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Why Political "Solutions" Don't Fix Crises, They Make Them Worse October 2, 2024
The system has reached the limits of its adaptability. Everything else is entertainment.
A great many people have immense faith in political solutions to looming crises: if only we elect new leaders, if only we replace current policies with new policies, everything would be fixed and the crises will all dissipate. There are powerful reasons for this faith and equally powerful reasons why political solutions fail in crisis. Our faith in politics is nurtured by recency bias in eras of relatively low-level volatility: when the system is humming along, decade after decade, the incremental adaptations of politics are enough to resolve whatever spots of bother arise. There are three key points here. One is that politics is by its nature incremental, and there are profound reasons for this aversion to radical reforms. All organisms are well-served by the innate conservatism of natural selection: if it isn't broken, don't fix it. If the current set of instructions--genetic, epigenetic, social, cultural, economic, political--is working, then it makes sense to conserve what works and be cautious about adapting new instructions. Natural selection tinkers with experiments when selective pressure is applied to a species, and this is an incremental process: if random mutations in an individual offer some meaningful advantage in changing conditions, over time that improvement spreads through the species. Experiments that fail to offer advantages are eliminated by, well, death. Not exactly warm and fuzzy, but when push comes to shove, Nature doesn't fool around. This is why humans experience financial losses so sharply and forget the euphoria of winning. In the big picture, gains are nice and we enjoy the dopamine hit, but losses can be catastrophic, and so we're wired to be risk averse as a key survival trait. In the political realm, this plays out as favoring incremental policy adjustments over radical--and therefore difficult to risk-assess--course changes. Enthusiasm to really tackle the crisis head-on is tempered by fears that some unforeseen consequence could emerge from the untested policy that triggers losses or instability that cannot be reversed. The second key point is everyone in a position of power or influence is committed to preserving the status quo that has rewarded them so well. Outsiders with no power or influence may be chomping at the bit to overthrow the stale, sclerotic, do-nothing status quo, but insiders are self-selected defenders of the status quo, as it has served their interests so well: they rose to wealth and power within this system, and no matter how great the crisis, all their energies are devoted to preserving the system that has served them so splendidly. Self-service is neatly cloaked by a belief that since the system has served me so well, it serves everyone equally well, and so defenders of modest, incremental adjustments in policy naturally believe the system is the best possible and worthy of protecting, despite its flaws. A third source of incrementalism is the lack of consensus and the self-serving divisions in the Power Elite. There are ideological differences which lead to disagreements over policy--welfare queens in Cadillacs, etc.--and there is the auction of favors where to get the vote / approval of a powerful politician, some utterly nonsensical, needlessly costly bauble must be tossed to them--for example, an outdated rocket engine must be manufactured in their district even though the cost is higher and the harm to the project is irreversible. This is the infamous "making sausage" of political wheeling and dealing. Incremental change is all that's possible when few of the participants are feeling any real pain that demands radical adaptations and the majority aren't feeling they're getting anything for supporting radical change. Rather, they're risking their career on a longshot which might end up harming their constituency and position in the party / power structure. This is why we see tepid, baby-step, and ultimately ineffective policy adjustments as empires crumble into crisis. Insiders are loathe to relinquish power or admit that the status quo is incapable of dealing with the crises threatening to overwhelm the empire, and so they agree to doing more of what's failed as this is 1) the safe bet and 2) what all the squabbling power players can agree on. In crisis, the safe bet is the losing bet, but insiders are blind to this reality, for in their blinkered, self-serving recency bias view, the system could not possibly be at risk, so their only concern is preserving their slice of the pie and making as few risky changes as possible. The faith that "it will all work itself out if we leave it alone" is persuasive after decades of stability. That this faith is catastrophically misplaced will only become apparent after it's too late. Since radical reforms inevitably reduce somebody's slice of the pie, they're politically impossible. Never mind the risk of collapse, a reduction in my slice of the pie is completely unacceptable. As a result, collapse is the politically acceptable default. I often refer to