Powered by ingenuity of innovation, the Industrial Revolution revolutionized the efficiency of human work. Where could the next change of this kind be coming from?

We look at the systems in which we live and work. Imagine them as gigantic machines, comprising people and technology, whose function is to take people's daily work as input, and turn it into socially useful effects. Incredibly, the ingenuity of our innovation has been focused on small gadgets we can hold in our hand—and we overlooked this far more important frontier.

Power structure wastes resources

The Ferguson–McCandless–Fuller thread is intended to serve as a parable, pointing to the wastefulness of some of our core institutions or systems (finance, and governance tainted by "special interests"). See it outlined on Page 4 of this article, and also here.

This conclusion suggests itself.

We have the resources needed to take care of world's problems. Our root problem is in the structure of our systems—which determine how those resources are distributed and used.

Power structure causes devolution

We chose to use here the keyword power structure, instead of "institutions" or "systems", to point to the reason why we ignored the possibility to adjust the systems in which we live and work to their societal purposes, as the Modernity ideogram suggests we should. The reason is they serve for us an entirely different purpose—providing a relatively stable structure for our various turf strifes and power battles. By complying, we increase our odds of success.

In that way, the devolution of our system proceeded unhindered, even unnoticed.

The Chomsky–Harari–Graeber thread is intended to serve as another parable. It points to a sobering conclusion: The social-systemic "survival of the fittest" favors aggressive systems, which are damaging to both our culture and ourselves. See it outlined here. Conclude with the reflection on Joel Bakan's "The Corporation", which follows. It will show that although the results of this systemic devolution may look different in our time than they did centuries ago, their pathological character has remained unchanged.