The New Class System

I remember being cornered at a party, back in the sixties when I was a new immigrant to Canada, by a young man telling me why the UK is going down hill.  The nation was mired in a class system, he thought, that kept them from reaching their economic potential, whereas Canada was free of any such out-dated confinements. 

Back then the familiar terms were upper, middle and working class, and although Canadians didn't often allude to class, there was a vast gap between the wealthiest Canadians and the poorest.

The notion of a working, middle and aristocratic class has a genteel ring to it, but we know the reality was more brutal than was ever talked about.  Therefore I propose that the class system should be renamed - either because it has changed, or because it's more in line with reality.

I would call the three classes "anthro-hyenas", "gate-beavers" and "field mice".

Anthro-hyenas very much in the minority, are the ruling elite. Fiercely carnivorous and protective of their own friends and family they are not content to simply fill their bellies as their four legged cousins might. They are hungry for everlasting security. This means controlling world resources (including labour) by creating systems of oppression for everyone else by whatever means necessary.

Field mice are us.  We are so busy trying to survive, caring for and protecting our families we barely have time to look at the big picture.  Being vulnerable to manipulation we tend not to blame the causes but the victims of the system - particularly if they are even more vulnerable than we are.

Gate-beavers are the class created to keep the field mice from knowing how the system works. They are well trained to protect the position and power of the anthro-hyenas - to be the impenetrable walls that keep the field mice out. Gate-beavers build institutions, create laws, design wars, co opt media and do whatever they can to maintain the ideology that power is a zero sum game.

Who is to blame for this?  Is it the ruling elite, the anthro-hyenas, who have abused power for thousands of years? Is it the field mice getting dizzy running around their particular wheels unable to see the landscape?  Is it the gate-beavers who invest their lives in a system of oppression by pandering to wealthy interests?  Or is blame a construct we use out of habit, because systems of oppression have always relied on setting up enemies in order to maintain the status quo?

Is it possible that the destruction of this planet might be halted by new ways of organizing human capacity as we discover the interdependent web of self interest and social responsibility? Will there be a time when left wing and right wing become redundant phrases as Canada becomes a nation free of class structures as the young man in the sixties proclaimed?