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Self-reliance--what I term radical self-reliance to differentiate it from the simulacrum of "self-reliance" used to mask various levels of dependency--flows from the inner sources of security: experience, belief in oneself and a sturdy belief in the goodness and importance of positive actions, on one's own behalf and just as importantly, on behalf of others.

The voices which rise in strident defense of entitlements are wasting their energy, for the State and its entitlements are doomed to insolvency, and nothing will stop that devolution and collapse.

Thus the only question is what we as a society will do with ourselves once we are thrown back on our own resources by the crumbling of the State's dependency machinery. Just as the servant/serf who feared the bankruptcy of his Master on the principle that the unknown is more unsettling than servitude, the citizenry may awaken in the financial ruins of the State and discover that illusions of security were just that, and that freedom requires self-reliance--and self-reliance requires sustained, well-thought out but flexible action toward limited, carefully selected goals.

Perhaps that sums up life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The Structure of Happiness

Let us revisit a key concept:

This process of bridging the widening gap between what we experience and what we're being told we should be experiencing via the substitution of simulacra for authentic structures is central to this entire analysis.

In other words: when we have lost the possibility of indulging the marketing/advertising system's fantasy of endless consumption of needless goods and services, instead of feeling the loss, deprivation and gnawing sense of insecurity/emptiness we are supposed to experience, we might well feel an unexpected but deeply genuine relief that the burdens of constant consumption have been lifted from our sagging shoulders.

It won't be surprising that an analysis which refers so often to the "politics of experience" seeks to illuminate the darkest corner of the consumerist theology: that the politics of experience deep within an apparently superficial consumerism is a form of servitude, and that the collapse of that theology is liberation.

That is, we do not experience happiness or fulfillment in a vacuum; it is difficult to pursue happiness in a political structure of randomized violence, suppression of free expression, insecure private property rights, theft by other means and centralized, ubiquitous propaganda that is dominated by an over-reaching State and its Plutocratic overlords.

Thus if we consider the Founding Fathers' phrase "pursuit of happiness" closely, we find not only that it implies a personal pathway of goals, progress, setbacks and discipline rather than a static end-state but also a political environment in which the individual pursuit of happiness is not just possible but encouraged rather than suppressed.

Perhaps the first step to such an understanding of an authentic "pursuit of happiness" is to recognize the consumerist theology of insatiable acquisition as a perverse and destructive simulacrum of genuine happiness.

Key concepts in this chapter:

Imaginary causal connection

Internally derived security

Independently constructed sense of self

Section Two:

Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation

Introduction

Our analysis has finally reached the promised point where we begin assembling solutions to our many interlocking crises.

Before we begin the journey forward, I want to take a moment to offer an assessment of our tangled quandary.

Here is my analysis in narrative form.

The U.S. economy (and the global economy, too) is like a great ship which is running out of fuel. This ship requires vast amounts of oil and credit, both of which have slipped from seemingly endless abundance into terminal decline. As it runs out of fuel, the ship slows to a halt, changing the lives of everyone on board.

Unfortunately, the ship has sprung serious leaks, and the pumps can no longer keep up with the water gushing in. As the ship