Daily Archives: March 26, 2016

The Zeitgeist Movement UK

Posted: March 26, 2016 at 8:44 am

Hi everybody! Count down to ZDAY London 2016. Have a look at the program for the day. Theres still tickets available, so make sure you have got them as soon as possible, if youd like to guarantee your seat. Click on program image to zoom in, please. TICKETS here:https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/z-day-london-2016-tickets-21680330452 Thank you! And see you on []

Were glad to announce that Barb Jacobson from Basic Income UK will be speaking! She has been active in community organising since 1982, a co-ordinator of Basic Income UK and on the board of Unconditional Basic Income Europe, a network of organisations and activists in 25 countries. Basic Income UK is a collective promoting unconditional []

The Zeitgeist Movement is a global sustainability advocacy organisation who warmly invite you to attend our annual event in London this year, ZDAY. In the last year we have seen further validation of the issues the movement has been seeking awareness and intelligent resolution of since its inception. Our technological capacity to create global access []

Hello everybody! ZDAY London 2016 will takeplace on April 2nd 2016 at the Birkbeck University, London. It will be a full day event, so book this date on your calendar! Soon we will give you more details about this event and how you can book your tickets. Thank you very much. See you soon!

For those who couldnt come to ZDAY London 2015 and those who wish to review the information, heres the link where you canwatchthe lectures videos of the day. http://thezeitgeistmovementuk.com/education/zeitgeist-day-2015-london/ Hope you enjoy them!

The Zeitgeist Movement UK

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Zeitgeist (film series) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted: at 8:44 am

Zeitgeist: The Movie is a documentary film with two sequels: Zeitgeist: Addendum and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, presenting a number of conspiracy theories and proposals for broad social and economic changes. Peter Joseph created all three films.[1]

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Zeitgeist: The Movie is a 2007 documentary-style film by Peter Joseph presenting a number of conspiracy theories.[2] The film disputes the historicity of Jesus (the Christ myth theory) and claims that the September 11 attacks in 2001 were pre-arranged by New World Order forces,[3] and claims that bankers manipulate world events.[4] In Zeitgeist, it is claimed that the Federal Reserve was behind several wars and manipulates the American public for a One World Government or "New World Order".[3][4][5]

The Zeitgeist film, according to writer Paul Constant, is "based solely on anecdotal evidence, it's probably drawing more people into the Truth movement than anything else".[3]Jay Kinney questioned the accuracy of its claims and the quality of its arguments, describing it as agitprop and propaganda.[6]

Released online on June 18, 2007, it soon received tens of millions of views on Google Video, YouTube, and Vimeo.[7] The film assembles archival footage, animations and narration into 'a kind of primer on conspiracies'.[4]

According to Peter Joseph, the original Zeitgeist was not presented in a film format, but was a "performance piece consisting of a vaudevillian, multimedia style event using recorded music, live instruments, and video". Zeitgeist, the first movie of the trilogy, has been described as a pseudo-expos of the international monetary system. The expos theme runs through both its sequels, according to Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates. Many of the themes of Zeitgeist are sourced to two books: The Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin, a member of the John Birch Society, and The Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Eustace Mullins.[7]

The film starts with animated visualizations, film segments and stock footage, a cartoon and audio quotes about spirituality by Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche, then shots of war, explosions, and the September 11 attacks. Then the film's title screen is given. The introduction ends with a portion of a George Carlin monologue on religion accompanied by an animated cartoon. The rest of the film is in three parts with narration by Peter Joseph.[3]

Part I questions religions as being god-given stories, asserting that the Christian religion is mainly derived from other religions, astronomical assertions, astrological myths, and other traditions, which in turn were derived from other traditions. In furtherance of the Jesus myth hypothesis, this part claims that the historical Jesus is a literary and astrological hybrid, nurtured by political forces and opportunists.[3]

Part II alleges that the 9/11 attacks were either orchestrated or allowed to happen by elements within the United States government; the government's purpose, it alleges, was to generate mass fear, initiate and justify the War on Terror, provide a pretext for the curtailment of civil liberties, and produce economic gain. It asserts that the U.S. government had advance knowledge of the attacks, that the military deliberately allowed the planes to reach their targets, and that World Trade Center buildings 1, 2, and 7 underwent a controlled demolition.[3]

Part III states that the Federal Reserve System is controlled by a small cabal of international bankers who conspire to create global calamities to enrich themselves.[4] Three wars involving the United States during the twentieth century are highlighted as part of this alleged agenda, started by specifically engineered events, including the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The film asserts that such wars serve to sustain conflict in general and force the U.S. government to borrow money, thereby increasing the profits of the international bankers. The film also states that the Federal Income Tax is illegal.[3]

This segment also alleges a secret agreement to merge the United States, Canada and Mexico into a North American Union as a step toward the creation of a single world government. The film speculates that under such a government, every human could be implanted with an RFID chip to monitor individual activity and suppress dissent.

The newspaper The Arizona Republic described Zeitgeist: The Movie as "a bramble of conspiracy theories involving Sept. 11, the international monetary system, and Christianity" saying also that the movie trailer states that "there are people guiding your life and you don't even know it".[8]

A review in The Irish Times wrote that "these are surreal perversions of genuine issues and debates, and they tarnish all criticism of faith, the Bush administration, and globalizationthere are more than enough factual injustices in this world to be going around without having to invent fictional ones".[9]

Ivor Tossell in the Globe and Mail cited it as an example of how modern conspiracy theories are promulgated, though he praised its effectiveness:

"The film is an interesting object lesson on how conspiracy theories get to be so popular.... It's a driven, if uneven, piece of propaganda, a marvel of tight editing and fuzzy thinking. Its on-camera sources are mostly conspiracy theorists, co-mingled with selective eyewitness accounts, drawn from archival footage and often taken out of context. It derides the media as a pawn of the International Bankers, but produces media reports for credibility when convenient. The film ignores expert opinion, except the handful of experts who agree with it. And yet, it's compelling. It shamelessly ploughs forward, connecting dots with an earnest certainty that makes you want to give it an A for effort."[4]

Filipe Feio, reflecting upon the film's Internet popularity in Dirio de Notcias, stated that "[f]iction or not, Zeitgeist: The Movie threatens to become the champion of conspiracy theories of today".[10]

Michael Shermer, founder of the Skeptics Society, mentioned Zeitgeist in an article in Scientific American on skepticism in the age of mass media and the postmodern belief in the relativism of truth. He argues that this belief, coupled with a "clicker culture of mass media," results in a multitude of various truth claims packaged in "infotainment units", in the form of films such as Zeitgeist and Loose Change.[11]

Jane Chapman, a film producer and reader in media studies at the University of Lincoln, called Zeitgeist "a fast-paced assemblage of agitprop," an example of unethical film-making.[12] She accuses Peter Joseph of "implicit deception" through the use of standard film-making propaganda techniques. While parts of the film are, she says, "comically" self-defeating, the nature of "twisted evidence" and use of Madrid bomb footage to imply it is of the London bombings amount to ethical abuse in sourcing. In later versions of the film a subtitle is added to this footage identifying it as from the Madrid bombings.[citation needed] She finishes her analysis with the comment: "Thus, legitimate questions about what happened on 9/11, and about corruption in religious and financial organizations, are all undermined by the film's determined effort to maximize an emotional response at the expense of reasoned argument."

Alex Jones, American radio host, prominent conspiracy theorist and exe
cutive producer of Loose Change, stated that film segments of Zeitgeist are taken directly from his documentary Terrorstorm, and that he supports "90 percent" of the film.[13]

Skeptic magazine's Tim Callahan, criticizing the first part of the film (on the origins of Christianity), wrote that "some of what it asserts is true. Unfortunately, this material is liberallyand sloppilymixed with material that is only partially true and much that is plainly and simply bogus."[14]

Chris Forbes, Senior lecturer in Ancient History of Macquarie University and member of the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney, severely criticized Part I of the film, stating that it has no basis in serious scholarship or ancient sources, and that it relies on amateur sources that recycle frivolous ideas from one another, rather than serious academic sources, commenting that "[i]t is extraordinary how many claims it makes which are simply not true".[15] Similar conclusions were reached by Dr. Mark Foreman of Liberty University.[16]

Paul Constant writing in Seattle newspaper The Stranger characterized the film as "fiction couched in a few facts".[3] Of the religious critique in the film he said: "First the film destroys the idea of God, and then, through the lens of 9/11, it introduces a sort of new Bizarro God. Instead of an omnipotent, omniscient being who loves you and has inspired a variety of organized religions, there is an omnipotent, omniscient organization of ruthless beings who hate you and want to take your rights away, if not throw you in a work camp forever."[3]

In Tablet Magazine, journalist Michelle Goldberg criticized Zeitgeist: The Movie as being "steeped in far-right, isolationist, and covertly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories," and she went on to write that the film borrows from the work of Eustace Mullins, Lyndon LaRouche, and radio host Alex Jones, and that it portrays a cabal of international bankers purportedly ruling the world.[7] In an interview with TheMarker, Joseph stated that while the film does mention bankers it does not seek to place blame on any individual or group of individuals. He argues they are merely a product of a socioeconomic system in need of change.[17]

Chip Berlet writes that the 9/11 conspiracy theories "are bait used to attract viewers from the 9/11 truth movement and others who embrace conspiracist thinking to the idiosyncratic antireligion views of the videographer and the world of right-wing antisemitic theories of a global banking conspiracy".[18]

According to Jay Kinney:

"At other times, Zeitgeist engages in willful confusion by showing TV screen shots of network or cable news with voice-overs from unidentified people not associated with the news programs. If one weren't paying close attention, the effect would be to confer the status and authority of TV news upon the words being spoken. Even when quotes or sound bites are attributed to a source, there's no way to tell if they are quoted correctly or in context."[6]

In June 2013, Peter Joseph directed the music video for "God Is Dead?" by Black Sabbath, using extensive imagery from Zeitgeist: The Movie and its sequels.[19]

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Zeitgeist: Addendum is a 2008 documentary-style film produced and directed by Peter Joseph, and is a sequel to the 2007 film, Zeitgeist: The Movie. It premiered at the 5th Annual Artivist Film Festival in Los Angeles, California on October 2, 2008.

The film begins and ends with excerpts from a speech by Jiddu Krishnamurti. The remainder of the film is narrated by Peter Joseph and divided into four parts, which are prefaced by on-screen quotations from Krishnamurti, John Adams, Bernard Lietaer, and Thomas Paine, respectively.

Part I covers the process of fractional-reserve banking as illustrated in Modern Money Mechanics, by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The film suggests that society is manipulated into economic slavery through debt-based monetary policies by requiring individuals to submit for employment in order to pay off their debt.

