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Why Nations (And Organizations) Fail: Self-Serving Elites
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
For those who doubt that America is ruled by a narrow elite: three charts.
The book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty neatly summarizes why nations fail in a few lines:
(A nation) is poor precisely because it has been ruled by a narrow elite that has organized society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people. Political power has been narrowly concentrated, and has been used to create great wealth for those who possess it.
Sound like any countries you know? Perhaps we should flip this question around and ask: how many nations don't fit this profile?
I submit that this dynamic of failure--the concentrated power and wealth of self-serving elites-- is scale-invariant, meaning that it is equally true of communities, towns, cities, states, nations and empires alike: all fail when they're run for the benefit of a narrow elite.
There is a bitter irony in the ease with which American pundits discern this dynamic in developing-world kleptocracies while ignoring the same dynamic in America. One would imagine it would be easier to see the elites-inevitably-cause-failure in one's home country, but the pundits by and large are members of the Clerisy Upper Caste, well-paid functionaries, apparatchiks, lackeys, factotums, toadies, sycophants and apologists for the very elites that are leading America down the path of systemic failure as the ontological consequence of their self-serving consolidation of wealth and power.
For those who doubt that America is ruled by a narrow elite: I don't have charts for standard-issue third-world kleptocracies, but I doubt the concentration of wealth and political power is much more extreme than in America:
In a simulacrum democracy where the highest bidders control the state, who do you think can readily buy political power?
And the policies of the elites have really spread the prosperity around in the past few years (sarcasm-off):
What's truly interesting about the authors' exhaustive survey of the inevitability of failure in elite-dominated nations is how cities dominated by narrow elites fail, states controlled by narrow elites fail, and indeed, any organization that serves the interests of a few at the expense of the many fails for the same reasons.
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After 8 years of Obama and 8 years of Bush, mission accomplished, destruction of Americas middle class.
revolution anybody ? ? (naaahhhh...NFL is on !!)
removed
inserted
When globalization and off-shoring our mfg. base was instituted we in the US should have realized then that the elites and their international corporations had it in for the rest of us. Thanks Slick Willy, and all the rest of you traitorist fucks to follow.
"Thanks Slick Willy"
You're either a moron or under 30!
It was fucking Reagan who started the "supply-side, monetary policy" ball rolling…fast, downhill.
The first thing he did was change the tax code to offer "incentive" for off-shoring, in order to kill the unions.
It was no duckling secret either, asshole…they openly bragged about it in t he MSM daily, like all swaggering, fat, bloated Republicant thieves.
I was thinking NAFTA and GATT, etc..
Sir James Goldsmith: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maouTP8vTO0
If from my comment you infer that I'm some Republican/Reagan fan then you've misread.
Check your facts and your self, moron.
The latest revelations prove that Wall Street deregulation began in earnest under Clinton. Here’s The Guardian (19 April 2014):
“Wall Street deregulation, blamed for deepening the banking crisis, was aggressively pushed by advisers to Bill Clinton who have also been at the heart of current White House policy-making, according to newly disclosed documents from his presidential library.
“The previously restricted papers reveal two separate attempts, in 1995 and 1997, to hurry Clinton into supporting a repeal of the Depression-era Glass Steagall Act and allow investment banks, insurers and retail banks to merge.
“A Financial Services Modernization Act was passed by Congress in 1999, giving retrospective clearance to the 1998 merger of Citigroup and Travelers Group and unleashing a wave of Wall Street consolidation that was later blamed for forcing taxpayers to spend billions bailing out the enlarged banks after the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
“The White House papers show only limited discussion of the risks of such deregulation, but include a private note which reveals that details of a deal with Citigroup to clear its merger in advance of the legislation were deleted from official documents, for fear of it leaking out.
“Earlier, in February 1995, newly-appointed Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, his deputy Bo Cutter and senior advisers including John Podesta gave the president three days to decide whether to back a repeal of Glass-Steagall.
“In what Cutter described as “an action forcing event”, he wrote to Clinton on 21 February, telling him Rubin wanted to announce the policy before it was raised by the House banking committee on 1 March….”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/19/wall-street-deregulation-clinton-advisers-obama
Actually, I think that 'honor' goes to Nixon, who took us off the gold standard and opened trade with China. My Chinese in-laws sure are happy about it, but my American family is having more and more trouble getting by without govrnment money (and I count government jobs in that category).
