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Guest Post: As Centralized Systems Devolve, The Solution Is Localism

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds

As Centralized Systems Devolve, The Solution Is Localism

Depending on Central State/central bank borrowing and spending to prop up the Status Quo is a doomed strategy.

I think the thread between these three seemingly disparate stories is clearly visible. I am indebted to longtime correspondent Joel M. for sending me these articles:

A Dimly Flickering Light in a Darkened Downtown
. An Ohio mill town's once-bustling main street is now a ghost town; people are desperate to sell their family heirlooms to one of the downtown's few remaining businesses, a vintage shop, to raise cash.

A Fight for Post Offices and Towns’ Souls. Even as the number of family farms rises for the first time in decades in the U.S., long-standing services to rural communities such as post offices and schools are being slashed.

With Work Scarce in Athens, Greeks Go Back to the Land. As Greece’s economy plunges and unemployment rises, many Greeks are fleeing to the countryside and looking to the nation’s rich agricultural past as a guide to the future.

The thread that connects these stories is the devolution of centralized concentrations of control and the power of localism to fill the void.

As I have often noted here, the expansive Central State is on an S-curve of decline, and this is most apparent in places such as Greece that cannot print a couple trillion dollars a year to fund a bloated Status Quo like the U.S. can (at least for now).

But the Central State is on an S-curve even in nations such as the U.S. and "socialist" France, where rural post offices are also being closed or their hours drastically slashed for budgetary reasons.

Though few believe it possible, Wal-Mart is also on an S-Curve of decline; right now it has topped out, roughly comparable to the centralized corporations that owned and operated the mills in the 1960s. Though these conglomerates seemed eternal, beneath the surface they were already in decline. So it is with the Wal-Mart model of centralized distribution of goods sourced via long global supply chains. The decline just isn't visible yet.

It is instructive to consider how the tiny village in the south of France where my brother lives is responding to the closure of rural services and the devolution of centralized funding. The village has actively constructed subsidized housing on village-owned land to attract young families with children so the village school and post office won't be closed.

Those who depend on a strategy of pleading with central authorities to continue funding at old levels are doomed to disappointment--all systems follow an S-Curve of rapid expansion, stasis and decline. The Central State is no different.

The solution is localism. By creating cheap housing with its own modest tax resources, then the village attracts young families, whose children will keep the village school from closing, and the commerce brought to the village and its post office will keep it above the "closure" threshold.

Passively hoping that centralized concentrations of wealth and power will return to pre-eminence is a losing strategy, the equivalent of a cargo cult ritualistically hoping for a return to World War II-era bounty. Focusing local resources on obvious bootstrap solutions is the winning strategy, not just in the U.S. but globally.

That old mill town could do worse than to gather its resolve and institute a tax on all retail stores with more than 50,000 square feet of sales area. That would levy a special tax on one retailer, Wal-Mart. As long as the tax was modest, Wal-Mart would resist and threaten but it would be highly unlikely to close a profitable store.

Then the town could use that revenue to begin condemning all those empty buildings downtown via eminent domain and leasing them out for $1 a year to entrepreneurs. With no prospect of tenants, the buildings are essentially worth zero, so the owners would be lucky to get any sum. Most of the businesses would fail, as do most small businesses, but with nothing to lose, why not trust to capitalist energy and experimentation? Maybe something good would start happening as creative juices were given a chance to flow. Something would be much better than nothing.

When the devolution of the Central State and central bank (and indeed, all centralized concentrations of wealth and power) picks up speed, as it has in Greece, then people migrate back to where localist solutions are possible.

Breaking the mindset that Central State subsidies is the solution to every problem is difficult, but as reality intrudes then clinging to broken models of the past is not the way forward.

In many minds, Greece is a failed state and the U.S. is successful. To my mind, Greece is a state in a positive transition to dealing with reality, and it is the U.S. which is the failed state, borrowing and blowing 10% of its entire GDP each and every year to fund its bloated, corrupt Status Quo ($1.5 trillion in Federal borrowing annually, plus state and county borrowing and corporate/consumer borrowing).

Failed states depend on endlessly rising debt to prop up their bloated, corrupt Status Quo. That no longer described Greece, but it still describes the U.S.

