Reader el asks an important question:
“How can offering security from terror go together with porous borders and letting the whole world’s criminals into one’s country? If every criminal may enter, why not every terrorist?” . . . Unaccompanied refugee children are the next billion-dollar industry in Sweden. With an average cost of 2000 kronor ($233) per child per day, the 7000 refugee “children” who came last year cost 5.1 billion kronor ($595 million).
We are now in a transitional stage. The current state form is trying to be both something new and something old. And that is not going to work. In a world of porous borders, handing out benefits to every “child” – and let’s remember that for a nation-state everybody within its borders is its child – won’t work. You can’t be both things at one.
So for now the choice is:
1. Be a traditional nation-state that looks out for its “children” through welfare benefits, etc. This state form has very strictly defined borders that are controlled at all times. The question, of course, is whether it is even possible to have such a state any longer given that preventing both capital and human flows from going where they wish is a losing proposition. A state can still somewhat control the entrance. But it can do nothing to control the exit.
2. Accept porous borders as a fact of today’s reality and ditch benefits. A constantly fluctuating population consisting of people who see every place of residence as transitory cannot be bound to each other with obligations of old-age pensions, childhood and unemployment benefits. It’s impossible to generate enough feeling of commonality of fate among them to make this viable.
So what we are seeing now is the collapsing nation-state trying to stretch a fraying social safety net over people whose allegiances to this state are increasingly fragile. The welfare resources are becoming scarce, and citizens who don’t see any shared values or purpose lash out against each other in a fight over them. There is a huge likelihood that yesterday’s terrorists in Paris are not foreign terrorists who came from afar but local youths who fail to see themselves as citizens and whose lives are untouched by the disappearing safety net.
When the new state form really comes into existence and stops pretending to be what it isn’t, it will ditch welfare and shift all the resources to concentrate strongly on security from global threats. An enormous military / surveillance apparatus will stand in place of welfare provisions.
Sorry for the long post but this is not an issue that can be addressed with a few snappy slogans.
Clarissa's Blog 
When the new state form really comes into existence and stops pretending to be what it isn’t, it will ditch welfare and shift all the resources to concentrate strongly on security from global threats. An enormous military / surveillance apparatus will stand in place of welfare provisions.
So basically everyone in a “state” will be 100% employed by the military/surveillance apparatus as detailed in Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, minus the giant bug aliens.
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More like the Empire in Star Wars.
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Agree with the above but I want to focus on this part:
“The welfare resources are becoming scarce,”
Why? Industrial productivity has never been better. Surely the west isn’t overpopulated. Why then, all of a sudden, this talk about welfare resources running out as if it’s a fait accompli? Note that when countries want to bail out banks or fund wars, money doesn’t seem to a problem. It just appears.
Right wingers have always wanted to dismantle social security, for instance. This is not new. The spokespeople for this ‘new’ state model (which, to be honest, is just a different term for the explicit takeover of the state by corporations) have always tried to convince the population that there isn’t enough money for infrastructure, welfare, and other important functions of the government. What the world really needs is to privatize everything and let the free market work its magic. And so on.
There’s nothing they’d like more than for the population to believe that welfare resources are scarce. Hence all the marketing of welfare as something only given to lazy black people, cadillac driving welfare queens, etc. The point is not that business class is racist. They don’t care, it’s not personal to them. If racism is an effective tool for dismantling the welfare state, then that’s what they’ll use.
Ideology trumps economics every time. And they know it.
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“Why? Industrial productivity has never been better. Surely the west isn’t overpopulated. Why then, all of a sudden, this talk about welfare resources running out as if it’s a fait accompli? ”
In terms of citizen contributions to taxes, it’s the same thing, really. If I know that I will not be living in Illinois within 3 (let alone 30) years, how can anybody make me care about the pensions of the elderly who happen to reside in Illinois 30 years from now or about the schooling of today’s kids who will all move elsewhere within the same 30 years? It’s one thing if the kids of today will pay the taxes tomorrow that will give me my pension. But for an increasing number of people, that’s not the scenario at all.
But there is something even worse. Transient people do not engage civically. Young people don’t turn out for local elections because they know they won’t be in this locality within just a couple of years. And what is the motivation of the local governments to invest long-term into people who are not planning to be around? This is something I heard from an Illinois state education official: “If we had any guarantees that the young people we educate in our state universities were going to stay in the state and work for its benefit, it would make sense to invest into public education. As matters stand, though, we don’t believe we need as many state universities as we have.” He went on to say that we probably only need a single state university. But the really scary thing is that not a single person in the audience had any objection to what the official said.
