"Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it"
-George Santayana
How the Machine Rose to Power
N.Arthur Coulter, MD
It began a long time ago. Some say about 8000 B.C.
Some unknown genius, probably a woman, discovered or invented agriculture and, at about the same time, animal husbandry.
The ways of human kind were revolutionized, never again to be the same. For the first time, humans had a reasonably assured food supply. No longer were they forced to live a nomadic existence, hunting, fishing, and picking and eating wild fruits and vegetables. No longer did they have to move from place to place, always going to where the food was. No longer were they entirely dependent on the vicissitudes of weather, climate and animal competitors for the available food supply.
Humans could grow their own food in abundance. And "civilization" became possible.
Many humans became farmers. But at this point another element entered the picture. Farmers were able to produce more than they themselves actually needed. In other words, a surplus was possible. This meant that not all humans had to be farmers.
Moreover, a farmer was necessarily tied to the land. He could move about, of course; but he always had to return to the farm where his crops and animals were, and he had to spend most of his time there. This left him vulnerable.
And since not all humans had to become farmers, some did not. Those who did not were those who naturally preferred to hunt and to fish and those who were good at it. Those were the ones with the weapons.
And so the hunter became the warrior. He killed the farmer and stole his food or forced the farmer to give him food under threat of death.
And in due course, some warriors were better users of weapons than others, and, true to their kind, they forced the lesser warriors to do their bidding. And they organized the warriors into armed groups. Such groups were far superior to individual warriors.
And so the warrior-kings emerged. And they took control of the land. They let the farmers continue to farm, provided they obeyed the warrior-kings and gave each king and his generals and his warriors food.
And the food the warrior-king took was called "taxes." And the orders of the warrior-king were called "laws." And the farmers and other subjects obeyed the laws "or else." And they paid the taxes "or else."
And as time went on, the warrior-king became more clever, not only in using weapons and in organizing armies, but in persuading people to obey him. He learned the warriors could be conditioned to obey (this is now called military training). After a period of this conditioning, the warrior learned to obey orders instantly, that to question them was to die. And he was given a false image to live up to—the image of the Hero, the Fearless and Brave. And, of course, the warrior-king was the Great One, the Champion of His People, the Superhero. Sometimes he claimed to have Supernatural Powers—to be a god.
And the same methods of conditioning were applied to farmers. The warrior-king, who had actually seized power by force, claimed that he had it by Right. And he gave the farmer another image to live up to—that of the Loyal Subject, the Obedient Citizen who faithfully obeyed the Law and paid the Taxes. And he was taught to revere the warrior-king (this is now called patriotism), who was his Protector (against other warrior-kings), and who settled his disputes with other farmers Fairly and with Justice.
And since women were physically weaker than men, but necessary for the pleasure of men and the production of new warriors, it was only fitting that women become the property of men. And so it was decreed that women belonged to their fathers or their brothers or their husbands. And the men agreed that this was Fair and Just.
Now the warrior-king was the Greatest One among his people. And this made him very happy. And since happiness equals Greatness, he naturally reasoned that he would be even happier if he were still Greater. But to do this he had to overcome another warrior-king to prove he was Number One.
Thus war was invented.
To prove his Greatness, the warrior-king invented The Enemy—another warrior-king and his soldiers and subjects.
The Enemy is always less than human, capable of murder, torture, rape, and the most unspeakable crimes. Moreover, he is out to get you—the Good Guy, the Hero. So you have to kill him first, before he kills you.
(Of course, the other warrior-king is doing the same thing with his young Heroes. To them, you are The Enemy—less than human, capable of murder, torture, rape, and the most unspeakable crimes.)
And so Warrior-King A—the Good, the Wise, the Just, the Protector of His People—orders his young Heroes to a place where they must kill the Enemy—the young Heroes of Warrior-King B. And lo! It is true! The Enemy is trying to kill the young Heroes and therefore he must be Evil, less than human, and everything the Warrior-King has said.
And so the young Heroes come to hate The Enemy. And the parents and sisters and younger brothers and grandparents of the young Heroes learn to hate The Enemy even more. And the Warrior-King is satisfied, because hasn't it been proved that what he said was Right and True? And doesn't this prove that he is Wise and indeed the Protector of his people? And doesn't this prove that The Enemy must be murdered or tortured if he is captured? And doesn't this prove that The Enemy's women, who are less than human—deserve to be raped by the young Heroes, etc. etc. etc.?
And so the young Heroes become what they hate.
But there is one thing worse than The Enemy without and that is The Enemy within, the Traitor.
