An Unfair World

What is Hierarchy?

Within the context of this essay, I use the term hierarchy in the restricted sense of command or authority. I don't include hierarchies of abstraction, classification or categorisation. I don't use the term 'power hierarchy' because to me power is simply energy per unit time, which is not relevant to command or authority. A hierarchy exists where one human individual has authority [bestowed upon him by a unified human collective] to command another person to take, or refrain from, one or more of a limited set of actions [prescribed by the authorising unified human collective].

A hierarchical bureaucracy is a [usually large] hierarchy of command or authority in which commands and acknowledgements are passed between the different levels of the hierarchy in the form of documents. Of course, these no longer need to be on paper forms. Now they are usually computer-based.

Hierarchical bureaucracy is a means for extending the physical power of an exigent individual. It works by persuading or coercing, then organising, lots of compliant individuals to operate as a machine, the function of which is to expedite the will and desires of the exigent one. The exigent one is what is generally seen as a king or emperor. He could however be a faceless influencer who covertly manipulates a king or emperor as a puppet.

Though it may amplify his physical power, hierarchical bureaucracy does not amplify a ruler's intelligence or wisdom. Nor does it improve or moderate his personality or character. A caring king or benign dictator governs his people with equity. An evil king or tyrannical dictator enslaves his people in misery. Of course, a king will have his 'wise' advisors. Notwithstanding, it is he who selects them. And he will select only who thinks as he himself thinks.

What About Democracy?

Democracy — government of the people by the people — was supposed to resolve the inevitable emergence of a tyrannical ruler. Notwithstanding, if each citizen of a democracy votes for policies that suit his own selfish ambitions, without concern for the catastrophic collateral effects those policies may have on others of his fellow citizens, then disparity will reign.

For democracy to be fair and benign, each must vote for policies he truly believes will create conditions that are fair and satisfactory for everybody. But he doesn't.

Sadly, the voter is, for the most part, a shallow thinker, driven only by superficial emotion. He is not a student of social sciences. Nor is he versed in the tenets of morality or justice. He has a simple malleable mind that is easy to mould and persuade to vote for what suits the agendas of a self-interested ruling elite — of whatever political flavour.

So democracy is no magic solution to tyrannical government. The people can fare well or fare badly, irrespectively of whether they are governed by decree or by democracy. The fault is with the selfish character of who governs, be it the king or the people.

History of Hierarchy

The event horizon of history reveals that throughout most of the Holocene, the world was ruled simply and directly through the bureaucratic hierarchies of kings and emperors. Today, governments present themselves in various different wrappings. They label themselves as being to the Right or Left, or more specifically, as capitalist, socialist, nationalist, communist, populist or various hybrids of these. But they are all totalitarian. Apart from slight differences in political emphasis, the people are governed through essentially the same form of bureaucratic hierarchy, in various shades of camouflage.

Communist regimes use a more overt hierarchy, enforcing social control directly through bureaucracy and policing. Capitalists achieve this same goal more inductively by manipulating the public mind to create, through sham democracy, the illusion of individual freedom within a reality of socio economic subservience. Socialism is merely a reaction to capitalism. It is the other side of the same coin. Neither can exist without the other. Capitalism, unmediated by socialism, would rapidly self-destruct in a tempest of popular insurrection. Socialism, unmotivated by capitalism, would eventually disintegrate through absence of necessity.

My Point of View

I am a sentient being. My conscious 'self' appears to be accommodated within my physical human body. A physical human body is an object. The universal exclusion principle of physics mandates that no object can occupy the same point in space at the same time as any other object. Thus, the path, which my physical body has travelled through space throughout my life, must be unique to me. Nobody else's physical body could have followed exactly that same path.

My physical senses equip me to be able to observe the environment in which I — by way of my physical body — am immersed. That environment comprises 1) the Earth's biosphere, which affords me space in which to move, live and work to sustain my physical existence, and 2) a human society in which, from birth, I found myself living, by default, as an individual member.

Consequently, that same universal exclusion principle of physics mandates that my conscious thinking mind can only observe, experience and suffer the effects of human society from my own unique path through time, space and the social order. In other words, my point of view is fundamentally bound to be unique to me. Nobody else can have had exactly the same experiences of life that I have had.

I observe that, in its providing the needs of human life, the Earth's biosphere does not distinguish between individuals. It treats everybody the same. It is non-divisive. Contrarily, I observe that, in their providing the needs of life, human societies do distinguish between individuals. They treat different people differently according to their individual positions within the social order. They are divisive.

