John Smith was a normal Corporate man, working happily for the Corporation Cluster in the sunny Corporate State. He had a wife and many friends with which, after the shift ,he used to drink, bitchtalk and have fun.They were not politically correct, but never the racist or gender or sex bigots.They were just talking freely,smoking, drinking and bitching and criticizing, as any simple corporate employee did.
But slowly, John Smith noticed that he was not advancing as the others have, on the Corporate ladder.
On one black Friday day, he decided. He sold his wife, together with some of his oldest friends and shorted his position. The next Monday, he was linked together with the triple AAA+ woman. And his rating went to triple A. He entered the Great Transaction Society; he was just barely aware of its existence just a few days ago. And the new Great Transaction Corporate life started to shine. He was smiling and for every smile he collected points in the Transaction game. No more bitching, free talking, everything had a purpose, every gesture, smile and any big or small talk were just ways of buying and selling anything, his earnings, position, friends, were all stocks in the game. he was piling up, every minute of his life, a huge asset position.When he smiled, he was making swaps, when he looked ,he was putting an option, when he laughed he was ready to short, when he talked he was buying and selling. When he made sex with his Triple A+ ¸they were rearranging their portfolio…And he was climbing towards the happy few.The only collateral was that he never said or thought anything which was not a vehicle for advancing in the Great Transaction Society.He became a Special Purpose Vehicle,and he dressed as such, drove a proper vehicle for the occasion and talked as such, as all his new friends did, too. He even did not like all this things he was wearing or buying, but that was the Game. His stock options grew….
And on black Friday his Triple A+ wife and his new close friends made a Margin Call. He was Out.No more Triple A. he was cleared by his clearing house. He started to counsel, then went on zero hours contracts, working on vouchers, sold his mega car and ended living in a cardboard box.
After days and days when he tried to enter the Great Transaction Society, he found out that the door from which the entrance was possible was packed with much younger and much determined John Smiths.
He was thinking, for some days, thinking the Big who and what and why. He sat in the cardboard box for hours, thinking about who he is, what and why , entering his inner self, introspecting. He found Nothing. Suddenly,just when he was waking up from this search, a two legged Metal Box appeared in front of him.
>hey,John Smith
P.S. This story is an elaboration from Franco Ferrarotti interview on Rai radio3, where he presented how the Society moves from the Market Economy to the Market Society which is not any more divided from the economy but becomes the only transaction /profit /relation space.And by becoming the Market Society, looses the Society. Well, it is happening for centuries, many social classes have this embedded, even Hollywood was built on this breaching of the circle, when a poor girl marries a rich,etc, from Screwball movies on till now. They call it the American Dream.But now it is generalized.
on sundays, Witchdoctor