hypothesis |hʌɪˈpɒθɪsɪs|
noun (pl.hypotheses |-siːz| )
a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation: his ‘steady state’ hypothesis of the origin of the universe.
• Philosophy a proposition made as a basis for reasoning, without any assumption of its truth. [ with clause ] : the hypothesis that every event has a cause.
The following hypotheses are the basis, the underlying concepts, for this book. Each chapter of the book will serve to further explain, flesh out, and provide evidence for, one hypothesis.
1. The primary objective of organisations is to survive and grow.
2. When faced with a choice, we should expect organisations to prioritise their own survival and growth over other objectives, including ethical and environmental concerns.
3. The people whose personal objectives and values map closely to those of the organisation stand the best chance of rising to senior management and becoming wealthy.
4. People whose personal objectives and values don’t map closely to those of the organisation, will either not get employed there in the first place, will get removed from the organisation, will remove themselves from the organisation or will not get promoted to senior management.
5. One of the primary objectives of wealthy people (aka the elite) is to protect and increase their wealth.
6. Organisations and the elite want to protect the political and economic status quo because it is working for them.
7. The general public will always desire increased freedom, increased financial stability, and more control over the political process – which requires significant changes to the political and economic status quo and run counter to the interests of the elite.
8. To protect the political and economic status quo, organisations and the elite use their wealth to try to buy political power and influence – by ownership of the media, connections to religious institutions, control over the education system and political donations.
9. The majority of “big media” outlets in capitalist countries is controlled, directly or indirectly, by organisations and the elite. This includes “public” television and radio, which rely on government funding that can be withheld if they carry too much dissent, and whose senior management earn salaries that make them part of the elite.
10. As “big media” is controlled by organisations and the elite, it will be used as a tool to maintain the political and economic status quo – by discrediting the agents of change, limiting their access to the media and the education system, and by creating FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) about their ideas.
11. The way the majority of people vote in a capitalist democracy is, to a large extent, determined by big media, which is controlled by organisations and the elite.
12. If the way people vote is controlled by organisations and the elite and not the “demos” (i.e. the general public) it is therefore not really democracy but a plutocracy (from the Greek ‘ploutos’, meaning “wealth”, a society or a system ruled and dominated by the small minority of the wealthiest citizens).
13. It is in the best interests of organisations and the elite to give the general public the illusion of a democracy in order to prevent changes to the status quo.
14. History contains many examples of organisations and the elite in Western democracies deceiving the general public in order to protect their interests. It is therefore entirely rational to assume that organisations and the elite might be deceiving us today at any given moment, to protect their own interests, using their traditional instruments of opinion control, including the media, religious institutions, the political system and the education system.
15. If the usual methods of opinion control (eg the media, education system, economic stability, war, religious institutions, etc) stop working, the organisations and the elite will feel the need to protect their interests by adding or increasing their control mechanisms (eg increasing the size and militarisation of the police force, passing laws that limit traditional civil rights such as free speech and freedom of association, harsher mandatory sentencing for minor crimes, increased censorship, less transparency of government legislation, increased FUD regarding economic or physical security, State-encouraged xenophobia, etc) and these changes will be sold to the public as being necessary for “security” reasons. If there are no obvious security threats, they will have to be created.
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