I tend to agree that it is not a good example, although you could argue that the majority of experts may indeed fall into the category.
Messi comes to mind: a extremely talented futbal player, these extreme talents exist in other areas as well, like maybe being expert in distinguishing wine?
Indeed. Selfclaimed experts are a menace to the society. They have popped up everywhere and are doing nothing than extorting tax-money from us.
Instead of innocent ”wine-tasters” (some of them are extremely annoying), who is not employed by the Government, he could have named other real useless people.
I was thinking of the infamous "Judgment of Paris" in which highly touted French wine experts and professional wine snobs could not distingush overpriced French wines from midtier Californian (but they sure had strong opinions on the subject!, and were mightily butthurt by the outcome).
Oh well...at least S. has the ability to distinguish between genocide and not-genocide. The difference between fascism and not-fascism. The more relevant skill in my opinion. The quibble about wine is, after all, a..quibble.
Indeed, S. is (mostly) hell on wheels in their areas of interest.
Some say I would like to see how S. renders an image of a human hand, but it is not something nescessary in our little subdivision, nor where his training was directed.
Remember the crooks that was selling $10,000 bottles of the best Bordeaux French bottles, manufacturing it with a careful mix of $25 bottles and printing labels on his computer ? No one could tell the different and no one noticed anything for years. Until he made spelling mistakes and started making on dates.
I don't believe one second anyone can tell the difference between a $25 and a $25,000 bottle. And I am French
The OP did specify "a mix of cheap five dollar ones" (bottles).
Even I, a mere American can tell vino Shit-O from drinkable... Yes, there is good stuff around $25, even cheaper on a happy day. And the difference between good & better is much less noticable than the difference between bad & worse!
Indeed, there is always a logarithmic relationship on the price/quality ratio. And for $25 a bottle, you can find some amazing wines in France. Sinplicus was indeed a little extreme with his $5 wine comparison :-)
I would to plug into one of these communities🧲(come~in~unity); please send me ideas! This lady is not quite shelf~life, and I have many skills of the applicable kind. Carry on❤️🐈⬛
Already liked the link name as I am often wondering why people talk about new ideas, new ways of working, modern, etc. I am an IT developer of age and I know the foundation of all these so called improvements lies decades back. What lies for instance underneath most of the way all information is transferred between different systems: sockets, something invented in the 70-ties (RFC 147 in 1971). But my guess is that even sockets are an abstraction of the real world, where buildings for instance where connected via tunnels.
I have the feeling that there are many out there thinking our ancestors were not that smart. I tend to think that that is not correct.
So, now going to read the article and hopefully I didn’t make a fool of myself
Nowadays, the “Peter Principle” works alongside diversity hiring, so corporate hierarchies have degenerated into a toxic feminine cesspool popularity contest. Smug, self-aggrandizing, power-hungry idiots abound. The seams of the system have begun to unravel and it is apparent that many “experts” are not the best in their fields, nor did they earn their positions through merit.
Government is not necessary for people to survive day to day; it never has been and never will be. Everything has its price, cause, and effect—especially technology. Technology has many undesirable effects on the social organism. We forget that we are an experiment in progress with no historical precedent. With every technological advancement, the “expert authorities” lay more bureaucratic red tape and exert more and more control over every aspect of our lives. They should not get what they want and we should not compromise—it is not to our benefit. If we allow their dreams to be realized we will come to poverty and slavery. “Cause and effect” is a major law which governs our dimension. Everything comes at a price. The effects of technology unguided by wisdom seem to be a nightmarish dystopian hellscape. The convenience technology affords us in one area of living comes at a price—the detriment of our Souls, mind, meaning and value. We are finding this out.
I would point to the ubiquitous use of data manipulating machines (computers) and posit that it will not have as much impact in the future as you think . The technology is dependent on copious energy supply , is fragile , and is not something most people can understand how to fix . We live in a throw away society with most people not being able to fix any of the devices/machines they use on a daily basis . Most people no longer have basic living skills , such as growing ,catching and preparing food . Society is built on co-operation and currently we are being set against each other - this will be our downfall.
Tabbii (spelt right?) wrote a book on anti-fragile systems. He argues that what we have built is too fragile and hence prone to failure. Imagine the situation if the WWW went down for a week, or even a couple of days.
