Instability's Freedom

Dear George,

The well-run Corporatist State rests on a bedrock of instability, not for its rulers, but for its subjects. A public kept in a perpetual state of imbalance is malleable and easy to manipulate. Stability of employment or economic status too often produces a resistance to the change that is so necessary to promote the instability that boosts the State’s efficiency.

The man who leaves every morning for his job uncertain if he will still have that job in the evening will sweat more blood over the most trivial detail than the man who feels his job is secure. When the boss says, “Shit!” the insecure employee squats and asks, “What color?”

For instability to work, the drones must be convinced that the only permanence is change. Just as fashions may change several times a year, so may the conditions of employment, salary, social setting, or any of the other details through which the individual places himself in society change. Pithy slogans like, “Change is inevitable; growth is optional” reinforce this permanence.

This is why there must be absolutely no correlation between change and progress. Progress is simply an accidental byproduct of change. More often than not, the end product of change is decay and chaos as the holders of Structured Investment Vehicles (SIVs) are beginning to discover. But the good leader always touts change, no matter how regressive, as progress. The poor fools tumbling down the economic ladder as his salary shrinks and his benefits vanish must be convinced that this is part of an upward journey that will make of him a better person able to handle the anxiety of uncertainty.

Of course, leadership must always be ready to roll out that reliable canard, “destiny.” The increased impoverishment of the masses is our destiny if we are to maintain our (always say “our”) global competitiveness, and if this requires that America returns to the days of the nineteenth century sweatshop, then it is the duty of every citizen to make the necessary sacrifices.

Above all, instability means even more freedom for the drones. No longer will they spend decades at the same boring job. Now, they will be able to breathe freedom’s heady air as they learn to scurry and chase after the crumb that fall from their leaders’ tables. They will become lean, mean survival machines, able to endure hardship and want without complaint. Everyday will be a new adventure, an ongoing challenge to keep a roof over their heads and food on their tables.

Yes, George, it is all different, now. Where progress was once a hot air balloon floating heavenward, it is now a shot-put plummeting towards earth. There is no freedom like the freedom of the fall, and without chronic instability, there can be no fall and, hence, no freedom.

Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones