An Attempt to Explain How We Got Here...Unable to Pay the Bills

Very hazy on the history and politics, but i have an excellent anacdotal source on specifics: a friend who lived in rural Ontario, a child of the Depression. They had very little in the way of luxuries but never went hungry and there was a community spirit, co-operatinon and innovation, that you can still see in small towns. On that level, everybody knows what resources are available, who contributes what and requires what; how those resources need to be allocated, so that the social entity survives.

(I'm thinking that one of the problems with democracy is sheer numbers. The bigger an organization becomes, the harder it is to keep track of contributions, assets and distribution paths - the easier it becomes to cheat. Therefore, the larger piles of anonymous money are sitting around, too lightly guarded, the more unscrupulous individuals they attract.)

But let's see what programs were put in place nationally that reflect what happened in small towns. I think that's what led to the social welfare we (60-somethings) came eventually to take for granted.  

ETA Ah, i see why 1938. McKenzie King's budget, a major departure from the earlier role of government. Loans to municipalities for local projects, the Housing Act and the beginning of federal unemployment insurance.

Love Dave's essay. Excellent references, too.

I listened to an interview on CBC radio today, with the pilot who ejected from the CF-18 that crashed recently. He said that the manufacturer of the ejection seats in fighter planes has saved over 4800 lives so far. When you consider that each plane costs tens of millions of dollars and multiply it by 4800, then you may have an idea why some people have difficulty paying their bills.

I can’t help but my eyes glaze over and I nod off every time I hear about the minutia of economic logic. As long as money exists and people fight over distribution, people will invent marvelous and intricate systems like derivatives and whatever-you-want-to-call-it to steal from each other.

The system can be tweaked and worked to be more or less equitable, but it is totally self-defeating because the basic principles are undefined, the rules are open to interpretation and abuse. A reformer (like Tommy Douglas) may come along and, at great personal cost, fight and win a less barbaric system that lasts for a decade or two (if we are lucky) to be dismantled by the next bastard who comes up with a catchy phrase or scare.

George, it is great to understand how we got here but, as long as we shy away from basic, fundamental change in our thinking, we will never get out for more than a few years here and there. Right now we are on our way back to feudalism, the way I see it.

Do we have a chance for this “basic, fundamental change in our thinking” in the near future? Not a chance. Maybe climate change will force us to rethink our philosophy, but only after millions are starved, burnt, drowned or killed in Gwynne Dyer’s “Climate Wars”. Then, maybe, the age-old wisdom of “try-again-if-it failed-hundreds-of-times-before” will be abandoned. I won’t be around to see it.

Well, there is going to be an economic breakdown to follow the financial "meltdown" (oh my, they do like their hyperbole!) which they're now trying to melt back up agan. The recovery effort can't possibly work while all the same forces and factions and interests that caused it are still in charge. Maybe it takes an oil company to clean up and oil-spill, but a capitalist government can't clean up capitalism. It will simply have to finish doing what it does: the Sock (from Tom Holt's funny book Flying Dutch) collecting all the money that' still out there to be gotten. That means crisis after crisis of unpaid national debts and asset after public asset sold off. Until nobody can pay any more.

And what happens then? They don't pay. Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy.... all the countries who can't pay, stop paying. So? Are the bankers going to foreclose? Make the Greeks move out (How? Mercenaries? Marines?) and convert the country into condominiums? (To sell to ... whom?) Suddenly, a lot of governments, facing armed uprising inside their borders and angry bankers outside, will make a choice. Hey, waidaminnit! Who says we owe you 800 billion? We only borrowed 50 billion and have already paid 200 billin in interest. That's enough; you don't get any more. What will the banks do? Go bust, probably, because they've been counting all that imaginary money (expected compound interest) and paying their "top producers" accordingly. Those bonuses are never coming back - not to the banks' coffers and not to the Greek (or Canadian) government's.

So, that money (US $, i guess) will be worthless and we'll have to start a whole new currency. (Unless China calls in all the loans - that would be an interesting variation.) The people who have amassed all those billions of the old stuff will be up the proverbial creek (in really swanky motor yachts, it's true, but without a crew.) It's a difficult process, but it's been done before.

George Victor wrote:

But "honest, realist, pragmatic and...pessimistic" must leave room for action against the status quo or there is bugger-all use in writing about it. 

George, I am all for doing something about it, however, we disagree about the nature of the 'something'. I try to inspire people to think outside the box, to have a longer term vision, to try to organize something that would really work, instead of repeating which may have gained some temporary relief in the short term to be defeated soon afterward.

All my posts to date, beginning with the first introductory one, were trying to make people think new ways of approaching the problem. I am not very optimistic, true, but that is my problem. I am praying, fervently, that history prove me wrong and see a new leader or movement emerge that is looking further ahead and tries strategies that have not been tried (and failed) before.