Having to live on a pension of £92.49 a week [in 2026] I surmise that I must be on about the lowest echelon of the social order. So that is the life-path or point of view from which I am constrained to observe and form my opinion about human society.

Consequently, I would not consider myself to be an average member of society — assuming indeed that the notion of 'average' is even meaningful in the context of human society. However, I feel obliged to point out that my position within the social order is strictly due to circumstances beyond my control: not by design or lack of endeavour. So my opinion of the world as a disparate place, should be of no surprise bearing in mind the position from which I have been constrained to view, experience and suffer it.

Validity of My View

Most views of human society are portrayed from the top downwards: from the throne of the King or the Speaker's chair: from the captains of industry and the presidents of corporations. But in my opinion, these views cannot be other than distorted and false. They are hierarchical views. In contrast, my view is that of an individual — a nobody. Why should I think it is valid?

As I have already said: I am a sentient being: a conscious individual. Human society comprises conglomerations of tens to hundreds of millions of individuals like me. When I say 'like me' I am not referring to social standing. I am referring to them as living physical beings, each with the same model of 86-billion neuron analogue super-computer in his cranium, which somehow accommodates a conscious 'self' that can observe, experience, suffer, think — and hence form an opinion.

On the other hand, society isn't conscious. The bureaucracies that govern it can't think. Hierarchies have form only within individual human minds: they have no external existence. Social status is a belligerent artificial convention. Consequently, only the human individual has tangible significance. How the individual treats — or is treated by — other individuals is all that matters.

This is because, contrary to mainstream opinion, human society is not hierarchical by nature. So a hierarchical machine like a bureaucracy is wholly incapable of regulating or controlling it.

There are no command and control hierarchies in nature. Nature's apparent hierarchies are systems of classification and categorisation. These are mere constructs of the human mind by which it attempts to gain a handle of understanding on the structure and functionality of nature.

In reality, human society is a complex-dynamical system. As such, all its individual members [persons] are of equal standing, although different individuals can and do have variously different sub-functions.

The upshot of this is that, as an individual within society, no matter how high or lowly my social standing may be, my opinion is just as valid as that of any other individual.

The Psychopathic State

Just as each human being is an individual member of society, so too is a hierarchical bureaucracy. It is considered to be a persona iuridica or 'legal person' with the same rights and obligations as any human member. But there's a big difference. A persona iuridica is vastly larger and more powerful than any human individual.

Human society is thus like a natural fluid, such as air or water, which has been polluted by alien atoms the size of golf balls.

The persona iuridica is constructed in law to have the personality of a psychopath. Its size and power relative to the human individual, give it omnipotence. Its material intangibility gives it impunity. As Lord Thurlow put it: "It has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked". So interacting with it is like negotiating with an omnipotent psychopathic ghost.

Of course, whenever I have cause to interact with a hierarchical bureaucracy, I converse face-to-face with one of its human functionaries. But the fact that he or she be human is irrelevant. This is because the human functionary is there to act merely as an input/output interface for the persona iuridica. So the character, personality, values and conscience of the human functionary are mandatorily suppressed: they must play no part in the official interaction. The human functionary is there simply as a messenger through whom the persona iuridica conveys its will and requirements to me.

Whatever type of personality he may have in real life, in his capacity as a functionary of the persona iuridica, he cannot apply reasoned judgement to the situation in hand. He is unequivocally constrained to act the role of the archetypical British Standard Jobsworth Plank.

A bureaucratic hierarchy is driven by over-simplistic rules, which do not embody adequate semantic bandwidth to represent the real-world situations it is intended to resolve and control. It thus only has the ability to regulate society by means of 'percussive maintenance'. It's simply a hammer that treats every problem as a nail. It fundamentally cannot be otherwise. So it is like an omnipotent psychopathic ghost that's also a total cretin.

The larger an organisation — from lone individual up to the largest commercial corporation or organ of government — the lower is its exhibited intelligence.

Furthermore, though the functionary must be passive in my interactions with the persona iuridica, that interaction is governed solely by the rules of the persona iuridica as they are known by the functionary. And as functionaries have commented to me, they don't make the rules and have no time to keep up with the constant torrent of changes and revisions to the rules issued by the persona iuridica that pour onto their desks every day.

Consequently, the rules of the persona iuridica, as known and applied to its victim by its human functionary, are imperfectly understood and invariably out of date.