Part II has an interview with John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hitman, who says he was involved in the subjugation of Latin American economies by multinational corporations and the United States government, including involvement in the overthrow of Latin American heads-of-state. Perkins sees the US as a corporatocracy, in which maximization of profits is the first priority.

Part III introduces futurist Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project and asserts a need to move away from current socioeconomic paradigms. Fresco states that capitalism perpetuates the conditions it claims to address, as problems are only solved if there is money to be made. The film looks at Fresco's proposal of a resource-based economy, which puts environmental friendliness, sustainability and abundance as fundamental societal goals. He goes on to discuss technology which he sees as the primary driver of human advancement, and he describes politics as being unable to solve any problems.

Part IV suggests that the primary reason for what the film sees as society's social values ("warfare, corruption, oppressive laws, social stratification, irrelevant superstitions, environmental destruction, and a despotic, socially indifferent, profit oriented ruling class") is a collective ignorance of "the emergent and symbiotic aspects of natural law". The film advocates the following actions for achieving social change: boycotting of the most powerful banks in the Federal Reserve System, the major news networks, the military, energy corporations, all political systems; and joining, and supporting The Zeitgeist Movement.

Zeitgeist: Addendum won the 2008 Artivist Film Festival's award for best feature ("Artivist Spirit" category).[20]

Originally, the film was uploaded-released on Google video. The current video posting on YouTube surpassed 5,000,000 views by late 2013.[21]

Alan Feuer of The New York Times noted that while the previous film was famous for its alleging that the attacks of September 11 were an inside job, the second installment "was all but empty of such conspiratorial notions, directing its rhetoric and high production values toward posing a replacement for the evils of the banking system and a perilous economy of scarcity and debt".[22]

Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007) started the chain of events leading to the introduction of the Zeitgeist movement.[7] The group advocates transition from the global money-based economic system to a post-scarcity economy or resource-based economy. VC Reporter's Shane Cohn summarized the movement's charter as: "Our greatest social problems are the direct results of our economic system".[23] Joseph created a political movement that, according to The Daily Telegraph, dismisses historic religious concepts as misleading and embraces a version of sustainable ecological concepts and scientific administration of society.[24] The group describes the current socioeconomic system as structurally corrupt and inefficient in the use of resources.[22][25]

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward is the third installment in Peter Joseph's Zeitgeist film trilogy. The film premiered at the JACC Theater in Los Angeles on January 15, 2011 at the Artivist Film Festival,[26] was released in theaters and online. As of November 2014, the film has over 23 million views on YouTube.[27] The film is arranged into four parts. Each part contains interviews, narration and animated sequences.[28]

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The film begins with an animated sequence narrated by Jacque Fresco. He describes his adolescent life and his discontinuation of public education at the age of 14 and describes his early life influences.

Part I: Human Nature

Human behavior and the nature vs. nurture debate is discussed, which Robert Sapolsky refers to as a "false dichotomy." Disease, criminal activity, and addictions are also discussed. The overall conclusion of Part I is that social environment and cultural conditioning play a large part in shaping human behavior.

Part II: Social Pathology

John Locke and Adam Smith are discussed in regard to modern economics. The film critically questions the economic need for private property, money, and the inherent inequality between agents in the system. Also seen critically is the need for cyclical consumption in order to maintain market share, resulting in wasted resources and planned obsolescence. According to the movie, the current monetary system will result in default or hyperinflation at some future time.

Part III: Project Earth

As with Zeitgeist: Addendum, the film presents a "resource-based economy" as advocated by Jacque Fresco discussing how human civilization could start from a new beginning in relation to resource types, locations, quantities, to satisfy human demands; track the consumption and depletion of resources to regulate human demands and maintain the condition of the environment.

Part IV: Rise

The current worldwide situation is described as disastrous. A case is presented that pollution, deforestation, climate change, overpopulation, and warfare are all created and perpetuated by the socioeconomic system. Various poverty statistics are shown that suggest a progressive worsening of world culture.

The final scene of the film shows a partial view of earth from space, followed by a sequence of superimposed statements; "This is your world", "This is our world", and "The revolution is now".

List of Interviewees

Zeitgeist: Moving Forward received "Best Political Documentary" in 2011 from the Action on Film International Film Festival.[29]

A review in the The Socialist Standard regarding production values said the film had a "well-rounded feel". In terms of content they criticized the "shaky economic analysis" contained in the second part of the film, said that Karl Marx had already undertaken a more scientific analysis, and that, "despite these false beginnings the analysis is at least on the right track". Regarding transition to the new system proposed in the film, the review critically noted that in the film "there is no mention of how to get from here to there".[30]

Fouad Al-Noor in Wessex Scene said that the film was more focused on solutions than the previous film, and commented that while there are controversial elements, he challenged those using labels to describe the film to watch the films.[31]

In her article, published in Tablet Magazine, Michelle Goldberg described the film as "silly enough that at times [she] suspected it was [a] satire about new-age techno-utopianism instead of an example of it".[7]

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Zeitgeist (film series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Wage slavery – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted: at 8:44 am

Wage slavery refers to a situation where a person's livelihood depends on wages or a salary, especially when the dependence is total and immediate.[1][2] It is a pejorative term used to draw an analogy between slavery and wage labor by focusing on similarities between owning and renting a person.

The term wage slavery has been used to criticize exploitation of labour and social stratification, with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labor and capital (particularly when workers are paid comparatively low wages, e.g. in sweatshops),[3] and the latter as a lack of workers' self-management, fulfilling job choices, and leisure in an economy.[4][5][6] The criticism of social stratification covers a wider range of employment choices bound by the pressures of a hierarchical society to perform otherwise unfulfilling work that deprives humans of their "species character"[7] not only under threat of starvation or poverty, but also of social stigma and status diminution.[8][9][10]

Similarities between wage labor and slavery were noted as early as Cicero in Ancient Rome.[11] With the advent of the industrial revolution, thinkers such as Proudhon and Marx elaborated the comparison between wage labor and slavery in the context of a critique of societal property not intended for active personal use,[12][13] while Luddites emphasized the dehumanization brought about by machines. Before the American Civil War, Southern defenders of African American slavery invoked the concept of wage slavery to favorably compare the condition of their slaves to workers in the North.[14][15] The United States abolished slavery after the Civil War, but labor union activists found the metaphor useful. According to Lawrence Glickman, in the Gilded Age, "References abounded in the labor press, and it is hard to find a speech by a labor leader without the phrase."[16]

The introduction of wage labor in 18th century Britain was met with resistance&emdash;giving rise to the principles of syndicalism.[17][18][19][20] Historically, some labor organizations and individual social activists have espoused workers' self-management or worker cooperatives as possible alternatives to wage labor.[5][19]

The view that working for wages is akin to slavery dates back to the ancient world.[22]

In 1763, the French journalist Simon Linguet published a description of wage slavery:[13]

The slave was precious to his master because of the money he had cost him ... They were worth at least as much as they could be sold for in the market ... It is the impossibility of living by any other means that compels our farm labourers to till the soil whose fruits they will not eat and our masons to construct buildings in which they will not live ... It is want that compels them to go down on their knees to the rich man in order to get from him permission to enrich him ... what effective gain [has] the suppression of slavery brought [him?] He is free, you say. Ah! That is his misfortune ... These men ... [have] the most terrible, the most imperious of masters, that is, need. ... They must therefore find someone to hire them, or die of hunger. Is that to be free?

The view that wage work has substantial similarities with chattel slavery was actively put forward in the late 18th and 19th centuries by defenders of chattel slavery (most notably in the Southern states of the US), and by opponents of capitalism (who were also critics of chattel slavery).[9][23] Some defenders of slavery, mainly from the Southern slave states argued that Northern workers were "free but in name the slaves of endless toil," and that their slaves were better off.[24][25] This contention has been partly corroborated by some modern studies that indicate slaves' material conditions in the 19th century were "better than what was typically available to free urban laborers at the time."[26][27] In this period, Henry David Thoreau wrote that "[i]t is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself."[28]

Some abolitionists in the United States regarded the analogy as spurious.[29] They believed that wage workers were "neither wronged nor oppressed".[30]Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans argued that the condition of wage workers was different from slavery, as laborers were likely to have the opportunity to work for themselves in the future, achieving self-employment.[31] The abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass initially declared, "now I am my own master", upon taking a paying job.[32] But later in life, he concluded to the contrary, "experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other".[33][34] Douglass went on to speak about these conditions as arising from the unequal bargaining power between the ownership/capitalist class and the non-ownership/laborer class within a compulsory monetary market. "No more crafty and effective devise for defrauding the southern laborers could be adopted than the one that substitutes orders upon shopkeepers for currency in payment of wages. It has the merit of a show of honesty, while it puts the laborer completely at the mercy of the land-owner and the shopkeeper.".[35]

Self-employment became less common as the artisan tradition slowly disappeared in the later part of the 19th century.[5] In 1869 The New York Times described the system of wage labor as "a system of slavery as absolute if not as degrading as that which lately prevailed at the South".[31]E. P. Thompson notes that for British workers at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, the "gap in status between a 'servant,' a hired wage-laborer subject to the orders and discipline of the master, and an artisan, who might 'come and go' as he pleased, was wide enough for men to shed blood rather than allow themselves to be pushed from one side to the other. And, in the value system of the community, those who resisted degradation were in the right."[17] A "Member of the Builders' Union" in the 1830s argued that the trade unions "will not only strike for less work, and more wages, but will ultimately abolish wages, become their own masters and work for each other; labor and capital will no longer be separate but will be indissolubly joined together in the hands of workmen and work-women."[18] This perspective inspired the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union of 1834 which had the "two-fold purpose of syndicalist unions the protection of the workers under the existing system and the formation of the nuclei of the future society" when the unions "take over the whole industry of the country."[19] "Research has shown", summarises William Lazonick, "that the 'free-born Englishman' of the eighteenth century even those who, by force of circumstance, had to submit to agricultural wage labour tenaciously resisted entry into the capitalist workshop."[20]

The use of the term wage slave by labor organizations may originate from the labor protests of the Lowell Mill Girls in 1836.[36] The imagery of wage slavery was widely used by labor organizations during the mid-19th century to object to the lack of workers' self-management. However, it was gradually replaced by the more neutral term "wage work" towards the end of the 19th century, as labor organizations shifted their focus to raising wages.[5]

Karl Marx described Capitalist society as infringing on individual autonomy, by basing it on a materialisti
c and commodified concept of the body and its liberty (i.e. as something that is sold, rented or alienated in a class society). According to Friedrich Engels:[37][38]

The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly. The individual slave, property of one master, is assured an existence, however miserable it may be, because of the master's interest. The individual proletarian, property as it were of the entire bourgeois class which buys his labor only when someone has need of it, has no secure existence.

