Over the last week or two, the peak oil scene has been going through another round of its ongoing flirtation with fantasies of overnight collapse. This time the trigger was a recent paper by David Korowicz of Feasta, which I discussed a few weeks back and which you can download in PDF format here.
As I mentioned in that earlier post, it’s a well-written study, limited only by a few frankly unrealistic assumptions about how governments tend to react when faced with an immediate threat to national survival, and Korowicz detailed his presuppositions clearly enough that a thoughtful reader can easily bracket the improbable parts of the study and extract the very real value to be found elsewhere in it. Korowicz is quite correct in suggesting that the current global financial system is a house of cards that could easily come crashing to the ground, taking a quadrillion dollars or so of imaginary wealth with it and dealing the world’s industrial societies a staggering blow.
It’s purely his suggestion that this could cause the global economy to freeze up, not for weeks, but for years or even longer, that strays out of the realm of realism into territory mapped out well in advance by Western civilization’s penchant for apocalyptic fantasies. In the real world, of course, governments facing sudden financial collapse don’t just sit on their hands and make plaintive sounds; they take action, and there are plenty of actions they can take, since a financial collapse doesn’t actually make anything of value go away. Money, let us please remember, is not wealth; it’s a set of arbitrary tokens people in complex human societies use to manage the distribution of real wealth; if a monetary system breaks down, other ways can readily be jerry-rigged to keep real wealth moving.
Glance through the last century of economic history and you’ll find plenty of examples of governments responding to sudden financial crises with equally sudden, drastic measures that worked, at least in the short term—and while it’s always popular to say "It’s different this time," I hope my readers recall how often, and inaccurately, these same words get used in the not unrelated field of speculative bubbles. The parallel’s not inappropriate, since the believer in the latest speculative delusion uses those words to convince himself that he doesn’t have to put up with the common but unwelcome experience of having to work hard to become wealthy. In the same way, I suspect, much of the popularity of fast-collapse scenarios come from the fact that many people want to convince themselves that they don’t have to put up with the common but unwelcome experience of the decline and fall of a civilization. The temptation to get it over with, or at least to daydream about getting it over with, is a strong one.
I mention all this again because the theme of this week’s post centers on another kind of sudden disruption that occurs tolerably often in history, one that we’re probably going to see repeated in the not too distant future here in the US and elsewhere. Just as financial systems routinely come unglued, so do political systems; in both cases, though it takes years of mismanagement to build to the point of crisis, the crisis itself can hit suddenly and bring shattering change in a very short time; in both cases, in turn, the aftermath involves substantial losses, a great deal of frantic jerry-rigging and damage control, and then a return to a new normal that often has little in common with what the old normal used to be.
Political power’s a remarkable thing. Though Mao Zedong was quite correct to point out that it grows out of the barrel of a gun, it has to be transplanted into more fertile soil in short order or it will soon wither and die. A successful political system of any kind quickly establishes, in the minds of the people it rules, a set of beliefs and attitudes that define the political system as the normal, appropriate, and acceptable form of government for that people. That sense of legitimacy is the foundation on which any enduring government must build, for when people see their government as legitimate, no matter how appalling it appears to outsiders, they will far more often than not put up with its excesses and follow its orders.
It probably needs to be said here that legitimacy is not a rational matter and has nothing to do with morality or competence; great nations all through history have calmly accepted the legitimacy of governments run by thieves, tyrants, madmen and fools. Still, a government that has long held popular legitimacy can still lose it, and can do so in a remarkably short time. Those of my readers who are old enough to have watched the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact satellites will recall the speed with which the rulers of several Communist nations saw the entire apparatus of their government dissolve around them as the people they claimed the right to rule stopped cooperating.
Now of course that sudden collapse of legitimacy was long in preparing. Just as a singer or writer who becomes an overnight success normally gets there after many years of hard work, the implosion of a system of government normally follows many years of bad decisions and unheard warnings, and it’s not too hard in retrospect to trace how simmering unrest eventually rose to a full boil; still, the benefits of hindsight can be misleading, because it’s actually quite rare for anyone to catch on to what’s building in advance. As the famous Affair of the Diamond Necklace dragged the prestige of the French monarchy in the mud, Talleyrand commented to a friend, "Pay attention to this wretched necklace-affair; I should not be in the least surprised if it overturns the throne"—but then Talleyrand was one of the supreme political observers of the age; to most others in France in 1784, it was just one more tawdry royal scandal in a country that had seen plenty of them already.
We have seen plenty of equally tawdry scandals in the United States of late, and it’s easy to ignore the impact of, let’s say, the Obama administration’s systematic refusal to bring charges against any of the financiers whose spectacularly blatant acts of fraud helped fuel, and then pop, the recent housing bubble. Still, I’ve come to think that a modern Talleyrand might see things differently. Had Obama acted otherwise, the Democratic party would likely have come to dominate the American political scene for the next forty years as thoroughly as it did for the four decades or so after 1932; instead, by giving the country a remarkably good imitation of the third term of George W. Bush, the Obama administration has convinced a sizable fraction of Americans that they have nothing to hope for from either party. It’s symptomatic that a recent Rasmussen poll found that only 17% of respondents thought that a choice between Obama and Romney for president represented the best that America could do.
It’s all too common for the political class of a troubled nation to lose track of the fact that, after all, its power depends on the willingness of a great many people outside the political class to do what they’re told. In Paris in 1789, in St. Petersburg in 1917, and in a great many other places and times, the people who thought that they held the levers of power and repression discovered to their shock that the only power they actually had was the power to issue orders, and those who were supposed to carry those orders out could, when matters came to a head, decide that their own interests lay elsewhere. In today’s America, equally, it’s not the crisply dressed executives, politicians, and bureaucrats who currently hold power who would be in a position to enforce that power in a crisis; it’s the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, police officers and Homeland Security personnel, who are by and large poorly paid, poorly treated, and poorly equipped, and who have not necessarily been given convincing reasons to support the interests of a political class that most of them privately despise, against the interests of the classes to which they themselves belong.
Such doubts and dissatisfactions can build for a long time before the crisis hits. If history shows anything, it’s that trying to time that crisis is very nearly a guarantee of failure. Sooner or later, once the system’s legitimacy becomes sufficiently doubtful, some event dramatic enough to seize the collective imagination will trigger the final collapse of legitimacy and the implosion of the system, but what that event will be and when it will come is impossible to know in advance. Not even Talleyrand seems to have guessed in advance that the calling of the Estates-General in 1789 would set off the final crisis of the monarchy whose collapse he accurately anticipated—but then who could have predicted the spur-of-the-moment improvisation that led representatives of the Third Estate to proclaim themselves a National Assembly, or the circumstances that sent a Paris mob running through the streets to storm the Bastille?
What follows the moment of crisis is a little less opaque to anticipation. France in 1789 and Russia in 1917 were both politically centralized nations in which power was primarily exercised from the capital city, and revolutionary politicians and urban mobs in Paris and St. Petersburg respectively thus had an overwhelming impact on the course of events, and radical change there spread rapidly throughout the country, since there were no effective centers of power outside the core. In less centralized countries, control of the capital is less decisive; the seizure of power by Parliament and the London mob in 1641 in England bears close comparison with events in the two later revolutions, but when the rubble of the English Civil War finally stopped bouncing, the system that resulted was much closer to the one that had been in place before 1641 than, say, France after the revolution resembled the Ancien Régime; the survival of familiar modes of government in peripheral centers made it easier for those same modes to be restored once the revolutionary era was over.
That degree of regional independence did not survive in England, but the European pattern of political geography, whereby the capital city of each nation-state normally becomes its political and cultural hub and its largest population center, did not catch on anything like so well in North America. In the United States and Canada alike, the national capital and the largest population center are two different cities; in both nations, as well as Mexico, large regional divisions—states or provinces—maintain a prickly independence from the central government, and regional cultures remain a potent political force. The United States is the most extreme example of the lot; Washington DC is for all practical purposes a modest regional center that just happens to share space with a national government meeting, and there is no place in the country where even the largest urban mob could have a decisive impact on the survival of the federal government.
The complex historical processes that brought thirteen diverse colonies under a single federal system, furtthermore, left a great deal of power in the hands of the states. Very little of that power is used these days; repeated expansions of the originally very limited powers given to the national government have left most substantive issues in the hands of federal bureaucrats, and left the states little more to do than carrying out costly federal mandates at their own expense. Still, the full framework of independent government—executive, legislative, and judicial—remains in place in each state; state governors retain the power to call up every adult citizen to serve in the state militia; and, finally and critically, the states have kept the constitutional power to bring the whole system to a screeching halt.
You’ll find that power spelled out in Article V of the US Constitution. If two thirds of state legislatures call for a constitutional convention to amend the Constitution, the convention will happen; if three quarters of state legislatures vote to ratify any amendment to the Constitution passed by the convention, that amendment goes into effect. It’s that simple. Congress has nothing to say about it; the President has nothing to say about it; the Supreme Court has nothing to say about it; the federal government is, at least in theory, stuck on the sidelines. That power has never been used; the one time it was seriously attempted, in 1913, Congress forestalled the state legislatures by passing a constitutional amendment identical to the one for which the states were agitating, and submitting it to the state legislatures for ratification. The power nonetheless remains in place, a bomb hardwired into the Constitution.
