Of Anthills and Christmas Parties

"Every ant  knows the  formula of its ant-hill,
every  bee knows  the formula  of its  beehive.
They know it  in their own way, not in our way.
Only humankind does not know its own formula."
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky

So there I was at the annual Chrismas party, bumping elbows with probably one hundred other eager little small business people, the much-heralded and admired American "small business owner," each one armed with a fistful of free vistaprint business cards, a nametag, and some even having a shirt advertising the name of their little niche in the free market.  It's called a "Chamber of Commerce," and it is the means by which the monied class herds the non-monied class out of the source of capital, keeps them in line, and somehow, astonishingly, keeps them voting against their own economic and political interests. 

So many people with so little in common and so little business to do with one another.  You see, the problem isn't that each of these desperate little fools was unwilling or unable to carry out their little contribution to society.  The problem was that their pathetic little contribution really wasn't needed.  And it certainly isn't needed in the volume and the degree to which they seek customers to purchase it.

But these little people, each one probably formerly an engineer, an information technology professional, or a mid-level manager of some sort, was no longer useful in the world economy.  The labor that they used to provide to the owners of capital could now be obtained somewhere far away for far, far cheaper.  So these people were ordered out of the cubicles, and left to find little small "businesses" to occupy their time.  That is really all that they do.  There are far more real estate agents, real estate brokers, salespeople of various worthless goods, insurance agents, lawyers, business consultants and accountants than would ever be needed in the U.S.

Yet there they are, the "Chamber of Commerce," clinging to their little business cards and crawling constantly around in circles, over one another, under one another, trying to get from other ants in the anthill what none of them really have.  Each one, now a jettisoned, individual unit of labor with some worthless license, striving to get some piece of capital.  Only the real capital left the antill a long time ago.  It went overseas.  And the ants are left to mortgaging their homes, cars, and land to feed themselves.  When all of that goes South, the Capital will move overseas, the place to which the wealth is flowing, assets are appreciating, and capital is needed.

Who is left there to explain to them that only they do not know their own formula?