Mass society is too complex to work without specialisation. Specialised division of labour alienates us from each other and creates a hierarchy needed to co-ordinate production. Hierarchy divides society into the powerful and powerless. The powerless are treated as objects to be exploited. Exploitation on grounds of class, gender, ethnicity and sexual preference is intrinsic to mass society. Mass society cannot be reformed. It must be replaced.
Mass society must be replaced with communities small enough for each person in them to be respected as an autonomous individual. In small communities, self-determination would replace hierarchy. You can’t fight mass with mass. If our means and ends are to be consistent, we must organise in networks of autonomous small groups to replace mass society.
Mass society alienates people from the Earth. By controlling the Earth’s resources, the State controls society. We must end our dependence on the State by taking back the land and living self-sufficiently. By re-establishing our relationship with the Earth, we undermine the hierarchical thinking that is destroying it.
Mass society needs resources from across the planet to survive. Those most exploited by it are those that work the land in the Third World, only to have the fruits of their labour exported to profit the rich. They have nothing to lose by taking back the land at the expense of mass society. As less resources are imported from the Third World, mass society won’t be able to come up with the goods in this country. Self-governing, self-sufficient small communities will be more needed and easier to establish as the State loses control of the rest of the planet.
We must support the revolution on the periphery by making our own here. We must share the skills needed to survive without the State, create a culture of resistance to free us from the alienation of mass society, live free of exploitation by boycotting banks and multinationals, building an alternative green and black economy and defending ourselves and the Earth by taking direct action against military bases and labs, developers and industry, exploitation and bigotry.