The biggest mistake we made since 1948 was not focusing on building up strong local units of clan, parish, fraternity, and guild. The greater material independence we would have from having a local community that is our bank and insurance and bodyguard, the less power impersonal social institutions have over us.
Unbanking, closing accounts, bad press, and blacklists lose their power when we can fall back on thousands-strong community who know us personally. When there are 100,000 of them, the big guys have less power.
When we no longer feel alone and isolated, we would have push back far harder in the 1960 because we were united at the local level. The union boys who got into fight with the hippies in 1970 was a case in point. The reason we didn’t was that we put too much trust in impersonal institutions. These may have made our economy far more effective without all those trust issues when West was still West. But today, these are more critical to build for the future.
Strong clans make for weak lord, weak clans make for strong lord.
The biggest mistake we made since 1948 was not focusing on building up strong local units of clan, parish, fraternity, and guild. The greater material independence we would have from having a local community that is our bank and insurance and bodyguard, the less power impersonal social institutions have over us.
Unbanking, closing accounts, bad press, and blacklists lose their power when we can fall back on thousands-strong community who know us personally. When there are 100,000 of them, the big guys have less power.
When we no longer feel alone and isolated, we would have push back far harder in the 1960 because we were united at the local level. The union boys who got into fight with the hippies in 1970 was a case in point. The reason we didn’t was that we put too much trust in impersonal institutions. These may have made our economy far more effective without all those trust issues when West was still West. But today, these are more critical to build for the future.
Strong clans make for weak lord, weak clans make for strong lord.