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The Real Trouble Begins When Rising Inequality Splinters The Elites
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
If others in our class are still rising while we're stagnating, we sense a great disturbance in the financial and political Force.
Rising economic inequality tends to generate political instability for all the obvious reasons: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, the rich say let them eat brioche and next thing you know, the ungrateful wretches are tearing down the Bastille and a youthful army officer has to restore order with a whiff of grapeshot. After which he launches a war of conquest that kills hundreds of thousands and bankrupts nations.
So yes, economic inequality can generate quite a spot of bother.
Historian Peter Turchin identified "the degree of solidarity felt between the commons and aristocracy," the sense of purpose and identity shared by the top, middle and bottom of the wealth/power pyramid, as a key ingredient of social unity and political stability.
One measure of this unity of purpose and identity is the degree of inequality between commoners (the lower 90% of American households by wealth/income), the top 10% professional/technocrat class that owns 74% of the wealth and pays almost 80% of the federal income taxes, and the Power Elite aristocracy (the top .1%).
Turchin discusses instability and wealth inequality in his well-researched book War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires.
History supports two narratives of rising inequality leading to social disintegration and political instability: one is inequality between the top classes and everyone else, and the the other is rising inequality within the top classes.
When the pie starts shrinking and there aren't enough slices to satisfy the rising expectations of the top class, the elites splinter in profound political disunity. In other words, when the offspring of the top 10% earn MBAs from respected universities and can only find internships, their parents become extremely dissatisfied with the status quo.
Josh and Maddie living at home or being subsidized by Mom and Dad was not part of the expected payoff for reaching the top tier of American society. Toss in a stock market crash or two, a medical emergency with co-pays larger than the GDP of small nations and a slump in business/fees/bonuses, and what people who expected to live comfortably on Easy Street are experiencing is downward mobility.
Many in the bottom 90% are also experiencing downward mobility, but their expectations tend to be less elevated than the professional/technocrat class.
Studies have found that our sense of wealth is less a matter of the actual dollar amount and more a matter of how we measure up to our peers. If our entire class is experiencing stagnating income, we're less likely to feel a sense of social inequity.
But if others in our class are still rising while we're stagnating, we sense a great disturbance in the financial and political Force. If our neighbor's kids are landing partnerships (due to superior connections, of course) while Josh and Maddie struggle to escape Intern-Hell, we sense a huge gulf opening that isn't necessarily reflected in income/wealth statistics.
As this chart shows, income of the bottom 90% has been stagnating for decades.
Here's another look at the same dynamics:
While the top .1%'s share of the pie has been rising, everyone else's share has declined:
Slowly but surely, the downward mobility of the upper class is fracturing the expectations and sense of social justice of those who own 74% of the wealth and take home 50% of the income. This class has the expectations, the sense of injustice, the wealth and the income to cause political trouble.
Once the upper class fractures, you get profound political disunity.
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Divide and conquer the elites, it's our only hope of not becoming their debt slaves.
They've been doing it for awhile, mainly by putting minority's and 'oppressed' groups on welfare plantations. They've made a mistake in radicalizing them to increase political power and if they can't keep supplying more and more goodies, the proles will revolt led by the very same radicals they created. Just to make it extra special, they have also belittled and degraded the people (military and police) that the radicals they created and they've demeaned and degraded the people they expect to protect them if it all goes south. Civilization is great, I just wish we still had one.....
My read on current events is that a few oligarchs may have favored putting on pressure in some areas to try to profit from the energy plays. The desire for profit must be carefully weighed against any unfairness or instability that may result. In a world where economic contraction may be occurring due to resource depletions, it will be much harder to obtain profit than it was in decades past. Also, please realize that some of the oligarchs or banker types seeking profits may be under financial stress and their desperation may cause both “overreach” and “misstep” and that can indeed be very dangerous with unforeseen consequences
"Rising Inequality"
Brought to you by the very government who claims that their Central Planning solutions will "fix" the "problem" when, in fact, their policies are what drive inequality.
Bring on a free market capitalist system and everyone will do much better than a central planning system.
GET A JOB.
"No! Now gimme my EBT."
"The Real Trouble Begins When Rising Inequality Splinters The Elites"
But the real fun begins when the axes split their skulls like ripe cantaloupes...heh, heh....
Hey! Where's my (single) downvote? Everyone above me got one...
Has the Troll left the building already....damn.
Ah yes, they do eat their own...see the Lyrics for Usher's new song Chains:
It won't be long 'til it's justice
They won't have votes but refuse the discussion
On how certain cops stay shoot us for nothing
Revolution is coming
and also:
You blaming us
(You know)
Let's keep it one hundred
You gave the name to us
Nigga
We still in chains
Of course, Usher doesn't seem to think that selling the filth that Jay-z and Beyonce and Nas (his co-singer on Chains) is a problem. He doesn't seem to address that morality costs absolutely Nothing, it is free to all. Oh wait, the Tidal X 10/20 concert in Brooklyn with Nicki "The Pig" Minaj and Beyonce waving around their barely covered hoo hahs was "free." Course Jay-Z is 45 YEARS OLD and it's getting pretty creepy selling crap to kids, Beyonce...her father says is 36 not 34 and Usher is 37 and the rapper Nas (who sings Chains with Usher) is 42...So before the black community points a finger at anyone, it is a reminder that there own destroy them first.
CHS makes a great point here. It's the elites have all the power, and only the elites can make that power do their will.
