Dear Reader,

To evaluate the desirability of a proposed political action, one must understand the future vision of the person or group proposing the action. If the success of the proposed action depends on a large number of people embracing the vision, it is essential that the vision be based on a derivable theory. For example, Marxism can be said to have been a successful derivable theory, although not a scientific theory. Marxism addressed inequities in wealth, but it did not address the accumulation of power, except obliquely. The future vision described here depends on the thesis that continued competition for wealth and power in all of its aspects, including employment, trade, markets, "free" enterprise, acceptance of rewards for what we do or give, hierarchies in business and government, whether appointed from above or elected from below, must inevitably lead to a totalitarian Orwellian nightmare or the complete annihilation of mankind, whereas voluntary abandonment of competition for wealth and power will lead eventually to the highly desirable future to be described momentarily. We may state this as a Fundamental Theorem:

Fundamental Theorem: The abandonment of competition for wealth, power, and fame (except for non-negotiable influence and fame) by all of society is a necessary and sufficient condition for sustainable happiness for all of humanity. "Wealth", "power", "sustainable happiness", and "non-negotiable influence and fame" all have technical definitions that can be found in Chapter 1 of On the Preservation of Species.

Premise: It is unreasonable to be happy when others are miserable.

Notice that I said unreasonable rather than impossible. If I add the above premise, concerning which we should have some debate, I can deduce the much more powerful result:

Corollary: The abandonment of competition for wealth, power, and fame (except for non-negotiable influence and fame) by all of society is a necessary and sufficient condition for any reasonable person to be happy.

Discussion of the Premise: Clearly, a human being would have to be diminished considerably to be happy in the presence of an extremely miserable person. I do not refer to comic or false misery. I refer to starvation, extreme pain, the horror of impending painful death, extreme mental anguish. The question is: How far away does the misery have to be for a reasonable person to be happy? Down the street? Across town? In the next county? In a far-flung principality? We are discussing moral distance. The physical distance beyond which a person aware of misery no longer feels responsible for it, i.e., the responsibility of a brother for a brother, a sentient being for his fellow sentient being. I claim that for reasonable people there is no moral distance sufficiently great. They are aware of suffering in India; they are unhappy. Their awareness does not attenuate with physical distance like a radio signal. I believe the way in which we respond to this premise divides us into two distinct classes. It is the most important distinction between human beings that one can name. In my viewpoint it distinguishes homo sapiens (reasoning man) from incipient homo sapiens (pre-human man).

The vision of the future described below is based on three simple moral axioms, namely, respect for the freedom of oneself and others, respect for the environment, including plants and animals, and respect for truth. These moral axioms are based, in turn, on our innate judgments of aesthetics and reasonableness and our experiential judgment of utility. One may suspect the author’s aesthetic judgment and reasonableness, but I shall deduce scientifically the consequences of avoiding the recommended reforms. The theory can be sustained on utility alone. In this way, it becomes a scientific theory subject to falsifiability.

These ideas will be seen as utopian by those who are the true utopianists in the sense that the man who won’t quit smoking because by the time he gets cancer a cure will have been found is a utopianist. To whom do these remarks apply? To everyone, but especially to those who think that they do not apply to themselves.

It can be shown that competition for wealth and power (or, what amounts to the same thing, inequality in wealth and power) leads to tyranny, the destruction of the environment, and all types of falsity, including repression of dissent and Orwellian doublethink; whereas equality of wealth and power is beautiful, it is reasonable (every other arrangement can be shown to be unreasonable), and it is practical (inequality causes poverty, crime, war, and other modes of human misery). Without equality freedom is impossible and without freedom sustainable happiness is impossible. (In this theory, we suppose that the prerequisites for happiness are (1) satisfaction of tissue deficits and (2), following the behavioral psychologists Deci and Ryan [Deci, Edward L. and Richard M. Ryan, Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior, Plenum Press, New York (1985)], autonomy, effectiveness, and relatedness.) We should not expect to get out of the mess we are in now without replacing the traditional institutions of money (paper wealth) and trade (particularly trading the time of one's life for money), the idea of "working oneself up," leadership, law, government, and even the sovereign state itself.