Critics of wage work have drawn several similarities between wage work and slavery:

According to American anarcho-syndicalist philosopher Noam Chomsky, the similarities between chattel and wage slavery were noticed by the workers themselves. He noted that the 19th century Lowell Mill Girls, who, without any reported knowledge of European Marxism or anarchism, condemned the "degradation and subordination" of the newly emerging industrial system, and the "new spirit of the age: gain wealth, forgetting all but self", maintaining that "those who work in the mills should own them."[44][45] They expressed their concerns in a protest song during their 1836 strike:

Oh! isn't it a pity, such a pretty girl as I Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die? Oh! I cannot be a slave, I will not be a slave, For I'm so fond of liberty, That I cannot be a slave.[46]

Defenses of wage labor and chattel slavery in the literature have linked the subjection of man to man with the subjection of man to nature; arguing that hierarchy and a social system's particular relations of production represent human nature and are no more coercive than the reality of life itself. According to this narrative, any well-intentioned attempt to fundamentally change the status quo is naively utopian and will result in more oppressive conditions.[47] Bosses in both of these long-lasting systems argued that their system created a lot of wealth and prosperity. Both did, in some sense create jobs and their investment entailed risk. For example, slave owners might have risked losing money by buying expensive slaves who later became ill or died; or might have used those slaves to make products that didn't sell well on the market. Marginally, both chattel and wage slaves may become bosses; sometimes by working hard. It may be the "rags to riches" story which occasionally occurs in capitalism, or the "slave to master" story that occurred in places like colonial Brazil, where slaves could buy their own freedom and become business owners, self-employed, or slave owners themselves.[48] Social mobility, or the hard work and risk that it may entail, are thus not considered to be a redeeming factor by critics of the concept of wage slavery.[49]

Anthropologist David Graeber has noted that, historically, the first wage labor contracts we know about whether in ancient Greece or Rome, or in the Malay or Swahili city states in the Indian ocean were in fact contracts for the rental of chattel slaves (usually the owner would receive a share of the money, and the slave, another, with which to maintain his or her living expenses.) Such arrangements, according to Graeber, were quite common in New World slavery as well, whether in the United States or Brazil. C. L. R. James argued that most of the techniques of human organization employed on factory workers during the industrial revolution were first developed on slave plantations.[50]

The usage of the term "wage slavery" shifted to "wage work" at the end of the 19th century as groups like the Knights of Labor and American Federation of Labor shifted to a more reformist, trade union ideology instead of worker's self-management. Much of the decline was caused by the rapid increase in manufacturing after the industrial revolution and the subsequent dominance of wage labor as a result. Another factor was immigration and demographic changes that led to ethnic tension between the workers.[5]

As Hallgrimsdottir and Benoit point out:

increased centralization of production... declining wages... [an] expanding... labor pool... intensifying competition, and... [t]he loss of competence and independence experienced by skilled labor" meant that "a critique that referred to all [wage] work as slavery and avoided demands for wage concessions in favor of supporting the creation of the producerist republic (by diverting strike funds towards funding... co-operatives, for example) was far less compelling than one that identified the specific conditions of slavery as low wages...[5]

Some anti-capitalist thinkers claim that the elite maintain wage slavery and a divided working class through their influence over the media and entertainment industry,[51][52] educational institutions, unjust laws, nationalist and corporate propaganda, pressures and incentives to internalize values serviceable to the power structure, state violence, fear of unemployment[53] and a historical legacy of exploitation and profit accumulation/transfer under prior systems, which shaped the development of economic theory:

Adam Smith noted that employers often conspire together to keep wages low, and have the upper hand in conflicts between workers and employers:[54]

The interest of the dealers... in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public [They] have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate It is not, however, difficult to foresee which of the two parties must, upon all ordinary occasions, have the advantage in the dispute, and force the other into a compliance with their terms.

The concept of wage slavery could conceivably be traced back to pre-capitalist figures like Gerrard Winstanley from the radical Christian Diggers movement in England, who wrote in his 1649 pamphlet, The New Law of Righteousness, that there "shall be no buying or selling, no fairs nor markets, but the whole earth shall be a common treasury for every man," and "there shall be none Lord over others, but every one shall be a Lord of himself."[55]

Aristotle stated that "the citizens must not live a mechanic or a mercantile life (for such a life is ignoble and inimical to virtue), nor yet must those who are to be citizens in the best state be tillers of the soil (for leisure is needed both for the development of virtue and for active participation in politics)",[56] often paraphrased as "all paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind."[57]Cicero wrote in 44 BC that "vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labour, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery."[58] Somewhat similar criticisms have also been expressed by some proponents of liberalism, like Henry George,[9]Silvio Gesell, and Thomas Paine,[59] as well as the Distributist school of thought within the Catholic Church.

To Marx and anarchist thinkers like Bakunin and Kropotkin, wage slavery was a class condition in place due to the existence of private property and the state. This class situation rested primarily
on:

and secondarily on:

Proponents of anarcho-capitalism such as John Frederic Kosanke, in contrast, believe that in the absence of restrictive statutory regulations and political cronyism, the natural pursuit of property and capital allows a positive sum enrichment of all actors. Employers and employees, as buyers and sellers of services, become peers on an equal footing.[61]

Fascism was more hostile against independent trade unions than modern economies in Europe or the United States.[62] Fascist economic policies were widely accepted in the 1920s and 1930s and foreign (especially US) corporate investment in Italy and Germany increased after the fascist take over.[63][64]

Fascism has been perceived by some notable critics, like Buenaventura Durruti, to be a last resort weapon of the privileged to ensure the maintenance of wage slavery:

No government fights fascism to destroy it. When the bourgeoisie sees that power is slipping out of its hands, it brings up fascism to hold onto their privileges.[65]

According to Noam Chomsky, analysis of the psychological implications of wage slavery goes back to the Enlightenment era. In his 1791 book On the Limits of State Action, classical liberal thinker Wilhelm von Humboldt explained how "whatever does not spring from a man's free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness" and so when the laborer works under external control, "we may admire what he does, but we despise what he is."[66] Both the Milgram and Stanford experiments have been found useful in the psychological study of wage-based workplace relations.[67]

According to research, modern work provides people with a sense of personal and social identity that is tied to

Thus job loss entails the loss of this identity.[68]

Erich Fromm argued that if a person perceives himself as being what he owns, then when that person loses (or even thinks of losing) what he "owns" (e.g. the good looks or sharp mind that allow him to sell his labor for high wages), then, a fear of loss may create anxiety and authoritarian tendencies because that person's sense of identity is threatened. In contrast, when a person's sense of self is based on what he experiences in a state of being (creativity, love, sadness, taste, sight etc.) with a less materialistic regard for what he once had and lost, or may lose, then less authoritarian tendencies prevail. The state of being, in his view, flourishes under a worker-managed workplace and economy, whereas self-ownership entails a materialistic notion of self, created to rationalize the lack of worker control that would allow for a state of being.[69]

Investigative journalist Robert Kuttner analyzed the work of public-health scholars Jeffrey Johnson and Ellen Hall about modern conditions of work, and concludes that "to be in a life situation where one experiences relentless demands by others, over which one has relatively little control, is to be at risk of poor health, physically as well as mentally." Under wage labor, "a relatively small elite demands and gets empowerment, self-actualization, autonomy, and other work satisfaction that partially compensate for long hours" while "epidemiological data confirm that lower-paid, lower-status workers are more likely to experience the most clinically damaging forms of stress, in part because they have less control over their work."[70]

Wage slavery, and the educational system that precedes it "implies power held by the leader. Without power the leader is inept. The possession of power inevitably leads to corruption in spite of good intentions [Leadership means] power of initiative, this sense of responsibility, the self-respect which comes from expressed manhood, is taken from the men, and consolidated in the leader. The sum of their initiative, their responsibility, their self-respect becomes his [and the] order and system he maintains is based upon the suppression of the men, from being independent thinkers into being 'the men' In a word, he is compelled to become an autocrat and a foe to democracy." For the "leader", such marginalisation can be beneficial, for a leader "sees no need for any high level of intelligence in the rank and file, except to applaud his actions. Indeed such intelligence from his point of view, by breeding criticism and opposition, is an obstacle and causes confusion."[71] Wage slavery "implies erosion of the human personality [because] some men submit to the will of others, arousing in these instincts which predispose them to cruelty and indifference in the face of the suffering of their fellows."[72]

In 19th-century discussions of labor relations, it was normally assumed that the threat of starvation forced those without property to work for wages. Proponents of the view that modern forms of employment constitute wage slavery, even when workers appear to have a range of available alternatives, have attributed its perpetuation to a variety of social factors that maintain the hegemony of the employer class.[43][73]

Harriet Hanson Robinson in an account of the Lowell Mill Girls wrote that generously high wages were offered to overcome the degrading nature of the work:

At the time the Lowell cotton mills were started the caste of the factory girl was the lowest among the employments of women. ... She was represented as subjected to influences that must destroy her purity and selfrespect. In the eyes of her overseer she was but a brute, a slave, to be beaten, pinched and pushed about. It was to overcome this prejudice that such high wages had been offered to women that they might be induced to become millgirls, in spite of the opprobrium that still clung to this degrading occupation.[74]

In his book Disciplined Minds, Jeff Schmidt points out that professionals are trusted to run organizations in the interests of their employers. Because employers cannot be on hand to manage every decision, professionals are trained to ensure that each and every detail of their work favors the right interestsor skewers the disfavored ones in the absence of overt control:

The resulting professional is an obedient thinker, an intellectual property whom employers can trust to experiment, theorize, innovate and create safely within the confines of an assigned ideology.[75]

Parecon (participatory economics) theory posits a social class "between labor and capital" of higher paid professionals such as "doctors, lawyers, engineers, managers and others" who monopolize empowering labor and constitute a class above wage laborers who do mostly "obedient, rote work".[76]

The terms "employee" or "worker" have often been replaced by "associate". This plays up the allegedly voluntary nature of the interaction, while playing down the subordinate status of the wage laborer, as well as the worker-boss class distinction emphasized by labor movements. Billboards, as well as TV, Internet and newspaper advertisements, consistently show low-wage workers with smiles on their faces, appearing happy.[77]

Job interviews and other data on requirements for lower skilled workers in developed countries particularly in the growing service sector indicate that the more workers depend on low wages, and the less skilled or desirable their job is, the more employers screen for workers without better employment options and expect them to feign unremunerative motivation.[78] Such screening and feigning may not only contribute to the positive self-image
of the employer as someone granting desirable employment, but also signal wage-dependence by indicating the employee's willingness to feign, which in turn may discourage the dissatisfaction normally associated with job-switching or union activity.[78]

At the same time, employers in the service industry have justified unstable, part-time employment and low wages by playing down the importance of service jobs for the lives of the wage laborers (e.g. just temporary before finding something better, student summer jobs etc.).[79][80]

In the early 20th century, "scientific methods of strikebreaking"[81] were devised employing a variety of tactics that emphasized how strikes undermined "harmony" and "Americanism".[82]

Some social activists objecting to the market system or price system of wage working, historically have considered syndicalism, worker cooperatives, workers' self-management and workers' control as possible alternatives to the current wage system.[4][5][6][19]

The American philosopher John Dewey believed that until "industrial feudalism" is replaced by "industrial democracy," politics will be "the shadow cast on society by big business".[83]Thomas Ferguson has postulated in his investment theory of party competition that the undemocratic nature of economic institutions under capitalism causes elections to become occasions when blocs of investors coalesce and compete to control the state.[84]

Noam Chomsky has argued that political theory tends to blur the 'elite' function of government:

Modern political theory stresses Madison's belief that "in a just and a free government the rights both of property and of persons ought to be effectually guarded." But in this case too it is useful to look at the doctrine more carefully. There are no rights of property, only rights to property that is, rights of persons with property,...

