What threatens us is our own cultivation of controlled disorder. We can't stop this process, because the state, in the form of liberal democracy, short-circuits any possible consideration of the most simple and obvious solution-- a national sovereign. There's only one country in which a sovereign could do any good for the world, and that's US. But we're stuck with a ritualistic, quadrennial appointment of a temp-sovereign who has no power to resist the forces of the market. Under capitalism, the rational choice for the greater public good is whatever encourages accumulation, like imperialism and racism and hostility to labor and the environment, and all the rest of it. So this is what people vote for. To the extent that the systrem is running in the black, we can afford to steer it a little left. But as soon as the corporations start seeing red, it's another hard-right. Now Doug, for instance, could lead us to the promised land. So could Yoshie or Kelley or Carroll or Charles. I happen to disagree with Max about how to deal with the WTO, but that's no problem, because as divine sovereign, he could simply crush it under his pinky toe, and there goes our little, tactical disagreement. What bliss. I completely relate to Hobbes. But that route is not open to us. Instead, we have to watch while yet another slave of capital gets elected to four years of subverting the leviathan to the needs of private profit.
And we keep deluding ourselves that we can bring about signficant change through political action and electoral democracy. The revolution is supposed to be about joining hands with each other and moving as one against the citadels of power. Problem is, we're trying to join hands with people who walk on all fours. They like it that way. It's the easy, unreflective, selfish way. Hobbes would say it's human nature. But human nature is consciousness. Human nature begins with reflection and self-understanding. It's self-expression in the form of work, which makes us the masters of our lives and the stewards of our planet. It's not in our nature to follow the herd. This is a reversion to the underlying animal nature. It's an atavism, a biologically remembered trait from eons ago. These people are chewing grass. They like the grass. It's easy to chew, and tastes good. The left wants them to go over yonder, to the neighbor's field. But the grass over there tastes terrible, and it's hard to swallow. It's not just work-buy-consume-die anymore. Now it's work-organize-protest-get pepper sprayed. This is all wrong! We just want to get fattened up for the slaughter. What's all this weird stuff?
The revolution can't be made out of persuasion and agitation. You don't reason with a herd. We'll get people to join our movement only if they perceive that they will materially benefit. This is the basis of unionization drives. Yet unions work within the context of the capitalist economy. Revolution does not come from petitioning the master for more benefits. The kind of change we desire cannot occur as long as we are dependent on the great corporations for our well-being. Henry Adams said it best: "The monied interest *can't help* winning and running the country. There is no other interest competent to run a hand cart." We need to create another interest. We need to step out of the marketplace and cultivate what James O'Connor calls a "new commons." We need a public commons which is simultaneously a non-market economy internally and a profitable and expanding network of businesses externally. The revolution must accumulate capital.
Our society needs a sovereign ruler, to put things right. In our case, it cannot take the form of a king. It can only be the new commons, which siphons off customers and employees from corporations and gradually remakes the economy and the state in its own image.
Ted