2016 Theme #1: The Loss Of Great Power Leverage

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

This week I am addressing themes I see playing out in 2016.

A number of systemic, structural forces are intersecting in 2016. One is the decline of Great Power leverage.

Once a nation's civil society--broadly speaking, the institutions of social cohesion--has been shredded so that power rests in the hands of the few, the nations becomes exquisitely vulnerable to coups and regime change.

As the seminal book Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook (1968) explained, coups are a function of the concentration of power: if political power (and by extension of that leverage, economic/financial power) has been concentrated into the hands of a few, changing governments (and indeed, entire systems of control) is greatly simplified: kill, imprison or exile this handful of insiders, and the pyramid below will be yours.

This vulnerability makes any nation run by a small clique a very tempting target to Great Powers and neighboring nations seeking to become regional powers.

Nations with diverse civil societies--by definition, societies with a tolerance for dissent and multiple circles of civil, political, religious and economic power--cannot easily be captured by coups, as power is too diversified to be consolidated in a few hours by a tiny clique or the agents of a foreign power.

So by stripping their social orders of dissent and diverse circles of power, dictators and monarchs create a vulnerability to external meddling that would not otherwise existed.

Those nations with oil wealth have reaped the sorry harvests of The Oil Curse, the fatal tendency of corrupt elites to use this hydrocarbon wealth to reward their cronies and provide enough social welfare (bread and circuses) to keep the restive masses compliant.

Stripped of capital and talent by the dominance of the oil sector, the rest of the economy stagnates and withers, leaving the nation highly vulnerable to any decline in oil revenues--from either a decline in production or in the price of oil (or both).

These two conditions have left the non-Elite populations in oil-dependent Mideast nations with few opportunities for steady employment, which is the cornerstone of positive social roles.

Though it's easy to focus on foreign meddling/intervention in the region, we shouldn't overlook the underlying source of instability and Great Power meddling: the decades-long destruction of civil society by these nations' elites to secure their power.

Ironically, once these tiny elites lose their grip and the nation fragments, it becomes much more difficult to impose one's will on the remains of the social order and economy. Ultimately, this is the reason why the U.S. has withdrawn from direct "nation-building"--it's much easier to topple or prop up a dictator and his tiny clique of cronies than it is to rebuild a civil society and economy destroyed by corrupt elites milking their nation's oil.

The blowback/karma from suppressing or dismantling civil society is conflict and/or coup, and an open invitation to Great Power intervention: look at the juicy leverage offered by the concentration of power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many.

As civil societies in the Mideast fall apart, the leverage of Great Powers declines accordingly. When dictators and tiny elites lose their grip, a coup can only change those who have lost the leverage of control. A coup takes hours or days, but rebuilding a destroyed civil society takes decades.

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Mon, 01/04/2016 - 13:17 | 6995918 Soul Glow
Soul Glow's picture

It's always nice to see the PPT at work throwing fiat into a raging fire that is the ponzi economy.  Their fiat loses value each time this happens, so the next time they do it it doesn't have the same purchasing power.  The assets they buy become more and more expensive, but the dollars they are valued in lose purchasing power.  It's like burning art to stay warm.  Pretty soon all the art is gone, the fire is out, and all that is left is a pile of ashes.

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 13:35 | 6995997 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

The really interesting thing about leverage is it works both ways. Several years ago I was levering a large rock out of its hole when it slipped back and smacked my lever up and into my chin.

That's gonna leave a mark.

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 16:08 | 6996864 Mr. Ed
Mr. Ed's picture

CHS: excellent post, worthy of thought.  Would like to see more like it on ZH!

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 13:18 | 6995925 Money Boo Boo
Money Boo Boo's picture

The coup of which you speak came out of the closet with Cheney- the Sith Lord. They openly started a false woar of profits for themselves and have been openly operating ever since.

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 13:58 | 6995927 _ConanTheLibert...
_ConanTheLibertarian_'s picture

I'm afraid the brainwashed apathetic sheeple won't revolt so the military will have to do it.

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 13:58 | 6996154 sapioplex
sapioplex's picture

Most of them didn't revolt in 1776 either.

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 14:31 | 6996361 Dame Ednas Possum
Dame Ednas Possum's picture

Nonsense...the vast majority of them are utterly revolting!

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 13:20 | 6995930 KnuckleDragger-X
KnuckleDragger-X's picture

Russian roulette. Now featuring real Russians.....

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 13:30 | 6995992 larz
larz's picture

As long as the sheeple can sit in a lazy boy watch a big screen hd tv and pick up the phone and order pizza tbere will be no revolt

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 13:51 | 6996110 tarsubil
tarsubil's picture

Those guys in Oregon would be better off occupying the local Best Buy or LayZBoy.

