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20. The Divison of Labor by Rank, Prestige, Favor, Sentiment, and Property

In primitive conditions of mankind, no "division of labor" can be said to be operative. Someone may be able to look at a primitive band or tribe and see that different men and women do different things. Very clearly, the males and the females execute different functions, children do not participate equally, elders are unlikely to be as spry as the younger members. Differences in ability can be found in life-forms long before anyone thought a division of labor was operative, and this results in different people doing different things, and encountering situations where they must be different from each other. No two humans are perfectly alike or interchangeable at any stage of history. Yet, in these primitive conditions, everyone is equal in social rank, because no hierarchy can ever be stable or enforceable. No rank can be established in nature as an absolute in all cases, even in cases that seem obvious to us such as parents and their children. Children rebel, parents abandon children, and humans as a race were born not through harmony but through fratricide and cruelty towards their own. The closest members of the human race were typically the targets of this cruelty, and that pattern is still found to this day. Human relations that are close are often rife with suffering for no particularly good reason, and closeness is the most obvious risk factor to suggest something bad will happen. If humans simply didn't have much to do with each other and this were generally understood to be good manners, there would be far fewer opportunities for this cruelty and we would likely all get along. For a lot of reasons that should be clear to any human reading this, humans do co-exist and manage not to be cruel in all cases at the first opportunity, and this too has no particular reason to happen. A basic sense of decency from one that has experienced enough cruelty is an indicator that we probably shouldn't kill each other over nothing, and have to consider that something bigger lurks outside of our immediate circle of contacts. Human sociality is not reducible to any economic necessity or rule of nature, and the habits we consider inborn to humans that allow sociality to occur operate at a very basic level only. This means that humans in "free" conditions can consider their relations without any division of labor that they must abide. An ersatz division of labor may be practical for many situations and become a habit, but this division of labor ends the moment the social unit needs to do something else with the labor at its disposal. It is further the case that humans in free association are never fixed into any preferred units, and primitive free association dealt not with large populations or even a whole tribe in unity. Unifying a single tribe for any purpose could only occur in special circumstances, where a war chief would be raised or someone respected could be called upon for some purpose. Any social formation, from the smallest unit to its largest possible interpretation, is never fixed in membership, or in the abilities of its members. Members grow older, bring new children into the world, adopt new members, expel members, pass away, are injured, acquire new abilities or tools, acquire knowledge, and so on. Of the things that can be transferred in exchange, social units can exchange anything they can imagine without any intermediary or purpose suggesting that a third party has any say in the exchange, and this explains the vast majority of economic exchanges in the human race to this day. We do not need to expect an economic rationale for most of the customs we follow or our daily interactions, as if every gesture, word, sentiment, thought, and deed were inherently a thing to be rationed economically. It is only when those things, and the objects entering social appropriation, are arranged in ecosystems that it is possible to speak of a persistent division of labor in the domain.

