During the nineteenth century there was a new technology emerging that radically transformed the world. It was industrialization. The old mercantile and bartering systems were being replaced and the workers, i.e., craftsmen, carpenters, etc., were finding themselves being less useful to machines having the ability to do much of the work humans once did. But also, the industrial revolution changed the way people lived and their lifestyles.
It created alienation ranging from individuals dealing with one another to the quickening destruction of the environment and it created worker rivalries. Slums and ghettos were developing.
Aggressive imperial expansion because the norm and death was merely a calculated expense for the end result.
Nationalism became the necessary tool to enhance benefits for nation-states and to denounce all who are apart of a particular nation-state. Greed and hoarding of wealth was justified as “National Security” under the concept of self-reservation while the machines continue to produce more and more excess of goods.
Now we are in the technological/information age and the working class find itself even further removed from one another. In fact, we could say, this is the age of extreme paranoia induced by governments control over the lives of people. Spy cameras’ have become the norm. People are watched 24-hours a day by various government agencies. All information about an individual is gathered, stored and used in order to either manipulate them for some reason or for profiling. The right to be who you are has been altered because the all seeing eye of government is watching, and adjusting the thought of that has an effect on human behavior patterns, social action and interactions. Yet these things can be changed. All it takes is for a substantial amount of people not to operate the machine, the camera or the computer.
These things must have human input to function. But the government has created such fear, such paranoia into the psyche of the people that they are not even try to shut down these contraptions that have taken over the quality of life; that has made the worker a slave to his labor and the average citizen a prisoner, even though they aren’t locked in prison.
If we lookat the anti-war and peace movements – they have grown to impressive and significant numbers. Before George W. Bush and company waged war against Iraq, there were millions of people in the streets protesting the war. All over the world people were protesting the war, and all, or a vast majority of them, are working class people. With so many people all over the world in protest, why haven’t those same people organized to bring a halt to every machine and computer and change the course of history? There would have been no bloodshed or violence (for those who have no stomach for this kind of direction). Is it because these governments have placed so much fear into the minds of the people that just the thought of not working is paralyzing in and of itself?
Today, the U.S. has been successful where their many government agencies can now tap into emails and websites to find out who writes what, who reads what, and who is communication with whom. Still it is “WE” who can change the present and create a new future. Question is, is there enough belief to do so?