(Up to: Society And Control )

Where are we? We are split, divided between - on the one hand - the whims of a government, under pressure from ever-increasing media, and - on the other - societal infrastructure controlled by companies and the desire for profit.

By letting our lives being run by Whitehall, we lose our sense of responsibility.

By being pushed into a world of a dog-eat-dog labour market, we are left to defend for ourselves.

The two poles have succceeded in creating a population of self-interested people with little regard for others or the environment around them.

But wait. Isn't capitalism a form of control as well as economics? (See |!DualPurposeCapitalism|.) The implementation of capitalism as laid out by Thatcher in the 80s was surely, then, supposed to have the side effect of keeping the population in check. But it hasn't. (Or rather, it has to a large extent, but the divide between controlled and uncontrolled is, perhaps, more clear to see now.) Where did it all go wrong, then?

The initiatives undertaken by the government are not initiatives of a Planning Nature - that is, they are curative measures, designed to curb something or other after it has emerged. They are purely reactionary. This is the governance we have come to expect - part liberal, part scientific.

We are trapped, then, between the reactionary government, and the selfish capital market. But neither of these are solely to blame for what we have become. There is/must be a third mitigating factor.

That factor, then, must be ourselves. No matter what forces have been exerted upon us, it should be considered that failings in the social fabric all around us - or at least, the responsibility to uphold that fabric, lies with us. And if there is to be any repair of this fabric, then changes need to come not from the government, nor from industry, but from the very people who will be benefitting from it.

We must prove we can take care of ourselves.