What makes that bomb so explosive is that there are very nearly no limits to what a constitutional convention can do. The only thing the Constitution specifies is that no amendment can take away a state’s equal representation in the Senate. Other than that, as long as two thirds of the states call for the convention and three quarters of the states ratify its actions, whatever comes out of it is the supreme law of the land. Everything is up for grabs; it would not be beyond the power of a constitutional convention, for example, to provide a legal means for states to withdraw peacefully from the Union, or even to repeal the Constitution and dissolve the Union altogether.
Had the leaders of the southern states in 1860 been less proud and more pragmatic, it’s entirely possible that they could have won their independence and spared themselves the catastrophe of the Civil War by some such measure as this. It’s eerily plausible to imagine Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi rising in the Senate that year to propose an amendment to provide for the peaceful dissolution of the Union, denouncing the radicals on both sides of the slavery issue who were pushing the nation toward civil war, and offering a peaceful separation of the states as the only workable solution to the problem that had dogged the nation for so long—and it’s by no means hard, at a time when most Americans still wanted to avoid war, to imagine such a proposal getting the votes it would need from Congress and the states to take effect.
Any further development of that speculation can be left to fans of alternate history. Under most conditions, of course, no such proposal would ever be seriously made, much less accepted, but 1860 offers a trenchant reminder that under the pressure of irreconcilable conflict, the system of government we have in the United States can freeze up completely and make desperate measures the order of the day. In 1860, the US government lost its legitimacy in a third of the country, and it took the 19th century’s bloodiest conflict to bring back the southern states to a grudging and incomplete obedience. In the crisis of legitimacy that’s building in today’s America, a rising spiral of conflicts between regions also plays an important role, but this time the federal government can hardly count on the passionate loyalty it got a century and a half ago from the Northeast and the Midwest; in fact, it’s hard to think of any corner of the country where distrust and disaffection for the current government haven’t put down deep roots already.
If and when the crisis comes, it’s anyone’s guess what exactly will happen, but the possibility that the states will call on their power to redefine the Constitution—whether they use it to reshape the national government, or to let the country split apart into smaller nations along regional lines—belongs somewhere on the list of potential outcomes. For that matter, it’s anyone’s guess what will spark such a crisis, if in fact one does come. The triggering event might well be political, or economic, or even environmental. Still, if I had to make a guess, it would be that the most likely triggering event will be military. We’ll open that immense can of worms next week.
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End of the World of the Week #34
What could be more convincing, at least for believers in an imminent apocalypse, than eyewitness accounts of one of the most important details in the apocalyptic prophecy happening right now? That’s the question devout Christians had to answer for themselves in the year 171 CE, when a priest named Montanus announced that the events prophesied in the Book of Revelation were taking place then and there. "There," specifically, was Phrygia, in what is now part of Turkey; that’s where Montanus lived, and that’s where his followers repeatedly spotted nothing less than the New Jerusalem, hovering in the air above the modest Phrygian market town of Pepuza.
The New Prophecy, as Montanus’ belief system was called at the time, became a nine days’ wonder in the early Christian church, and attracted a great many followers—notably women, who were being forced out of the positions of prominence they had held earlier on. Two women, Priscilla and Maximilla, who left their husbands to follow Montanus became prophets in their own right, and they and Montanus became known as "the Three"—a term with certain resonances in more recent apocalyptic movements. Despite excommunication by the main body of the church, the Montanist movement remained active for at least four centuries, waiting for the New Jerusalem to finish its descent onto Pepuza—and if there are any Montanists left, of course, they’re still waiting.
94 comments:
8/9/12, 4:58 PM
Puzzler said...
Much like the Doomsday Bomb in Doctor Strangelove.
Are you sure JMG didn't leave earlier for an undisclosed location?
--------
Seriously, thanks JMG for breaking out Article V. Many people think of Amendments to the Constitution as originating from US Congress.
But it is hard to imagine 2/3 agreeing to propose -- nor 3/4 ratifying -- an anything substantive.
8/9/12, 5:38 PM
Jennifer D Riley said...
8/9/12, 5:43 PM
American People's New Economic Charter said...
For an exploration of this scenario - "http://interstates2040.wikispaces.com/" see "Inter States 2040" at http://interstates2040.wikispaces.com/
8/9/12, 5:59 PM
shiningwhiffle said...
8/9/12, 6:15 PM
Kathleen Quinn said...
But then again, I don’t need convincing. I don’t share the common penchant for apocalyptic fantasy, and I love to consider various possible long descent scenarios. While I am doing that, I am quietly taking my admittedly meager tokens of real wealth out of the system and investing them in my neighbors, educating my kids without the assistance or input of the state, and trying to figure out a way to feed my livestock without Midwestern grain. A foot on the path towards not doing what I am told, perhaps?
I am always hopeful though (er, most of the time), and I appreciate the reminder about our constitutionally-guaranteed “out”. It will be fun to think about how such a scenario might play out. Perhaps mine own New York State, with its fair share of thieves, tyrants, madmen and fools—past and present-- would rise to the occasion. Stranger things have happened, right?!
Cheers,
Kathleen
8/9/12, 7:15 PM
Sue W said...
Minor quibble in that the 19th Century's bloodiest conflict is probably the Napoleonic one (up to 5 million dead in Europe, 1803-1815).
8/9/12, 7:16 PM
escapefromwisconsin said...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/11/has-a-harvard-professor-mapped-out-the-next-step-for-occupy-wall-street/247561/
And I recall a similar argument for a sudden political crisis made in a book called "It Can Happen Here" by Bruce Judson. He has a blog too; this post is particularly apropos to this discussion.
I meant to remark last week that if the only constituents you really hear from are the ones that can afford to pay $10,000 to have dinner with you, you'll have a skewed perspective on how the country's doing.
8/9/12, 7:22 PM
escapefromwisconsin said...
Could Congress invalidate your state's constitution and demand it be rewritten?
The answer -- disconcertingly enough for those who regard the states as "sovereign," as against the federal government -- is almost certainly yes. It won't happen, of course. But last month, a related question emerged that may have more practical importance: Could a federal court do the same thing?
The clause that raises this question is called the Guaranty, or "Republican Form of Government," Clause of Article IV, § 4. It provides that "[t]he United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government . . . ." The clause, usually obscure, is relevant now because of a preliminary district court decision on July 30 in Kerr v. Hickenlooper, a case in which members of Colorado's legislature have gone to court to argue that the state's own constitution is unconstitutional.
The target is Colorado's so-called "Taxpayer's Bill of Rights," enacted by initiative in 1992, which essentially bars both the state and local governments from raising any tax without a prior approval by popular vote. The plaintiffs' complaint in Kerr contends that "[a]n effective legislative branch must have the power to raise and appropriate funds." Removing this power entirely, the argument goes, in essence leaves the state without a functioning legislature. In turn, a state without a legislature cannot have a "republican form of government."
This leads to the following scenario of slow collapse, which we're already seeing play out:
1.) The investor class, who are collecting ever more of the nation's wealth, buy their way out of paying taxes through campaign contributions and posing as "job creators"
2.) Taxes are shifted onto the back of the working classes who are becoming ever poorer (leading to less overall income). Unable to control their salaries, they try and gain back lost income through the only thing they can control - taxes.
3.) The middle class backs tax revolts sponsored by the investor class essentially stripping the government of the right to tax its citizens (in reality no one will vote for higher taxes).
4.) The middle class and the wealthy still expect and demand first-world government services, but there is no money to pay for it. Government issues debt to pay what it can't pay with taxes, however there is no way to pay back the debt plus interest.
5.) Government contracts. Job losses in the public sector counter gains in the private sector; poorly paid officials become corrupt. Infrastructure degrades and the corporate welfare the private sector depends on dries up, leading to economic depression, especially with rising energy prices.
6.) wash, rinse, repeat until utlimate bankruptcy and deligitimization of government.
8/9/12, 7:45 PM
Smith Mill Creek Notes said...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
8/9/12, 8:02 PM
jollyreaper said...
Some minds thrive on risk and chaos. Gambling, chance, it's what makes them feel alive. This is the kind of stress that will literally eat the average person alive, leaving them prematurely aged, broken, burned out.
If the king drops dead right in the middle of the court and the crown is there for anyone to pick up, even as the sensible courtiers stand back, some rash fool is going to reach for it, possibly several fools. Or maybe not fools since they aren't suffering for their decision; possibly it's better to call them sociopaths.
Authority and legitimacy are a kind of magic. Someone says to do something and the people that make it happen obey. Some may do it because they think the person giving the orders has legitimate authority, others might obey simply for fear of the consequences.
It's always amazing to see when that fear dissolves, when even the most frightening dictator's carefully crafted image is dispelled and all that's left is an old man who isn't being listened to anymore. Five minutes ago a word from him could have you dead. Now it's an empty threat. That's some kind of black magic right there, spooky.
8/9/12, 8:11 PM
Ventriloquist said...
