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Guest Post: Social Innovation Will Be More Important Than Technological Innovation
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
Social Innovation Will Be More Important Than Technological Innovation
Technological innovations can be helpful, but they won't solve our fundamental problems. For that, we will need social innovations.
The explosive rise and global impact of technological innovation has persuaded us that technology is the ultimate solution to all our problems. This assumption is rarely questioned; it has become like the air, unseen and unexamined.
The solution to the coming energy dislocation between supply and demand is technology: alternative energy, innovations in deep-oil recovery, etc.
The solutions to our epidemics of declining public health (diabesity etc.) is more and better medical technology--more stents, more diagnostics, more medications, etc.
The solutions to our problems in education is more technology: a laptop for every student, etc.
The solution to a no-growth, jobless "recovery" is more technology.
All this boils down to a cargo-cult in which a better battery, a better software package and a better diagnostic tool will enable us to avoid any changes in our lifestyle and culture, which is based on three basic principles:
1. Ever-rising consumption of goods and services
2. Ever-rising levels of credit/debt to fuel that consumption
3. Ever-rising complexity on a systemic, structural level
The notion that technological innovation is intrinsically incapable of "fixing" our problems is not just alien to our collective mindset, it is essentially sacreligious. In the current cargo-cult of technology worship, the basic assumption is better engineering can solve every problem.
This includes social engineering, of course--"nudging" the populace to modify their behavior as deemed appropriate by the Central State, and punishing whatever populace veers away from the chosen path.
Thus we have two powerful cargo-cults influencing the American economy, society and government: the Keynesian "monetary easing," borrow-and-spend your way to permanent prosperity Cult of the Fed and its Keynesian priesthood, and the cult of technological innovation as the fount of all solutions.
The idea that both these cults are the equivalent of the Mayan priesthoods which oversaw the decline and implosion of the Mayan Empire is not just an outlier--it is heresy of the first order.
Ironically, perhaps, it is glaringly obvious that both cults will fail because they do not understand the problems and are automatically applying tools that cannot possibly fix what is broken: the three basic principles undergirding the American economy and society are crumbling, though that devolution is mostly hidden from view.
Frequent contributor Harun I. recently commented on the fundamental blindness of classical economics and engineering, both social and technological:
You wrote: "Here is the ugly truth about the Savior State, welfare state, social welfare state, or whatever you choose to call the Central State: The Savior State displaces and destroys community and social capital. By making individuals dependent on the Central State for free money, free food, free housing, etc., then the State has taken over the natural function of community."
Brilliant!
Something I have noticed is that you are the only blogger who discusses the psychological effects of the current policies -- which are complete failures. Most people, especially young adolescents and young adults are desperately trying to express their independence and grow. The current system of protecting welfare state and monetary system status quo fiefdoms paradoxically depends on their physical participation while ignoring their psychological and emotional needs.
The natural process of individuation is being subverted and its deleterious effects are bubbling to the surface.
Indeed, true wealth is found in vibrant community. Vibrant community exists when the people in the community contribute (probably the most important ingredient in high self-esteem is self-efficacy), and have a sense of social responsibility. More simply, vibrant community exists when its participants feel they matter.
Current policies, however altruistic its adherents and defenders may be, promote polarization (class warfare), and, most importantly, among those at the margin, especially in the young, poor mental health, which spills over in predictably unpredictable behavior.
In short, current policies are anti-community and pro-sociopathic.
Note to economists and social engineers: there is no algorithm that can express or replicate the heartfelt warmth and the bonds that are created and strengthened when a community voluntarily reaches out to help each other during difficult times.
Note to big box corporations: I, and probably many more Americans miss the local bakery, butcher, clothier, grocer, etc. It was never just about stuff. It was more about stopping in and shooting the breeze over coffee, your kids playing on the same teams, it was and is about genuine mutual interest, the emotional context. They not only knew your name but knew you and you knew them. It's about the personal relationship. It's about community.
A group of people without the ingredients of community is known as a mob.
At some point I think we will come to realize that the reasons for a societal collapse are much deeper and more complex than people not buying enough Ford F-150's or assuming sufficient (whatever that means) debt. This is a deeply flawed argument.
The laws of Thermodynamics tell us that we may control the rate of reaction of between finite resources but we cannot make more. If we do not expand beyond the bounds of earth it is inevitable that we will go backward as resources dwindle, but this need not be done so fearfully or chaotically.
Everything human begins and ends in the mind. Wealth and poverty, both relative terms, are neither measure nor predictor of love and decency.
I believe your background in philosophy better suits you to this discussion than many of the other bloggers out there. Most of them are basically quants and are predilected to thinking everything is solvable through an equation. But you seem to understand that human interaction is much more subtle and cannot be neatly packaged into a finite equation. If it is an equation at all, its variables change every few fractions of a second.
Thank you, Harun. Yes, technological innovation can help solve some specific problems. But to believe that all problems can be distilled down to a technical solution is quasi-religious and ultimately self-destructive. For example, the skyrocketing cost of healthcare (sickcare) "innovations" will bankrupt the nation within this decade. That is not the view of some fringe, it is the conclusion dictated by the data. Meanwhile, the health of the populace arguably declines every year even as spending driven by technological innovation leaps up by hundreds of billions of dollars.
I will be addressing some of the intrinsic limitations in the "engineering/tech is always the answer" mindset/religion in the next week, for it seems self-evident that while technological innovations could smooth the transition to a new economy and social order, the mere faith in technology is insufficient. We need new models for understanding our situation, and social innovations to match the technological innovations that are already in the works.
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armageddon bitchez
Hitler made a lot of social innovations...
They were sponsored by the US.
By the US and the Vatican.
Gold taking a beating. CME will announce new margin hikes in the next hours.
Most likely after the close. IB called it a few days ago, pretty consistent.
IDIOT. Hitler was a paganist against the Church and Christianism.
The only monotheist religion he liked was...guess what... Islam of course ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_views#Islam_and_...
Many Europeans were victims of the barbaric behaviors of his muslims divisions, the SS Mohamed.
<
Catholicism is paganist as well. Jesus of Nazareth was just a patsy for their (immensely successful) plan for world denomination. Hitler was also just a patsy for the Zionists and their also immensely successful plan for world denomination in the 21st century. Birds of a feather. . .
World denomination? Apparently a fool and his Internet aren't soon parted...
Joke coming.
very good Léonard, a quote from Goebbels showing the nature of Hitler's religion.
Your direct quote is quite unlike imagined history which serves to validate imagined values.
I'm sure the point was not that Hitler liked the US or Christianity. I'm sure the point was that he was used / constructed by the US / Vatican to perform their dirty deeds. Capiche?
The Vatican sponsored Hitler ? Are you indeed sure ? Have you ever heard of the papal encyclica "Mit Brennender Sorge", the only one in German and not in Latin in the history of the Church? If you wish to know who originally financed the the National Socialist Party check for this book: "Sidney Warburg". It's the testimony (probably written by the son of Paul Warburg, the architect of the FED, since Sidney Warburg is a pen name) of how the money went from Wall Street to Hitler. Someone who really knew the behind the scenes story, von Papen, testified that indeed the book tells the true origin flows and banking channels to the Nazi party.