I now wish to describe a state of human society that might be approached after a long series of small changes. These changes are necessary and sufficient conditions for the sustainable happiness of all of humanity. First and foremost, the population density will be steady near its optimum. Since we must reduce our use of energy by 90% or more, people will be living in small decentralized communities with everything within walking distance except for a few light links to nearby communities to effect economies of scale. Mankind will live in harmony with nature with the compositions of the atmosphere, the oceans, and the soil varying only slightly about desirable steady states.

Economic enterprises, including the collectives of applied mathematicians who plan the economies, will be owned in equal shares by their participants who are all of one class. Communicators within the enterprises will be chosen randomly; decisions will be made democratically or by professionals who enjoy no special power or privilege. These isocratic enterprises will follow the economic plans of their choice. We will create institutions to encourage enterprise without economic risk. (Why should we encourage gambling in industry when we deplore it elsewhere?)

Our vast systems of law are ridiculous. Laws will be replaced by a few simple moral axioms from which right action can be derived easily, perhaps by expert systems. We will embrace rational morals that anyone can follow as opposed to religious superstitions and sexual and pharmacological prudery that no person of spirit can live by. Dissent will be tolerated and even those who do not accept our rational morality will be accorded the dignity of sovereign heads of state. Government will be nearly nonexistent except for a few randomly selected spokespersons. In a planned economy it is crucial to prevent "natural" leaders from arising. To break the endless cycles of leaders coming to power, becoming corrupt, and being replaced by new leaders after war or revolution, we should abandon the institution of leadership. Isn't that obvious by now?

People will enjoy contrasts between positives rather than, for example, enduring drudgery to enjoy leisure. (Presumably, Einstein enjoyed playing the violin without drudging at physics.) People will not be concerned with what's in it for them, but, rather, with what is interesting to do (to be effective and, therefore happy). This will liberate for useful endeavor the 90% of all working people who currently are concerned exclusively with how the pie is sliced up. We will have a smaller but better tasting pie. Generosity, equality, freedom, and intrinsic motivation will replace greed, hierarchy, tyranny, and fear. Money will be obsolete. Can you imagine how much more leisure you would have if you did useful work but did not have to be concerned with money – no checkout lines, no tax forms, no insurance, no checkbooks to balance, no comparison shopping, no commercials on TV, … ?

No one will be required to do anything in order to live that he or she does not want to do; that is, one’s livelihood is not contingent upon anything but natural disasters. Under these conditions of autonomy (necessary for happiness), we can expect tremendous variety in opportunities for involvement to accommodate everyone's need to be effective. Naturally, the arts and science will flourish. Unpleasant jobs will be made into interesting activities or will be eliminated, perhaps by robotics. We will treat everyone the same with no celebrities, except, possibly, posthumously, and no awards or phony distinctions. We can respect excellence without idolizing those who manifest it.

I have discussed designing a path of constant improvement from our world to this future vision in another essay, which I will make available to anyone who requests it. I can't discuss how to convince the entire world that my theory is correct because I don't know how to reach the entire world. For now, I would be satisfied to convince one other person to pursue the line of thought I have introduced, to pester me for the proof that the abandonment of competition for wealth and power is a necessary and sufficient condition for sustainable happiness or to prove that my thesis is incorrect. Obviously, it is insufficient to ignore this thesis merely because it does not correspond to one's preconceived notions.

Sincerely,
Thomas L. Wayburn, PhD
Houston, Texas
October 25, 1991

Dematerialism and Peak Oil

Since all rational political thought is driven by population explosion and the rapid exhaustion of underground energy reserves, my book has become more timely and, as events unfold, may soon be replaced by a better book written by a more distinguished person advocating the ideas presented in On The Preservation of Species or better ideas. I am not holding my breath however. It seems that most environmentalists and conservationists choose to ignore the certainty of continued consumption and waste inherent in capitalism and American-style political-economic systems; whereas the communists and anarchists either are not aware of the population explosion and rapidly dwindling natural resources, e.g., petroleum, or choose not to emphasize this catastrophe, which is already upon us, thus making their arguments much less compelling.

See “Energy in a Natural Economy” for a simple little study to estimate how much of our energy budget must be charged to the capitalist system itself, that is, how much energy is consumed dividing up the pie without providing one single thing we need to live. Clearly, this much could be saved by switching to a planned economy or, better yet, a natural economy. In a planned economy, people tell central planning how they will be spending their emergy certificates (apportioned equitable if not equally among the members of the community or all of society) and central planning notifies individual enterprises that supplies these needs of the likely production they will have to meet. Hopefully, over a large number of people, the differences between expected needs and actual needs as they occur balances out. In a natural economy, people notify the enterprises directly of their anticipated needs. Alternatively, each enterprise estimates its expected production demands according to last year's seasonally adjusted demands.

