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)