The Socio-Political Dangers Of A Long Depression

[Ad Orientem]

What we are witnessing in Europe — and what may loom for the United States — is the exhaustion of the modern social order. Since the early 1800s, industrial societies rested on a marriage of economic growth and political stability. Economic progress improved people’s lives and anchored their loyalty to the state. Wars, depressions, revolutions and class conflicts interrupted the cycle. But over time, prosperity fostered stable democracies in the United States, Europe and parts of Asia. The present economic crisis might reverse this virtuous process. Slower economic expansion would feed political instability and vice versa. This would be a historic and ominous break from the past.

Read the rest here...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html

[craigr]

In Europe the bigger economies have lashed their ships onto much smaller and less able economies. But at the same time they are saying everyone must function under the same government and same money. But why should people that are historic enemies in many aspects relinquish such control to their rivals? It is of course obvious that animosity and friction would develop. Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long. But I did have in a 20 year prediction before the Euro blew up and we're 10 years in. So maybe I'll be ahead of schedule. But I definitely don't think it will last 20 years. Let's just hope it doesn't touch off another war over there.

The only good news about the EU falling apart is that it will set the globalist morons who think one world government is a good idea back at least 50 years.

[doodle]

globalist morons

Eventually I think history will look back at a single species divided up into little tribes consumed by petty differences annihilating each other as pretty moronic. That is once the aliens invade....

[Pointedstick]

globalist morons

Eventually I think history will look back at a single species divided up into little tribes consumed by petty differences annihilating each other as pretty moronic. That is once the aliens invade....

Could you sketch out what your idea of a moral one-world government would look like?

[doodle]

I'm not saying it will happen in our lifetimes. But if I were an outside observer looking at what happens between members of the same species on our planet I would think I was watching some kind of absurdist theater production. We live on a spinning ball that sustains us in the middle of an infinitely vast and hostile universe and we spend our days devising ways to undermine and kill each other based on a variety of trivial differences. I don't know....seems pretty moronic to me...

[doodle]

globalist morons

Eventually I think history will look back at a single species divided up into little tribes consumed by petty differences annihilating each other as pretty moronic. That is once the aliens invade....

there is a reason the prefix mono is at the beginning of the word monotonous, i like that there are countless little and big tribes each with their own way of seeing the world, and i think loosing those different visions and there potential would be much like seeing animals becoming extinct.
fighting over those differences is definitely moronic but thinking everything will be peachy with a one world government seems almost as equally moronic, we cant even manage to keep government "acting right" and "on the straight and narrow" at the most local level, world government being so far removed from the lives of the governed is a near certain disaster..

Simon,

Good points.....But America is a country that is a melting pot of cultures and it's pretty successful with one government despite all the internal differences. Why wouldn't this model work on a larger scale? Just because there is one government doesn't necessarily mean there has to be one culture. Difficult to imagine ....unless you're John Lennon I guess...

[doodle]

i like being American and i like American culture (including our melting pot ) but i wouldn't force it on anyone, i wouldn't mind seeing some aspects of our culture spread around the globe by way of good example, such as the idea that our freedom is an unalienable right and not given to us by government and that government serves the people not the other way around. we tried so hard to limit government and make it local it just seems to me like a complete oxymoron to have an "American style world government"

I think in this case it's possible to have your cake and eat it too. Why can't you have a one world government with limited powers and a federation of states? Why can't the government structure that links our 50 states together not reasonably expand to link 180 countries together someday? There is and always will be a place for local government, but I think that eventually we will realize that our survival on this planet might require closer cooperation than the present model of nation states provides. One most always remember that the model and structure of our society is but only one of myriad that have existed throughout history and it most probably won't be the last...

[Benko]

voluntarily or by force? government by the people for the people cant be forced on somebody and still be by them and for them..

and what about all the crap we still do wrong? we are far from perfecting our nation state, or controlling it's expansion into citizens lives, or keeping it's activity's transparent, or upholding its constitution, or protecting property rights, or prevent coruption etc etc.. i just don't think we can have our cake or eat it too when it is still a half baked blob of dough, and if at some date we do perfect it and others managed to perfect theirs to the point where they would join up W/O the use of force, joining up would be unnecessary... we would already get along just fine...

i do acknowledge the possibility of a new and as yet unseen model and structure for society, but every "global government" plan i have heard of so far seems to be a way to bring more of the worse government has to offer, to more people, and keep the corrupt and powerful in charge of it..

One world gov't is just morons even more removed from you deciding what is best for you.  Aside from things e.g. defense that need to be done at a national level, gov't where decisions are made at a level as close to you as possible are "better".  That way states e.g. California can destroy themselves economically, wheras other states can pursue more sane policies.