these excerpts, as they so succinctly capture the key dynamics is this delusional drift into disaster. The first is from Michael Grant, author of The Fall of the Roman Empire, who describes the clueless mindset of the ruling elite faced with novel crises that are beyond the reach of the usual bag of "safe" (and self-serving) policies: "There was no room at all, in these ways of thinking, for the novel, apocalyptic situation which had now arisen, a situation which needed solutions as radical as itself. His whole attitude is a complacent acceptance of things as they are, without a single new idea. This acceptance was accompanied by greatly excessive optimism about the present and future. Even when the end was only sixty years away, and the Empire was already crumbling fast, Rutilius continued to address the spirit of Rome with the same supreme assurance. This blind adherence to the ideas of the past ranks high among the principal causes of the downfall of Rome. If you were sufficiently lulled by these traditional fictions, there was no call to take any practical first-aid measures at all." The second excerpt is from Ray Huang's 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline, which describes how the status quo, wedded to past success, guided by self-interest and risk aversion, impervious to any real change in its power structure, is beyond the reach of any leader or reform because it has reached the limits of its adaptability and thus of its ability to deal with crises: "The year 1587 may seem to be insignificant; nevertheless, it is evident by that time the limit for the Ming dynasty had already been reached. It no longer mattered whether the ruler was conscientious or irresponsible, whether his chief counselor was enterprising or conformist, whether the generals were resourceful or incompetent, whether the civil officials were honest or corrupt, or whether the leading thinkers were radicals or conservatives--in the end they all failed to reach fulfillment." In the late stage of crises unmet with anything but magical incantations (cough, The Fed) and reliance on past glories, the public's assessment of crises forks off from the complacent hubris of the ruling elite, as evidenced by this survey, which found that the top 1%--unsurprisingly, given their lofty opinion of their god-like abilities--has supreme confidence in their matchless leadership and wisdom, while the general public has lost faith in the entire ruling elite. 
source Those reckoning that new leadership and new policies will avert the crises just ahead will be disappointed. The ship's wheel is lashed tight by all the factors listed above: risk aversion, supreme confidence in either doing nothing or incremental adjustments, blindness to the novelty of the crises, reliance on past solutions, i.e. doing more of what's failed, the dead hand of mummified ideologies, the shackles of self-interest, and last but not least, a hubristic confidence in the status quo and their own abilities to emerge victorious no matter what the crisis, even as the status quo has reached the limits of its adaptability. All of which is to say: we're on our own. One might as well rely on the magic of waving dead chickens while doing the humba-humba around the midnight campfire than rely on the magic of the Federal Reserve or some witches' brew of policies that first and foremost satisfy the power players' desires and delusions. The system has reached the limits of its adaptability. Everything else is entertainment. Rome was eternal, and so were the Ming Empire and the Soviet Union. Everything is forever until radical adaptations become too difficult and painful to bear. New podcast: How Asset Deflation Could Play Out (35:37 min) My recent books: Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site. Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF) The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF) When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF) Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF). A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF). Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF). The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF) Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF) 
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Recent entries: Why Political "Solutions" Don't Fix Crises, They Make Them Worse October 2, 2024 Ahead Lies Ruin: The Decay of Social Trust September 30, 2024 How Easy Is It To Become Middle Class Now? September 27, 2024 What's Changed? What's Different This Time? September 25, 2024 So the Economy Now Depends on Stocks Which Depend on Front-Running the Fed--And This Is Fine? September 23, 2024 I Want the "Rich Guys Internet" September 19, 2024 2024, A Year of No Significance September 17, 2024 The Impossible Dream: 70 Million Boomers Retire in Style September 15, 2024 What's "Free" About "Free Speech"? September 12, 2024 When Local Newspapers Close, We Lose What Matters: Journalism September 11, 2024 Does Anyone Else Smell a Market Crash in the Air? September 8, 2024 Playing It Safe September 6, 2024 Is the "Everything Bubble" About to Pop? September 4, 2024
What If All the Conventional Models Fail to Predict What Happens Next?