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 14:00 | 6996165 wcvarones
wcvarones's picture

Jeffrey Sachs' resource curse:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 15:25 | 6996628 Niall Of The Ni...
Niall Of The Nine Hostages's picture

The "oil curse" is a symptom, not a cause, of the poverty of nations.

It is the year of our Lord 2016. We have electric light. The atom has been split. We have sent a man to the moon and returned him safely to the earth. Almost without exception, those nations that remain poor at this stage of human development have populations that are majority Muslim, are cursed with average IQs far below that required to function in an industrial civilization outside an institution, or (most often) both.

The response in such countries to sudden oil wealth---or any resource windfall whatever---is to squander it on present consumption, and breed far out of proportion to what their land could feed with the aid of subsistence farming, the highest level of development they're usually capable of left to their own devices. In an earlier age, once the money ran out, famine, plague and war would have quickly brought the population back to a manageable size.

Now, of course, once they're done fouling their own nest, it's much cheaper for them to attempt to settle in civilized countries inhabited by breeds of humanity that are capable of self-control, plan for the future and don't count on Allah to find a way for them to feed their huge litters of pups.

It staggers the imagination to think what wonders such civilized peoples might have worked with the oil wealth of the Arabian peninsula, or the resource wealth of Africa, had they been allowed to clear the land of those found wanting, as they did in the Americas. Certainly better uses could have been found for the wealth than to give free gasoline to camel-herders and free apartments to the mothers of Jew-killers.

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 18:24 | 6997428 Jack4952
Jack4952's picture

Were the Founders of our country extremely well-educated and wise men? Read these quotes and YOU decide . . .

“There two ways to conquer a country: by the sword and by debt.” John Adams

“I have never had but one opinion concerning BANKING. They [banks] are like party spirit, the delusion of the many for the interest of a few.”  - John Adams in letter to John Taylor of Caroline; Quincy, Massachusetts, March 12, 1819 as cited in “The Life and Works of John Adams”, 10 volumes, (Charles Francis Adams, Editor); Boston, 1850-1856, X, Page 375 

 

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." - Patrick Henry

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”  John Adams (1734-1826)  First Vice President and Second President of the United States, Delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses

"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, (A)nd if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."
Thomas Jefferson

Fear is the foundation of most governments.” – John Adams

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." - Abraham Lincoln

"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step over the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! -- All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a Thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." - Abraham Lincoln

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
James Madison "We the People are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts--not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
Abraham Lincoln

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation." - President James Madison (1751-1836) speech, Virginia Convention, 1788

"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government."
Thomas Paine

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does NOT mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country." - Theodore Roosevelt

 

 

 

 

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 18:44 | 6997429 Jack4952
Jack4952's picture

Were the Founders of our country extremely well-educated and very wise men? Read these quotes and YOU decide . . .

They obviously knew the dangers that lay ahead for this new form of federal government. And they apprea to have greatly feared such dangers!

Unfortunately, their fears have come true within America.

“There two ways to conquer a country: by the sword and by debt.” John Adams

“I have never had but one opinion concerning BANKING. They [banks] are like party spirit, the delusion of the many for the interest of a few.”  - John Adams in letter to John Taylor of Caroline; Quincy, Massachusetts, March 12, 1819 as cited in “The Life and Works of John Adams”, 10 volumes, (Charles Francis Adams, Editor); Boston, 1850-1856, X, Page 375 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." - Patrick Henry

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”  John Adams (1734-1826)  First Vice President and Second President of the United States, Delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses

"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, (A)nd if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."
Thomas Jefferson

Fear is the foundation of most governments.”John Adams

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." - Abraham Lincoln

"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step over the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! -- All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a Thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." - Abraham Lincoln

"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." - James Madison

"We the People are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts--not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
Abraham Lincoln

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." - Abraham Lincoln

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation." - President James Madison (1751-1836) speech, Virginia Convention, 1788

"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government."
Thomas Paine

and a few others:

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does NOT mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country." - Theodore Roosevelt

"Every step we take towards making the State our Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master." - Dwight D. Eisenhower


 

 

 

 

 

Mon, 01/04/2016 - 21:35 | 6998121 East Indian
East Indian's picture

You Americans are so lucky to have such clear visionaries to guide your country, practically forever. The quotes above will be the touchstones to evaluate any government and any people, not only in our times but at all times. Thank you for the excellent compilation. Why dont you publish a booklet?

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