And they certainly will, if things get dicey. The 1% are very clearly eating the middle-class, and there are signs that the 0.1% are about to throw everyone under the bus. The 0.01% are waiting to eat all of it. That was the game all along. Anyone thinks the economy has been "invisible hand" lifting itself by the bootstraps for 600 years is a moron. It started with Rome and went right into Western colonial expansion, raping and pillaging everyone not having a navy at the time. More recently the financial class has been raping the middle-class for 100 years, but that host is bled dry. Now the growth story is different tiers of wealth devouring each other. Pretty soon it will be down to individuals laying it on like Macbeth and Macduff.
That end was there in the beginning.
None of it was organic growth -- making something from nothing -- and has not been since the Romans perfected plundering another for profit. You either take from natural systems (destroying them forever) or you loot from your neighbors, or you destroy nations for their accumulated wealth. It all goes into a smaller and smaller funnel with the powerful elites at the end. It has been pillage and plunder for centuries and it will continue that way until everything has been burned up.
It is burning up now. The 2,500 year human ponzi is on fire. It will burn until everything is consumed.
Because that is what we do.
I find it odd that I want to give you a hug after you point out that we're fucked. :-) It is, of course, based on the acknowledgement that you understand the true driving forces behind our predicament.
For those that think it can be any different:
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2014/092814_files/TheFateofEmp...
NOTE: Glubb fails to make the connection that cougar_w does, that the incessant need to expand/grow is the very thing that results in the empire eventual collapse. Proponents of any specific ideology/ leadership/religion etc take note that NONE has managed to stave off collapse.
We really are no smarter than yeast. Our human hubris won't allow us to consider this fact.
"the true driving forces behind our predicament"
Pssst...set your sights (and eyes) a little higher.
If is looks like a duck (with a "boss"), walks like a duck (with a "boss"), and quacks like a duck (with a "boss"), then is is highly likely to actually be a duck (with a "boss").
Only a few here actually acknowledge "the true driving forces behind our predicament"...as most find it anathema to consider it possible....
That, my friend, is what the wake-the-fuck-up campaign is all about.
>Divide and conquer the elites
I thought that read Draw and quarter the elites...
Standard Disclaimer: Well, you know where my head is at today.
Poetic justice.
thr majority already are their debt slaves and have been for decades ?
Let them kill each other.
it's better we kill both ;)
Why spend one's, limited, precious energy on THEM? Stand back and they'll fall. One need only look out to not get crushed in that process.
Do not support their products, buy only what you need to survive, nothing else, tell as many to live this way for a while also, the shit will collapse.
I do exactly this in spades and it is fun and easy ! I reloish ways to get around their schemes and I sufffer or lose nothing , all gains ! That is why I smile a lot :)
agree but it gets even better than that if you fully realize the many illusions we all live under here in USSA today and know to circumvent them all !
They don't kill each other. They kill more of us in order to get some geo-political gain. They never personally enter the battlefield which is why I don't understand why a seal team or two hasn't taken down the BiS, the IMF, CoFR, etc.
They just might even kill themselves if we walk away and leave them to their own.
And that's the thing. War's have been fought mostly based on us against them, but we've pushed down into tribalism where the word stranger also means enemy. Everybody killing everybody else means we have to rebuild from a much lower starting point, think dark ages.....
There can be only one.
Millionaires need not apply. The world is now just for the billionaires (and secret trillionaires).
(and secret trillionaires)
a brave jew world
Splintering elites = World war. Hedge and try to get out of the way.
Wow, something amazing happened ~1971 and it seems the rich started getting more pie for themselves.
Amazing how that happens.
Debt pimps got rich and the serfs who earned a living by wages got fucked.
You load 16 tons and whaddaya get?
OT: To whoever linked that video about "Human farming" the other day thank you and fuck you. I have not been able to shake seeing it. And that is tough to do for me.
pods
Ah, 1971, my favorite pin-the-tail-on-the-tipping-point year!
Full fiat.
Peak conventional oil production.
Start of real push to crank up the global economic machine- the opening of "relations" with China.
Isn't Obama responsible for that? No, wait, it was Bush! Right?
Answer:
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2014/092814_files/TheFateofEmp...
Better look at the chart again. The key is 1981!!!!
Morning in America
The FUNDAMENTALS were set/altered in 1971. Time lag, don't confuse IT as being the turning point. 1981 couldn't have happened without 1971, even if you thought it but a preamble.
The fewer of them it the easier it will be
While I would enjoy seeing the elite physically separated, 'fracturing' isn't the method I'd use...
I fractured the ruling classless one per cent into quadrillions of little tiny bits March 10th 2008. I retired thousands of banks to the slag heap of history, and I ushered out the longest 'self-serving' CEO in Wall Street history.
The one per cent are my footstool for eternity. And America is _defunct_ just like the Wall Street 'gorilla' that used to run it.
Let the one per cent eat each other like cannibals.
:)'
But can you fit that into Sympathy for the Devil and make it rhyme Mick?
I can't sing or dance, but I am a fairly decent drummer if I do say so myself.
Note: I'm a Christian NOT a Satanist. The 1%ers are Satanists.
Gott mit uns?
Nope, I'm pretty sure I don't 'gott mit uns' <sic> as they don't ring a bell.
Pleased to meet you. What's your name? :)
I wonder how 1%er tastes . . .
Here's your rising inequality in a very small nutshell: Birth control has never been more available or more effective, and yet...95% of those on the welfare rolls are young mothers with children who have never been married. Hmmm...can you say smart? Read an article today about Paul Ryan that was responded to by a young woman with two kids under Three, who is going to college...she gets medicaid, food stamps, FREE DAYCARE (which if you are a young working Married couple would cost around $2000 (More if an infant is one of the children) and of course...all those great payments for going to school. Having a uterus and dropping babies with no fathers present is the Greatest Job in America today...Ah to be of child bearing age and a woman in America today...the sluts have Won!
Yes,
Trump took the game theory class, and got it.
the rest of the"slate" didn't get my comment
If you hold with the 2nd theory, you might enjoy the board game "Junta", still available at Amazon.