In any case, people order goods and services directly from the principal providers. They are delivered by specialists in the most efficient manner possible somewhat as United Parcel Service does in the capitalistic setting. Clearly, such transportation specialists will spend much less energy delivering everything that has been ordered during the last delivery period, probably one day, to everyone along its route than the individual conumers would have spent picking up the products individually. In the natural economy, there is no bookkeeping, no accounting even for emergy, and no payments of any kind. This is the sort of thing that evolves from a planned economy after nearly everyone who doesn't grasp the fact that he ought to consume as little as possible is no longer an active participant.

Please look at some of these links to grasp the seriousness of the world situation. Most of this is covered in my book, which is what you really need to read – I still believe. (However, see the remarks in "Discussion of On the Preservation of Species for publishers, editors, and others".)

http://www.dieoff.com/page69.htm
http://www.dieoff.com/page58.htm

Let us suppose, then, that the reader understands the seriousness of the world situation. Let us begin to evaluate our alternatives: We can continue doing what we have been doing and leave our comeuppance to Nature. We can try to save ourselves and our loved ones and the devil take the hindermost. Or we can try to change the world so as to ensure the survival and happiness of all of humanity and other species of plants and animals as well – at least the avoidance of unbearable misery. Admittedly, there are intermediate choices worth considering, but I see no reason why all of humanity (and such other species as we can account for) cannot be saved if anyone can be saved. Certainly, a small elite (even a large elite) trying to save itself at the expense of the rest would face very strong opposition.

I now wish to present an extremely conservative proposition, namely, that all of us should embrace communism and anarchism according to the principles of dematerialism. [Dematerialism can be thought of as a path from fascism to libertarian communism.] This is the only way that I have ever heard of or that I can imagine in the furthest reaches of my imagination for all of us to survive Peak Oil and all that follows from Peak Oil without unbearable misery. I think you will agree after you digest carefully all of the facts and all of the reasoning linked to this webpage in one way or another. (I am under no illusions as to the inconvenience to myself associated with these reforms. No one is more dependent upon the capitalist modes of production than am I.) The ideas presented on this website do not require belief in astrology, astronomical conjunctions, UFOs, alien conspiracies, channeling, psychics, soothsayers, political parties, TV pundits, communication with angels, numerology, or cryptic literary revelations. I hope that everything in the book, the essays, the articles, and the hyperlinked web pages can be verified directly by the reader. We must think for ourselves.

The article, “Future Primitive” by John Zerzan, at http://www.primitivism.com/future-primitive.htm, offers scientific evidence that the natural society discussed in On the Preservation of Species could be everything I have claimed for it and perhaps more. Obviously, we can’t retrace history, but we can contrive to avoid the worst defects of agricultural society. Clearly, the question of a return to a natural economy will require something like dematerialism as we cannot undo the effects of language, agriculture, and civilization independently of such things. Dematerialism is supposed to be a way to achieve a natural society without priests, kings, or bosses. Richard Manning’s article “The Oil We Eat” corroborates Zerzan’s idea that, if we weren’t already in trouble when (as a species) we started talking, the beginning of agriculture and, with it, territoriality and property marked the start of the principal evils in human society. Undoubtedly, dematerialism is too soft on agriculture. However, the abandonment of agriculture should not be necessary in a natural economy. Most of us would make exceptionally inept hunter-gatherers.

A Little More on Dematerialism

The nice thing about dematerialism is that it consists of small (but not too small) reversible changes followed by reasonably long (but not too long) periods to see if that change works or should be reversed before the next change is instituted. (Examples are coming.) So, dematerialism is evolutionary at least from the perspective of revolutionary change - although it might take a revolution to embark upon a program of dematerialism. However, when the new government is in place, the first thing to do is NOT change a thing. Now, for examples:

Whatever changes are made will have to be selected by people who will live under them - NOT ME. But, for an example, suppose they pass a law that a complete company cannot be sold followed by a law, first limiting the number of shares that can be transferred in any one transaction, and second restricting stock sales to workers in the company but not management. Remember, that was only an example to show the sorts of things I had in mind. Georgists will want to change tax law, etc.