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I think one important angle is that citizens can and will leave cities and states. They will NOT leave the US in mass. A total of 4,000 people renounced US citizenship last year. Meaningless.
But I absolutely agree with your point on state and local pensions. Fundamentally I think each teacher should get paid their pension amount in salary. So if a high school teacher gets paid say $45k a year now, with a pension, they should instead get paid a $55-60k a year, and no pension. These are the ROUGH economics of it. This will allow much greater flexibility.
Ultimately this will happen, the sooner, the less chaos, but there are so many entrenched interests it will take probably 15-30 years before this happens in mass.
Where I disagree with your nation state analysis is that the US will get even MORE important at a national level, but LESS at the stae and local. The problem for Europe is they basically now are like the states but WITHOUT a strong federal presence. There are no easy solutions and truly I think Europe could have a grave future ahead. Solutions are possible, but relatively unlikely. Two end games: Germany takes over continental europe by assuming liability for most debt and morphs into a US like entity, or pretty much the EU dissolves. I think its about 20% and 80% probabilities.
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“I think one important angle is that citizens can and will leave cities and states. They will NOT leave the US in mass. A total of 4,000 people renounced US citizenship last year.”
“So if a high school teacher gets paid say $45k a year now, with a pension, they should instead get paid a $55-60k a year, and no pension.”
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And of course I forgot to mention the growing number of unemployable people. Nobody will let them starve or roam the streets all ragged obviously, but those are resources that are taken from traditional welfare programs.
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I agree. Economists have been writing about the collapse of the welfare state and this was even before Europe started to be flooded with refugees. It certainly is starting to look like the welfare state’s collapse is accelerating and there may be no turning back.
Another worrying issue is the fact that the world economy is more of less healthy right now and many countries have recuperated well from the world recession of 2008. When the next one hits, it’s going to be very ugly as “native” Europeans see their wealth go to sustain and feed a large group of people who are not self-sufficient. The rise of far-right governments is certainly not out of the realm of possibility.
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“It certainly is starting to look like the welfare state’s collapse is accelerating and there may be no turning back.”
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Milton Friedman said you can have immigration or you can have a welfare state. But you cannot have both.
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“Milton Friedman said you can have immigration or you can have a welfare state. But you cannot have both.”
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// Sorry for the long post but this is not an issue that can be addressed with a few snappy slogans.
On the subject of the nation state, the deeper and longer – the better.
I liked the post, but you haven’t answered my question. Even with enormous military / surveillance apparatus, I still don’t understand how ensuring safety is possible with porous borders, conflicts among different ethnic-religious groups and disloyal subjects, who “see every place of residence as transitory.”
\ The question, of course, is whether it is even possible to have such a state any longer given that preventing both capital and human flows from going where they wish is a losing proposition. A state can still somewhat control the entrance. But it can do nothing to control the exit.
Most people don’t run for the exit, if conditions in their place of birth are good enough. Why go to another country where you don’t know the language and culture, if there is no safety net there either? People love stability and being an ethnic majority on biological level. Yes, I used the word “biological.” As far as I know / read, fear \ hatred of strangers has biological roots and has been with us since the dawn of history. It is, I believe, one of the main reasons for antisemitism. I don’t believe for a second most people will become super-evolved and tolerant as the result of state ditching them and thus becoming / feeling more vulnerable (no pension, no safety net, etc.)
\ There is a huge likelihood that yesterday’s terrorists in Paris are not foreign terrorists who came from afar but local youths
If somebody missed it, I want to link again this interesting article about French Muslims:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-other-france
I read it and it sounds as if those youths want to belong to something. When the French majority makes belonging to it seem impossible, they turn to terrorist ideology. If most people feel unconnected to any state, they will search for a different ideology and feel freer to attack / kill people next to them, no? Thus, we return to my above point of impossibility to stop terrorism.
There is another aspect too: you seem to say that the new state won’t fight crime, but will fight terrorism. However, the line between the two seems to be blurred sometimes to me. Also, if (not super rich) citizens live in general atmosphere of lawlessness and rampant crime, why wouldn’t they be able to accept a certain level of terrorism too? Seems like it’s already the situation in EU and it has always been so in Israel.
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“Yes, I used the word “biological.” As far as I know / read, fear \ hatred of strangers has biological roots”
Please do not justify your hate and bigotry with biology. Daddy and mommy might have taught you to hate other people, that doesn’t make it ‘biological’.