St. Augustine, City of God - "Without justice what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers? And what is a band of robbers but such a kingdom in miniature? It is a band of men under the rule of a leader, bound together by a pact of friendship, and their booty is divided among them by an agreed rule. Such a blot on society, if it grows, assumes for itself the proud name of kingdom."
You nailed it!
I presume you've read David Graeber and his "bullshit jobs" theory? As while as his secondary book "The Utopia of Rules"?
He comes from a very different background (left-anarchist) but came to a similar conclusion that most are but wasteful neo-feudalism and that this problem is equally prevalent in so-called private and public sectors...
Whether the State fused with the Corporates or vice versa is a little like the chicken and egg. The reality is most likely a long and very complex conspiracy to ensure that the mega-wealth stay that way. Books like Democracy in Chains are a window into these machinations. No doubt there are many other examples. The Shock Doctrine is another that comes to mind.
As the west de-industrialised and adopted the "service economy" working populations moved into various private and public bureaucracies; the bullshit jobs described by David Graeber. These are the "useless eaters" projecting their uselessness and incompetence on others.
However ...''in the right timeline, technology will allow humans to shed the need for central governance, particularly as robots and AI can fill all the needs that are the derelict promises of global governments''
Seriously though, the best governments only allow the best innate capabilities and cultures of their societies to thrive and the worst hinder it. So in this sense, although governments are not the deciding factor in a society’s survival, it does have an important contribution, and a bad government if sustained long enough can alter the composition and culture of a society irreversibly.
Also most CEOs don’t affect the functioning of a company that much however there are examples of both really good and really bad CEOs who were pivotal to the company’s future. Some CEOs are so pivotal that their companies almost went under went they left and were revived when they returned (e.g. Steve Jobs). Really good CEOs also have a good succession plan, again like Steve Jobs, and the best hope is their successor follows in their footsteps.
So yes … I get your point. However, if the federal government of the US disappears tomorrow many areas will still survive and maybe even thrive. But that doesn’t apply to all. Social trust and a sense of community is lost forever in some areas, which makes them extremely dependent on a central authority without which everything breaks down. What you will end up with are multiple separate states with the “United” States no more.
For a good overview on the dynamics of collapse check out Dimtry Orlov’s “Five Stages of Collapse” (don’t remember the title exactly). He comes at from a Russian perspective but his analytical framework is generally valid.
Citing China as evidence of nomos and ethos superceding the state is tricky because one of the hallmarks of Chinese civilization is the importance and large role of the state. Not just important, but spanning into areas that westerners consider part of private space, for example, when people behave badly Chinese think it natural that the state must take responsibility for promulgating and realizing ethical norms.
In contrast to the west, in Chinese political theory it is unimaginableto speak of some mythic pre contractual moment for individuals to enter into a contract to form a state; rather, state and society are preconditions for persons. If the state is gone, that is considered an anomaly, a disturbance, that must eventually be fixed.
Even in longstanding discourse about "hermits" and recluses -- what we would call political dissidents today -- which dates back more than two thousand years, they are not wholly outside of state even though they have no official position in it, but are understood as in dialogue with it. Their telos is to be coopted and integrated, which is a sign of a good and legitimate state. The recluse's raison d'etre both for himself and for the collective is not to remain outside in some "private" space.
Big infrastructure projects too, that is the job of the Chinese state, it has ever been so, the PRC is just the latest iteration of this civilizational pattern.
We might say that in the Chinese ethos, the person and state are intimately bound together. Does this resemble the singularity of the state? If it does, such singularity does not sound frightening to underlying Chinese sensibilities.
Instead, what is truly terrifying to this sensibility, shaped by a long historical memory, is the state's dissolution and all that entails.
Put differently, the problem for the Chinese is not matter of how big or minimal the state should be, but whether governance is good or bad.
Agreed. Unlike the PIE people (Europe, India, and Iran), whose modern culture evolved as the result of horse riding, China and its Confucianist core started out as managerial from day 1 because of rice cultivation and constantly having to deal with the Yellow River and its shenanigans.
Frankly, there is no such thing as Chinese culture without that collectivist mentality.
