Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Ahenobarbus's avatar

I like that you consider how the breakdown of the west might play out in the long term. So many here have reached the painful reality that the government will not and really, as composed and oriented, cannot govern effectively anymore.

You're conclusions are very bleak and, from where we stand now, that seems appropriate. However alongside the constant and rapidly moving social breakdown of the west, there is another process working in tandem that should be considered in any long term protections on where this all ends.

Since WW2, the west has enjoyed a relatively stable society with strong economic and political underpinnings. Economically, the root of this stability has broken down in small ways slowly and then in the last 3 years, very rapidly in large and very obvious ways. Over that period a Keynesian reformist form of Capitalism meant to prevent the type of social revolution seen in 1917 has degenerated to a system essentially for by and of a collection of Billionaire Oligarchs which locks nearly the entire population into a debt slavery that is so overwhelming real economic activity and development have ground to a halt. To replace the somewhat healthy real economy that developed after WW2 in the west, financial transactions in which nothing is produced now make up most of the "production" of the west.

This change was slow and developed over decades. It is now complete and the small social dislocations it caused have become overwhelming social problems. The breakdown has in the last years has become so pitched it is now impossible to ignore. So, you have masses of western citizens suddenly coming to the correct realization that they cannot trust their government or it's corporate salesman at all. This sudden realization has to say the least shocked and traumatized millions. They remain in that state at the moment and thus appear inert, which leaves the impression that only existing forms of organized violence like gangs, islamists, or state groups like police and the military are the only viable players in the years to come.

I think this is an error. Society is predominantly made up of people compelled to work for a living or live in a cardboard box. This vast majority gets up early, focuses on achieving goals as a team and in the process produces everything that is consumed the world over. With the breakdown they have become increasingly conscious of themselves as a class, an oppressed, manipulated and abused class that does all the work of society. They are also actively searching for alternative ideologies in an effort to return to a stable and fair society, which is why you and many others have become increasingly popular.

The state of shock and confusion that this class is now in will not last forever. Undreamed of political alternatives will appear and grow, some horrific others quite rational and orderly. To imagine the future in this situation means to also consider how this class is going to change politically and socially. Imagining the future with just the organized actors on scene today is a bit short sighted. Especially in view of history 1789-1865-1917.

"For the first time in modern western history, there are no groups with organisations and ideologies waiting in the wings, either to launch a struggle for power, or to profit from a power vacuum"

That quote is true for now, but will it remain the case as the breakdown persists and worsens? And as you stated it as "the first time in history", doesn't that seem like a strange anomaly? It is an anomaly that is attributable to the global dominance of West since WW2 and the consequent economic stability that flowed from that dominance at least in the west itself. This reality allowed people to believe they lived in a an eternally viable socioeconomic system. That illusion is now gone, all at once.

That period is over and the new reality will work a change on masses of people. It's important to consider that side of the question as well. How will they change, what perspective will they develop, and how will they organize themselves and enter the struggle to fill the power vacuum?

The idea that all these productive, proactive working people will just become a bunch of gawking spectators while the existing organized violence battles it out is just unrealistic imo.

It's time to imagine the possibilities in the current breakdown not just the hardships.

Expand full comment
Feral Finster's avatar

"One of my consistent themes has been that this kind of thing cannot go on forever. Given the many developing crises that are jostling for priority now, social breakdown, either self-generated, or more likely a consequence of multiple economic or environmental and health crises, may well not be far away. In fact social breakdown is perhaps already here, even if, as William Gibson might say, it’s not evenly distributed."

Sure it can go on forever, or at least for the foreseeable future. One of my consistent themes is that the West will increasingly resemble Brazil, albeit a Brazil with worse weather, less attractive females, shittier music, and a more hyperbelligerent foreign policy.

And such an arrangement suits the elites just fine, thank you very much.

Like Brazil, you will see increasing ghettoization, but the average frustrated Brazilian oligarch doesn't care whether a given favela is ruled by Commando Vermelho or Terciero Commando or someone else, since he never has to go there. Like Brazil, you will hear touching appeals to Muh Rule Of Law but only when politically convenient. As a practical matter, there will be sets of laws for the poor, some administered by government forces and others by gangs or other informal forces, all brutal and none of whom answer to any authority when dealing with the poor. The oligarchs are unconstrained by any law other than their own.

Happy horseshit rhetoric aside, this has been the way things worked for most people throughout most of history. The West had a good run, but it is rapidly reverting to the mean. The Iron Law Of Oligarchy always wins in the end.

https://indi.ca/how-americas-broken-healthcare-and-education-work-great/

One of the things that they won't tell you is that, throughout history, the common people have often been the biggest supporters of autocrats, tyrants and absolutists, because these were the people who protected them against the oligarch class, the local baron or zamindar, the person who was much more involved in the oppression of the average frustrated peasant than some far away king. The petty nobles were the ones demanding limits to royal authority, Magna Cartas and talk of civil rights, mainly because they wanted to restrict the power of the King and to increase their own rights.

"How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes?" - Samuel Johnson

Expand full comment
27 more comments...

No posts