We agreed that it is possible to execute it via an existing political system structure. The only necessary thing is to motivate these elites to accept the education-based strategy. At the current moment, their motivation is still consumption-oriented – globalization of business industries, more totalistic system, more power. It is a necessary action to step up closer to the new system strategy.
How should we start the system transformation? Should we go into some details? It’s probably something where we are not authorized to go into details, as we don’t know the facts; we just assume the corporation-based economics system principles – elites.
Translated from Greek, oligarchy means the power of the few. Contrasting oligarchy with democracy, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle considered it a degenerate form of aristocracy. If we turn to history, the most real oligarchs were the famous “robber barons” in the United States. This is how the New York Times called new American businessmen back in the 1850s; the metaphor referred to the medieval knights who charged tolls for passage past their castles on the Rhine banks. They were the first oligarchs. The nickname stuck and “robber barons” are now called those who in the 19th century created massive industrial and transport empires.
What is power in general and the power of the oligarchs in particular? Let’s take the classical definition of the well-known sociologist Max Weber. Power is any possibility, no matter what it is based on, of realizing one’s own will in a given social relation, even against opposition. Of course, the oligarchs have the means at their disposal to exercise their power. These are mainly economic means, the power of money or the power over minds, possible through the mass media at the oligarchs’ disposal. As the economy stabilizes and the legal system strengthens, oligarchs become what prominent businessmen should be in a developed democratic society.
Oligarchs can be classified as a functional economic and financial elite, which develops gradually and assumes essential social system functions. Economically the oligarchs are extremely useful. The following little analysis may convince you of this. Basically, the “robber barons” made their fortunes operating the railroads, and the successful development of this industry would have been impossible without government subsidies and free land distributions. Accordingly, the railroads’ first owners made enormous profits (the so-called monopoly rent) from their privileged position.
The exploitation of natural resources and associated rents is the primary source of oligarchic capital worldwide. A number of oligarchs also emerged from people who took possession of large enterprises and invested a lot of money. These investments were very significant by any standards. And in the end, it turned out that only the oligarchs could breathe new life into these companies. As time has shown, giant enterprises can have big problems without the influence of oligarchs when it comes to development. The problem is that the oligarchs spend enormous sums of money trying to secure the rights to the property they own as much as possible, thereby spawning corruption.
The best way to counter this process is to guarantee everyone, including the oligarchs, the inviolability of their property rights. The possible negative public reaction to such a decision could be partially mitigated by imposing additional taxes on the oligarchs or forcing them to donate substantial funds to charitable causes. In the end, the choice to accept or not the oligarchs belongs to the realm of pure ideology. Can we accept the existence of the very rich?
The inextricable connection between wealth and power, economy and politics, has always existed. In fact, with the development of the economy, this connection provided the opportunity to increase the military and political influence of any state. The intended political system (with all nations united) must have an innovative base, i.e., one that seriously improves the effectiveness of the current system and is oriented towards the social development of society.
We will take as a base a group of 250 powerful people, which can provide the internal demand in all business sectors and industry branches. A further structuring of the governance system is as follows: the level in the management system consists of 30 main Industries and 250 Business Sectors. For each sector, 3 high-level managers with high IQ, organization/planning, and executive abilities. It is essential to have equal quotas for men and women in this group. It would be without doubt oligarchs who, on the one hand, have power and unlimited financing and, on the other hand, have the need to move from the level of super consumption to the level of philanthropy, to invest their power and potential for the good of civilization. The given number of 840 people (250 x 3 and 30 x 3) is optimal for executing the strategy developed by the leading group of oligarchs.
If we look at the socialist system as progressive for all humankind, then we must talk about uniting the countries. Indeed, only people, enterprises, or governments united by a common goal can address collective tasks in a coordinated way. It is only by coordinating the activities of the participants in a single technological cycle that complex outputs can be produced. Nothing great can be accomplished without a united effort: building the common welfare, protecting the environment, solving military conflicts, and fighting epidemics, for example. Crowning this system would be one person, the smart king/queen. I see this person as a highly educated visionary with human empathy for humanity’s problems and as an asexual neutral person. Also, he/she will offer an individual a set of values, emotional orientations, rules, and standards of behavior which can become the means of achieving social peace.
The smart king/queen can be considered the one who has a surplus of the most essential vital resources such as time, energy, status, and money. Between the excess of ideas and energy, there has to be some mechanism that would bring these two factors into balance and be useful in the three fields of human activity: usefulness for oneself, usefulness for society, and usefulness for Heaven (God-given value). It isn’t easy to achieve all three types of usefulness, but this would be the privilege that would give the key to a long-term smart king/queen status. At this point, I cannot answer where he/she will come from, but I do know that he/she will arrive (be born or raised) in a renewed, creative society.
Describing the current world – typical executive personalities
- Ultra-open minded billionaires
- Non-emotional executives
- Smart executives – leaders
- Psychopathic executives
In today’s world, with the development of business relations in any sphere of human activity and digital technology development, recruiting and using people with a specific type of character is an interesting practice. For any struggling organization, it makes sense to hire a psychopathic executive as a temporary crisis manager. Psychopathic people can take risks in a cold-blooded manner and remain calm even under tremendous pressure. The determining factor of success of such employees is intellect: a more intellectually developed psychopath can partially compensate for character defects, such as lack of empathy, and make them work for themselves in the long run.