[In] representative democracy, as in, say, the United States or Great Britain [...] there is a monopoly of power centralized in the state, and secondly and critically [...] the representative democracy is limited to the political sphere and in no serious way encroaches on the economic sphere [...] That is, as long as individuals are compelled to rent themselves on the market to those who are willing to hire them, as long as their role in production is simply that of ancillary tools, then there are striking elements of coercion and oppression that make talk of democracy very limited, if even meaningful.[85]

In this regard Chomsky has used Bakunin's theories about an "instinct for freedom",[86] the militant history of labor movements, Kropotkin's mutual aid evolutionary principle of survival and Marc Hauser's theories supporting an innate and universal moral faculty,[87] to explain the incompatibility of oppression with certain aspects of human nature.[88][89]

Loyola University philosophy professor John Clark and libertarian socialist philosopher Murray Bookchin have criticized the system of wage labor for encouraging environmental destruction, arguing that a self-managed industrial society would better manage the environment. They, like other anarchists,[90] attribute much of the industrial revolution's pollution to the "hierarchical" and "competitive" economic relations accompanying it.[91]

Some criticize wage slavery on strictly contractual grounds, e.g. David Ellerman and Carole Pateman, arguing that the employment contract is a legal fiction in that it treats human beings juridically as mere tools or inputs by abdicating responsibility and self-determination, which the critics argue are inalienable. As Ellerman points out, "[t]he employee is legally transformed from being a co-responsible partner to being only an input supplier sharing no legal responsibility for either the input liabilities [costs] or the produced outputs [revenue, profits] of the employer's business."[92] Such contracts are inherently invalid "since the person remain[s] a de facto fully capacitated adult person with only the contractual role of a non-person" as it is impossible to physically transfer self-determination.[93] As Pateman argues:

The contractarian argument is unassailable all the time it is accepted that abilities can 'acquire' an external relation to an individual, and can be treated as if they were property. To treat abilities in this manner is also implicitly to accept that the 'exchange' between employer and worker is like any other exchange of material property ... The answer to the question of how property in the person can be contracted out is that no such procedure is possible. Labour power, capacities or services, cannot be separated from the person of the worker like pieces of property.[94]

In a modern liberal-capitalist society, the employment contract is enforced while the enslavement contract is not; the former being considered valid because of its consensual/non-coercive nature, and the later being considered inherently invalid, consensual or not. The noted economist Paul Samuelson described this discrepancy.

Since slavery was abolished, human earning power is forbidden by law to be

capitalized. A man is not even free to sell himself; he must rent himself at a wage.[95]

Some advocates of right-libertarianism, among them philosopher Robert Nozick, address this inconsistency in modern societies, arguing that a consistently libertarian society would allow and regard as valid consensual/non-coercive enslavement contracts, rejecting the notion of inalienable rights.

The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would.[96]

Others like Murray Rothbard allow for the possibility of debt slavery, asserting that a lifetime labour contract can be broken so long as the slave pays appropriate damages:

[I]f A has agreed to work for life for B in exchange for 10,000 grams of gold, he will have to return the proportionate amount of property if he terminates the arrangement and ceases to work.[97]

In the philosophy of mainstream, neoclassical economics, wage labor is seen as the voluntary sale of one's own time and efforts, just like a carpenter would sell a chair, or a farmer would sell wheat. It is considered neither an antagonistic nor abusive relationship, and carries no particular moral implications.[98]

Austrian economics argues that a person is not "free" unless they can sell their labor, because otherwise that person has no self-ownership and will be owned by a "third party" of individuals.[99]

Post-Keynesian economics perceives wage slavery as resulting from inequality of bargaining power between labor and capital, which exists when the economy does not "allow labor to organize and form a strong countervailing force."[100]

The two main forms of socialist economics perceive wage slavery differently:

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Why Work? // Index

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Welcome to CLAWS at whywork.org. We're a pro-leisure and anti-wage-slavery group of people dedicated to exploring the question: why work? This site provides information, support, and resources for those looking for alternatives to traditional employment.

We actively promote alternatives to the wage slavery mindset and what we call "The Cult of the Job" which automatically equates having a job with making a living.

If you start asking yourself "why work?" you may see a connection between wage slavery, misunderstandings of leisure, lifestyles based on consumption, corporate welfare, education that often amounts to little more than conditioning, and the global social, environmental, and economic crises we are now facing. We hope that the materials we feature here will encourage critical thinking about such things. This site is primarily about ideas and encouragement, so our focus is more philosophical than practical. However, ideas and action go hand-in-hand, so we're currently expanding the "practicality" sections.

WE'RE FEATURED IN CONSCIOUS CHOICE MAGAZINE!

Writer Patrick McGaugh calls our views "extreme." His article asks "Do you wanna work, or do you wanna job?"

CLAWS Features

We feature essays, book excerpts and articles by Bob Black, Robert Anton Wilson, Bertrand Russell, Buckminster Fuller, Jean Liedloff and many other inspiring thinkers.

Don't miss our list of unconventional replies to the question "So, what do you do for a living?"

Our spotlight essay of the moment is "We Don't Want Full Employment, We Want Full Lives!" translated by Ken Knabb from the Bureau of Public Secrets.

Books: CLAWS recommends Critical Path by R. Buckminster Fuller as well as Ishmael and Beyond Civilization by Daniel Quinn as good books to start with which are aligned with the mission and goals of CLAWS. Want to read more? We have an extensive list of book recommendations and will be adding more book reviews soon.

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Why Work? // Index

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Seasteading – Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

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El seasteading (contraccin de sea mar y homesteading colonizacin) es un concepto de creacin de viviendas permanentes en el mar, llamadas seasteads, fuera de los territorios reclamados por los gobiernos de cualquier nacin en pie.[1] Al menos dos personas de forma independiente comenzaron a usar el trmino: Neumeyer Ken en su libro Sailing the Farm (1981) y Wayne Gramlich en su artculo "Seasteading - Homesteading on the High Seas" (1998).

La mayora de seasteads propuestos son buques crucero modificados, plataformas marinas readaptadas e islas flotantes hechas a medida, mientras algunos de los sistemas de gestin propuestos guardan parentesco con el de ciudad-estado.[2] Hasta el momento no se ha creado un estado en alta mar que haya sido reconocido como una nacin soberana, aunque el Principado de Sealand es una micronacin en disputa constituida en una plataforma marina abandonada cerca de Suffolk, Inglaterra.[3] Lo ms parecido a un seastead que se ha construido hasta ahora son grandes naves de alta mar que a veces se llaman "ciudades flotantes" y pequeas islas flotantes.

Fuera de la Zona Econmica Exclusiva de 200 millas nuticas (370 km), que los pases pueden reclamar de acuerdo con la Convencin de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Derecho del Mar, en alta mar no se est sujeto a las leyes de nacin soberana alguna que no sea la bandera bajo la cual un barco navega (ver aguas internacionales). Algunos ejemplos de organizaciones que utilizan esta posibilidad son Women on Waves, que permite abortos a las mujeres en los pases donde los abortos estn sujetos a estrictas leyes, y las estaciones de radio piratas navegando por el mar del Norte durante los aos sesenta (como Radio Caroline). Al igual que estas organizaciones, un seastead podra ser capaz de aprovecharse de las leyes y reglamentos ms flexibles que existen fuera de la soberana de las naciones, y tener en gran medida un autogobierno.

El Seasteading Institute, fundado por Wayne Gramlich y Patri Friedman el 15 de abril de 2008, es una organizacin formada para facilitar el establecimiento de comunidades autnomas flotantes sobre plataformas martimas operando en aguas internacionales.[4][5] El artculo de Gramlich de 1998 "SeaSteading. - Homesteading en alta mar", describe el concepto de steading asequible, y atrajo la atencin de Friedman con su propuesta de proyecto de pequea escala.[6] Los dos comenzaron a trabajar juntos y registraron su primer "libro" colaborativo en lnea en 2001, que explora aspectos del seasteading, desde la eliminacin de residuos hasta los pabellones de conveniencia.

El proyecto tuvo la exposicin meditica en 2008 despus de haber llamado la atencin del fundador de PayPal Peter Thiel, que invirti 500000 $ en el instituto y desde entonces ha hablado en nombre de su viabilidad, y ms recientemente en su ensayo "La educacin de un libertario" publicado en lnea por Cato Unbound. El Seasteading Institute ha recibido la atencin de los medios, como CNN, la revista Wired, y la revista Prospect.[7][4][8][9] "Cuando Seasteading se convierta en una alternativa viable, el cambio de un gobierno a otro sera un asunto navegar hacia otro inclusive sin siquiera salir de su casa", dijo Friedman en la primera conferencia anual Seasteading.[4][10][11]

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Ephemerisle: The First Step in Seasteading or Just a Party?

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Aug 7, 2015 10,422 views

Ephemerisle 2009, (photo: Liz Henry)

About a hundred miles east of the Pacific Coast, the San Joaquin River and the Sacramento River collide with the east side of the San Francisco Bay. The result is a sprawling delta, as socially and politically fraught as it is beautiful. Dragonflies mate in its marshes, children wade, and vacationers fish, carefully avoiding the 800-foot cargo ships that slice like metal icebergs down deep-water channels from the bay. 40 miles northeast, in Sacramento, Californias congress hotly debates how to ration the states diminishing supply of fresh water.

Once every summer, for one week, the Delta gets even more surreal. A couple hundred people, many of them members of the San Francisco tech community, float a bunch of boats into one of the more spacious coves, drop anchor, and lash their craft together into islands. There, they form an ad hoc, quasi-techno-utopian society.