By the way, where did you get your history, at Disneyland?
....and Dutch Royal Shell, and Prince Berhard, and Lady Astor, and the Cliveden Set
After the war, there was a lot of distancing and burying facts, but Hitler received alot of foreign assistance. He was an international project.
He was seen by many on the right to be a counterweight to Stalin...
Talk about blow-back... in spades, with a cherry on top.
The rot is inside us. The cleanse begins with us.
Technological innovation is embedded/woven into the matric/fabric of who we are collectively. To seperate it into social/technical etc. is a narrow, limiting view.
Any real change needs to come from deep within our collective and individual selves as a totality. Anything less will just die on the vine or add to the madness...
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/an-older-piece-pertinent/
V
The cleansing will begin with an economic and social high colonic administered with a cosmic fire hose.
It will be deep and thorough.
Ori,
You be full of holisitc wisdom and oriental mysticism. Whereas the west is full of hands on reductionist philosophy, cutting the Gordian knot, not untying it. Only the French revolution went to a holistic model of society in its own way fed on rational 'enlightenment' : finding a compromise between personal freedom, social cohesion (fraternity) and social justice (equality).
Very difficult exercise as history teaches us. The Anglosaxon model was simpler : personal freedom uber alles, leading to Pure Oligarchy play. It HAS to be a limited club in any society where 'personal freedom' is religion. Simple as that. The pyramid is a natural consequence.
The more complex the collective ambition the closer it is to the ideal; but the more difficult it is to realise. The existential paradox of man as I see it! "To be or not to be"...so sweetly said, it sums it up so universally and yet so pithily.
That's actually why you need the Automation along with the social re-engineering, as the author is likely aware of. But, cleansing alone won't do sqwat, whereas automation will go a long way, as long as it's directed to providing for the masses. In the end, the only way to achieve equity within society is through automation, because we've forgotten than commerce was the aim of the game and decided ridiculously that profit was the aim. Shame on everyone.
Here's the main stream take...surprising? http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/22/the-case-for-impeachment-142967590/
A link from July 2010.... Where are all these investigations that were promised?
BTW, an op-ed piece is not mainstream journalism. Crawl back into your den of ignorance..
Maybe what is really happening is that Obama is simply minding the store while the Fascists disassemble the last bastions against complete domination by corporate interests... Yeah, now that's a true Socialist of the Marxist school for you....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97N18BTyj4w&feature=player_embedded
A funny video explaining pretty much everything what's wrong with human society.
Fuck armageddon...Apocalypse Now!
Somewhere, Joseph Tainter just shed a tear. . .
And Malthus winked *
you will not a address that issue, because you miss a very basic assumption. Marx said that Production is a social act. as long as we are a mob, there is no social dimension to your argument. the argument for "free social society" is flawed from it's outset. how do you solve that?
Baloney...
The author starts from sure observations but fails (unsurprisingly) to put them into context.
Class warfare is essential to US Americanism. Class warfare is the heart.
That big lumb called middle class, taking on the upper class, promising the lower class promises never to be met... That is the heart of the US.
Additionnally, controversy sells in US citizenism. US citizens always try to monetize every single conflict they can. With the intended consequences that once monetized, removing a conflict also withdraws the money associated with from the 'community'
The US has made their social engineering, leading to a world of discord, dispute, antagonism, a world that feeds on conflicts that can not be forgotten because US citizens live off those conflicts.
US citizens love to picture themselves as innovative. Alas for them, the quality of their propaganda gives them in every time: one pony trick people with no vision, with no imagination. People addicted to theft, copy cats whose only deed is to live in the biggest market in the world, allowing them to benefit the most from economy of scale to spread their low, uninspired, shitty propaganda.
That is the US since its inception and it wont change till the US disappears.
Certsinly seems that you are very correct.
It remains to be seen if U.S. citizens will at some late point wake up and re-create a COMMUNITY based on community spirit - i.e. sharing and helping and contributing, rather than taking and sticking it and gambling.
Awakening would be beautiful - but like you, I don't expect it - mostly because there is no leadership in that direction - and unlike the I'm-cool-isolationist creed, community does need leadership.
Contrary to you, I expect the awakening, for many reasons.
Even putting aside mysticisms like the mayan calendar (not the shallow doomer view but rather the exponential, phased evolution of consciousness interpretation), one should quite easily observe that times of upheavals are very conducive to it.
The instability either breaks old patterns and conditionnings or render them obsolete; chaos, matrix of unrealized possibilities, encourages one to devise and apply new solutions.
Those that let themselves be driven by their instincts, by their dusty old patterns, will either at some point realize that the results no longer match the expected effects - in a harmful sense - or will end up destroying themselves. On the other hand, those who refuse death - stagnation - and wisely choose to actualize themselves will realize the benefits of consciously redefining themselves in constant adaptation to a fluctuating environment.
The good news is, this will happen, because there is no actual need for leadership in that direction (let me say in passing that I disagree with you, leadership is actually against that direction, although that is another matter entirely) as self-realization only depends on the internal integration of yourself as your own leader.
And by that time the community-level problem already will not be one anymore, because there will be more than enough bottom-up leadership to organically shape the community - and reject, as a well-oiled immune system should, those selfish leaders who would continue to apply the old paradigms to the community in the detriment of the whole.
I don't think it's possible to stuff more fail into that post.
Yet you managed in your own.
Isnt life wonderful in this US driven world? Just ask and you are given.
He's got a point, though. Too many Americans just don't think.
We're told that working hard is a virtue in America and many lament that the unemployed are worthless bums. When workers go on strike, like recently with Verizon, they are demonized for laziness and greed. Of course, in taking up sides against people who work, we are endorsing a ruling class that produces nothing and demands ever more for it.
I live in a rural area and it's common for conservatives here to joke that urban liberals think beef comes from a freezer and milk from a box. It is just as obvious to me that dozens of machinists, welders, and engineers, not the executive board of GM, built my Pontiacs. Yet, who is the bad guy in the GM bankruptcy? Workers. And who deserves all of the rewards of success at Verizon? The management who proved barely able to maintain basic service without the strikers.
And we wonder why this country is sinking? We lie to ourselves and we lie to each other constantly. Everyone wants luxury without responsibility, to seek rewards without merit, to reap dividends without investment. How about we start believing what we say and trying to be who we pretend to be?
The rural conservative types have their own blindness... Where does the all the money come from to pay for roads, power lines, phone systems etc....
Too many myopic people out there....
I read through Atlas Shrugged when Beck and friends were flogging it but there's one assertion that I think alot of people really misinterpret and that's the disappearance of the industrialists and how it relates to modern day economics.
In the book and in real life, most industry leaders just aren't John Galt, but there are many who resemble Orren Boyle and James Taggart. The story depicts a world that is falling apart and Rand wants to steer us into blaming government for driving the industrialists away. What's not said is how much of the suffering was due to the practices of those who _didn't_ disappear. Those warm bodies and excuse makers and government tools easily did as much damage as anyone in Galt's Gulch.
If fools like Fiorina and Immelt disappeared tomorrow, companies that survived the short-term cash crunch might actually be alot healthier even if they couldn't buy favors from government. They could finally hire Americans or make infrastructure investments or do anything else that was neglected in pursuit of attracting top "leadership."