The U.S. Constitution only applies to the People of the United States and their Posterity. If you are a U.S. Citizen... you are NOT of "the People" and the contract that is called the constitution does NOT apply to you.
U.S. Citizens are the debtors, the People are the creditors. As a citizen, you own NOTHING. You are a "tenant in deed" in your so-called home. You are a renter and under the LAW an immigrant in the state you live and the property of the U.S. Government Washington D.C. (a trade association for the land owners who "own the land" you live on and collect a portion of your property tax as rent payment).
You agreed to this swindle when you obtained your social security number and drivers license. Your "sir name" is government owned property and you are using it as a franchisee in order to conduct commerce.
You are a slave...nothing more, and you and YOUR posterity will pay all of the debts. When you don't...they will bring on WWIII and begin eliminating the unfunded liabilities.
Welcome to the Matrix, Neo. It's gonna turn into a meat-puppet slaughter house very soon.
As Warren Buffett has said "His class has gone to war and they are winning"
So much for unity.
We must have the stupidest elites history has ever known.
The 0.01% have gone to war against the 99.99% in their own nation.
The odds don't look good when it comes to a fight.
Death to the New World Order
As usual for CHS, interesting food for thought. I don't always agree with him but I always enjoy the thinking he provokes from me. Sometimes I find him to be too much a product of our current system, seeing it as inevitable, and not always realizing that there are many other ways a society could be organized. As we imagine a goldfish to find it difficult to objectively perceive water.
Looking at these charts, right now I'd short the hell out of the 90%, if I could.
About 30 years ago, as a very young man without money or college credentials, I had to confront the fact that the jobs available to me were mostly dead-end. I managed to find one, by sheer dumb luck at a company that built scenery for trade shows and corporate events. What blew my mind was the amount of money corporate clients would spend to build elaborate environments for their executives to come out, posing and preening like Mick Fucking Jagger, to give the Q3 Financials and the Pre-Holiday Marketing preview.
What I saw convinced me that we were reinstating Feudalism, updated for our times. The Nobility (top Executives), were surrounded by courtiers, with all the intrigue Macchiavelli was talking about. I came from the Peasant class, for sure. That's no place to be for an ambitious young man. But I wasn't ever going to rise to the Nobility. The Courtier class was a longshot too, and such a position carries significant uncontrollable risk. Your client-Noble loses favor, or you lose favor from your client-Noble, and it's your head for the block.
The "sweet spot," and accessible to me, was the role of "Trusted Procurer To The Court." If I cultivated a broad selection of Courtiers, and facilitated their looking good to their client-Nobility, they would need me as much or more than I needed them. I'd need to not get too closely allied or identified as such with any one of the Courtiers, and indeed to work with rival groups of Courtiers in such a way that they each trusted me, even knowing I was also working for their rivals. A delicate balance, but distinctly achievable with awareness and care. Doing so requires rigorous ethical consistency. It's very hard to manage perceptions and "play politics," so I found the best way is to not even try; to tell everyone the exact same story at all times, minus any of anyone's trade secrets, of course. Pretending to not play politics is deeply political indeed, I've learned.
So I worked for a few companies that did this sort of thing, learning as much as I could and eventually getting to the point where I could "fire my boss" and work on my own. 11 years, 6 months and counting, of the best, most lucrative and satisfying work of my career so far. I've had very few surprises, despite the tumultuous times in the corporate arena. ZH is no small part of my understanding and expectations of what I see unfolding.
I'm not in the top 10%, but hovering just about there. I'm working toward having 20 clients per year, each of them providing 5% of my business. That's a pipe dream, but a worthy goal. Not rich enough to become a target or become too dependent on any one client. Not so poor I have to take everything that comes along. I can set my own standards and create a little scarcity at times to keep up my clients' interest.
The key for me was to realize that 1945-1970 was the absolute best the lower-middle class has ever had in the history of the world, and to recognize that that was over and done with and a fellow living by his wits with no safety net was going to have to get outside what was still being presented as the conventional means to success. Not easy to do, to achieve, or to maintain. But I still feel that I have more control over my outcomes than most people, and I've been having a blast.
Well, fine and dandy, if you're happy...
You're still reliant upon a system that's hell-bent on racing over the cliff. Unless one is a member of some small tribe in a remore location we're pretty much all connected to the global economic machine.
"I'm not in the top 10%, but hovering just about there"
I'd wager that you are, when viewed globally: I can state that I am.
"The key for me was to realize that 1945-1970 was the absolute best the lower-middle class has ever had in the history of the world, and to recognize that that was over and done with and a fellow living by his wits with no safety net was going to have to get outside what was still being presented as the conventional means to success. Not easy to do, to achieve, or to maintain. But I still feel that I have more control over my outcomes than most people, and I've been having a blast."
Well put. It's really about survival. We can't control anything other than our thoughts, and to a lesser degree our health. To paraphrase Derrick Jensen, we're fucked, BUT, life is really, really good!
Agreed on all points. Thanks for being a sport about my long-windedness. Globally? I'm sure I'm in the top 5%, if not higher. But I live in the USA, at US prices, so the global perspective is more interesting than immediately applicable.
Yes, still very reliant on that suicidal system. I haven't worked out how to separate myself from that inevitable crackup. Full ownership of my house, having a lot of tools and knowing how to work them, tending to and developing relationships with a wide group of people with different skills and outlooks, avoiding debt when possible; in general staying nimble and not putting much faith in my assumptions is about as well as I've been able to do on that front.
And, more than anything else, understanding the truth of: "We can't control anything other than our thoughts, and to a lesser degree our health. To paraphrase Derrick Jensen, we're fucked, BUT, life is really, really good!"