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts says that by saving the rich, the bankers have lost the economy, both in the United States and Europe. And the people are suffering. Wrote Roberts in 2011:
“Jobs off-shoring was made possible because the collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in China and India opening their vast excess supplies of labor to Western exploitation. Pressed by Wall Street for higher profits, US corporations relocated their factories abroad. Foreign labor working with Western capital, technology, and business know-how is just as productive as US labor. However, the excess supplies of labor (and lower living standards) mean that Indian and Chinese labor can be hired for less than labor’s contribution to the value of output. The difference flows into profits, resulting in capital gains for shareholders and performance bonuses for executives.”
Bill Clinton was president from 1993–2001. The Soviet Union fell in December 1991.
“As reported by Manufacturing and Technology News (September 20, 2011) the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages reports that in the last 10 years, the US lost 54,621 factories, and manufacturing employment fell by 5 million employees. Over the decade, the number of larger factories (those employing 1,000 or more employees) declined by 40 percent. US factories employing 500-1,000 workers declined by 44 percent; those employing between 250-500 workers declined by 37 percent, and those employing between 100-250 workers shrunk by 30 percent. http://www.manufacturingnews.com”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/26/saving-the-rich-losing-the-economy/
good thing corporations are people now, they can be the new middle class.
Indeed they are, my friend.
a legal person.... not a natural person.... corporations can sue and be sued and have some rights.
It's not actually that terrifying. Indeed, the idea that they are entities with no legal standing would be both contrary to a thousand years of common law and individual liberty.
But it makes a cool bumper sticker.
As for the widley misunderstood Citizens case....
You Are Now Free to Speak About Politics - Reason.comLegal persons with rights "guaranteed" in the
Bill of Rights. NOT consistent w
ith common law nor common sense. But you knew that didn't you.......
A thing cannot be responsible. That is the problem with the "legal person."
It started in 1980 in ernest. The ground work has been ongoing since 1913.
It started in 1776, with a group of wealthy landowners and slave owners who, very amusingly, talked about things like human rights and equality, but certainly never dreamed of acting that way ....
Your knowledge of US history is a bit warped. What you say has some truth, bug yoh miss many more truths that make your conclusions ignorant. But it makes you feel better abouf yourself, doedoesn't it.
Don't forget Clinton and all the rest.
After 8 years of Obama and 8 years of Bush, mission accomplished, destruction of Americas middle class.
All set up by the Congress and Clinton Adminstration destroying Glass Steagall. This opened the floodgates for the bankstas and the political and media hacks.
+"42". 100% Correct! That's what happens when the Body Politic cannot regulate and heal itself, because the "Checks & Balances" have been removed -- which serve to ensure...
- An Informed Public that is reasonably engaged
- A Healthy and Vigorous Debate in Legislature and Media
- A reasonably Level Playing Field (the Regulators regulate, Watchdogs watch and bark when required)
- A reasonably working Branches of Government, Judicial and Legal system, and Civil Service
- There is no Revolving Door between Government and Industry jobs, fueled by Lobbyists and NGO donors and activists
- That Lobbyists, NGO activists do not short-circuit or front-run Legislature, or infiltrate and run the Executive Branch (e.g. AIPAC, Goldman Sachs, the MIC, Big Biz)
p.s. This shit all started in 1980 with the Reagan/Bush era (where the charming but malleable actor-cum-politician, Reagan became the Useful Tool for the Skull+Bones NWO GHW Bush). "DEREGULATION" was a mantra everyone glommed onto, but it was code for "REMOVE CHECKS & BALANCES", so that the Elite can put the Wealth-Transfer Mechanism (fiat money + FRB) into Top Gear.
One of the first Checks & Balances to be removed, was the Corporate Governance and Executive Pay+Compensation structure: Thanks to Wall St pressure/lobbying, an Exec's Total Compensation would now have a FAR larger portion that was driven by the Stock Price, rather than Base Salary. Bonuses became EVERYTHING. Well, it didn't take long for these clever, well educated, ambitious & driven alpha-types to figure out what was needed: Cut Operating Costs (Outsource, Offshore and cut domestic staff). When execs are no longer compensated for a company's long-term performance, but only for the Quarterly Bonuses, "The Writing is on the Wall St Wall". Reaganites got EXACTLY what was promised -- except that what they HEARD, was not what was PROMISED by the silver-spooned, forked-tongued NWO-Bush.