It's probably exaggerated but also probably partially correct that several ancient political structures were and still are based on the creation and maintenance of large scale irrigation protects.
The first king of the first Chinese dynasty was Da Yu, who tamed the waters and controlled the floods.
This was certainly true of Hindu-Buddhist God-Kings of SE Asia. Their palaces incorporated vast water gardens, from Sigiriya in Sri-Lanka to Angkor of the Khmers.
In Thailand today, it's very explicitly the *Royal* Irrigation Department (which also does flood control). Now only thing any present member of the royal family knows about water is that it comes in bottles from Evian and Vichy or out of a tap in the shower, but from a political and ritualistic (same thing) perspective they also know that a good deal of their legitimacy lies in the ancient claim to be able to make it rain *and* divert the floods.
Da Yu has been deified, I have visited temples where saffron robed monks burned incense to his statue. Difficult to say if that is technically "Buddhist" but it is retaining his historical memory, telling his story in a pre-literate way. Actual technical knowledge is contained within ritual ceremonies, myths and "fairy tales".
A large scale project like the irrigation system is explicitly a political project , not only the technical engineering and design elements but also mobilizing and maintaining the massive work force required. That's not a one time deal, the maintenance has to be constant. A corrupt and incompetent Emperor will bring disaster to the people, floods and famine will come if the system is not maintained.
Mastameta, you make some other good points. For those "Hydraulic Empires" the implicit social contract is very different, if you want to eat you can't opt out of the irrigation system and just build another one with you buddies, they are necessarily interconnected.
Hobbes' social contract is based on men organizing together to make a King who will protect them from violence. This is the logic of the horse warriors and the war band, which is also the basis of the European aristocracy.
Also the hermit sages were in dialogue with the government. Confucius was a former government official who quit in disgust when the Emperor became corrupt. According to legend Lao Zi was an official librarian/archivist (historical memory?) who walked off into the wilderness when his time had come.
1) I used to work for a private sector company, which had about 100 employees, and then I quit. Many years later, the CEO saw me walking down the street, and blah blah now I do freelance work for them. Today, they're well past Dunbar's Number in terms of employees (to say nothing of all the contractors like me), and it's been fascinating to see the transformation in culture. Indeed, I now more or less actively sabotage the CEO's vision by writing reports that do NOT adhere to his way of thinking but I get away with it because the manager I "report" to essentially has her own separate fiefdom, which he is powerless to shut down.
2) Now you understand why all the priests (the bureaucrats of those days) went absolutely apeshit when Akhenaten, essentially, dissolved the entire government, including the MASSIVE fee-collecting apparatus in Luxor, which previously included a whole ritual where the pharaoh had to do a boat parade once a year, blah blah blah. And those bureaucrats NEVER forgave him and thus seized power back after he died, starting with Tutankhamen, whose tomb ended up being so significant thousands of years later.
3) Now getting into the really deep history, long before the Sumerians arrived, there were basically two forms of government, and interestingly enough, the most striking difference was in gender roles. The minority in terms of # of governments was what we'll call Type A, which was led by a charismatic warlord (always male), with top-down control and an organization not too different from that company I worked for all those years ago. Type B, however, was not centrally organized but was instead a kind of voluntary co-op with no single leader or even bureaucracy but various egalitarian cells, usually but not always headed up by women (a modern example would be the pre-Columbian tribes of North America).
In terms of sheer economic productivity (using modern terms here) and long-term sustainability, the co-op model or Type B was the clear winner. But Type A systems had the advantage of being able to raid and loot a Type B society pretty much at will. Nonetheless, Type B's could never maintain control for long, and they fell apart when the leader died (ala Genghis Khan), so they never gained the upper hand in the long-term.
What changed all that, and eventually led to a Type C (managerial state, bureaucracy, etc) was the invention of being able to ride horses instead of just eating them. The grasslands of Eurasia were naturally prone to Type A societies with resources few and far between, but horse riding allowed them to expand their reach ten-fold.
Type A horsemen had a culture of "feasting" in which the leader, essentially, bought his nobleman's loyalty by housing them in a large hall or tent and providing LOTS of free food and drink, etc. But as time went on, these "lieutenants" started having expanded powers that eventually became more managerial than martial, and thus the seeds of bureaucracy were sown.