To be followed by . . .
Glance through the last century of economic history and you’ll find plenty of examples of governments responding to sudden financial crises with equally sudden, drastic measures that . . . failed miserably and caused far more trouble than the issues that preceeded them.
I have zero faith in "governments" doing anything right when subjected to stress. Including any of the ones in power today.
8/9/12, 8:12 PM
Thijs Goverde said...
A-and I learned something interesting; I'd never heard of that article V. Which is not, perhaps, that surprising for a European.
We in the EU may be envying you that precise article in the near future, though! There is definitely something to say for starting a federation on purpose, and actually thinking about what that entails and what poblems may com up, rather than just stumbling your way into one.
Which reminds me: your comparison between Europe and the US, re the centralisarion of power, doesn't quite work. It's true that most European countries are rather centralised (Belgium being a very notable exception), but let's not forget that most European countries are more or less the size of what you would call a state (or, in the cases of e.g. Luxemburg and Denmark, a medium-sized to large city, at least in terms of population).
The more correct corrspondence to the US would be the EU, and to call the EU a centralised power would be... well... hilrious? In that bitter, I'm-laughing-to-keep-from-crying way?
8/9/12, 9:04 PM
LewisLucanBooks said...
I can still remember the last time a 2/3 majority of the States were called on to amend the Constitution. It was the attempted passage of the Equal Rights Amendment for women's rights.
The resistance from the lunatic fringe was pretty rabidly nuts. That era's "death panels." But calmer resistance seemed to come from an abhorrence of tampering with the Constitution.
8/9/12, 10:35 PM
Joy said...
The truly aggrieved are the tax mules, people working in the private sector who pay substantial taxes and receive no benefit checks. This is only about 1/4th of the population, and they have been well trained to fight amongst themselves about social issues of no economic importance. Conclusion, as long as the benefit checks keep coming, Western countries will remain stable.
8/9/12, 10:38 PM
SunsetSu said...
8/9/12, 10:57 PM
bhavana said...
Hi JMG, I'm not sure how close we are to a tipping point. I tend to agree that gov's can act in a co-coordinated way when it suits them.
Apocalypse always seems a bit Hollywood, but I think we maybe going to a much smaller population one way or another.
I think we may be at tipping point beyond government intervention, or more correctly a BAU approach may be leading to something much more dire, hence the link above.
8/10/12, 1:37 AM
Ivan Lukic said...
8/10/12, 2:18 AM
Mean Mr Mustard said...
Corporate power has never had legitimacy, but is increasingly able to exploit - outsourcing labour to deregulated nations, while first and third world workforces merge, subjected to poverty wages and worse such as 'education' debt, workfare, and the prison industrial complex, while TBTF bankers hold entire economies to ransom.
Why should they worry about their legitimacy? When such deep and increasing dependency is set up, they can do as they please.
At least I'll be making my very own non-corporate raspberry jam this weekend. Jam tomorrow!
8/10/12, 2:23 AM
Norman P said...
The United States is no exception.
The nation was nominally created in 1776, one year after the viable steam engine was patented by James Watt in England.
Unconnected?
Try to imagine a country the size of the United States being built and held together without the leverage of the steam engine. The first commercial oilwells were drilled with steam power. Nations might look to their military for outward expressions of power, but armies can only fight with the energy sources available. Before the steam engine, gun barrels were hand made, with steam power came mass production. In the civil war the northern states had most of the industry and steam powered factories, and simply outproduced the southern states in weaponry. The nation was held together by force of arms, but that was backed up by superior factory output.
After the civil war, the power released from coal and oil drove the expansion of the nation and America became a web of highways, cities and transport systems built for a common prosperity of commerce and trade. But its critical factor was and still is the constant availability of endless supplies of cheap energy. More and more fuel must be burned to remain viable, the national crisis will come when energy flow stops, or becomes too expensive to use. At that point the government will lose control, America will cease to be and the nation will fall apart and collapse into autonomous regions, and subsequently into separate nations. Ethnic, theocratic and geographic borders are already in place, and the people are fully armed. As JMG points out, people will only follow government orders if they perceive them to be in their best interests, if not, they will become the instruments of separation. That will inevitably mean bloodshed, but this time around, separation will be permanent.
8/10/12, 3:07 AM
russell1200 said...
Your point about centralization. The fighting in the Vendee after the French Revolution is the exception that makes the rule. And sometimes Nations look very centralized on the surface when they are not at the core – as Napoleon found out in Spain. Any centralized attempt to take over the U.S. would drag on for years. There isn’t enough parking near the seats of power to overthrow them, and we are not in good enough shape to walk.
8/10/12, 3:28 AM
Larry said...
8/10/12, 5:36 AM
Robert Beckett said...
Thank you for explaining how Article V could allow secession and /or dissolution of the American federation. Here in Canada, Quebec has come within a hair's breath of secession at least twice in my lifetime, over language and cultural differences, ostensibly.
In that same timeframe, the slippage of democratic institutions and the pre-eminence of corporate influence: one need only look at our presently venal governing party which seems intent on following the path blazed by the Republicans in your country towards a form of rabid, barking madness, dangerous to all and ultimately terminal.
Loss of legitimacy, indeed.
Where the tipping points may be revealed in the three NAFTA partners is anyone's guess, as you say. Massive inequality in Mexico and sky-rocketing corn prices? Growing inequality and massive unemployment and homelessness in the US? Growing regional disparity and economic hardship in Canada and the fact of a distinct society in Quebec?
The tanks rolled through Montreal in 1970 (FLQ crisis) under the most popular leader ever in this country, Pierre Trudeau,and order was quickly restored. Would Mr. Harper be so well received if he invoked martial law today? 150,000 students took to the streets recently in Quebec for weeks of demonstrations, airing their grievances and attracting union supporters.
If Quebec seceeded, what of the Maritimes with greater common cause with New England than the Canadian west?
And so on westward.
Which of the four horsemen will be seen first on the horizon here or there?
Robert
8/10/12, 5:37 AM
Edde said...
Just found this, possibly entertaining new book on secession: Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern Manifesto For Southern Secession by Chuck Thompson
http://www.powells.com/biblio/9781451616651?&PID=32513
Best regards,
edde
8/10/12, 7:08 AM
MawKernewek said...
8/10/12, 7:44 AM
Myriad said...
I think most of the scenario-space under consideration here involves the benefit checks not coming. Or more likely and realistically, the content of those checks becoming too devalued to significantly contribute to (let alone assure) survival.
8/10/12, 7:49 AM
Ricardo Rolo said...
In spite of not being myself a expert on american laws ( not being american surely helps there ;) ), your explanation on that legal timebomb in the american constitution makes me remind a interview I seen of Mikhail Gorbatchev to one TV of my country a decade or so ago ( so with a decade and half of interval since the USSR implosion ). At a point of the interview, the reporter does the praxis question of how Gorbatchev explained the demise of the USSR , most likely expecting a tried and tested canned response ( lack of liberty, economical mishaps, Afghanistan, Reagan Star wars ... just pick one )... infact I was also expecting it. But then he surprised me when he starts talking about the USSR 1924 constitution ...
Aparently Gorbatchev considered that, what really had made the USSR fall ( most likely he meant the proverbial last drop that makes the bucket spill out ) was the fact that all the USSR constitutions since the first had in clear and unambiguous text that ( quoting the last one ) "Each Union Republic shall retain the right to freely secede from the USSR. " ... and then in 1990 one of the Soviet republics ( Lithuania ) pressured for a legal framework for that article ( because there wasn't any ). The Supreme Soviet weaves out one ( Gorbatchev wasn't too specific at this point of the interview, but it was heavily hinted that the designed mechanism was made to put the smaller and more problematic republics ( especially the baltic ones ) still in the USSR orbit economically even if they politically seceded ... you might call it a Soviet EEC/EU ), and then it happens the unthinkable for the Gorbatchev administration and RUSSIA of all people decides to abandon the USSR. As the secession law was made under the unspoken assumption that Russia would be the one that would never leave ( and thus the economical and demographic weight of Russia would be used to keep the would-be seceders in USSR orbit even if they got out politically of the Union ), there was simply no way to avoid that the most powerful Soviet republic to leave without the USSR becoming a hollowed husk. Gorbatchev ended hinting that this was not, in his opinion, anyway inevitable and that was more the result of a series of acidental political manouvers that putted him and a young and ambitious Ieltsin in colision course ( not that I agree much with his opinion, but he has the distinct advantage of having been in the eye of that particular hurricane ).
Well, due to the fact that there isn't any US state that has the weight that Russia had inside the USSR, this is not directly appliable to the USA. But I've had been hearing a very persistant rumour for a year or two that Germany has a backup plan for the the Euro crisis, that is ... well, you guessed, leave the Euro alltogether and emit some kind of new marks, leaving the rest of the Eurozone to their own means ( and you would be probably forced to measure in femtoseconds the time the Eurozone would hold in one piece without Germany ) ...
8/10/12, 7:55 AM
Ricardo Rolo said...