Personally, to limit consumption, I would tax it proportionally. In addition, I would restrict advertising on broadcast media to 5% of the time and, eventually, to nothing, but with provisions for people who volunteer to work in radio and TV to draw equitable provisions from the (privately-owned) community stock. This might work for health care professionals too, who might then be required to render their services gratis. The devil is in the details as we all know. But, it is do-able.

My Answers to Some Objections to Dematerialism Based upon Human Nature

The basic ideas of dematerialism can be appreciated most readily if the reader thinks of materialism simply as buying and selling - including the buying and selling of the time of people's lives at different rates according to the market values of their services. (Clearly the philosophically rigorous definition subsumes buying and selling, which are rewards for behavior given or received.) Buying and selling began ‘recently’ during Man’s evolution. This is important because events that occurred recently in our evolutionary past, i.e., after the Era of Evolutionary Adaptiveness, are not likely to be embodied in our genetic code. Animals do not buy and sell although chimps can be taught to do so just as we are taught to do so. Clearly trade is consistent with other cognitive adaptations. Nevertheless, none of David Delaney’s four ‘causes’ of Overshoot can occur if buying and selling are excluded from the economy by laws enacted democratically. Delaney’s four reasons why economies need to expand constitute Addendum 2 of my essay “On Capitalism”.

Here is my most recent post to Dieoff_Q/A, which was addressed principally to Americans who had been critical of dematerialism because of its vulnerability to outside antagonists and its putative inconsistencies with Human Nature, followed by an earlier post in which I printed a preliminary (incomplete) version of A Dematerialist's Manifesto:

I don't consider the fact that a system was destroyed from the outside a measure of the success of that system. In particular, the American system was not better than the Soviet system; and, yet, by bankrupting ourselves, we were able to drive them down. [The merits of the Soviet system nor the reasons why it failed were NOT my interest in saying this. Rather I wished to 'needle' any lurking anarchists whose dogmatic understanding of Libertarian Communism would send the Bolsheviks straight to Hell.]

This reminds me that Americans are the least likely of world citizens to embrace progressive economic systems because, in order to carry on a long succession of Wars against Communism, it has been necessary to brainwash our population, including you, most heavily.

To return to the likelihood of success of any system, the problem of defense against unfair neighbors is easily solved - at least in theory. Perhaps it would be best if the players in my experiment, assuming the experiment was not supported by the American government, which, in particular, might have an interest in its failure, provided themselves with an array of nuclear weapons and the resolve and technique necessary to use them. I have taken the argument to its extreme intentionally in order to dismiss a relatively unimportant objection.

The problem of alpha males within the experiment is easily solved too. It is helpful to know a little psychology based on inquiry into the mind as opposed to the brain. Alpha males are essentially lost, frightened, little boys whose absurd pretensions are easily thwarted by rational, grown-up men acting in concert.

Another possibility for a special experimental group might be a clandestine collective of people who do not alter their places in society other than to conduct business with other members of the Give-Away Economy embedded in society to the exclusion of people not involved in the conspiracy. This is like an idea suggested by the artist, Helen Swords (now deceased), who imagined two economies mutually embedded, each playing by its own rules.

And, speaking of rules, if those who have criticized my ideas because Dematerialism under-estimates the natural brutishness, nastiness, and rapacity of Man are unwilling to let them live in a non-Materialistic society, how can they dare to let them live in any other? Said differently, it seems to me that nasty, brutish, grasping men need special rules to render them less harmful to themselves and others. (I have already said that I think Man is good, but corruptible, and has already transcended his animal nature. It has been necessary to manufacture a class of nasty, brutish men in America to implement a nasty, brutish economic system.) If they can't decide upon those rules because they are in "denial" about Overshoot and Dieoff, perhaps the rules should be imposed upon them by an outside force of rational men, which reminds me of another point:

All of America could be converted to Dematerialism by force if a thousand or so dedicated volunteers were willing to seize control of Washington, DC, in the heart of Government Season by Main Force of Arms. For Heaven's sake, the army is out of the country at this moment and cannot defend the capital. Naturally, hostages would be taken during the Putsch. (To DHS: I am joking;-)

In the meantime, On the Preservation of Species, which does not discuss Dematerialism until the second to last chapter, is written and will not be unwritten. As far as my detractors are concerned, it might as well be my contribution to the already extensive literature provided by Plato, Aristotle, Thomas More, Samuel Butler, and many others of personal conceptions of the world as the world ought to be. I am indignant that it is NOT the world that I found in place when I was born.