But the point of this long ass story is not just to tell a tale from history but to note that, DESPITE the rise of Type C organizational styles, societies still always most closely resembled a Type B except now with an overlay of a bureaucracy on top. And you can see a perfect example of this during the 1200 BC collapse when the various regions of Egypt became independent and locally run co-ops despite still superficially going through the motions of being under central control of the pharoah and his viziers.
In a nutshell, most human societies are Type B even today at their heart, although occasionally a Pol Pot or a Mao or a King Saud will emerge to shift it temporarily to Type A.
But the managerial bureaucracy overlay has been and always will be a parasitic drain on society and a destroyer of progress, happiness, and prosperity, which is why it is doomed to be temporary in the grand scheme of things, although that's little consolation to someone living under its yoke.
even shorter: more and more people are waking up to the fact that ALL permanent government structures (regardless of the name like Communist or democratic) are both useless and evil, and nobody needs them.
Without intervention the oligarchic class accumulates more and more of a societies wealth to the point where the economy becomes stagnant and political power is bought and paid for by said oligarchy. The USA is a classic example of a very weak government completely beholden to the oligarchic donor class. A strong government will ensure wealth is available to lift up the less wealthy. China seems to be addressing this issue.
This is exactly what happened in the US during the 1980s until now. We destroyed controls over capitalism and capitalism and greed destroyed us. This article is basically pointing the finger at precisely the wrong culprits and this "thread" looks like a libertarian dick sucking contest liberally sprinkled with bigotry.
For the record, I'm not a member of any political party and I never have been a member of any political party.
That was certainly a big moment. Also, privatization of federal functions and agencies occurred continuously throughout the '90s and '00s. While less efficient or no more efficient in many cases, privatization and contracting became the solution to everything in both parties. It was like a religion. Meanwhile, unions and workers' rights and job security and pensions were systematically attacked and destroyed, while corporate power was systematically increased and industry was chopped up and sold piecemeal and moved to the location of the cheapest possible labor. Again, I've never been a member of any political party and I don't care who wins this "election" but I KNOW what I saw....
Yes, how could I forget all that. Privatising all the profitable public enterprises was a great way to ensure governments were always broke and had to borrow to cover costs of the unprofitable public enterprises. Plus the governments could then close down any transparency on said enterprises. Destroying the unions also ensured reduced transparency.
Public enterprises are never profitable. At most, the public sector is a parasite on the productive. Where this particular saint goes wrong is in assuming control over the private sector by public bureaucrats does nothing to support productivity, the engine of all prosperity. While it may be true that those at the top of the corporate pyramid arranged things to siphon all the money up to them, the exact same phenomenon takes place in the public sector. Only there one must first be greedy for power in order to make these kind of arrangements. Who do you think gives all our money away to those “private” contractors?
Throw in massive illegal migration, monopolization of the press and media, historically unprecedented defense spending, and reckless foreign policy and viola…. shit soup.
This Writing a prime example of the why I Subscribe & will continue
Could not say it better!
I am always amazed by the quality and thought process of those articles !
@Simplicius
(Quote)
"It’s been shown many times how the world’s top wine tasters cannot distinguish an expensive bottle from a mix of cheap five dollar ones."
----------
Oh dear. The above was written by someone/something without the ability to taste wine.
Ah well, the data aggregation has often pointed out matters of interest, the reader comments perhaps even more so.
Take my best wishes, I hope the universe treats you well- And you return the favor.
This part was not an good example. He maybe thought of this ”incident”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Kurniawan
I tend to agree that it is not a good example, although you could argue that the majority of experts may indeed fall into the category.
Messi comes to mind: a extremely talented futbal player, these extreme talents exist in other areas as well, like maybe being expert in distinguishing wine?
Indeed. Selfclaimed experts are a menace to the society. They have popped up everywhere and are doing nothing than extorting tax-money from us.
Instead of innocent ”wine-tasters” (some of them are extremely annoying), who is not employed by the Government, he could have named other real useless people.