Just to end, your point on real power reminded me of the time that the gas truck drivers decided to go on strike in my country 3 or 4 years ago ...in 24 h there were some gas shortages, in 48 h it as quite hard to find a pump with the cheaper mixtures, in 60 h the governement was forced to use army gas trucks ( in full military caravan ) to get fuel to the vital infrastructures ( especially airports and ports ) ... and in 72 h the governement caved in full line to the gas truck drivers demands. In the end most of the times the most powerful persons in a society are not the ones that appear to be ...
8/10/12, 7:56 AM
ando said...
It continues to amaze me how historically illiterate I am. Glad you are remedying that!
thanks,
ando
8/10/12, 8:11 AM
Yupped said...
My own experience is that as you start to take care of your own needs more directly (food, energy, medicine, entertainment, etc) you step back and start to question the systems that were providing those things for you, and from the questioning you see how rotten they are. And so you withdraw your consent in quite a tangible way. More and more people seem to be going through this process now. I don’t think this is anything like a majority, of course, but something is starting to happen.
8/10/12, 8:19 AM
Sunny said...
I recall a time in my life when I was desperately hoping for the aocalypse to arrive just to excuse myself from any responsibility in the real world. I lost a job over it and nearly failed out of college over it, telling myself and others, "Well what's the point of working a job anyway if in a few years the entire world is going to collapse and within ten years the earth will go back to a medieval feudal system." Of course, I didn't have any real factual reason to believe any of this. It was purely psychological; it was purely a distorted resurfacing of a deeper unconscious desire to run away from my unglamorous responsibilities at my job.
In the end, I gained absolutely nothing from that year awaiting the apocalypse, just a small garden plot of dead plants and lots of wasted money on survival supplies. In fact, my commitment to the apocalypse only sabotaged the real opportunities I had to live life that year, taking away my motivation to give any effort to my real world responsibilities. It was really funny, though, how as soon as I started to take pride in my job again and value my relationship with the world that the apocalyptic fantasies vanished or turned into images of pure shame and ridicule.
8/10/12, 8:29 AM
Don Plummer said...
Nevertheless, despite the fact that the states have these powers, and despite the fact that we cannot really know what is going to happen once the crisis trigger is pulled, the fact remains that currently many state officeholders are in the same big corporate pockets as the federal officeholders. (Just note how successful ALEC has become getting their "model legislation" passed in many states.) Therefore, it's hard not to speculate that when the crisis comes, the whole shebang, federal and state governments alike, is likely go up in flames simultaneously. Some of the more independent-minded states (e.g., Vermont) might weather that storm with their governments more or less intact, but I really wonder if the government of my own state--Ohio--will fare very well.
(ALEC, for the sake of John's overseas readers, stands for American Legislative Exchange Council and is an organization funded by large corporations. Many of its members are state legislators. The group's purpose has been to funnel corporate-friendly legislation through the state legislatures.)
8/10/12, 8:33 AM
monsta said...
Let me try and elaborate on the differences further. Today we live in an era with an unprecedented amount globalisation. This globalisation means national countries and by extension governments are much less self-sufficient than in the past. I will give you the UK as an example. About 50% of the food consumed must be imported and not only that but much of our manufacturing base has been outsourced to places like China. The UK can only keep up this dynamic by honouring its financial obligations and credit lines. Suppose the financial system collapses which it will considering the whole financial system is a giant Ponzi scheme how can the British government enact policies that ensure people have adequate access to food, goods, medical supplies and energy?
The government could mitigate these problems but all the required policies would require years to implement as not only do significant capital investments need to be made (which will be severely limited if there is a financial crash) but a large degree of retraining and thinking will need to take place. All of these things take time, time we will not have.
It is likely that if the financial system does crash people will not only lose their jobs but their pensions and even access to critical items like food, medical supplies, clothes and energy. If people do not have access to such things then it is likely to lead to political failure or social upheaval. Yes I am sure the governments will do everything they can to prevent such a thing from happening but without long-term measures then I think they would be largely impotent as most nations are dependent on the globalised trade to meet its basic needs.
Yes some nations may salvage something if they can agree to bilateral deals like the middle-east can get food in exchange for its oil etc. but still, they would face a collapse in my eyes because their society would have to undergo a process of forced simplification as these trades would be more limited and will not provide them with the amenities such as big cars, air conditioning that they enjoy or expect to have in the future.
I would be more inclined to believe a quick collapse is entirely avoidable if I could figure some policies a government could implement if there was a sudden failure in the financial system and a sudden drastic fall in world trade. I do think the probability of this occurring is rather high and if the financial system goes into meltdown global trade will collapse quite suddenly. The ability of the individual governments to handle this scenario would determine their survival.
Now just because I cannot devise a strategy on how the governments can save itself that does not mean they will not find a way. Please note when thinking of strategies I am considering non-democratic processes also. I do think the take home point is anything is possible and there is a significant chance of a fast collapse, I am not saying it is an inevitable scenario simply it is a possible scenario with a reasonable chance of occurring. I think it is prudent to watch the canaries of the world and at the moment it is Greece the other PIG nations and the poorer Arab/African nations that form the marginal parts of the globalised system.
How they fall (or survive) will offer a blueprint on how the core countries or core elements of the globalised system will respond. Then again there will be notable differences when the core nations do come under severe stress as the force of contagion and other systemic failures will be much stronger. As result it is possible the bigger nations will fail due to larger cascading failures falling around them in much the same manner in how a human body fail and suffer multiple organ failure soon after its kidneys cease functioning. The body, like the politician, will fight tooth and nail for survival but it can reach a tipping point where it becomes helpless to its environment and undergoes a process of rapid decline even collapse.
END OF COMMMENTS
8/10/12, 8:38 AM
Kieran O'Neill said...
8/10/12, 9:12 AM
Justin said...
There is video available demonstrating the exact moment when this happens. Nicolae Ceausescu's final speech.
Around the 57 second mark, you can see the exact moment when the old bastard realized his time was up.
8/10/12, 9:36 AM
Justin said...
For that matter, it’s anyone’s guess what will spark such a crisis, if in fact one does come.
My guess is that a populist will/could drive a wedge if/when the municipal bankruptcy issue rolls up to the state level. If California defaulted, for instance, it would not take much for a charismatic southerner a la Haley Barbor to whip up an uproar over having to fit the bill for those Godless hippies and their reckless spending as a way of playing for votes. That, in turn, could spiral out of control quickly beyond what the politician even intends.
These fissures exist everywhere, substitute Godless hippies for redneck southerners, racist southwesterners, or tax and spend liberals in the NE. I could see a situation like that spiralling out of control precisely because the effects of political actors actions on events would not be foreseen. In my scenario, the Barbor could just be out to score up some easy votes and have no idea how far things would go.
8/10/12, 9:42 AM
Ron Patterson said...
This prompted me to go back and read the Korowicz paper again. This took some doing because it is 75 pages long. But I found he made a strong case, one that has not been refuted by anyone so far.
I understand your commitment to your slow catabolic collapse theory. But the Korowiez fast collapse theory was based entirely on the much more complex and totally interdependent world we live in today. Explaining how societies collapsed slow in the past in no way disproves the Korowiez theory.
Ron Patterson
8/10/12, 10:12 AM
artinnature said...
I haven't read all of the comments yet, someone else from the "Republic of Cascadia" (Glen?) may have already chimed in. I think it has been discussed here before. We even already have our own flag, the "Doug" with an image of our native Douglas fir.
8/10/12, 1:44 PM
Mean Mr Mustard said...
I'll raise your Civil and Napoleonic Wars with the War of the Triple Alliance, which wiped out most male Paraguayans of fighting age and 65% of its entire population.
Proportionately the most destructive war of modern times - yet obscure, I suppose because victors wrote the history, and in Spanish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War
8/10/12, 2:37 PM
Mean Mr Mustard said...
8/10/12, 2:43 PM
Larry said...
8/10/12, 4:16 PM
Jennifer D Riley said...
Took another read through the Tim Jackson book. Was struck by a section title: Learning to live off capital not income.
8/10/12, 5:07 PM
Cherokee Organics said...
I agree with you. Governments will do whatever they can to maintain the status quo. This is why the financiers were bailed out in 2008 and were not hauled before a kangaroo court for a, "please explain your previous actions session and atone for your sins". Given the same circumstances today, they'd probably get a further bailout? I don't seem to recall people protesting in the streets about it either (with any sense of passion).
When governments fail the ordinary citizen though, other more shady groups step in to take their place. Has anyone not taken note that extreme right parties such as Golden Dawn in Greece are handing out food parcels to selected people that conform with their ideals. Interestingly too, like the IRA, they have split the extremists and the political wings so that each can deny the other and yet at the same time, strangely benefit from the others presence. Very hard to explain for them, yet they do.
Hard times provide fertile soil to these types and it is in the interests of the powers that be to not ignore this lesson (although chasing self-interest to the bitter end, they probably will).
PS: I'm enjoying the Earth path, but feel a bit of discomfort. The problem is that over the past few years here I've been banging on about various ideas and concepts and yet you provided an eloquent guide.
Without having taken all of the practical actions that I have taken over many years, I'm not entirely sure I would have come up with all of the ideas that I did have. Yet, there they all were in the book for all the world to see.