That ends the most recent post. Here is the earlier post:

I finished this a few seconds ago. I thought it would be interesting to try it out on my worst detractors from among those who believe in Peak Oil, Overshoot, and the possibility of Dieoff. There is no reason to preach to the choir, right? The origin of Dematerialism is The Sermon on the Mount by the famous fictitious character Jesus. (I hope no one reads One Hundred Years of Solitude as biography.)

A Dematerialist’s Manifesto

1. All language is metaphor. It is like historical fiction – not what did happen, but like what did happen. Imagine that everything I say is preceded by “It is as though …”. The Bible is a metaphor, which is why the (Religious) Fundamentalists miss the point of everything. Science is a metaphor, which is why strict reductionists (Scientistic Fundamentalists, if you will, not to disparage fundamentals) miss the point of everything. (A reductionist is someone who imagines that the Universe is all that there is. Please see http://tinyurl.com/c5ao8.)

2. It is as though there were a God who created Man in His image and likeness. Therefore Man is good but corruptible. Evolutionary Psychology (EP) is a study of both the good and the corrupted. If it confuses the good with the corrupted, it is a vast tangle of errors. (The atavistic animal nature of the body of Man is NOT what is corrupted in Man. Evolution is true as a metaphor.) If EP is viewed properly, it is a useful aid to understanding. Remember this is a metaphor. It is a fictive account of reality. Reality is unapproachable by the five senses.

3. All of this must be taken on Faith. Whoever said that Science could do without Faith?

4. The World is imperfect. But, underlying the World is a Spiritual Structure that is perfect. In Dematerialism, we believe that whatever is Beautiful is Practical, whatever is Practical is Reasonable, and whatever is Reasonable is Beautiful. Therefore, Beauty, Utility, and Reason come together or not at all. Dematerialists call this Occurrence Equivalence. It is an equivalence relation like every equivalence relationship, namely, commutative, transitive, etc.

People who do not see the underlying spiritual structure of the World are Materialists. Not every non-Materialist is a Dematerialist, but no Dematerialist is a Materialist. This is not to disparage material as is done in Christian Science, otherwise the word would be empty. When Dematerialists use the word they are referring to matter in the sense of Physics. Material wealth is useful and should be treasured and conserved but not hoarded.

The underlying spiritual structure of the world is discussed by Alan Ball in his film, American Beauty. See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169547/.

5. Dematerialism is discussed at http://dematerialism.net/ and http://dematerialism.blogspot.com/.

6. On Free Will and Biological Determinism as Factors in Human Nature. For ourselves, free will; for others, biological determinism. To elaborate: For ourselves, critical thought preceding every action, personal responsibility, and no excuses. For others, compassion, forgiveness, and no punishment. They can't help it (unfavorable nature and unfortunate nurture), but we can (character). We should struggle to avoid lying to ourselves and NOT put faith in others when there is no good reason for doing so.

To be continued

Houston, Texas
December 26, 2006

Introduction to Dematerialism, Part 3

People still do not understand what I mean by materialism. In Chapter 5 of my book at http://tinyurl.com/cdocm, I have shown that materialism, artificial economic contingency, and competitionism are equivalent. Today, I wish to show that they are occurrence equivalent with population growth and unsustainable consumption too. Thus, materialism is equivalent to overshoot. It is not necessary to insist upon the exact equivalence; however, it should be recognized that, in a materialistic setting, Human Nature being what it is, we are guaranteed to experience population growth and other excesses. But, in a non-materialistic setting, we have an excellent chance to reduce fertility rates to anything deemed acceptable and to curtail immigration as well. I expect to give good reasons why this won't happen when people are competing for material wealth and political power. Let us start with the principal causes of domestic population growth beginning with immigration:

