on the habitat of life. They no longer are interested to participate in a societal game that is rigged by unknown men of power and by the absence of (wo)men of knowledge. Over the last decade they have been fleeing en masse to remote corners (12) that had been abandoned by former free farmers who converted to modern slavery.

Sociologists ignore these refuseniks so we do not dispose of quantitative studies to appreciate the societal weight that they could represent. Their way of life nevertheless suggests an interesting question.

Will the useless class and the refuseniks eventually join hands to build self-sufficient localized tribes that offer an alternative to the technical rationality of Western-Modernity ?

What is scary in the technical rationality of Western-Modernity is that it is causing the abrupt acceleration of the convergence, of Artificial Intelligence and of robotics, that announces the demise of non-free jobs which implies that the “global useless class” could, very soon represent the majority of all citizens !

And what is even more scary is the thought that the convergence, of Artificial Intelligence and robotics, could lead to a near future when the the masters and their technocracy remains the sole surviving class. At first sight this idea sounds foolish. But after further contemplation it appears that this scenario would cut the world population to some 10 % of its present total which, over the longer term, would assuredly facilitate the sustainability of life on earth. But in the meantime the transition from ‘here and now’ to ‘there and then’ would be very difficult indeed.

Having said this it is indisputable that the technical rationality of Western-Modernity, in conjunction with philosophic rationalism and science, have divided humanity in two classes of “have’s” and “have’s not”. There was a time when maximum exploitation, of the rest of the world, sucked resources and profits which boosted the liquidity of Western countries and as a result a large middle-class separated the “have’s” and the “have’s not” thus maintaining the illusion that Western societies were sustainable.

But the greed of Western capital holders and their silent revolution of the 1970’s changed all this. The “have’s not” saw their incomes stagnate over the last 50 years while the “have’s” arrogated the near entirety of the increases in national productivity for their own profit as is illustrated in the 2 graphs hereunder.

Growth in Productivity and in Average Hourly Compensation (13)

Cumulative growth of wages of top 1% and bottom 90% (14)

The first graph indicates that, between 1972 and 1975, the workers’ hourly wages disconnected from the national productivity while the second graph indicates that, by 1980, the near totality of increases in national productivity went to the 1%. But how could such a world-changing transformation have occurred in the first place ?

To answer this question I propose, here under, the excellent AI synthesis, given by Perplexity search to my questions. I lightly customized its wording in order to make it fit in the continuum of this text. To avoid any confusion I start and terminate the AI quotations with a red horizontal line.

President Nixon's decision, to end the convertibility of the US dollar to gold in 1971, disconnected workers' wages and national productivity with the following consequences :

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Source 01 : "Nixonomics in Retrospect: Devaluation and Wage-Price Controls, August 15, 1971" American Institute for Economic Research, by Alan Reynolds. 2021-08-18.
Source 02 : “Remembering Nixon’s Wage and Price Controls", CATO Institute, by Gene Healy. 2011-08-16.
Source 03 : "How the ‘Nixon Shock’ Remade the World Economy", Yale School of Management. Interview of Jeffrey E. Garten by Ted O'Callahan. 2021-07-21.
Source 04 : "What Is the Nixon Shock? Definition, What Happened, and Aftereffects", Investopedia, by Will Kenton, reviewed by Robert C. Kelly. 2024-02-28.
Source 05 : "Learn from ‘Nixon shock’—control central bankers, limit ability to debase currency", Frazer Institude. Appeared in National Newswatch, by Robert P. Murphy. 2021-08-13.
Source 06 : "When America Remade the World Economy", Project Syndicate, by Jeffrey E. Garten.2021-08-13.
Source 07 : "Nixon Ends Convertibility of U.S. Dollars to Gold and Announces Wage/Price Controls", Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, by Sandra Kollen Ghizoni, 1971-08.

Decoupling of wages from productivity

Prior to 1971, workers' wages were keeping pace with increases in national productivity. However, with the Nixon Shock, prices and wages got controlled and the relationship, between wages and productivity gains, began to breakdown. The end of the gold standard had furthermore allowed for more flexible monetary policies, which contributed to the divergence between wage growth and productivity gains.

Increased inflation

Abandoning the gold standard led to a period of high inflation in the 1970s that eroded the purchasing power of workers' wages, even if their nominal wages increased. As a result, real wage growth accentuated the lag behind productivity growth.

Shift in income distribution

The new monetary system, that emerged after the Nixon Shock, facilitated a redistribution of income. Financial speculators and those with access to credit were better positioned to benefit from the inflationary environment, while regular wage earners often fell behind

Global competition

The end of fixed exchange rates made it easier for companies to outsource production and compete globally. This put downward pressure on wages in many industries, further contributing to the disconnect between wages and productivity

Financialization of the economy

The move to a fiat currency system encouraged the growth of the financial sector. This shift diverted a larger share of economic gains towards financial activities rather than wage increases for workers in the productive sectors of the economy.

Monetary policy focus

With the ability to print money more freely, the Federal Reserve's policies began to have a more significant impact on the economy. This sometimes led to prioritizing inflation control over full employment, which could suppress wage growth.