It would be difficult to read the Earth Path without having undertaken actions and changes to your life. The act of reading whilst raising consciousness, does not in fact achieve much. Yet how else can you get a message across?
Dunno.
Regards
Chris
8/10/12, 5:21 PM
Cherokee Organics said...
This is a truly shameless plug for my latest article on the huge worm farm here which processes all of the humanure. You asked for it and you got it (I wasn’t initially going to write about it)!
Food Forests Part 4 Humanure and Black Water
Please click on the link and have a look. There's even digital video now - very high tech! I'd really appreciate it if people left a comment too.
This system is beautiful in that it works closely with nature and uses virtually no energy and benefits the wildlife here (which I included a few bits of video on). It is a far cry from the big centralised systems that most people utilise and is easily replicable (with simple materials – once you understand the process).
If you have any questions about the system too, I'd be happy to answer them. Go hard!
Regards and thanks for taking the time to have a look.
Chris
8/10/12, 5:32 PM
Richard Larson said...
The military is a strong possibility, I can think of a few possibilities, but all of them are all very bad collapse scenarios with the military being as weak as its host. Of course, Posse Commitatas would have to be suspended. This would jeopardize any cooperation with the local police foarce.
I place a lot of weight towards environmetal and/or whether the soil can produce enough food.
Oh, lets not forget about the importance of Monday Night Football. Now that would be an instant end of the world scenario...
Ha!
8/10/12, 5:35 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Shiningwhiffle, thanks for pointing out the broken link. I haven't been able to correct the post (Blogger won't let me either see or edit the embedded html), but I did get the correct link. It is:
http://www.feasta.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Trade-Off1.pdf
8/10/12, 5:40 PM
jollyreaper said...
Ceausescu speech
I was born in 1977. I'd started paying attention to things a few years before the fall of the iron curtain. That whole period stands out in my mind becuse I'd just begun to appreciate the way things were before everything suddenly changed and I could appreciate the significance of but in a dim and incomplete fashion.
I remember the whole fall of the Berlin Wall, watching on CNN and then going on a church youth group activity and asking other kids what they thought and them having no idea what I was talking about.
I grew up on a Christian family and believed the apocalyptic propaganda. WWIII was coming along with Armageddon from the scriptures. And suddenly Scriptire was thwarted. Thus began my conversion to rationalism.
It's hard to properly convey the sense of how Scriptire and politics felt so united, newspaper conforming to ancient scripture. It was so obvious anybody who denied it must either be crazy or working for Satan.
It scares me to think how many people see the same stuff I do in the news but see it as fulfilling prophecy.
8/10/12, 8:01 PM
jollyreaper said...
Wind of Change, Scoprions, 1991
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ
I didn't fully understand all of the news clips referenced but had a sense that there was something significant going on, a passing of old evils and the hope of new change.
And what has come of it? A sampling from more recent times, a woman, French rapper of Argentine heritage, socially aware and politically active. The message isn't hopeful, it's defiant, not seeking accommodation or acceptance but defiantly insisting on acceptance and surrender. She does not expect the powers that be will concede willingly. I wouldn't expect them to, either.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1Co1mfz23U
Quite a change, one to the other, Scopions to Keny Arcana.
8/10/12, 8:25 PM
Zach said...
I don't seem to recall people protesting in the streets about it either (with any sense of passion).
Well, the banker's bailout in 2008 was the trigger event for the formation of the Tea Party movement, something both the left/Democrats and right/Republicans want to drop down the memory hole.
One of the more skilled bits of political thaumaturgy I've witnessed was the setting up of the narrative that the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street were things completely and diametrically opposed to each other. "Let's you and him fight." (I mean each movement before they were co-opted.) The inability of many otherwise perceptive and intelligent people to even consider the thought that the "other side," even with their substantive differences, was actually concerned with the same thing that they were has been alternately a source of amusement and frustration to me.
peace,
Zach
8/11/12, 4:03 AM
MawKernewek said...
I don't find it easy to envisage what would happen though, if the Euro were to finally lose its legitimacy and hastily restored national currencies were to emerge. I would think that the Union itself would not survive.
I don't think a permanent and total collapse is likely to occur. Something more akin to the breakup of Yugoslavia, maybe quite nasty but not the end of industrial civilisation.
8/11/12, 4:20 AM
MawKernewek said...
8/11/12, 4:24 AM
monsta said...
I would like to first say, that out of all the possible scenarios a fast collapse would be the most devastating scenario and personally and I would also go as far to say it is more socially advantageous if we experienced a slow decline. I feel the people who do wish for a fast collapse have not considered all the consequences that a fast collapse would entail.
The reason a slow decline must be preferred is because it allows more time for people and society to adjust to the new reality. This is not just in a practical sense by implementing some actual reforms/measures on how to live life but also mentally as well which is also an important aspect to consider. Currently society wastes a lot of energy/resources on activities that do little to enhance happiness so in theory we could reduce our foot print quite significantly without any significant impact on the quality of life however as the general narrative is of a bigger and "better" future then anything that does not advocate rampant consumption or at least the promise of rampant consumption in the future will be seen as loss. In short what I am saying is an important element in all this is a transformation of people's mind-sets and expectations of life. Currently society expects way too much and it needs to change however if this change were to come through sudden drastic changes in the environment then the reactions, and subsequent manipulation by unscrupulous individuals or governmental powers can result in much more negative outcomes.
Changing the subject however and focussing a bit more on collapse. I feel we can agree we live in a complex world which is governed by complex systems. In fact the degree of complexity in today's world is unprecedented. One thing that we do know about all complex systems is they are inherently unpredictable so making precise predictions on how, when and to what pace things will develop is largely a fool’s game. Only the general trajectory of the system can be determined with any real confidence. So I think it is best to at least consider that a fast collapse is one of the possible scenarios that can occur. Also when discussing the issue of collapse it is important to know how this term is defined. For many people, collapse would be something reminiscent of a mad Max movie but to me I would define a collapse of society in a similar fashion to Joseph Tainter; a forced simplification of the way society operates.
I strongly believe there is great merit in following history and as an former economics student can really understand the folly of not following/appreciating history but at the same time whilst it is very important to note the similarities of what happened before it also just as important to note the differences between the now and then. As Mark Twain would have said:
“History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme”.
I can definitely subscribe to this notion. I also believe that the behaviour of the politicians will be the same of times gone by and the reaction by society is equally likely to be similar also. The other variable that must be considered is the environment we do live in. Is it really so exactly the same as times gone by? I have my doubts over this and please note I do not just mean the environment in the literal sense (although that will form an important element in the overall story). When I use this term I also encompass the political/economic environment. Whilst today’s society does indeed share many sharing some similarities to the past, there are some clear differences so the final outcome could be different.
SEE PART 2 WHICH IS SEVERAL POSTS ABOVE THIS POST
8/11/12, 6:01 AM
Mister Roboto said...
8/11/12, 10:57 AM
Robert Mathiesen said...
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/10/ndaa-lawsuit-struggle-us-constitution?
The lawyers for the US Government appear to be claiming in open court that the President has the absolute power to do anything he thinks good without any legal consequences or remedies, whether or not it is forbidden by the Constitution, the laws, or even previous injunctions issued by the same NY judge before whom they were appearing.
The problem with presidential absolute power of this sort is that even if the current president were to exercise it wisely and with restraint, as surely as night follows day someone down the road will become president who is not wise and has no restraint, but merely wants all the power going.
As Lord Acton once observed, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
8/11/12, 6:32 PM
Justin said...
Someone in the archdruid audience surely must have considered by now that the slow vs. fast collapse debate is a duality.
Look at the extinction rates of species, the acidifying oceans, the denuding of the landscape and now wildly changing environmental conditions. According to this article on extinction, the biosphere are losing 50 species a day, as compared to the historical norm of about 1 extinction every 5 years. Scientists are calling this the largest extinction rate in 65 million years, the changes are so radical that we've determined we entered a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene. Is that a fast enough collapse for you?
Maybe the fast vs. slow collapse debate is not so much about reality as it is about perspective and value judgments. Call it slow or call it fast if you wish.
Jollyreaper,
IMO, spiritual traditions represent millenia of wisdom about our species, honed over thousands of years by billions of people. If we do not inform our rationalism with this received wisdom, then we do ourselves and rational thought a great disservice.
8/11/12, 7:57 PM
hapibeli said...
http://blogs.reuters.com/chrystia-freeland/
See, now we can all quit worrying! I'm so happy...
8/11/12, 9:14 PM
pansceptic said...
"In fact, my commitment to the apocalypse only sabotaged the real opportunities I had to live life that year, taking away my motivation to give any effort to my real world responsibilities. It was really funny, though, how as soon as I started to take pride in my job again and value my relationship with the world that the apocalyptic fantasies vanished or turned into images of pure shame and ridicule."
The 'shame and ridicule' part are a red flag for a denied self (AKA Shadow Self or Disowned Self). I'll suggest that your entire Mea Culpa is meant as penance, offered up on the altar as part of your 5 phases of loss. You testify that maybe, if I too just get back to my programmed spot in the beehive and just focus on my immediate friends/family, I too can pretend that nothing is amiss.