Lifestyle change, non-violent non-participation (in existing mainstream institutions) by the public would be a good start. Boycotting the bastards, by our millions, would make a difference. Organizing grass-root, democratic political movements and sending independents to parliament, as suggested by siamdave in the essay I linked to before would also produce some results. Marching, protesting, petitioning, voting (without anything positive to vote for) will not. It will just be more of the same.

Based on the feedback I have received to date (during the last 10 years of trying) does not encourage me to think that any of this will happen. Not until things will become a lot more desperate and people will start really hurting.

Tommy_Paine wrote:

We shy away from the topic of violence on this board, but I think it's inevitable....

Oh, there will be plenty of violence when the shit hits the fan big time. You can count on that. There will be food riots when climate change starts cutting in, there will be violence against climate-refugees who try to escape from their devastated countries on both sides of the equator, there will be violence against the police that will try to control the situation and violence against the mobs that will strike out, often blindly, out of fear and frustration.  Again, I recommend you read Gwynne Dyer's "Climate Wars" to have a glimpse at what may be coming.

A lot of that violence could be avoided, if only just a few million people listened to me and followed my recommendations!

Tommy_Paine wrote:

I think it's a mistake to think of the economy as one system vs. another. (say, capitalism vs. socialism)  I think all systems work.  It just comes down to who it's working for.

I think we'd be better off under Soviet communism than this. We would at least have some people doing central planning instead of leaving important decision making to an invisible hand that doesn't exist.

Tommy_Paine wrote:

As the number of people who an [economic] system is working for shrinks, the less viable it becomes.

absentia wrote:

Yesss! Corollary: every system of government works, in direct proportion to how many of the governed believe in it. 

Yes to Tommy's 'dictum'. But the collary does not in fact follow.

The thing about economic systems not working for people is that this presses down on them hugely. People can do endless amounts of sloughing off government not working for them.

If I dont beleive in the government, I dont beleive in it. If the economy persistently and endlessly isnt working for me, i HAVE to DO something.

But I think its facile Tommy saying that violence against will lead eventually to 'taking up arms'. At least around lefties that tends to connote class based armed struggle, or some kind of popular fighting back.

Maybe that, but all that incresed violence against people necessarily means is more violence... which can easily be a free for all.

And even if the fighting is more solidaristic- armed fighting for survival is no picnic. I'm aware people know that. But it has to be at least considered that what we know may indicate that fighting back is not likely to be any better than what 'just taking' the violence we are subjected to.

trippie wrote:

Actually capitlaism doesn't work. If it worked there would be no problems. So you can throw that thought out the window.

Agreed. And so what I believe we need to do is have EVERY one working for the goverrnment. That way it is now is that we have faux free market capitalists buying governments and influencing government decision making. And then they ALL pretend that  government is the problem, and that we need to hack off more public services and valuable public assets because their bought and paid-for stooges can't run anything properly. IOWs, the private "entrepreneurs" and capitalist scumbugs KNOW the system is rigged in their favour and simply want to legitimize the neofeudal setup with continuing firesales of public assets to themselves. It's inevitable.

And so I propose that we simply eliminate the private sector altogether and make everyone government employees. That way there is no fooling around and no pretending that there is a separate and distinct "private" sector doing things "more efficiently" than the  people they're paying to screw things up on purpose. Everyone a government employee with equal rights in all things and decision making. One person should equal one vote not one dollar equals many votes.

Fidel wrote:

And so I propose that we simply eliminate the private sector altogether and make everyone government employees.

Thanks, Fidel, I have already tried it in one of my previous lives. Trust me, that doesn't work either.

SInce we are talking about tactics now, I must quote absentia from another thread:

absentia wrote:

THAT is the major problem you're up against. All media of mass communication have been suborned, throttled, corrupted. Yes, this one is still relatively free and available, but it's equally available to the enemy, and guess who has more resources to exploit it? As Derrick Jensen said: they [henceforth referred-to as the forces of evil or FOE] will always have a material advantage. The FOE also has the advantage of a passive, anxious, largely brainwashed public - audience, voters, consumers, employees, taxpayerts, pawns, prey and hostages - who know they're the first five of those things, but are not - or not continiously- aware of the last three.  

If all those people were to get angry at the same time, and turn on the FOE, they would bring the system down instantly and irrevocably. The FOE knows this, knows what further crimes it intends to commit against the citizenry, and is arming against an uprising. How the FOE anticipates things to go down is: a bunch of young activists in front, armed at most with hammers and baseball bats, running at the gun emplacements; a few thousand unemployed, welfare mothers, natives, pensioners, etc marching behind them, and the main mass of people lumbering along in the rear. They figure, by the time they finish shooting the scruffy kids in front, everybody else will lose heart. In case that doesn't work, they have to threaten/ hurt/ arrest some of next four tiers and detach the main mass from the activists*. They held a dress rehearsal in TO this summer - and, guess what? Their strategy works; ours doesn't.   