For me it helped a lot to recognize that it was Feudalism, just in a different wrapper. Maybe it always has been and I just hadn't noticed it, and had been carefully programmed to think it was something different. It's been a great advantage to know it's pretty much all on me, too. Too many people don't notice, and learn from, their experiences that when they have more control of their outcomes things go better, and when they have to depend on somebody else's keeping their best interests at heart, things go worse for them. Everybody can think of examples of this in their lives, yet they still decide the solution is to find a better somebody-else to look after them.
You're good!
"not putting much faith in my assumptions is about as well as I've been able to do on that front."
I've always put the onus on myself, assuming that I'm the one that's wrong, as that puts me in the "prove it" position. Otherwise it's WAY too easy to blame others for one's problems. So, yeah, not assuming that you have all the answers. I'm that way, only I DO pretty much know what lies ahead: one really only needs to have a clear head to see it. What can be "done" is quite another matter. Acceptable to change is the key, as life is ABOUT change.
"For me it helped a lot to recognize that it was Feudalism"
In away I suppose. There's always way in which people band together to justify their "entitlements." At any rate, there's going to always be some form of this. For me, and I don't know why I've had this sense that humans were worth saving, it's about humans being able to survive. And so I have been a long-standing opponent of nuclear weapons, the REAL WMD. If it takes ridding ourselves of all govts and going back to tribes then that's what it'll take.
I became better when I gave up hope (I'm just doing!). As Derrick Jensen wrote (https://orionmagazine.org/article/beyond-hope/):
Good story, but....
CHS is all about "Their day is coming, blah, blah, blah...." - this scenerio has been going on for decades.
He never offers any real solutions for the snake eating its own tail. Do we just stand by and watch?
The reality is the poor snake has an inoperable brain tumour in its head, and needs its head chopped off.
Any other solutions, anyone?
The purpose of socialism and progressive taxation of the wealthy in an othewise capitalist society is to check the political power inevitably generated by concentrations of wealth.
If you think money isn't political power, I respectfully refer you to Mister Trump and Mister Romney, not to mention the interlocking networks of corporate board members who control our media, or industrial organization and much of our lives.
If you want a stable, fair society, no individual or organization can be allowed to become powerful enough to distort the economy (e.g big pharma, the health care industry or the higher education industry) or purchase legislation via congress or the supreme court (e.g. Scalia, Thomas).
As Sweden, Norway and Denmark can attest, it's a working system.
While no fan of what is clealy NOT working, your "solution" is also not workable.
Norway is eating its seed corn as we speak: http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/19/investing/norway-sovereign-fund/ Not that it's the byproduct of "socialism," but because of the basis for everyone's economic footing- the requirement for their to be growth. If you cannot define a system without using the word "growth" in it then chances are it will also lead to failure.
"If you want a stable, fair society, no individual or organization can be allowed to become powerful enough to distort the economy (e.g big pharma, the health care industry or the higher education industry) or purchase legislation via congress or the supreme court (e.g. Scalia, Thomas)."
Stability is but a marker between two primariy states: expansion and contraction. Since we cannot expand forever, perpetual growth on a finite planet isn't possible, we HAVE to expect contraction.
Doesn't matter what kind of ideology is employed, who the leader is or the leaders are, ALL empires collapse (because of their need to perpetually grow):
http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2014/092814_files/TheFateofEmp...
Once you sweep away the vestiges of the State and it's do-gooder trust-busters and re-distributionists, you realize that giants, monopolists, and oligarchs all have a way of contributing to their own undoing. Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in 3 generations as they say - doesn't need any help from the State. Look at all the former household names that were upended by technology or competition. I think it's called creative destruction.
How many times have I, as a life-long saver of capital, wished that the Fed and .gov would simply STOP its interventions to allow me the opportunity to deploy my hard earned capital in a "crisis". They will not allow the crisis to come . . . punishing the saver and rewarding the debt-slave consumers. All of this is done in the name of helping the little guy - but all it does is hurt him.
How many times have I, as a life-long saver of capital, wished that the Fed and .gov would simply STOP its interventions to allow me the opportunity to deploy my hard earned capital in a "crisis".
I decided long ago that TIME is more important than anything else. Sometimes you just gotta DO, you cannot sit back and wait. I don't like taking a lot of risk, but unless you're willing to take risk you're not reallyt living. For me it's helped to not try and measure my "wealth," or how I'd end up. Heck, if I were all that fixated then I'd be in banking or finance!
Little Guys can practice deception just as well. Humans are human. I have no illusions, I don't see any "perfect world" or "solution." We're OF and IN nature; look around and see how nature operates.
There's a time for sitting. There's a time for thinking. And then there's a time for action. There isn't however, time to do only one (or two).
Sorry Ian, but whenever I hear the old "it works great in x/y/z socialist country, then it will work great here," I have to tune out. The extrapolations never hold: history, convention, societal expectations, they are radically different even when on the surface they appear alike. To say, hey they are just like us except they put mayonaisse on their fries instead of ketchup, there is always more to it than that. Lots more.
What are the disparate impact laws in Norway?
How does affirmative action work in Sweden?
How many class action lawsuits in Denmark?
As if to say: crime is very low in Baharain . . .let's adopt their legal system! So, a few hands might be chopped off or a few lashes administered before people get the message but hey, IT'S A WORKING SYSTEM.
The red triangle in the chart above
reminded me of Triangle of Mood:
http://www.economic-undertow.com/2013/08/11/triangle-of-mood/
Regarding the underlying causes beyond merely financialization there are the deeper reasons, which are the diminishing returns from being able to strip-mine the natural resources of a fresh planet. Financialization was the excessive success of governments ENFORCING FRAUDS by privately controlled banks. The public "money" supply was being made out of nothing as debts in order to "pay" for strip-mining natural resources as fast as possible.