Dumb sheeple -- same as it ever was: They are conditioned to follow mindlessly, w/o thinking things through. Organized Politics is little different from Organized Religion: both work in tandem, to ensure the Status Quo (the wealth and lifestyle of the Rich & Powerful, and to keep the Poor from killing the Rich). NOTHING will change until Sheep evolve into Real Humans. / Until then, Bon Appetite, wolves. / sarc
You are the last one to be calling folks "dumb sheeple" if you believe what you wrote right there. Either that or you are some young snot nosed narcissist who Mommy convinced that history started with your birth. You want to read/reread Ed Griffin's "Jekyll Island" to get a clue, and then go BACKWARDS from there if you really want to know where "this" all started. Sheesh - no wonder folks are ragging on the commenters lately.
"You are the last one to be calling folks "dumb sheeple""
You're were sleeping during the 80's or under 30!
It was fucking Reagan who started the "supply-side, monetary policy" ball rolling…fast, downhill.
The first thing he did was change the tax code to offer "incentive" for off-shoring, in order to kill the unions.
It was no fucking secret either, asshole…they openly bragged about it in t he MSM daily, like all swaggering, fat, bloated Republicant thieves.
Ed Griffin is a complete idiot, and your comments are just as idiotic and more Koch Bros. paid blogging playbook diatribe…go back to "BeforeItsNews.com" and discover some new "weird trick"…like the ability to think independently, you clunk.
To be fair to their post, the "deregulation mantra" was big in the Reagan 80s.
Jekyll Island most definitely was a big jump for the elites, but elites have been around for millenia before that.
Correct, Ed only takes it back to modern day shysters. It can be taken back to Babylon and the Code of Khamurabi, almost 2000 years before Christ walked on this earth trying to warn the people of the vipers and theives. Today they are here in greater numbers, but still a tiny minority having control over the currency.
We are being ruled by a powerful occult group made up of family bloodlines traced back to the beginning from the mother of all family trees.
.
They believe it is their divine right to rule over us.
.
And just like when you wear your favorite NHL hockey jersey to show your 'team colours' - they show theirs via thru sacred geometry, astrology and numerology.
.
Or did you think its natural for the common man to lose 10 BILLION fuckin coin flips in a row?
"They believe it is their divine right to rule over us."
Any man or woman who feels that it is their right to rule over others because of wealth or blood should be immediately hung.
No trial. No jury of peers. No anything.
Immediate death. Period.
The masses, as a whole, can not fathom that its 'hocus pocus' bulshit that is ruling us...that is a MASSIVE hurdle for one's mind to get over.
.
However, once one gets over that hurdle...down the 'rabbit hole' you go.
The Divine Right of Kings methodology is alive and well in most of America's Fundamental and Christian Churches. They don't question or don't have the balls God gave them to question what is really going on just to keep their 501c good.
It matters naught what the 0.01% or even the 1% believe. It matters everything what the 99% believe in their heart & minds.
As long as they fall for the Jedi Mind Trick, as long as they suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, as long as "Organized Religion keeps the Poor from killing the Rich", NOTHING will change. Nor should it.
In the final analysis... A People deserve their leaders: Sheep deserve Shepherds, Real Men deserve real leaders.
And -- most important of all: "WISDOM BEGINS WITH GIVING UP ALL ILLUSIONS AND PRETENSES"**.
**http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-12/seen-new-donetsk-republic-leaders-wall?page=1
Mon, 05/12/2014 - 14:23 | 4751541 Kirk2NCC1701
p.s. Give up Illusions of the Mind: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/illusion
A sheep herder uses the sheep. A shepherd cares for the sheep.
Caring for people, for civilization, is the distinction.
Some people are so caught up in the "I got mine" syndrome, they forget that life is best when everyone is respected.
Others are so caught up in power and control, they can't see beyond their sphere of influence.
Life is beautiful when you respect, and care for, everything you see.
It's a real bummer when you don't.
Edit P.S. Real Men deserve to lead themselves!
Yup
If these families find such importance in some red liquid which courses through their veins, perhaps it's time that we see with our own eyes what qualities make this blood so special.
Logged in to say that it is my divine responsibility to say 'no' and act accordingly!
Stay Vigilant
Yeah, and it all started with Mommy Reagan and her astrologer...
/sarc
The movie 'Now You See Me' is about these things. This link reveals them. http://vigilantcitizen.com/moviesandtv/now-see-illuminati-entertainment-.... The movie is shockingly blatant in its mockery of muggles to use a Harry Potter term. If the illuminati are throwing off their disguise then they may think that they strong enough to come out of the shadows.