People who think that they know what is best for others are (often/usually) dangerous.

[MediumTex]

I'm not saying it will happen in our lifetimes. But if I were an outside observer looking at what happens between members of the same species on our planet I would think I was watching some kind of absurdist theater production. We live on a spinning ball that sustains us in the middle of an infinitely vast and hostile universe and we spend our days devising ways to undermine and kill each other based on a variety of trivial differences. I don't know....seems pretty moronic to me...

Intra-species competition is how we got so smart and competitive in the first place.

You can't turn your back on the origins of your own species, and when you do you come up with ideas that may sound good in theory but rarely work in practice.

Our higher natures will always live in an uneasy symbiosis with our lower natures.  That's who we are.

One world government means that all competing forms of government would have been exterminated.  That doesn't sound much like progress to me.  It reminds me more of that Rush song "The Trees."

[dualstow]

After looking at this thread, I flipped over to the news for a while and read some Huawei news. An earlier article linked to the more current news had this excerpt:

This year Huawei made a pitch to Iranian government officials to sell equipment for a mobile news service on Iran's second-largest mobile-phone operator, MTN Irancell. According to a person who attended the meeting, Huawei representatives emphasized that, being from China, they had expertise censoring the news.

The One World Gov't theme and this article then started to bleed into each other.

[Pointedstick]

Right now, democratic governments are accountable both to their people and to other governments. With the extermination of all other governments, this one-world government will only be accountable to its people, but how can any kind of moral majoritarian consensus be forged among the incredibly diverse people of the entire world?

IMHO, the majoritarianism of representative governments work best the smaller their scale and the more homogenous the participants. It's easy to forge a consensus when people more or less believe similar things, and even the minority won't be too mad as long as the majority understands them and isn't trying to hurt them.

But the bigger you go, the the more diverse your voter pool, the more difficult this becomes. You have groups of voters who don't know or may even hate each other. In this case, they're just going to try to force a majority to oppress their targeted minority. Imagine if you took the North Koreans and the South Koreans and made them into one big democracy. Does that seem like it would work out well? How about lumping the Indians, Pakistanis, and Chinese together into a big representative government? That's a smaller version of how your one-world government would turn out.

[doodle]

PS,

Why can't you have both an international government and local governments as we do in our country today? Just because certain issues that plague our planet are better dealt with at an international level, doesn't mean that all issues need to be dealt with by an international government.

What if alien species started to invade our planet and developed a taste for sweet human flesh? Would your perspectives regarding our trivial differences begin to change?

I think a lot of people have been heavily conditioned by the world that they live in and the histories that they are told growing up to think that the system they live under somehow is the only one that makes sense and that it somehow naturally emerged because of qualities that are innate to humans. I think that this line of thinking is terribly flawed. There is nothing that is particularly natural about capitalism as a means of organizing our economy and nationalism as a means of organizing our allegiances. These are constructs that we impose on ourselves.

[craigr]

There is nothing that is particularly natural about ... nationalism as a means of organizing our allegiances. These are constructs that we impose on ourselves.

Almost every major war ever fought was over nationalist interests of various differing people to either control others or not be controlled by others. It's in the human genetic pool to do these things. If they are being imposed, it is being imposed by our genes. IMO. Which is why I think ideas like multi-culturalism are incredibly flawed and likely to cause lots of trouble in the future. It's also why a big central world government would never work. I am not inclined to turn over control of my daily life to the rules and regulations of what China wants for instance. They won't be in my interest no matter how they are presented.

[Pointedstick]

PS,

Why can't you have both an international government and local governments as we do in our country today? Just because certain issues that plague our planet are better dealt with at an international level, doesn't mean that all issues need to be dealt with by an international government.

But we already have that. It's called the United Nations. It doesn't work very well. What makes you think it could be any better?

What if alien species started to invade our planet and developed a taste for sweet human flesh? Would your perspectives regarding our trivial differences begin to change?

I have enough faith in humanity that I think if aliens invaded the whole planet, we would start cooperating without needing a one-world government. Do you feel differently?

I think a lot of people have been heavily conditioned by the world that they live in and the histories that they are told growing up to think that the system they live under somehow is the only one that makes sense and that it somehow naturally emerged because of qualities that are innate to humans. I think that this line of thinking is terribly flawed. There is nothing that is particularly natural about capitalism as a means of organizing our economy and nationalism as a means of organizing our allegiances. These are constructs that we impose on ourselves.