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It’s like saying you drink a 64 oz bottle of pepsi every day because human beings are wired to respond to sugar.
lol no. Own your choices. ‘Evoloution made me do it’ is not an argument.
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These are not mutually exclusive. Human beings are wired to respond to sugar, caffeine, nicotine, ghrelin (a hormone that signals satiety) and a myriad other substances, notably those present in illegal drugs. But they can make lifestyle choices regarding those substances. The danger is in making such “choices” while completely ignoring the underlying biological realities. Many “choices” and “decisions” to go on a diet, to stop smoking, etc. fail precisely because of that.
You are right in saying that “evolution/biology made me do it” is not a valid argument for evading responsibility. However, in order to make good choices that are sustainable over time you need to be aware of your biological proclivities and have the resources to appropriately manage them.
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“Human beings are wired ”
“Many “choices” and “decisions” to go on a diet, to stop smoking, etc. fail precisely because of that.”
“However, in order to make good choices that are sustainable over time you need to be aware of your biological proclivities and have the resources to appropriately manage them.”
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Here’s a very quick explanation. “Human beings are wired” is simply a metaphor. Wiring comes from electronic circuits where components are connected by wires according to certain patterns which determine what the circuit does. The brain is made up of cells called neurons which are connected to one another. It is presumed that the patterns of connections among neurons (i.e. the brain “wiring”) determines how the brain works. From a materialistic point of view the “mind” is simply what the brain “does.” A person’s psychological needs come from the person’s brain (which is influenced by the rest of the body). Wired by whom? By the process of neurodevelopment.
So you think somebody could simply decide e.g. not to eat and ignore the fact that the body needs food… for biological reasons? That would not be a sustainable choice – if you want to stay alive, that is.
I hope this clarifies the metaphor. Of course it is far more complicated than that; please don’t think that there are “wires” inside your brain – there are not, those are actually neurochemical connections. But then, modern electronic circuits do not have macroscopic wires either, they are entirely inside chips…
I really didn’t get what you mean by wondering whether people finish elementary school or secondary studies.
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“Here’s a very quick explanation. “Human beings are wired” is simply a metaphor”
“A person’s psychological needs come from the person’s brain (which is influenced by the rest of the body).”
“Of course it is far more complicated than that; please don’t think that there are “wires” inside your brain.”
“I really didn’t get what you mean by wondering whether people finish elementary school or secondary studies.”
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\“Yes, I used the word “biological.” As far as I know / read, fear \ hatred of strangers has biological roots”
SB: Please do not justify your hate and bigotry with biology. Daddy and mommy might have taught you to hate other people, that doesn’t make it ‘biological’.
SB, I feel you use blogging as a way to get relief by projecting aggression on other commentors, targeting me in particular. Could you stop doing it to me, please? It does hurt my enjoyment of discussions. May be, it’s partly your writing style, but I have a different one.
If you choose to misread me, I can’t help it. I am sure you are intelligent enough to see how you twisted my words here, but when feelings are involved, being intellectually honest goes out of the window. Explanation for you: my comment has not referred to my feelings regarding Palestinians at all, whatever they are.
Btw, how is your country India, free of ethnic / religious conflicts? I don’t know, but I googled and it doesn’t seem like that.
(And no, my ‘mommy’ did not teach me to hate anybody. Terrorist acts and being shot at (missiles at my city) did make me fear and mistrust Palestinians. We are at war, so it is common sense.)
To end on a positive note, yours “might have taught” reminded me of South Pacific’s “Youve Got To Be Carefully Taught” song (lyrics below). I saw the first stanza in some Israeli English textbook iirc, liked the words but disagreed with the message. Yes, children are often taught whom to hate at a very young age. However, I disagree with the song’s (and yours?) view of human nature as inherently tolerant and accepting of everybody. William Golding in “Lord of the Flies” also discussed the issue.
You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
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It does not in any way imply that the biological aspect does not exist, either. The discussion about “nature or nuture” is now dead, everyone knows that it is more often than not rather “nature AND nurture.”
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“It does not in any way imply that the biological aspect does not exist, either. ”
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“Even with enormous military / surveillance apparatus, I still don’t understand how ensuring safety is possible with porous borders, conflicts among different ethnic-religious groups and disloyal subjects, who “see every place of residence as transitory.””
“Most people don’t run for the exit, if conditions in their place of birth are good enough. Why go to another country where you don’t know the language and culture, if there is no safety net there either?”
