Of Two Minds

Eventually the “flock of timid and industrious animals” changes their minds about how much exploitation by the few is acceptable. You may have noticed the news flow beyond the hot war in Ukraine is largely focused on capital financial capital (markets, liquidity, interest rates, commodities, central bank tightening, etc.) and political capital (geopolitical maneuvering, sanctions, revising energy and defense policies, etc.)

Totalitarian imposed inequality is the only possible path of centralized Degrowth: 10,000 for me, one for you, unless you disobey, and then you get zero. The fantasy is that everything will soon be super-abundant and cheap again because creating money out of thin air creates demand out of thin air and supply will always magically appear if there is demand.

Unbeknownst to those trembling in fear of a crushing recession, the crushing recession they fear is the only curative for a fatally distorted system which has lost touch with reality. Everyone looking at the inevitability of recession with alarm is forgetting the many upsides of recession, especially one that crushes all attempts to reverse it with the usual tricks.

Making your entire economy a Landfill Economy dependent on the fantasy of infinite replacements and substitutions is the height of hubris and folly. Very few people ask: what if it breaks? It’s a question we can ask of a great many things: touchscreens, motherboards, tools, vehicles, supply chains and entire systems: what if it breaks?

It is entirely accurate to say that the U.S. is addicted to waste and distant sources of essentials. The downside of dependency is in the air. The U.S. has allowed itself to become dependent on other nations for essentials, a policy that I view as an insanity fueled by greed.

Initial victories do not guarantee the war will be won. Rather, they arouse the most dangerous enemy: the fatal hubris of over-confidence. War tops the long list of human folly for a basic reason: it rarely achieves the initial goals of launching the war.