These days, there are various economic and political downturns and catastrophes taking place. Many enterprises and financial markets are struggling in improving their business performance and securing their market dominance while various new business models and innovative technologies are created at a faster pace than it used to be. The life style of human-individuals is more diversified at a faster pace while suspicion and conflict among individuals belonging to each different social group are intense. Many individuals seem to have far more opportunities to choose their life path while many individuals seem to suffer from their anxiety about their near future, which tend to cause their mental-depression. There does not seem to be any antidote solving these problems, and these problems arise due to the inevitably occurring transition of the entire economic and political structure of this world.
- 1 Astrological Analysis
Firstly, the European astrology provides a useful forecast of what is happening nowadays and the near future. Pluto crosses the ascendant in Capricorn until 2023, and then Pluto is going to be crossing the ascendant in Aquarius from 2023 to 2043. From now onward, the already existing traditional norms and values are gradually replaced by the alternatives. Furthermore, the condition determining individuals' social status is gradually changing. The entire economic and social structure is becoming more complex and less comprehensible.
The time of Pluto crossing the ascendant in Capricorn is a transitional period of norms and values. This time period is gradually transform the vertical relationship of human-individuals. At this time period, various dominant corporations, governments, and military struggle to keep their power. This is why the entire world financial system has crashed in a big scale more than once, many major corporations are struggling to maintain their business performance and their market dominance, and the power balance of the world politics is drastically changing at the fast pace. From now on, the traditional institutes they have belong to no longer secure their life so that none will teach or command what each individual has to do in their life.
On the other hand, the time of Pluto crossing the ascendant in Aquarius is the transitional period of relationships. This time period will be gradually transforming the horizontal relationship of human-individuals. At this time period, there will be alternation and diversification of how individuals interact with each other. There will be a dramatic change in an already existing entire community individuals are living in. This community includes not only the traditional relationships like family, friends, and coworkers but also some abstract relationships such as the online social-networks. In the near future, the already existing communities where they have belong to will be difficult to remain permanently so that nothing will permanently maintain kinship, friendship, and any other relationship.
Overall, from now onward, more individuals will furthermore struggle to find out what they have to do in their life.
Both institutional structures and community-ties will be fragmented and less permanent to exist. However, this phenomenon does not dissolve the political/social stratification which polarises individuals' living standard between the ruling class and the subordinate class. Instead, the method and the nature of stratifying individuals (and their society) will simply become more complex and less comprehensible.
- 2 The transformation of the dominance
Secondly, this world social structure is gradually evolving into a new form based on a more complex and less comprehensible hierarchy. To analyse a complex and incomprehensible crime case and find the true criminal in this criminal case, it generally starts out from guessing who is benefited at most by committing this criminal act. Finding out who is benefited at most in a political/social stratification is quite effective to analyse and understand how human-individuals living in this world will be polarised between the privileged ruling class and the rest majority.
- 2.1 From Capitalism to the New Capitalism
Someone has said that everyone in an advanced country is the middle class citizen because an advanced country provides a citizen with the equality of opportunity to be a skilled professional as an owner of an enterprise as long as this citizen has a merit for it. However, these middle class individuals are often exhausted by their workloads and desperate to opportunities of increasing their income and social-status. They do not seem to have enough freedom to spare their time for leisure. They do not seem to have their wage bargaining power enough to determine their own reward for their contribution to the market.
Karl Marx and his followers blame capitalism for impoverishing majority individuals under the harsh free market competition. However, the form of capitalism itself has been transformed from the early stage of the industrialisation when Karl Marx was alive. The entire condition to determine who can secure their position to maintain their dominance as the ruling class has changed. When Marx was alive, owning capital was the fundamental factor enabling individuals to maintain their privilege of both economic and social status. By contrast, both owning capital and the free market competition no longer secure their dominance.
The skilled professional occupations such as doctors, lawyers, managers of major companies, and scientists, and even some entrepreneurs (mainly owners of small-medium sized enterprises) used to be called the petite-bourgeoisie (which literally means the middle-class) because these occupations did not require the hard physical labour like the proletariat. Their professional skill used to be considered as the capital owned by these skilled professionals so that they were considered to have their own means of production which provides them with the stable income source without their hard physical labour.
By contrast, nowadays, these skilled professionals are busy enough to sacrifice their health condition and time as much as the traditional working-class occupations of the proletariat. These skilled professionals and owners of small-medium sized enterprises may earn relatively more income than the other working class occupations. However, they are far more likely to sacrifice their income and time invested for their higher education and be required to have a strong responsibility over their tasks. Furthermore, they do not look like owning their capital emancipating from the hard physical labour, and they rather look like they are required to put their hard physical labour as much as the traditional proletariat works.
This phenomenon is called the proletarisation of the middle class. When the national economy was developed enough to provide majority of citizens with the equal opportunity to acquire these middle class job with a high social status, the supply of those who have become the middle class dramatically increased. Then, the competition among these skilled professionals has become more intense enough to lower their income level and increase their energy and time invested for their productive activities. They are required to work hard enough to gain their means of living as same as the traditional proletariat. Therefore, these middle class individuals are under the pressure of producing the surplus value with their hard labour as same as the traditional working class so that they should be called the the new working class, or the proletariat-nouveau instead of the petite-bourgeoisie.
The traditional bourgeoisie such as owners of a big enterprise still keep their market dominance. Nonetheless, there are new variables enabling them to maintain and expand their dominance. The management of a big enterprise has become so complicated that it requires a huge volume of bureaucracy as same as the public sector management of a nation state government. Not so many competitors are able to be equip with such a huge complex bureaucratic structure so that those corporations which are already big enough can thrive with little fear from the market competition.
The other variables are the taxation and the excess market regulation which has become far more complex than the old capitalism. Government of a modern nation state imposes various forms of taxation and various regulations instructing entrepreneurs in order to adjust their action to government policies. Furthermore, in order to implement these policies which government force enterprises to follow, it requires a humongous public sector bureaucracy constantly monitoring this complex system regardless of any government elected at each time period. This bureaucracy has become an unavoidable tool of governing a modern nation state and its economy due to the complex nature of modern economy and politics. Then, these bureaucrats in this bureaucracy have their strong influence enough to control the market situation for their own interests, and they are the new ruling class that can be called the bourgeoisie-nouveau.
This new capitalism has transformed the social-stratification, and replaced the old ruling class with the new alternative. Nowadays, there is a new wave of transforming the social-stratification which replace the new capitalist economic political model to another. Due to the rapid development of the information technology and the individuals' network based on it, both owning capital and maintaining the big organisations like big corporations and public-bureaucracies will be less significant to maintain wealth and the dominance in both market and politics.
.............. To be continued.