Increased economic volatility

The new monetary system introduced more volatility into the economy, with periods of boom and bust. This made it more challenging to maintain a stable relationship between wages and productivity.

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The Nixon Shock was the beginning of a new era. Workers' wages and gains in national productivity got disconnected which contributed to increased income inequality while ensuring the triumph of the capital holders over the working class.

This rise in social inequality was also accompanied by the rise of Neo-liberal economic policies and of Postmodernism in daily-culture. In the meantime, under the umbrella of the US military, capital holders expanded their field of intervention to the whole world. This explains why the US accumulated over 800 military bases worldwide which gradually increased its annual budget deficits. And the cumulation, of these budget deficits, explains the present debt of the federal government at some $US 35 Trillion !

The rise of Neo-liberal policies, and postmodernism in the United States from the 1970s onward, led to substantial cultural changes throughout the Western world :

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Source 01 : "Neoliberal Culture / the Cultures of Neoliberalism", Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies. New Series. Vol 12 No 1 · 2015, by Jennifer Lawn & Chris Prentice.
Source 02 : "Neoliberalism, Technology and the Creation of Postmodern Culture", Political Critique, by Matt McManus. 2018-07-16.
Source 03 : "Culture and Neoliberalism: Raymond Williams, Friedrich Hayek, and the New Legacy of the Cultural Turn", Mediations. Volume 34, No. 2: Realism and the Dialectic, by Racheal Fest.
Source 04 : "Postmodernism, Neoliberalism and Civil Society: A Critique of the Development Strategies in the Era of Globalisation", The Indian Journal of Political Science. Volume 62. Number 3. 2001, by K.M. Seethi.
Source 05. "The Politics of Privatization: How Neoliberalism Took Over US Politics", United for a Fair Economy, by Brett Heinz. 2017-09-08.
Source 06. "New York City and the path to neoliberalism in the 1970s", Oxford University Press, by Benjamin Holtzman, at al. 2021-06-08.
Source 07. "The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era", Oxford University Press. 2022-04. By Gary Gerstle.

Individualism and personal responsibility

Neoliberalism emphasizes individual freedom and personal responsibility over collective solidarity. This shift manifested in a cultural move away from communal values towards a more individualistic ethos.

Market-driven thinking

Neoliberal ideology promoted the idea of applying market principles to all aspects of life. This led to a cultural shift where economic considerations began to dominate areas previously seen as separate from the market, such as education, healthcare, and even personal relationships.

Consumerism

The focus on free markets and deregulation fueled a consumer culture, where personal identity became increasingly tied to consumption patterns and brand affiliations.

Erosion of labor power

As Neo-liberal policies weakened unions and labor protections, there was a cultural shift away from viewing work as a source of collective identity and solidarity, towards seeing it primarily as a means of individual advancement.

Skepticism towards grand narratives

The rejection by Postmodernism, of foundational stories that explain the working of reality, contributed to a cultural climate of skepticism towards traditional institutions and ideologies while the individuals were encouraged to focus on the here and now, of bits and pieces of reality, at the image of science.

Diversity and multiculturalism

Postmodernism emphasized diverse perspectives and experiences that helped to foster a greater acceptance of multiculturalism and identity politics in American society.

Fragmentation of culture

Both Neo-liberalism and postmodernism contributed to a fragmentation of cultural experiences. As a result niche markets and subcultures proliferated.

Financialization of everyday life

Neo-liberal policies led to the increased importance of financial markets in daily life, changing cultural attitudes towards debt, investment, and financial risk-taking.

Globalization

The Neo-liberal emphasis on free trade and open borders accelerated globalization, leading to cultural exchanges and hybridization on an unprecedented scale.

Decline of public institutions

There was a cultural shift away from valuing public institutions of solidarity. Neo-liberal policies promoted their privatization in the hands of private interests and corporate-controlled alternatives.

Emphasis on flexibility and adaptability

The Neo-liberal labor market demanded workers who were flexible and adaptable, leading to a culture that prized these qualities over stability and long-term commitments.

Rise of entrepreneurial culture

The focus of Neo-liberalism on individual initiative fostered a cultural celebration of entrepreneurship and start-up culture.

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Under the assault, of Neo-liberalism and postmodernism, the inequality that had set-in after the disconnection, of the workers’ wages from the gains in productivity, continued to growth while all Western grand narratives were entering in free fall. Postmodernism guided the individuals to focus on the technical aspects of bits and pieces of reality at the image of science. What ensued was a fragmentation of groups of interests that gave rise to feminism, gay rights, fat beauty, and so on and on, whose causes Western institutions then hijacked to promote their model of “democracy and human rights” against “the other” models whom they painted as autocracies that had no concern for the individuals.