 

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Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:11 | 2051137 hedgeless_horseman
hedgeless_horseman's picture

 

 

Practice disintermediation, first with your capital, then with life's necessities:

  • Water
  • Food
  • Shelter
  • Security
  • Medicine
  • Energy
  • Communication
  • Transportation
  • Spirituality
  • Education
  • Commerce

Anyone can do it.  All you need to do is get rid of your television and get a library card.  Each little step is so rewarding, it is like sipping a bit of pure freedom. Otherwise, you will die a consumer, at best, and a debt slave at the worst. 

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:14 | 2051223 GeneMarchbanks
GeneMarchbanks's picture

'Otherwise, you will die a consumer, 100% through and through.'

That is nightmarish because so many unknowingly identify their entire life on the ability to consume.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:18 | 2051227 hedgeless_horseman
hedgeless_horseman's picture

 

 

...so many unknowingly identify their entire life on the ability to consume

There but for the Grace of God go I.

 

So pick two or three bullet points, make a 10% goal, and try it for 90 days.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:23 | 2051259 blu
blu's picture

People used to identify themselves with their labor, and with their community.

Community was destroyed so that corporations could sell you something else in replacement, usually entertainment and malls.

Labor was destroyed so that corporations could more easily export work to countries with more pliable laws and labor relations. In replacement of meaningful work, Americans got service jobs and investment advice.

Is it any wonder that the mass of people are hopelessly dependent? Many act like children going from one diversion to another, begging for sweets, stealing what they want when it is not given freely. There are armies of adult males who have never worked with their hands at all, never built anything, never seen anything built or made. Almost completely useless.

When the wheel next turns, a lot of these people will simply fall off the edge of the world.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:20 | 2051246 eureka
eureka's picture

Agree.  Imagine if 50% of the sheeple agreed.

What is it with US'ians? Why isn't Ron Paul polling over 20% - in New Hampshire, of all places?

Why can't the majority of US'ians realize that they cannot keep "their" US Empire - AND have freedom? Empire is the antithesis of Freedom - YET, US'ians cling to it like a baby to a tit.

"I'm worried about Ron Paul's forreign policy" - is the daily refrain.  Will US'ians EVER give up the wet dream of Empire -and embrace freedom?

I don't know. I hope so. But it sure doesn't seem like it. It seems like vicarious living, fantasy-personal-power & stupid-dominatrix-nationalism, as opposed to intelligent-freedom-nationalism, rots US brains forever. 

Tell me I am wrong. Tell me enlightenment and freedom is coming to the US. Tell me.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:33 | 2051317 seek
seek's picture

Enlightenment and freedom is coming to the US.

Consider the fact that you have a Goldwater-conservative libertarian candidate in Ron Paul, and he's polling 20%, when:

- Last election he was single digits, and before that he was a "fringe" candidate

- The media is active in denying him coverage

- Other candidates and members of government are calling him a nutcase

 

During this time, RP hasn't changed a bit, but the US has.. 20% is a shitload of "awake" people, my friend, probably the highest level of clear thinking in the past century, if not longer.

This is why TPTB are hitting the accelerator on their plans, even at the risk of blowing up the whole mess. They're terrfied that the US is going to hit some 100th-monkey threshold event on freedom before they can get the prison locked-down. You've got enough people waking up that things like firearms sales, ham radio licenses, and long-term storage food sales are all setting records, and there are lines of people waiting at firing ranges now.

Self-reliance is the ultimate form of localism.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:35 | 2051327 eureka
eureka's picture

seek - thanks - but when, this election... - or 4 years from now...?

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 17:07 | 2051686 dracos_ghost
dracos_ghost's picture

Stepping back, you have Goldman and Citi burrowed in like a tick in the WH. I serious doubt if they are going let that equity go to waste and have to reinvest in a new Prez. Unfortunately, I don't see any time frame that a respectable president resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 18:38 | 2052019 A Nanny Moose
A Nanny Moose's picture

The media is covering Ron Paul. They are talking about; how he is unelectable; how Romneybot should thank Dr. Paul; the "racist" rantings in his newsletter; the Youtube attack on Huntsman; the jilted New Hampshire voters who were unable to shake his hand because the media showed up in throngs and created an unsafe environment for Dr. Paul, and for customers.

There is lots of media coverage...it's just about everything except the fucking actual issues of American debt slavery.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:56 | 2051411 hound dog vigilante
hound dog vigilante's picture

"Imagine if 50% of the sheeple agreed."

 

We're getting there.  I am absolutely encouraged by the change in lifestyle/direction that I see in many people around me.  I see positive change happening all over the place - towns, cities, suburbs... and rural areas.  Much of the change is slow, almost imperceptible, but it's definitely happening now.