• Immigration is tolerated because employers who are competing for profits and to expand their own particular shares of the market insist upon continued immigration to provide inexpensive labor of particular types both skilled and unskilled and to hold down wages. Within the labor pool many workers need to be unemployed at any time in case employers need to expand quickly. Unplanned economies experience alternating period of boom and bust. In bad times, unemployment grows; but, in good times, employers need to have a large enough pool of unemployed workers to choose from such that they do not lose market share to a competitor simply because they cannot increase production sufficiently quickly. These employers will fight tooth and nail to defeat immigration reform. But, materialism causes immigration on the supply side too:

• The United States continues to pursue its imperialistic policies in many countries under the guise of containing communism or under the guise of a “war on drugs”, and, nowadays, a “war on terror”. What the United States really wants, as all but the most naive among us know, is continued access to raw materials (including the nutrients in the soil), cheap labor, and expanded markets. Many people have come to the United States because economic life in such countries is intolerable. Also, many people in opposition to corrupt regimes in Central America have been forced to flee for their lives because of vicious repression of dissent and violations of human rights that would not exist except for present and past American foreign policy, which, in turn, would not exist without materialism.

• Many people have come to the United States because the United States does less than other countries to protect poor people from economic predators. Moreover, any activity whatever is tolerated - despite what the stated policy of government claims - if its purpose is to make money. Against some such criminal activity there is token law enforcement, but the activity thrives under materialism.

• Graduate students, particularly in science and engineering, flock here because every professor is required to get funding to do research in areas that government sponsors to compete globally and politically; i.e., in war, or that business sponsors to compete economically. If professors could not offer stipends to get this ‘applied’ research done, the students wouldn’t come and the elite homegrown talent could do true scientific and engineering research to discover how Nature works.

Although, in the US, immigration is the principal cause of population growth, materialism causes excessive procreation too. Five motives for excessive procreation in violation of the Token Theorem, which permits every person to replace herself or himself, are (i) narcissism, (ii) fear that not all will live, (iii) cheap labor to promote family wealth, (iv) hope for support in old age, and (v) to spread rapidly a racial plurality, a religion, ideology, culture, or general system of “family values”, often superstitions and myths, to which the violator of the Token Theorem is committed, dedicated, or enthralled – or at least wishes others to be committed, dedicated, or enthralled. Accidental pregnancies will be treated as though they were simply another form of inadvertent environmental destruction. Presumably, inadvertent pregnancies can be eliminated by a combination of education, indoctrination, and science all unfettered by superstition. Since this discussion is getting a little long, I shall try to make short work of excessive procreation:

• Narcissism could be countered by indoctrination and coercion in a non-materialistic setting because the other reasons for permitting it would not obtain. There is nothing draconian about coercion to prevent excessive procreation as such practices interfere with the freedom of other social chains, which include living persons and their posterity, as much as do robbery and murder. This is proved in Chapter 3 of my book under the Environmental Axiom. Terms used there are explained in the earlier portions of the chapter. I am sorry that you have to read so much if you think this needs a proof. I think it’s obvious.

• Business will oppose any measures that reduce the labor pool as discussed above in the case of immigration.

• Equilibration of wealth and free healthcare (but rationed, especially for the elderly and severely diminished patients) should quiet fears of infant mortality.

• Items iii and iv above would not arise in a non-materialistic world.

• As far as Item v is concerned, if anyone thinks that the goals of capitalists do not play a role in government and church policy regarding birth control, abortion, and childbirth, they may still believe that, in a non-materialistic setting, advocacy of socially destructive policies would not be tolerated. In my brand of dematerialism, improper religions are in violation of the social contract as discussed in Chapter 1 of my book.

This concludes my discussion of why materialism causes over-population. I could have made a more complete case including a proof of the converse, namely, that we will have over-population only if we have materialism; but, this disquisition is too long as it is.

Introduction to Dematerialism, Part 2

Materialism is my name for any economic system wherein people endure artificial economic contingency by which I mean that their material well-being depends on the actions of others and their own actions as well as natural events such as the weather. I used to call it competitionism because people compete with each other for wealth and power and convert such fame as they may enjoy to wealth and power too. It is this competition for wealth and power that is destroying the world.

I am not against material wealth distributed equitably and in such abundance as the Earth can support sustainably. I hope everyone understands that all wealth comes from Nature. The wealth that was in the Earth when man evolved is finite and may not be drawn upon indefinitely. The only truly sustainable wealth is the wealth that comes from the Sun as it shines upon the days of our lives and to a small extent from the Moon.

