Societal Non-Participation
Everyone who is not functionally retarded knows what a strike is. Now imagine instead it targeting a certain company or industry, it targeting a macrocosmic societal level. Economists often study how participation in the workforce aka. labour participation affects economies. When I was a NEET, I wasn’t participating in the economy. However, something like participation in society is much more abstract. Everyone but the most remote, self-sustaining hermit has some sort of role in society. Even if everyone, or a certain demographic, quit their jobs, they would still have some sort of dependence on society.
Therefore, it does not entirely make sense to assume that a group of people could “quit” society without building their own. First, there are the obvious economic effects, such as wage increased for the remaining participating, demand outpacing supply, shortages of goods and services, etc. However, some people would be drawn back to workforce participation with the promise of a higher standard of living, mainly due to a wage increase. It stands that people quitting society en masse must have a purpose in doing so.
“Good job, genius, you just reinvented civil disobedience”, one might say. Not so. The purpose of civil disobedience is reformist, rather that oriented towards making ones own society. Let’s use a currently maligned group for example, one that I’m part of and speak from the perspective of. Everyone’s much-beloved and respected white man!
Hypothetically, nearly all the world’s ill are due to us in some shape are form. Let’s take this absurd notion at face value for once. So, if white men rule the world, then would society - at least as we know it - not collapse if they stopped participating, whether by their choice or not? Sure, there would be celebration among those who more or less see this demographic as an evil demiurge: creating all the systems in place, which are all irredeemable to them, at least openly. There is no doubt that virtually every modern state-level institution is heavily influenced by, if not outright created by the European man in some shape or form, no matter how “backward” or long-standing their form of rule may be considered. If believe this would create a true dark age.
I’m picturing that scene from the Dark Knight, where the Joker is daring Batman to kill or maim him while staring his vehicle down the streets. Oh boy, le capeshit reference, I wonder where this will go. What I’m saying is the white man is the Joker, or could be. In a broader sense, single/non-married men are relatively like this in society. They can be pushed to the side and marginalized, but they know what *could* happen if things go the way they predict.
A few people quitting society will not have as much of an impact as it could, except id they’re someone who holds an entire industry together, like with dated but still used programming languages. Historically, there is mass migration - or death - when there is a large portion of discontent in the populace, for one reason or another. And what if there is nowhere to run to? Or a lack of will to do so? Either they have to accept it, or they do not. Consciously deciding and organizing to quit and create anew would be different, the only real thing that would amount to being revolutionary in the modern day, and I do not believe it to be an intrinsically
political act either. That said, I believe it had not happened for a reason. Many people talk about such things but want others to do it, or will never do it themselves for fear of (unjust) consequences. Am I any different? Those who quit ultimately go nowhere because they have either no will or means to strive for a particular objective. There really is not a widespread collective consciousness to achieve such a thing; for all intents and purposes populism is a tool to be wielded rather than something that could manifest a mind of its own.
Ultimately, I have decided it is best to focus on myself and those I care for - or finding such people - because of this. Not that I do not see being a visionary or “revolutionary-in-waiting” as a noble goal; I commend such notions wholeheartedly. But if one cannot bend society to his will, or remove himself and be independent, then he must bide his time and focus on what is within his grasp and attempt to thrive that way, whether than be until tomorrow, or for the remainder of his life.