While it sure is true that this system has proven adept at kicking the can, this was done by pulling demand from the future, and borrowing the money from the future to pay for it as well! Slick trick!. The future has been all hollowed out! It is certain that the standard of living in the industriallized world is going to decline a lot for most of its residents. This is a process, maybe punctuated by crises, maybe not. You may as well pick yourself up and start transitioning to a more self-reliant life; avoid the rush.
8/11/12, 10:27 PM
John D. Wheeler said...
I would love it if anyone else can verify or refute this.
8/11/12, 10:31 PM
John Michael Greer said...
I'm back -- many thanks for your patience, particularly with the problem with Blogger's autoposting of the post. (I'll be making other arrangements next time.) Will be responding to comments as soon as time permits.
8/12/12, 11:08 AM
Chris Balow said...
In reference to the regional differences found across the presently United States, how do you view the apparent cultural and political distance between rural and urban communities? For example, the average resident of Madison, WI probably wouldn't find much political common ground with the average resident of a nearby rural community, but may instead find more in common with residents of other left-leaning college towns like Austin, TX, or Athens, GA. Do you see this rural/urban divide as a significant battleground down the road, or more as a superficial product of the red/blue, republican/democrat dichotomy that the ruling class currently milks to its advantage?
8/12/12, 1:49 PM
Puzzler said...
8/12/12, 2:03 PM
MawKernewek said...
8/12/12, 2:09 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Jennifer, you're welcome!
Charter, thanks for the link.
Whiffle, thanks for catching that -- I'll get it fixed as soon as time permits.
Kathleen, stranger things have definitely happened. I'm not sure how likely it will be that any states decide to go it alone -- well, other than California and Texas -- but I'm open to being surprised.
Sue, of course the Napoleonic wars, plural, were bigger than the American Civil War, singular! As the difference in number suggests, the former wasn't just one war, and I don't believe any one of the many wars in which Napoleon's empire engaged had a death toll as high as the Civil War.
Escape, that's a plausible scenario, not least because something not too different was heavily involved in the collapse of Roman Britain -- the upper class was unwilling to pay taxes to support an effective defense against the Saxons, and we know what happened then -- and the run-up to the French Revolution.
Smith, good. I wanted to see if anybody would look it up.
Reaper, of course it's magic; you'll find an analysis of that in my posts last fall, or in my book The Blood of the Earth.
Ventriloquist, if there are as many examples of governments taking effective action in economic crisis as there are examples of government failing to do so -- and in fact there are more of the former -- dismissing the possibility that the current US government might do the thing is an act of faith, not a rational analysis.
8/12/12, 2:10 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Lewis, I sometimes wonder if putting the state capitol in a small city was a deliberate act to keep the European model from repeating here.
Joy, benefit checks? Not so fast. Since we're talking about national bankruptcy, what gives you the idea that the benefit checks will keep coming?
Sunset, bingo.
Bhavana, the US population is already moving toward contraction as the birth rate drops and immigration becomes a lot less popular. The global population will be headed the same way as global grain production heads south. I see population as an effect, rather than an independent cause; as we lose the abundance that made breeding like rabbits look like a good idea, my guess is you'll see population move into contraction pretty quickly.
Ivan, the fixation on the absurdities of the rich is a common American pastime during times of relative prosperity, because people can fantasize about having that much money themselves. In times of contraction, that sort of conspicuous consumption gets bombs thrown through car windows. If I were Brad or Angelina, whoever they are, I'd be a little more careful.
Mr. M., the power of money is a very brittle thing. As long as things remain stable, the masters of money can buy a great deal of power; once the stability shatters, they're more likely to be robbed at gunpoint by governments that no longer have to care about the rule of law. That's why the culture of executive kleptocracy we've got these days is so self-defeating; the corporate kleptocrats are destroying the basis for their own influence by wrecking the economic machinery that alone gives them their power.
8/12/12, 2:21 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Russell, also good. One of the likely results of any attempt to impose centralized authority on the US would be a long and bitter insurgency that would trash the US economy and shatter any hope of holding onto our global empire. Mind you, we may well get the insurgency anyway, in which case a lot of bets are off.
Larry, look up the economic history of France during the Revolution sometime. It was a remarkable mess.
Robert, as long as Canada has money flowing in from tar sands, my guess is that your government will be able to buy its way to stability. It's when that stops being viable that it's quite possible that Canada may blow itself apart as well.
Edde, thanks for the suggestion!
MawKernewek, thanks for the link.
Myriad, precisely.
Ricardo, if Germany has the collective brains the gods gave geese, they'd ditch the Euro as soon as it becomes obvious that the only way to save it is to start transferring wealth to southern Europe.
Ando, you're welcome.
Yupped, I've begun to hear whispers of the same sort of thing. We'll see where it goes.
Sunny, glad to hear that you extracted yourself from that. You're precisely right -- the point of apocalypse is that you don't have to fix your own life.
8/12/12, 2:32 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Monsta, yes, I've heard that reasoning before, and I've explained at some length why I find it implausible.
Kieran, again, the Napoleonic wars were quite a bit more than one war. The Taiping rebellion? Heck of a good question; I've read that it and the US Civil War were something close to neck and neck, though more recent research may have tipped the balance.
Justin, thanks for the link! As for Haley Barbour et al., exactly -- my suggestion is that under extreme stress, the fracture lines that divide the regions would give way, and politicians would stumble into a situation from which the dissolution of the Union might be the only viable way out.
Ron, I've discussed at great length in many blog posts why I find Korowicz' theory implausible, based on his own admission that he assumes governments will take the minimal possible steps to deal with a collapse -- an assumption that can't be justified on any basis but sheer faith. If you find that disappointing, so be it.
Art, even so odd a duck as Aleister Crowley wrote that he couldn't see the west coast remaining in the US indefinitely. I disagree with Crowley on almost any issue you care to name, but there I suspect he was right.
Mustard, fascinating -- I'll have to compare the total death toll, though. As for raising the stakes, do we have evidence that this is in fact the case, in this specific case? Otherwise it's argument by metaphor, which is always interesting but hardly conclusive.
Larry, not at all. The question is simply where the potential fracture lines are if the federal government blunders into severe crisis.
Jennifer, there were plenty of corporate lobbyists in DC from the 1870s on. How come monopolies got banned and the New Deal enacted into law? Again, influence isn't power, and the influence gained from money is brittle.
Cherokee, all I can say is that the Earth Path material in The Druidry Handbook has inspired a fair number of people to try to lessen their impact on the biosphere. It's a start. Also, thanks for the link -- it's highly relevant to the project of this blog, thus welcome.
8/12/12, 2:47 PM
John Michael Greer said...
Reaper, a fascinating meditation.
MawKernewek, exactly! You get today's gold star for saying the crucial words: it's not the end of the world. It's history as usual: an empire comes apart, political discords spin out of control, there's a war or two, and then things settle down at a new level. That's the shape of the US imperial twilight, too.
Monsta, you left out the main reason why people prefer to talk about fast collapse: they don't have to do anything. If it's all about to come crashing down, why bother to change your life now? Thus it's one more lullaby, or to use a metaphor from an earlier post, one more excuse to keep on living in Hagsgate.
Mister R., it's not just the South. California is a different country. New England is a different country. Texas -- well, it's basically a different planet. That's one of the reasons why disunion seems like a likely outcome to me.
Robert, I'm aware of it. If that's accepted, we no longer have a republic here in the US.
Justin, hmm. As I see it, the binary is still the widely held popular notion that the only options are business as usual or sudden collapse, and the third factor belongs somewhere in a range of options including gradual decline, stairstep decline, and massive but not fatal crisis.
Hapibeli, the number of media stories like that is, I think, solid evidence of just how desperate things have gotten.
John, I'd encourage you to go look it up.
Chris, unless something provides a political focus for the rural population, it will remain as diffuse and powerless as it generally is. Many rural areas in the South were opposed to secession in 1860 and 1861; the power was concentrated where the population was, and so secession happened. I see little reason to think that that will change.
8/12/12, 3:09 PM
John Michael Greer said...
MawKernewek, in that sense, of course -- there's a whole laundry list of urban-rural interactions and dependencies that will come more or less unglued in the years ahead. The question for present purposes is what political impact that will have.
8/12/12, 3:24 PM
SophieGale said...
Christopher Phillips has been encouraging American citizens to read and engage in discussions about our Constitution. Constitution Cafe asks citizens what amendments they would add or delete from the Constitution and encourages them to debate about calling a Constitutional Convention: http://www.constitutioncafe.org/Constitution_Cafe/Book.html
I just finished reading The Next Decade: Where We’ve Been..and Where We’re Going by George Friedman, "founder and CEO of STRATFOR, the world's leading private intelligence and forecasting company", and I'm in the middle of reading his previous book The Next 100 years: A Forecast for the 21st Century. According to Friedman, of course we are an empire! --Unintended and still in our adolescence as a world power, but... He's very easy to read and seems quite lucid about how we got to be an empire--the roots of WWI and II, and what our president--as de facto emperor of the world--needs to do on the global stage during the next decade.