 

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 17:33 | 2051753 hedgeless_horseman
hedgeless_horseman's picture

 

 

Imagine if 50% agree?  I don't believe 5% are ready, willing, or able to understand the question.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 16:35 | 2051574 ForTheWorld
ForTheWorld's picture

I'll tell you that you are wrong in your choice of words. Rather than US'ians, you could use Americans, North Americans, or United States citizens.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 16:50 | 2051610 itchy166
itchy166's picture

"North Americans"? Don't rope me into your shitshow, its hard enough to stay clear of it as it is.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 16:12 | 2051500 earleflorida
earleflorida's picture

@ H_H

Oue, Le Library - "collective templates of thought, knowing not time,... manifested zeitgeist in perpetual motion, expunged of all futile capitulation, thirsting only food for thought - thusly said, for a mere sunbeam glimpse of 'God's' infinite wisdom - the preservation of mankind"      

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 18:08 | 2051915 Ruffcut
Ruffcut's picture

Start now! Support locally and fuck off globally. My motto for five years.

Wish most people got it.  Oh fuck, the agony of defeat.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 20:46 | 2052479 KK Tipton
KK Tipton's picture

"Support locally...fuck off globally"

There, now it's bumper sticker and T-Shirt ready.

Awesome. Can I steal it? ;)

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 19:20 | 2052085 Don Birnam
Don Birnam's picture

"[G]et a library card..."

Frankly, in this era, where checking out certain texts could merit inclusion on some Government list, it is prudent, rather, to simply research items "of necessity" ( farming, medicine, home repair, etc. ) in the library itself -- just bring a material supply of dimes for the copy machine, for anything you deem of interest.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 14:55 | 2051141 WALLST8MY8BALL
WALLST8MY8BALL's picture
Inner circles and the patterns of power,
The dead epicenter,
And ruined extremes.
Spinning cycles and a crisis of conscience,
Of circular cycles,
Amoral disease.
The aim to please pulsates the complex of pleasure,
We buried the treasure,
And serpents arose.
And hear the salary men tapping at keyboards,
Innumerable midnights devoted to death.

Kids are dying and I'm drinking champagne.
The patterns of power,
A patchwork of pain.
I'm on fire and you're drinking champagne,
The patters of power,
Again and again.

And all our eyes will roll in unison swiftly,
As packaging opens,
And void is revealed.
But still we dream,
And so we should with our whisper,
Prepare all our bellows for new year balloons.
Kids are dying and I'm drinking champagne.
The patterns of power,
A patchwork of pain.
I'm on fire and you're drinking champagne,
The patterns of power,
Again and again.
Inner circles and the patterns of power,
The dead epicenter,
And ruined extremes.

Gruff Rhys

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 14:58 | 2051152 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

Think locally, act locally.

Family first, then (local) community. And sometimes the order should be reversed.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:03 | 2051183 walküre
walküre's picture

You realize that kind of thinking will put us right back into the stone age. Global! The buzz word is global! Ts ts.. what's next CD? A currency backed by more than a promise to pay? Your way of thinking is going to put tens of elite bankers and elite politicians straight out of business. Guaranteed stairway to hell for sure! Those doing God's work must prevail at all times and at any cost!

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:16 | 2051225 blu
blu's picture

/sarc

There fixed it for you.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:26 | 2051272 walküre
walküre's picture

My name is MillionDollarBonus and I approve this message.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:18 | 2051235 Antifaschistische
Antifaschistische's picture

Exactly C.Diss.

"Think Locally", "Act Locally", SHOP Locally owned businesses only, and pay cash only.

 

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:43 | 2051323 Teamtc321
Teamtc321's picture

CD,

You are spot on as usual, we have been working within our local market's to improve trade since last May. I have been totally shocked at how successful our effort's have been, not to mention the satisfaction dealing face to face with folks has become.

Yes, there are season's for most product's or services but as in any trade, adapt and move forward. One example we have implemented is selling hay to small horse and cattle ranches. I don't produce enough to sell outside what we feed to our stock  normally but this last year we brought in an addition hay out from out of state. We charged 20% less than the normal local large box retailer for hay, produced a small profit per roll but exploded sales from our main line product we manufacture meeting local customer's loading hay. 