That kind of financialization is a fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting system, based on the history of civilization being made and maintained by the ability to back up lies with violence, which developed to become more sophisticated and integrated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence. However, the social successfulness of those strategies and tactics has intensely paradoxical longer term consequences.
In each short to medium term increment, society is successfully dominated by its biggest bullies' bullshit stories, which are able to publicly present everything as being the opposite to what it actually is, more and more manifesting as Wonderland Matrix Bizarro Worlds.
Financialization, based upon governments ENFORCING FRAUDS by privately controlled banks becomes the runaway excessive successfulness of applying the methods of organized crime through the political processes. OF COURSE, that drives social polarization, and that polarization repeats its patterns in the ways that this article above outlined. However, all of that is trumped by the destruction of the natural world, due to civilization being controlled by runaway systems based upon being able to back up lies with violence.
The paradoxes in the human predicament are particularly intense because human beings and civilizations must necessarily operate as entropic pumps of environmental energy flows, however, natural selection pressures drive the human artificial selection systems to become based upon the maximum possible deceits and frauds, so that all the dominate sociopolitical systems become dominated by the best available professional liars and immaculate hypocrites.
Financialization, since it is based upon ENFORCING FRAUDS, requires that everyone inside of those systems deliberately ignore the principle of the conservation of energy as much as possible, and also deliberately misunderstand the concept of entropy in the most absurdly backward ways possible.
There are wide variety of converging triangles of doom
that could be charted, due to basic driving mechanisms:
ENFORCING FRAUD ABILITIES NEVER STOP
THOSE FRAUDS FROM STILL BEING FALSE!
Civilization is running into issues arising as:
FINAL FAILURE FROM TOO MUCH SUCCESS.
Exponential progress in physical science has been channeled through sociopolitical systems based upon being able to back up lies with violence. Financialization in more recent times was the manifestation of those systems based on ENFORCED FRAUDS DOUBLING DOWN. Since there is nothing that exists but the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies, there can not be any real resolutions of problems that are not based upon changes in the dynamic equilibria of changing systems of organized lies operating robberies. However, what makes that extremely difficult, to the point of being politically impossible, is the degree to which all of the biggest and best organized systems of lies operating robberies were able to publicly present themselves as NOT being those.
Economics was always a subset of warfare. However, there then developed sets of consistent contradictions, which were totally bullshit ways to discuss economics, in ways which became increasingly paradoxical, since there was better and better understanding and application of basic sciences like thermodynamics and information theory, while that was NOT allowed to feedback through transforming the paradigms being promoted in political science, since those were all based upon the biggest bullies' bullshit world views, which were deliberately made and maintained to become as absurdly opposite to what was really happening as those could possibly become.
Civilization necessarily operates as fractal patterns of the principles and methods of organized crime. However, since the biggest and best organized gangs of criminals were able to promote their bullshit as false fundamental dichotomies regarding that, along with the related bullshit of impossible ideals, we more and more have ended up living inside Wonderland Matrix Bizarro Worlds, where everything increasingly manifests in ways that become absurdly backwards, through the PARADOXES OF FINAL FAILURES FROM TOO MUCH SUCCESS.
At the present time, it is politically impossible to develop better integrated human, industrial and natural ecologies, due to the existing artificial selection systems being driven by natural selection pressures to become based upon runaway triumphs of backing up lies with violence, e.g., financialization as ENFORCED FRAUDS. Hence, it now appears to be politically impossible to have any rational debates about those issues, due to the degree that would require profound paradigm shifts in order to be able to perceive and discuss how and why governments became the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, in ways can NOT be changed other than by changing the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies, because that is the way that human beings and civilization must necessarily exist and continue to do, IF those survive ...
It has long been noticed that revolutions tend to not succeed unless some of the members of the ruling classes joined that revolution. Otherwise, the most common outcome was that rebellions were crushed, rather than became successful revolutions. From that perspective, the article above is making an extremely important point, regarding the changes that might be referred to as "revolutionary" in the future. Revolutions tend to only become successful when some of the people who were supposed to stop them decide to join them instead.
My views are that mere violence does NOT make a revolution. Rather, real revolutions are creative convergences of previously adaptive radiants that had become widely separated from each other. There are various possible metaphors one could use to describe things, and one of those are that the social pyramids were always actually toroidal vortices. I.e., the bottom and top were always connected. Furthermore, the human social pyramid systems were always within environmental toroidal vortices too. Moreover, the industrial revolutions have developed the potential for new Kingdom of Life, to emerge, which could develop its own industrial ecologies, along with some sort of relationships to the natural ecologies, which previously developed for billions of years.
Human beings and civilization were always operating as gangs of robbers in their environments, as soon as they perceived themselves as separate from their environment and each other. The history of successful warfare based upon backing up deceits with destruction morphed to become the history of successful finance based upon enforcing frauds. That was always on more or less exponential growth curves, with the phenomena of financialization making that appear to become more blatant in relatively recent times ...
All the established systems are becoming more and more UNBALANCED, because they are all based upon the excessive successes of ENFORCING FRAUDS, which never stops those FRAUDS from still being FALSE. However, it is extremely difficult to perceive whatever may be "the truth" underneath or within a society which is almost totally dominated by integrated systems of backing up lies with violence, which is, therefore, almost totally dominated by professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, who are operating those sociopolitical systems.
The current political problems are stacked up on top of each other, as resulting patterns of social polarizations, that are repeating, as the article above outlined, again and again at different levels. Moreover, and more importantly, there is basic destruction of the natural world, along with having built industrialization on the basis of being able to strip-mine the natural resources of a fresh planet, which kind of industrialization has, so far, barely had to develop any better industrial ecology ...