For it happens that, ever so often, a person sees through all this nonsense and refuses to take part in it. But this means that he has Disobeyed the King—the Wise, the Good, the Great. He who is not With Us, the Good Guys, is Against Us. He is one of Them and therefore less than human. Worse, he has deceived us into trusting him, pretending falsely to be one of us Good Folk.
Punish the Traitor! Kill him! Kill! Kill! Kill!
And so it went. The Warrior-King was able to expand his territory and kill so many of the other Warrior-King's soldiers that The Enemy was subdued. Thus, the Warrior-King brought Peace to his people.
And since all the people wanted peace, and never really wanted to hate and kill in the first place, they were grateful to the Warrior-King. For didn't he Protect them from The Enemy? And hadn't he ended the War and brought Peace?
Thus it began 10,000 years ago. This is the way kings and laws and taxes and governments were formed. And the people were conditioned to believe that all these things were Good and Right. And so they taught their children, who in turn taught their children, and so on down the generations until it was our turn. And we accepted it, too.
As we have seen, the Machine was born when agriculture was invented. And since farmers were able to produce a surplus, not all people had to be farmers. Some became warriors, as we have seen; and the Warrior-Kings emerged and established the State. Others became carpenters, weavers, smiths, masons, etc. producing goods and services that people needed or wanted. At first, these were traded by simple barter. Later, money was invented as a medium of exchange and a measure of value.
By and by another group of people began to emerge. Workers and farmers were very busy working and farming. They had little time to take their goods to people who needed them or to find where these people were. So some people saw in this an opportunity. They bought the goods cheaply from the farmers and workers who produced them, and they stored them or took them to people who needed the goods and sold them for high prices. These were the traders.
Now some traders realized they were performing a service and charged for that service only what they needed to buy their fair share of the goods and services that society as a whole produced. But others didn't worry about this. They had no qualms about cheating or deceiving the people they bought from or sold to. Buying cheap and selling dear enabled them to keep the difference, which they called "profit." And some traders became very rich this way.
One day, a rich trader got the idea of bringing all the workers, together in one place called a manufactory. This made it easier for the trader, who could organize the workers so they produced more. And since the trader was very rich, he could pay the workers for the goods they produced, only now he called this payment wages. And since the. workers now had to get wages in order to buy food and other things they needed, they pretty much had to do what the trader wanted. In this way, the trader became a boss.
Some workers remained free, of course, at least for awhile, producing things themselves and selling them. But free workers could not compete in the long run. Because things were organized in the manufactory, goods could be produced a lot more efficiently and sold at a lower price than the goods of the free worker, even though the trader-boss still made a large profit.
Meanwhile, science was invented. A scientist is a funny person who is smart in some ways and dumb in others. Scientists began to find out more and more about nature; and one day they discovered how to make machines run by natural energy.
The trader-bosses were delighted about this. Being very rich, they paid the scientists to design machines for their manufactories; and they paid workers to build the machines. With machines, workers could produce a lot more than they could before. And so the manufactories became factories. And the trader-bosses became even richer.
Some of the trader-bosses were generous and kind and tried to help the workers to make things easier for them. But to do this cost money and reduced their profits. So the trader-bosses who were most ruthless, buying the workers' labor cheap and selling their products dear, made the most profits and soon drove the generous traderbosses out of business.
Sometimes a factory became so efficient that it produced more than people wanted or could afford to buy. When this happened, the trader-boss would lay off workers in order to keep his profits.
The trader-boss didn't mind this, because it made sure that the workers he kept on would work harder and not get any radical ideas.
And the trader-bosses saw the value of machines and the scientists who were smart enough to design them. So they hired scientists (who were then called engineers) to design more and better machines. And most of the scientist-engineers didn't mind this, because they loved to do research and design machines, and the trader-bosses paid them well. They became workers, bought and paid for like any other thing by the trader-bosses. But most of them didn't realize this.
Trader-bosses were constantly trying to figure out new ways to buy cheap and sell dear. Some of them noticed that money could also be treated as a commodity to be bought cheap and sold dear. They also saw that farmers and workers needed a place to keep their money, temporarily, until they spent it.
So these trader-bosses became money-bosses. They stored the money of the workers and farmers in a safe place called a bank. But they realized that on any given day farmers and workers would draw out only a small fraction of their money; the rest of the time the money-bosses could use it as they pleased. So, they loaned it out, mostly to other trader-bosses, and charged interest for it. And in this way they became very rich.
Now the trader-bosses and the money-bosses and the modem-day Warrior-Kings (who are called politicians) are not evil men. They are just doing what their roles tell them to do. If they don't perform according to their roles, the Machine causes them to lose, and they become workers or farmers or unemployed.
The Fable of the Machine could be continued indefinitely; but enough has been told to provide a basis for understanding how this Frankenstein's monster arose.
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