There are no more industrialists in this country...
Just a bunch of socio-paths doing regulatory arbitrage and financial slight of hand....
Orwell would be laughing if he knew Immelt was a top advisor (Chair of some committee, IIRC) to the President on "Job creation".... How many factories and jobs has Immelt exported??
The sick part is that GE has been exporting American jobs for years but it's only become an issue with conservative crowds since they crawled into bed with Obama. That angle doesn't get brought up very often because some of those jobs are/were union and war might break out between the anti-Obama and anti-worker factions. I find more and more that I took the police state backdrop of 1984 too literally. It's the cognitive dissonance that's going to get us, liberal and conservative alike.
1984 but, as Huxley noted, we will amuse ourselves to death by distraction...These guys were so *fucking* prescient.
We're on the tail end of Huxley. We will see the full Orwell soon enough.
Out of curiosity, how much time have you actually spent in the US?
What I find absolutely ludicrous with all of your posts
is that you are no more a solution to the problem then the author. Funny that.
I do not disagree with you in this particular post but
you never, ever, ever, offer solutions. You are as guilty of perpetuating the status quo as every politician and American citizen. Funny that.
Lumping everyone into a single category is the easy way out when your goal is to simply find fault. It is pure laziness of thought. It encompasses no imagination, innovation or balance. Any one idiot can criticize. See I am doing it now!
Addressing societal problems has to be done with a body of willing participants. It takes leadership and personal sacrifice. It takes understanding that our current bureaucracies around the world are mired in educational, technological, and economic stagnation.
Personal balance is needed. Each individual taking responsibility for their successes and failures. And the success and failures of their families. Promoting a strong local government and a reduced national government.
There are very few cultures left on this earth who are not chained to oil, and this is not necessarily out of good conscience. It would be interesting to see if you could actually boast of coming from one. Considering you are sitting behind a computer to cast your aspersions, I highly doubt it.
Do you honestly think when the U.S.A. is dethroned/destroyed the next set of bureaucracies left to take over will be benevolent benefactors? If you do, please name the one, so we can at least debate your personal preference.
Why blame people for treating US citizens as US citizens wish to be treated?
Lumping US citizens into one category? Yes. But on US demand. The US is an undivided nation. US terminology. US desire. US want. Is it that hard to admit?
This remark shows once again the profoundly imbalanced US citizen nature.
They demand to be treated as a single unit. And when one does that, one is blamed for that.
And this is not human nature. It is specific to the sub set of humanity called US citizens. Some other humans are able to accept that when they demand to be treated in a way, they might be treated in that way.
Giving a solution?
Okay, again: this is a US world order. US citizens are in charge. They are the cause of the current world status.
It is theirs to find a solution or they have to step down. Once again, this shows another trait in the US citizen eternal nature: they want other people to clean their mess while staying those who mess things up.
Nobody would offer a solution in such context.
I forgot one point.
The US world order is one of depletion of resources. Any world order coming after that huge waste, that consuming for the sake of consuming, will have hard times. Because success requires means. And the US world order will live a scorched earth. People coming after the US world, no matter how virtuous they are, will have a hard time because of systemic destruction of resources happening under the US world order.
Now, the question is about powers that could disthrone the US while resources are still abundant, well, the question is not properly formulated:
the question should be: what power could fuck it up as much as the US? I admit a fistful of contenders exist but they will have to work hard to match the US impressive achievements.
You offer no solutions to the problem because you cannot envision a world in balance with nature. You offer no solutions because you would rather point fingers. You offer no solutions because you believe in futility.
My solution is to lead by example. I hold no illusions of leading a nation out of depravity and collective ignorance. But I do not waste my life shaking my fist and screaming at the wall. I have to much to accomplish.
You bore me! I am going to work on my solar oven.
As always you offer nothing but closed minded rethoric.
Some Americans are searching for ways to help themselves by studying world opinions and ideas. Wisdom comes from an overall balanced view of the problems you create and the techniques you use to solve them. We have world problems, therefore, the only way to have a balanced opinion is to see if others have contemplated a solution from another point of view; Non-American. I may use an opinion or I may disguard it, based on the wisdom used to arive at the solution. Luckly this site is not comprised of just AnAnynomouses.
All of your arguments use little logic, but are calculated to arrive at a biased conclusion. Resent or disgust with Americans. Personally I never expected much from you. It was apparent from our very first discussion you have little to offer. I just enjoy "bullying" you!
Just remember I did not finger point my way out of having a meaningful conversation you did, but then again it would not be the first time.
so social innovation is advanced brainwashing?
Tell the masses to go to hell but make them happy to take the trip?
Priceless
Social innovation? WTF? Who makes this shit up?
Kan I haz marginz hikz nowz?
Noez.
You stupid fucker. The guy is right on the ball except you won't be giben a chance. You think they deindustrialized you stupid motherfuckers, left your bordees wide open while destroyung all neighboring societies with their Prohibition violence, drugged you and cheapened your culture, made a monstrosity out of your educational system just to turn around and let you become a threat to them again? Ha! Wealthy, educated, empowered middle classes are a threat to oligarchy, morons.
False flag nuke ur asses is what's up.
Yep one morning soon, 'BOOM'...all your 401Ks and pensions and accounts are belong to us.
People who think a 30 year planned deindustirialization, flood of illegals most of them criminals, #1 product in america Zoloft, drugs use rampant, school system a joke producing retards....and people believe now there will be some kind of 'comeback' Phoenix rise from the ashes for the middle class credit consumer?
It was all a planned takedown, and soon will be totaly complete.
The sheeple are herded into blaming the "illegals". Yes, the "illegals" made you live beyond your means. They are also responsible for your addiction to drugs. They are also responsible for your low IQ. They are also responsible for your falling hair and your erectile disfunction.
Yes most of the "illegals" are criminals. Their crime is making your foot and lifestyle a lot cheaper than it should really be if they were paid a true honest wage for their work. Their crime is being deluded into slavery for the benefit of a crumbling empire.
The mere concept of "illegals" is a disgrace.
Enjoy your "legality". It won't last long. When the soil you stand on is sold to the rightful slant eyed new owners, you will be hunted down just the same way those "illegals" you look down on.
Fucktards will be fucktards.
As long as they can look down on someone else and delegate their blame, sheeple will never open their eyes.
OH really 'illegals' is a disgraceful concept found only here in america....well lets see you put your money where your big mouth is, try going to any other country in the world without any documentation and see what happens to you! In most places, it will get you killed, in most others, arrest and deportation. Oh BTW Im not an american Im a NZ national, here laughing at your defense of your own planned destruction.
NEXT!
US citizenism is a state of mind before anything else.
US citizens'ancestors were themselves illegal immigrants.
And the evidence of US citizenism being a state of mind? A NZ citizen might also share the same US citizenish state of mind, denying that NZ ancestors were also illegal immigrants.
Same as basically any other place on earth, certainly Europe.
Again this old drivel. And US citizens think of themselves as innovators. If so, how does it come they fail to renew their propaganda?
NO, Earth was populated from one point to spread into the rest. Meaning human beings advanced in human being empty spaces.
Second and most importantly, the concept of private property, illegal immigration were so much more elaborated when NZ was invaded than I dunno, 10,000 BC.
