Understanding and embracing a 'civil society'

A society that understands and embraces the idea of the Four-Hour Work Day is one that is also cognizant of the concept of a “civil society”.

What is painted today as “democracy” is a reality remote from demotic behaviour and if honesty were to prevail, it should really have another name that in some way reflected the realities of totalitarianism.

"Managed Democracy" by
 Sheldon S. Wolin.

It was author, Sheldon S. Wolin, writing in “Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism” discussed the control corporations have over society; a society in which democracy is portrayed, but rarely genuinely enacted.

Although most societies have the infrequent breakout of groups intent on securing equity and a certain civility, they are rare and without the backing of the majority, which because of what Wolin has described as “managed democracy”, is predominantly passive and submissive, and so cause little trouble for the powerful lobby of the military/industrial/growth complex.

Life is not meant to be lived with your “shoulder-to-the-wheel” to ensure the survival of a way of life guaranteeing days of ease and comfort for a few and endless toil for most.

The idea of a civil society is, in a popular sense, considered irrelevant and unneeded as most have been convinced that we already live with freedom and equity, but even a glance beyond the façade constructed by the corporate world we will see it is a house of cards resting on what are portrayed as firm foundations, but which are nothing more than a shaky superstructure whose fidelity depends upon ever-more growth and profit reliant on the endless consumption of finite resources.

The Four-Hour Work Day would begin to restore to some equity and begin a conversation about the importance of shifting to a way of living in which the emphasis is on people rather than growth and profit.