by Charles Hugh-Smith
Maybe we must always replace Marie Antoinette’s well-known quip of cluelessness to: “Allow them to eat area tourism.”
As billionaires squander immense assets on self-glorifying area flights, the company media is nothing wanting worshipful. Thousands and thousands of common residents, then again, want the self-glorifying billionaires had taken themselves and all the opposite parasitic, tax-avoiding, predatory billionaires with them on a one-way journey into area.
Have we reached Peak Self-Glorifying Billionaire? In that case, the place does the downhill slide take us? Let’s begin with a little bit of historical past. Correspondent Jim B. summarized historian Arnold Toynbee’s research of the rise and fall of civilizations thusly: “Civilizations fail when their elites change from an admired dynamic inventive class to a despised Institution of corrupt rentiers, an entrenched governing class unfit to manipulate.”
Despised, verify. Corrupt, verify. Entrenched, verify.
The 2013 ebook Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Energy, Prosperity, and Poverty discusses the variations between failed states and profitable states, and concludes that the failed states are essentially kleptocracies that reply to a self-serving elite whereas profitable states are answerable to the broad populace.
To summarize: When the few profit on the expense of the various, the ensuing kleptocracy finally ends up a failed state. When states preserve significant, clear methods of responding to public wants and calls for, the result’s a profitable state.
That is after all a simplification. The perverse results of colonialism linger, the event of civic organizations public establishments, values and identities that make up what I name the social ontology aren’t pre-ordained, and nations with low-cost surplus power might be fairly profitable kleptocracies till their power surplus runs out.
However in the primary, the query stays: How did beforehand profitable political, social and financial programs change such that they now not generated helpful synergies however slid into deadly synergies?
From the viewpoint of how programs fail to keep up dynamic stability, three components come out:
1. Elites change into too profitable in sluicing the nation’s revenue, wealth and political energy into their very own palms.
2. For the reason that system continues to thrive regardless of their dominance, then there’s clearly no want to alter something–particularly if it reduces their share of the nation’s wealth and political energy.
3. The elites ignore the intangible decay of management, the real-world dynamics of shortage and over-estimate their very own capabilities and the resilience of the system.
I just lately described the suggestions loop that happens when a rich elite can buy political energy: “on account of their marketing campaign contributions and lobbying, the elites’ wealth continues increasing, enhancing their political energy to additional broaden their wealth, and so forth.”
In a wholesome system, there are mechanisms that restrict elite possession of wealth and political energy to what the system can bear. Over time, the suggestions I described will increase elite wealth and energy to some extent the place the bounds are crushed and the elite suggestions gathers momentum.
With institutional limits now not in the best way, the elite reaches the purpose the place the political system now not responds to the broad public in any respect, and the overwhelming majority of income-producing wealth is already within the palms of the elite.
The U.S. is already at this last stage: Wealth/Energy Inequality and the Slide Into Dysfunction.
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Curiosity Teams, and Common Residents: “Opposite to what a long time of political science analysis may lead you to imagine, extraordinary residents have nearly no affect over what their authorities does in america.”
This dominance throws the system out of stability such that, as David Parsons just lately put it: (Elite-dominated) “Capitalism makes everybody homeless after which makes award-winning films about how resilient persons are for residing of their vehicles.”
The obvious success of the system even because it grows ever extra imbalanced generates a self-serving confidence within the Elites that their dominance shouldn’t be solely benign however everlasting.
However this self-serving view is illusory. Beneath the floor, main subsystems are trying to re-establish stability, however the instability is so excessive that the measures being deployed are additionally excessive.
These coverage extremes solely push the system additional out of stability in different instructions, creating deadly synergies as mutually reinforcing imbalances pile up.
See the chart under of cash provide as one instance of many.
However the elite is blinded by their confidence and greed to those accelerating imbalances. They reckon that managing the narratives (a.ok.a. propaganda), minor coverage tweaks and creating extra foreign money and credit score are all that’s wanted to keep up what they take into account the optimum type of stability: they personal 99% of political energy and 97% of all of the revenue from capital.
Monopoly Versus Democracy: How one can Finish a Gilded Age: “Ten p.c of Individuals now management 97 p.c of all capital revenue within the nation. Almost half of the brand new revenue generated for the reason that world monetary disaster of 2008 has gone to the wealthiest one p.c of U.S. residents. The richest three Individuals collectively have extra wealth than the poorest 160 million Individuals.”
I’ve usually famous that the wealth of Rome’s political and financial elite went from being 20 instances the wealth of a landowning farmer or craftsman to 200,000 instances the commoners’ wealth on the finish of the Western Empire. Now that three people personal extra wealth than half the American populace, and the highest 0.1% maintain extra wealth than the underside 80%, I feel we will safely declare we’ve reached the identical excessive.
The primary tranche of American presidents left workplace much less rich than once they entered as a result of serving in public workplace was understood as a noble and valued sacrifice of time and wealth. Now presidents depart workplace far wealthier than once they entered public service.
Per #3, the elite now not sees any compelling purpose to sacrifice their revenue, wealth and energy to stabilize the system or profit the frequent good. Within the view of the billionaires, if any sacrifices are obligatory, then they need to be borne by the underside 95%, or failing that, the underside 99.5%.
Given their dominance, their willingness to make use of their wealth and energy to guard their dominance dooms the system to destabilization and collapse, as the assets and worth system required to efficiently navigate eras of instability and shortage are now not out there to the state or public.
In impact, the elite makes use of its energy to not restabilize the system however to keep up its excessive dominance and shield it from any political threats.
A as soon as vibrant ecosystem has change into a monoculture whose stability is way extra precarious than it seems on the floor, because the resilience of monocultures is completely synthetic.
Two current books illuminate corners of this destabilizing inequality:
Billionaire Wilderness: The Extremely-Rich and the Remaking of the American West
‘Jackpot’ Appears to be like at How Inequality Is Skilled by the Very, Very Wealthy
We’re within the last phases of this accelerating destabilization: the refusal of the elite to sacrifice any significant share of their wealth and energy to avoid wasting the system from deadly synergies ensures collapse.
Maybe we must always replace Marie Antoinette’s well-known quip of cluelessness to: “Allow them to eat area tourism.” Everyone knows the place this cluelessness in the end leads.
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