I will probably have to work one more year in our main business, oil and gas services throughout Texas and LA. this year but I see this being the last year I will have to do so, I hope.  Then we can continue to focus on our local market which is still booming even outside the oil and gas industry, working locally is much more fun than living on the road away from family and friend's.

I would like to say thank you,  the reason we have taken this approach to our business model has came from my total eye opening experience studying Zero Hege on how the over all system work's.

I thought I was pretty knowledgeable after 20 year's being self employed about the fianancial structurer, well after hundred's of hour's reading and digesting the over all system, I found out just how fricken stupid I was, unreal. No wonder I alway's felt like a hamspter on wheel in the current business model.   

To all the people who spend there time posting knowledge within Zero Hedge, I am sure you have helped hundred's if not thousand's of folk's to secure there future and safety as best we all can. Not to mention being able to actually smile once in awhile each day.

I just wanted to say thank you.        

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:55 | 2051433 Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance's picture

"No wonder I always felt like a hampster on a wheel in the current business model."

Exactly how I felt many years ago. It was insanity incarnate.

While I am still firmly embedded within The Matrix (I would never claim to be fully separated unless I figured out how to move to Mars) there is greater separation than ever before and it continues to widen each day...................if nowhere else than in my mind.

Once we are captured mentally and emotionally our bodies and wallets are easily led astray. Free the mind and everything else will quickly follow. 

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 16:56 | 2051635 Encroaching Darkness
Encroaching Darkness's picture

"THANKS FOR SHOPPING YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD 7-11. PLEASE COME AGAIN!"

at the bottom of my receipt today. Are they sincere, or propagandizing?

 

I do like buying things over the Internet, sometimes from places like Amazon, sometimes from places like Ben's Outlet. If you and your locals cannot / do not manufacture what you want (or need!), do you agree buying out-of-town is OK?

Do we really need a silicon wafer plant in every hamlet?

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 14:57 | 2051155 Let them eat iPads
Let them eat iPads's picture

This Smith fellow really enjoys saying "cargo cult" quite a lot.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:01 | 2051180 A Lunatic
A Lunatic's picture

Ron Paul/Rainbow Skittle shitting Unicorns 2012

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:07 | 2051195 CrashisOptimistic
CrashisOptimistic's picture

Such bullshit from this guy.

How did live locally work for Japan when their oil was cut off in 1941.  Japan has no oil.  Millions of years of earthquakes cracked caprocks that might have sealed any in.  This reality got them nuked.  Twice.

Get It Through Your Heads.

OIL IS EVERYTHING.  Nothing else matters.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:16 | 2051229 blu
blu's picture

OIL IS OVER. Nothing else matters.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:27 | 2051277 Sandmann
Sandmann's picture

Japanese had Indonesia and Manchuria and could use coal synfuels but overall you have a point

http://www.americanforeignrelations.com/O-W/Oil-Oil-and-world-power.html

If Oil is Everything the USA had better start getting higher output per litre oil consumed or face collapsing living standards for the upper deciles - or recurrent war in Middle East and Africa.  You can still live locally by reducing oil wastage. Every single war the US has fought has required more energy per soldier than the previous one; so we can assume the same is true for civilians inside the US. For some reason the lessons of 1973 - such things as turning off lights - have been forgotten by subvsequent generations

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:32 | 2051312 walküre
walküre's picture

I predict the Amish are going to ride horses and drive buggies for centuries to come when "oil is everything" is but a historical footnote. There's a direct correlation between oil and oil driven economies, banks and credit expansion. Without the concentration of oil wealth, Wall Street would be where the pigs run loose. Oh wait..

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:09 | 2051204 toady
toady's picture

I doubt I'll get as far as the rest, but I am concentrating on developing local sources for all neccessities.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:14 | 2051221 blu
blu's picture

Large cities like the one I live in -- that came into being in the last half century --  will not hold together. They were formed of smaller communities that were once self supporting -- swallowed up usually via annexation -- and those communities will resurrect themselves when the wheels start to come off. The orchards and fields will return, as will the dairy farms and pasture lands.

Much of what we take for granted now is actually a consumerist mirage. When the automobile culture finally fails and the suburbs collapse into ruin the old way of organizing existance will reassert itself. The old foundations remain, we only have to dig them back up and dust them off.

It will turn out fine, in the end. But it won't look anything remotely like what we have now. Nor should it.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:21 | 2051250 hedgeless_horseman
Tue, 01/10/2012 - 19:43 | 2052222 drysafe
drysafe's picture

have you ever read "the long emergency"? (james kunstler). he breaks down such a scenario in detail.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:14 | 2051222 Bolweevil
Bolweevil's picture

My wave!

