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My name is Peter Joseph and I've been
working for the past ten years in the hopes

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to see some meaningful
long-lasting change in this world;

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a long ten years it's been.

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In 2009 I helped start a nonprofit
called The Zeitgeist Movement.

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It's a global sustainability
advocacy organization

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and we specifically
focus on economic change

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because we feel it's the most
important to set the stage

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for more viable levels of change

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politically, socially and so on.

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And as expressed in great
detail in my recent book

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'The New Human Rights Movement'
published last year,

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we as a species are faced with some

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powerful social pathology,

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(I'll let that word sink in)

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a pathology driven in fact by our system

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of economic survival.

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A pathology if left unchecked,
and uncountered,

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will only exacerbate

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wealth and income inequality
and hence social instability,

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it's gonna ruin our habitat through
the drive for economic growth

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and no doubt continue to undermine
basic principles of equality,

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justice and democracy.

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And with this latter issue which
is what brings me here today,

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in the free and equal event
'United We Stand,'

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what enables a truly
democratic open free society?

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where a population can actually
reach rational consensus

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on the direction it wishes to go,

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allowing for political
egalitarianism if you will,

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intergroup respect, and the
elimination of power-based oppression.

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And if I was to frame the issue

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I would do so in the following way.

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Do we have a proper "precondition"
for viable democracy,

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not only in this country
but on this planet?

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Now what do I mean by that?

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A precondition means
something that comes before

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in order for something else
to follow in causality.

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For example a legal precondition

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to driving a car of course
is to obtain a driver's license.

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Medically a person can have a genetic
precondition for a given disease,

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and the same can be applied towards
environmental exposures such as

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smoking cigarettes is a
precondition for lung cancer.

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But the context here is sociological.

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If we as a society are to strive
for increased human rights,

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social equality and egalitarian
democratic principles,

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can we conclude

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that the most foundational
and dominant institutions,

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traditions, practices,
root philosophies of our society,

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can we conclude that they
foster the proper precondition

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to allow for more optimized democracy?

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Are we planting seeds in
lush nutrient-rich soil?

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or are we planting seeds in arid,
stone, nutrient-void soil

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with little hope of growth?

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To consider that,
we're gonna go back in time,

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Roughly 12,000 years ago the
human species transitioned

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from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies -

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tribes foraging and hunting with
no real agricultural skills -

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to farm-cultivating settled societies.

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This has been termed the
Neolithic Revolution.

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Before the Neolithic Revolution as
corroborated by numerous anthropologists

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studying both existing and
historical hunter-gatherer societies,

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social and economic life
was actually very different.

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Small bands or tribes operated
without money or markets,

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they were egalitarian, and they had
no economic dominance hierarchy.

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It also is well-established
they had much less violence,

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certainly no large-scale warfare.

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And while modern culture would gawk

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at the seemingly crude reality
of hunter-gatherer life,

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it has been well argued in fact that there
was a kind of minimalistic affluence,

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a happiness and simplicity.

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If you don't know you're poor,
well, maybe you're NOT poor.

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A unique distinction because it
challenges how we today think about

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social success or even "progress" itself.

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To highlight the contrast anthropologist
Marshall Sahlins once stated

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"To accept that hunter-gatherers are
affluent is therefore to recognize

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that the present condition of
man's slaving to bridge the gap

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between his unlimited wants
and his insufficient means

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is a tragedy of modern times.

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Modern capitalist societies,
however richly endowed,

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dedicate themselves to the
proposition of scarcity.

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Inadequacy of economic means

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is first principle of the
world's wealthiest peoples.

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The market industrial
system institutes scarcity

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in a manner completely without parallel.

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Where production and distribution are
arranged through the behavior of prices,

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and all livelihoods depend
on getting and spending,

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insufficiency of material means becomes
the explicit calculable starting point

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of all economic activity."

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I'd like you to keep this
notion of scarcity in mind

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as it's a central understanding
to our political economy

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as I will discuss.

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As far as survival,

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hunter-gatherers mostly had
a gift economy it was called,

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where they shared with no direct
expectation of reciprocation.

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Think about that.

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There are even modern stories of outsiders

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having their first visit
with these cultures

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and they would be given things like
handicrafts from the existing tribes,

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and the Western cultures would feel
the need to give something in return

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as many in our market
exchange culture would.

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And this reciprocal behavior was actually
considered offensive to the tribe

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as they felt the exchange
was a refusal of friendship.

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British anthropologist Tim Ingold
highlights the difference between

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giving and exchange has to do with ...

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a social perception,
based around autonomous companionship,

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versus involuntary obligation.