I am I am not against competition in fair games among people of equal wealth and political power in science, art, and sports for reproductive advantage or not, or competition for reproductive advantage directly. What you and I are against is competition that leads ultimately to war, poverty, institutional dishonesty, and the wanton destruction of the environment which is seen as necessary under the rules of the competition. These are improper games as opposed to fair or proper games. See http://tinyurl.com/dhneg.

Dematerialism is any program to eliminate materialism. For more about dematerialism see http://dematerialism.net/.

Introduction to Dematerialism, Part 1

Materialism is the use of material wealth as a measure of success, a reward for achievement or effort, or as an inducement to behave in a certain way. Materialism is what causes unfair differences in income and wealth among people (or, rather, unfair differences in the consumption or hoarding of consumable resources). Dematerialism is any program for unwinding materialism. One such program is described here and at http://dematerialism.net/; however, if this site is inaccessible please try http://justpassinthru.com/wayburn/.

Materialism is the cause of the principal evils in society including crime, war, poverty, and anomie. It is Pandora's Box as shown in Chapter 9 of On the Preservation of Species (POS), which is available free of charge under a copyleft agreement that requires only ethical use of the public domain. Unfortunately, it is impossible to get the evils back into the Box in a materialistic economy. Thus, it is necessary to destroy the Box, which, nowadays, means replacing the market economy by a decentralizable planned or give-away economy in the same sense that blogspot.com is part of a give away economy - except more so. Please see "The Demise of Business as Usual" at fromthewilderness.com. If you can't afford to subscribe to Mike Ruppert's Journal, please request a free copy from me at twayburn@wt.net.

Materialism allows wealth to be distributed unequally and unfairly depending upon accidents of birth even if those accidents of birth happen to be great strength, high intelligence, and good character. Why should people who have received these great gifts from Nature just because of who their parents were expect to receive additional gifts especially in an overpopulated world in which resources are scarce and one person’s surplus is guaranteed to be someone else’s deficit! Nowadays, it takes many poor people, perhaps thousands of poor people, to make one rich person; and, for many poor people, a deficit in consumable resources leads to death by starvation or worse. Also, materialism requires a large authoritarian government to control a society that is essentially unstable because of war and poverty. Many people will claim that they obtained their wealth and power because of their own hard work. Even if this were true, and I claim that it is not true, the struggle to acquire wealth and power, if continued, will very likely cause the extinction of all life on this planet.

Dematerialism, on the other hand, results, eventually, in a nearly equal distribution of wealth and income in terms of real wealth. Moreover, since political power can no longer be concentrated in the hands of the few at the expense of the many, dematerialism permits the attainment of true democracy in a non-hierarchical society. The approach to a non-materialistic society advocated on my website involves a series of changes any one of which can be reversed if unintended effects occur. For example, delegislation is a process by which thousands of laws are replaced by only a few laws, one of which, the prohibition of the sale of entire companies, is the first in a series of laws that would place the ownership of the means of production exclusively in the hands of the workers according to the maxim that a workman should own his own tools. Thus, distributed ownership of the means of production is achieved gradually but not too gradually.

The vison of a non-materialistic society offered on my website can be described most simply as a libertarian, give-away economy, as opposed to the socialism of Russia or China. Dematerialism requires the equal distribution of wealth, modified slightly to account for differences in needs, and the production of wealth in a cooperative setting according to the abilities of the individual, allowing for the need for abundant leisure. An education that is consistent with the aims of dematerialism provides people with the ability to enhance the material wealth and prosperity of society, viewed as a collection of private individuals; but, more importantly, it teaches people how to enjoy leisure in a manner consistent with their development as human beings, through the arts and sciences, sports, and other recreation.

Many people will find the ideas behind dematerialism a little difficult to understand – much less accept. It seems to me that my critics should read POS; however, it is the purpose of this blog to discuss dematerialism a little bit at a time. I hope that my critics will take the trouble to post their objections including the objection raised by many people who have studied evolutionary psychology superficially or have read interpretations of evolutionary biology by excellent writers like Pinker and Dawkins. I will answer the questions if I can. Otherwise, I will have to admit that I am wrong. I am, after all, a fallibilist as well as a dematerialist.

Best regards to all until next time,
Tom Wayburn
Houston, Texas
twayburn@wt.net
http://dematerialism.net/ (my re-organized, homemade website)