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:20 | 2051248 Sandmann
Sandmann's picture

The world of battery hens requires battery people. Populations in the Western World have been attached to milking machines which keep them in a constant state of agitation - consuming and then being indebted to the credit-machine. They can never get off until they die and the system requires them to be hooked like addicts to make the system run. Because there are not enough productive jobs to fund consumerism the State must create payroll jobs to keep consumption high and in Western Europe the art has been to create a shadow State Payroll by setting Welfare at 60% Median Earnings. The cost overlay makes Production too costly so the economy shiofts to pure Consumption and Retail with a State Payroll/Welfare buffer. Televsion is there to stimulate dissatisfaction and inactivity so that the main recreation becomes visiting shops and grazing rather than exercising any physical or mental faculties.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:24 | 2051261 Dick Darlington
Dick Darlington's picture

OT:

The Greek parents too poor to care for their children

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16472310

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:39 | 2051346 walküre
walküre's picture

Not so far OT. Poverty stricken families, left in the cold by a bankrupt federal "welfare" system are turning to local charity groups.

In the end, there will be nobody funding orphanages or projects in the Third World when the 3rd World is dropping their kids at your doorsteps across 1st World cities formerly known as the beacon of wealth.

Central bankers, elite politicians and lack of discipline will break even the best established systems.

We're all Greeks now.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:28 | 2051286 Snakeeyes
Snakeeyes's picture

But the Obama Administration is moving towards more Central Planning (Control).

Ezra Klein’s on Story on Mortgage Modifications and The Parable of The Centrally-Planned Housing and Mortgage Markets

https://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/ezra-kleins-on-mortg...

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:31 | 2051303 NotApplicable
NotApplicable's picture

Gee, wasn't it just yesterday that I was criticizing Mr. Smith for "pleading with central authorities" for the right to live?

He has the right idea, although localism in the form of municipal government is no less dangerous than it's highly centralized parent, the nation-state. What it is though, is more responsive to local pressures. But even that can be undermined, as I'll explain below.

At this very moment, fedgov is streamlining operations by having local governments create new "Community Development" departments, where they combine people from every other dept. that have direct contact with civilians into a single entity, so that they can share information without regard to laws in place that currently disallow it. This dept. is also being used to funnel grant money directly to the cities, bypassing county and state govs (many federal grants are administered by the states), in a manner reminiscent of FDR's New Deal, where the entrenched local political networks were undermined by FDR's direct spending.

In my city, this all started a few years ago with the creation of a 3 year, federally-funded grant to create a "Dept. of Sustainability" and fund the salary of its director. Today, that person is in charge of the new dept., and handles federal aid for various energy efficiency programs. Tomorrow?

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:35 | 2051325 Eeyores Enigma
Eeyores Enigma's picture

Localization will come but only at the very end out of complete desperation.

The economics of localization make it a non-starter.

Local produced means more expensive. So as people are feeling the pinch, tightening their belts they will quit local products and shop at the cheapest big box, wiping out the small guy.

Now if we tax and tariff the "cheap" as it comes into a region then use that money to subsidize local production then maybe we have a chance of getting something done. But it ain't gunna happem.

Corporate America will be the death of us (US).

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:46 | 2051369 walküre
walküre's picture

Local produced means more expensive

 

How so?

Maybe if it's too expensive to produce locally, you don't really need to stuff your house with it?

Maybe if it's produced cheaper elsewhere it's because the workers get paid poorly or the standards of the production are lower?

Maybe if the imported food is cheaper it's because the food is grown on the equivalent of agricultural garbage dumps?

That's how people should be educated.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:48 | 2051392 hedgeless_horseman
hedgeless_horseman's picture

 

 

...then maybe we have a chance of getting something done.

Sadly, I believe we as a nation are stuck in this Geography of Nowhere until the maps all change.  Maybe the best we can do as individuals or families is not be so herd-bound.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 16:00 | 2051457 NotApplicable
NotApplicable's picture

Richard Cantillon fleshed this all out nicely way back in 1755.

http://mises.org/resources/5773/An-Essay-on-Economic-Theory

It seems that localization is only one factor in determining price, with transportation, storage and production costs (and even demand for money) being other primary factors.