From all the above, it is not surprising that, however obfuscated by the functionary's well rehearsed falsely polite phraseology, his attitude and stance — in representing the persona iuridica — is one of a threatening command delivered with veiled contempt in full expectation of deference. The functionary is saying to me in effect: "You obey me and accept my assessment and instructions, or I will invoke the power of the State to force, punish or deprive you for non-compliance". It is an archetypical master/slave relationship.

Its Hapless Subject

Against this, as a lone individual member of society, I have no power. I supposedly have rights. Notwithstanding, to exercise and enforce those rights, I need sufficient wealth to be able to buy the services of legal professionals. This I do not have. To pursue a project of research myself, I would require supported working time and reimbursement of costs, which again I do not have. So, in reality, I have no rights, no power and no remedies.

The reason the individual is alone and isolated in modern society is because post industrial capitalism has, over the past two centuries, systematically destroyed, and suppressed the re-formation of, the natural anthropological community.

Though I am in the severe range of HFA, I am a free-thinking human being with an intact natural conscience. I have a keen sense of right and wrong, especially with regard to social justice. Though I be far from perfect in the endeavour, I naturally try to see from the other's position or point of view and treat others as I would wish them to treat me. I have no wish to be pretentious, but I believe that I am not a psychopath.

Gross Incompatibility

Consequently, I perceive that my personality is wholly incompatible with that of State and corporate hierarchical bureaucracies. We just don't get on. After all, conscience is no guide to law.

Conscience distinguishes between what is right and what is wrong, whereas law distinguishes between what is legal and what is illegal, which is in essence what rulers want in order to pursue their social-economic ideology, which is anything but what is beneficial or injurious for the common people.

Consequently, our differences make meaningful communication all but impossible. They trust nobody. They make that blindingly clear. It would seem that they believe ordinary people are greed-driven psychopaths just like themselves. So I don't trust them.

I think it would be extremely arrogant of me to suppose that I be unique in this regard. Indeed, statistically, this would be vanishingly unlikely. The personality bell curve would suggest that in a society made up of tens of millions of people, such as the UK with 70 million inhabitants, at least 2 million people would find themselves in the same situation.

Such vast asymmetry of power and mutual distrust between a bureaucratic hierarchy and its isolated individual subjects cannot create or sustain a fair and benign relationship. It can only create a divided society of tension, stress, fear, disparity, deprivation and estrangement — which it has done.

Its Modus Operandi

It is a society in which, at my time of birth, a political hierarchical bureaucracy of overwhelming power forcibly deprived me of my self-evident inalienable right to my fair share of terrestrial resources with which I could freely turn my labour into my needs of life. It then condescended to allow me to apply my labour to such means through any one of a large number of other [commercial] hierarchical bureaucracies.

A commercial hierarchical bureaucracy holds back the major proportion of the fruits of my labour for itself, leaving me only a portion, the size of which it, not me, exclusively decides. And out of this, the political hierarchical bureaucracy takes a significant proportion for its own purposes. But at least, I get something in return for my labour.

Notwithstanding, no commercial hierarchical bureaucrbergersacy is obliged to allow me to apply my labour through it in order to turn some of that labour into my needs of life. Thus, all commercial hierarchical bureaucracies collectively, namely, the economy as a whole, is not obliged to provide me with the opportunity to apply my labour through it in order to gain my needs of life.

A commercial hierarchical bureaucracy will therefore employ me if, and only if, it perceives that to do so will be of commercial advantage to it. Neither an individual commercial bureaucratic hierarchy, nor the economy as a whole [the collective of all commercial bureaucratic hierarchies], has any concern whatsoever for me or for any other human individual.

Avoiding Insurrection

This modus operandi cannot but exclude large numbers of people from the economy. Consequently, to survive, they had to resort to theft. There was no other way. The belligerent response from the political hierarchical bureaucracy to suppress this so-called criminality was physical violence by a police force, followed by austere punishment.

One recalls the echos of history in which a child could be hanged for 'sealing' a loaf of bread in order to avoid starving to death. A case of probatio diabolica — damned if you do: damned if you don't.

Later, the law moderated and with that, society became more stable. But with the advent of Thatcherism and popular brainwashing via mass media, old legal loopholes were blocked and society became harsh for new sectors of the population. Instead of unemployment just being the plight of unskilled workers and tinkers, it began to hit scientists, writers and self-taught thinkers. The poor and unemployed now included the highly educated and intellectually adept. New and able minds were thus forcibly brought to bear upon the nature of the system under which we are all forced to live.

