There are moments in time when deep, fundamental change,
even though it has not yet occurred, has become inevitable. This is because the
overall configuration of our reality in all of its dimensions: social,
spiritual, economic and political--in conjunction with the deeper, underlying dimensions
of climate, energy, and resources have come to possess a particular
configuration of interrelationships in which the existing ordered structures of
society and economics cannot continue much longer, but rather, are compelled to
undergo precipitous, discontinuous, change and restructuring. We have arrived at
such a time as I will briefly explain just below. If we choose to drift along
on the rapid current of events we will certainly end up in a place where we
will not want to be. However, if we can creatively take advantage of the
opportunities offered by our onrushing crises, we will arrive at a much better
historical outcome than otherwise.
A picture (or graph at any rate) may be worth the proverbial
1,000 words of explanation as to why our looming crises must be so very
transformative--whether for good or ill:
This graph comes from research I published over a decade ago
in the journal Systemica. It depicts a fitness landscape
representing the historical evolution of a simplified version of human civilization.
I use it here only to illustrate my central thesis which is that change is
coming. This landscape is a 3-D rendering of a complex many-dimensional
reality. We appear to see hills, valleys and plains. This intuitive rendering
contains much useful information.
During long historical eras, represented by flat plains, deep
change is nearly impossible. Things continue on pretty much as they have in the
past. The hills and mountains represent cultural, religious, economic, and/or,
material constraints on change. Finally, the valleys represent basins of
attraction into which any system which approaches it too closely tumbles down into
a new state. Getting out and going "back" to where the system was previously, is
difficult, to impossible, depending upon the "slope" of the valley. Finally,
this fitness landscape is not fixed, as is a real world landscape. Rather, it
is constantly changing its contours depending on the choices we make as we go
through time.
So to get back to my thesis: why is fundamental change now
inevitable? There are multiple reasons each of which can be thought of as a
rapidly deepening basin of attraction pulling our civilization rapidly ever
farther away from the broad flat plains of stability upon which is has
developed for generations. Each such attractor is merging with the others to
produce a yawning chasm into which we are being inevitably drawn. These
crisis-attractors include:
1)
Human civilization is now global in extent. Whereas
previously the collapse of say, The Roman Empire, would have profound regional transformative
effects, its effects on contemporary China were negligible to nonexistent. No
longer. Now we live in a global economy within which disruptions, of any
sort (economic, environmental etc.), anywhere, affect all of us, everywhere.
2)
Though our civilization remains divided into
multiple competitive nations states, a single form of organization based upon an
integration of corporate and state power has become well entrenched. The 2008
US presidential election proved how deeply this system is entrenched in the US.
Barak Obama, faux "liberal reformer" has proved himself over and over and over
again to be nothing but the head errand boy for our ruling financial and
corporate elites.
Mitt Romney, if President, would be as
subservient a knee bender to our self-anointed ruling class as was Obama.
Nothing meaningfull would change in the USA. Abroad, the EU has demonstrated
through its handling of the ongoing Eurozone crises that it exists to enforce
the will of European corporate and banking interests. China has developed a
unique state led version of capitalism in which state and corporation are
seamlessly integrated. Ditto for Japan, Brazil, for all major nations on the
planet.
3)
Our global economy REQUIRES unending growth to avoid
collapse. However, we have now hit up against hard environmental, energy and
resource limits to that growth. This means that our current economic crisis
will NEVER end--rather it will intensify. Although there will be ever shorter
periods of partial recovery followed by ever deeper depression, the trend is
down, down, down. Our present economy, our economic system, all are being forced
into crisis after crisis leading inevitably to collapse by attempting to force
its expansion in the context of these environmental and resource constraints.
4)
Government, having been completely captured by
the oligarchs at the national level, cannot even make any meaningful attempts
to respond rationally to these multiplying crises. In recent months, weeks, and
even days, the current stooge in the White House has concentrated instead on expanding
Presidential powers. US Presidents now have the unconstrained, self-proclaimed
power to kill anyone anywhere on Earth upon their sole, unchecked, decision to do so. They
have the power to suspend any and all rights, and to appropriate any and all
property of anyone upon their unilateral say so.
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