Surely you can see, that with this many variables, your statement (while true within an economy of scale perspective) comes up short when considering the whole market.

It also illuminates just how much market distortion that cheap oil (both truly cheap as well as subsidized) has enabled, creating production of a scale not otherwise supportable. What we will be witnessing now, is the unwind of this scale, back to a level that can be sustained locally, as well as regionally.

As for globally? Only time will tell.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 17:08 | 2051688 MachoMan
MachoMan's picture

Eh, no...  it's expressly bullshit.  You don't need any analysis to know that you can produce items in your back yard cheaper than you can go to the store and buy them...  at least insofar as vegetables and fruits...  it is NOT cheaper to transport it thousands of miles to my locale...  the evironmental conditions necessary are widely available in the U.S....

Just takes a little bit of ingenuity and elbow grease...  aside from the benefit of knowing each and every input that went into it...  (chemicals, etc.)...  you might even attract some local critters that provide supplemental protein (deer, squirrels, rabbits, etc.).

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 17:20 | 2051724 James-Morrison
James-Morrison's picture

Local works because people will basically do the right thing.  When face to face with a neighbor, you will act reasonably.  We're all in it together.

Central states destroy human contact by wedging a faceless, soulless and mindless bureaucracy between you and your neighbors.  You're free from accountability;  it's now someone else's problem.   

We the People.

They the State.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 21:16 | 2052576 N57Mike
N57Mike's picture

so true J-M...... instead of food stamps,  if people that needed food, had to ask their own family or neighbors for help, the problem woud be self-correcting. I would help my own family, or neighbor with food, under the condition they go get a job and get their life together. Food stamps freely given out, without accountability, has destroyed a generation.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:45 | 2051380 Missiondweller
Missiondweller's picture

Best example of this is Detroit, where they have lost half their population. They're encouraging people to move to the city's core and are bulldozing houses on the perifery.

 

60minutes had a great story on this.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:48 | 2051391 walküre
walküre's picture

Inner City ghettos are much easier to control. Detroit might end up being the largest FEMA camp yet.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 16:04 | 2051471 akak
akak's picture

Detroit has actually lost over 70% of its population in the last 60 years, and believe me, turning it all into a giant FEMA camp would be a noticeable improvement.  Nobody who has never driven around Detroit (and I'm talking about more than just downtown) cannot possibly conceive of the tremendous degree of financial, societal, moral and spiritual decay that that city has experienced in the last several decades --- one can only believe it by seeing it directly, and it is very difficult to accept even then.

If one wants to see a modern analogy of what the city of Rome might have looked like at the very end of the Roman Empire, or actually well after its fall, one could do no better than visiting Detroit.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 16:44 | 2051593 earleflorida
earleflorida's picture

caught between a pack of abandoned dogs and a trained chorus of alpha junk-yard canines - unwilling to drown in lake michigan, knowing all to well, that swimming is fatal in the landlocked pool of detroit

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:53 | 2051423 ParkAveFlasher
ParkAveFlasher's picture

RoboCop writer = fuckin genius

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 16:02 | 2051461 NotApplicable
NotApplicable's picture

Last I read, even the dead are moving out in record numbers.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:45 | 2051382 non_anon
non_anon's picture

what, return to the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, what a novel idea

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:46 | 2051388 Seasmoke
Seasmoke's picture

nothing is more local than your own household !

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:49 | 2051399 Stuck on Zero
Stuck on Zero's picture

All the things we hate about our giant bureaucracies, political corruption, lack of morals, degeneracy, perversion masquerading as art, and double-speak are really just manifestations of increasing urbanization.  These things aren't afforded in a rural settings where the separation between production production and consumption is just the separation between your hands and your mouth.  Huge urban centers produce little but live off the production of the environs.  Sooner or later the people doing the real production stop sending their goods to the city and the system collapses.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 16:00 | 2051456 falun bong
falun bong's picture

The "return to WWII bounty" is an apt metaphor if you think about it. That's basically what the US has been able to do for 70 years, rely on WWII bounty. That bounty was fully deserved and lawfully gained by blood and treasure. We harvested bounties of goodwill, influence, favorable trade, and especially we harvested the bounty from having the world's reserve currency AND terms of trade currency, an unheard-of wind at our backs.

But we have exhausted all the goodwill by warring, bombing, spying, torturing indiscriminately, chasing foreign ghosts to keep the war machine fed.