In the mid-twentieth century, welfare was provided to those who were poor or unemployed. Whether or not this was really provided out of a sense of benevolence I don't know. However, I don't recall from that era any of the despicable vitriolic contempt from the general populus towards the poor, unemployed — and indeed, the old, infirm, deficient and inept — that I heard and experienced during and since the Thatcher/Major era.

People in this latter time really seem to resent the provision of welfare at all. They seem to have imbibed the psychopathic nature of the cold unsympathetic mind of the hierarchical bureaucracies that rule them. So why is welfare still provided? It is certainly not out of a sense of benevolence. It seems to me that the powers that be well know that with many of the highly educated and intellectually adept now affected, the spectre of universal insurrection lurks ever closer. The cessation of welfare would trigger this instantly.

So it is merely to preserve their status quo that the hierarchical bureaucracies provide welfare payments to the poor, unemployed, old, infirm, deficient and inept, of a minimal amount that hovers precariously just above the threshold of universal social insurrection.

Personal Experience

I was born at the height of World War II. Everything was tightly regulated by bureaucracy. Nothing moved without a piece of paper. Food and fuel were strictly rationed. I remember waiting in endless queues with my mother to have ration books stamped and ticked before she could buy our needs of life. My father was fighting in North Africa and later in Italy where he made landing at the Battle of Anzio. Thus, even from early childhood, I was immersed in a world of bureaucracy, which, in the circumstances of war, I understand to have been necessary. But war isn't the natural state of human society.

As an adolescent, I accepted authority at school and in society in general as a necessary means of seeing that everything worked correctly and smoothly. The only incident that raised my heckles was being given a flagrantly unjust punishment by a prefect who could not but have known full well that the punishment was entirely unjust. However, when I was 16, I suffered a very painful demonstration of the fallibility of authority.

In my early adult life, I had very little interaction with large bureaucratic hierarchies. Getting a good job was easy. I enjoyed my work, which was intellectually very fulfilling. Consequently, my interaction with the commercial hierarchies of the corporations for which I worked was smooth and largely non-confrontational.

Notwithstanding, there were nasty instances that drew my attention to the fact that authority, when it arbitrarily crossed my path, was quite a 'nasty person'. There were two cases of flagrantly unjust parking fines. I have never had any other parking fine.

A Disbelieved Illness

I was once sacked from my job for being so extremely ill that I was unable to call a doctor or inform my employer. I had no telephone at the time and was some distance from my nearest neighbours. I was at home alone. I worked in Crawley, Sussex UK and lived on the opposite side of Gatwick airport. It was winter. The hinterland of Gatwick airport suffered from extreme yellow-green 'smogs', heavily laced with jet exhaust from frequent aircraft movements.

On arriving home, I felt extremely ill. It was as if there were a thousand needles in my lungs. The pain was terrible. I thought I was going to die. I collapsed straight into bed. I must have passed out instantly. I woke up the next day feeling fine. I got up and went to work. On arrival at work I discovered my clock card was missing from its slot in the rack beside the clock. I went to the personnel office to report it. I was told that I no longer worked there.

I was rudely informed that it was not "the next day" at all. Apparently a fortnight had passed since I was last at work. I recalled that I had eaten rather a lot for breakfast. How I survived a fortnight without food or water, I don't know. But I did. My body must have almost shut down with all resources being redirected to fighting my lung infection. That's the reality. Believable or not: that's what happened.

But I was left with no means of proving to the satisfaction of my employer or the NHS that I had been ill. I went to a doctor. But he said I was clear and that there was no sign of any lung infection. He, the employer and the NHS asserted that the fault was entirely mine because I had failed to do what I was required to do, even though it had been impossible for me to meet those requirements and that they had zero knowledge of the circumstances.

I was reinstated in my job. But this was solely because, although I was on a very low weekly wage, I was a key worker on a very large project that would have slipped from 'profit' to 'cost+' status if my accumulated system knowledge had been lost. An entirely selfish motive on the part of the company. My employer refused to pay me for that fortnight, so in consequence, the NHS refused to pay any sick pay. Furthermore, because National Insurance contributions had not been paid during that fortnight, I did not have 'sufficient contributions' during that year to qualify me for a full State pension.

