I fully agree, Ron, that they are not monolithic. Hardly. They are out to cut each other's throats in a great variety of ways. It's the irresistible force of their general money-driven agenda that worries me...and its overpowering influence on the political institutions in our societies.

"Re: Calvinism: this relates to your mantra of the "immense financial forces" having all the power--we therefore predestined to powerlessness and exploitation. This seems to be what you strongly believe. I disagree."

Well....it depends how you look at it. On the one hand, any one individual is subject to immense systems all around him in a modern society, and he is essentially powerless in the face of them, to all intents and purposes, because he is one and they are many. Yet on the other hand, we all find ways of living our lives in such a way that we manage not to arouse those systems against us...hopefully, and still get to do some stuff we want to do. So we are both empowered (individually) and powerless (in another sense).

For instance, I can't build a fire on my own back property in order to dispose of deadwood, because there is presently a total ban on burning outdoors in my jurisdiction. This, despite the fact that I am quite capable of safely doing so, without causing a disaster to occur. The reason for the ban is that some people are not very careful how or where they build a fire, and they do end up causing a disaster. So the local government has decided to play it safe and ban ALL people from doing it.

This pisses me off. I am powerless in the face of their ban, and I don't like that. But I accept it, because I am not interested in either being fined or leading a Quixotic (and doomed) crusade to oppose their ban.

I will find other solutions for cleaning up the brush and deadwood on my property. They will be more time-consuming and difficult solutions, but I will find them.

So I don't have as much freedom on my own property as I would like, but I still have a lot.

Life is always a compromise between what you would like to do...and what the systems around you will let you do.