I will pass lightly over three elements of the so-called “dark triad”. Machiavellianism is the tendency to cynical manipulation; Narcissism, also known as heightened egocentrism; and Psychopathy, a combination of impulsive behavior and callousness. In contrast to mental deviations and diseases, these three traits are common and not as noticeable. One of these traits often prevails. Psychopaths are generally harmless, and only some deviations distinguish them from the average citizen. Some scientific work has demonstrated that moderate and high levels of Machiavellianism are combined with the highest rates of loyalty and fellowship in the organization. Perhaps the reason is that Machiavellians have good networking skills and can find common ground with superiors. Numerous studies have shown that psychopathy is somewhat more common among top managers than among the rest of the population.
Of course, the common perception of many forms of psychopathy is that they are antisocial personality disorders because immoral patterns of behavior characterize people with such conditions. They are incapable of feeling compassion for others or guilt for immoral acts and offenses. Psychopaths perceive life as a kind of game in which the main thing is to achieve success at others’ expense while maintaining cold blood and indifference. But herein lies the paradoxical value of having this characteristic in a person combined with high intelligence as certain career advantages. A quarter of all psychopathic bosses are women.
The proportion of psychopathic personalities is significantly higher than the statistical average among the big bosses, be they chiefs of concerns, heads of departments, influential politicians, trade union leaders, or the army’s leadership. However, it is not evident because many typical psychopathic personality traits have long been perceived as qualities inherent in a leader. Quite often, psychopaths end up in leadership positions as they are highly charismatic personalities. They are charming, give the impression of being brilliant and resourceful people, easily win others’ sympathy, know how to convince interlocutors, and enthuse them with their ideas. When we notice all these qualities in someone, we perceive them as a good leader! Moreover, this circumstance explains that psychopaths often manage to make a successful career, surpassing all their coworkers.
So, competition is becoming increasingly fierce everywhere, and in this context, uncertainty is growing in companies. This is why companies are no longer just looking for a manager who knows his job well but for a visionary leader capable of inspiring the whole team with his ideas. Instead, they expect a miracle and place extremely high demands on him: he must have virtues that ordinary people do not have. Because of these requirements, psychopaths rush to these firms. Their self-confidence and self-esteem are limitless. And the company’s upper management wants very much to believe that such outstanding employees, demonstrating exceptional achievements, really exist. Clinical psychologist Oliver James, in his book “Office Politics: How to Thrive in a World of Lying, Backstabbing, and Dirty Tricks”, suggests that in today’s global economy, elements of behavior are inherent to this dark triad are increasingly required for success.
There is a lighter side to their personality in addition to the darker one. One study that examined the coincidence of positive and negative qualities found that possessors of the dark triad traits are usually also characterized by extraversion, curiosity, openness to new ideas and experiences, and self-esteem. In addition, the dark triad’s characteristics increase the level of rivalry in the organization, if only to the detriment of cooperation and mutual assistance. Finally, some studies have proven that psychopaths and Machiavellians can threaten and seduce by intimidating opponents and charming bosses. So, in the proposed system arises the need to have psychopathic individuals. I would add that the position of government officials ranks 10th in the career preference ranking of psychopaths. Imagine, in 2014, the UK government decided to hire psychopaths exclusively “to maintain order” because they are “indispensable in crisis situations”, in addition to being “devoid of empathy and restraining moral attitudes, and generally extremely intelligent and logical.”
Should society provide every citizen with a basic income, no strings attached? Should a UBI be a central element of strategies for transformation? My answer is a strong affirmative. I see a Universal Basic Income as a cornerstone of a transformed economy within an Ecological Civilization: one that is life-affirming rather than wealth-affirming. Even more fundamentally, UBI has the potential to shift underlying mainstream misconceptions about human nature. The dominant contract between capital and labor has reified the idea that humans are essentially selfish and lazy. Hence they must be forced to work by combining fear and greed, effectuated by wages and other monetary “incentives.” In fact, people have a fundamental need to engage in a meaningful livelihood and feel valued by their community. Work is not something people try to avoid; on the contrary, purposeful work is an integral part of human flourishing. If people were liberated by UBI from the daily necessity to sell their labor for survival, they would reinvest their time in crucial parts of the economy that, as Kate Raworth outlines in Doughnut Economics, have mostly been hidden from view—the household and the commons. They would care for loved ones, build community, and dare to do whatever it is that inspires them. The domination of the economy by the market would inevitably decline while those other, life-affirming sectors would be strengthened.
From a values perspective, UBI elevates the principles of trust and fairness as organizing structures of society while eclipsing the ethic of cynicism that dominates our market-oriented system. Morally, UBI recognizes a precept of human history that has long been ignored—that the overwhelming proportion of wealth available to modern humans results from the cumulative ingenuity and perseverance of prior generations going back to earlier times, including such fundamentals as language, cultural traditions, and scientific knowledge. Once we realize the vastness of the cumulative common resources that our ancestors have bequeathed to us, it transforms our conception of wealth and value. The widespread view is that an entrepreneur who becomes a billionaire deserves his wealth. The reality is that whatever value he created is a pittance compared to the immense bank of prior knowledge and social practices – the commonwealth – that he took from. Many structural changes are required to shift our society’s disastrous trajectory and replace our wealth-based, growth-addicted civilization with a genuinely ecological one. A UBI, by itself, would not be nearly enough, but in my view, it is one of the essential cornerstones of a future that fosters sustainable human flourishing on a regenerated living Earth.