I was thinking of the infamous "Judgment of Paris" in which highly touted French wine experts and professional wine snobs could not distingush overpriced French wines from midtier Californian (but they sure had strong opinions on the subject!, and were mightily butthurt by the outcome).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Paris_(wine)
I don't have any strong opinions on the matter myself. To a cat, all alcohol smells likd urine.
…thats because Californian wines are made with French winetrees. And they are good at it. Must have missed that event. Snobs are snobs everywhere.
Oh well...at least S. has the ability to distinguish between genocide and not-genocide. The difference between fascism and not-fascism. The more relevant skill in my opinion. The quibble about wine is, after all, a..quibble.
@occamsrazorback22
Indeed, S. is (mostly) hell on wheels in their areas of interest.
Some say I would like to see how S. renders an image of a human hand, but it is not something nescessary in our little subdivision, nor where his training was directed.
Remember the crooks that was selling $10,000 bottles of the best Bordeaux French bottles, manufacturing it with a careful mix of $25 bottles and printing labels on his computer ? No one could tell the different and no one noticed anything for years. Until he made spelling mistakes and started making on dates.
I don't believe one second anyone can tell the difference between a $25 and a $25,000 bottle. And I am French
@M. Axel
The OP did specify "a mix of cheap five dollar ones" (bottles).
Even I, a mere American can tell vino Shit-O from drinkable... Yes, there is good stuff around $25, even cheaper on a happy day. And the difference between good & better is much less noticable than the difference between bad & worse!
Indeed, there is always a logarithmic relationship on the price/quality ratio. And for $25 a bottle, you can find some amazing wines in France. Sinplicus was indeed a little extreme with his $5 wine comparison :-)
There are always exceptions.
I would to plug into one of these communities🧲(come~in~unity); please send me ideas! This lady is not quite shelf~life, and I have many skills of the applicable kind. Carry on❤️🐈⬛
Very good read, linking it tomorrow @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
Already liked the link name as I am often wondering why people talk about new ideas, new ways of working, modern, etc. I am an IT developer of age and I know the foundation of all these so called improvements lies decades back. What lies for instance underneath most of the way all information is transferred between different systems: sockets, something invented in the 70-ties (RFC 147 in 1971). But my guess is that even sockets are an abstraction of the real world, where buildings for instance where connected via tunnels.
I have the feeling that there are many out there thinking our ancestors were not that smart. I tend to think that that is not correct.
So, now going to read the article and hopefully I didn’t make a fool of myself
Our ancestors were just as smart as we are. No more and no less.
Nowadays, the “Peter Principle” works alongside diversity hiring, so corporate hierarchies have degenerated into a toxic feminine cesspool popularity contest. Smug, self-aggrandizing, power-hungry idiots abound. The seams of the system have begun to unravel and it is apparent that many “experts” are not the best in their fields, nor did they earn their positions through merit.
Government is not necessary for people to survive day to day; it never has been and never will be. Everything has its price, cause, and effect—especially technology. Technology has many undesirable effects on the social organism. We forget that we are an experiment in progress with no historical precedent. With every technological advancement, the “expert authorities” lay more bureaucratic red tape and exert more and more control over every aspect of our lives. They should not get what they want and we should not compromise—it is not to our benefit. If we allow their dreams to be realized we will come to poverty and slavery. “Cause and effect” is a major law which governs our dimension. Everything comes at a price. The effects of technology unguided by wisdom seem to be a nightmarish dystopian hellscape. The convenience technology affords us in one area of living comes at a price—the detriment of our Souls, mind, meaning and value. We are finding this out.
Excellent remark. ”a toxic feminine cesspool popularity contest”. Spot on!
Bloody well put. Thanks.
I would point to the ubiquitous use of data manipulating machines (computers) and posit that it will not have as much impact in the future as you think . The technology is dependent on copious energy supply , is fragile , and is not something most people can understand how to fix . We live in a throw away society with most people not being able to fix any of the devices/machines they use on a daily basis . Most people no longer have basic living skills , such as growing ,catching and preparing food . Society is built on co-operation and currently we are being set against each other - this will be our downfall.
🎯
Tabbii (spelt right?) wrote a book on anti-fragile systems. He argues that what we have built is too fragile and hence prone to failure. Imagine the situation if the WWW went down for a week, or even a couple of days.
Your best yet! Thanks.