In the US world order, this knowledge is supposed to be the hallmark of civilized people over savage people. Savages do things but they are ignorant.
Civilized people, well, they know. They know private property, they know the rule of law etc...
US world order.
Yea whatever, unless youre in your home in Ethiopia writing to zerohedge I suggest you STFU with your 'native' claptrap.
Facts are facts. Illegal immigrants can acknowledge they are illegal immigrants. Though, this would compromize their assimilation in a US citizens society, that favours denial of such facts.
To Anonymous: facts are facts? your post are some of the most opinionated ones on ZH, almost always lacking any backing of facts and only taking cheapshots at obviously a place you despise.
Illegal immigration is a problem in USA. It is by far not the biggest problem but it is part of the problem not the solution.
Name me one country from were the majority of the illegal immigrants come from to the USA, that allow free education for an illegal immigrant? any illegal immigrant can go to school here in the USA for free(meaning K-12)
(in Mexico even a mexican citizen living in the usa who goes back to Mexico and does not have Matricula Consular for their US born child can not enroll their child in school. Same goes for Ecuador and Venezuela and Honduras and el Salvador.)
There are many many more issues we could discuss about this, but why cast pearls before swine?
No.
There is a confusion between the necessity of backing up controversial claims and the simple statement of the most obvious facts(which needs no backing)
US citizens are hooked on power and wish that facts only come true if they, US citizens, want to believe the facts to be true.
I dont play that game, sorry to disappoint US citizens here.
I wont provide any backing to most obvious facts like US citizens ancestors were illegal immigrants.
Sorry if that it harms the comfort of the fabled past nurtured by US citizens.
If US citizens want to deny their ancestors were illegal immigrants, that is their problem. Mine is not to waste time on convincing duplicitous people as US citizens are who know their ancestors were illegal immigrants but simply do not want to admit because it would be self indiction.
To end with, illegal immigrants should be considered to be more American than legal migrants, once both gained their US citizens.
By ignoring borders, illegal immigrants do behave the US american way. They are true US citizens at heart.
Because ignoring borders to settle illegally on a territory, that is what you do when you want to become a US citizen. Always have been.
again your entire post is lacking any facts...... ohl well I guess you can go on living in your made up world!
No. My comment contains facts. They are not controversial claims that do not need backing. Once again, it is different.
That US citizens ancestors were illegal immigrants is a fact. It does not need backing because it is the mere statement of an obvious state of reality.
Feel free to deny that US citizens settled illegally on the territory named the US. It is your problem. Not mine.
no problems here mate, no disillusions and contorted opinions that I try to push as facts. Good day! Peace
Simple solution to the illegal alien problem.... Progressively higher fines for those employers hiring them, 3 strikes and a mandatory jail time...
Compare the cost of enforcing that to the boondoogle of fences and expansion of the police state (along with their unfunded benefits)...
You can cut some slack where the illegal had high enough quality fakes or stolen documentation...
Can't have that though, the system now relies upon that cheap illegal labor....
Right, can't have that. It would be treating the root of the problem instead of pruning its branches. If there weren't so many folks who used the drugs that get smuggled in, there wouldn't be a reason to crack down on the producers all over the world. It's not about the drug problem, it's about giving the US a reason to meddle in politics and economies all over the world. Focus all that money on rehab here in the US might just help! But, no, can't have that.
If you believe Illegal Immigrants are all here to work, then you haven't looked at the violent-crime statistics for the American Prison system. Almost HALF of our prison system is filled with these leeches who come here because our retarded country lets people who pay no taxes vote to keep the hand-out going to welfare moms and crackhead dads. A small percentage of illegals are here to work, but the majority are here with the goddamn hand out, just like the complete decay of western society exemplified by my 9-adults-living-in-the-same-little-house-all-collecting-welfare neighbors.
As long as moochers and "social justice" leeches continue to have the right to vote while footing 0.0000000% of the bill - this country will never have a long-term chance.
You obviously hate America, but I'll bet you're using a computer to post your garbage troll slop, and you probably use 50+ other household conveniences in a given day that were "invented" in America.
Too many people around the world can't get past Stage 1 thinking... I see you suffer as well.
Actually, the big founder of Science computers is a British subject, a guy named Turing. But who cares with facts in this US world order?
Ah, the point of this post. And the other half is of course negroes, who are not illegal immigrants but are negroes, which is another issue in the US.
Being an illegal immigrant/a negro, the path to jail in the US.
As to the decay of the West, the US is the main cause for it with its US citizenism.
Yea whatever, unless youre in your home in Ethiopia writing to zerohedge I suggest you STFU with your 'native' claptrap.
'US world order'....what are you going to do about it, keep crying? BTW, the US was established as a colony by king James, as a bankrupt corporation. Before you go running around saying people are ignorant of history, know your history.
War of independence.
virtual eugenics
Blue pill vs Red pill. Such a dilemma
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when go to church or when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind.
Isnt it funny that US citizens are unable of culture, that they have to rehash cultural references designed and thought by the US elite?
How funny how US citizens are so in their own system they cant detach from it and require to be spoon fed with cultural references they could not create by themselves, as they are unable of developing a culture on their own, without stealing from others?
That is the US citizens eternal nature.
Exactly. They also believe liberal is a bad word. Ignorant, stupid motherfuckers.
USA USA KKK KKK
'Liberal' is a word with no meaning...just a vague label. What does 'liberal' mean? Lets hear you define it.
KKK is just CIA, same as Black Panthers, Al CIAda, MLK, Farahkan...
KKK predated CIA by a few decades... Bu t who cares in this US driven world?
LOL, you think there was only a govt 'intel agency' starting a few decades ago? Yea whatever. BTW theres a great 45 minute documentary on the govt formation of the KKK on youtube.
And it has the anachrony to give the creation of KKK to CIA?
Possible in this US world order. Everything is possible when it comes to propaganda. In this US world order, US citizens have similar claims with Darwin and communism.
US citizens are notorious to be at odds with the past, because the past lends them a mirror and they do not like what they see in it.
Again this whiner, crying about the 'US world order'...well what are you going to do about it, cry some moar? BTW you seem to be the one at odds with the past, the US is a British colony, always has been. You want to bitch about the US? Then you need to file a grievance with the Crown.
The US is not a british colony since 1913, the year those who ran the money line of the world, the ROthchilds and the Warburgs, met with the new Oligarchs of the world at those days 'Necker Island' : the 'Rockerfellas' and the JP Morgans. Why did this occur?
To anybody who understands history like those who run the money line of the world since donkey years, the Roths and their ilk, they could see the Black Swans running amok in Nationalistic, imperialistic Europe; where the signs of Armageddon were all too clear in the rising tide of frustrated colonial ambitions. Those who had mothered the Pound sterling hegemony were eager to change horses in the context of this imminent european collapse; to foster a new child on the new continent federated by Abraham Lincoln at inordinate cost into one nation coast to coast; built on the new economic mantra, the assembly line industrial appoach, giving extraordinary competitive advantage to an empty, resource rich continent full of young vibrant entrepreneurs. They founded the NEW pound, the alternative currency to the teetering old Pound, as Britannia would flounder as they had calculated in advance according to their sharp, proverbial banker's acumen. They guessed right as the day of the dollar had arrived and the FED, financial arm of the US oligarchs would reign supreme, inspite its temporary fall in 1930, thanks to FDR's continual role as Lincoln's Imperial but fair handed son. The corruption would set in after his demise, as inordinate power does that. And we know what transpired when the great generation's deeds spawned the 'uber alles', best and brightest US mantra.
