The Slavery of Insecurity

Does society makes you feel insecure? Ask this question: What was the real need to build institutions in society, in the first place? One reason is for security; Second, to share skills. Well, Self-Management is reviving that old concept that worked well before slavery was devised. Similar in unexpected ways to the old slavery, I am referring to a new slavery, the one without shackles, but stifling and strangling nevertheless, just as the slavery practiced in primitive societies. Today, in 2009, there are signs of a different kind of slavery, forcing us to become depended on the establishment in all its forms, from taxes to culture, to ‘envy thy neighbor’ and ‘keep up with the Joneses,’ who seems to have more than ‘me.’
Have you heard of the $500,000 a year executive feeling ‘not rich,’ ‘underpaid’ or ‘not doing exactly well?’ That’s because he is in the same boat as all the masses making minimum wage or less. The modem signs of the new ‘slavery’ are exploiting the weak, disadvantaged and poor. I do not profess complete equality, as in old fashioned communism. It didn’t work well then and it doesn’t work well today, everywhere it was attempted. Self-management claims to something completely different: It claims to teach us to conduct our lives in complete liberty, to determine our own future, starting with the present.
Our own present starts, in three words, our personal economy. I do not profess the old anti-racial concept of ‘equal opportunity for all.’ In my eyes, it is an unattainable goal. Explained in a different way, equality could be achieved from a different point of view. We can best start by managing our own cents, and the ‘equal opportunity’ will be self-taught. We can reinstate our own equal opportunities. Of course we have to work and be productive, not only get out of welfare, or whatever hand-out situation keeps shackled, but mainly to control our own destiny. Our personal destiny is worth more than a welfare check. I am completely convinced of that.
There is a second side to that coin: You want your neighbor liking to live beside you, so you must be independent and show him your own worth. It’s better for him to be jealous of your independence than the other way around! As a consequence of self-management, I am already recommending to all men (and women) to work until their very last day. I will explain this later in detail. Scientific studies have documented that work, or just a simple occupation, is the best modern therapy for the body and mind.
Our mean survival age in 1999 was roughly 76, with the exception of some sectors of underdeveloped populations. It seems that we should not retire at 65, and women not retire at 60. Some people, though, won't fit in this system, although they can easily learn from it: Crooks, people who prefer to live as parasites at the expense of others. For people whose livelihood is from petty theft, there is not much that they can steal from Self-Management, since self-management deals primarily with personal accounts, which the members handle individually. In that sense, it is as your own pocket or wallet.

The Beginning

Let's start from the beginning: Self-Management is managed by its members. There are no directors or owners. To be more accurate, it’s managed by its owners. It is a self sustained group that supervises itself. It includes minimal administration, to record, consult, and provide information. Everything of importance to the group is decided by several kinds of referendums, with shorter and longer advanced notices. The group’s aim is to chart its own course and grow in numbers and content. That's about all; it's that simple.
That's the revolution. In my eyes, the biggest problem in today's society the poverty in which a great proportion of humanity lives. A close second, and closely related is unemployment and underemployment. I will try to bring the reader to understand that poverty and unemployment could be alleviated by joining him in ‘Self-Management.’ Even when we couldn't abolish poverty or unemployment completely, our system will be geared to amortize its detriment by the actions we take collectively. Our system is based in part on savings, but also on mutual help and an internal self-organization, simple to understand and handle, to be detailed throughout the book.
Going from the end to the beginning, the most important consequence of self-management may be for the confused and desperate Americans, and people in the rest of the world of the world, living in our complex society of 2009 is to give them a reason to continue living with an attainable goal in sight. As you may already understand, I am asking the mainstream of fellow Americans and citizens of the world to joint me in this system for the common benefit of us all.Self-Management is allergic to bureaucracy. Bureaucracy, in my eyes, is probably the main cause for the deficits in government agencies like Medicare and Social Security. Unemployment today is a real curse. You may find yourself thrown out of your job at age 50 or 48, when you are no longer as productive as younger workers. I beg your pardon, in Europe in 1996, the lay-offs came down on workers in their 30s. When the high-tech bubble burst in 2000, thousands of highly skilled (and previously highly paid) workers found themselves in the streets, with expensive skills that are no longer marketable. This means it is not enough to have just one profession. You should always be planning for a second, or even a third profession, one just in case. Self-Management is also a teaching tool to lead us in all facets of our way of life, not just in health insurance. The teaching tool that self-management puts in your hands and brain is about conducting your whole life in the way you want it to be. It’s not just a ‘do it yourself manual.’ Do it yourself is about things that you already know. Self-Management is about something that you should know and learn, to help you train yourself to be self-sustaining, and eventually change your state of mind. You may become self-employed, or not, but you can always become self-sustaining, finding livelihood under any circumstance.