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Title: Against Mass Society
Author: Chris Wilson
Date: 2001
Language: en
Topics: anti-civ, Green Anarchy #6
Source: Retrieved on April 22nd, 2009 from http://www.primitivism.com/mass-society.htm
Notes: From “Green Anarchy” #6 — Summer 2001.

Chris Wilson

Against Mass Society

Many people desire an existence free of coercive authority, where all

are at liberty to shape their own lives as they choose for the sake of

their own personal needs, values, and desires. For such freedom to be

possible, no individual person can extend his or her sphere of control

upon the lives of others without their choosing. Many who challenge

oppression in the modern world strive toward their conception of a “free

society” by attempting to merely reform the most powerful and coercive

institutions of today, or to replace them with “directly democratic”

governments, community-controlled municipalities, worker-owned

industrial federations, etc. Those who prioritize the values of personal

autonomy or wild existence have reason to oppose and reject all

large-scale organizations and societies on the grounds that they

necessitate imperialism, slavery and hierarchy, regardless of the

purposes they may be designed for.

Humans are naturally sociable, but are selective about who they wish to

associate with. For companionship and mutual support, people naturally

develop relationships with those they share an affinity with. However,

only in recent times have people organized themselves in large-scale

groupings composed of strangers who share little of relevance in common

with each other. For over 99% of human history, humans lived within

small and egalitarian extended family arrangements, while drawing their

subsistence directly from the land. The foraging bands and shifting

horticultural communities of past and present are known to have enjoyed

extensive leisure time, and have rarely required more than 2–4 hours

daily on average to satisfy subsistence needs. Famine and war are

extremely rare in these societies. Additionally, physical health, dental

quality and the average lifespan of small-scale communities are markedly

higher than that of agricultural and early industrial societies. If

leaders exist, they are usually temporary, and hold no power beyond

their ability to persuade. While hunting/gathering and slash-and-burn

gardening do indeed alter local environments and are sometimes wasteful,

they have proven themselves to be ecologically stable adaptations.

Foraging served humanity for 3 million years, while horticulture has

been relied upon by many societies in the Amazon basin for approximately

9,000 years. The small-scale cultures that remain today generally prefer

their traditional way of life, and many are currently waging impressive

political resistance against corporations and governments who wish to

forcibly assimilate them so that their land and labor may be exploited.

People rarely enter mass organizations without being coerced, as they

lead to a decline of freedom and health.

The rise of civilization was made possible through compulsory mass

production. When certain societies began to prioritize agricultural

productivity as their highest value, they began to forcibly subject all

life within reach of their cities to that purpose. Communities of people

who wished to forage or garden on the land for subsistence would be

mercilessly slaughtered or enslaved, and the ecosystems they inhabited

would be converted to farmland to feed the cities. Those engaged in the

full-time facilitation of crop and animal production would reside in the

nearby countryside, while public officials, merchants, engineers,

military personnel, servants, and prisoners would inhabit the cities.

The task of creating a surplus to feed a growing specialist class caused

the duties of the food producers to intensify, while simultaneously

creating the need for more land, both for agriculture and for the

extraction of materials for construction and fuel. Humans were forced

into servitude for the benefit of their culture’s institutions of

production as a prerequisite for continued survival, and non-human life

was either harnessed or eliminated for the sake of completing human

projects. To occupy land, one would be mandated to continuously pay

tribute in the form of a tax or tithe (or and more recently, in the form

of rent or mortgage), hence requiring one to devote most of one’s time

and energy to a politically accepted mode of employment. Upon being

required to satisfy the demands of landholders or employers in exchange

for personal space and commodities, it becomes impossible for people to

make their living through subsistence hunting or gardening. Although

small-scale self-sufficient communities would resist or flee the

intrusion of military and commercial forces, those that failed would be

assimilated. Subsequently, they would quickly forget their cultural

practices, causing them to become dependent upon their oppressors for

survival.