Time to dismantle the Empire, restore the goodwill, and take care of the home front. Let the Chinese guard their own oil workers in Iraq; let Germany and Korea pay to protect themselves. Let American businesses stand or fall on their own merit without the US buying influence by propping up crony dictators around the globe.

Ron Paul 2012, written in using a Sharpie...

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 16:15 | 2051510 walküre
walküre's picture

That bounty was fully deserved and lawfully gained by blood and treasure

Please tell me that you are joking. There was no difference between WW1, WW2, Vietnam and Iraq. All wars were funded by the same cabal which has made the greatest profits ever from subjugating the world's populations. Every shot fired during WW2 (on both sides!) put profits into the coffers of those vermin bankers that you surely detest today. They are one and the same animal, the same family, the same sick and demented minds.

It goes back further. Do you ever wonder why the Queen of England has so much wealth? Why the Rothschilds are the wealthiest family on the planet? How does one become so wealthy and gets to keep it over the centuries? Think about it.

Why are the vermin always coming out on top?

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 16:51 | 2051619 GMadScientist
GMadScientist's picture

Put another way: if you can't afford a post-office and school without state or fed assistance, your town probably shouldn't exist. (yes, residents of Tuolumne County, I'm lookin' at you!)

 

I'm assuming that these children will be attending private schools? (as you seem to have assumed they'll pay for their schooling)

What incentive is there for capitalists to construct "cheap" housing again? (the market does not want your low-end business, but feel free to rent one of our condos)

Aren't libertarians always telling us corporate taxes are passed on to consumers? Why wouldn't that also be the case with Wal-Mart? (biting the hand that creates greeter jobs, no less)

Nice myth though, very compelling from a rustic, white-washed corner of reality.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 17:08 | 2051683 shortus cynicus
shortus cynicus's picture

Using basic Austrian Economic Theory one can argue, that unemployment is a product of government. Why?

First people lived in a country, then moved to cities because there were some cool jobs there. If jobs are gone, in a trully free market, people would move naturally back to countryside - but here comes a big central government and say:

1) stay where you are - you get welfare founding if voting for us endlessly,

2) going back its plain and simply illegal.

Countless lows make it illegal or to expensive to build even a simple home using straw, clay, wood, powered by sun and wind.

You need to obey zoning lows, you must get permission, you must connect the home to any grid available to pay for corrupt local monopolies.

And of course, you must pay taxes - have no right to be left alone by the system even without any income made in a system.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 22:01 | 2052748 KK Tipton
KK Tipton's picture

shortus cynicus

DING DING DING     WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!

Wed, 01/11/2012 - 23:47 | 2057258 Apocalypse_Now
Apocalypse_Now's picture

Are there any states with no property taxes?

Thu, 01/12/2012 - 03:47 | 2057533 akak
akak's picture

I didn't know that there were any states with a property tax.

Aren't all property taxes assessed and collected at the municipal level?

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 17:23 | 2051750 Ned Zeppelin
Ned Zeppelin's picture

Jim Kunstler would like this post.

www.kunstler.com and read The Long Emergency while you're at it.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 19:41 | 2052211 Dr.Vannostrand
Dr.Vannostrand's picture

About to finish Jeckyll Island. Have Crossing the Rubicon and The Long Emergency waiting on the shelf up next.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 17:31 | 2051770 Kreditanstalt
Kreditanstalt's picture

Strange that the writer expects "trust to capitalist energy and experimentation" to be an answer yet he simultaneously calls for more taxes on selected businesses AND the seizure of private property...

Sounds like more of the same - government - not something new.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 17:35 | 2051789 americanspirit
americanspirit's picture

Anyone here on ZH who would like to browse a concrete example of how small & mid-sized communities could, through a relatively simple local initiative, fund their economic revival 100% on their own is invited to visit http://www.cultivatorshandbook.com/cultivators/Economic_Development.html

Fair disclosure - this is one of my websites - but I'm not selling anything here, simply describing a local initiative that might work for some communities.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 17:51 | 2051853 stirners_ghost
stirners_ghost's picture

Is local government not also a centralized system, just on a smaller scale?

Think smaller, Chuck. Try following your line of reasoning all the way, to its logical conclusion.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 18:45 | 2052041 r00t61
r00t61's picture

I like his analysis of the problem - too much of large government - but his solution seems contradictory: levying taxes to alter behavior and punish the multi-national corporate, creating subsidized housing to "prop up" tax-supported schools and post services, etc.

