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RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - Eric the Green - 06-12-2021
I think the climate crisis might be a big thing in the 2090-2010 4T, but we can also, by getting a few more Republicans out of office in 2022 and keep them from taking the congress back (and hope Kamala Harris is not nominated for president in 2024), turn the trend around; and much innovation after that might stem the growing climate Crisis due to explode in 2090-2010. If we don't act now, then the USA might very well not exist by 2010, or else it will be another people who act to stem the Crisis in 2090-2010. I have the start for this 4T scheduled for about 2087-89.
But really, it's now or never. Just because some people don't realize this, doesn't mean it isn't true. If we don't turn the trend around in this 4T, then I'd say that the climate crisis will not belong to one turning after that, but will be an expanding and ongoing disaster. The tipping point will have been reached in 2030 from which there's no escape. Civilization will then fail in due course. We lazy boomers need to get off our duffs and quit thinking we can postpone the battle to get rid of Republican power, so we can make progress again and end the tide of regression.
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - pbrower2a - 06-12-2021
(06-12-2021, 02:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think the climate crisis might be a big thing in the 2090-2010 4T, but we can also, by getting a few more Republicans out of office in 2022 and keep them from taking the congress back (and hope Kamala Harris is not nominated for president in 2024), turn the trend around; and much innovation after that might stem the growing climate Crisis due to explode in 2090-2010. If we don't act now, then the USA might very well not exist by 2010, or else it will be another people who act to stem the Crisis in 2090-2010. I have the start for this 4T scheduled for about 2087-89.
But really, it's now or never. Just because some people don't realize this, doesn't mean it isn't true. If we don't turn the trend around in this 4T, then I'd say that the climate crisis will not belong to one turning after that, but will be an expanding and ongoing disaster. The tipping point will have been reached in 2030 from which there's no escape. Civilization will then fail in due course. We lazy boomers need to get off our duffs and quit thinking we can postpone the battle to get rid of Republican power, so we can make progress again and end the tide of regression.
AGW will likely be the cause of the Crisis of 2100, and it will determine to a great extent the severity of the Crisis. To be sure, an ecological disaster can lead to wars, revolutions, and genocide. Those will be the consequence of gross neglect of the underlying cause, but that is like saying that smoking causes lung cancer. Simply giving up smoking as one gets the diagnosis of lung cancer is too late.
Zero population growth is the most obvious start. But fuel consumption per person must itself fall. Even "green" energy releases waste heat.
Halfway between now and the start of the next Crisis Era is about 2050, at which time any direct Boomer influence will have practically ended. That's when the youngest reach 90. Indirect? Maybe someone can pen a dystopian novel in which climatic realities shape the political, economic, and military realities. I see famine, plagues, war, pogroms, and revolutions.
We may be past the point of no return for some AGW that will force shifts of climatic belts. Longer growing seasons will be nice for crop yields. So one might get to grow true tropical crops around Orlando, two temperate crops a year around Nashville, three crops in two years around Detroit, and temperate crops around Sudbury. That is if the precipitation and soil nutrients accommodate such. Question: does the semi-desert belt reach plac es like Dallas, Kansas City, and Minneapolis or does it stay put? Then there is inundation of coastal areas.
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - nguyenivy - 06-13-2021
(06-12-2021, 06:30 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(06-12-2021, 02:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think the climate crisis might be a big thing in the 2090-2010 4T, but we can also, by getting a few more Republicans out of office in 2022 and keep them from taking the congress back (and hope Kamala Harris is not nominated for president in 2024), turn the trend around; and much innovation after that might stem the growing climate Crisis due to explode in 2090-2010. If we don't act now, then the USA might very well not exist by 2010, or else it will be another people who act to stem the Crisis in 2090-2010. I have the start for this 4T scheduled for about 2087-89.
But really, it's now or never. Just because some people don't realize this, doesn't mean it isn't true. If we don't turn the trend around in this 4T, then I'd say that the climate crisis will not belong to one turning after that, but will be an expanding and ongoing disaster. The tipping point will have been reached in 2030 from which there's no escape. Civilization will then fail in due course. We lazy boomers need to get off our duffs and quit thinking we can postpone the battle to get rid of Republican power, so we can make progress again and end the tide of regression.
AGW will likely be the cause of the Crisis of 2100, and it will determine to a great extent the severity of the Crisis. To be sure, an ecological disaster can lead to wars, revolutions, and genocide. Those will be the consequence of gross neglect of the underlying cause, but that is like saying that smoking causes lung cancer. Simply giving up smoking as one gets the diagnosis of lung cancer is too late.
Zero population growth is the most obvious start. But fuel consumption per person must itself fall. Even "green" energy releases waste heat.
Halfway between now and the start of the next Crisis Era is about 2050, at which time any direct Boomer influence will have practically ended. That's when the youngest reach 90. Indirect? Maybe someone can pen a dystopian novel in which climatic realities shape the political, economic, and military realities. I see famine, plagues, war, pogroms, and revolutions.
We may be past the point of no return for some AGW that will force shifts of climatic belts. Longer growing seasons will be nice for crop yields. So one might get to grow true tropical crops around Orlando, two temperate crops a year around Nashville, three crops in two years around Detroit, and temperate crops around Sudbury. That is if the precipitation and soil nutrients accommodate such. Question: does the semi-desert belt reach plac es like Dallas, Kansas City, and Minneapolis or does it stay put? Then there is inundation of coastal areas.
TFR has been falling for decades, so global ZPG may be a reality during about 2060-ish if the current trends continue.