Of course, the development of any such better industrial ecology is politically impossible while using fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems, which are like using bent rubber rulers to measure everything, while deliberately disregarding that the current public "money" supply is those kinds of measurements, backed by using the public murder systems, in ways which are not admitted nor publicly addressed, since the social successfulness of political economy based on ENFORCING FRAUDS demands that the vast majority of people do not understand THAT, because they have been conditioned to feel like they do not want to understand THAT.
IF, IF, IF there are going to be successful, real, radical revolutions, then some of the ruling classes are going to have to join those revolutions. Those should be based upon intellectual scientific revolutions, which enable profound paradigm shifts to occur in the ways that political science perceives itself, which then enables changes in the combined money/murder systems.
The currently established systems of financialization, based upon ENFORCING FRAUDS, are more and more obviously suffering their paradoxical final failures from too much success. That monetary system was always based upon the triumphs of organized crime, whose excessive successfulness manifests more and more as runaway criminal insanities. The established monetary systems have become like parasites killing their hosts, or like totally metastasized cancers. Overall, that society appears to have become terminally sick and insane ... One way or another, sooner or later, there must be some rebellions and revolutions ...
In my view, merely violent rebellions will NOT make things better, but rather, only worse. The only successful revolutions require that some of the ruling classes join them, because some of the ruling classes also recognize that the established systems are not working for them anymore either. The article above presented some of the superficial analysis of that situation possibly emerging ...
RM, the fraud is based on the underlying premise that we can have perpetual growth on a finite planet.
Please give some insight on how we could continue to operate under the premise that we can have perpetual growth on a finite planet and that we could do so "peacefully."
I agree, Seer!
"peacefully"
Politics without violence
is physics without force!
I do not agree with the false fundamental dichotomy between "war versus peace." Rather, I regard the world as necessarily being perceived as perpetual warfare, which can develop dynamic equilibria that appear to become relatively peaceful, or more balanced. Indeed, over and over again, natural evolution drove the development of natural ecologies, which managed to come to terms with living within their relevant limits, regarding their own relevant "finite planet."
The human experiment I perceive as natural selection becoming internalized as intelligence, which then was applied to the most important selection pressures for human beings, which were other human beings. Human intelligence enabled building mental models of the world, with models of themselves within their model of their world. That understanding enabled both social cooperation and competition. However, it was the death controls that drove those developments most of all, such that civilization was forged in the crucible of conflicts, due to the history of warfare.
The things which have changed have been the exponential growth of physical science and technology, which have enabled the industrial revolutions to sustain the exponential growth of the overall human population and total human activities. From the beginning of the industrial revolution, the physical steam engines and the social debt engines were developed at about the same time. Since then, more and more "money" made out of nothing as debts has been "paying" to strip-mine the planet's natural resources ... DESPITE IT ALWAYS BEING PAINFULLY OBVIOUS THAT THE PLANET IS FINITE!
ENDLESS EXPONENTIAL GROWTH
IS ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE!
What develops instead are evolutionary ecologies, which, by definition, are relatively balanced death control systems. Clearly, that is what human beings must necessarily do, in one way or another, sooner or later. At the present time, everything indicates that the runaway debt slavery systems have driven debt insanities, which are going to provoke death insanities. (The main things that the main ruling classes have actually done is stage inside job, false flag attacks, in order to start more genocidal wars, along with prepare to impose democidal martial law.) The most probable futures are for the human and industrial systems to severely overshoot the limits of a finite planet, and then collapse into chaos, as the diminishing returns from being able to continue to strip-mine that planet manifest more and more ... The only better alternatives would require better death control systems to be developed.
I would like to daydream about some series of technological miracles, surpassed by even greater political miracles, that might give us more time to adapt and change. However, I have no good grounds at the present time to actually believe those will happen. As indicated in the article above, when things get bad enough that even some of the upper classes are also getting seriously screwed too, then everything overall will have become way worse than it is now!
My view is that we should better understand ourselves, in order to better transform to adapt to the real limits of the industrial revolutions. However, that rather than some kind of harder science fiction, that view appears to be nothing more than another dismal political fantasy. The overwhelming social facts at the present time are that more than 99% of the people have become Zombie Sheeple, due to the excessive successfulness of the ruling classes' Vicious Wolves having so totally achieved their agenda, EXCEPT that they too have become criminally insane, and they do are now suffering from MAD SHEEPLE DISEASE!
I repeat the intellectually and mathematically obvious, Seer, that endless exponential growth is absolutely impossible. It will be stopped, and by definition, it will be by changes in the death control systems that stop it. Those seem to most probably become runaway death insanities, because those are the automatic default solutions that we are currently set up to resort to, given that developing any better death controls appears to be politically impossible.
Most of my thinking about that issue is like metaphorically sailing by tacking into the wind as much as possible, before those sails would start to luff. We can not sail straight into the wind of the established death control systems. Moreover, if those develop to become sufficient severe social storms that there are dramatic death insanities blowing through, then we probably could not sail against that at all, but rather would have to batten the hatches, running with or ahead of it, praying to maybe survive through those ???
But nevertheless, the same basic theories are relevant and applicable throughout a wide range of possible future scenarios. IF a technological based civilization is going to survive, THEN its philosophy of science has to go through series of profound paradigm shifts. Indeed, in my view, our main problems are all due to the same source, which was that there have been series of profound paradigm shifts in physical science, while nothing like that has been allowed to happen in political science. Rather, politics continues being dominated by various old-fashioned religions and ideologies.