So your analysis is not true to history. The US was on it's own trajectory since 1913, as it had the new money, the USD, and an institution to print it nationwide to ensure world domination, à la Venice and its ducats, or à la Florence and its florin of bygone ages.
WHat is an interesting aside is the story of the Roths and how they became the Squid of the Brtitish imperial age. Their english banker son had a courrier pigeon service that told him before all others the fate of events of 18 June 1815, in an obscure place called Waterloo. While everybody was panicking next morning in London singing "sell, sell, sell' he was buying thanks to his courrier pigeons having learnt of the result and singing "buy, buy, buy!"
The mother of HFT trades was born that day. It made him king pin of the British Empire, the discrete banker of 'rule Britannia'. My point is that those who rule the world are the POWER kings, the sons of Alexander. Those who run the money line have since time immemorial been their servants UNTIL one of their own wore the mantle of Caesar as well. It happened during the Renaissance days as empires crumbled and the Medicis spawned a fleeting emperor Lorenzo the magnificent; it didn't last and they went back to being second string bankers and prelates. The sacred blood line is hard to earn and even harder to keep.
Today's world is no different. Reaganomics has given temporarily inordinate powers to the Medicis of this age : the WS shills from GS. Now the day of reckoning is fast approaching as Caesar's true sons will reclaim their mantle back.
Both in EU and in US of A. But in dire, game changing, paradigm redefining age, where we will see turmoil as during the 15 th century.
So the lame duck analysis where the sons of GW's colonial republic pretend they are still sons of the British crown is like the corn dog lady who says that Irene is God's punishment on the current US administration. Savonarole is still lurking in the aisles of Washington, obscurantism his fire and brimstone word!
'US driven world'....youre retarded, the US has only ever been a Crown colony since the start. You got a gripe with the US? Then you need to go talk to the queen.
The Queen of the US? Who is that? The US middle class?
World dominated by England ended a few decades ago.
Now is the time of the US world order, Pax Americana as US citizens love to call it (only Pax for US citizens of course, the others live in fear of being bombed, abducted for torture and pray not to sit on resources because US citizens are coming to get them)
This guy REALLY doesnt know the US from the 1600's was ALWAYS a Crown Colony? Wow. You really DONT know the US was established as a 'bankrupt corporation' by King James under the British Tea Company? OMG!
Who collects the tax money? The queen. Who just signed off on Social Security reshuffling? The queen. I mean, DUH?
Hey keep lecturing about the 'US World Order' though, its hillarious, but in your spare time you really need to research into ACTUAL history.
Sheep, I think it is quite obvious he is a troll. If anything every defined a troll on here it is anonymous.
Probavly not worth responding too.
OH that all ended 'a few decades ago' and now the assclown Obama 'runs the world'...yeaaaaaa sure.
"In short, current policies are anti-community and pro-sociopathic."
Exactly.
+1 & the author is not nearly alone in his observations of how the State destroys community. This, I would think, is common knowledge among liberty-minded folk. This effect is by design and is yet another one of the planks from the communist manifesto implemented.
I suppose that is the bright side of the pending collapse; a resurgence of community. (at least one can hope).
You are absolutely right and well said. Liberty loving people uphold a vibrant community spirit.
For fucks sake, this shit is just not that hard, you have to actually produce something for people to have jobs, you have to back your currency with something more than "faith", pontificating ideology does not solve the problem, in fact it exacerbates it.
silly caveman, cant your semian brain realize that this is a new paradigm where the paper is backed by people sitting around having a latte and discussing / debating things like Fiction novels, gender issues and TV shows.
I live near a university, and recently ! saw 23 full size garbage dumpsters FULL of boxes in which came chinese made futons, TVs, stereos, tables, desks, dildos, sunglasses, coffee makers etc. etc. Now all those new products can be used in sitting around by students deep in theoretical disccusions and conjectures that go nowhere.
What is this "produce something" thing you mention?
PS where the fuck did all the money come from to buy the junk that came in all those boxes? Services? Maybe but I suspect it came from the remains of the savings put away by the ww2 generation, or the sale of their tangible assets.
excuse me Im going to go vomit now.
Conservation and dietary changes...good luck selling that to the American sheeple, CHS.
Not with McDeathburger being the #1 stock and #1 employer in america!
3X meals per day at the drive thru window, see now Escalades are NEEDED just to seat the family of 4 avg weight 3,500 pounds. Need extra heavy axles and tranny coolers for that load!
BTW McD's, BK, Wendys, all now accept EBT cards...rock on fat with a side of fat nation...good luck with the 'dietary changes' lol that will be a bitch for them to suddenly switch to tree bark.
Donner, party of 26...25...24... ;)
Yesterday the wife and I stopped to get lunch. At the table next to us were three ladies, none of whom were less than 100 lbs overweight. The three of them were sitting there cackling at their inside jokes, blissfully unaware of their horrible state of health as they ate themselves into a stupor. This is what America has become in 2011: fat, stupid, lazy and manic.
You have 3 Billion People on the boat, 40 years later you have 9 Billion, unless these people learn to thrive on eating shit, the only solutions are social (cleansing, shareing) or technical, building a better boat.
I vote for the cleansing.
There are too many marginal, stupid, unproductive wasters of oxygen on this planet. I am with the Prince of Wales on this one.
"Social innovation"? Is that like a "financial product". Sure, it will become a good idea to surround yourself with like-minded, self sufficient neighbors, but ALL the current economic models are built on an exponential growth function (which most simply don't understand) that is not sustainable. Human deflation is the ONLY way to a higher quality of life, period. Robots and soylent green bitches. All these "social innovations" do are cause people to interact with others LESS. Using social media is NOT REAL INTERACTION you stupid fucks. Total different when you need actually negociate in person.
Well said...
Aside: been following the action in TNH?
well, even though there has been a most drastic social involution over the same period there has been also a drastical technological evolution, this is not to say that they are inversly correlated it simply means that the masses do not contribute to the advancement of society or technology, they are simply slave drones, do the elite care that the slave drones are well kept or do they only care that they are able to produce...tough question eh?!?!
By coincidence.... this just popped up elsewhere
If people ever unlearned enough of their "education" to see why we are working longer, harder and with greater productivity gains yet still going nowhere the bullets would fly tomorrow.
It is due to the fact we live in a monetary model of grow or collapse. There is no stasis allowed.
The author (of the OP) got cause and effect backwards:
We did not need to increase credit due to buying more shit. We bought more shit because we need to expand credit on a continuous and exponential basis.
You cannot have no growth in a model where interest predicates growth or system collapses.
All this austerity talk, of balanced budgets, etc is pure and utter bullshit. And the purveyors of this as being the savior of our system are either too dumb to get it, or worse, are liars trying to get honest folks to get behind them. Would a politician slit his own throat? Fuck no. So they are either dumb or a crook.