Technology is no ones slave.
You all rely on it...
It…relies on us pronto
St. Augustine, City of God - "Without justice what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers? And what is a band of robbers but such a kingdom in miniature? It is a band of men under the rule of a leader, bound together by a pact of friendship, and their booty is divided among them by an agreed rule. Such a blot on society, if it grows, assumes for itself the proud name of kingdom."
You nailed it!
I presume you've read David Graeber and his "bullshit jobs" theory? As while as his secondary book "The Utopia of Rules"?
He comes from a very different background (left-anarchist) but came to a similar conclusion that most are but wasteful neo-feudalism and that this problem is equally prevalent in so-called private and public sectors...
Whether the State fused with the Corporates or vice versa is a little like the chicken and egg. The reality is most likely a long and very complex conspiracy to ensure that the mega-wealth stay that way. Books like Democracy in Chains are a window into these machinations. No doubt there are many other examples. The Shock Doctrine is another that comes to mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Chains
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine
As the west de-industrialised and adopted the "service economy" working populations moved into various private and public bureaucracies; the bullshit jobs described by David Graeber. These are the "useless eaters" projecting their uselessness and incompetence on others.
Great article with many excellent points.
However ...''in the right timeline, technology will allow humans to shed the need for central governance, particularly as robots and AI can fill all the needs that are the derelict promises of global governments''
It appears to be the case already.
That’s quite a hopeful message for Dark Futura 😊
Seriously though, the best governments only allow the best innate capabilities and cultures of their societies to thrive and the worst hinder it. So in this sense, although governments are not the deciding factor in a society’s survival, it does have an important contribution, and a bad government if sustained long enough can alter the composition and culture of a society irreversibly.
Also most CEOs don’t affect the functioning of a company that much however there are examples of both really good and really bad CEOs who were pivotal to the company’s future. Some CEOs are so pivotal that their companies almost went under went they left and were revived when they returned (e.g. Steve Jobs). Really good CEOs also have a good succession plan, again like Steve Jobs, and the best hope is their successor follows in their footsteps.
So yes … I get your point. However, if the federal government of the US disappears tomorrow many areas will still survive and maybe even thrive. But that doesn’t apply to all. Social trust and a sense of community is lost forever in some areas, which makes them extremely dependent on a central authority without which everything breaks down. What you will end up with are multiple separate states with the “United” States no more.
For a good overview on the dynamics of collapse check out Dimtry Orlov’s “Five Stages of Collapse” (don’t remember the title exactly). He comes at from a Russian perspective but his analytical framework is generally valid.
@The Phoenix
"Social Collapse Best Practices", Dmitry Orlov.
Several versions, both print and video are out there.
https://longnow.org/seminars/02009/feb/13/social-collapse-best-practices/
Citing China as evidence of nomos and ethos superceding the state is tricky because one of the hallmarks of Chinese civilization is the importance and large role of the state. Not just important, but spanning into areas that westerners consider part of private space, for example, when people behave badly Chinese think it natural that the state must take responsibility for promulgating and realizing ethical norms.
In contrast to the west, in Chinese political theory it is unimaginableto speak of some mythic pre contractual moment for individuals to enter into a contract to form a state; rather, state and society are preconditions for persons. If the state is gone, that is considered an anomaly, a disturbance, that must eventually be fixed.
Even in longstanding discourse about "hermits" and recluses -- what we would call political dissidents today -- which dates back more than two thousand years, they are not wholly outside of state even though they have no official position in it, but are understood as in dialogue with it. Their telos is to be coopted and integrated, which is a sign of a good and legitimate state. The recluse's raison d'etre both for himself and for the collective is not to remain outside in some "private" space.
Big infrastructure projects too, that is the job of the Chinese state, it has ever been so, the PRC is just the latest iteration of this civilizational pattern.
We might say that in the Chinese ethos, the person and state are intimately bound together. Does this resemble the singularity of the state? If it does, such singularity does not sound frightening to underlying Chinese sensibilities.
Instead, what is truly terrifying to this sensibility, shaped by a long historical memory, is the state's dissolution and all that entails.
Put differently, the problem for the Chinese is not matter of how big or minimal the state should be, but whether governance is good or bad.
