{"id":43994,"date":"2014-06-30T12:49:53","date_gmt":"2014-06-30T11:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=43994"},"modified":"2023-05-22T08:58:10","modified_gmt":"2023-05-22T07:58:10","slug":"the-just-enough-policy-behavioral-control-of-collective-protest-through-minimum-reward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/06\/the-just-enough-policy-behavioral-control-of-collective-protest-through-minimum-reward\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cJust Enough\u201d Policy: Behavioral Control of Collective Protest through Minimum Reward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why are American Citizens . . . ? <\/em><\/p>\n

What does it take to awaken the American (USA) people to the egregious political, economic, and moral abuses and violations of their Constitutional rights and privileges? What does it take for the American people to demand changes in existing government and corporate political, economic, and social policies and actions limiting accountability, transparency, and participation? What does it take for the American people to successfully reduce the concentration of power, wealth, and position favoring a few and denying equality and opportunity for the masses? Why are American people failing to respond to the numerous crises in American society that reveal widespread corruption, cronyism, and incompetence in public and private institutions and organizations? Why are Americans savoring the fruits of consumerism, materialism, commodification, competition when the consequences of these institutionalized values are destructive for individuals and the social fabric? These questions are but a few of the many questions being asked daily across America and the world. At issue is the disproportionate absence of silence, passivity, and activism.<\/p>\n

I am not speaking here, nor am I advocating, of widespread rebellion or revolt, even as some voices have called for these as solutions in the face of a creeping oppression. Rather, I am seeking an understanding of why so few protests have emerged and been sustained across time and place? No one can deny the existence of protests from both \u201cliberal\/progressive\u201d circles, (e.g., OWS, Wisconsin Teacher Unions; LBGT organizations) and conservative\/tea party circles (e.g., border immigration, abortion rights, gun ownership rights). Yet, in my opinion, these protests have been focused on specific causes, often informed by narrow ideological reasons. I am seeking an understanding of the sources containing a broader and unified protest seeking to re-claim and to improve upon America\u2019s inspired heritage of human rights — a protest to reclaim \u201cmoral authority,\u201d \u201cnational identity,\u201d and \u201csocial and civic responsibility,\u201d not through guns, violence, and anger, but through virtue.<\/p>\n

It must be asked whether current divisions across gender, racial, ethnicity, social class, political, wealth, regional, and religious boundaries have limited any collective citizen response challenging the concentration of power, wealth, and position that seeks national and global domination. In my opinion, the concentration denies citizen participation by controlling means, motives, and consequences of national activism, especially by creating divisions across diverse population sectors. Although developing diverse identities is to be encouraged because diversity is the essence of life itself, a sense of unity is lost as too many are denied equality.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much diversity can a society accept before it collapses? And how does the fraction of a society lend itself to external control and domination by those with wealth, power, and position? For me, the answer is simple: \u201cA society can assume unlimited diversity, as long as it provides equal access to opportunity.\u201d It is the disproportion in opportunity, rights, and freedoms that lead to resentment, struggle, and violence. The USA needs a national vision identity that recognizes and accepts the conditions required for civility and citizen accommodation in our global era, including (1) an appreciation of the value of diversity, (2) a willingness to accept interdependence ethic, (3) the commitment to nonviolence\/nonkilling, and (4) a belief in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.<\/p>\n

What has emerged, unfortunately, in the USA is a \u201climited good\u201d mentality1<\/sup><\/strong> in which gains by one group or sector are considered losses by another, because there is only so much \u201cgood\u201d to go around. But while this may be, in part, an accurate appraisal of our global situation, there are forces at work that seek control from the age-old divisions rooted in concentrations of power, wealth, and position. Choose your century, country, or cause, and \u201cconcentration\u201d will always be the root of problems.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s global era, filled with challenges that defy solution (e.g., population increases, poverty, violence, wars, environmental pollution, crime), \u201ccontrol\u201d by a few (e.g., 1%, bankers, dictators, corporate royalty, Davos faction, monopolies) has become the means and the end. In the USA, which leads the world in military force, financial wealth, corporate cartels, and exportation of popular culture, \u201ccontrol\u201d is essential to preserve an existing state of affairs that denies equality, and promotes homogeneity. The USA has the world\u2019s largest military budget, highest medical costs, greatest number of prisons and prison inmates, and greatest divisions of wealth (e.g., 1% versus 99%). What this enables — indeed ensures — is the opportunity to implement a \u201cJust Enough\u201d<\/strong> approach to keeping collective control.<\/p>\n

The \u201cJust Enough\u201d Principle<\/strong><\/p>\n

The answer to questions raised in the opening of this article may reside in an organized effort to control behavioral responses by making use of a well-known psychological principle that offers \u201cJust enough.\u201d <\/strong>This principle pairs a positive behavior with a \u201csufficient\u201d reward to maintain control of desired outcomes. While there are increasing signs of American citizen discontent with both government (e.g., 6% citizen satisfaction with Congress based on surveys, election defeats of incumbents) and corporate (e.g., community activism, OWS, union protests) sectors, collective discontent has been denied, contained, or suppressed. The well-known words attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette — actually penned by Jean-Jacques Rousseau — capture the exigencies of the situation. \u201cThe peasants have no bread, let them eat cake (brioche).\u201d No, no, no, never give too much! The key is \u201cJust Enough!\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n