How to Fell a Giant
There's a saying in war, "United we stand, divided we fall." It can apply to many thing beyond war, including economics as well as any addictive grasp for greed and power.
No, REALLY, I'm serious here. The problem of "unity" is always "united for WHAT"?! Might makes right? is that a sound ethical response to life's choices? Look for whomever has the apparent power and serve that master, regardless of what's right, submitting to "what works for me" and just hoping it all make sense in the bigger picture.
Being a "soldier in a war" or a "citizen of the empire", each are equally unacceptable places to try to judge the bigger picture. Self-interest is survival first and within the hierarchy, if you're at the bottom, you're trying to rise up high enough to "judge for yourself", and yet when you rise, self-interest continues to keep your perception away from the failings of the collective. You might believe in tweaking the system, improving security and justice and fairness and opportunity to all within the collective. But if the system itself is slowly rotting out from the inside, there's NEVER any clear point to "jump ship" except in the very hours before the ship sinks.
In times of success, there's going to be no chance for reform from within, beyond the most basic ethical truths that can be expressed solidly within the system. In times of crisis and failure, like our economy now, many of the failings become apparent, and something must be done.
The current government bailouts for all the bad mortgages is a huge responsibility, and apparently a failure to pick them up would mean a complete failure of the U.S. economy because so many giants within would fall like dominos that there'd be nothing left to continue what's we've know.
A Depression is a sort of revolution. Letting the giants fall, letting thousands of smaller companies to fall as a result, and letting tens of millions of people lose their jobs. Perhaps the cost of real reform. BUT of course in the chaos of a revolution, power is never wielded fairly for the collective, but back to scrambling self-interest. When a vacuum of power occurs after giants fall, like in Iraq after the U.S. disabled Saddam's government, the looting begins, and laws become irrelavent.
Wendell Berry talked about the strength of a nation being held by millions of soundly run independent households and businesses and local governments, each with degrees of self-sufficiency, and self-determination, so if and when larger systems fail, the power structure can quickly reorganize downward to meet local needs. He considers agriculture as the root of this economic system - local food produced for local needs. And such a nation is more immune to military threats. Without centralized power, a nation can't be defeated.
It's a nice dream, and comforting to imagine, knowing we're still all interdependent and hardship and failure in one region affects all others to degrees. Neighborliness spreads out naturally from self-interest of a strong whole.
In the world as we know it, we're much more fragile, most of all for our great need for energy and material resource imports to keep our economies running. So because of our fragility, the lacking of local resources to keep our households, and communities functional, we're left with bailing out the giants when they fail, and keep the dominos from falling.
It is nice to believe in continuity, in the idea that times of crisis are times of opportunity where problems can finally be addressed, and corrected, and thing can return to the way they are. I'd almost have hope this could be done, EXCEPT for two primary observations (1) Unsustainable use of resources (2) Unequitable distribution of resources.
In the long run, we'll either run out of cheap energy OR pollute our way into failure. And just in case anyone thinks those problem are solvable, that we can continue avoiding reducing our energy consumption, avoid reducing our pollution, the rest of the world will continue trying to copy our success, until the whole thing falls down under its own weight.
Remember the other saying "The taller they are, the harder they fall." considering the giants around us. We keep proping them up, feeding them so they can get strong and stand again, and they just get taller again, guaranteeing the next time they get tipsy, it'll be that much harder to stop the fall.
When does the madness end?
I don't know. The great depression happened because we let the giants fall. And the depression was lifted by the accidental centralization of power by the war industry for WWII, and now we know we can lift giants by force-feeding them. The next fall will be different. I just can't imagine it. I can't imagine how long the giants can be held up.
IDEALLY, moments like now are "warnings", and they tell us why things can't grow forever and why risk can't be delayed forever, and perhaps individuals and companies may choose this time to "pay down debt" and build up local support systems, so NEXT TIME we'll be ready.
Maybe next time the giants fall, we'll be strong enough to allow them their much needed rest. I'm sure it's tough to feel responsible for the whole world.
Well, not a lot of hope, but it's the only hope I can find. We've all been warned, and we're lucky for that.
So the answer to: "How to Fell a giant?"
The answer is clear: "They'll always fall in their own good time. Your only requirement is to be ready to get out of the way!"