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“People love stability and being an ethnic majority on biological level.”
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Is enthnicity only DNA then, with no cultural or social component?
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It’s whatever we want it to be. Any ethnicity we choose will be quite arbitrary. And then we fill it with cultural content as we see fit.
My mother-in-law is a huge anti-Semite who has no idea that her son has Ashkenazi Jewish DNA, for instance. 🙂
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“And what is the motivation of the local governments to invest long-term into people who are not planning to be around? ”
It’s a numbers game in the end. It’s not like everybody from the state of wisconsin will flee the state, right?. Some people leave the state, and people from other states move into wisconsin. So, if you think of money invested into people who leave the state eventually as being ‘wasted’, you can think of people coming into wisconsin from, say, minnesota as people you got for ‘free’ without having to spend anything on them in their formative years.
It balances out!
I can’t believe the state official actually used this line of argument.
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If you look at population growth the midwest and northeast probably lose about 50% of those they educate, and only maybe 25% are backfilled… most population is to the south and west.. and occassionally to big cities like new york, boston, DC.
It doesn’t all even out is the problem. Not saying what the solution is, but its not a numbers game in the way you imply.
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It’s similar to religion. You can’t force belief and once it’s gone it’s gone. Europe is ahead of America in the whole post religion thing (excuse the academic jargon). Even muslims don’t actually seem to believe in the basic ideas of Islam and support mostly in terms of group loyalty (us vs them). And religious practice in lots of middle eastern countries is plummeting as well).
On the other hand the model you’re describing doesn’t seem feasible, I just can’t see any model for it around me.
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\ On the other hand the model you’re describing doesn’t seem feasible
Yes, I am also confused. Clarissa, you talked about minority of well-educated people on the move vs. unemployable static majority. Who will care about the latter, whether they suffer from terrorism / crime / etc. or not? And, if somebody will care, why and what for? What benefits will caring provide for a state?
Also, those Paris youths were not starving, yet being uncapable to satisfy higher needs (belonging, ideology) led them to engage in terrorism. In your vision, majority seems too passive. As if people either will stop attempting to create identities or very rarely choose dangerous ones, like of a criminal (despite lack of police) or some sort of extremism.
On the most basic level, I am confused by the goals of the new state. Previously and it is still so in Israel, a state is said to exist for its people. Who will new states work for in the future? Who will fight for resources? 1% of super-rich in every state? Some international money interests? I find it hard to imagine how the latter would look like. Could you explain your vision ‘for dummies’?
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“Who will care about the latter, whether they suffer from terrorism / crime / etc. or not? And, if somebody will care, why and what for? What benefits will caring provide for a state?”
The nation-state cared about the welfare of its citizens. This was its claim to legitimacy. We accept the violence it dispenses on our behalf because it gives us a good, comfortable life. Before the nation-state, the preceding state-form derived its legitimacy from the monarch being ordained by God.
Where will the new state-form derive its legitimacy from if no state leader can claim to be God-given and the state doesn’t provide for everybody’s welfare any more? One possibility is the promise of security from terrorism, from the consequences of global warning, from natural catastrophes, from cyberthreats. The state can claim it should be able to continue exercising violence because that’s how it guarantees this kind of security.
“As if people either will stop attempting to create identities or very rarely choose dangerous ones, like of a criminal (despite lack of police) or some sort of extremism.”
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Updates:
Three of the eight suspects in the Paris terror attacks lived in Brussels, according to reports in Belgian media.
…
Meanwhile, a police source in France has said one of the bombers was a young French man known for links with Islamic extremism.
…
French broadcaster BFMTV said that in addition to a Syrian passport found at the scene of a deadly stadium attack in the north of the city, an Egyptian passport was found close to the body of one of the assailants.
A Greek minister has said that the Syrian passport belonged to someone who had got into the EU via Greece in early October.
http://www.thebreeze.com/news/world-news/three-paris-attack-suspects-lived-in-belgium/
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Can you please leave updates in the appropriate post? The one about the terror attacks? We’re discussing something else here.
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“A Greek minister has said that the Syrian passport belonged to someone who had got into the EU via Greece in early October.”
On the other hand, Greece has every reason to want to do Merkel in and there’s no guarantee the passport is genuine (given the large black market in same) and a bunch of other caveats.
But… if it does pan out then it has to mean the end of Merkel’s career (or at least her dream of importing a large unemployable underclass). I don’t see the policy having any support anywhere.