Capitalism is civilization’s current dominant manifestation. The

capitalist economy is controlled mainly by state-chartered corporations;

these organizations are owned by stockholders who are free to make

business decisions without being held personally accountable for the

consequences. Legally, corporations enjoy the status of individuals, and

thus an injured party can only target the assets of the company in a

court case, not the possessions or property of the individual

shareholders. Those employed by corporations are legally required to

pursue profit above all other possible concerns (e.g., ecological

sustainability, worker safety, community health, etc.), and can be

fired, sued, or prosecuted if they do otherwise. As a technologically

advanced form of civilization, capitalism encroaches upon and utilizes

even greater territory, causing further reduction of the space available

for life to freely flourish for its own purposes. Like civilization,

capitalism conscripts both human and non-human life into servitude if

regarded as useful, and disposes of it if regarded as otherwise. Under

capitalism, most people spend the majority of each conscious day

(typically 8–12 hours) engaged in meaningless, monotonous, regimented,

and often physically and mentally injurious labor to obtain basic

necessities. Privileged individuals also tend to work intensively and

extensively, but typically to respond to social pressure or to satisfy

an addiction to commodified goods and services. Because of the dullness,

alienation, and disempowerment that characterizes the average daily

experience, our culture exhibits high rates of depression, mental

illness, suicide, drug addiction, and dysfunctional and abusive

relationships, along with numerous vicarious modes of existence (e.g.,

through television, movies, pornography, video games, etc).

Civilization, not capitalism per se, was the genesis of systemic

authoritarianism, compulsory servitude and social isolation. Hence, an

attack upon capitalism that fails to target civilization can never

abolish the institutionalized coercion that fuels society. To attempt to

collectivize industry for the purpose of democratizing it is to fail to

recognize that all large-scale organizations adopt a direction and form

that is independent of its members’ intentions. If an association is too

large for a face-to-face relationship between members to be possible, it

becomes necessary to delegate decision-making responsibilities to

representatives and specialists in order to achieve the organization’s

goals. Even if delegates are elected by consensus or by majority vote,

the group’s members cannot supervise every action of the delegates

unless the organization is small enough for everybody to monitor each

other on a regular basis. Delegated leaders or specialists cannot be

held accountable to mandates, nor can they be recalled for irresponsible

or coercive behavior, unless held subject to frequent supervision by a

broad cross-section of the group. Such is impossible in an economy based

upon a highly stratified division of labor where no given individual can

focus upon or even view the actions of the rest. Additionally, elected

delegates are allotted more time and resources to prepare and present a

case for their objectives, and are thus more likely to gain further

power through deception and manipulation. Even if the group at large

determines all policies and procedures (which is itself impossible when

specialized knowledge is required), and delegates are only assigned the

duties of enforcing them, they will still act independently when they

disagree with the rules and are confident that they can escape

punishment for ignoring them. Democracy is necessarily representative,

not direct, when practiced on a large scale — it is incapable of

creating organization without hierarchy and control.

Because mass organizations must increase production to maintain their

existence and to expand, they tend to imperialistically extend their

scope of influence. Because cities and industries rely upon outside

inputs, they aim to seize the surrounding areas for agricultural and

industrial use, rendering it inhospitable to both non-human ecosystems

and self-sufficient human communities. This area will expand in relation

to any increase in population or specialization of labor that the city

experiences. One could argue that industrial production could be

maintained and yet scaled down, leaving ecosystems and non-industrial

peoples some room to co-exist. Firstly, this proposal invites the

question of why civilization should determine its own boundaries,

instead of the victims of its predation. Secondly, there are no

historical examples of production economies that do not expand, mainly

because they must expand after depleting the resources available to them

at any given time.

The structural complexity and hierarchy of civilization must be refused,

along with the political and ecological imperialism that it propagates

across the globe. Hierarchical institutions, territorial expansion, and

the mechanization of life are all required for the administration and

process of mass production to occur. Only small communities of

self-sufficient individuals can coexist with other beings, human or not,

without imposing their authority upon them.