The division of labor does not actually concern individuals in the first instance, but a division of all agents in the ecosystem, regardless of their relations or any social unit. The division of labor is not a genuine state of affairs in nature, nor something that inherently occurs to the members as something that is inherently good. Individuals in free association might recognize their abilities and what would work best for a given task, but it would be highly counterproductive for members to decide from birth or a young age that they are, now and forever, a singular profession performed day after day. Necessity would require them to consider new possibilities even if the situation they establish became a habit and useful. The division of labor is not a useful construct for optimizing labor, but a construct for management of alienable labor commanded. It implies the division of labor is constructed in a single mind, or can be reconstructed from multiple minds working in concert towards a singular division of labor they hold as common for every in the ecosystem. It is in this light that the division of labor has historically been considered in thought concerning economics, politics, society, and most of what civilization takes for granted to decide who will be what. The division of labor does not intrinsically concern functions people do that can be distributed between members freely, but definitions of what people are. Even when the division of labor describes the functions people execute which can be conceived as functions any member could do in any arrangement of the division, they still imply that all the deeds of members can be tracked and assigned as part of the being of those members. So, even if someone is a fisher, baker, critic, actor, and everything else in different situations, all of these deeds, the abilities and potentials of the person, and so on are presumed to be things which are isolated and could be called upon, and so long as the thinking on division of labor is maintained, these tasks are all seen as disjointed acts which cannot be related or build off of each other. Either someone is all of those things and any failure is a permanent demerit, or they are none of those things and equally worthless no matter what they do. Any built-in inequality of ability is turned from a fact to a political crime which makes real the division of labor, and while this may superficially be declared a moral failing, the intent of the law always essentializes the criminal and the virtuous. It is presumed in the division of labor, however conducted, that the abilities of all members are limited and defined, if the division of labor is to be spoken of as something more than a conceit of what "ought" to be in the mind of a manager. If a manager simply asserts someone is assigned to do one thing or another for capricious reasons, this is not particularly effective. The manager can do this and often does, because managers are not required to actually meet any quota or purpose other than bossing. The manager would be more effective at making peons suffer with knowledge of their genuine deeds and abilities, and knowledge of how best to twist the knife so that yet more drops of suffering can be extracted from the cattle. A manager who does not know who can be pushed with what will find that they cannot manage and face rebellion or mass disinterest in managerial orders, and this is the cardinal sin of management. A manager might be motivated to align this division of labor with something that resembles a useful plan, but generally, all divisions of labor are an expense and a burden on any given social unit. Managerial science itself will acknowledge this, but acknowledges that distinctions in ability will exist and deployment of labor in specialization will give, in that time and place, optimization of the system collectively. The ideal would have been for every member to be able to do as much as possible, such that a division of labor would be obviated. A quantity of total abstract general labor might be imagined and, as is instinctive for humans, more would be better than less if the labor was intended to be used for some singular intent. Every intent in the plan for an ecosystem may be judged in unison to arrive at something that is construed as an optimization, even if these labors could not be compared in utility or function. The aim of the manager is typically not optimization, but ensuring that the division of labor is controlled by management and the superiors of the manager, and promotion is entirely decided by management and without regard to any initiative of the laborer. If laborers can force the manager to need the laborer, the manager has failed at the most essential task of management - keeping labor suppressed in every way possible. If the manager was supposed to facilitate labor's development, the laborers would quickly see the manager as an unwelcome intruder, and the manager might consider the job best accomplished by doing as little as possible so that everyone is happier, and the manager can move to some other assignment. Nothing suggests the manager will be automated in this way, or that the superiors who are even more useless to labor will be removed by automation.

Without a thorough tally of all abilities and faculties of agents, the division of labor forms not out of genuine necessity, but for purposes of those who believe it is their place to tell others what they are. That has always been the heart of management - to assign statuses of Being, rather than command individual tasks. In this way, people do not need to be commanded continuously, but can be told "this is you", given some identity which is internalized. In this way, the division of labor is heightened. In an older society, the men would all be hunters, builders, and would gather as needed as this gathering was the major source of useful consumable product. The division of labor by sex has less to do with the necessity or aptitude of doing so, but proceeds for a number of reasons. The first is that the men and the women are in many ways two different societies that occasionally meet, whose members pair for reproductive purposes and because of an attraction of males to females. The females do not need most of the men so much and would be happy to be rid of men once their utility is expended, but the males often cling to the females for irrational reasons. The second is that validity in either society, and in the shared society of primitive men and women, is based on tests of manhood and womanhood, which do not conform to anything useful or scientific at all. The performance of the role is more relevant than any actual outcome. Actual products or results of any such test are only necessary for acquiring food, which is a necessity of the human body and not a social construct, and for the dire necessity of fighting predators, who in the end care not about any social status, judgement of validity, or what someone was "supposed" to be in any division of labor. There is no aptitude or necessity suggesting men should all be hunters, or women should be consigned to gathering, or that there is any universality among men, women, humans, and so on. Necessity required individuals in primitive society to have the ability to do the roles of others in the division of labor, or at least know how those things were done. Without any large institutional society, all divisions of labor would have been too unreliable for individuals. Dependence was too great a liability, and would be exploited. Division of labor arises not out of genuine distinction in ability or function, but because moral value is placed on those distinctions above anything that was warranted by necessity. It is only because the abilities of humans are in reality limited that the moral values of division of labor intensify. Specialization of knowledge in individuals does not conform to any preferred division of labor, which must function at the level of an ecosystem and ecosystem alone. Specialization in a society of freely associated agents would not appear as "division of labor", but as a pool of abilities and functions that could be called upon in addition to the baseline functioning of members. Division of labor then is something that implies it is imposed from above and outside of the society, yet is internalized in the members of society, like an alien pushing people to be certain things. The division of labor never purely conforms to ability, merit, or any honest judgement of distinctions in people. It exists because there is a perceived moral benefit to assigning roles to people.