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“On the other hand, Greece has every reason to want to do Merkel in and there’s no guarantee the passport is genuine (given the large black market in same) and a bunch of other caveats.”
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“A Greek minister has said that the Syrian passport belonged to someone who had got into the EU via Greece in early October.”
This would cause quite a storm if true. It’s also really not very far fetched, given that children have made the journey, no reason why a healthy young adult terrorist couldn’t.
I mean, just going by numbers, if only 0.1% of those 1 million people pouring into Europe have ill feelings toward Europeans and European values, that’s 1000 potential terrorists added to the already hundreds/thousands of European Muslims that have already gone to fight for ISIS.
This is quite the clusterfuck that Europeans find themselves in.
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I was wrong then. I was pretty sure these had to be natives. France ‘ s security must really suck if foreigners can do something this well-coordinated.
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// I was pretty sure these had to be natives. France ‘ s security must really suck if foreigners can do something this well-coordinated.
One of the bombers was a native. I noticed the multicultural variety in the terrorists’ list: Brussels – France – Syrian & Egyptian passports. The better question to ask would be “who wasn’t represented?”
Why would it be hard to do, if there are Internet, French extremists who know the country and no- borders- accept- everybody-check-none policy in Europe? How can security work under those conditions?
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Refugees are scared, confused, they don’t know anybody, don’t know the geography, don’t have adequate linguistic skills, have no connections. These terrorists had Kalashnikovs and hand grenades. I’m guessing they didn’t travel from Syria carrying Kalashnikovs. This means they had to buy them locally. And who knows how to buy a Kalashnikov locally other than a well-integrated native?
I can’t even figure out where to buy the food I need at a new place for quite a while. How’d I go about accessing the black market?
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“Refugees are scared, confused”
This does not describe the people currently flooding into Europe, rowdy and aggressive and entitled are what they’ve been showing the world.
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They are aggressive because they are scared and confused.
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I think they’re mostly “native” (citizens who don’t want to be identified with the countries they’re in).
Perhaps it was a Belgian or French citizen who went to ISIS and then came back with the refugees with a real or phony passport. My assumption is that the passport is there on purpose to rub the Europeans’ noses in their impotence.
Other attacks have apparently been foiled through the day with a gunman at Gatwick(sp?) and a car full of armed men bursting through a roadblock and being chased by the French police. It’s not yet clear whether the French train that derailed is terrorism connected or not.
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Remember that there are (were) no borders. Once you set foot inside the Schengen space you can go anywhere. Anybody who lives in Belgium can get into France without ever going through security. That’s precisely why one of the very first measures was to close the borders.
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With respect to Clarissa’s comment:
“There is a huge likelihood that yesterday’s terrorists in Paris are not foreign terrorists who came from afar but local youths who fail to see themselves as citizens and whose lives are untouched by the disappearing safety net.
“Syrian passport found on Paris attacker’s body belonged to refugee who passed through Greece”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/nov/14/paris-terror-attacks-attackers-dead-mass-killing-live-updates#block-564760d1e4b091c2edb6cc74
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Why would you take your passport to a suicide mission? Unless the the point was to drive a wedge between refugees/muslims/immigrants and the local population.
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“Why would you take your passport to a suicide mission? Unless the the point was to drive a wedge between refugees/muslims/immigrants and the local population.”
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After effects:
“The fragile consensus on dealing with the flood of migrants seeking refuge in Europe fractured Saturday following the Paris terrorist attacks, further threatening the bloc’s passport-free Schengen zone.”
http://www.politico.eu/article/countries-rethink-commitments-to-accept-refugees-paris-attacks/
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Don’t you pretty much have to be able to produce your identity papers at all times when in France if the police ask for it though? The person might have carried something just so they wouldn’t be detained on the way to their suicide mission. It doesn’t mean the passport itself is bona fide.
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What better than fake ID for security checkpoints?
It’s like these people have never heard of fake ID for buying alcohol or tobacco …
[yeah, gimme the Rizlas and the scrumpy, I swear I’m a 93-year-old OAP, c’mon, don’t I have an honest-looking and amazingly well-scrubbed face?] 🙂
“i want some rizlas please …”
“WOT YOU TAKE ME FOR!”
http://mantlepies.com/viral_content/offlicence.html
🙂
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Yes, but why would you carry a fake Syrian ID in France, where Syria isn’t exactly though of in pleasant terms?
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“Why would you take your passport to a suicide mission? Unless the the point was to drive a wedge between refugees/muslims/immigrants and the local population.”