*This is crucial. The FOE has done a very thorough job of detaching. Every march, every demo, every protest and sit-in and tower-climb plays into their hands: they have the resources to show everything you do in the light they choose to shine on it; to paint you as a threat to safety and property; as either hooligans or clowns; to turn the main mass against you. Whether you are actually protesting in the fenced free-speech zone or in the street, you are always seen as being - and belonging - behind that fence. You need to change strategy. Not merely tactics, but the whole approach.

 Your assignment, should you have any hope at all, is to re-attach to the main mass. TMM holds all the power. TMM can frighten politicians even more than bankers and mine-owners can. TMM can destroy the bankers and mine-owners. TMM can participate in real democracy, establish local trade, cut out the middle-man, refuse to pay taxes....

The way that G20 thing should have happened:  $billion fortification, cars, cannon, gas-bombs; 5000 robocops, 200 tv cameras.... in a totally empty street, in a ghost-town. Don't you think TMM would have been angry at the right people- for a change? Figure out how to use the FOE's own resources and humanpower against it. Turn the main mass; turn the tide.

Assuming you are interested in fixing the system, George, that would be the way to go. 

Tommy_Paine wrote:

I can't be quite as cold blooded as you, alien. 

Truth is always cold-blooded, Tommy. It doesn't care whether we are happy with it or not. it just IS.

Just what part of "the system" would survive total mobilization in the name of survival of the species?

I go back to the factory example, because I guess that's what I know.   When the shit hit the fan, places like where I work looked at it's work force and decided that if your hands didn't play a part in adding value to the part being made, then you had better be performing some service the plant couldn't do without.  It's the only way to pay off the excess debt over equity from having all those venture capitalists buy and sell us, creating artificial value.

The whole system has to be done like that George, and Obama's failure to bring meaningful regulation to the investment sector-- after all that's happened in the past two years-- means that the system doesn't want to be fixed, that they figure they will be somewhere safe, or dead, when the train runs off the rails.

Well, when I said: "Obama made a mistake" I meant it from my point of view, not his. A mistake always implies an intent to accomplish a specific goal. His actions may have accomplishe his goal, in which case he did not make a mistake from his own perspective. As far as long-term consequences for humanity is concerned, it is wide open to debate.

George Victor wrote:

Don't you first have to prove it by scientific method to arrive at "truth"

When I say 'truth", George, I always mean "what I believe to be true", not some "absolute truth" if there is such a thing.

alien wrote:

Fidel wrote:

And so I propose that we simply eliminate the private sector altogether and make everyone government employees.

Thanks, Fidel, I have already tried it in one of my previous lives. Trust me, that doesn't work either.

But capitalism has failed around the world in various experiments since 14th century Italy. Is it not time to try something different?

I told you, George, that my favourite Star Trek character is Data. Data without emotions. That's me -- cold-blooded to the core.

Frustrated Mess wrote:

alien wrote:

Actually, siamdave gave a very good summary of where we came from, how we got here and, maybe, how to get out, in his somewhat long essay at http://www.rudemacedon.ca/what-happened.html

 

From the intro to the linked article:

Quote:

For over 200 years our ancestors worked and struggled to make Canada one of the bright spots on the world map - peaceful, democratic, progressive, prosperous, providing an ever-improving life for all of its people, a country consistently rated among the best in the world with the brightest of futures. And then something happened during the 1970s

This nostalgia for a better, more wonderful capitalist era is purely nonsensical and lacks any understanding of history. Just take an hour or two and read about the coal strikes in Nova Scotia at the start of the last century. And then go from there. Canada has seldom been a bright spot on the world map and too many commentators view the golden era of capitalism, 1945-1970, a relatively short period of time, as the default Canadian reality when it was, in fact, the exception. 

- maybe you should take a couple hours yourself and do a bit more reading, slowly enough to comprehend what I am actually saying, before stuffing the piece into a box it most surely does not belong in.  If you read a bit further, you would see that I identify capitalism as a cancer on our society, and it has always been. There was no 'golden era' - what I postulate is that our ancestors fought like hell to control capitalism, and by the 60s were making some serious progress in doing so - which sparked the capitalist reactionary revolution, as I term it. I won't get into any more details, it sounds as if you are too disillusioned and bitter to ever think anything good of anyone ever - but I did not want to let your complete mischaracterisation of what I wrote pass unchallenged. This is one of our main problems today, shallow 'thinking' - encouraged of course by the capitalist school system, which wants uncomplaining worker-consumer-childlike-robots rather than thinking, engaged citizens. Very Orwellian.