WALL OF TEXT: THE MODERN ERA

WALL OF TEXT: THE MODERN ERA. The history of the “modern era” should begin with the industrial revolution. So-called modern history is about how people in authority failed to deal with the social consequences of new technologies performing the labors which families had for generations defined themselves by. Millers, masons, bakers, carpenters, smiths. The English language is full of such surnames, calling back to a time when one’s profession was so important and so closely tied to family line it became one’s identity. Millions of people lost their livelihoods to automation throughout the 1800s and 1900s, but the result was not obvious. Capitalism describes the method by which certain individuals with lots of money took control of the factories and diverted the productivity of entire countries into their own pockets. Such an arrangement could only result in discontent, since millions of people who had been self-reliant now relied on an employer for their very survival, but the owners were under no obligation to employ the masses. If there was no work for the masses to do, how would they feed themselves now that they no longer owned their own professions? This dynamic is the reason for the rise of fascism, for the rise of eugenics, and explains that communism arose as a reaction to people being fed up with being at the mercy of an employer’s whims and wanted control of their own lives back. Everything goes back to just how much capitalism disrupted the social order in such a short period of time, and how governments failed to deal with the consequences. World War 1 saw the culmination of the old world order: when royal families ruled empires and formed alliances based on family allegiance. It was the end of the medieval period, and a restructuring based on new technologies and new resource needs. No longer would royal families control politics. The factory now had control of the people, which meant a new upper class emerged, the factory-owners, with the power to control the labor of the masses to their own end. Bloodlines no longer mattered. The industrial revolution changed everything. School does not do justice to just how fundamental those changes were. But as Marx showed, the result was not inevitable. Factories could have been designed to produce goods to relieve everyone of the need to survive—could have been structured to produce clothing for everyone and nobody would need to work again, or at least everyone would work for a few hours a week to produce what was needed for society and then be free to peruse their own desires. Should this not be what factories accomplish? Instead the factories were designed to push the masses to work harder and harder to provide a luxurious life for the owners. What is the point of this? Should technology not be used to relieve the burden of survival? Why do we keep giving the fruits of our labor to the upper classes in the hopes they will do great things with them and elevate mankind? We must come to terms with the reality that there are no Übermenschen. People who rise to the top do not belong there because they have done something hugely beneficial to society. They got there either by inheriting or by cheating. Society need not be structured in this way. Alternatives exist.