Collapse: Is Now Locked In

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Wed Dec 8 21:40:18 PST 2021


A random blurb on overpopulation, resources, stupid Govts and Peoples...


http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2021/12/can-any-nation-state-survive-era-of.html

Can Any Nation-State Survive The Era Of Inequality And Scarcity?

We have an extraordinary opportunity to transform our unsustainable
"waste is growth" economy and toxic inequality to sustainable systems
that optimize well-being rather than collapse.

The possibility that the United States could fragment is no longer a
marginalized topic. Maps displaying various post-U.S. regional
configurations accompany essays exploring how and why a break-up of
the U.S. would be a solution to regional and ideological polarization,
for example, Max Borders' recent article, Dear America: It's Time to
Break Up.

But two forces larger than political polarization may fragment
nation-states across the globe, including the U.S.: inequality and
scarcity. Inequality and corruption go hand in hand, of course, as the
wealthiest few influence the state to protect their monopolies and
backstop their speculative gains.

Inequality also goes hand in hand with the collapse of nation-states,
as this seminal paper explains: Human and nature dynamics (HANDY):
Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or
sustainability of societies.

The parasitic elite can accumulate the majority of income, wealth,
political power and resources in eras of expanding abundance, as
what's left is enough to support an expanding populace that consumes
more per capita every year, i.e. broad-based prosperity.

But once abundance transitions to scarcity, the economy and society
can no longer sustain the dead weight of its outsized parasitic elite.
The parasitic elite believes its bloated share of resources, wealth
and power is not only sustainable but can be expanded without
consequence, and so it deploys all its formidable power to keep the
status quo unchanged even as scarcity lowers the living standards of
the bottom 90% and hollows out the economy.

In effect, the modern central state, regardless of ideological label,
optimizes inequality and growth. Once growth falters while inequality
continues increasing, the only possible outcome is fragmentation
and/or collapse.

Put another way: the status quo is no longer the solution to
inequality and scarcity, it is the problem. Private-sector and
political elites are incapable of recognizing they are now the
problem, and so the rapid unraveling of the status quo will come as a
great shock to their magical-thinking confidence in their power.

The elite's delusional "solution" is a seamless, painless transition
to a new era of abundance via "green energy." Unfortunately, this
vision is 100% magical thinking, as all these projections ignore the
physical realities of building out a global energy system that
generates energy on the same scale as existing hydrocarbon energy
sources. Read these three reports for reality-based assessments:

    The "New Energy Economy": An Exercise in Magical Thinking
(manhattan-institute.org)

    The Delusion of Infinite Economic Growth: Even "sustainable"
technologies such as electric vehicles and wind turbines face
unbreachable physical limits and exact grave environmental costs.
(scientificamerican.com)

    Assessment of the Extra Capacity Required of Alternative Energy
Electrical Power Systems to Completely Replace Fossil Fuels (PDF,
Simon P. Michaux, Geological Survey of Finland) Read the 3-page
abstract.

As explained in the first paper, inequality generates collapse and so
does a decline in resources, i.e. scarcity. Put the two together and
the only possible outcome is collapse of all centralized nation-states
that optimize inequality and endless expansion of consumption.

The issue isn't ideological labels or principles, it's whether the
state solves problems or covers them up with fake fixes that
accelerate collapse.

Nations which want to not just survive but emerge stronger have one
path: a revolutionary transformation from "waste is growth" to
degrowth, from an economy and state dominated by a parasitic elite to
a strictly limited parasitic elite and from abject dependence on
fragile supply chains originating in other nations to decentralized,
localized independence for essentials.

I've written a book that is a template for this transformation. This
book is the culmination of a lifetime of study, observation,
experience and analysis: Global Crisis, National Renewal: A
(Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States.

Though I devote some analysis specifically to the U.S., the book is a
template for any nation to not just survive scarcity but emerge
stronger by evolving a degrowth economy and a decentralized political
order.

We have an extraordinary opportunity to transform our unsustainable
"waste is growth" economy and toxic inequality to sustainable systems
that optimize well-being rather than collapse.


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