Guest Post by Jim Kunstler
In response to what has become a nation of shameless racketeering, vivid wealth disparity, and shocking destitution on display in city streets, the party of the common man seeks remedies in the redistribution of capital. Seems more than fair to many. It’s not for nothing that they style it “social justice,” the cutting edge of an economic system called socialism — with overtones, of course, of settling racial and gender scores for good measure.
Socialism might seem to be the answer to all this unfairness and indignity. And naturally it focuses on the two activities that have turned into the worst rackets in America: higher education and health care, a.k.a. “Eds and Meds.” Both are now cruel bloated parodies of what they used to be, turning their customers into debt serfs and bankrupts, apart from their dismal failures of basic mission: to prepare developing minds for reality and to “first do no harm.”
The proposed remedy is for the national government to take responsibility for running them and making their services free to all. That would do nothing, of course, to reform the patent idiocies of the gender studies departments; or rescue the sorry victims of obesity and diabetes from their toxic consumption of whoppers, pizza, and slurpees. Those dynamics operate on feedback wheels of futility for which there is no happy ending outside of drastic changes in thought and behavior.
The Left now promises redemption from these great quandaries with the tag-team of Robin Hood and Santa Claus ushering in a new golden era of free stuff. It’s understandable perhaps, considering how desperate so many citizens of this land are, and how desperation feeds rescue fantasies. And the Left may even get a chance to try this wizardry after the next election. But it’s really not where history is taking us. America is not going to go socialist, it’s going medieval. Why is that?
To put it simply, the money is not there. But the “money” is only an abstract representation of material wealth of one kind or another — energy, goods, resources, and delivery systems — and all that is becoming more of a fugitive presence in reality-based civilization. We don’t have the mojo anymore to nationalize and centralize these sprawling activities. It must be obvious that government is not only fatally beyond bankruptcy, but that it has also reached the stage of diminishing returns from over-investment in complexity that translates into generalized incompetency. It’s hardly just Mr. Trump alone that is responsible for the chaotic paralysis all around us.
Societies are self-organizing, emergent phenomena. They respond to the circumstances that reality presents, and they take us in unexpected directions. The general expectation in the USA since the Second World War has been for ever-increasing material comfort provided by an inexhaustible techno-industrial cornucopia, kind of a cosmic goodie machine. Well, we’d better adjust our thinking to the fact that the horn-of-plenty is shockingly out of goodies, and that no amount of financial hocus-pocus is going to refill it. Valiant attempts to redistribute the already-existing wealth are liable to prove disappointing, especially when the paper and digital representations of that wealth in “money” turn out to be figments — promises to pay that will never be kept because they can’t be kept.
So, instead of fantasizing about free PhD programs for everybody, and free insulin for the multitudes, consider instead the vista of a reduced population working in the fields and pastures to bring enough food out of the long-abused land to live through the next winter. Consider a world in which, if we are lucky, the electricity runs for a few hours a day, but possibly not at all. Imagine a world in which men and women actually function in different divisions of labor and different social spaces because they must, to keep the human project going. Imagine a world in which the ideas in your head about that world actually have to comport with the way the way that world really works — and the severe penalty for failing to recognize that. That’s the more likely world we’re heading into. It won’t put an end to dreams of utopias and cosmic rewards, but it will be a sobering moment in history.
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Going medieval don’t sound bad. No electricity, no surveillance.
“So, instead of fantasizing about free PhD programs for everybody, and free insulin for the multitudes, consider instead the vista of a reduced population working in the fields and pastures to bring enough food out of the long-abused land to live through the next winter.”
Not sure folks grasp how high the piles of bodies will be if this truly is the future: “All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked with ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage”.
“No electricity, no surveillance”
Medieval villages were cesspits of gossip, innuendo, superstition and mutual malice. Who did all that witch burning, after all?
Humans gonna human nature. What’s gonna happen?
Will the truly rich squeal like pigs the same way the truly poor squeal like pigs do now?
I Don’t think I give a rats ass any more. When the electric grid goes down we will all be equal then. I can’t wait to see the look on many faces. Especially blacks who have been telling white men like me how ” bad theys bees ” for the last 40 years.
Beebs – we will not be equal. The greatest human attribute is intelligence, and society can only do as well as its smartest element – even medieval societies. Brains will be the most valuable of all commodities.
The blacks you mention will initially try brute force but will soon die out due to lack of brainpower.
Same as it ever was.