Honestly, I think this of all places is a part of the internet where you're less likely than nearly anywhere else to find a lot of people who are blindly unquestioning about the social systems they grew up in. Nationalism and state-dominated capitalism are not social systems that I am particularly fond of either; I just happen to disagree with you that a march toward more and more expansive and powerful governments is in any way a good thing. The only result I can really see coming from that is than I would be handing over a substantial measure of control over my own life to people I don't know or understand, and who don't know or understand me.

[stone]

I'm sure I read something once that claimed that ancient China came to a technological stasis after a period of rapid advancement precisely because it was one unified country. So the argument went, renaissance Europe saw rapid advancement because whenever any single country became unfavorable, the baton of technological advance transfered to neighboring countries. Seeing that trains run on time in Japan means that we know we are making a mess of the railways in the UK. Seeing Singapore doing well means that other places realize that land isn't required for a nation to prosper etc etc. I think diversity is absolutely essential so that different systems are going at once, learning from each other and able to pick up the pieces whenever one or other falls flat. In nature, robust ecosystems require a wide range of species all fitting in amongst each other. To follow that analogy, a one world government would be a very fragile monoculture and so prone to something like the potato blight .

[doodle]

Craig,

It's in the human genetic pool to do these things. If they are being imposed, it is being imposed by our genes.

Just cause you have the genetic predisposition to be an alcoholic, doesn't mean that these traits have to manifest themselves.

I would argue that our behavior is more nurture than nature. We are conditioned by our environments to behave in a certain way.

Many violent and antisocial criminals become what they are because of the environments they grow up in. Put them in a different environment from birth and they become different people.

I am not inclined to turn over control of my daily life to the rules and regulations of what China wants for instance.

China wouldn't exist. It would just be another group of humans. What you are doing is trying to create your own sense of identity up drawing up a list of differences with another group of people, assigning them a flag, and giving them conflicting motivations and interests. This is something that is conditioned from birth by the society we live in. It has existed for a long time, but it can be changed. It is on that point that we disagree I think. You seem to have a very Hobbesian view of humans.

[doodle]

PS

march toward more and more expansive and powerful governments is in any way a good thing.

I am not arguing for more expansive government at all. I am arguing for better government. There is a big difference.

I want a goverment that does what needs to be done by a government and private individuals doing what is best done by private individuals. I am in no ways arguing for state control of every aspect of our lives.

Our problems today however are global in scale. We need to figure out a way to deal with these global issues.

Craig,

I am going to disagree with you about Europe. I could be wrong, but I actually believe that they realize they have more to lose by breaking apart than by staying together. I think the Union will be preserved. Most Europeans I speak to think this as well. Only time will tell I guess. :-)

[craigr]

Craig,

It's in the human genetic pool to do these things. If they are being imposed, it is being imposed by our genes.

Just cause you have the genetic predisposition to be an alcoholic, doesn't mean that these traits have to manifest themselves.

I'm not here to change human behavior because it's a lost cause. It would be a better plan to acknowledge the behavior and have systems of government that work with it instead of trying to force the issue and have it blow up later.

Many violent and antisocial criminals become what they are because of the environments they grow up in. Put them in a different environment from birth and they become different people.

Not always. Some of them are just born sociopaths/psychopaths and that's that. Put them in a different environment and maybe they turn into white collar swindlers instead of street level hucksters. But they will probably both fundamentally be bad people. I've met plenty of people from abusive households, poverty, etc. that grew up just fine. Then I know others that grew up privileged and turned into criminal jerks.

I am not inclined to turn over control of my daily life to the rules and regulations of what China wants for instance.

China wouldn't exist. It would just be another group of humans. What you are doing is trying to create your own sense of identity up drawing up a list of differences with another group of people, assigning them a flag, and giving them conflicting motivations and interests. This is something that is conditioned from birth by the society we live in. It has existed for a long time, but it can be changed. It is on that point that we disagree I think. You seem to have a very Hobbesian view of humans.

China would exist because that group of humans would form into a country with a government to protect their interests. I don't underestimate the power of ethnicity, culture, language and religion to divide people up into groups. They aren't going to change. So instead of forcing the issue, we should just let them freely associate and run their affairs as they please. I don't care how the Chinese choose to run their business for instance, but I don't want them running mine. And I doubt they want America running theirs.

[craigr]

I am going to disagree with you about Europe. I could be wrong, but I actually believe that they realize they have more to lose by breaking apart than by staying together. I think the Union will be preserved. Most Europeans I speak to think this as well. Only time will tell I guess. :-)

I was last in Brussels 10 years ago for business. I spent the week there listening to the Flemish workers complain over and over about the French half of their country. I thought it funny that even the Capitol of the EU was on the verge of serious cultural strife within itself. I doubt much has changed, and in fact it has probably gotten worse since I last visited.

