Thursday, September 9, 2010

The Stone


The power structures that govern the world lives at a level far above us. I think that folks would be well served to plow through Ferdinand Braudel's magnum opus:

Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century

The Structures of Everyday Life
The Wheels of Commerce
The Perspective of the World

The higher level structures are the flow of large-scale money. When we complain on these corporate-sponsored pages, we are flies circling an elephant, complaining about the shit that comes out of the animal.

We need to keep our eyes on the elephant. We really do have to do this. The elephant can crush us at any time, and we are meaningless to the elephant. This is why I think folks are getting so nervous, our individual actions mean nothing to the elephant, the elephants actions can directly affect us.

So, we have to watch the money flows at the level of capitalism. We must pay attention to the capital outflows in the stock market. We will have to monitor the price of oil and the supply of this essential. We will have to watch the shenanigans of the health care oligarchy and figure out how to slide by without feeding the insurance goons.

The overarching structures have become exceedingly complex. They are increasingly unstable and dangerous. Their failure will have real effects on our lives.

The only way that I can see through this is to simplify more rapidly than the rest of the world. The elephant will thrash around as it dies. Simplification will allow us the speed to react to the world that is fleeing away from us and adapt successfully to the new one that is rushing toward us.

All of the things that middle America has chosen as it's symbols are levels of complexity which will slow you down. Debt is nothing but chains attached to the stone. You must rid yourself of this surplus.

Time to get down to it.



2 comments:

Mayberry said...

Very well said. Simplicity is the key, and a dash of mobility certainly wouldn't hurt. Those elephants like to charge once in a while, it's best to get out of the way...

russell1200 said...

I loved those books. Braudel was also an early appreciator of the cyclical nature of global society.

Complexity is the the symptom. The cause is overpopulation.

Fortunately there have been cases (prior to the industrial revolution) where there was a fall back in numbers that was not the result of violence and war. As things got bad, people simply had less children.

But the industrial revolution, and modern agriculture have brought us to a point where it is hard for society (not necessarily certain individuals within the system) to simplify.