September 2, 2024
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"There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity." (Douglas MacArthur) "We are what we repeatedly do." (Aristotle) "Do the thing and you shall have the power." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." (E.F. Schumacher, via Tom R.) "He who will not risk cannot win." (John Paul Jones) "When we drink coffee, ideas march in like the army." (Honore de Balzac) "Progress is not possible without deviation." (Frank Zappa, via Richard Metzger) "Victory favors those who take pains." (amat victoria curam) "The man who has a garden and a library has everything." (Cicero, via Lee Bentley) "A healthy homecooked family meal and a home garden are revolutionary acts." (CHS) "Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organize anything." (Napoleon Bonaparte) "The way of the Tao is reversal" Or "Reversal is the movement of Tao." (Lao Tzu) "Chance favours the prepared mind." (Louis Pasteur) "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." (Winston Churchill) "Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasures." (Rumi) "The realm of gratitude is boundless." (CHS, 11/25/15) "History doesn't have a reverse gear." (CHS, 12/22/15) Smith's Law of Conservation of Risk: Every sustained action has more than one consequence. Some consequences will appear positive for a time before revealing their destructive nature. Some consequences will be intended, some will not. Some will be foreseeable, some will not. Some will be controllable, some will not. Those that are unforeseen and uncontrollable will trigger waves of other unforeseen and uncontrollable consequences. (July 8, 2014)(thanks to Lew G. for retitling the idea.) Smith's Neofeudalism Principle #1: If the citizenry cannot replace a kleptocratic authoritarian government and/or limit the power of the financial Aristocracy at the ballot box, the nation is a democracy in name only. The Smith Corollary to Metcalfe's Law (The Network Effect): the value of the network is created not just by the number of connected devices/users but by the value of the information and knowledge shared by users in sub-networks and in the entire network. (CHS, 4/6/16) My Credo of Liberation: I no longer care if the power centers of our society--the distant, fortified castles of our financial feudal system--are changed by my actions, for I am liberated by the act of resistance. I am no longer complicit in perpetuating fraudulent feudalism and the pathology of concentrated power. I no longer covet signifiers of membership in the Upper Caste that serves the plutocracy. I am liberated from self-destructive consumerist-State financialization and the delusion that debt servitude and obedience to sociopathological Elites serve my self-interests. (Thank you, Klaus-Peter L., for reminding me) "We've become a culture of excuses rather than solutions: solutions always require sustained effort and discipline." (CHS 4/9/16) "Fraud as a way of life caters an extravagant banquet of consequences." (CHS 4/14/16) "Creativity = problem solving = value creation." (CHS 6/4/16) "Truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems." (CHS 7/21/17) "We live in a system of human emotions that masquerades as a science (economics)." (CHS 1/1/18) "Always remember, your focus determines your reality." (George Lucas) "Diversity is for poor people. Sameness is for the successful." (GFB) "When power dissipates suddenly, it dissipates completely." (CHS 7/14/19) "Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." (Henry David Thoreau) "Markets cannot price in the value of non-monetized natural assets such as diverse ecosystems." (CHS 7/14/19) "Magical thinking isn't optimism, it is folly." CHS 1/3/22) "Tune in (to self-reliance), drop out (of hyper-consumerism and debt-serfdom) and turn on (to relocalizing capital and agency)." (CHS 1/5/22) "The path to everything you desire starts here: like yourself as you are right now." (CHS 11/20/22) "There are only two signals: how many essentials you produce and share and if you're consuming less with better results. Everything else is noise." (CHS 12/17/22) "Liberation is no longer needing any confirmation or feedback from others or the world for one's sense of self. Wealth, fame, recognition, admiration, praise, prestige, approval, sainthood, martyrdom, success: none are needed, none are desired." (CHS 12/26/22) "When fame, wealth, prestige, status and glory are out of reach, you're free to pursue other more valuable things." (CHS 2/6/22) "It is the sacred duty of every activist who seeks to better their community to grow and share as much life-giving food as is humanly possible." (CHS 6/15/23) "Being anonymous, gray and unknown is the ideal state of freedom." (CHS 3/15/24) "We seem to have entered a world of anti-leisure and anti-productivity in which the unpaid shadow work demanded to keep all the complicated digital bits in motion obliterate our leisure and productivity." CHS (5/22/24) "It is axiomatic that failing systems work the best just before they fail catastrophically." Ray W. |
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