In the earliest division of labor, social hierarchy need not be implied by any ability or necessity, and it does not need to exist at all. The social rank of social members has little to do with any ability or merit or necessity at all. It exists for any reason that someone can get away with imposing, and it arises in the first instance because of a human propensity to lead and follow through psychological appearances more than any real purpose to social rank. The authority of social rank is not premised on spiritual authority or any machine that grants temporal authority. It is not even premised on personal authority or knowledge of individuals rooted in any merit or ability that can be demonstrated. The most basic instinct of social hierarchy purely derives from an instinct that compels humans to be impressed by appearances of strength, intelligence, and other performances. This reactive instinct does not even require the deliberation of any human to make it so. Humans, and many living things like us, are drawn to the superficial and appearances, and this judgement of authority has nothing to do with the truth or anything that we need to abide. What is important for establishing rank is not merit or talent, but the appearance of being strong, authoritative, and somehow "big", or at least bigger than the person who is submissive to that authority. None of the climbing of rank serves any productive aim, nor is it is necessarily efficient for management. It is something inherited from the animal kingdom and a fight-or-flight response that we possess, and life is always cognizant of a general fear until that fear is addressed and can be dismissed. One way to resolve the general fear is to simply not be around humans, who are the primary source of that fear. That is the main reason humans are so distant and cold to each other, and this is a good thing. Imagine if humans were in constant close contact, housed in barracks and under management from cradle to grave! That is the nightmare technocratic society envisions for us, holds over us. Then their agents hold a knife to our throats and make us like it, and tell us we are "social animals" by nature and should be happy with that. The need to heighten this sense of social rank by instinct is at the center of such a drive, and this was isolated and measured in the state school and in military drilling. We would, having seen the consequences of this instinct with enough reason, come to the conclusion that humans are by far the worst threat to any one of us, and that future contact among the race should be limited. It is this threat that drives a seeming division of labor as a "fact" of society. It would make sense for a manager to not desire this division of labor and mitigate it as much as possible, if the division of labor served productive aims or necessity. It exists because of forced ignorance, and ignorance as a desired state in society. No one has any reason to trust another human without reservation, and if we were in cooperative labor with distinct abilities, we would want to align those abilities for mutual benefit, rather than suggest that ignorance itself is worthwhile. Specialization would take on different meaning if the division of labor were cooperative, and would only be relevant so far as specialization conferred genuine benefit. If the variety of tasks in society increases far beyond the ability of a human's natural biological facutlies, there would be a wariness of new technology and a drive to generalize technology so that this technological barrier does not become a class distinction and an essential distinction in social units. The greatest fear for a human is lack of knowledge and ignorance. The division of labor in economic thought does not mitigate this. It instead exacerbates it, because this is how humans establish social rank - they kick down to get ahead. That was decided from the first ritual sacrifice which make humans a thing. There is no good or beneficial version of that.

The distinction of apparent knowledge in human behavior is the distinction that marks division of labor in the economic sense. This is based on the superficial, because no social agent knows at sight the abilities and intent of another social agent. Division of labor implies antagonistic relations in close quarters, and this is what defines stable societies where institutions and states predominate over the will of actual humans. The most basic distinction then is not truly ability or something which can be adjudicated by any metric, but social rank. It is more important to appear as if someone is more intelligent and capable in one regard or another, then to actually accomplish anything with that rank. The earliest divisions of labor which are economically relevant are not the distinct tasks like hunting, herding, gathering, smithing, and so on, all of which are assigned to the rank of commoners. There may be a ranking within the division of those functions, but the overriding rank is decided by the practice of war, domination, and acts of fealty and submission from the defeated. All of the various labors mean nothing when the prevalent practice in human society are these demonstrations of domination and submission. Those who actually essentialize hunting, gathering, breeding, or any other function, appear foolish when considering the true effort of humanity is to establish this rank. Any specialization of function is in service to this division of social rank. It does not yet take the form of classes or institutions, and there is in all humans a sense of social rank. It does not conform to a necessary hierarchy written down anywhere. Someone who is big and on top today can be overthrown tomorrow. Assassination is one way to climb the ladder, and one frequently seen among the ape that is a human. The contest for social rank produces a morass of rot and stupidity for no particular purpose, but it is done because of a propensity in humans to do this, and the propensity justifies itself. The object of winning is winning. The object of torture is torture. That is all human social distinctions were. If it were any other way, human societies would appear very different to us, and this dickering over rank would be seen as a futile exercise. Anyone suggesting that we should sacrifice and die for it would be ignored, and if persistent, they would be beaten down, and if that doesn't work, they would be purged. If the purge is not possible, then the only course would be extermination. It has in practice worked the other way around. Those who establish rank and domination torture, humiliate, and exterminate those who would change this most ancient rite of the human race. If the internecine competition for rank ever ended, it would undo the human project. Those who suggest that it would be entirely right to do this have an option, should they fail, to make themselves the enemy of the human race and wish for its destruction, and this is entirely correct. If humans are nothing but creatures who exist to climb rank and stab each other in the back, there is nothing for it but this, and we are left with the conservative dream for humanity - a struggle of all against all which is nasty, brutish, and short, just the way they want it and their god intended.