I'm taking the next 100 years with a bag of salt since he thinks that by 2080 we will be beaming down energy from solar collectors in space, but his discussion of the U.S. as the world's only naval power is quite interesting.
BTW I just completed making my first-ever pot of corn cob soup stock. Went to the farmer's market yesterday, bought corn on the cob, processed it for the freezer and made stock out of the spent cobs. Not bad at all for a first attempt. I'm pretty satisfied with myself.
8/12/12, 5:52 PM
Justin said...
My point is that one man's collapse is another man's recovery depending on their respective view points. What we can describe is what is happening. Whether we qualify that reality as a fast or slow process is one of those entirely subjective value judgments that are largely irrelevant. In my view, we are already collapsed in the United States and its getting worse. You go to small town America, and what you generally find is a hollowed out social structure, and impoverished economy based on gas stations, chain restaurants and superstores. Meanwhile, major manufacturers have left. Minor manufacturers are playing a game with local tax bases, playing one county off another to keep seeking regulatory arbitrage.
I am spending part of my time in a rural community, and the isolation and lack of coordination of economic activities is paralyzing. Everyone is doing their own thing, no one wants to even think about forming something as simple as a farmer's market. Part of my income stream is from art, and although there is a half-assed gallery in every town up here, not a single person wants to think about pooling resources. I've been told in response to inquisitions as to why there are no economies of scale that, "around here, we like to keep to ourselves." The Mohawk Valley Formula has a legacy, for sure.
Anyway, even within the terms of debate about slow and fast collapse that excludes the rapid environmental collapse from discussion, its bad. Our species' ability to rapidly adapt and normalize only makes it seem slow. In any case, I don't think the duality between slow and fast matters. Call it fried chicken if you like...
8/12/12, 7:39 PM
Robert Mathiesen said...
"Robert, I'm aware of it. If that's accepted, we no longer have a republic here in the US."
Not only will we no longer have a republic, but the President will also have an effective means to clear National debts and replenish the treasury at will. All that is needed is a simple tweak that the property of those detained under this provision goes to the state. Then whenever money runs short, the President can just detain various conveniently selected super-rich people indefinitely and add all their wealth into the treasury.
All this reminds me very strongly of Caesar Augustus' strategy to transform the old Republic into an Empire by taking all the power into his hands while carefully not calling himself an emperor and preserving most of the outward customs and offices of the Roman Republic.
One of Augustus' chief tools, as he did this, was the legal power he had been granted to proscribe people, that is, to execute, banish or simply "disappear" them at his pleasure. Since the property of a proscribed person went to the state treasury, he also used proscription of selected very wealthy men whenever he needed to replenish the treasury or clear some of the State's debts. This generally enhanced his popularity with the masses and strengthened his political power.
You surely know all this Roman history, JMG, but it may be news to some of your readers.
I daresay we will all know for sure by 2024, or maybe sooner, whether something like this has been in the works for a while.
8/12/12, 9:18 PM
American People's New Economic Charter said...
For a detailed exploration of the next 28 years, check out my prospective novel "Inter States 2040". I would be curious to see what you think. It's being published in installments at: http://interstates2040.wikispaces.com/
The novel includes a detailed scenario of how the US federal system might outlive its purpose, unfolding through the most mundane of party politics. Substitute the Tea Party for the Homeland Front, and... the rest is fiction.
8/12/12, 9:34 PM
MawKernewek said...
The irony is that for example on the Isles of Scilly to the west of Cornwall, the islands are so small that there's no need to run a car, and there isn't a scheduled car ferry to the mainland anyway. It is actually remote mainland communities that have higher fuel costs, but these were not included in the scheme above to cut fuel tax for islands.
It will be politically relevant that as transport costs rise, and poorer people cannot afford to live in town or on transport links, that they are disproportionately affected by rising fuel costs, and agitation will begin for similar tax relief to be extended beyond island communities.
8/13/12, 1:52 AM
jollyreaper said...
IMO, spiritual traditions represent millenia of wisdom about our species, honed over thousands of years by billions of people. If we do not inform our rationalism with this received wisdom, then we do ourselves and rational thought a great disservice.
I am skeptical towards the old and the new. I don't want to adopt a startling new idea simply because it is fashionable. I don't want to cling to an old tradition simply because this is the way it has always been done.
I find that some people are too willing to fix what isn't broke and other people are too willing to cling to something that clearly isn't working because they fear any change, even improvement.
8/13/12, 7:07 AM
Jaqship said...
Gripping stuff, as usual.
Regarding your claim that soldiers cops etc. are poorly paid, poorly treated, and poorly equipped, I must differ as of now, but I'll grant that this "now" is probably not sustainable. The equipment had never been more lethal.
But the elephant in the room is the pensions: were they to be reliable, as most cops still assume, cops are paid well. Once the cops get it, that their pensions are built on ponzi, the cops will feel HAD, and it won't be pretty.
For a glimpse into this, see many of the posts at http://shavedlongcock.blogspot.com/search?q=pension.
8/13/12, 9:04 AM
Yupped said...
So that’s what one collapse looked like, in the course of a long life: lots of crises, some catastrophes, plenty of slow grind, some periods of recovery. And of course the process isn’t done yet. The 1990s and early 2000s were relatively quiet, but the economy is now faltering again, and North Sea Oil is running low. But the sun always came up tomorrow, even if what it highlighted wasn’t always very pleasant. Throughout all this my Father did the British thing – kept calm and carried on – and did a lot of gardening.
8/13/12, 10:21 AM
ando said...
John got me interested in the Constituional Convention.
Renew America has an article from 2008 to
"Act now to reject Constitutional Convention" with probably the latest status.
here is the link:
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/baldwin/081216
namaste,
ando
8/13/12, 12:16 PM
Nano said...
http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/9-reasons-romneys-choice-paul-ryan-veep-smarter-you-think
Could we see not just business but many laws turning super conservative? Would the "people" allow it?
Future politics in a world of puppets.
8/13/12, 12:17 PM
Kieran O'Neill said...
So firstly, the American Civil War was the bloodiest in US history, with about 620,000 soldiers killed (although about 3/5 of these were from disease, so WWII had more battle deaths for the US but fewer overall casualties). I don't think anyone has accurately estimated civilian casualties, but for the sake of argument let's estimate up to a million (with Sherman's scorched earth and broken supply lines all over the South, I think that's fair). Anyway, your point in the post stands.
But in terms of the bloodiest war in the 19th century, the 1-2 million Americans killed in the Civil War doesn't seem to measure up to other wars. The Taiping Rebellion is believed to have caused the deaths of 10-40 million, while both the White Lotus Rebellion and Dungan Revolt, also in China, caused the deaths of something in the region of 10 million each. As for the Napoleonic Wars, I think they are mostly considered to be a single, continuous conflict for the purposes of casualties (with deaths in the 3 to 6 million range), even just the War of the Sixth Coalition, counting the Russian Invasion, had an estimated death toll in the 1 to 2 million range, comparable to that of the American Civil War.
From what I can see so far, the American Civil War, while very bloody, wasn't even in the same order of magnitude in terms of casualties as the happenings in China in the 19th Century, and is probably more neck and neck with the sub-wars of Napoleon. Of course, historiography is a tricky thing, and I would be very open to seeing the sources you've read which say otherwise.
8/13/12, 2:31 PM
dltrammel said...
I also would like to mention, with the recent discussion about the future of bicycles in a previous post here, that the Green Wizard forum has a Transportation Circle which would welcome any discussions or instructions those of you who know about bicycles and their strengths and weaknesses would like to share with those of us, like me, who expect to need one during the Descent, but who presently don't have one.
(Good thing riding a bicycle is one of those things you learn and never forget...lol)
I posted a link to pictures of cargo bicycles in that forum from the 30s and 40s. Amazing how inventive people can be with a bit of tech and ingenuity.
8/13/12, 5:00 PM
Lauren said...
The other thing I learned is that there are more (underpaid, community-disconnected, lonely, and perhaps confused and overwhelmed by modern society?) individuals playing World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMOPRG) than the entire populations of Norway & Nicarauga combined. And this is only one such game.
I don't know what it will take, short of power grid collapse, to really get the attention of enough citizens to get politically active enoug, and be come informed enough, to respond to the disintegrating political scene.
8/13/12, 5:58 PM
Justin said...
I am not talking about new ideas or old traditions. I was speaking to rationalism, a pattern of thought based on informal and formal rules, and wisdom, a collection of interrelated axioms about social reality decoupled from material context that inform those rules.
I agree with you otherwise. I think the challenge in understanding or imparting meaning from received wisdom is finding multiple interpretations rather than one fixed, 'best' interpretation. The practice of finding a best interpretation that is the valid one is rationalism without wisdom. The practice of thinking all are equally valid is wisdom without rationalism.
Here is an example, to keep from being too general.
Does a religious rule such as 'thou shall not kill' mean
1. You should never kill anyone under any circumstances.
2. You should never kill anything under any circumstances.
3. You should probably not kill anyone, but life is messy, and there is no point in listing a bunch of exceptions, clauses and rules since its one of those things you'll have to figure out in due time. Just try not to be a psychopath, if you are in a position to make this kind of decision, no matter which way you go, you are probably doing it wrong to even have to consider the action.