The only thing that will be heard from the smart truly rich and truly well prepared and stocked will be bang, bang, bang, boom, pow, pop, pop,pop, bang bang when the mob comes.
On a related note, there are studies that show IQ is dropping in the West, along with testosterone levels. So, in the future we are looking at a much smaller population, mostly morons. I just hope that antibiotics and painless dentistry survive; I could do with out the rest of the stuff.
Kunstler imagining the future ….
Ok, speaking of Star Trek, ALL of our problems could be solved if we just concentrated on two technologies; — 1) the Replicator and, 2) the Holodeck.
That would be better than heaven itself.
We’d need their magical free and endless* energy sources first.
*”endless” unless the plot needed otherwise, of course
…this is such any easy fix: ENFORCE THE LAWS EQUALLY ON THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ELITE…….
You’ll just need to strip those ‘social and political (and financial)’ (((elite))) of their economic and social power first. They won’t willingly give it up. You know that, right?
This means civil war. Probably followed by an international war, as the (((elite))) send their other puppet states to reclaim what (((they))) had previously stolen from America.
California leading the way:
Neofeudalism.
Presumably the plan is to grind up the remnants of the middle class, and feed them to niggers.
Now THAT sounds plausible.
obamma was supposed to be the set up for hitlary the great where she would administer the coup de gras and finally end capitalism as we know it. Didn’t work for a host of reasons the biggest being is that America found enough votes of conscience that truly understood that she and hillbilly were as crooked as Al Capone. This meant one thing and that is that power in all it incipient forms and fashions was gone and they had better do something to get it back fast.
Thus we had the 2017 version of the French Directory from 1795…..and it is in worse shape than before the election. Now the proles are doing any and everything they can to take down the President and preferably before the 2020 election. Their problem is a cast of pure imbeciles that are out racing each other in what they can give away and how fast they can dole it out. The best example is the triple axis of cortez, tlaib and omar……On the judicial side the worst elements of the justice department tried everything and I mean everything they could to kill the golden golem of greatness to no avail…he is the golden one and a fighter who blocked every punch and shiv they threw…this includes the media activists and their drivel as well.
They have lost power and will never get it back. The decades of policies that destroyed the black family in the major democrat controlled cities is gone forever because no one trusts them. No matter what they say or do we do not have money or gravitas to repeat that criminal activity. This includes the import of 50 million illegals from ”centro America” and even now future welfare recipients and voters from Africa have joined the fray. Where did these philistines get the tickets to show up in south Texas or the Arizona/California borders just to cross and slide into home plate just waiting for a plate friend chicken and grits.
The clean up of this battle will be the destruction of Mssrs Mueller and his lawyers and see where that leads. Simultaneously the detention of the justice department hacks will begin a governmental clean up that is decades in the making. One of the biggest supporters of this is the Federal bureaucracy and they do it by doing what they always do…waiting out the reformers and making sure that the union (AFSME) stays clean and they get their pay raises….especially in DC.
We are on the verge of a market drop as even new prime rate reductions will not stop it…this goes for markets worldwide. The dollar will reduced to munchkin size while the rest of the currencies do the same. The winner will be the one with the most muscle…its coming and you need to be ready for it. The number of ex-government employees running around holding their asses with one hand and the other one stretched out looking for handout will be legion. As the dollar is whacked so will it be the government payrolls. What may it possibly look like? Look at Baltimore and Los Angeles for starters…..
It’s coming so be ready for it.
Musket,
Come off the ledge.
I prefer to believe the asshats are going to jail or at least expensive humiliation. The Zips and everybody else needs us more than we need them so the tariff BS will end with Trump and the US in better shape. We must banjaxe the commie fuquefaces called Dhimmicrats which will be easier with all the previously mentioned falling into place.
I do not believe the panic over 75,000 jobs was anything but stupidity and short sellers. The whole f’ing month featured torrential rains and 500 tornadoes. Nobody is getting hired or farming or doing construction in that. The Cement association, whatever its official name is says they are full bore for at least 18 months with orders for confirmed projects. No recession before 2020 election unless commieasses commit large scale sabotage.
Harrington Richardson
98% of Americans are dependent on Farmers and Ranchers to produce food, and the Truckers to bring it to them. If anything goes wrong, just vote for more liberals to vote you more food.
Whether it’s some quasi-Malthusean disaster or nukes flying, the current order is unsustainable. Bottom line; there are too many stupid people alive and their collective influence is steering the world toward an idiocracy type situation. I foresee a lot of death and suffering before the “correction” has run it’s course.