This is of course a terrible way to go about life, and so mere rank gives way to prestige. Where rank is purely an impression or a sense that operates out of a primordial sense, prestige claims that some marker of status is representative of both rank and a purpose beyond it. What purpose beyond rank is claimed may vary, and this prestige is never premised on truth or science or knowledge that is adjudicated in any way we consider fair. What happens is simple. Ranks which are at first implied and acted upon by instinct become rules of thumb, titles, and associated possessions. Nothing about prestige implies duty, but implies honor and standing that is respected regardless of anyone's assumptions and feelings on the matter. In this way, the stratification of rank is established without any institutional representation necessary to suggest it exists. This is little better, but it moderates the tendency of social actors to fight each other for rank, by suggesting that there is a standard of a person that is not contingent on a momentary feeling. It is instead something that is either a birthright, or a thing that once acquired does not go away at a whim. Someone can win prestige which is acknowledged in society, but they cannot truly change rank just by asserting it is so. Prestige then becomes essential to someone in a division of labor. Those who specialize in some task can be identified not just by function but by a measure of whether they accomplish those functions well or poorly, and prestige can entail "functions" of a spurious nature that are granted status as if they were things we ought to value. In many ways, prestige makes the problem of rank worse, because now the contest does not concern a sense in people but a sense of something symbolic, that need not conform to any quality or quantity of the human. Prestige makes impressions for its own sake, and whether we internalize them is up to us. There is an expectation in people that we should not internalize these judgements, and retain our own sense of ourselves regardless of the division of labor. There is presumed to be some honor in merely presenting to work, but this is a dangerous fallacy, and one that people are made to internalize when they become slaves. That does not last long. The prestige of free men, on the other hand, is valued for reasons that make a lot of sense, and this prestige is often a perk of social rank. Someone who is bigger will demand compensatory prestige and creature comforts that reflect his or her rank, and that prestige becomes a thing to be protected and built upon. This would be a necessary development if it is accepted that social rank is inherent to any division of labor, and it arises as quickly as it can when someone acts upon the advantages rank would imply. A rank could not remain nothing more than a feeling or title if it is bereft of accompanying status. The prestige then becomes a basis for intensifying the distinction of abilities that was recognized in the division of labor originally. Those who become nobles specialize in the arts of war, and usually - but do not necessarily - prohibit the subordinate ranks from fighting. It is above all important in the division of labor that nobles have a right to attack the inferiors and the inferiors are not permitted to fight back, and this is only enforced by ruthless punishment for transgressors. Kindness from the noble and viciousness of the peasant will both become great taboos or crimes, and these concern not the deeds but crimes of Being.