This is Ephemerisle: the strangest, most anarchic, boisterous and buoyant party-cum-libertarian-social-experiment on earth.The festival was started by people with the ultimate goal of floating free from California and its turmoil, from the United States and its economic regulations, and getting away from it all, literally.

Step 1 to Colonizing the Open Ocean: Throw a Festival?

Patri Friedman, 2011 (photo: Hannu Makarainen)

Ephemerisle was the brainchild of Patri Friedman, a small-statured software engineer with a dark beard and bright demeanor, grandson to the Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman was a famous advocate of classical liberalism, free markets, and small government. In the early 2000s, his grandson was in a graduate program in computer science at Stanford University, and had some pretty radical ideas about how to put his grandfather's ideas into practice.

I want to live in freedom, he wrote, (by which I mean at least libertarianism, if not anarcho-capitalism). Unfortunately, no such political system is implemented on a significant scale anywhere in the world.

Thus, he concluded: I am interested in helping to create a new libertarian country.

There were, of course, obstacles to this goal. To Patris eye, one in particular stood out: [A]lmost all land is controlled by governments, which tend to be very reluctant to give up sovereignty. Like many before him, Patri looked to the ocean as his frontier.

If youre a certain distance from the coast of any country, youre in international waters. If the vessel youre on is registered under a countrys flag, that countrys laws apply. If the vessel isnt registered, most bets are off (with a few notable exceptions -- laws against piracy still apply, for example). Boats in international waters have been used to circumvent regulations on gambling, surgeries, broadcast bandwidth, and more.

Although its been the ambition of many separatists, nobodys ever been able to establish a sovereign state on the high seas. Of the attempts that have been made, none could have been called successful, (the closest call, the Principality of Sealand, was an old military fort off the coast of the UK, held by the family of a pirate radio DJ since the 1960s. The fort used to be in international waters, but the UK has since extended its territorial waters, technically annexing Sealand.)

Thats becauseseasteading, the establishment of permanent dwellings on the open ocean, ishard.A lot of things we land dwellers take for granted -- not-drowning, charging a laptop, having food to eat today and tomorrow and the next day -- become a lot more challenging on the open ocean. It should be no surprise that many, many people think seasteading is impossible.

Seasteadings proponents say it isnt impossible, it just has a funding problem: existing solutions cost money to implement, and the solutions that dont exist yet cost money to develop. But even they admit its a hell of a funding problem.The funding necessary to launch even the simplest floating city was in the billions, leaving most proposed projects dead in the water, so to speak.

Still of a floating city in "Waterworld" (1995)

Patri dreamed up the festival, Ephemerisle, originally as an answer to that funding problem.

He was inspired by the writings of Wayne Gramlich, an older programmer and aspiring seasteader whose work Patri found online. Instead of planning elaborate floating metropoli, Gramlich proposed seasteading the ocean much like American settlers homesteaded the midwest: one by one, or family by family, on a budget. To this notion, Patri suggested another way to baby-step towards seasteading:

[Previous seasteading] projects all suffered from too much ambition. They attempted to tackle a difficult problem all at once, rather than dividing it into realistically small pieces. Realistically small, for a country, may not merely mean space, it may also mean time.

Patri had already witnessed one temporally limited proto-country: Burning Man, a massive, spectacular, week-long art festival in the desolate Black Rock Desert, Nevada. There, tens of thousands of people camp together in an ad hoc city of art, inclusion and radical self-expression. The feats of engineering, social organization, and creativity that tens of thousands achieve, given one a week in a wasteland chemically incapable of supporting life, inspired Patri. It also struck him as a potentially harnessable force."

Perhaps, Patri thought, he could throw a festival like Burning Man on a temporary seastead in international waters. It could be a raft-up -- attendants could boat out to the event and lash their vehicles together to make a large, artificial island. Because the island would only exist for the duration of the festival, Patri named it Ephemerisle, a portmanteau of ephemeral and isle.

Unlike Burning Man, where participants are still subject to the laws of the United States, Ephemerisle would offer attendants true autonomy from American government. Also unlike Burning Man, which bans cash transactions between participants at the event, Ephemerisle would embrace money and commerce, as a respected feature of society. And also unlike Burning Man, Ephemerisle would be unticketed, free to anybody who could get there.

If people liked the festival enough, Patri thought, they might start staying out there for longer year after year, and invite their friends. It would grow both temporally and in population. For that to happen, the island itself would have to grow, too. Over time, maybe these people would be motivated to solve a lot of seasteadings hard engineering problems, so Ephemerisle could continue to grow. As Patri later explained his thinking:

If there was some difficult but solvable technical problem that those people had to solve that to get Burning Man to a place where they didnt have to pay a large portion of ticket fees, [...] [and] where they didnt have U.S. legal requirements, could that community of [...] amazing builders and creators [...] solve that problem? Hell yes.

That community of inspired enthusiastic people, they could solve a technical problem, no problem. [...] They solve a lot of really tough problems because theyre inspired to do so.

Patri bought ephemerisle.com in 2001, and seasteading.org in 2002 (he has said of Ephemerisle, One third of the reason why I wrote all of this down and put up a website about it is because I really lik
e the name.) For a long time, not much happened. He reached out to and befriended Gramlich, who also happened to live in the Bay Area. In 2002, the two of them floated a few homemade crafts onto Patris pool and called them poolsteads (Might stick a plant or two on top just for fun.)

Then, half a decade later, Patri and Gramlich met Peter Thiel.

The Vision Meets the Money

Seasteading Contest WinnerAndrs Gyrfi's design for a modular seastead

Patri was, and still is, a man of many blogs. He's blogged about everything and anything: seasteading, fatherhood (he has two children), romance, libertarian politics, novels, and nutrition. In 2007, he announced that he and Gramlich were working on a book on seasteading. Eventually, his blogs found their way to the screen of an independently-minded libertarian venture capitalist, bent on funding ideas most sane people thought were crazy.

Enter Peter Thiel. The year is 2008. Thiel was a founder of PayPal, an early investor in Facebook, and a founder of the venture capital firm Founders Fund. Founders Fund specializes in revolutionary technologies, claiming in its manifesto that VC culture's shift to incrementalist investments has held back innovation. We wanted flying cars," they write, "instead we got 140 characters. In 2008, Thiel himself had funded anti-aging research via the Methuselah Foundation, and the Singularity Institute, (which would later become the Machine Intelligence Research Institute: MIRI).

Patri and Gramlich had not made much technical progress on seasteading since 2001, but their thinking on the subject had significantly developed. Patri and Gramlich envisioned a future in which thousands, if not millions, of artificial islands dotted the oceans. Their idea was that archipelagos of these micronations would increase market competition between governmental systems, and lower the cost to an individualleaving a system they didnt like:

Rather than adapting policy to voter preferences, local governments can keep policy constant and allow consumer-citizens to adopt whichever bundle of services best matches their preferences. If consumers can vote with their feet, local government planners do not face the same information deficit as central government planners.

Patri and Gramlich theorized that this competition for citizens would drive up the quality of governing systems, and allow people better and more granular choices. They even suggested the islands could be designed so that individuals who wished to change affiliation could just untie their house and the land it was built on, and float away.

Apparently this vision fell into the category of flying car visions of the future. Thiel, Gramlich, and Patri met, and Thiel invested $500,000 for the partners to found the Seasteading Institute. Thiels eventual total investment in the Seasteading Institute was a reported $1.25 million in 2011.

Poke around the Seasteading Institutes website and youll find 8 Moral Imperatives to make seasteading possible. Whether or not you believe their claims, seasteading -- or at least its rhetoric -- had gone from one mans hearts desire to help start a libertarian country, to a philanthropic cause to save the world via its economies.

It is a way for people to unilaterally bring about change and make the world a better place, Peter Thiel said in 2009 as the keynote speaker at the first Seasteading Conference.

And part of that mission was Ephemerisle.

Although Patri said most of those resources were going towards a top-down approach -- investing in businesses and engineering research -- Ephemerisle remained part of the plan. We see it as a parallel, cheaper, bottom-up option, he said in at the first Seasteading Conference, days before the first Ephemerisle, that reduces our risk by having it in our portfolio. In addition to trying to architect and engineer the worlds first floating countries, the Seasteading Institute started planning a big, floating party.

The Man Who Made Things Float

Chicken John Rinaldi at the first Ephemerisle, 2009 (cropped photo: Christopher Rasch)

Patri is a slick little shit, isnt he? San Francisco artist Chicken John Rinaldi tells us. Swindling millions of dollars for absolutely nothing.

Chicken John is the man who built the first Ephemerisle. When planning the event, Patri asked his friends in the Burning Man community a lot of questions about how to organize a festival. He was also asking people whether they knew anything about boats, about floating platforms, about camping for extended periods on water.

And he kept getting the same answer: Well, I dont know. Call Chicken John! At least, thats what Chicken John says.

Chicken John was a member of the famed Cacophony Society, the artists, street artists, and performance artists who organized the first Burning Man, and the first Santacon. In 2007, he ran for mayor of San Francisco, telling the Chronicle, "The government should be like someone you want to invite to the party, not someone you would call to do your taxes.

Chicken John knew a thing or two about boats, because of a series of collaborations he did from 2006-2009 with street artist Swoon. Swoon makes boats, Chicken John wrote of the projects. Well. She causes boats to be made. Like static electricity causes lightning and thunder.

The premise was simple. Swoon would design towering Winchester mystery structures out of trash and scrap. She and her friends, including Chicken John, would voyage on and live on them for months at a time -- part as art, part as an experiment in communal living, and part just for fun. Chicken John's job was to stick recycled motors on the junk boats, make them go, and make sure they didnt sink.

I knew what I was doing, Im a mechanic, Chicken John tells us, about starting the project in 2006. But I didnt know how anything floated, I had no idea. Nothing. From nowhere.

He learned. They took their first boats down the Mississippi in 2006 and 2007, and another fleet down the Hudson in 2008. Eventually we packed them all in shipping containers, and then floated across the Adriatic Sea, Chicken John says. On that voyage, they took their craft 250 miles from Slovenia to Venice. We crashed the Biennale while Yoko Ono was getting her lifetime achievement award.

One of Swoons Swimming Cities, docked (photo: RJ)

When Patri approached him in 2009, Chicken John might have been the worlds leading expert on the mechanics and perils of doing weird stuff on the water, including living on it. He was also a self-described rich, white Republican, which might have made him seem more culturally approachable to the likes of Patri and Gramlich. Patri commissioned him to build Ephemerisle 1.0s central platform.

