One cannot be devoutly religious, or patriotic, or moral, without differentiating oneself from the ungodly, the disloyal, or the immoral. To be for o… - Butler D. Shaffer

For our world to be predictable and controllable, it must be mechanistic and linear in nature. But, the illusions of the behaviorists to the contrary notwithstanding, there is nothing less mechanistic and linear in nature than the human mind, whose intricacies and capacities have yet to be matched by even the most sophisticated computers.

How foolishly we cling to the belief that the state, for instance, exists to protect our lives, liberty, and property interests, even as it continues to slaughter millions of people, restrain their liberties, and despoils their wealth. The life system, itself, constantly pushes the fallacy of pyramidal thinking into our unconscious and often conscious mind. As we look around our communities and the rest of the world and discover how much better decentralized systems perform in providing what political agencies only promise, faith in the pyramid collapses. Not willing to allow its violence-based interests to decompose due to a change in human consciousness, the state—along with the corporate interests that have long benefited as politically-created parasites—desperately reacts to shore up its crumbling foundations.

In such a volatile climate, change became one of the few constants upon which businessmen could rely. Economic survival often depended upon innovative resiliency; firms with higher unit costs and prices had to either be- come more efficient or drop out of the race. Instability and turnover were continuing threats with which firms had to contend. The severity of the competitive struggle was best reflected in the automobile industry: of the 181 firms manufacturing cars at some time during the years 1903 to 1926, 83 remained in business as of 1922, while 20 managed to survive through 1938.