[doodle]

Stone,

I'm sure I read something once that claimed that ancient China came to a technological stasis after a period of rapid advancement precisely because it was one unified country. So the argument went, renaissance Europe saw rapid advancement because whenever any single country became unfavorable, the baton of technological advance transfered to neighboring countries. Seeing that trains run on time in Japan means that we know we are making a mess of the railways in the UK. Seeing Singapore doing well means that other places realize that land isn't required for a nation to prosper etc etc. I think diversity is absolutely essential so that different systems are going at once, learning from each other and able to pick up the pieces whenever one or other falls flat. In nature, robust ecosystems require a wide range of species all fitting in amongst each other. To follow that analogy, a one world government would be a very fragile monoculture and so prone to something like the potato blight  .

So competition can only exist based on manufactured national identities? We have plenty of competition for ideas and solutions happening within the marketplace of a single country.

You say you are worried by a monoculture....hasn't nationalism and capitalism become an international monoculture?

It appears that we have reached the zenith of human potential in our present state according to this board. As Hegel stated in the early 19th century in Prussia. We have reached the "end of history". Sorry, I disagree.  

[Pointedstick]

doodle, people have been arguing for better government since forever. I want better government too. Everyone does. I don't think it will be accomplished by adding more people from many distinct cultures under the umbrella of the same government, no matter its form.

Even if somehow you were able to eradicate nationalism, you aren't going to destroy the cultural differences between those people, are you? Even if there are no "Chinese" and "Argentinians" and "Canadians" any more, the people formerly known by these names aren't just going to give up their cultural attributes and predispositions, are they? And if they retain their cultural uniqueness, I posit that putting them under the same government will simply cause them to squabble with one another as their interests come into conflict. If The-People-Formerly-Known-As-Chinese need oil, and The-People-Formerly-Known-As-Canadians have lots of oil but less the 1/30th of the population (and votes), what do you envision will keep the former group from voting themselves the latter group's resources?

[doodle]

doodle, people have been arguing for better government since forever. I want better government too. Everyone does. I don't think it will be accomplished by adding more people from many distinct cultures under the umbrella of the same government, no matter its form.

I think the United States is a pretty good case in point that supports my position.  A better government formed out of a melting pot of cultures and diverse state interests. Seems to have been pretty successful so far.

I wonder what Craigs position would have been during the US Civil War???

[MediumTex]

doodle, people have been arguing for better government since forever. I want better government too. Everyone does. I don't think it will be accomplished by adding more people from many distinct cultures under the umbrella of the same government, no matter its form.

Even if somehow you were able to eradicate nationalism, you aren't going to destroy the cultural differences between those people, are you? Even if there are no "Chinese" and "Argentinians" and "Canadians" any more, the people formerly known by these names aren't just going to give up their cultural attributes and predispositions, are they? And if they retain their cultural uniqueness, I posit that putting them under the same government will simply cause them to squabble with one another as their interests come into conflict. If The-People-Formerly-Known-As-Chinese need oil, and The-People-Formerly-Known-As-Canadians have lots of oil but less the 1/30th of the population (and votes), what do you envision will keep the former group from voting themselves the latter group's resources?

Let me just suggest that when thinking about a one-world government model, remember that there is a subtle piece of baggage that travels with this idea, and it is either the elimination of all religion, or the standardaization of all religions into one belief system.

I don't see that happening any time soon.

Just because we have a semi-secular government doesn't mean that everyone else is going to want to go along with that.

Remember that one of the U.S.'s beefs with communism was that it was "godless."

[stone]

doodle, I don't think we have reached a zenith. I actually think we might be better off with smaller countries, more independent from one another than we are now. I think if small countries viewed good natured independence as a virtue then the world might work better.

[Pointedstick]

doodle, I think the United States is a really bad example. Our political system is coming apart at the seams, and the last time it came to a head, we had a civil war that killed half a million people and didn't resolve any of the issues that caused it. And we even all have a similar culture, speak the same language, and share the same religion! Imagine trying something like the U.S. political system with people on the other side of the world who have barely heard of one another, speak different languages, and worship different gods. I just can't see it working out well.

I can't speak for Craig, but my position would have been to let the South secede. How can a forced union be a moral union?

You seem to think national identities are manufactured. I posit that national identities are simply the government manifestation of underlying cultural identities. Let me ask you, if national identities were destroyed, what do you think would happen to the underlying cultural identities? Do you believe in distinct cultural identities?