I was like, sure, Ill do your project for you, Chicken John says. He says he thought the seasteading aspect of the festival was for fun, or funny, and didnt know the seasteaders were serious when he agreed to work with them. Anybody who says theyre going to build seasteads on the open ocean is an asshole and a swindler. Yeah, sure were gonna build seasteads on the ocean. And then the moon!

When Chicken John joined, Patri had already changed his position on what qualified as a realistically small first version of the festival. They were still going to start small in terms of duration and population -- 100 people, one weekend. But given the state of seasteading technology, and the dearth
of practical nautical experience within the institute, (The prototypical seasteader was a nerdy tech entrepreneur, Patri told us), debuting the festival on international waters was deemed too ambitious. The first Ephemerisle had to take place somewhere with calm waters, predictable weather, and easy access.

They chose a spot on the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta called Disappointment Slough. It was close to a marina that often rented out houseboats, designed to be lashed together for large parties. Its very common to tie boats together like that, Chicken John says. Its the best way to anchor a bunch of boats close together -- if you anchor them separately, the waves smash them together and you damage the boats.

The boats werent designed for large waves, which is something the Seasteading Institute hoped to figure out in later years, as international waters were still on Ephemerisles roadmap. The secondEphemerisle was to take place on the San Francisco Bay, one year later. After that," he had said, "this is a big step that may take more than one year, wed like to take it to the coast. [...] And then, the ocean.

Ephemerisle 1.0

Ephemerisle 2009 (photo: Christopher Rasch)

The first Ephemerisle was documented in an eight minute video by Jason Sussberg -- at the time a Stanford MFA student in film. About a hundred people showed up on eight houseboats, which they eventually lashed to Chicken Johns platform. There was food, drink, dancing and general revelry. As Reason Magazines Brian Doherty claims in the film, it delivered on its main promise: Theres a central space, 100 people are on it, enjoying themselves, most of the little things are docked to it.

But there was also a lot that went wrong -- things went over budget, and building the island and its platforms took twice the time expected (We have a lot of optimists here, someone observed, as construction that was supposed to be complete Friday morning continued into Saturday.) Merely anchoring a single boat in a current proved more challenging than expected.

The film ends with a shot of Patri on a derelict ship, soberly recapping the weekends lessons. I think I have a better idea now of just how hard [...] the ocean is, he says to the camera. [Water] makes everything more difficult, it makes everything more expensive, it makes everything take longer. I think seasteading is still worth going after in spite of that.

Doherty also brings up a criticism in the film: Im not entirely certain I can see the throughline between this and the end of seasteading goal. Seasteading has to involve economic activity, and this is not that. Youre like building a cult around seasteading! This is great! Were all in this together-

Lonely Islands Im on a Boat! starts playing in the background, and Doherty starts laughing and drops the rest of his sentence. And the dance party has begun! he says, waving a can of PBR at a group of people singing atop a houseboat.

Chicken John at the first Ephemerisle, (still from Jason Sussberg)

All the shots of Chicken John in the 8 minute film are of him working. Theres not a lot of people here that are very salty, he says in one clip, meaning nobody there knew much about being on the water.

They basically spent a bunch of money on a weekend camping trip and it failed miserably, he tells us, of that first year.

According to him the build was even more difficult than the documentary conveys. He had to enlist help from the local marina just to cart his materials out. I thought that Patri and his community would provide me with people to help me out, Chicken John says. And then it was just me. When the weekend was over, seemingly through further mismanagement, he was abandoned at Disappointment Slough:

I had one guy helping me out. And Monday morning that guy was gone. He was gone, his houseboat was gone. They just left me with this giant platform. And, honestly, it was scary. What happened if I dropped my cellphone into the water? There was nobody fucking there.

Chicken John also says he fronted all the money for the platforms, and then had to push the Seasteading Institute to reimburse him. It made me violently ill, he says. If I was 20 instead of 40, I would have beat them to an inch of their fucking lives.

Ephemerisle, Today

The chandelier boat

Six years later, Ephemerisle took place from July 20-26, 2015. In total there were an estimated 500 attendants, and the official event lasted seven days. Many participants were out there for ten, building up and taking down islands.

A 130-foot 1930s research vessel attended, as did a barge carrying a two-story RV covered in LEDs, and another with a DJ booth and a 10x2 grid of speakers. Ferries ran between islands throughout the weekend, some of them imaginative art boats. One was a small dance barge, The Artemiid, with a shade-structure that made it look like a giant nudibranch. By day, it shed and collected swimmers, and its fins rippled in the headwind when riders tugged on certain ropes and levers. Another art boat was a small dinghy, with a chandelier that dangled like an angler fishs lantern. Another art boat was a Delorean chassis modified into a hovercraft.

The Delorean (still from Oceanus)

The event has grown in many of the ways predicted -- its larger, grander, and lasts longer.But, even in its 6th year, Ephemerisle did not take place in the open ocean, nor just off the coast, nor in the bay. It still hasnt made it out of the Delta it started in.

I think the ways Ephemerisle has grown are the easy ones, Patri tells us. "Its still too early to tell whether its on the incremental trajectory to seasteading. Like, in some ways, its been really successful. But it also doesnt look like its developing into autonomous independent communities for a week a year.

The Seasteading Institute never sponsored a second Ephemerisle. Having gone uninsured the first year, they officially cancelled the event in 2010 when they couldnt find insurance less expensive than $300 per participant. The community decided to have a party on the planned weekend anyways, under the name Not-Ephemerisle. They moved it a few miles to a cove called Mandeville Tip, where it is still held today. In 2011, the Seasteading Institute officially handed the event over to the community.

Patri left his position as president of the Seasteading Institute in 2011 to pursue a Free Cities project in Honduras. Hes now back in the Bay Area, working at Google again, and chairman of the Seasteading Institutes board. He says the Seasteading Institute has refocused its efforts solely into more top-down, less speculative ventures.

Over time, weve come to the viewpoint that we want to work with countries, he says. You have to be really big in order to actually start your own country.

But even though the Seasteading Institute is no longer officially involved, its not clear that Ephemerisle is far off-track on the route to seasteading. The road might just be exponentially longer, and much murkier than Patri expected.

The Robert Grey at sunset (still from Oceanus)

One example of possible progress towards seasteading was Project Oceanus. They rented out the Robert Grey, a 130-foot, 1930s research vessel, and hosted daytime talks and night-time dance parties. Project Oceanus is in the process of acquiring 300 foot ship to fix up and turn into a live/work space on the San Francisco Bay. The
ir plan is, ultimately, to pilot it to the Pacific Garbage Patch and 3D-print the plastic into the foundation for a floating city.

Another example of progress is that, year to year, the community has built up nautical expertise. The Ephemerisle github and wiki are both chock-full of documentation: recaps on what worked and what didnt year to year, diagrams on how to anchor a raft-up, or how to build a platform. Organizers say that theyve been prototyping build designs in calmer parts of the San Francisco Bay during the year, and a Bay-based festival might not be far off.

This year, about 65% of the population of the festival stayed on an archipelago called Elysium. In Elysium, long narrow bridges made out of plywood and inner tubes connected small satellite groups of houseboat islands, and one sailboat island, to other floating platforms: a dance floor, a few platforms designated for lounging or meditation. Such a structure wouldnt even have been conceivable in 2009. When Patri and his partner ferried in this year, this is where they stayed.

Elysium, from above

Elysium is run by Simone Syed and Scott Norman, managing partners at Velorum Capital (they are also a couple). Although Syed does not identify as a seasteader, she was brought to Ephemerisle in 2012 by friends in the community. Syed was horrified by the unsafe conduct of some of the attendants. (This included a young man who freaked out on acid, stripped naked, and sprinted away from the Coast Guard -- first by swimming, and then, when he reached the shore, on foot. This year, Elysium held a race in his honor.) At first, Syed was so upset she resolved never to attend Ephemerisle again.

But the people who come to Ephemerisle are some of the most brilliant people on the planet, Syed says. It would be a travesty if any of these individuals perished in an accident we could have prevented. So she changed her mind, and decided to run her own island the next year, as a safety-first dictatorship:

My friends and I realized we could create our own island nation state, and our own form of governance. The people we wanted to participate with us would buy into those rules. We ended up being the biggest island, the party island, but we had instilled a sense of personal responsibility in each of our crew members.

Part of Patris original vision for Ephemerisle was that, while Burning Man celebrated artistic expression, Ephemerisle would celebrate political expression. Instead of art, people would build their own toy systems of governance -- maybe one boat would merely permit nudity, for example, and another would require it. People could vote with their feet, in a toy way, and hang out at the boat with the best legal system for their immediate needs.

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Ephemerisle: The First Step in Seasteading or Just a Party?

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Counselling and Hypnotherapy in … – Personal Empowerment

Posted: at 8:44 am

At times in our lives, we can all benefit from the help and support of another and personal therapy can make a huge positive difference.

With therapy rooms in Great Barr,Birmingham and Sutton Coldfield, I work on the basis that we are all unique and individual. This is reflected in Your therapy, therefore,my primary ethic is to ensure that you are at the forefront of everything we do, after all, your therapy is about and for You.

Asan experienced Counsellor and Psychotherapist, Iam Accredited by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and a UKRCP registered Counsellor and Psychotherapist. As well as seeing individuals on a one to one basis, I also see couples for Relationship Counselling.

Appointments are available in the daytime and evening in north Birmingham(close to the Scott Arms crossroads, just off the A34 that links Walsall and Birmingham City Centre)and in Sutton Coldfield (near Banners Gate). Both locations are very easy to find, offer ease of parkingand arein easy reach of Birmingham, Walsall, Sutton Coldfield and West Bromwich. My FAQ page has address and map details.

Feel free to contact me I am happy to provide as much information as your require to allow you to make an informed choice. If you have any questions, would like any additional information or if you would like to set up an initial appointment, please contact me.

Im often asked about what happens in the first therapy session. Heres an article I published that gives an insight Click here.

Hypnotherapy is a very effective way to help you become a non-smoker. Information on how this works Stop Smoking Main Page

In follow-up to the previous two articles, below are some mindfulness exercises to experiment with. Experimenting with techniques is really important to find what you prefer and what fits best for you. Often we are advised to do things that may have been wonderfully beneficial or even life-changing for the person telling us, but it may not suit ourselves.

I have recently been asked forthe address of my Facebook page Here it is- https://www.facebook.com/personalempowermenttherapy

If you have time, please share

Wishing you a lovely day

Duncan.

It is extremely hard to feelanxious or stressedwhen we have a sense of gratitude and appreciation for what we have in life. We are surrounded by such rich splendour and we have all created truly brilliant things in our lives, however, often these parts of us feel distanced and not felt. Read more .