Hence, there have developed globalized electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs. Ideally, we should go through paradigm shifts in the ways that we perceive politics that integrate and surpass those already achieved in physical science. HOWEVER, in the actually existing world, the vast majority of people have already become Zombie Sheeple, while the ruling classes work hard to keep things that way. The most successful politicians continue to be the best available professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, promoting the same old-fashioned bullshit about growth, while never having to discuss the limits to that, which would require discussing the death controls that would, by definition, become those limiting factors.
Indeed, there is almost nothing now but a core of organized crime (bankster controlled governments), surrounded by layers of controlled opposition groups. Most of the content published on Zero Hedge is the work of various sorts of those controlled opposition groups. There typically tends to be relatively good, albeit superficial, analysis of what the banksters and their buddies have actually been doing, and why that is not working. However, there NEVER tends to be deeper analyses, which is expressed as deeper sets of genuine solutions.
The overall social situations, at the present time, are that the majority of people believe in bullshit, and want to continue to believe in bullshit, and thus, they keep on supporting the best bullshitters, who developed to spout that kind of bullshit. Hence, the banksters' political puppets keep on being voted for by enough of the masses of muppets, through the vicious spirals of the actually existing systems: POLITICAL FUNDING ENFORCING FRAUDS.
The few people who somewhat recognize that bullshit is bullshit, STILL then tend to promote bullshit "solutions" based upon the same old-fashioned false fundamental dichotomies, and related impossible ideals, which misunderstand the mechanisms in the most absurdly backward ways possible. Civilization is NECESSARILY controlled by the principles and methods of organized crime, because its death controls are central to everything else. Therefore, the only realistic resolutions to the real problems of growth on a finite planet reaching limits are to develop different death controls systems. However, since the existing systems are based upon the maximum possible deceits and frauds, and are being operated by professional hypocrites, while most people also want to continue to believe in that kind of bullshit, the most probable futures are for the runaway debt insanities to provoke death insanities, and therefore, the only actually likely futures are to perhaps rally to respond to those developments, in whatever ways are possible when those are actually happening.
Generally speaking, the exponential growth of the strip-mining of the planet's natural resources does not look like it can continue for more than a few decades. Within a few decades, I would expect there to manifest the consequences of severe overshooting, collapsing into chaos, along with the resulting forms of runaway death insanities. However, as far as I can tell now, there is nothing much that anyone can do to either prevent, nor effectively prepare for that ... Mostly, I just wait and watch, while attempting to push my own political fantasies in the direction of becoming harder political science fiction.
Yeah, a fair death-model thing most certainly would have to be there. I commend you for even mentioning it. It's not that I'm afraid to talk about it, but that I tend to not offer "solutions." My take on things is that the very word "solution" is problematic as it's a descriptor of a point of finality (funny talking about THAT and death!); as long as time is running NOTHING is final. I'm also leery of anyone promoting stuff: I'm a horrible "salesman!" And since I detest hypocrisy I refrain from trying to push anything on anyone else.
"Human intelligence enabled building mental models of the world, with models of themselves within their model of their world."
A correction here. Intelligence was but "thought," it was the written recipe, it wasn't the ingredients (raw physical materials) or the energy (though brain energy was used).
"since the existing systems are based upon the maximum possible deceits and frauds, and are being operated by professional hypocrites, while most people also want to continue to believe in that kind of bullshit"
I hate to say it, but people just seem to want to be lied to! I mean, they will latch on to any story/tale that makes them feel better, regardless of the factual basis behind that story/tale. The herd instinct also comes in to play.
"... people just seem to want to be lied to!"
Which is WHY we are headed towards the "solutions" to real problems becoming the defaults to death insanities, since it is extremely improbable that anything better will be done in any more intelligent ways that anticipated and avoided the worse eventualities.
That is especially the case due to the history of the social successfulness of deceits and treacheries having been selected for during the history of warfare. In my view, it was primarily the real history of warfare that drove the social situations to become that "people just seem to want to be lied to!"
That is the so-called Stockholm syndrome on steroids. The biggest bullies' bullshit becomes triumphant, because their FRAUDS ARE ENFORCED, for generation after generation. I.e., the banksters become the most wealthy and powerful people, and so, others agree with their bullshit, or would be punished for not agreeing. After the banksters successfully applied the methods of organized crime, through the political processes, to end up that governments ENFORCE FRAUDS by those privately controlled banks, then everythiong else grows up around that being the SOURCE of the public "money" supplies.
The existing death controls developed to be most successfully done through the maximum possible deceits about themselves. Around that achievement developed the controlled opposition groups, who argee to stay within the same frame of reference of deceits regarding the death controls. Hence, there is no rational public discussion about the death controls, but rather, attitudes of deliberate ignorance, along with the promotion of impossible ideals, that actually cause the opposite to happen in the real world.
Since all of the dominate religions and ideologies developed as controlled opposition groups surrounding the core of organized crime, there is practically never any better militarism, as the ideology of the murder system, which can be publicly promoted. The vicious spirals of the most successful death controls having been the most deceitful, while the controlled opposition stays within the same bullshit world view that the best killers originally promoted to become better killers, has made better killing systems politically impossible. Hence, the development of weapons of mass destruction, and their MADNESS that could kill hundreds of billions of people, while nothing else appears to be actually possible, because nobody could trust anybody else not to continue to be deceitful regarding their death controls.
Personally, I like to try to understand how things really work, and attempt to develop better mental models, and ways of describing what is actually happening. Mainly I attempt to apply the ideas that developed in evolutionary biology to human beings, along with then extrapolating the thermodynamics of that through the relevant information theory aspects of cultural evolutoin. Doing so has driven me to the conclusions that I have outlined above, and have attempted to articulate using the English language.