The division of labor proceeding by posturing alone would not last long without encountering a few obvious difficulties. Most people cannot establish the impression of rank or prestige, and by definition someone will be bigger or more prestigious than another, with no other qualification involved. This is a losing proposition for most people, who recognize that they would only rise so far in rank before they are knocked down. The people in society, wherever they may be, recognize that they can possess things in the world without requiring rank or prestige, but they do not need to actually subvert rank or prestige with something substantive. They can instead offer favors - quid pro quo divisions that are regarded both in bilaterial relationships, and within the ecosystem as a whole. For division of labor to be sensical, it pertains to a selected ecosystem in which agents operate. Otherwise, no one would participate in any such scheme. Because the ecosystem is established, favoritism arises within it, and to the participants in a given division of labor, there is nothing outside of the ecosystem, or outside of "society" in this crude sense. Favors are extended only to those in the know of a particular division of labor. Those outside of the division simply are not counted, and considered alien for this purpose. A foreigner in another part of the world has no intrinsic part in the division of labor, unless that other system is subsumed in a larger "system of systems" that is the design of someone claiming the whole thing. Foreign influences are within a division of labor an intrusion and an alien element of the scheme, and the typical outcome in a given division of labor is to mediate all foreign interaction through institutions. The last thing someone planning a division of labor would want is an outside influence disrupting that plan. The system of internal favors suggests grasping for position within the system, and that anything outside of the system is not to be encouraged. This favoritism is aligned at core with the technological interest, and concerns a crass interpretation of technology rather than anything high-minded. Favoritism does not seek equality or domination of one party, but suggests the whole ecosystem should be oriented towards social climbing, scratching each others' back, and that the members of society are motivated primarily by self-interest. Favoritism suggests a base-level material interest and conditions to push the division of labor in the favor of participants, and alliances based on compromising the participants to enforce loyalty. It is the default mode of operation for the class Marx termed the bourgeoisie, and those who sought to climb in that niche. A crass and self-serving substitute of social class in the form of identity is their preferred organization, but this identity will always be limited, and participants are not equal. The aim is never to end rank or prestige, but to acquire it for oneself, and use this to dole out favors. Those who possessed rank and prestige adapt quickly to this strategy, and use their positions to extract greater favors than those who are struggling to climb. Nonetheless, the interest of social climbers always aligns with preserving rank, prestige, and its associated institutions once developed. There never was a version of favoritism which strictly opposed rank and prestige, and among those with that status, they recognize that a collective interest based on favors is an effective method to protect the system of ranks and all practices they entail. Over time, the favors themselves become marks of distinction that describe someone, rather than merely events in the consideration of rank. The members of society establish in-groups, out-groups, lists of friends and enemies and the particular favors owed, and what would be expected of members. These are recorded and become permanent statuses, and affect the social agents in the long term.

These three things suggest a division of labor premised on little more than climbing rank and demonstrations of prestige, and for that reason, it is the preferred division of labor among those who rule, who have viewed social agents as things to be tracked in some system under management. Opposing this is a sentiment among humans that suggests that this is not a good way to establish a worthwhile purpose, and that the division of labor should not serve management but some purpose that is cooperative. Without any preferred formation, the agents may share sentiments among each other, or with any grouping inside the division of labor. For the same reasons that foreign influence is denied favors or rank, sentiment towards that which is foreign to the ecosystem is discouraged by managers of a given division of labor. If that happened, once again the aims of dividing labor in the first place are undone. Within the ecosystem, there is nothing intrinsically binding the agents contained with in to each other by a sentiment for the ecosystem or for the division of labor itself. Far from it, sentimentality arose largely to counteract grasping for rank, and suggested that there was a purpose beyond economy to this division. If the division of labor is already established by the first three, though, this sentiment can be manipulated by the ruling interest, which insinuates an even more grotesque scam. That is that this division of labor, rather than being an imposition of rulers and a condition of ignorance, is actually something to be proud of. Members in the ecosystem are intended to share sentiment with the ecosystem and the division of labor alone, to the exclusion of all other sentiments. All private sentiments are to be abolished, and all favors are to be viewed purely as part of the game to rise in rank and prestige.

Because this is for now operating purely in the realm of psychological motives, the division of labor in this light serves a purely foul purpose, bereft of any other purpose. There is no reason at all for this condition, and if the agents of an ecosystem did consider their true position, the contest for rank would be seen as a waste of effort altogether. Those with rank must rely on some resource outside of their conceits to allow the contest for rank to continue. Sentiment alone would see correctly that the entire construct of an ecosystem or an "economy" that is alien to them is nonsense, and would seek to violate the division of labor by working with agents outside of the ecosystem if this is possible. Agents in another ecosystem would be organized most likely by similar sentiments, all things being equal. This has been seen in human history. The inhabitants of one nation or one tribe are not very different from another in their basic wants and the condition of their society. No great cause for tribal or national unity can be found in the division of labor or any material necessity. The resaons for tribal conflict have nothing to do with a division of labor, or some imagined hierarchy of races as a Hitlerite would imagine. They stem from a political source. The conflict between polities never serves a true economic benefit when economic activity is viewed in its proper mechanical form, and thus it is outside the scope of the present writing. Yet, there is a reason why this can happen and then turn to division of labor as a way to discipline those inside an ecology to comply. Economics and ecology are concerned with command and control of actions within a tribe, nation, or any other social formation where exchange and economic cooperation are real conditions. There is no version of either concept which could be a vehicle to abolish the conditions they imply. The only way this would happen would be to view economy and ecology are obstacles to overcome, and in any physical view of the world, the problem would be trivial to resolve. The problem at heart is a sense in human societies that the division of labor by rank, prestige, favors, and sentiments should continue for reasons that make sense at a base level, and that participants in society are induced to accept for no particular reason. When those who rule have run out of psychological buttons to press, they will turn to the functions labor can perform, and see which of them can be purposed to activate the psychological levers which were always at the heart of any philosophy of rule, and at the heart of aristocracy.