Or to make it seem like you’re everywhere and can do whatever you want?
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I’ve got a problem with the “nanny state” thesis on several levels. First, I think it mis-states the purpose of the welfare system in the US. That system is less about helping individuals than it is about maintenance of social control and propping up markets for business. Social Security itself was born out of fear of what had happened in Italy and Germany and real concern that the same would happen in the US. There are too many rules designed to hurt consumers that are inconsistent with the nanny state concept.
Of course, the notion of propping up business is somewhat antiquated. Borders are more porous for business than they are for consumers, but there are higher risks involved. For example, IBM has submitted to an agreement allowing the Chinese government to inspect source code for its products. That’s already happening. It’s an exchange of short term profits for future opportunity. China will be able to duplicate and undercut IBM products.
However, as much as people like to discuss national measures of economics, money is local. People either have jobs or they don’t; they can afford to buy products or enroll in schools or they can’t. When deprivation becomes relatively severe, they join the KKK or ISIS or Hamas — whoever offers a better future.
Ultimately, the threats to the nation are local. ISIS will create some casualties, but it is no threat to conquer France or the US. What it will do is facilitate a repeal of Freedom of Speech in the US. It’s already accomplished that. The Wall Street Journal reports today the arrest of a 20-something American for reposting something written by ISIS calling for domestic attacks. Federal prosecutors argue that the simple act of reposting something written by someone else is not protected speech.
The WSJ had a companion article about how entertainers like Jerry Seinfeld are no longer performing on college campuses because it is too challenging to be pc with college audiences. People will sacrifice “soft values” for “hard needs”. Increase the burden on them, and you’ll see what else they are willing to give up. You may not like it.
The idea of a state that doesn’t care about people in this context is simply an open invitation to the creation of a Fourth Reich — gas chambers and all. Is that what you want?
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“That system is less about helping individuals than it is about maintenance of social control and propping up markets for business.”
“Social Security itself was born out of fear of what had happened in Italy and Germany and real concern that the same would happen in the US.”
And again, you are absolutely right. Once the threat of massive social unrest dies, the need in such programs as Social Security dies as well.
“The idea of a state that doesn’t care about people in this context is simply an open invitation to the creation of a Fourth Reich — gas chambers and all. Is that what you want?”
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Just to put a new thought for you clarissa. Have you heard much about a universal basic income? basically everyone would get say $1,000 per month, with most of the rest of the state welfare and such dissolving. I don’t totally think it should or will happen, but its a HUGE concept in the tech community, espeically those who think machines / robots will take over most jobs. It sort of would allow the state to be extremely important. Just want to put that out there because many “experts” advocate it and didn’t seem like it fit in with the ones you mentioned. Hope its a helpful concept if you haven’t heard of it.
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“Just to put a new thought for you clarissa. Have you heard much about a universal basic income? basically everyone would get say $1,000 per month, with most of the rest of the state welfare and such dissolving.”
That’s what the future holds. And that, I believe , is tragic. This will create an enormous unemployable, perennially marginalized underclass whose life span will be radically shorter than that of the employed, productive minority. It will be catastrophic. But it will happen, I’m afraid. UNLESS!!! Right now, while there is still a bit of time we prevent this development by dramatically decreasing the number of the unemployable. This is why we need the tattered nation-state not to collapse just yet. We need to push it to do this one last huge effort.
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That underclass is forming in the US already. Life expectancy for people making less than median income is now four years shorter than it was in 2000. We’re creating a serf class. The social problem is that these people always have the option to sign up for military training. Lacking other options, many have. When they come out of the service and can’t get a good job, they present a pre-trained cadre for whoever wants to rally them.
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That’s exactly what I’m talking about, yes. That’s a really bad, dangerous development. I’m hoping we will all awaken soon to what its consequences might be and start doing something about it. It is not too late, we are not impotent here. This is a problem that rich developed societies can solve. We just need the interest and the political will to do it.
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“The Fourth Reich would necessitate a very strong nation-state …”
Yes, and since the world did not see that coming the last time, what makes you think that the Fourth Reich would take the same form the next time?
I’ve been watching the new generation of Red Guards coming from Western universities, armed with camera phones and near-universal surveillance, with their “safe spaces” and speech codes …
[Jones, you have been fined one credit for your violation of the written morality act …]
Dammit, I did Nazi that coming. 🙂
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Don’t worry, Jones, the new generation of Red Guards is all mouth. Whenever they win, it’s been by intimidation and bluff against people who won’t fight back.
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