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Autonomous companionship
versus involuntary obligation.

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He states

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"Clearly both hunter-gatherers and agricultural
cultivators depend on their environments.

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But whereas for cultivators
this dependency is framed within

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a structure of reciprocal obligation,

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for hunter-gatherers it rests on the
recognition of personal autonomy.

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The contrast is between
relationships based on trust

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and those based on domination."

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I want to read that part again.

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"The contrast is between
relationships based on trust

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and those based on domination."

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This is a subtle the powerful distinction.

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It's not only referring to
the trust of each other,

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but also the trust of
the planet to provide.

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So, in short,

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there's a kind of
trade-strategizing dominance

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that we've become accustomed
to in our day-to-day lives

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since the Neolithic Revolution;
a gaming process

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that we have to engage for
survival and we take for granted

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and we don't really look at what it means,
sociologically and psychologically.

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And the result has been
thousands of years of

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in-group out-group antagonism,

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elitism, stratification,
and of course oppression.

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And in the thoughtful words of
neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky,

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"Hunter-gatherers had thousands of
wild sources of food to subsist on.

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Agriculture changed all that,

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generating an overwhelming reliance
on a few dozen food sources.

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Agriculture allowed for the stockpiling
of surplus resources and thus, inevitably,

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the unequal stockpiling of them,

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stratification of society
and the invention of classes.

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Thus it has also allowed for
the invention of poverty."

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Since the Neolithic Revolution

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we have had a process of economically
driven cultural adaptation

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built upon the survival requisites

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of the relatively new,
settled agrarian paradigm.

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This evolution of post-Neolithic
culture was self-guided

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by systemic environmental pressures
and survival inferences (what you do),

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a kind of geographical
determinism in fact,

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common to the natural dynamics of the
new mode of production: the new economy.

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This gave birth to
dominance-oriented incentives,

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values and protections,

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evolving of course patterns of conflict,
hierarchy, elitism,

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disproportionate allocation
of physical social resources,

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and hence the world you see today.

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And to translate this into common terms,

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in political economy as we would hear it

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if we were going to college
for political economy:

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Thus you have the basis
of property (ownership),

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capital (means of production),

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labor specialization (jobs),

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regulation (government),

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and protection (law, police, military).

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In other words you have grounds for what is
the ultimate mechanism of survival today -

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something we again take for granted
because we're so used to it -

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the simple market system of economics.

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And what I'm getting at here ...

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is you can't understand anything that's
happening in the world, especially politically,

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without relating back to the
incentives and procedures

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of what creates survival in society:
its economy.

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And our economy today
is explicitly based upon

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the unnuanced assumption of scarcity

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and is hence Darwinistic, Malthusian.

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It inspires endless power
antagonists between groups, fighting.

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Not to mention, of course,

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extreme and unnecessary
deprivation and poverty for many.

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Pick up any textbook,

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introductory textbook on economics and
you'll see it's very very clear the way

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the entire world apparently
is to be associated:

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resources and means are scarce -
end of story.

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From that premise the architecture
of not only the economy but society

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has been derived.

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In the book I call it the root
socioeconomic orientation of our world,

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and it justifies brute competition,
narrow self-interest,

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elitist hierarchy, inequality
and oppression. It's that simple.

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Now, that stated,

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what can we learn about the nature
of government within all of this?

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Well first, we see that
government actually proceeds

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from the economic premise of a society,

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not the other way around.

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It is this preordained economic
mode of society that decides

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what government is to be, does,
and where its loyalties rest.

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If you examine historical
variations of social systems,

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say capitalism of course,
communism as it existed, socialism,

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feudalism, mercantilism and so on,

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you'll realize that the governing
architecture of those systems

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serve to protect and perpetuate
the prevailing economic

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and class structures that
ultimately define them.

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Feudalism for example was a
structure based upon land ownership,

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labor and class interdependence,

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going from the peasant to the king.

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Capitalism in contrast is based
upon dynamics of private property,

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buying and selling, ownership,

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and the mechanism of ownership
and wealth translating of course

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into power and control.

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And to understand the specific
nature of government today,

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specifically in the United States -

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the forbidden experiment of the
world as far as I'm concerned -

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a detailed 2014 study conducted by
Professor Martin Gilens at Princeton

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and Benjamin Page at
Northwestern University concluded

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"The preferences of the average American
appear to have only a minuscule,

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near-zero, statistically non-significant
impact upon public policy."

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The researchers concluded that lawmakers'
policy actions tend to support - guess what -

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the interests of the wealthy,
Wall Street, and big business.