It seems as though in Smith's mind, lots of federal government is bad, which is a sentiment I certainly agree with, but his solution is this: lots of local government is good.  I don't know about his local area, but my local government is just as corrupt and slovenly as the federal one.  It's just a matter of degrees, since local governments don't have access to some of the most powerful tools that the Fedgov has to sustain its empire: currency creation and non-apportioned taxation.

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 18:46 | 2052044 falak pema
falak pema's picture

rebuilding the pyramid of society like the founding fathers of nation from the grass roots, from first principles, deconstructing the dominant mind set, the hubristic aquisitive dream of manifest destiny stolen from others. Its not easy to lose the dead weight of collective mental apathy, refinding abandoned values drowned by instant gratification of amoral consumerism imposed by hidden persuaders, to rediscover the heady feeling of pursuit of simple human happiness in a state of enlightened effort devoid of egotistical jusquauboutism. Cultivate the inner garden, find a collective model that does not abandon the cooperative links of local society, all the while recognising that innovation and commercial frontiers do not exist in the Internet age. Act local, think global. 

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 19:44 | 2052229 King_of_simpletons
Wed, 01/11/2012 - 00:58 | 2052358 honestann
honestann's picture

The solution is individualism.  Yes, local governments are often somewhat less corrupt than central/federal governments, but they are still corrupt, and still grossly inefficient.

Why do people want predators to control them?  It is simply, overtly, totally insane... a massive flaw in the species.

Let me ask it this way.  Tell the truth.  If you have $100,000 do you think you will spend it more wisely, efficiently and productively, or do you think the money will be spent more wisely, efficiently and productively if you give it all to government?  I mean all things considered, bottom line, including the fact that you now assure a pack of predators have unlimited power over your life, and the life of everyone else.

I know the answer.  I know better how to run my life.  No question - zip, zero, nada, NONE.  Wake up and get real, human beings.  Or get extinct (coming soon... and painfully to a planet near you).

Wed, 01/11/2012 - 00:32 | 2053375 toomanyfakecons...
toomanyfakeconservatives's picture

Clearly the South was right!

Wed, 01/11/2012 - 06:57 | 2053773 Archduke
Archduke's picture

why? the south's entire plantation economy depended on trade exports.

 

Wed, 01/11/2012 - 14:33 | 2055275 UrbanBard
UrbanBard's picture

Sorry, there is no governmental solution to governmental interference. The State’s meddling must end before economic conditions will improve.

What Mr. Smith proposes is stealing, via eminent domain, the real property of others in order to provide subsidized rent for entrepreneurs. He would tax existing businesses to fund business expansion. This is illadvised for a number of reasons.

1. Expropriation is an immoral act which will have consequences in the real world. It diminishes the trust between business people and local gocernment. A vacant downtown store may produce no rent, but its owner may have plans, when the timing is right, to utilize the property productively. Mr. Smith assumes that local officials are better at management than the property owners. History has shown that to be wrong.

2. There is the question of timing. I am assuming that the economy has much further to fall. Forced entrepreneurship is like planting seeds too early. The conditions may not exist for real profits, because we have not yet hit bottom. It is far better to allow the markets to determine when an opportunity exists.

3. The Big Box stores are in the process of failing because of foreign exchange problems. China cannot forever peg the Yuan to the dollar. A deflation or a hyperinflation of the currency will greatly effect the Big Box stores ability to survive. They are serving a real need to consumers now, which forced localization would disrupt. Instituting local tyranny will not improve business conditions and could produce shortages.

4. This plan increases the power of bureaucrats and politicians, exactly when we need to diminish their power.

In short, Mr Smith’s solution is the opposite of what needs to happen. He assumes that markets do not correct themselves when left alone. He is no free marketeer.

Yes, we will be forced toward more localization as the international division of labor gets shorter. But, it is far better to allow the marketplace to determine when entrepreneurs should go into business. A centralized authority, at the local level, is not needed.

Fri, 01/13/2012 - 07:44 | 2060947 thewhitelion
thewhitelion's picture

@CHS.  Really?

"institute a tax on all retail stores with more than 50,000 square feet of sales area. That would levy a special tax on one retailer, Wal-Mart."

Why don't we take turns raping the hottest chick in town, too,  If we only do it once a week, maybe she won't leave.

"Then the town could use that revenue to begin condemning all those empty buildings downtown via eminent domain"

More theft under the color of law.  Where does that end?

 

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