This process occurred in parallel to the pauperization of ever larger segments of Western societies. And by the year 2,000 these societies had not only lost their shared worldview they had also reached levels of inequality that had never been attained earlier in the history of Western-Modernity. Pauperization is generally accompanied by social movements of opposition against governmental policies but the dramatic fall in prices, of daily use commodities in provenance of China and other Southern countries, more than compensated the loss of income from the disconnection of wages from national productivity gains. Consumerism jumped to unimaginable levels and this contained the social anger that should otherwise have accompanied the disconnection of wages from national productivity gains.

These cultural and societal changes were not uniform across all segments of society and they often met with resistance and critique. However, from the 1970s to the present, these changes dramatically reshaped the Western cultural landscape influencing everything from personal values and social relationships to political discourses and economic behaviors. It is in this particular social context of pauperization of the lowest social strata, of wild consumerism by the middle-class and of the fast rising incomes of the 1%, that the first decade of the 21st century got overwhelmed by mobile phones then by social media.

The disconnection of wages from productivity gains, coupled with the rise of Neo-liberalism and postmodernism, set the stage for significant societal changes in Western societies. The advent of mobile phones and social media in the early 21st century further accelerated these trends, leading to a profound atomization of Western societies :

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Source 01 : "The spreading process of social atomization", Culturico, by Simone Redaelli. 2019-03-01.
Source 02 : "On the atomization of human experience & the factory of privatized stress in the individualized self-care economy", AQNB, by Darius Sabbaghzadeh. 2020-10-06.
Source 03: "The Age of Atomization", Tech Policy Press, by Flynn Coleman. 2023-05-05.
Source 04: "The role of mobile devices and social media in human-nature interactions", Geoforum, vol. 122, pp. 55-62., by Arts Irma, Fischer Anke, Duckett Dominic, Van Der Wal René. 2021-03-09.
Source 05. "Social Media Algorithms Warp How People Learn from Each Other. Social media companies’ drive to keep you on their platforms clashes with how people evolved to learn from each other", Scientific American. 2023-08-25. By William Brady & The Conversation US.

Hyper-individualism :

Mobile devices and social media platforms intensified the focus on individual experiences and self-expression, further eroding collective identities and shared narratives.

Digital echo chambers :

Social media algorithms created personalized information bubbles, reinforcing existing beliefs and limiting exposure to diverse perspectives, thus fragmenting society into isolated ideological groups

Attention economy :

The constant stream of notifications and content on mobile devices led to shorter attention spans and a culture of instant gratification, making sustained engagement with complex societal issues more challenging.

Virtualization of relationships :

While social media expanded networks, it often replaced deeper, face-to-face interactions with superficial digital connections, contributing to a sense of social isolation despite increased connectivity.

Commodification of social interactions :

Social media platforms monetized user data and engagement, turning social relationships into marketable commodities that further entrenched neoliberal logic in personal spheres.

Erosion of public spaces :

As people spent more time on devices, physical public spaces lost their role as sites of community interaction and civic engagement.

Acceleration of cultural turnover :

The rapid spread of information and trends on social media platforms led to an even faster cycle of cultural change, making it difficult for stable, long-term cultural identities to form.

Fragmentation of shared experiences :

The proliferation of personalized content and on-demand media reduced common cultural touchstones, further atomizing society.

Performative individualism :

Social media encouraged the curation of personal "brands" which led to a culture of performative individualism that masked underlying anxieties and insecurities.

Weakening of traditional institutions :

As individuals turned to online communities and influencers for guidance and information, traditional societal institutions like churches, unions, and local community organizations further declined in influence.

Gig economy facilitation :

Mobile technology enabled the rise of the gig economy, further atomizing work experiences and eroding traditional employment structures.

Privacy erosion :

The constant digital connectivity led to a blurring of public and private spheres, contributing to a sense of vulnerability and isolation.

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Digital technologies accelerated the atomization of Western societies. This was made possible by the complex interplay of technological innovation with the individualistic market-driven ethos of Neo-liberalism and the skepticism towards grand narratives characteristic of postmodernism. While offering unprecedented levels of connectivity and access to information to the individuals, this digital revolution poses significant challenges to societal cohesion, shared societal values, and collective action.

This has created a paradoxical situation where individuals are more connected than ever digitally while they are increasingly isolated in their physical and emotional experiences. As a result societies fragmented to the point of societal atomization. Despite the apparent ease, of digital communication, collective action and shared understanding have become far more challenging to say the least and daily life forces us to recognize that in many cases collective action and shared understanding have become impossible !

In light of the theory of cultural evolution through synchronization, that I propose in this Volume 1, societal atomization appears to be one of the major side-effects of Western-Modernity. Not only does it hinder a common understanding, of how our species lost track of its existential dependence on “the physical order of the Universe” and on “the First Principles of Life”, it more importantly distracts us from the necessity of agreeing on how to resolve our present predicament .

2.2. Side-effects of Western-Modernity and the great convergence.

A multitude of side-effects have been generated by Western-Modernity and they are also converging, and interacting among themselves thus accelerating their individual outcomes and weaving new combinations of deleterious effects.

Here follows a graph that sums up the side-effects of Western-Modernity and the impact of their convergence with the dysfunction of Western societies. For more on the subject see “Modernity02. Part 2. The Great convergence”