All victory belongs to GOD. Jesus Christ redeems.
Wow - this link:
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=western_support_for_islam...
is really excellent stuff on the neocons, actually. Cool site.
The dominant elite ready to break the "social contract"
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2014/08/the-dominant-elite-ready-to-b...
Here it is:
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=1223928
Its a Trap!
fucked
self interest leads to self destruction. or as my grandfather used to tell me, "take care of the poor. they will make you rich".
well, one doesn't need the poor to buy shit to make money anymore. all one needs is an internet connection and 25grand to click the way to wealth....even as the whole model collapses.
Zion multiplied by Fed funny money
Obama orders feds to adopt credit-card technology limiting identity theft - MarketWatch
THE DEAR LEADER HAS SPOKEN!!!!!!!
Federal housing regulator to clarify lending rules: WSJ - MarketWatch
Oh boy here is comes...
Until that 60% omthe bottom wakes up, stands up, rises up or jumps up and says enough...nothing will change. Of course, most of that 60% is the free shit army, and they will never bite the hand that feeds them.
What really pisses myself and most others here is that they are the ones who cry ,bitch and moan the most about "being opressed" and "being discriminated against."
Bbbbbaaaaahhhhh.
Really in bell curve terms, 68% are incapable without some "catastrophic and catalyzing event"
It's the 20% middle class that should wake up, stand up, etc. but they're too scared that they'll end up in the bottom 60% so they're completely satisfied with their rung on the ladder.
You hit the nail on the head. Sure we can stand up to the goons, might even legally win a few battles. Then they get the IRS after you and you just lost thousands (being optimistic), hiring a tax lawyer and fighting the assholes-even if you were innocent. I personally got hit with a 850K tax bill from trading which they fucking knew I didn't make. Still had to fight it and get a lawyer.
I'm not saying we shouldn't stand up, but we should count the cost first.
"Those ignorant of their history are doomed to repeat its failures". A paraphrase of Santayana's famous qoute Milestones
The bank must die.
+1
All Andrew Jackson wanted inscribed on his tombstone was "I killed the bank."
My hero!
Try this: complete lack of personal, economic, and social responsibility plus a pathological need to play the victim, pass the buck, and blame someone else plus an inability to distinguish, acknowledge, and deal with important issues (even if that means, horror of horrors, admitting impotence).
Also, you know, physics, real economics, and cultural characteristics, which are in fact beyond individual control. But resource-poor nations have often managed to outperform resource-rich ones (which allow themselves to live under the Resource Curse because hey, it sure beats workin').
But somehow that doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as: "THEY did it!" The populist bullshit is thick and heavy with this one.
When the heads finally star coming off the debt jubilee will be announced.
See the Gilens study (Princeton) in
http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-elite.html
In my book The Fourth Branch I explain this in a different way. I go back to the philosophy of Confucius bolstered by Elitist theory. In it I offer a solution, albeit radical I admit, but a workable solution... and a way to implement it against the protestations of the political elite.
Since I wrote it to save the world, not to get rich, I made it 80% free. You can read it in any ebook format you like here:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/277193
Nothing is going to change until the government cuts back on handouts to corporations and people. Then the shit will hit the fan and not before. Hell the media's big message today!
If the market crashes it will not hurt the USA or the economy. You just cannot make this shit up anymore.
When was the last time you met a humble public servant? Its been a long time for me. The people that I know that went into public service went in humble and changed so fast it is amazing. It takes about a year to go from humility to arrogant. In the elected its as soon as they walk in the door.
There is a quick fix for that!
It's called "public service" because they serve us, the public, to them, the profiteers and banksters.
An American, not US subject.
"'Serve and Protect' Much like a farmer who will "protect" his cattle until he "serves" them on his plate."
These studies are interesting and even useful in understanding the scope of the problem that social inequality leads to financial inequality. But the prediction/forecast that such an imbalance will inevitably fail is completely wrong.
Lenin calculated -quite correctly as it turned out- that 1% communist cadre could control another 9% of the population, who in turn can be forced to control the other 90%. This social network held sway for an entire lifetime. Throughout human history, at least until the mid 19th century, a form of oligarchy/feudalism was the ruling social order. All of these societies were quite stable.