Agreed. Unlike the PIE people (Europe, India, and Iran), whose modern culture evolved as the result of horse riding, China and its Confucianist core started out as managerial from day 1 because of rice cultivation and constantly having to deal with the Yellow River and its shenanigans.
Frankly, there is no such thing as Chinese culture without that collectivist mentality.
"it doesn't matter if a cat is black or yellow, as long as it catches mice" ~ Deng
There is a theory of government called "The Hydraulic Empire'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_empire
It's probably exaggerated but also probably partially correct that several ancient political structures were and still are based on the creation and maintenance of large scale irrigation protects.
The first king of the first Chinese dynasty was Da Yu, who tamed the waters and controlled the floods.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu_the_Great
This was certainly true of Hindu-Buddhist God-Kings of SE Asia. Their palaces incorporated vast water gardens, from Sigiriya in Sri-Lanka to Angkor of the Khmers.
In Thailand today, it's very explicitly the *Royal* Irrigation Department (which also does flood control). Now only thing any present member of the royal family knows about water is that it comes in bottles from Evian and Vichy or out of a tap in the shower, but from a political and ritualistic (same thing) perspective they also know that a good deal of their legitimacy lies in the ancient claim to be able to make it rain *and* divert the floods.
Thank you for that.
Da Yu has been deified, I have visited temples where saffron robed monks burned incense to his statue. Difficult to say if that is technically "Buddhist" but it is retaining his historical memory, telling his story in a pre-literate way. Actual technical knowledge is contained within ritual ceremonies, myths and "fairy tales".
A large scale project like the irrigation system is explicitly a political project , not only the technical engineering and design elements but also mobilizing and maintaining the massive work force required. That's not a one time deal, the maintenance has to be constant. A corrupt and incompetent Emperor will bring disaster to the people, floods and famine will come if the system is not maintained.
Mastameta, you make some other good points. For those "Hydraulic Empires" the implicit social contract is very different, if you want to eat you can't opt out of the irrigation system and just build another one with you buddies, they are necessarily interconnected.
Hobbes' social contract is based on men organizing together to make a King who will protect them from violence. This is the logic of the horse warriors and the war band, which is also the basis of the European aristocracy.
Also the hermit sages were in dialogue with the government. Confucius was a former government official who quit in disgust when the Emperor became corrupt. According to legend Lao Zi was an official librarian/archivist (historical memory?) who walked off into the wilderness when his time had come.
Many such cases.
Well bless your heart! Your war coverage is great. Maybe you should focus on that.
Jimmy the Taint
EagleFart
Very interesting.
A couple of stories:
1) I used to work for a private sector company, which had about 100 employees, and then I quit. Many years later, the CEO saw me walking down the street, and blah blah now I do freelance work for them. Today, they're well past Dunbar's Number in terms of employees (to say nothing of all the contractors like me), and it's been fascinating to see the transformation in culture. Indeed, I now more or less actively sabotage the CEO's vision by writing reports that do NOT adhere to his way of thinking but I get away with it because the manager I "report" to essentially has her own separate fiefdom, which he is powerless to shut down.
2) Now you understand why all the priests (the bureaucrats of those days) went absolutely apeshit when Akhenaten, essentially, dissolved the entire government, including the MASSIVE fee-collecting apparatus in Luxor, which previously included a whole ritual where the pharaoh had to do a boat parade once a year, blah blah blah. And those bureaucrats NEVER forgave him and thus seized power back after he died, starting with Tutankhamen, whose tomb ended up being so significant thousands of years later.
3) Now getting into the really deep history, long before the Sumerians arrived, there were basically two forms of government, and interestingly enough, the most striking difference was in gender roles. The minority in terms of # of governments was what we'll call Type A, which was led by a charismatic warlord (always male), with top-down control and an organization not too different from that company I worked for all those years ago. Type B, however, was not centrally organized but was instead a kind of voluntary co-op with no single leader or even bureaucracy but various egalitarian cells, usually but not always headed up by women (a modern example would be the pre-Columbian tribes of North America).
In terms of sheer economic productivity (using modern terms here) and long-term sustainability, the co-op model or Type B was the clear winner. But Type A systems had the advantage of being able to raid and loot a Type B society pretty much at will. Nonetheless, Type B's could never maintain control for long, and they fell apart when the leader died (ala Genghis Khan), so they never gained the upper hand in the long-term.