It is significant to note that, though I had not turned up for work for a fortnight, neither the company, nor the NHS or DSS had deigned to trouble themselves to find out if I was all right. But knowing the cold unsympathetic psychopathic nature of both governmental and commercial bureaucratic hierarchies, this is hardly surprising. They naturally assume that if I can't prove my innocence to their satisfaction, then I must be guilty of just skiving off.

My work was extremely interesting and challenging. I had enormous job satisfaction. To me it was not just a job but also a highly motivating hobby. My colleagues knew this. They knew that the notion of my wanting to skive off was, for me, totally out of character. My project manager found me and told me how they had all emphatically communicated this to the company administrators. But all to no avail. That is: until they discovered the looming spectre of their £3,000,000 contract falling from 'profit' to 'cost+' status.

Unemployment

I worked 7 years more as an employee followed by 15 years running my own business. But by this time, my wife's mental state had become so disruptive that I could no longer maintain my home-based business. I had to close it down and sign on at the Jobcentre. This is when I learned the true nature of an authoritarian bureaucratic hierarchy.

I was now unemployed. I had no income. I was occupied full time looking after the needs of my wife and trying as best I could to contain her behaviour. I had to care for our children and meet them, or arrange for somebody else to meet them, from school. Yet I was also required to spend my full time seeking work and furnish tangible proof every fortnight that I had applied for or been to interviews for jobs. I also had to attend mandatory job club courses every 6 months during which I had to arrange whatever unpaid volunteers I could muster to stand in for me each day to care for my wife and children.

This, of course, was fundamentally impossible. Either my days would have to comprise a super-positioning of two concurrent 24-hour periods, or I would have to be in more than one place at once, which would violate the universal exclusion principle of physics [mentioned earlier]. That's the reality of it. But of course the over-simplistic rules of hierarchical bureaucracies do not have the wherewithal to detect and deal with such a nonsense.

I was paid a basic subsistence called Jobseeker's Allowance. But to receive it I was obliged to submit to, and obey, additional restrictive rules from which a normal citizen [or, more correctly, subject] is free. For instance, I was not permitted, without official permission, the freedom to travel away from my home, even for a day. This in itself would appear to violate Article 13 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights of 10 December 1948.

But why was I in this nonsense situation? Because of hierarchical bureaucracy's flagrant unfitness for purpose.

My Wife's Personality Disorder

My [now ex-]wife has a Narcissistic Entitlement Personality disorder, which precipitates sporadic schizophrenic relapses. From what I can glean, I am given to understand that, in the UK, unlike in other countries, a personality disorder is not regarded as an illness. It is a "state of being". As such, it comes under 'penal' rather than 'medical' jurisdiction.

As an extreme illustration for the purpose of clarity, consider a psychopathic serial killer. In the UK, he is not regarded as being mentally sick and therefore in need of medical treatment. He is seen simply as a wilfully evil person that should therefore be punished. His behaviour is not regarded as being caused by the unfortunate way in which nature 'wired' his brain. It is said to result from a deliberate conscious decision, on his part, as a free moral agent.

Consequently, the medical profession had no interest in my wife's Narcissistic Entitlement Personality disorder. It was outside their jurisdiction of responsibility. They only concerned themselves with the sporadic schizophrenic relapses it precipitated. Even so, they were never sentient of the fact that the personality disorder was the driver of the sporadic schizophrenic relapses.

Medical Incompetence

Furthermore, the medics were utterly incapable of diagnosing my wife's relapses. My children and I — and later all our neighbours — had to endure up to 2 months of extremely disruptive behaviour before eventually one or more of the neighbours would call the police, who, in turn, would call in the medics to have my wife injected with a hefty dose of temazepam and then "sectioned" [taken into medical custody under the appropriate Section of the Mental Health Act].

Up to that point, the medics, as a result of inadequate observation, were oblivious to my wife's relapsing state. This was the case for every single relapse over 37 years. It was not a failing of any single medic. It was a repeated catastrophic failure of the 'system' due to intrinsic dysfunctionality.

The upshot was that the medics only saw the event of the relapse when the police called them out, plus the 3 to 6 month stay in mental hospital, during which she remained heavily medicated. They did not see the 2 to 3 month unmedicated onset of her relapses. Nor did they ever witness the on-going day-to-day consequences of a Narcissistic Entitlement Personality disorder.

