Just some Lefty Propaganda for those interested. Inspired by some JacobinMag literature and some writings by G. William Domhoff. Highly recommend him for high-level views of American Power Structures.
Historical Genesis of Hierarchical Power Structures
Humans have always created Hierarchical Power Structures in a 3-Step process known as Circumscription (Binding People to a place):
- Organization of Innovation of Production and/or Consumption on a given piece of land to increase its value to its locals and foreigners alike (Irrigation agriculture/trade monopolies did this before governments existed), and distribution of its resources to those a leader wishes to control
- With that control, establishment of a Military to enforce a Leader's Ownership of that Land
- And establishment of a Religion that legitimizes that Leader's position in the Hierarchy
The difficulties you face in trying to walk away from Local Growth Coalitions and Capitalist Monopolies, as well as the profitable, private Infrastructure and conveniences they provide, are intentional consequences set to increase Population Density, and therefore Profit per square foot of Land, not the result of natural Market Influences.
And of course, Religion doesn't necessarily always mean Christianity, Islam, etc.
As Discordians are quite aware, Doctrine and Dogma, like Constitutional/Founder Fetishism or "Leadership" Fetishism in Bureaucracies are completely viable replacements for the Secular Sucker™.
I was always looking for a unified application of a lot of the concepts of Discordianism in understanding today's corruption and I think I've found it in Sociology, and specifically, the study of Power Structures. And unsurprisingly, there's actually fairly limited Publicized research on the Subject, which means there's a lot more to learn and discover. G. William Domhoff and others have been working to formalize the empirical study of Power Structures using Statistics, Communication Networks, and Political Content Analysis. But I think a significant portion of the Research is focused on measuring and identifying the Structures we already have accurate pictures of. I plan on using some of the formalized areas of the study, along with Political Science and Sociology in general to put together an Architectural Reference representation of Power Structures and their Types, and to hopefully expand and clarify the lower-level details of how they work as best I can. A lot of this will be no-brainers for most everyone on this Board, but I think a unified picture will make it easier to study and identify wild Power Structures and prevent predatory, hierarchical ones from being created or at least gaining popularity. At the Local Level, we might even be able to put together a discipline for reversing and replacing them with Grass-Roots, Community-based Democracies.
Hopefully, this is not just another Pet Project I'll spend a week on and get bored of and never complete though, like I've done with every passion I've ever had.