So we grow and die, as the ones who issue credit out of nothing at interest get fatter while we waste away. Definition of a parasite.
pods
Nicely put. The issue here is to shut down the banks and devise mechanisms that provide the emission of currency free of debt and within the framework of a steady-state system. As long as we allow private institutions to provide (and consequently own) the currency, it is up to them to choose whatever rules under which the system will work.
Thank you. I have repeatedly said the best & brightest are channeled into career paths that utilize the 5,000 year old strategy of debt peonage. If one understands the basic physics of finite resources & exponents (compounding interest+principle), then efforts directed towards technological innovation, public governance, social mores, etc are for chumps. The name of the game is to score the best pussy, eat/drink the best food/wine, and basically just live on the edge of completely nihilism by utilizing the oldest weapon in the arsenal: usury.
When one looks around at their fellow Americans, what did/do they actually do to deserve their current lifestyles? If they are undeserving, then are they not worthy targets for total fuckage? And if that is the case, does it not explain the complete & utter disdain Wall St bankers & DC politicians exhibit towards the middle-class?
They think we're 'tards, plain & simple, and deserve every turn of the screw we're receiving.
dupe
+QFTMFW
Fractional Reserve Banking, whether thy central banksters serve it up via Modern Money Mechanics, or another name, will make indebted slaves out of any nation, continent or population, ultimately and EVERY TIME.
I had to quote the entire thing, because the wisdom of the pods, as contained in these words, is superfly.
Some other superfly quotes from history:
"The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing."
--William Paterson, founder of the Bank of England in 1694, then a privately owned bank.
"The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests."
--The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863.
"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of a pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this world would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain slaves of the Bankers and pay for the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."
--Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920s, the second richest man in Britain.
"I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hand the destiny of the people."
--Reginald McKenna, as Chairman of the Midland Bank, addressing stockholders in 1924.
"The banks do create money. They have been doing it for a long time, but they didn't realise it, and they did not admit it. Very few did. You will find it in all sorts of documents, financial textbooks, etc. But in the intervening years, and we must be perfectly frank about these things, there has been a development of thought, until today I doubt very much whether you would get many prominent bankers to attempt to deny that banks create it."
--H W White, Chairman of the Associated Banks of New Zealand, to the New Zealand Monetary Commission, 1955.
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."
--Thomas Jefferson, US President 1801-9.
"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain."
--Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France.
Nice, thanks for that. Orlov is brilliant.
V
True, true.
I'm in the caribbean right now, part holliday, but always looking at opportunities, interviewing and comparing. Looking at the different islands, and the different economies, and cultures (which often are a mixture of european and american ideas and other influences) some interesting differences emerge: some rich in resources, where inhabitants work their arse off because of government taxing the hell out of all the "necessary" imports. Some limited, doing great, nudging out each and every last available opportunity. All but a few are depending on some external structure that over the whole brings variety, but not wealth in it's most basic form: example; a scrapyard of old leaky freezers, used to store frozen imported foods, on an island which is one of the most fertile places on the planet. SUVs everywhere for the few miles of road. It's youth not making use of the education available, instead immersed in the Facebook-Blackberry culture, taught by example they're entitled to power, wealth instead of noticing the importance of self fulfillment through knowledge, skills and building on existing structures to better their communities.
It may come as no surprise that the more dollars, the more american influence, the worse the outlook.
I think it's the false expectations, the extended american dream, the idea that consumerism will last forever is most at fault.
There are some positive exeptions.
Is that you, Simon Black??
No, I'm less contentuous about my prowess as world citizen. Though I do believe mr. Blacks writings have some merit. :-)
Standing here the planet, even this old pirate refuge have turned into some skewed version of William Gibsons "Neuromancer". Technology, introduced for the sake of adding to the solution of the worlds problems has taken on another form; it's now a goal in itself.
I quit reading Charles Smith when he came to the ridiculous conclusion that the housing market woes, rather than jobs, were causing the economic crisis that we've only just begun to experience.
There are too many incompetent people running around, focused on housing as a cause, rather than a symptom, of our economic disease that is clearly caused by unemployment & underemployment (and the decreased wages and benefits that go along with these things, also).
"our economic disease that is clearly caused by unemployment & underemployment"
This is ridiculous. Unemployment is a symptom, not a cause. Unemployment is rising because automation technology displaces workers. In order to provide those diplaced workers with jobs, our economies must grow larger, so that they can get a job in construction or mining. Given that we are now approaching, likely overshooting, the ability of the natural world to support the size of our economies, economic growth has pretty much stopped. Therefore, what are those construction workers going to do for a job? Well, go on welfare.
Private corporations aren't going to pay 100 people to sweep the street with toothbrushes when they can instead do it with one person in a dediated street sweeping truck. It is obvious that private enterprise is only going to pay someone money to do something if it is profitable. And since the brainless neo-cons want to limit the size of government, then where are those displaced workers going to get jobs? From economic growth? I thought that was ending due to real world limits to growth?
Our governments refuse to reduce the workweek, which is the only solution.
Yes, housing woes caused literally trillions (50 trillion? 100 trillion? Much likely FAR MORE) of dollars worth of capital, factories, IT infrastructure and a minimum of 16 miliion jobs to flee the United States.
In fact, as just one of hundreds, if not thousands of examples, when Intel built its 3 billion dollar plant in China last year (or General Motors or General Electric in Mexico, or Caterpillar in China, or Pfizer in India, or [put whatever multinational here that closed or forewent a plant in the U.S. to relocate/build in [put whatever non-U.S. country here]), Intel specifically did so because the housing market in the U.S. was in terrible shape. Not only that, but that Intel factory in China will never supply processors in computers/tablets that are then sold in the U.S., and the kicker is that those non-U.S. employees will buy homes in the U.S. by the million count lot.
/SARC/
In reality, the housing bubble was another purposely built one, which allowed millions of Americans to 'land jobs' in the booming Real Estate industry, as electricians, Realtors, mortgage brokers, carpenters, window salesmen, excavators, civil engineers, title examiners, etc. etc. etc., where they had previously been gainfully employed in other industries (such as manufacturing), and so it served to hide the cancerous rot eating away at huge chunks of American Economic flesh - if only temporarily.
It was a band-aid that covered the putrid site and smell of the hollowing out of our economy, and it's being pulled away right now, and we've only gotten the band-aid about 1/3 of the way off.
Bananas&BubblesBernank is going to really have to dig hard and deep to try and create/sustain another bubble, but we all know he'll give it his very best effort, along with William Dudley, Timmmay, ObaMao, and whatever Republic candidate (controlled opposition) who does/does not get elected.
There's 1 trillion in budget cuts coming to state budgets over the next 20 months, and I now have people telling me that the "defense industry" is going to help save or mitigate the losses that are about to hit (they haven't, YET) the real economy; good luck to anyone with this mathematically challenged mindset.
Even average Americans are waking up by the millions now, to realize that Madoff, after being arrested and imprisoned, and calling the U.S. Economic System a "Ponzi Scheme,' was indeed correct - sometimes it takes the ultimate CON Man to cut to the chase and point out the ultimate CON Game, and that CON game is the CONfidence game that U.S. politicians, regulators and media proxy are playing upon the American Populace right now - Green shoots! Recovery summer (3.0)! Stabilization! Budget dsicipline!