The final sentiment is then a sense of property, when all other sentiments that can be manipulated have failed. In the end, mere rank or prestige mean nothing, and none of the favors or sentiments offered to suggest that division of labor is worthwhile can convince agents to abandon a sentiment they hold that this competition is pointless. The members of society are not stupid, and recognize this situation for what it is. Rank, prestige, favor, and sentiment in this way can only persist if they are transformed into property claims. Even in isolation, the member of society understands that they must hold property of their own, and that property can be defended jointly for reasons that have nothing to do with favors, sentiment, or the division of labor. Property need not be identified with the property of ruling institutions, and in practice, many forms of property compete with each other. The sentiment for property is not institutional or a mental disorder, but a basic defense mechanism of any human who encounters this division of labor. Like the other sentiments, it can be and often is repurposed for the animalistic behavior mentioned above, and it is itself another such animalistic behavior. The property holder at a basic level is wary, conspiratorial, and has no reason to ever trust a neighbor or supposed friend. Distrust is the default sense, and the freeholder is rightfully contemptuous of rank and prestige. Indulgence in such sentiments in society is sickening to the free man or woman, for perfectly reasonable purposes. When push comes to shove, all of the favors and prestige of graspers give way to their property and acceptance that their rank in society will be whatever is possible in the division of labor, and in the mechanisms that may allow for class mobility. The property claims themselves do not arrest this mobility, or suggest that property is fixed in nature or the ecosystem. The claims to property can be held collectively or in any arrangement, for property is not limited to private property in the liberal sense. The commons, and the primitive sense of property in tribal society are no less individualistic than private property. The commons are preserved not because of managerial intent, but because it makes a lot of sense for the commons to not be polluted or claimed by malevolent agents. Strangely, humans manage not to violate the commons grossly until aristocracy is able to insinuate that it will be able to do so. There is in the end only two sentiments which are spared by aristocracy - rank and property. Aristocracy seeks "class collaboration", and when this watchword is uttered by the fascist, the fascist is not invoking a reasoned argument of what social classes are and what institutions are. Such thinking is anathema to the fascist. The fascist is instead working entirely at the level of these psychological sentiments, which are always aligned with aristocracy of the most unforgiving form and the perverse conceits of it. It is for that reason that very peculiar conceits about property are introduced. The only way they can truly be enforced is through total control of all mechanisms in an ecosystem, and the mediation of all that happens within the ecosystem and from outside of it. Aristocracy will never survive in any other way. How the aristocrat chooses to do that does not need to conform to any particular ideology or interest that necessitates the behavior. The aristocrat does this purely for a core sentiment, and works feverishly to insinuate that all others in society should follow this sentiment. Their establishment of rank must become identical with prestige, must be the objective of all favoritism and grasping, and must abolish all sentiments except love of the aristocracy. It leaves the property holder as a void, an asset to be pushed and cajoled. The objective of aristocratic property rights is not to defend the property holders at all. That's the stupid way. Aristocratic property rights presume a monopoly on those rights by aristocrats, who are motivated purely by rank and their lust for command. The ultimate aim of all aristocrats is simple - abolition of property as a sentiment, in favor of untrammeled aristocratic rank privileges, which need not regard prestige or the favors people might have made with each other, and which subvert all sentiments and destroy most of all sentiment towards those in humanity that are not controlled. What would remain of property would be nothing but an institutional ghost, in which the property holders are reduced to abstractions which must abide laws that are not decided by men, but "natural laws" that are asserted by an aristocratic recreation of reality. This recreation of reality can only operate within this ecological system that is controlled, where the division of labor is total and believed to be a natural condition that is unquestionable.

This, of course, is absurd. But, it is indeed the condition that has been realized, and it is inherent in the very way divisions of labor can be observed. We can indeed speak of ecosystems that are distant from others, such that we would not presume actions far away would have any meaningful immediate effect on anything happening in the village or some locale. The fullest division of labor can only persist by ignorance. Therefore, in the end, all knowledge becomes proprietary, and the aristocracy declares that history has ended, and simultaneously history is bunk, and history is still continuing onward, now as an inexorable force which aspires to some aim only a prophet can divine. The realization of this ideal is never complete, but the interest in maintaining it is persistent, and insists that no one is allowed to work against the program.

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