Consequently, as far as the medical profession was concerned, I didn't have a problem. To them, there was no reason why I couldn't pursue a career or run a business like anybody else. Despite my attempts to convey the reality of our situation, each medic stuck exclusively to what he saw in 20 minutes per fortnight consultations, which were always at my wife's most stable part of the day [~11am] in the formal environment of his consulting room. All that I ever said was absolutely ignored. In fact, the impression I was given was that they saw my wife's illness as being none of my business.

Denied 'Benefit'

As a result of this medical failure to diagnose my wife's relapses, which the Social Services took to be the bone fide authority on the matter, I received no help whatsoever from society regarding the traumatic circumstances in which my children and I had to live. I was required to actively seek work every day and take the first job offered, irrespective of whether or not it was compatible with my knowledge & skills.

I could not, in good conscience, bloody-mindedly go out and get a job as the authorities demanded, coldly abandoning the safety and welfare of my children. Neighbours tried their best to help. But in the end, they had their own work and households to manage. They simply didn't have the time or resources to cope with such a disruptive situation.

To try to survive in this situation as best I could, I had to engage in a lot of somewhat clandestine creativity. The full account of this is in Mental illness: A Carer's View and its linked footnote articles.

The point I am making here is that you can only get help, entitlements or rights from a bureaucratic hierarchy if you can provide documentary proof of your situation that is acceptable to that bureaucratic hierarchy. That proof can only be obtained from 'recognised professionals' who are members of another bureaucratic hierarchy. And these 'recognised professionals' need to have the means and intent to monitor the situation with sufficient bandwidth to enable them to become fully sentient of the reality.

Essentially, I had to create the illusion for the authorities that I was diligently seeking a job while covertly making sure that I didn't get offered one. My HFA disposition helped greatly in this endeavour.

Nonetheless, as a result of my on-going unemployment, the authorities regarded me as a "good-for-nothing layabout that didn't think he ought to contribute to society". I thus became a persona non grata to my ex-wife's family, her church, the DSS and the NHS; and to society in general. But not to my neighbours in our 15-house close. They knew. Nevertheless, to preserve my health and sanity I had to escape British jurisdiction. I emigrated to Brazil.

Confiscated Patrimony

Brazil is also a country in which the people are kept well and truly under the thumbs of bureaucrats. However, with regard to me personally, one situation is dominant. Due to a bureaucratic glitch resulting from differences between English and Brazilian law, the apartment that I bought with money inherited from my parents has been, in effect, confiscated by the State. I may continue to live in my apartment but I am not permitted ever to sell it unless or until I present the property registrar with an unobtainable document to provide the indirect proof of a negative. This situation is known as a probatio diabolica.

A requirement for a probatio diabolica [Devil's Proof] is illegal in most jurisdictions. It is illegal in Brazil too, except that there, a judge may override it to ease the burden on the weaker party in a dispute between parties of vastly disparate strength. But in the case of my confiscated apartment, I am by far the weaker party.

Consequently, I am imprisoned in this apartment for so long as I can meet its ever rising condominium and other on-going costs. After that my only option is an illegal one: namely, to abandon it and skip the country as fast as possible to become homeless and destitute in a different country.

Glaring Inadequacies

The mind that controls society through a bureaucratic hierarchy is either the single mind of a king or emperor or the collective mind of a relatively small clique of parliamentarians or 'democratic' representatives. The cloistered background and life-style of any one of these renders his world-view critically limited compared to the vast plethora of life-situations that are extant in society as a whole. He that rules can therefore never acquire anything approaching an adequate diversity of intrinsic mental context through which to even know — let alone understand — the lives and plights of the masses.

But even his inadequate power of perception is distorted by the limitations of the channel through which he is constrained to observe and monitor the society he is attempting to govern. Information about society, and what is going on within it, is conveyed to him through the narrow-band medium of tick-box forms and standardised reports. These provide only sporadic sampling, which is incapable of generating an accurate picture. They can never afford him anything better than a fuzzy low-resolution view. In other words, he is looking through a snow storm.

Beyond this is the fact that his narrow distorted channel of communication is fed with input by a wholly inadequate means of sensing the real world.

Two devastating examples of this were my lung illness and the medics utter inability to detect my wife's schizophrenic relapses. The truth was all there in full tangible reality. But the hierarchical bureaucracies of both my employer and the NHS had failed to equip themselves with a mechanism capable of adequately sensing real-world problems that it was their job to resolve. These failures were not due to lack of medical dexterity: they were due entirely to a failure in the modus operandi of the hierarchical bureaucracies.

