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CHAPTER 9 The Electronic Control of Human Economic Life
The marketplace is now buzzing with electronic money. The economic transactions of millions of unsuspecting citizens can be intercepted, monitored, recorded, memorized, merged, consolidated, dissected, analyzed, scrutinized, etc. Buy a bottle of wine with a credit card, and the technology can allow your banker, his agent, or some financial organization to know, almost instantaneously, where, when, and for how much you bought it. And that's not all. The electronic data warehouse can allow them to find out how often you bought liquor -- last week, last month, last year, etc. Indications are that a global electronic web will soon allow a few financial institutions in each country to monitor and control the flow of most economic transactions.
Why are so many people willing to transform the simple act of purchasing into a potential act of control -- or, as some would argue, of extortion? Why so many would be willing to pay what amounts to a "tax" or "vigorish" by financial and other institutions, for the simple privilege of allowing these institutions to transfer money, from a purchaser's account, to a seller's account? The answer is not simple; but it is not beyond our reach. The "Divinity" of Electronic Money. The findings of Mumford and Fromm raise many profound and disturbing questions:
"BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU," "FREEDOM IS SLAVERY," "TELESCREENS," etc., are no longer figments of Orwell's imagination.12 The "megamachine" -- the banks, the technology, the software, the computerized devices, the mass memories, the global communication networks, the global positioning satellites, the global multimedia broadcasting capabilities, etc.,-- all that is needed to dominate economic life, all that is needed for global usury, is available now. And the temptation to use it all is immense.
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See Lewis Mumford, The Myth of the Machine, 1966 and 1967, at 188-194 (The
Design of the Megamachine), 228-231 (Reactions Against the Megamachine), 231-233 and
(Curbs on the Megamachine). For a discussion of the connection between destructiveness and
the "megamachine," see Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness,
1973, at 380-398 (The Connection Between Necrophilia and the Worship of Technique), and
381 (definition of "gadgeteer"). 2 Freud's expression; see Sigmund Freud, On Metapsychology,Vol. 11, compiled and edited by Angela Richards, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1984, at 307-308 ("'daemonic force").3 Freud's expression; ibid., at 309 ("organic compulsion to repeat" and "heredity").4 Ibid., at 275-338 (Beyond the Pleasure Principle).5 Ibid., at 307 (repetition, mastery, and pleasurable experiences).6 See Sigmund Freud, On Metapsychology, Vol. 11, compiled and edited by Angela Richards, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1984, at 308 (purely infantile behavior).7 Ibid., at 310 (change and progress as "deceptive appearance"), 311 ('the aim of all life is death'; "more complicated détours before reaching its aim of death"), 312-313 (repetition as a "lengthening of the road to death"), and 319, 322, 329 (connection between the "Nirvana principle," the "pleasure principle," and the "death instinct"), and 413-415 (the "Nirvana principle" belongs to the "death instinct").8 See Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, 1973, at 380-398 (The Connection Between Necrophilia and the Worship of Technique), especially 388-389 ("[f]or the marketing character everything is transformed into a commodity").9 Ibid., at 382 ("necrophilous tendencies").10 Ibid., at 383-384 ("divine velocity"); the idea of divine velocity is from F.T. Marinetti (1916), Futurist Manifesto, R.W. Flint, ed., 1971 (cited in Fromm).11 Ibid., at 382 ("fusion of technique and destructiveness"); this connection is attributed to F.T. Marinetti (1909), Futurist Manifesto, R.W. Flint, ed., 1971 (cited in Fromm).12 See George Orwell [Eric Arthur Blair], Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), with a Note by Peter Davison, 1987 and 1989, at 3 ("BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU"), and 6 and 290 ("FREEDOM IS SLAVERY"). |
| THE ORWELLIAN WEB: TOTAL CONTROL OF ECONOMIC LIFE FROM CONTROL OF ECONOMIC TRANSACTIONS TO CONTROL OF HUMAN LIFE |
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