4. God doesn't want you to kill anyone and will send you to hell if you do.
4a. unless you are a soldier being told to kill by a politician. (Thomas Aquinas said so.)
5. God doesn't exist, therefore the rule is null and void.
I am sure to be leaving out a half dozen other interpretations.
Apologies JMG for getting off thread.
8/13/12, 7:29 PM
macsporan said...
The US Civil War killed about 600,000 mostly soldiers.
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars killed about four million.
The Taiping Rebellion with between 20 and 30 million was in a class of it's own.
Glad I wasn't there.
8/13/12, 8:10 PM
Cherokee Organics said...
That's a controversial point of view. To quote your comment:
Well, the banker's bailout in 2008 was the trigger event for the formation of the Tea Party movement, something both the left/Democrats and right/Republicans want to drop down the memory hole.
It seems more plausible that the wikipedia entry is somewhat closer to the truth about the formation of the Tea Party movement. My favourite quote from the entry is:
Tea Party movement is a mix of "grassroots populism, professional conservative politics, and big money"
Tea Party movement
PS: Slogans aside, do they have a specific platform relating to the bankers responsible for the 2008 subprime debacle?
Regards
Chris
8/14/12, 1:39 AM
Cherokee Organics said...
Thanks for the nice words about the article. I've only just recently realised how uncommon the system is. It is funny, but nature is quite a hard worker if people take the time to listen to the message, observe, learn and then work with her.
Technically, I could rebuild this system with basic materials for very little cost, but the legal troubles that would result from this action would be way too much drama for me. Yet, at the same time, the system would work very well. What to do with this information is a conundrum. Oh well.
Oops! I can see my previous comment the other day was not quite clear. It was never intended as a comment on your writing in The Earth Path but rather an observation about how difficult it is to impart wisdom and ideas to other people. (Ironic, hehe?)
In past employment I've trained graduates and it is a long journey that takes many different paths. I'm still unsure that there is a one size fits all approach to the issue and I always felt that it was more art than science.
Different cultures handle such matters very differently. Do you think that there is such a concept as collected wisdom in a culture?
Regards
Chris
8/14/12, 2:04 AM
jollyreaper said...
I agree with you otherwise. I think the challenge in understanding or imparting meaning from received wisdom is finding multiple interpretations rather than one fixed, 'best' interpretation. The practice of finding a best interpretation that is the valid one is rationalism without wisdom. The practice of thinking all are equally valid is wisdom without rationalism.
Here is an example, to keep from being too general.
Does a religious rule such as 'thou shall not kill' mean
I'm sure there's a proper term for it but this is something I call rules lawyering and word finagling. Clinton musing about what the definition of "is" is. Neocons creatively reinterpreting the Constitution to support their theory of the "unitary executive" which is basically turning the president into a presidente with far more powers than were ever originally meant.
Your interpretations represent the creative ways religious people try to get around the well-understood rules to do what they want to do.
From my personal view, the only justifiable killing is when someone is in the wrong. Someone steps out of bounds and threatens your life, leaves you no choice, a self-defense killing is justified. If you kill him without that kind of justification, you are a murderer. If both parties are respectful to each other and keep their noses clean, there should be no killing.
This is kind of backwards. A religious person should be looking to his scriptures and his beliefs in order to decide what the correct and moral choice should be. Most people make the choice they want and then look to the scriptures to justify it as correct and moral.
8/14/12, 7:10 AM
Unknown said...
This is as much a historical accident as anything else. When the Constitution was written, corporations were strictly state animals. Corporations were still under the Roman strictures that limited their scope and duration so as not to compete with the State. The British, incidentally, had flirted with removing regulations on corporations so that they could “innovate” (sound familiar), which resulted in a financial calamity and the passage of the “Bubble Act” in 1720, which reimposed the old Roman strictures. By the time we won independence, there were only about 250 small corporations in the thirteen states. With no central government, the states where the companies were located inherited their articles of incorporation. When the Constitution was enacted, it gave “full faith and credit” to the laws of the other states, as well as all “privileges and immunities” to the citizens of other states. Corporations were not mentioned in the Constitution – only government and the public. Most importantly, citizenship was not defined in the original Constitution or the Bill of Rights. It as only a matter of time until the Supreme Court had to decide which side corporations fell: citizens, or government. That question was settled in a tax case in 1886. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, 118 U.S. 394 (1886). That's when corporations officially became people, my friend.
Once they were people, they were given all the privileges and immunities of other citizens. Moreover, under the Full Faith and Credit clause, the lax laws of states like Delaware were effectively imposed on the other states through corporations that could not be excluded by the state government because of the Supreme Court decisions. Once corporations were people for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment (which for the first time attempts to define citizenship in a Constitutional context), the protections for corporations were eventually extended to other provisions in the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment. First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765 (1978); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976); Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 50 (2010).
This historical accident means that corporations have become institutions in our society that rival, in many ways, the authority of the state and federal governments. Even though they are unelected, the unrivaled ability to aggregate capital and employ that capital to affect appointments of individuals, as well as direct to whom elected officials find themselves accountable, has done as much to nullify our democracy as any overt act. Yes, we have the ability to take the government back – in writing. I cannot, however, imagine that the powers that direct all that capital would allow anything like meaningful reforms from happening.
8/14/12, 12:08 PM
Stu from Rutherford said...
You made a tangential reference to another hidden bomb inside the Constitution: its requirement that per-State Senate representation remain the same. I.e., the Constitutional requirement that the small states dominate the US Senate. (Wyoming residents' votes have 60-70 times the punch of those from California, for instance.) The largest 8 states have half the population but only 1/6 the Senate votes.
Can the small states ever be persuaded to give up this power? I'm sure I don't know.
In tandem with the 17th amendment, it also brings an easy target for influencing politics: win Senate elections in small states and reward the populations of those states with the illusion of riches (such as farm subsidies, which do not actually enrich the humans, but you can make them believe that it does).
8/14/12, 12:17 PM
Justin said...
I don't know what the etiquette for this is. I'd take a discussion like this to email, if JMG prefers, so as not to derail the comments about the dissolution of the United States.
mccro8 at gmail
I'm trying to use some of JMG's lessons about dualism to relate this more directly to the broader themes of this blog. I am less interested in the ten commandments specifically than I am in applying a general approach to thinking about these things differently to a specific case anyone recognizes.
I'm not trying to play lawyer for the bible or get around its rules. The point is that where getting around those rules in multiple ways is possible, be wary of those who insist on only one right way.
Think about our legal codes and the many classifications and its attempts to define justifiable murder, and to differentiate murders into different categories of heinousness. That is one approach, the other approach is to leave it intentionally open ended. The subtext of a simple, concise, and possibly open to interpretation statement is that its a heuristic, a rule of thumb, etc.
As JMG likes the classics, I'll mention that the power of Euclidean Geometry was in just such generality, which allowed mathematicians through the ages to impart and explore all manner of context. If the rules had been clearly defined, there would have been no room for exploration and multiple explanations, which is how we now have all these branches of mathematics from the root.
8/14/12, 5:42 PM
Chris said...
I suspect that's because the growth of the Empire has been at the expense of our personal involvement. Our collective consciousness, if you will. We've been reduced to commodities, given an annual nett worth or liability to the system.
What we've forgotten though, is how much we need community enterprise, made up of many small family enterprises. It's the original trading system that has lasted through every Empire's collapse.
8/14/12, 10:10 PM
Quercus said...
Im not sure if I do know! (The tax issue having never been in my history book)
I did read in Rex Weylers history of the red man wriiten by a white man (blood of the land) about the story of the monks arrival to the Americas. I guess as the Saxons started to spread, the monks or holy people were forced further and further onto the periphery of Europe. Rex Weyler tells the story of how some sailed to America in leather coracles across the Northern route to establish the great councils of peace. The largest of which was with the Irquois and Seneca and another tribe if I am correct. The authors implication being that some of this filtered down (or was bastardised) into the form you have now.
On the one hand I heartily agree with your empires come and go attitude.
On the other, there is some hidden treasures amongst the details. (hence the original question) and there is a lurking feeling that it all leads somewhere....!
I think ultimately we will have to define our bounderies with ecosystems.
8/15/12, 1:55 AM
auntiegrav said...
This is the key, isn't it? What we are missing, though, is a decent comparison between real wealth and perceived monetary wealth. Not easily done, but I suggest we compare the amount of money a farmer receives to the supermarket prices, and we'll get an idea of how far the economy is from real wealth and usefulness. Something like 50:1 ratio for things like corn flakes or beans. When the real ramifications of the 2012 Drought show up in the winter commodities markets, there won't be any 'cake' for people to eat while building the guillotines.
8/15/12, 7:01 PM
Sue W said...
Also great information about the U.S. Constitution - which is a source of fascination to everyone, being perhaps the most singular political document/process/movement in modern history.
So, good discussion, thanks all!
8/17/12, 8:24 AM
Blank said...
10/5/12, 5:22 PM