A Patriots Manifest Aug 27 2008
William White
Why will a great depression lead to revolution rather than foreign war? I hold to the position that the diffusion of technology worldwide has changed the economic landscape so much that the old systems leading to a New World Order no longer work. Toynbee and Spenglar among others showed that this was the path the world was on up until 1918 and possibly as late as 1960 when the diffusion of transistor radios caused an irreversible decline in colonial empires.
(Article Continues Below)
|
Imperial rule requires a difference in potential. The imperial party and the colonies both have to get something out of the deal: roads and Legion security in the case of Rome; safe sea transport for the British Empire enforced by the RN; canal transport and the Great Wall for China and so forth. My position is that the combination of increasing weapon lethality, more transport alternatives: air and rail in particular plus vastly improved communications starting with either telegraphs or the Royal Navy’s signal flag system sank the imperial system. With cell phones and computers becoming common worldwide Haiti, New Guinea and Burma are beginning to have fitful progress towards prosperity. Parts of sub-Saharan Africa such as Senegal and Botswana are on the verge of self-sustaining post-industrial economies. Differences in potential are vanishing. The payback from empire is sinking for imperial powers and seen as obnoxious by the colonies.
But there are other views as to causality: communications, speed of technology change and demographic changes. Or perhaps I should say different views of the dominate cause. Take speed of technological change. When the Congo gets wired for the web a lot of costs will be lower than the US has experienced: ditch digging machinery is improving, wiring is improving and switching circuits are improving. In the US first came copper wiring, then coax and now the switch is on to fiber optics with perhaps other improvements down the road. Wiring for everything once is much cheaper than rewiring again and again. Shovels to back hoes to ditch witches is progress but the robogopher will be much cheaper still. And the same is true for switching hardware and software. In addition to transitional technologies that work but have to be replaced there are also technologies that turn out to be a deadend. In audio recording LPs are making a comeback because most digital recordings are simply not good enough in the opinion of true audiophiles and those that are good enough (blue laser read) are more expensive than analog equivalents. Some people notice the loss of high end flute harmonics in the 1812 overture and get upset about it. A high C flute harmonic may not be noticed by you or me even subconsciously but the people who fork over 10+K for an audio system want the 1% of their guests who do notice to hear the quality. Snob appeal is drawing in even more people into the return to LP music. The sunk costs of 8 track tapes, cassettes and possibly even CDs have to be written off. I don’t see any reason to treat speed of technological change and diffusion of technology as separate causes so I don’t. I do consider diffusion to be more important in ruining the idea of internationalism but technological change and diffusion are two sides of the same coin.
Communications is unpredictable in as much as no one has a model that explains both the four languages of Switzerland and the four adjoining nations that speak Serbo-Croatian. For decades the US has been explained as a multi-national confederation: the sunbelt; the Nine Nations of North America; red and blue states; and many other models exist. Secession is a very real possibility as a way of resolving current differences, so is transnational union. Both count as revolutions. But communications gives no clue as to type of revolution.
Demographic signals are clear as to the fact that we are headed for revolution. Strauss & Howe popularizes of the Demographic model of history point out in “Fourth Turning” point out :
That there is a self pumping four generation cycle: Prophet; Nomad; Hero; Artist
Since 1453 this Anglo-American cycle has been disturbed two times: the US civil war that came 15 years early and aborted the development of a normal hero generation and today when the artist generation born 1925-43 never gained the presidency. This is a huge anomaly
A few caveats: Jimmy Carter born 1924 may have been mislabeled as hero when actually an artist generation and McCain might win this time. In either case a reversion to an earlier generation will have happened and that’s never been seen before either.
A partial abortion of the generation cycle means bad news. Bush in my opinion correctly saw 9/11 as the exactly wrong time to launch a crusade. Strauss & Howe predicted a 9/11 event and most of its domestic consequences when they published “The Fourth Turning” in 1997 but if you turn to the list of possible scenarios in chapter 10 you will find that they predicted it for 2005, not 2001. Using other Demographic models Harry S. Dent jr. in “The Next Great Bubble Boom” 2004 predicted a housing crash for 2010-11. These demographic models are based on people who are and were, at the time of writing their predictions, alive. People skipping 4-5 years of their normal spending cycle is odd but not as odd as the war cycle dropping 4 years for unknown reasons.
The second wave of defaults is building up and the Obama-Biden administration will mean economic and possibly foreign policy disaster as they try to cookbook a second new deal but a McCain administration means nuclear war by June 2009. That’s why secessionist revolution is likely.
The views expressed by William White are his and his alone and may not be the views expressed by A Patriots Manifest. Thank you .... Michael Roller...