All this, while the real economy worsens by the day, and the U.S. spends $1.42 for every $1 of revenue it takes in. Downgrade? The U.S. should be delisted (as should the European Union, Germany excluded, along with Japan & China), as a pink sheeter.
Another Luddite.
Actually I'm a mech engineer working with cutting edge technology
And this proves what, exactly?
That some % of Americans will still work, and some will even make good money, now, and even when things get far worse?
Many people were employed during the Great Depression, and some even got rich.
In the meantime, equity markets collapsed, as did living standards, economic growth and ROI.
It proves that I am not a Luddite.
There will always be jobs in America just not enough for full employment at 40 hours a week. When the currency more genuinely reflects america's true "productivity" (a false term because economies don't "produce" anything), ie when the US dollar collapses then America will be able to rebuild some manufacturing but never like before, the world is a different place never to return
Let me know how your personal, anectodtal experience does in determing the path of the future versus the overall data.
I'm really happy that you're doing fine in your own personal sphere, and I hope this remains the case, but a look at the data does not paint a cheery portrait of the horizon.
God, you idiots that suggest our job losses are due to technological advances annoy the shit out of me. Right, ATM's are to blame, right? Obama seems to think so, so it must be true. This is all about exporting manufacturing, and the real causes of that are the destruction of our currency and the insane costs of business operation within the USA.
/thank banksters
Yes atm's and mass production lines are to "blame".
US job exports are from artificially inflating the currency not from devaluing it
I would like to know by what means you are judging that the US is artificially INFLATING their currency?
Job exports are due to wage arbitrage. If you can get 1 billion Chinese to work for 10 bucks a day, you do it.
Sure our FRN may hold value than a Mexican peso, but that is not due to the dollar inflating. Just a faster horse in the glue factory.
If we truly were inflating the value of the currency, we could make the statement that "Well I only make 10k per year, but that was like 40k in the 1970s."
We have been devaluing the currency since about 1913, with a bit of a deflationary bump in the 30s.
pods
Funny part is, there was never any 'housing market woes', just another bank bubble created by the FED.
No, you want to know what the underlying disease was IMHO? A product called Abacus, iconistic example of the mind set and the kabal that was intentionally spawned in the great uncivic climate of 'greed is good' and used like a laser guided beam from a high up drone against the lowest income strata of society to feed the highest. One cannot get more dysfunctional, abusive in mind as in deed than that...
That is black art at its worst and its the sign of the times...Nero can truly play on his lyre while the poor burn in Rome as quintessential example of what mad empires are all about. Oh GWB how we all miss you so bad...9/11, your signature tune for the ages to come.
This is an absolutely brilliant article. It gets to the "social" infection of the liberal mindset. Liberals all think that the solution is the state... in other words someone else's problem to fix. This cancer has permeated Western culture to the point that there is a vacuum of accountability. For example, the vast number of people who have diabetes, have it due to eating too much... but don't ever come out and say that... someone would have to be accountable and responsible for their own actions (please - I'm not talking about the few people who have the disease, due to genetic factors which are out of their control).
The problem is that short of a social re-volution, nothing is going to change.
By liberals, you mean people driven by US citizenism, right?
Because when US citizens encountered stateless people, well, it did not go well for stateless people.
US citizens have always depicted the State as the most obvious sign of the more evolved character of their civilization.
Ah, memory, memory... No surprise US citizens hate on memorization, on the past, the past is coming back full fledge at them, them and their drivel lies...
Please take your left-right claptrap someplace else. Conservatives are just as big of statist as the liberals, unless you mean the conservatives who are going to be elected "next time."
They are all statists. Period.
pods
......speaking of 'cargo cult' takes me back to "Mondo Cane"....what a film....here's a good clip: http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=25872
....are we really that different as we await the Apple iPhone 5????????????
What we need is an understanding of what almost no one is talking about -- the laws of thermodynamics.
Technology in itself is not a solution, but it can do great things because there is fundamentally no shortage of energy out there, the problem is that we have been vorcibly addicted to fossil fuels by forces that are getting incredibly rich from this -- ie oil companies.
But technology is no substitute for ecology and we are still completely dependent on ecology for food and clean water, nothign will ever change that.
I have to somewhat disagree with "Here is the ugly truth about the Savior State, welfare state, social welfare state, or whatever you choose to call the Central State: The Savior State displaces and destroys community and social capital. By making individuals dependent on the Central State for free money, free food, free housing, etc., then the State has taken over the natural function of community."
We do need some central planning, the issue is who is doing the central planning. Is it being done by government who is elected by its people, with guidance from scientists and engineers who are studying and understandign the real world? Or is that central planning done by a private, for-profit entity (central bank) that offers no share ownership opportunities to the public, and that CONTROLS THE MONEY SUPPLY!, and controls the government whom it enslaves.
And I almost totally disagree that the problem is with the "nanny state". In the nanny state, wealth is taken from the rich and given to tthe poor. What we currently have is the complete opposite of a nanny state, the polar opposite of solcialism.
Every person needs to read about Mr. Soddy
Mr. Soddy’s Ecological EconomyFrederick Soddy, born in 1877, was an individualist who bowed to few conventions, and who is described by one biographer as a difficult, obstinate man. A 1921 Nobel laureate in chemistry for his work on radioactive decay, he foresaw the energy potential of atomic fission as early as 1909. But his disquiet about that power’s potential wartime use, combined with his revulsion at his discipline’s complicity in the mass deaths of World War I, led him to set aside chemistry for the study of political economy — the world into which scientific progress introduces its gifts. In four books written from 1921 to 1934, Soddy carried on a quixotic campaign for a radical restructuring of global monetary relationships. He was roundly dismissed as a crank.
He offered a perspective on economics rooted in physics — the laws of thermodynamics, in particular. An economy is often likened to a machine, though few economists follow the parallel to its logical conclusion: like any machine the economy must draw energy from outside itself. The first and second laws of thermodynamics forbid perpetual motion, schemes in which machines create energy out of nothing or recycle it forever. Soddy criticized the prevailing belief of the economy as a perpetual motion machine, capable of generating infinite wealth — a criticism echoed by his intellectual heirs in the now emergent field of ecological economics.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/opinion/12zencey.html
Most economic teaching today totally neglects the FACT that the economy functions as a sub-system of biosphere - there is a lack of meta and holism. Nature does not need us, but we absolutely need it.
Thermodynamics and other natural laws dictating the movement of energy and materials do not give a shit about whatever human economic construct we place over them. Hard science natural law (such as thermodynamics) are readily applicable to economic systems. We have to start seeing the functioning of the economy through the lens of more "hard science" theory.
In terms of central planning, if we figured out a way to mandate companies to internalize externalities as a function of the price consumers were paying for goods, the market itself would take care of nearly everything - the notion of "true cost"
Doncha' know... The Free Market will deal with these pesky thermodynamics issues....
They know how discount everything, hell, EMT tells us that the current price of an asset reflects the future, everything is priced in..
So don't worry, sit back relax. The market is going to fix it.
Ah... damn, the opium pipe just went out... back in a sec.