What changed all that, and eventually led to a Type C (managerial state, bureaucracy, etc) was the invention of being able to ride horses instead of just eating them. The grasslands of Eurasia were naturally prone to Type A societies with resources few and far between, but horse riding allowed them to expand their reach ten-fold.
Type A horsemen had a culture of "feasting" in which the leader, essentially, bought his nobleman's loyalty by housing them in a large hall or tent and providing LOTS of free food and drink, etc. But as time went on, these "lieutenants" started having expanded powers that eventually became more managerial than martial, and thus the seeds of bureaucracy were sown.
But the point of this long ass story is not just to tell a tale from history but to note that, DESPITE the rise of Type C organizational styles, societies still always most closely resembled a Type B except now with an overlay of a bureaucracy on top. And you can see a perfect example of this during the 1200 BC collapse when the various regions of Egypt became independent and locally run co-ops despite still superficially going through the motions of being under central control of the pharoah and his viziers.
In a nutshell, most human societies are Type B even today at their heart, although occasionally a Pol Pot or a Mao or a King Saud will emerge to shift it temporarily to Type A.
But the managerial bureaucracy overlay has been and always will be a parasitic drain on society and a destroyer of progress, happiness, and prosperity, which is why it is doomed to be temporary in the grand scheme of things, although that's little consolation to someone living under its yoke.
even shorter: more and more people are waking up to the fact that ALL permanent government structures (regardless of the name like Communist or democratic) are both useless and evil, and nobody needs them.
Without intervention the oligarchic class accumulates more and more of a societies wealth to the point where the economy becomes stagnant and political power is bought and paid for by said oligarchy. The USA is a classic example of a very weak government completely beholden to the oligarchic donor class. A strong government will ensure wealth is available to lift up the less wealthy. China seems to be addressing this issue.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/economic-inequality-gini-index?tab=chart&country=USA~CHN
This is exactly what happened in the US during the 1980s until now. We destroyed controls over capitalism and capitalism and greed destroyed us. This article is basically pointing the finger at precisely the wrong culprits and this "thread" looks like a libertarian dick sucking contest liberally sprinkled with bigotry.
For the record, I'm not a member of any political party and I never have been a member of any political party.
Clinton's repeal of Glass Steagall comes to mind.
That was certainly a big moment. Also, privatization of federal functions and agencies occurred continuously throughout the '90s and '00s. While less efficient or no more efficient in many cases, privatization and contracting became the solution to everything in both parties. It was like a religion. Meanwhile, unions and workers' rights and job security and pensions were systematically attacked and destroyed, while corporate power was systematically increased and industry was chopped up and sold piecemeal and moved to the location of the cheapest possible labor. Again, I've never been a member of any political party and I don't care who wins this "election" but I KNOW what I saw....
Yes, how could I forget all that. Privatising all the profitable public enterprises was a great way to ensure governments were always broke and had to borrow to cover costs of the unprofitable public enterprises. Plus the governments could then close down any transparency on said enterprises. Destroying the unions also ensured reduced transparency.
Public enterprises are never profitable. At most, the public sector is a parasite on the productive. Where this particular saint goes wrong is in assuming control over the private sector by public bureaucrats does nothing to support productivity, the engine of all prosperity. While it may be true that those at the top of the corporate pyramid arranged things to siphon all the money up to them, the exact same phenomenon takes place in the public sector. Only there one must first be greedy for power in order to make these kind of arrangements. Who do you think gives all our money away to those “private” contractors?
"Public enterprises are never profitable."
I doubt the board of Gazprom would agree. I think you've drunk the neo-liberal Kool aid.
Check out the Chinese SOEs. They produce the majority of Chinese GDP. Are they really not profitable?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_enterprises_of_China
Wikipedia? Really?
Pick your own data source. You'll get the same result.
Throw in massive illegal migration, monopolization of the press and media, historically unprecedented defense spending, and reckless foreign policy and viola…. shit soup.
Correction: "Nonetheless, Type B's could never maintain control for long" -- must be Type A.
TY. Fascinating