There’s a claim that a post scarcity society would be a utopia. I’m all for that and it would be an improvement to what we have but I believe that’s not enough. That without a change of the mind we’ll see discontentment, violence and colonialism persist. I don’t believe violence is a natural part of life and it wasn’t like this everywhere or all through time. I believe it is a man made problem traceable to certain beliefs and conditions.
When the European first arrived in the Americas they found an amazing free world unlike anything they had ever seen before. Many were fleeing destitution, poverty and homelessness. Many were able to secure for themselves the security of food and housing but yet violence and colonialism continued even up to this day. How could there be violence and war when all had enough? What causes this?
I have a theory that the root source of much of our problems in society are based on our identity of self and horizontal thinking versus hierarchical or vertical thinking.
In short, as an example, insecure vertical thinking Europeans arrived in the Americas and saw a paradise of secure people who had horizontal thinking and a place where all their subsistence needs could be met. When they arrived, all of their subsistence needs were met but that was not enough because of how they viewed themselves and how others view them. This insecurity caused destruction and still does.
Remember, there was no poverty or homelessness in all of the Americas before the Europeans arrived.
Thomas Paine in Agrarian Justice remarked in the late 1700s:
“To understand what the state of society ought to be it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is at this day among the Indians of North America.
There is not, in that state, any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe.
Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It does not exist in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science and manufactures.
The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared with the poor of Europe; and, on the other hand it appears to be abject when compared to the rich.
Civilization, therefore, or that which is so-called, has operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.” — Thomas Paine in Agrarian Justice
In other words, we know that there is a difference between the life of the natives who appeared to own little but had higher quality of life and at the exact same time in history the lives of millions in societies in Europe who had constant misery and destitution. We see that poverty and the misery it creates could be eliminated in even the most primitive societies.
It’s not an accident and it’s not inevitable.
Star Trek didn’t delve too deep into a future social or economic model but it’s not impossible to imagine our world being post scarcity living in abundance with a few small changes but that might not be enough without also addressing the European mindset.
The answer, I believe, lies in the lifestyle of the Native Americans pre-colonization.
The problem starts at the arrival of the Europeans.
Imagine, you are born in a society that calls you garbage by birth. Little to no hope of climbing up out of destitution, poverty and slavery. There are royals who are better than you. There are priests who can talk to god but not you. There are lords and barons with land and wealth but not you. Your position in life is to work for your better or your lord. Every day you are verbally reminded you are garbage by society and others. But praise the lord for giving you the opportunity to work for him instead of starve!
How you feel about yourself is connected with your position in life. Your self esteem is based on external factors mostly out of your control.
Then one day you hear someone finds a new world. A free domain. Not a kings domain.
In the new world ANYONE can own their own land like the kings and the nobles (and like all humans before the enclosure movement). You look at your life and decide to risk a trip to this new world. You are NOT going to accept that your purpose or destiny is servitude to a psychopath. You are going to improve your lot in life!
So you book passage to the new world and in exchange you work as a deck hand for the trip.
For months you are on a crowded ship. But finally you arrive in the new world. Beautiful rich tropical land full of plants and animals.
One day the sky is blackened and you are afraid but only for a second. You realize the sky is crowded with millions of birds. So many when they perch tree branches break (this was true). There’s vegetation everywhere and forests are full of life. There’s millions upon millions of giant furry cows called buffalo roaming across vast plains of grass, where one would feed you for a month. There is abundance everywhere.
There’s no rent, there’s no one demanding payment for this or that or people harassing you for taxes to the king. There’s no one telling you verbally or with a scowl, how to live and telling you that you are worse than them or that they are better than you.
You can put up a cabin in a few days (this was true) and claim 100 - 200 acres of land as your own. There is enough land for an agrarian life but enough game that you didn’t need it.
But not all is settled in your soul. You still believe your worth is tied with what you own or with your position in relation to others. You still have vertical thinking. You still compare yourself to others, as who is better or superior or who is worse or inferior. You’re feelings about yourselves are at times moved by external forces. Your identity is still insecure.
Then you meet some of these natives that you’ve heard about. You talk with them one night over a camp fire. They say everyone is equal. No one man is better than another. All have access to the Earth. Nature provides for all. You exist just like the plants exist. You are here.
You have intrinsic value. You don’t have to prove yourself. …although at the coming of age you may have to prove your skills or prove your courage but that is once. You still have your value no matter what you do or what you own. You start to understand your intrinsic value.
No one is better than you or worse than you.
You feel good because you are alive! Not because of a position. Your self esteem is solid and not moved by external forces! You start to have a healthy horizontal thinking and a secure healthy self esteem.
And you realize the source of that insatiable discontent was in not seeing your intrinsic worth. In knowing you are enough and others knowing they are enough and knowing your worth and value in yourself. Not because of anything you’ve done but because of who you are. In that moment you know don’t need all those things to be happy, or fulfilled. You are enough as you are.
You have basic needs met. You are food secure, you are housing secure and you are identity secure.
But others arrive and they don’t value the Earth or others. They see only resources for the taking and those in the way. They are still existing in an insecure, scarcity mindset. And they and armies, of peoples and refugees from broken societies arrive in millions.
Note: I know if horizontal thinking, an open commons and UBI would solve everything. But I think in a better scenario, both the person and the people in society would have a better view of each.
In the European feudal and aristocracies they literally valued and devalued each other by position in life. In the better scenario, society would value the person and the person would value themselves no matter their position.
Comments on colonialism,
“Why are humans so violent? About 10,000 years ago is when we start to see our first god king and we start to see our first stratification of society. What we see is the need for one group of people to maintain power by forcing submission on another group of people and we see the start of land ownership. Before that we see territory like we see in all animals but territory wasn’t the idea of owning the land it was the idea of taking what I need in this time and letting others take what they need in the time.” — en Widda Ord
In summary, it’s my belief that the personal and social insecurity, being denied the rights to subsistence (a closed commons), a lack of valuing life and a lack of valuing things in life as sacred contribute to the history of insatiate-able over consumption and violence seem repeatedly over and over and over again. And we are learning this is historically evident.