When did I see the "free market" will deal with thermodynamics, not once. What I was implying, was that from a policy perspective, we have to start implementing measures which are premised upon the school of ecological economics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics
You're one of these "free market failed" us types, aren't you?
Free markets work only with functioning methods (and ones which ARE NOT manipulated) of price discovery - those no longer exist and haven't for quite some time.
Further, a free market cannot exist with centralized currency and interest rate control.
How can something break which never existed in the first place? I'm glad you are supporting one of the official memes from GOVCORP though.
And when those free markets were in action?
I love the "all or nothing types"....
While not a pure manichean dynamic, the vast majority here see things only in black and white...Free markets are a myth; there will be always somebody trying to gain an upperhand and game the system. Do you think making the markets "free" will make all the crooks and sociopaths go away? Are you that naive?
BTW, where the hell did I support anything in what I wrote?
>Free markets are a myth; there will be always somebody trying to gain an upperhand and game the system.
You're quite right; people are imperfect and so is everything they do. But that's no reason to not seek free markets.
It's like this: there will always be some percentage of the population that commits crime like murder. But one can still morally oppose murder at every opportunity.
In any case, the clothes and food you enjoy today are provided by capitalism and a worldwide market - even if it is hampered.
Huh no.
Capitalism provides nothing.
Clothes are made of resources.
Capitalism might exist out of any resource. Clothes no.
That is the way it is.
I "understand" markets and their role. They have served us all pretty well for the most part, but they are not the end-all and be-all that some here make them to be.
Seriously, I need one of you "truly free markets are the most perfectest system ever!" folks to help me out here. I hear you talking, waxing poetic and getting all misty-eyed... liberty this, and free that, "and we'd have it too if only it weren't for those pesky ____!" (Shades of the crotchety Old Bad Guy on Scooby Doo?). I am asking you in all seriousness; please describe to me how exactly this dream free market society looks, how it would operate. What is this Truly Free Market? Not some high-minded pseudo-prose about flames of liberty and eagles and founding fathers and shit. I mean nuts and bolts. What exactly do you think is a free market? Discuss, bitches.
Areed, there is no such thing as a free market because it's freeness will soon make it easy prey for big bullies. "fair" market is a better term and they are not free and they have to be carefully regulated which of course is not being done. We are now seeing the wonderful result of unregulated free markets
To be fair, they are regulated but not in a fair way. Unenforced regulations don't count for much... Might have something to do with the "market" capturing the regulatory apparatus at the both the administrative and legislative levels....
>We have to start seeing the functioning of the economy through the lens of more "hard science" theory.
There is no way to reconcile causal, quantitative sciences like physics and teleological, subjective sciences like economics. Mankind has access to no mathematical algorithm that can explain why I prefer an apple one day and a banana the next. The only way to understand economics is through actual understanding.
>Hard science natural law (such as thermodynamics) are readily applicable to economic systems.
No. The two sciences are fundamentally incompatible. As I said, one is causal, the other teleological.
I strongly recommend that you read "The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science", available free online, instead of trying to reinvent the square wheel.
>Soddy criticized the prevailing belief of the economy as a perpetual motion machine, capable of generating infinite wealth
It depends how you define wealth. Probably hoarders whose houses are full to the brim with old magazines and rat droppings consider themselves wealthier than you. Value is entirely subjective.
You science deniers always crack me up. You think that somehow our economies have escaped the constraints of the laws of physics because some free market economist can make up an imaginary thought experiment.
Here's some news -- ECONOMICS IS NOT SCIENCE IT IS IMAGINATION
I have done a long winded modern update to thermoeconomics
http://markbc.wordpress.com/thermodynamics-for-economists
Economics is the continuation of Ideology by other means....
(with apologies to Clausewitz)
Ha! I'm gonna use that one.
Thnx..... I came up with it a few years ago. I dust it off when it is appropriate..
Thank you, I will read this
As a fellow freemarketeer, anarchocapitalist, I admire your effort to trudge through the ocean of ignorant posts and respond to a few in hope of administering effective guidance. I'm getting a little overwhelmed with these people.
Lookie here everyone! We got a hopelessly romantic idealist running amok....
Give me a low tech agrarian society with no growth, a reasonably fair distribution of arable land, and maybe then, just maybe, your idealist view of the socio-political-economy might have a chance...
For all I know, Peak Oil is pointing in that direction, but I doubt that there will be a "fair" distribution of land. I think Feudalism will be in the offing... YMMV
hopeless....
Is that the best you can do?
My god, this guy is even more lost in the hashish induced haze of anarchy than I had imagined...
Before spouting off about the political-economy, you might want to review the 6000 or so years of history that we have under our belt....
Maybe he was just describing the inevitable end result of being an anarchocapitalist...
I think you are on to something....
In the event of actual anarchic conditions, you are entirely correct. You will indeed be overwhelmed by these people. Literally.
They don't have to be reconciled, I'm not trying to create some sort of hard science / soft science uberscience here.
We only have to realize the nested heirarchy of operating principles. If an economic system makes assumptions which are at odds with the physical system it is plastered over - there will be corrections.
I'm going to give you a VERY practical example of what I am talking about, something I personally dealt with, an assumption that is at odds with thermodynamics. I worked as a valuation consultant for a while, when doing DCF models the last column, the terminal value is estimated using the assumption of perpetual growth.
Terminal value (t) = [Cash flow (t+1)] / [r-g(stable)]
Cash Flow t+1 represents the first year beyond the discounted cash flow analysis, r is the interest rate and g is the stable growth rate.
Then this terminal value gets discounted and summed up along with all of the other cash flows to come to a firms' valuation.
Do you see a problem with this?
The dividend discount model, one very popular method of stock valuation uses a similar constant, g, assigning perpetual growth to a particular cash flow.
Underlying many valuation models is the assumption that perpetual growth occurs when this is mutually exclusive from the operating principles of physical systems.
//why I prefer an apple one day and a banana the next//
Your choices are emergent properties of neurons creating motor movement. The neurochemical "why" is understood that will lead you to choose a banana regardless of "why" you chose the banana over the apple.
You choosing "apple" has a neurocorrelate, you choosing "banana" has a neurocorrelate. Understanding the neurcorrelates for things, we can simulate choosen behaviors by activating the proper neurons for "choose apple" and "choose banana." Your inner experience of strong autonomy is an appearance, a necessary appearance for the sake of reproduction.
Thank you for that, I see some things confirmed in the micro economies I'm looking at.
Basically we're looking at the end of an age of ravenous consumerism,that was put into place for another reason than just economic prosperity. It miht help to look at fringe ideas, ravings of a "crank", to put current issues into perspective. Someone else will do that for us if we don't.
And that's both frustrating and exciting about the present condition of "suspended" reality.
For sure the main problems of society are social, not technological, but I'm not sure evolution allows us the level of selflessness required to behave like a hive for the overall betterment of the human race and the planet. Sounds like a bummer but I see the prisoner's dilemma driving most of what we do while we race to outconsume each other and wipe the earth clean of all resources.
It seems to be almost too much of an abstraction for us as humans to live as a species and not as individuals. In fact we generally idealize individualism, I know I do. But that may be the main human characteristic that prevents us from solving our problems - it was a great trait that led to our massive expansion over the earth when there was lots of room. I know I sound like Locutus of Borg here.