In such a case, they cannot be other than morally bound to accept what I say or prove me a liar. But they didn't. They automatically assumed that I was the liar. So they penalised me. They assumed an unproven negative, which is contrary to the fundamental legal principle of a person being innocent unless or until proven guilty.

Consequently, the legislator can only draft laws for regulating his flaky low-definition over-simplistic view of the real world, which is only superficially sensed at the grass roots level, then depleted and distorted by the narrow channel of tick-box forms and standardised reports, then interpreted solely within the narrow context of his aloof elite background and life-style.

Hierarchical bureaucracies are thus ipso facto fundamentally unfit for purpose. They are cold psychopathic omnipotent cretins wielding inappropriate power, bloody-mindedly enforcing the letter of their over-simplistic cack-handed hob-nailed one-size-fits-all laws upon vast complex-dynamical societies of tens to hundreds of millions of hapless human beings — unsympathetically wreaking undeserved stress, hardship, deprivation and injustice upon their subjects.

Fundamental Flaw

A hierarchical bureaucracy is a crude over-simplistic machine, which is used by rulers to attempt to control society as if that too were a machine.

A machine is an ordered material structure, which performs a complete prescribed stand-alone function that has external significance within a passive environment. It usually comprises connected interdependent components, whose different functionalities are orchestrated together to realise the machine's overall function.

The human body is a biological machine comprising 78 component subsystems called organs — such as a brain, heart, lungs, kidneys, liver — each of which performs its necessary dedicated contributory sub-function. The human body's stand-alone function enables it to survive and prosper within the Earth's biosphere. In particular, its brain — an 86-billion neuron biological analogue super-computer — accommodates and empowers a human 'self' to participate as a component in a collective of human 'selves' called society.

To be pedantic: some components sub-systems of the human body — such as the blood stream — are not machines: they are what are called 'complex-dynamical systems' [see below].

But human society is not a machine. It is what is called a complex-dynamical system. The components of a complex-dynamical system do not perform contributory inter-dependent sub-functions of an overall stand-alone machine. Each is, of itself, a complete independent stand-alone machine within an interactive environment comprising a vast number of similar — if not identical — fellows.

For example, a molecule of water is a component of a complex-dynamical system called an ocean. A molecule of oxygen, nitrogen or carbon dioxide is a component in a complex-dynamical system called the atmosphere. A starling is a component of a complex-dynamical system called a murmuration. A bee is a component of a complex-dynamical system called a hive. An an ant is a component of a complex-dynamical system called a swarm.

To illustrate: if you divide up a machine, you get a set of parts that are different from each other in both form and functionality. If you divide up a complex-dynamical system, you get a set of smaller versions of the original complex-dynamical system. Imagine what you get if you divide up a cloud. You get bits of cloud that have exactly the same constitution as the original whole.

It follows that human society is a fluid whose molecules are human individuals. The word individual implies: not dividable. A single human being cannot be divided and remain alive and operational. One may imagine a person as a component part of a milling crowd. All members of a milling crowd are the same in so far as each is a complete human being.

Of course human individuals have different sizes, features, personalities, characters, values and aspirations. But these differences are to do with natural intrinsic variation: not extrinsic allocation of rank or social standing, which is an artificial contrivance.

A complex-dynamical system is not merely a static conglomeration of individual molecules. On the contrary, its molecules move around independently. They also interact with each other according to a prescribed protocol. The protocol is different for different types of molecule, and hence, type of system.

In human society too, individuals swirl around, encounter and interact. Even though interactions can be a collective event involving many individuals, on the finest scale, human interaction is essentially binary: it is between pairs of individuals. Different individuals sporadically connect into a pair, interact, disconnect then go their separate ways. It is like a circuit-switched telephone call or an Internet TCP session. Human social interaction requires nothing more than this. And it neither involves nor necessitates any form of hierarchical control or oversight.

Hierarchical bureaucracies are unnecessary. If human society were freely left to work its natural way, the socio-economy would run just fine. As the ancient writer put it: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. — Proverbs 6:6-8

An Unnatural State

The form of society under which humanity has lived from the dawn of history until now bestows health, wealth and happiness on the exigent, relegating the meek to misery and starvation, with a middle majority precariously surviving within a churning cauldron of economic uncertainty.

This is neither a natural nor a benign mode of life for the human animal. It limits human life to mere survival, leaving the individual no time or resources with which to seek and achieve any higher destiny.