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And what fascinates me, fascinates me,

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is that many in America -
most in America -

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act like this is some kind of anomaly,

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some kind of corrupt anomaly,

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as though the US government and in effect,
all governments in the world,

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haven't always prioritized
economic interests since inception:

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business interests,

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with a government constituency
generally composed

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of business powers.

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People act as though the society

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hasn't been set up in
favor of the wealthy.

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They act as though ...

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elitist business freedom
is some kind of corruption.

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And that troubles me because
it means that there's

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a big mental block in the
way people perceive reality.

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People love to say things like

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"Get money out of politics!"

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without really thinking about
the vast contradiction inherent.

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While it may seem morally sound,
it's actually quite silly in principle,

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given how our world operates.

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In a world where everything is for sale,

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in a world where gaming through trade,
trade-strategizing dominance once again,

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is the most dominant mode of
communication and action, the virtue,

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why would government and policy
be off-limits from this behavior?

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In fact if we're to be
consistent in society

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it would actually be poor
form to object at all frankly;

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jokingly I think we should LET the
Koch brothers buy and run America!

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Why? because it would be consistent.

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It would be the purest,
most natural outcome in a system

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for the billionaires to
buy and run everything.

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That is what the system is.

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And you will never stop the force
of financial and business power

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as long as our society as
a whole is based upon it.

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So needless to say, when it comes
to the nature of our social system,

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as born from the geographical
determinism of the Neolithic Revolution,

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the very idea of any kind of effective
democracy becomes increasingly illusory.

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The system simply isn't designed to cater
to the well-being and democratic control

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of the general majority.

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Rather it's designed to
facilitate the affairs of business

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and most of all the protection of
big business which are naturally

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the dominant interests in the revolving
door of government as we know it.

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Hence, President Trump of course.

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He is not an outlier.

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He is EXACTLY what this system
suggests should run a nation:

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a CEO, a businessman,

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the president of the
United States Corporation.

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Put another way,

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the social system is
fundamentally fascist by nature.

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And until we change the
precondition of our economy

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there's little reason to
expect much improvement.

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We can push the fascism
back as we do here,

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it's always gonna keep pushing forward,

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and eventually based on the way
things are going, it's gonna win.

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This is a book by Robert Brady called
'Business as a System of Power.'

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It was written in 1943 in the
heat of the Second World War.

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It is a comparative study of various
nations including fascist Germany,

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Japan, Italy and others.

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It links the root structure
and incentive of business

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to the rise of fascist
controls in the state.

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And it's frightening, because today
nothing's really changed when you look

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at the structure, at the institutions
and the mechanisms that are in play.

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In the forward of this text,

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another economist named Robert Lynd states
the issue well in regard to America.

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He says

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(and this is a critical quote
that really struck me when I read it)

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"Thus political equality
under the ballot was granted

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on the unstated but factually
double-locked assumption

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that the people must refrain

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from seeking the
extension of that equality

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to the economic sphere.

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In short, the attempted harmonious
marriage of democracy to capitalism

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doomed genuinely popular
control from the start.

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And all down through our national life,

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the continuance of the
Union has depended upon

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the unstated condition
that the dominant member, capital,

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continue to provide returns to
all elements in democratic society

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sufficient to disguise

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the underlying conflict in interest."

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(Sufficient to disguise the
underlying conflict in interest!)

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"The crisis within the economic
relations of capitalism was bound

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to precipitate a crisis in the
democratic political system."

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Sufficient to disguise!
You know what that is?

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That's the fact that everyone walks around
with a cell phone that can make pancakes.

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That's the fact that people have been
bought off in this society by gadgets and

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mindless property and
associations to their identity

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that really are quite trivial.

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And just keep them in a place of subservience
because they don't want to rock the boat.

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All of that said, my goal here

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was to plant these seeds of consideration

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(because usually my talks
are a lot longer than this)

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and I honestly do not believe
we are ever going to see

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an optimization of democracy,
as we all hope,

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an optimization of democracy and equality,

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until we understand the
forces that move against it.

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And it just so happens that the
greatest force moving against it

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is the absolute foundation
of our social system

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and the foundation of our
survival as we know it.

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Arbitrarily so; it can be changed,
but this is where we are.

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And that is a conversation
I simply am not hearing these days.

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Everyone's terrified to
talk about the social system.

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They don't want to be labeled, dismissed.

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"How dare you say anything
negative about our

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beautiful market economy,
and all it's done and all it's created?"

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Well it's created a
lot of positive things,

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and it's created a whole
lot of negative things,

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and those negative things are gonna start
outweighing the positive if they haven't already.

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So I hope you can extend this
discussion to your communities,

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food for thought. Thank you very much.

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[Applause]