https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec19/fragmentation12-19.html
Guest Post by Charles Hugh Smith
December 20, 2019
As our fragmentation accelerates, shared economic interests are ignored in favor of divisive warring camps that share no common interests.
That our society and economy are fragmenting is self-evident. This fragmentation is accelerating rapidly, as middle ground vanishes and competing camps harden their positions to solidify the loyalty of the “tribe.” All or nothing, either-or binaries are the order of the day: you’re either 100% with us or 100% against us, you’re either part of the solution or part of the problem.As fragmentation accelerates, “tribes” splinter into warring groups who compete for members of once-broad-based movements. Moderation is no longer tolerated as it smacks of mixed loyalties or (most dangerous) independent analysis and action.
What’s striking is the complete absence of economic class loyalty or identity: Few if any feel any shared identity with other workers, or feel any loyalty to a class that shares economic interests. Identities and loyalties are to ethnicity, gender, faith, political ideology or sports teams; shared economic interests simply don’t register in the U.S.
This is a remarkable divergence from past eras of social disruption and discord, as in past eras workers banded together to wield the political power of organized large numbers to demand an end to child labor, 8-hour workday, and other basic rights that were denied by an exploitive Gilded Age class of crony capitalists.
In previous eras of social discord, the obvious shared interests of gig economy workers and Amazon employees would have generated movements of millions of people demanding fair wages, basic protections and a larger say in decisions directly impacting the work force.
Imagine millions of gig-economy workers, and millions of their allies / sympathizers– boycotting Uber and Lyft to force these corporations to accept more of the risk they’ve offloaded onto the gig workers.
Imagine tens of millions of people boycotting Amazon to support its exploited work force, or boycotting Too Big To Fail Banks for ripping off customers. These economic identities and loyalties were once common; in today’s fragmenting economy, the Titanic is sinking and the steerage passengers (a.k.a. the working class) feel no class identity with their fellow steerage passengers.
As I noted in Misplaced Pride: Most of the “Middle Class” Is Actually Working Class, most of the people who identify as middle class are actually working class: they own few assets that generate unearned income, they’re burdened with debt and their social mobility is limited.
This absence of class identity makes it extremely easy to control the fragmented masses. Nothing could be better for the ruling elites than a fragmented, disintegrating social order that lacks the most basic appreciation of shared economic interests.
When cooperation fails to deliver what was promised, disintegration is the next step. As historian Peter Turchin has explained, when a fundamental scarcity of positive economic and social roles leaves the majority of society in the dust, social discord is the result.
Turchin’s model identifies three primary forces in these cycles:
1. An over-supply of labor that suppresses real (inflation-adjusted) wages
2. An overproduction of essentially parasitic Elites
3. A deterioration in central state finances (over-indebtedness, decline in tax revenues, increase in state dependents, fiscal burdens of war, etc.)
The ruling elites can manipulate financial metrics, but they can’t manipulate rising wealth/power inequality or social discord. The nation is fragmenting because the Status Quo is failing the majority of the citizenry. The protected few are reaping all the benefits at the expense of the unprotected many.
As I have outlined many times, this guaranteed-to-collapse asymmetry is the only possible outcome of our socio-economic system, which is dominated by these forces:
1. Globalization–free flow of capital, labor arbitrage (workers must compete with the lowest-cost labor around the world).
2. Nearly free money from central banks for bankers, financiers and corporations.
3. Pay-to-play “democracy”– wealth casts the only votes that count.
4. State protected cartels that privatize gains and socialize losses.
5. A political system stripped of self-correcting feedback and accountability.
As I explain in my book Will You Be Richer or Poorer? Profit, Power and A.I. in a Traumatized World, policy tweaks only provide an illusion of reform that serves the need of those at the top to obscure the systemic injustices and unsustainability of the extractive, exploitive, predatory, parasitic system that’s enriching them.
The social and economic buffers have thinned, leaving the entire system increasingly fragile: we sense this, but are unable to identify with our own economic class, and so we’re left powerless and fragmented.
The status quo’s “solutions” are the drivers of collapse, as depicted in this chart:
As our fragmentation accelerates, shared economic interests are ignored in favor of divisive warring camps that share no common interests. This is how societies decay and collapse. We’re experiencing it in real time.
In the ‘previous eras’ America was far more homogeneous and the working class didn’t have to compete with hordes of legal and illegal immigrants who are only here to take our jobs while laughing at us or to sit on our overly generous social programs while scolding us for not doing enough for them.
“The ruling elites…”
-Charles Hugh Smith
I like this clear concise writing and analysis except some of his terminology. Please, Charles, call them for what “they” are (if you are able without winding up in a dumpster in Camden) The Evil Fuckers and are a malignancy on the world.
THE EVIL FUCKERS…The Luciferian Powers That Be
TLPTB
A related vid with our best tactic at the end.
Oh yea, there probably isn’t any Gold in Ft. Knox…I know many/most here already knew that, but this gives some details:
I don’t know if you saw it, but Jim Quinn got a nice honorable mention in Dave Collum’s Year in Review…look for my comment.
I think this video gets a mention too… it is a very long article.
I think 2 early 70’s ‘decisions’ played large roles in how we ended up where we are now. Roe v Wade and abolishment of the gold standard. Lots of connectable dots.
My vote goes with LBJ’s Great Society of 1965.
Right now there seem to be two main camps in power. The only thing they are fighting over is how to best fuck over Heritage Americans.
Amnesty provision in 2020 NDAA. Cute.
http://hardnoxandfriends.com/2019/12/21/2020-pentagon-funding-bill-contains-hidden-amnesty-provision/
Amnesty for thousands of Liberians. Presumably every one is a doctor, scientist, or engineer,
Then there was H.R.5038 – Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2019 – amnesty for 1.5 million illegal agricultural workers ***plus*** their families.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/5038/text
Not a peep from Trump, because ZOG has his nuts in a vise with the sham impeachment bullshit.
Time for Queen Ann’s Death Squads, I guess.
I think the central planners figured it was easier to bring the US down to the level of third world countries than it was to bring those countries up to the level of the US.
The central bank, i.e. the Federal Reserve is the fifth plank in the Communist Manifesto. That makes the recipients of said monies communist, not capitalists. “Corporate communism”, “socialism for the rich”.
The best democracy money can buy. It’s the donor class vs. the voter class. Abolish lobbying in all forms.
The state protects the money trust with public funds in the form of bailouts and corporate subsidies. All because of number three above.
They have all the guns. They don’t have to give you slaves any accounting of anything. Their accountability to you is through enforcement actions and the courts. They have all the guns and is also the reason why they want yours.
Try to explain to the average American that the Fed targeting 2-3% inflation every year for 30 years results in labor costs here that are expensive relative to other parts of the world and the eyes will glaze over. Math is hard.
Social Security’s COLA for 2020: 1.6%. Medicare Part B premium increase is around 6.7%. If your SS monthly take is around $570 your COLA gets eaten up by Medicare. Oh well, the Fed must be doing something right for someone, aren’t they?