The second entry in Janek’s Jounal – 2066 continued

Friday 13th March

Diary entry 20660102

 

“I have just been re-reading yesterday’s entry, and I have to revise some of what I said.  Not that it isn’t all true – but because of the slant, the accent maybe, I put on it.  I was so excited at the freedom to be able to com in some way, even to myself, that wasn’t being super-spied on, that I let things get a bit out of hand.  Maybe I let my words, the freedom actually of writing words completely unobserved, run away with themselves a bit.  But the gist, the essence of what I was saying is real, even if I might have got a bit carried away.  I have I must admit always had a tendency to see things only in black and white; I find the subtle variations of grey all look muddily the same.

It is true what I said about feeling that there is something missing in our lives; even when you go up a strata or two and get so much more cred from the con-gloms and the chance to experience new stuff, a bigger apartment maybe, better and real food, more luxurious toys even, it all palls quite quickly, and you realise that it’s just the same old shit served up on a prettier plate.  Or at least I did.  Cathy can’t wait for an upgrade; she is desperate for all the goodies cred can buy.  I just get bored quicker I suppose.

The trouble is most people have completely stopped thinking, or at least questioning anything.  It is far easier that way, to just ‘go-with-the-flow’ as the oldies used to say.  We all learnt from the Great Chinese Ascendency how to keep our mouths shut and not question anything.  ‘As long as the goods keep rolling off the production line’  has replaced ‘think for yourself, examine everything and make your own mind up’  as the mantra to aim for.  Con-gloms have taken over edu from kinder-crammer to Uni itself.  Keeping the machine running is all everyone is doing; no-one even stopping to notice what the machine is churning out.

The old democracies of the West adapted and learnt from the Chinese how to control and manipulate everything and yet still leave some semblance of free-choice for people.  The trick was persuading us that we were making choices when all along there was only one way to go.  We were sold the illusion of freedom, despite the fact that we had lost that ages ago.  And we all willingly went along with it.  After the ‘Third Great Economic Crash’ of the century, (you know the really big one that made the first two seem like  minor local problems to be sorted out) we were all so scared of free-will and how the markets had fucked-up so badly it turned us all into nervous little control freaks.  The greed merchants, the financiers, all those bankers just had to be stopped.  “Never again” was the clarion call from politico’s and business alike.  And we all had to agree – nobody wanted to return to the mad destructive chaos of the so-called ‘free market’.  The scandals kept emerging one after other, exposing the whole thing as a fraud; a giant Ponzi scheme that everyone had bought into, an ever-flowing stream of profit where money like everything else was constantly expanding.  In fact it was a house of cards that kept toppling over.  The market was never ‘free’ at all, like on-line poker which they banned around the same time the ones with the biggest pots always won no matter what cards they were dealt.

We had to be protected from ourselves, from unbridled Capitalism, from our personal greed and individuality, which kept dragging us into these messes.  And the solution they came up with was ‘con-gloms’.  These massive multiplexes evolved out of the largest old-style companies but are now themselves strictly controlled.  They exist in a sort of mutual parity and outward competition, but are never allowed to go bust or expand too quickly or to get too big and reckless.  It is a strange mixture of free-enterprise and state control (invented we think by the Chinese) that exists supposedly for the benefit of all in society.  Though as ever in history, the rich are the most rewarded and the poor stay shit-poor.  Every single transaction is recorded and inter-connected so that prices and cred are subtly adjusted to keep everything in balance.  It is all controlled by the hypercoms, which we rely on for everything.  They keep the whole thing in balance, the con-gloms happily making profit, everyone in their predestined strata, different cred levels for all; a perfectly regulated but ultimately stagnant and sterile system.

Those old Twentieth Century ideas of the market have all been swept aside; all prices and the flow of cred is controlled by the hypercoms so that at all levels of our so-called society people are ‘looked after’ (or kept in their place if you ask me).  Gov is simply there to make sure the con-gloms comply.  And Gov constantly assures us that they do; because they have all learned it is far better this way, when no-one steps out of line.  It all works seamlessly and really it is impossible to tell where Gov ends and the con-gloms take over.

The poor are really not as poor as they used to be, they have unlimited manna, reasonable homes and basic healthcare.  A few comforts and distractions keep them amused; safe cheap stimuli that don’t threaten their health too much, and their own level of net-freedom to stop them from getting restless.  Besides they aren’t crammed to anything like uni-level, just enough to operate as low-level consumers.  They seem happy enough too, though of course you never really get to meet them.  Why would you?

The vast middle class where I come from are finely subdivided with the ever ‘exciting’ prospect of moving up a strata or two to keep us working hard at making the con-gloms ever richer.  The rich are still rich, but (so we are told) seem to be limited from becoming too powerful in case they in their turn threaten the con-gloms or Gov itself in some way.  How much cred does anyone need anyway, there are only so many ways to spend it?  Aren’t there?  To be honest cred really bores me – as long as we have food and a decent flat – the rest I can do without.  The con-gloms are all ultimately owned by the rich of course, but the largest proportion of their profits are used in constantly rebuilding the factories and computer networks, so avoiding any threat of their failing or being taken over by another con-glom.  It is a perfect system of making more and more cred and keeping everything ticking over without the mad fluctuations of the market upsetting things.  It is also a way of keeping everyone at all levels in some sort of economic stability and it works as long as nobody asks questions.  Like me, I suppose.  But apart from what I am doing, writing my illegal little diary, who the fuck would you ask your questions of anyway?