After there is life, then the death controls direct the evolution of that life, which applies to both biological and cultural evolution. (Note that includes the differentials regarding reproductive rates, if one attempts to use language more scientifically. What we call "birth controls" are almost all actually "death controls," which have ended up being discussed in the most euphemistic ways possible, because AGAIN THE ACTUAL DEATH CONTROLS ARE BEING ROUTINELY DONE THROUGH THE MAXIMUM POSSIBLE DECEITS ABOUT THEMSELVES.
Ironically, militarism is the supreme ideology, as the ideology of the murder systems. Furthermore, things like weapons developments have always been a priority for civilizations. Enormous efforts were made to develop militarism, as better murder systems. However, throughout all of that, the paradoxical ways that the best murder systems were done through the maximum possible deceits and treacheries drove the public discussions about that to be utterly entangled in rampant absurdities, where everything was presented in the most backward ways possible, compared to what was really going on, behind the layers of deceits and treacheries.
Political economy developed inside of civilizations selected by the history of successful warfare, to become financial success based upon enforcing frauds, where those who were the most successful at that most got away with maximizing the misrepresentations regarding what they were really doing. Within that context, where the biggest bullies' bullshit reigned supreme, almost everyone else adapted, and hence, the vast majority of people, for generation after generation, gradually more and more became Zombie Sheeple, which manifested as becoming that "people just seem to want to be lied to!"
Inside that context, I promote the ideals of "better militarism," as better murder systems, which is more and more made theoretically imperative by the development of globalized electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs. However, pretty well nobody within the currently existing combined money/murder systems wants to go through those sorts of profound paradigm shifts, in order to perceive what they were really doing. Hence, not only do we live in a Wonderland Matrix Bizarro Mirror World with respect to the "problems," but also, we suffer the same fate with respect to the bogus "solutions."
Interesting conversation here. Could benefit from a LEETLE better organization, maybe a little less Leaf when trying to distill thought.
All is not hopeless, however. Speaking as an elder wizard who has been hauling hard on the sails for thirty years, we are indeed changing course, to a degree that would have seemed impossible when I started fomenting revolution (i.e., a change in social paradigm and human outlook in the "developed" world). Now academic philosophers in Europe are advocating the kind of self-reflection balanced with positive beliefs that magicians began to push into the thoughtstream in the 70's. We ARE winning. Perhaps not fast enough. The detritus of the Old Philosophy (of neverending greed and "growth") is heavy. Some collateral damage seems inevitable; we will not win without casualties. I've lost four out of my own tribe from the struggle, in fact. But each of them gathered a hundred to the banners of sanity before their deaths. And let's face it, we will ALL die before the battle is over.
Peace, brethren. And keep Planting Your Seeds.
"Perhaps not fast enough."
???
That is exactly what I am worried about! We appear to be running out of time to go through the necessary paradigm shifts, since those used to take a few generations in the past.
While the banner quote on the Zero Hedge Web site is certainly correct, it is NOT clear whether or not technologically based civilization will be but a brief flash in the pan, which self-destructs, or could revolutionize itself enough to live on longer ... ???
I am familiar with this data. I came from the peasant class and now reside in the top 0.5%. It is indisputably very nice up here. My advice: Get into some part of the financial services industry and work hard for 25 years. With a few exceptions, those with the most prestigious degrees and best connections, the traditional MD, JD, MBA degrees just qualify one to be a work horse for those with bigger money at the top. When in Rome do as the Romans do. We are in Rome.
Yeah, but how fast can you run?
Not great advice for someone in their 50s whose assumptions about the world came from a very different (near WWII) era.
The fact of the matter is that ideology is irrelevant. Human's inherent sense of fairness (seen even in primates) will win out. When enough people are hurting enough, and there's an elite that isn't hurting at all, society tends to experience rapid unplanned redistribution of wealth - ready or not.
It happened in France, in Russia and very likely in ancient societies about which we know nothing.
It's not a political issue. It's a human behavioral issue that the elites are trying desperately to wish away with cheap entertainment, cheap fatty food and cheap psychoactive drugs.
And they'll succeed.
For a while.
Until they don't. Like on March 10th 2008.
" . . . and very likely in ancient societies about which we know nothing."
Try ancient Greece (Google "Solon") and Rome (try "Bacaudae"), about which we know quite a good deal, and Sumer, about which we know at least a little, and China, which has fantastic records but suffers from translation difficulties (Google "Water Margin"), and Britain in the 17th century, which is totally accessible in our own language. There's lots of data out there.
Hush, Alaric, lest all ye mothers in law and first wives swarm and deny us all everything you enjoy.
Expect more car-beques in the near future as the po' folk really start to lash out.
The major problem the Author seems to be unaware of is that historical development including raising and falling of imperial powers cannot be understood within current political narratives since they were devised for the sole purpose of obfuscation of the truth.
It's good that we are beginning to have a discussion about searching for right questions to ask ourselves about what the hell to do to replace the shit called our current socio-political system.
But author, in his exhalation of discovering the bottom of the problem as an apparent inequality driving political instability in the current system of socio-economic propaganda, is completely oblivious to the fact that multitude of false bottoms lie underneath if one embarks on the journey to discover true reality of contemporary social arrangement veiled by propaganda of individualism, society, culture, politics and economy.
Below there are links to some of the posts that attempt to deal with some of those false bottoms of our alleged knowledge or convictions and unveil what we, as human society, are all about.
False bottom 1: Power politics, wages, jobs and propaganda.
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/slaves-of-wage/
False bottom 2: The origin and role of money in the society.
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/plutus-and-the-myth-o...
False bottom 3: True structure of contemporary society.
https://contrarianopinion.wordpress.com/2015/07/17/matrix-of-control-a-s...
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Most Americans are incensed when they find out the screw job they have been subjected to and believe they are serfs. Imagine how people are going to feel when they realize they are actually just peasants.