The current oligarchy is quite stable, and will remainn so as long as the next 10% -the decile just below the 90th percentile- feel that they have more to lose than gain, if the current social order was disrupted. This decile of the population is the reservoir of educated professionals and small businessmen, independent contractors and lower level civil servants and business managers and supervisors.
Could there be an "American Spring" like there was an Arab Spring, and could the American version be able to wrest control from the upper 10% for longer and more effectively? Perhaps. But Americans have been successfully distracted by social issues and tabloid scandals away from economics, civics, and human rights issues for a long time now.
The guillotine, the great Retribution, and "redistribution" tool.
An American, not US subject.
"Now recruiting: Guillotine operators."
the money system itself creates more debt, by design, than money with which to pay the interst + principal.
It is a fundamental theft of value from productive labor by those who merely have exclusive ownership of a printing press.
The fact that standing behind the Fed are largely European banks and shareholders, and that we can, political correctness aside, be fairly certain that these are mostly Jewish banking dynasties... is in fact largely beside the point.
When you're being robbed, it really doesn't matter too much where the thief's grandparents came from.
Meh.. doesnt seem too bad. ;)
Really though, people are surprised, yet the system was designed for exactly this. ..and never woulda worked without the stupid people.
Cmon folks, it can NEVER change. It is the system that we were born into. It's still slavery. Most fools don't get it. (clearly)
;)
have fun out there.
Anarchy!
AMERICA LOVE IT, OR LEAVE IT, comes to mind with the dime-store Socialist, who is 'head of the Fed'.
"any organization that serves the interests of a few at the expense of the many fails for the same reasons."
Kind of like states, courts, schools and churches upending thousands of years of marriage standards for 1.6%??
#gheythread
I'd make "middle class" more like 40% to 90%.
Maybe it used to be only up to 80%, but not anymore, the distribution is so much worse now.
OK I'm not religious so the wording isn't precise but it's something like 'In the beginning God created earth and all things on it' He owned it all, then Adam stole an apple which belonged to God. This greed by Adam made God angry so he inflicted pain on man' So from the beginning the top dog wanted the lot.
I am a person of faith. GOD is love and gives you what you ask for just as Jesus does. But their is a catch. If you ask for something that is below GOD's moral character then HE can not continue to bless you.
The enemy came up with an alternative way of relating to the LORD. The gist is to continually commit theft. This is an absolutely suicidal idea. And is the way many people try to go through life. It also explains the reverse morality many people have. It is the idea behind the idea that it is possible to inflate a countries currency to create wealth.
In response to your comment, I am defending GOD's honor. GOD is incapable of anger, he couldn't care less if you stole everything that HE has because HE gives it to you freely and free of charge. The only problem is that under the influence of the enemy we ask for immoral stupid stuff. Then GOD can not participate in our immorality. This is the parable of the prodigal son who askes for his inheritance, receives his inheritance, and then wastes it. It is also exactly what the peoples of the USA are doing by creating debt for their children and spending the money on pleasures now.
My point is this. Don't buy into the lie of the enemy that which seeks to displace blame onto the innocent. GOD is humble and doesn't protest under abuse just like Jesus. The one who wants what isn't his is the mocking enemy with his perverted injustice.
Jesus saves.
OT
A couple GREAT must read articles on how the Empire falls a part.
John Michael Greer
Dark Age America: The Hour of the Knifehttp://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/10/dark-age-america-hour-of-...
Last week's article
Dark Age America: The Collapse of Political Complexityhttp://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/10/dark-age-america-collapse...
Well then let's overthrow them. What the hell are you waiting for?
outsourcing emerging in the 80s and then offshoring in the 90s correlates with and mainly depended on advances in communications technology, in particular modem technology, massive advances in computing, mobile networks and the birth of the internet evolving into the WWW, not simply availability of "labour" and "capital" in India and China. Their workers were becoming more sophisticated with new technology skills, flexible and available at a lower price compared to their Western counterparts which of course corporations took advantage of to increase profits. These phenomenom are primarily driven by technology and will continue to be
americas problem in one simple graph, the 20% middle-class, against 80% who are satisfied with the statis-quo.
And nothing exists to stop the predators-that-be (the so-called "elites") except mass uprising. Since humans have become so massively poisoned mentally and physically, the mass uprising that should have happened decades ago is not happening. Which means, nothing exists to stop the predators-that-be from keeping the music going until all wealth has been looted and frittered away by the predators-that-be.