To avoid global war and disaster, we need new democratic thinking. Ordered society needs leadership and authority, so anarchy is not an option. But we don’t want ‘oligarchy’ either. Although oligarchy provides leadership, it invariably leads to tyranny. What we need is a new democratic balance, a synergetic system effectively balancing authority with participation, leadership with co-operation, spirituality with materiality.
But first, what is ‘oligarchy’? Oligarchy is what we see within the present capitalist system, whether democratically organized (as in the USA and Europe), or organized along totalitarian lines (as in China). In either case economic and political power is concentrated in a small group of people (the ‘oligarchs’), the rest being totally dependent for their livelihood on these oligarchs. In passing it may be noted that with just one letter change the word spells ‘oil-garchs’. Isn’t that a coincidence?
A serf by any other name would groan as much
Oligarchy is also what we see within the socialist system. Because the state monopolizes all the means of production in a socialist system, the bureaucratic elite of the Socialist Party controls both political and economic power. Here, too, the rest are totally dependent for their livelihood on the (bureaucratic) oligarchs. It makes no difference whether we call them workers, wage slaves or proletariat. They are totally dependent and therefore not free. In socialist states this is particularly evident.
It is not surprising, then, that Wikipedia - under the term ‘oligarchy’ - remarks that ‘oligarchies have been tyrannical throughout history, being completely reliant on public servitude to exist’. It is recognized that in a democratically run oligarchy (as the USA and Europe) the serfs tend to have more economic and political freedom than in socialist states, but in either case the oligarchs win and the people lose.
Without synergy we will destroy ourselves
What is ‘synergy’? Our friend Wikipedia says: ‘a dynamic state in which combined action is more effective than the sum of individual component actions’. So how can that save us? Well, combined synergetic action is not just more effective, it is exponentially more effective. And if we want to feed a hungry world (recently we passed the threshold of more than one billion people going hungry!), we need an exponential increase in global food production, to just mention the very first basic need.
To do that, we need synergy. Now, there has been one who explained synergy to us a long time ago. He once gave a crowd of more than 5.000 just 5 loaves and 2 fishes to eat. The strange thing was, they all had their fill and there were still 12 baskets full of leftovers. We refer, of course, to the ‘miraculous multiplication of loaves and fishes’ (St. John Ch. 6, vs. 5 thr. 14). The miracle is ‘synergy’. If we apply synergy wisely, we will find that we can all have our fill and there will still be plenty left over! There is enough for everybody. The natural order is abundance, not scarcity.
No privilege to synergy
Now, synergy is not the property of any one religion. It is a principle, just like the principle of causality. Synergy is based on the ‘principle of solidarity’ which can be applied by any person, any group, any religion or any state, anywhere in the world. In fact it has been promoted by all world religions, although not by the word ‘synergy’. And to a certain extent it is applied by most people within the family circle. However, we usually do not apply it effectively in society. A global unified use of synergy would transform the world ‘miraculously’.
And all this can and must come about without any violence. Not one shot need be fired. Not one sword need be drawn, save the sword of reason. To cure poverty by synergetic non-violent means, creating more growth, more contentment and more peace, simply makes sense. If this was possible, anybody in his right mind would do whatever he could to achieve this. Allow us to show you that it is possible. Yes, we definitely can!
Stay tuned for an upcoming series on binary economics and the Just Third Way from a particular Caribbean perspective here at Arcocarib.