Well, we still don't know WHEN, so that's the mystery we prepare for.
No, REALLY, I'm serious here. The problem of "unity" is always "united for WHAT"?! Might makes right? is that a sound ethical response to life's choices? Look for whomever has the apparent power and serve that master, regardless of what's right, submitting to "what works for me" and just hoping it all make sense in the bigger picture.
Being a "soldier in a war" or a "citizen of the empire", each are equally unacceptable places to try to judge the bigger picture. Self-interest is survival first and within the hierarchy, if you're at the bottom, you're trying to rise up high enough to "judge for yourself", and yet when you rise, self-interest continues to keep your perception away from the failings of the collective. You might believe in tweaking the system, improving security and justice and fairness and opportunity to all within the collective. But if the system itself is slowly rotting out from the inside, there's NEVER any clear point to "jump ship" except in the very hours before the ship sinks.
In times of success, there's going to be no chance for reform from within, beyond the most basic ethical truths that can be expressed solidly within the system. In times of crisis and failure, like our economy now, many of the failings become apparent, and something must be done.
The current government bailouts for all the bad mortgages is a huge responsibility, and apparently a failure to pick them up would mean a complete failure of the U.S. economy because so many giants within would fall like dominos that there'd be nothing left to continue what's we've know.
A Depression is a sort of revolution. Letting the giants fall, letting thousands of smaller companies to fall as a result, and letting tens of millions of people lose their jobs. Perhaps the cost of real reform. BUT of course in the chaos of a revolution, power is never wielded fairly for the collective, but back to scrambling self-interest. When a vacuum of power occurs after giants fall, like in Iraq after the U.S. disabled Saddam's government, the looting begins, and laws become irrelavent.
Wendell Berry talked about the strength of a nation being held by millions of soundly run independent households and businesses and local governments, each with degrees of self-sufficiency, and self-determination, so if and when larger systems fail, the power structure can quickly reorganize downward to meet local needs. He considers agriculture as the root of this economic system - local food produced for local needs. And such a nation is more immune to military threats. Without centralized power, a nation can't be defeated.
It's a nice dream, and comforting to imagine, knowing we're still all interdependent and hardship and failure in one region affects all others to degrees. Neighborliness spreads out naturally from self-interest of a strong whole.
In the world as we know it, we're much more fragile, most of all for our great need for energy and material resource imports to keep our economies running. So because of our fragility, the lacking of local resources to keep our households, and communities functional, we're left with bailing out the giants when they fail, and keep the dominos from falling.
It is nice to believe in continuity, in the idea that times of crisis are times of opportunity where problems can finally be addressed, and corrected, and thing can return to the way they are. I'd almost have hope this could be done, EXCEPT for two primary observations (1) Unsustainable use of resources (2) Unequitable distribution of resources.
In the long run, we'll either run out of cheap energy OR pollute our way into failure. And just in case anyone thinks those problem are solvable, that we can continue avoiding reducing our energy consumption, avoid reducing our pollution, the rest of the world will continue trying to copy our success, until the whole thing falls down under its own weight.
Remember the other saying "The taller they are, the harder they fall." considering the giants around us. We keep proping them up, feeding them so they can get strong and stand again, and they just get taller again, guaranteeing the next time they get tipsy, it'll be that much harder to stop the fall.
When does the madness end?
I don't know. The great depression happened because we let the giants fall. And the depression was lifted by the accidental centralization of power by the war industry for WWII, and now we know we can lift giants by force-feeding them. The next fall will be different. I just can't imagine it. I can't imagine how long the giants can be held up.
IDEALLY, moments like now are "warnings", and they tell us why things can't grow forever and why risk can't be delayed forever, and perhaps individuals and companies may choose this time to "pay down debt" and build up local support systems, so NEXT TIME we'll be ready.
Maybe next time the giants fall, we'll be strong enough to allow them their much needed rest. I'm sure it's tough to feel responsible for the whole world.
Well, not a lot of hope, but it's the only hope I can find. We've all been warned, and we're lucky for that.
So the answer to: "How to Fell a giant?"
The answer is clear: "They'll always fall in their own good time. Your only requirement is to be ready to get out of the way!"
Well, we still don't know WHEN, so that's the mystery we prepare for.
posted by Ares Olympus at 2:41 PM
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