Food for thought, excerpted from Heather Marsh:

“In Individuals in Society I wrote of a state of nature where society did not exist. In truth, such a state has never existed outside of social contract theory because humans are social animals and we have always created societies. In today’s structure, society with its dependencies and relationships has been converted to a completely monetized system of dissociation. For the first time in human history, people have been effectively dissociated from each other and are living in a state of no society.

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This system of dissociation is so entrenched in society that it is very seldom questioned. Money for health care is equated to money for insurance, even though insurance companies do not provide health care. Banks need to be propped up to provide housing, even though banks do not provide housing. The almighty economy must be saved even at the cost of untold lives or life on earth itself; but we can’t eat the economy. Education and information are controlled, not produced, by existing institutions; both could and should be replaced by transparency and open access. Distributors should be replaced by farmgate importing, information wants and needs to be free, and choosing one’s own lifework is a basic right not to be removed by regulatory bodies.

In this system of dissociation, individuals have no societal protection. Each is dangling from the leech by their own little vein with a limited access to resources; there are no direct relationships or dependencies. Even if the access allows the person plentiful amounts of everything, there is a built in awareness of shortage and reliance on the system that strongly discourages sharing. If one person’s vein is broken, their need is met by hostility from the others dangling by their own veins; to rescue another is to weaken oneself. Predictably, rescuing those in need requires the creation of more leeches in the form of NGO’s and government regulatory bodies for people in crisis, resulting in a transference of responsibility that prevents society as a whole from spending much time considering those who their society fails.

Ironically, the individuals whose access to the leech is for some reason broken are referred to themselves as leeches. As discussed in The Financial System, The Tax Payer was invented to assert control over other members of society such as children, anyone in crisis, prisoners and anyone who dares to work outside a corporate approved role. The Tax Payer is encouraged by relentless propaganda and enabled by the financial system to consider themselves both the backbone of society (as evidenced on monetary flowcharts and nowhere else) and personally robbed by all others. When people look for the source of the obvious flaws in the systems of dissociation, they are always pointed to those that are not acting as The Tax Payer. Seldom does society look past the propaganda to the real leeches.

A society is formed by a mother* giving birth to a child. Once a mother becomes pregnant, dependency has been created and she must surround herself with a support network, or a society; at the very least, if her society is to survive, she must create a support network between herself and her child or find another caretaker for her child. A woman and a child is the basic unit of a society, a unit with dependencies and unequal ability working for a common goal. This is where a new society must start to plan a new direction.

In today’s un-society, the core element has been two or more men* shaking hands. That is not a society, that is a trade relationship. A trade relationship must occur among equally advantaged partners if one is not to be taken at a disadvantage. Dependencies are abhorrent in a trade relationship. Dependencies and sharing weaken a trading partner; ownership strengthens them.

There are many dependencies in a full society besides children. The reason children are the core is of course because without them, a society dies, but a full society will also have people with a variety of mental and physical limitations and gifts. In today’s society people with any dependencies are seen as worthless, or at best inferior, instead of different. Today’s ideal is a young, healthy, intelligent adult with no dependencies. The fallacy of equality for women is dependent on their simulation of that ideal; women have an equal opportunity to participate in trade relationships. As long as women or men perform society building roles such as child rearing, including protecting, feeding, educating, sheltering and clothing children, or all of the support services required in a healthy society, they are vilified and abused by the structure today. Educating children pays far less than educating adults who are perfectly capable of educating themselves; parenting usually pays nothing at all. Giving birth is a financial, health and social liability; killing people is a lucrative and highly respected career. Advocates for women seek to empower them to leave society building roles for corporate endorsed ones instead of creating a society that respects and values societal support as a role for all.

There have been several instances of people in the west today seeking to create a moneyless society, but these people are predominantly (exclusively?) healthy and male, or partnered with a healthy male. When a child, an elder, or someone with severe mental or physical dependencies can live in a money free society we can call it a society; until then it is a trade relationship. There is a great deal of work ahead before dependencies can be supported freely and with no real or implied charity.”