Mindfulness is increasingly being recognised as being very effective to help people manage anxiety and depression. Put very simply, it is the practise of focusing our attention on being in the here and now without wishing it were different. It is enjoying the present when things are good and not holding onto it when it changes and being with the unpleasant without fearing it will always be this way. Read More .

Throughout our lives we encounter a vast range of experiences and many can indelibly ink themselves into our memories whether pleasant or unpleasant. Unpleasant and harmful experiences can often create symptoms of trauma that can stay with us for some time. Read more ..

It can be very easy for us to slip into unhealthy eating and drinking patterns and often this can be gradual which results into us putting on extra weight. Losing this weight isnt easy and not being as we would like to be can begin to chip away at our self esteem. It can also alter our behaviours for example it can influence how we dress or we may go out less or become a little less confident. Read more .

Keeping a journal can bring great benefits and you can do this in a number of ways. A valid point to remember is that this is your journal and often we can place undue pressure on ourselves to write every day or can give up if weve missed a few days or weeks. This is Yours so if you find it a help to write once a week, month, quarter then do so. Read more .

With seemingly an ever increasing number of therapies available, it can be hard to decide what to look for to ensure you have the help and support that is going to be best for you. From the greater researched and evidence based therapies of Counselling, CBT, Psychotherapy and EMDR to Life Coaching and complimentary therapies such as Hypnotherapy and Reflexology. Read more ..

We have been very fortunate to be able to show the pictures of Gary Davison. Garys artistic depth and expertise isexpressed through his photography and we are grateful to be able to incorporate them on this website. For more information on his photos, please go to facebook.com/gary.davison

Managing any strong emotion can be a challenge for us as when we are flooded with strong feelings, our ability to think rationally diminishes significantly. Anger is one of our primary emotions and is often sparked by frustration or injustice. Read more .

Attending any appointment for the first time can be a daunting prospect and this is especially true of Hypnotherapy due to the many myths that accompany it and the nature of the therapy.

So in the first session, what can you realistically expect? The information that is stated below relates to how I work and there maybe differences between different therapists. Read more.

In the previous article Do you value your sleep, it raised some significant points as to why sleep is so important for us to be able to function at our best. Its one thing to be appreciate this but achieving this cannot always be easy. Read more .

Sleep is a fundamental for our wellbeing and recent research emphasis this greatly.

Therapeutic writing is very widely used form of self help. Writing is a form of expression and any form of expression helps us to manage and deal with our emotions. When faced with issues and problems in life, it can be very easy for our thoughts to spiral, go round in circles and meander down some dark negative alleyways and as this happens, our emotions become engaged.

Its been 5 years since the smoking ban was introduced in England and it has been hailed as bringing huge benefits. It has brought about huge behavioural changes, for example, where for many its a natural act for smokers to disappear to the designated areas and for others, it has altered whether they go out socially or create their social interactions at home.

Feeling inspired and being inspired can provide such powerful positive feelings. Often this means getting in touch with a thought, feeling, way of being or an emotion that we truly connect with.

From today, we are able to offer coaching and counselling via Skype. This can be done directly or through http://www.mootu.co.uk. It is very easy to useand begins with booking a session. To do this, simply email me or call and well arrange a mutually convenient time and I offer a free 15 minute taster to allow you to become familiar with talking to me over Skype.

As the New Year gets under way, we often look to make positive changes to ensure this year is a great year. Making it is not always easy. Read more

Relaxation is often under-estimated as a great way to alleviate stress. Living in the UK can be very stressful with a multitude of perceived demands that we place upon ourselves such as the need to earn a certain amount, to have our status needs met, to perform well as a friend, family member, work colleague or cope with demands such as brining up children or meeting our monthly outgoings. Also, we can feel a sense of guilt if were not being productive or if were not busying ourselves. Read more .

The way we view life can often influence our emotions and how we behave. We tend to attach meaning to things that happen to us such as the manner in which someone talks to us, how our team performs, watching the news etc.Read more

CBT has been given a lot of press over the last few years. This is largely due to it being an evidence based therapy meaning that organisations such as the NHS can see the differences that are being made. It is can also be a very effective therapy to allow people to free themselves from their self limiting thoughts and beliefs and for them to have tools and strategies to manage their lives effectively. Read more

An investigation by The Guardian has found that prescription rates for anti-depressants in the north of England are up to 3 times higher than in the south. NICE guidelines clearly state that pills should not be the first resort in helping mild to moderate depression and instead favour talking therapies such as CBT or Counselling as these work better and do not have risky side effects.

Life pressures often take their toll on our relationships. From long hours to the time and effort required to care for children. It is very easy for us to become distanced from our partner and for us to fall into routine ways of being where the enjoyment we used to share is less.

The tips below are to allow people to manage panic attacks and their symptoms. Some or all may be relevant and useful and these are only a guide of the more common ways to manage anxiety.

Panic attacks (also known as anxiety attacks) can be a terrifying ordeal as our mind gives a strong reaction to something it perceives as a threat. Read more ..

Weve moved offices and as such the landline number has changed from 0121 356 1276 to 0121 580 8015. If you dial the old number though, there is a recorded message to advise you of this change. My mobile remains the same and is probably the quickest way to get in touch.

Regards

Duncan (Quinney)

The Anxiety page of this website has been updated to include lots more information click here. Included now is information on Panic Attacks, General Anxiety Disorder, OCD, Eating Disorders, Substance Misuse and Phobias. As always, should you require any further information, feel free to email or call me. Regards Duncan

The NHS and Government are in the midst of their initiative Improving Access to Psychological Therapies which is pretty much as it sounds. It was found that there are a number of barriers to people gaining the support and help they may benefit from such as lack of NHS counsellors, long waiting lists, lack of awareness of what is available and the perceived stigma attached with seeking psychological support. Read more ..

A new page has been added. Click here Life Coaching in Birmingham. Having trained as a Coach some years ago, I am now offering this for appointments in Great Barr, Birmingham and in Sutton Coldfield. The Birmingham therapy room is at the Scott Arms betweem Walsall and Birmingham City Centre and close to West Bromish too. The Sutton Coldfield therapy room is walking distance from the town centre. I also provide Counselling, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Psychotherapy and Hypnotherapy at these locations too.

As always, feel free to contact me if you would like any further information or if youd like to set up an initial appointment.

Hypnotherapy can help alleviate the symptoms of anxiety. Anxiety is a human emotion experienced by everyone and if you imagine a scale of 1 to 100, where 1 is very low and 100 is very high, our anxiety levels are on that scale somewhere at all times. Sometimes we may be veering towards the upper end, other times we may move towards the lower end. For some people, anxiety can be particularly prevalent and they may feel that they are towards the top end of the scale for a lot of the time and are finding it hard to control this. Read more .

There are a number of reasons as to why exercise is good for us from the obvious physical effects but also from a psychological perspective. Exercise increases the release of natural opiates within the brain called endorphins which is chemically similar to morphine.

Counselling is a growing industry and the attendance of counselling and therapy is at last becoming more and more accepted. There has been, and to some extent, there still is a stigma attached with seeking psychological help as though those who engage with such therapies are perceived to be in need or are weak.

The government have stated that they aim to cut the number of smokers by 50% over the next 10 years. Estimates show that currently approximately 21% of the population smokes with the aim to reduce this to 10%.

Please read more

Stress can be described as an imbalance between a persons demands and their ability to cope with those demands. The personal demands that cause this stress are ultimately imposed by the individual, therefore stress, to an extent can be indirectly self imposed.

Empowerment – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted: at 8:44 am

Empowerment refers to measures designed to increase the degree of autonomy and self-determination in people and in communities in order to enable them to represent their interests in a responsible and self-determined way, acting on their own authority. Empowerment refers both to the process of self-empowerment and to professional support of people, which enables them to overcome their sense of powerlessness and lack of influence, and to recognise and eventually to use their resources and chances.

The term empowerment originates from American community psychology and is associated with the social scientist Julian Rappaport (1981).

In social work, empowerment forms a practical approach of resource-oriented intervention. In the field of citizenship education and democratic education, empowerment is seen as a tool to increase the responsibility of the citizen. Empowerment is a key concept in the discourse on promoting civic engagement. Empowerment as a concept, which is characterized by a move away from a deficit-oriented towards a more strength-oriented perception, can increasingly be found in management concepts, as well as in the areas of continuing education and self-help.

Robert Adams points to the limitations of any single definition of 'empowerment', and the danger that academic or specialist definitions might take away the word and the connected practices from the very people they are supposed to belong to.[1] Still, he offers a minimal definition of the term: 'Empowerment: the capacity of individuals, groups and/or communities to take control of their circumstances, exercise power and achieve their own goals, and the process by which, individually and collectively, they are able to help themselves and others to maximize the quality of their lives.'[2]

One definition for the term is "an intentional, ongoing process centered in the local community, involving mutual respect, critical reflection, caring, and group participation, through which people lacking an equal share of resources gain greater access to and control over those resources" (Cornell Empowerment Group).[3]

Rappaport's (1984) definition includes: "Empowerment is viewed as a process: the mechanism by which people, organizations, and communities gain mastery over their lives."[4]

Sociological empowerment often addresses members of groups that social discrimination processes have excluded from decision-making processes through - for example - discrimination based on disability, race, ethnicity, religion, or gender. Empowerment as a methodology is also associated with feminism.

Empowerment is the process of obtaining basic opportunities for marginalized people, either directly by those people, or through the help of non-marginalized others who share their own access to these opportunities. It also includes actively thwarting attempts to deny those opportunities. Empowerment also includes encouraging, and developing the skills for, self-sufficiency, with a focus on eliminating the future need for charity or welfare in the individuals of the group. This process can be difficult to start and to implement effectively.

One empowerment strategy is to assist marginalized people to create their own nonprofit organization, using the rationale that only the marginalized people, themselves, can know what their own people need most, and that control of the organization by outsiders can actually help to further entrench marginalization. Charitable organizations lead from outside of the community, for example, can disempower the community by entrenching a dependence charity or welfare. A nonprofit organization can target strategies that cause structural changes, reducing the need for ongoing dependence. Red Cross, for example, can focus on improving the health of indigenous people, but does not have authority in its charter to install water-delivery and purification systems, even though the lack of such a system profoundly, directly and negatively impacts health. A nonprofit composed of the indigenous people, however, could ensure their own organization does have such authority and could set their own agendas, make their own plans, seek the needed resources, do as much of the work as they can, and take responsibility - and credit - for the success of their projects (or the consequences, should they fail).

The process of which enables individuals/groups to fully access personal or collective power, authority and influence, and to employ that strength when engaging with other people, institutions or society. In other words, "Empowerment is not giving people power, people already have plenty of power, in the wealth of their knowledge and motivation, to do their jobs magnificently. We define empowerment as letting this power out."[5] It encourages people to gain the skills and knowledge that will allow them to overcome obstacles in life or work environment and ultimately, help them develop within themselves or in the society.

To empower a female "...sounds as though we are dismissing or ignoring males, but the truth is, both genders desperately need to be equally empowered."[6] Empowerment occurs through improvement of conditions, standards, events, and a global perspective of life.

Paradoxically, before there can be the finding that a particular group requires empowerment and that therefore their self-esteem needs to be consolidated on the basis of awareness of their strengths, there needs to be a deficit diagnosis usually carried out by experts assessing the problems of this group. The fundamental asymmetry of the relationship between experts and clients is usually not questioned by empowerment processes. It also needs to be regarded critically, in how far the empowerment approach is really applicable to all patients/ clients. It is particularly questionable whether mentally ill people in acute crisis situations are in a position to make their own decisions. According to Albert Lenz, people behave primarily regressive in acute crisis situations and tend to leave the responsibility to professionals.[7] It must be assumed, therefore, that the implementation of the empowerment concept requires a minimum level of communication and reflectivity of the persons involved.

In social work, empowerment offers an approach that allows social workers to increase the capacity for self-help of their clients. For example, this allows clients not to be seen as passive, helpless 'victims' to be rescued but instead as a self-empowered person fighting abuse/ oppression; a fight, in which the social worker takes the position of a facilitator, instead of the position of a 'rescuer'.[8]

Marginalized people who lack self-sufficiency become, at a minimum, dependent on charity, or welfare. They lose their self-confidence because they cannot be fully self-supporting. The opportunities denied them also deprive them of the pride of accomplishment which others, who have those opportunities, can develop for themselves. This in turn can lead to psychological, social and even mental health problems. "Marginalized" here refers to the overt or covert trends within societies whereby those perceived as lacking desirable traits or deviating from the group norms tend to be excluded by wider society and ostracized as undesirables.

According to Robert Adams, there is a long tradition in the UK and the USA respectively to advance forms of self-help that have developed and contributed to more recent concepts of empowerment. For example, the free enterprise economic theories of Milton Friedman embraced self-help as a respectable contributor to the economy. Both the Republ
icans in the US and the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher built on these theories. 'At the same time, the mutual aid aspects of the concept of self-help retained some currency with socialists and democrats.'[9]

In economic development, the empowerment approach focuses on mobilizing the self-help efforts of the poor, rather than providing them with social welfare. Economic empowerment is also the empowering of previously disadvantaged sections of the population, for example, in many previously colonized African countries.[10]

Legal empowerment happens when marginalised people or groups use the legal mobilisation i.e., law, legal systems and justice mechanisms to improve or transform their social, political or economic situations. Legal empowerment approaches are interested in understanding how they can use the law to advance interests and priorities of the marginalised.[11]

According to 'Open society foundations' (an NGO) "Legal empowerment is about strengthening the capacity of all people to exercise their rights, either as individuals or as members of a community. Legal empowerment is about grass root justice, about ensuring that law is not confined to books or courtrooms, but rather is available and meaningful to ordinary people.[12]

Lorenzo Cotula in his book ' Legal Empowerment for Local Resource Control ' outlines the fact that legal tools for securing local resource rights are enshrined in legal system, does not necessarily mean that local resource users are in position to use them and benefit from them. The state legal system is constrained by a range of different factors - from lack of resources to cultural issues. Among these factors economic, geographic, linguistic and other constraints on access to courts, lack of legal awareness as well as legal assistance tend to be recurrent problems.[13]

In many context, marginalised groups do not trust the legal system owing to the widespread manipulation that it has historically been subjected to by the more powerful. 'To what extent one knows the law, and make it work for themselves with 'para legal tools', is legal empowerment; assisted utilizing innovative approaches like legal literacy and awareness training, broadcasting legal information, conducting participatory legal discourses, supporting local resource user in negotiating with other agencies and stake holders and to strategies combining use of legal processes with advocacy along with media engagement, and socio legal mobilisation.[13]

Sometimes groups are marginalized by society at large, with governments participating in the process of marginalization. Equal opportunity laws which actively oppose such marginalization, are supposed to allow empowerment to occur. These laws made it illegal to restrict access to schools and public places based on race. They can also be seen as a symptom of minorities' and women's empowerment through lobbying.

Gender empowerment conventionally refers to the empowerment of women, and has become a significant topic of discussion in regards to development and economics. It can also point to approaches regarding other marginalized genders in a particular political or social context. This approach to empowerment is partly informed by feminism and employed legal empowerment by building on international human rights. Empowerment is one of the main procedural concerns when addressing human rights and development. The Human Development and Capabilities Approach, The Millennium Development Goals, and other credible approaches/goals point to empowerment and participation as a necessary step if a country is to overcome the obstacles associated with poverty and development.[14]

According to Thomas A Potterfield,[15] many organizational theorists and practitioners regard employee empowerment as one of the most important and popular management concepts of our time.

Ciulla discusses an inverse case: that of bogus empowerment.[16]

In the sphere of management and organizational theory, "empowerment" often refers loosely to processes for giving subordinates (or workers generally) greater discretion and resources: distributing control in order to better serve both customers and the interests of employing organizations.

One account of the history of workplace empowerment in the United States recalls the clash of management styles in railroad construction in the American West in the mid-19th century, where "traditional" hierarchical East-Coast models of control encountered individualistic pioneer workers, strongly supplemented by methods of efficiency-oriented "worker responsibility" brought to the scene by Chinese laborers. In this case, empowerment at the level of work teams or brigades achieved a notable (but short-lived) demonstrated superiority. See the views of Robert L. Webb.

During the 1980s and 1990s, empowerment has become a point of interest in management concepts and business administration. In this context, empowerment involves approaches that promise greater participation and integration to the employee in order to cope with their tasks as independently as possible and responsibly can. A strength-based approach known as "empowerment circle" has become an instrument of organizational development. Multidisciplinary empowerment teams aim for the development of quality circles to improve the organizational culture, strengthening the motivation and the skills of employees. The target of subjective job satisfaction of employees is pursued through flat hierarchies, participation in decisions, opening of creative effort, a positive, appreciative team culture, self-evaluation, taking responsibility (for results), more self-determination and constant further learning. The optimal use of existing potential and abilities can supposedly be better reached by satisfied and active workers. Here, knowledge management contributes significantly to implement employee participation as a guiding principle, for example through the creation of communities of practice.[17]

However, it is important to ensure that the individual employee has the skills to meet their allocated responsibilities and that the company's structure sets up the right incentives for employees to reward their taking responsibilities. Otherwise there is a danger of being overwhelmed or even becoming lethargic.[18]

Empowerment of employees requires a culture of trust in the organization and an appropriate information and communication system. The aim of these activities is to save control costs, that become redundant when employees act independently and in a self-motivated fashion. In the book Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute, the authors illustrate three keys that organizations can use to open the knowledge, experience, and motivation power that people already have.[5] The three keys that managers must use to empower their employees are:

According to author Stewart, in her book Empowering People she describes that in order to guarantee a successful work environment, managers need to exercise the "right kind of authority" (p.6). To summarize, "empowerment is simply the effective use of a managers authority", and subsequently, it is a productive way to maximize all-around work efficiency.

These keys are hard to put into place and it is a journey to achieve empowerment in a workplace. It is important to train employees and make sure they have trust in what empowerment will bring to a company.[5]

The implementation of the concept of empowerment in management has also been criticised for failing to live up to its claims.[19]

Read the rest here:

Empowerment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Life Coaching for Personal and Professional Empowerment

Posted: at 8:44 am

So here you are, searching the web to find a life coach. You might be anyone...

You might be an executive or the owner of a successful small business looking to find balance between the demands of work and the needs of your family. You might be an empty-nester looking to make a difference in the lives of others but not sure which direction to choose. Maybe it's simply that you want your already great relationship to be spectacular.

Perhaps you are a musician, a writer, or an artist looking for a creative breakthrough, or a doctoral candidate looking for the perfect thesis. You might even be a twenty-something techno whiz entrepreneur with a brilliant idea for a product or service that will change the world forever. Maybe you just want to figure out how to have more fun.

Whatever your circumstances, goals or dreams might be, the bottom line is that your life is in transition. And you are determined to make your life be what you want it to be! That's where a Professional Life Coach comes in: We will help you turn your dreams into reality.

- About Us -

LifeCoaching.com is a cooperative effort between Carmine Leo and Kellie deRuyter. We've been friends for over 40 years, through all the ups and downs that life has had to offer. Not surprisingly, our strongest connection has always been our relentless commitment to personal growth and the space of possibility, for ourselves, for each other, and for everyone whose path through life touches ours.

For more individualized information, please view our bio pages using either of the links below.

Click Here to meet CarmineClick Here to meet Kellie

We provide Professional Life Coach Training as well as coaching, training, certification, and assessments for Emotional Intelligence ( EI ).

- Our Coaching Philosophy -

We believe that each of us has the wisdom and power within us to make our life be what we want it to be. We see the coaching relationship as an alliance, a partnership, a process of inquiry that empowers clients to reconnect with their own inner wisdom, to find their own answers, to rediscover those powerful moments of choice out of which lasting change grows.

We believe we are all whole beings with whole lives and that every choice we make affects every other aspect of our lives. Our work affects our relationships. Our relationships touch our spirituality. Our spiritual well being affects our capacity for joy which affects our work and so on, round and round. We coach the whole person. We believe you deserve the life you want.

So... Who are you? What is important to you? What are your challenges? What gets in your way? Where do you want to go? How would you feel if your life were just exactly the way you wanted it to be? When would you like to begin?

Free Introductory Life Coaching Sessions

Empowering Women – Self Empowerment, Personal & Spiritual …

Posted: at 8:44 am

Empowering Women aims to inspire women with the courage to break free from the chains of limiting belief patterns and societal or religious conditioning that have tradiitonally kept women suppressed and unable to see their true beauty and power.

This section offers self help tools, information, encouragement and inspirational quotes and sayings for and by women to use as a guide on the journey of Reclaiming Their Power. Women are encouraged to see and bring forth the beauty and strength within themselves, to be inspired to be the best they can be, and to let their Spirit (Goddess Selves) shine through.

For those of you who are in challenging circumstances, the words here-in can help you find some peace and some strength to begin to turn your life around. The Change Starts With You. You only need to take small steps at a time. And remember that you are not alone.

If you have come to this section of the site first, please take some time to browse through the rest of the site, where you will find many more inspirations to help you on your journey of spiritual growth.

May you gain inspiration and helpful tools to guide you on your journey towards wholeness. Embrace and enjoy the journey!

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"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

~ Marianne Williamson - from "A Return To Love" ~

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Daily Archives: March 26, 2016

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