Given that we may not have enough time to tech our way out of at least some AGW effects, I see the main problems in the upcoming saeculum being how we as humans deal with the AGW effects. I can already bet on the US not wanting to deal with AGW at least within North America through the entire 1T. I expect our 1T will be ate up by the other issues that came to a head during COVID-19. How many people do you know that say things like 'we have enough problems here & now day to day, month to month, let alone AGW/climate change that we may not bear the brunt of for a few more decades'? Those same people may combine that with the reduction in globalisation we currently see in the pandemic.
We may be the richest country in the world, but we may not have the finances or manpower to fix the rest of the world. In a less globalised world, continents may end up deciding to protect their own like fortresses. In such an environment, politics will look scary with a lot of fascism & xenophobia around.
If AGW is the big theme of the next saeculum, what do you think the 4 turnings each will look like?
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - Eric the Green - 06-14-2021
(06-13-2021, 08:33 PM)nguyenivy Wrote:(06-12-2021, 06:30 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(06-12-2021, 02:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think the climate crisis might be a big thing in the 2090-2010 4T, but we can also, by getting a few more Republicans out of office in 2022 and keep them from taking the congress back (and hope Kamala Harris is not nominated for president in 2024), turn the trend around; and much innovation after that might stem the growing climate Crisis due to explode in 2090-2010. If we don't act now, then the USA might very well not exist by 2010, or else it will be another people who act to stem the Crisis in 2090-2010. I have the start for this 4T scheduled for about 2087-89.
But really, it's now or never. Just because some people don't realize this, doesn't mean it isn't true. If we don't turn the trend around in this 4T, then I'd say that the climate crisis will not belong to one turning after that, but will be an expanding and ongoing disaster. The tipping point will have been reached in 2030 from which there's no escape. Civilization will then fail in due course. We lazy boomers need to get off our duffs and quit thinking we can postpone the battle to get rid of Republican power, so we can make progress again and end the tide of regression.
AGW will likely be the cause of the Crisis of 2100, and it will determine to a great extent the severity of the Crisis. To be sure, an ecological disaster can lead to wars, revolutions, and genocide. Those will be the consequence of gross neglect of the underlying cause, but that is like saying that smoking causes lung cancer. Simply giving up smoking as one gets the diagnosis of lung cancer is too late.
Zero population growth is the most obvious start. But fuel consumption per person must itself fall. Even "green" energy releases waste heat.
Halfway between now and the start of the next Crisis Era is about 2050, at which time any direct Boomer influence will have practically ended. That's when the youngest reach 90. Indirect? Maybe someone can pen a dystopian novel in which climatic realities shape the political, economic, and military realities. I see famine, plagues, war, pogroms, and revolutions.
We may be past the point of no return for some AGW that will force shifts of climatic belts. Longer growing seasons will be nice for crop yields. So one might get to grow true tropical crops around Orlando, two temperate crops a year around Nashville, three crops in two years around Detroit, and temperate crops around Sudbury. That is if the precipitation and soil nutrients accommodate such. Question: does the semi-desert belt reach places like Dallas, Kansas City, and Minneapolis or does it stay put? Then there is inundation of coastal areas.
TFR has been falling for decades, so global ZPG may be a reality during about 2060-ish if the current trends continue.
Given that we may not have enough time to tech our way out of at least some AGW effects, I see the main problems in the upcoming saeculum being how we as humans deal with the AGW effects. I can already bet on the US not wanting to deal with AGW at least within North America through the entire 1T. I expect our 1T will be ate up by the other issues that came to a head during COVID-19. How many people do you know that say things like 'we have enough problems here & now day to day, month to month, let alone AGW/climate change that we may not bear the brunt of for a few more decades'? Those same people may combine that with the reduction in globalisation we currently see in the pandemic.
We may be the richest country in the world, but we may not have the finances or manpower to fix the rest of the world. In a less globalised world, continents may end up deciding to protect their own like fortresses. In such an environment, politics will look scary with a lot of fascism & xenophobia around.
If AGW is the big theme of the next saeculum, what do you think the 4 turnings each will look like?
AGW is already the cause of the current Crisis. It is already upon us, and is already intolerable. It has already caused disasterous revolutions and civil wars, and also contributed largely to the ascendancy of Donald Trump thanks to the immigration crisis.
Population growth is already ebbing. Green energy is MUCH better for not emitting greenhouse gases. Changing the tech is the necessary goal. It is hard only because of inertia and the convenience, wealth and power of the corporations responsible.
Ad I said in bold, the time for blue boomers at act is NOW. "Now" does not mean 2050. That does not mean the effects of global warming will end before then, but it does mean if we don't act NOW (that means now, not 2050), the trend will not be reversed, and so the Crisis of 2100 will be the last Crisis that civilization faces. No, we can't sit back and wait for 2050 OR 2100.
Acronymns give me a headache. Why do people assume that others know them? What is "TFR" (my own expletive not included)
Saying the USA does not want to deal with AGW, is only saying they are not ready to dump Republicans, who are the ones blocking action now for 40 years and counting. So the only question is how long it takes for us to get tired of their behavior. The results of AGW are already coming down on us severely. I don't see any validity in denying this fact.
40 years of regression is ENOUGH! How many more cities in my state must be burned? How many floods and storms must ruin how many more lives? How many deaths does it take till we know, that too many people have died? The answer is blowing in the wind. Gimme Shelter!
We already have so much fascism and xenophobia in our world, almost as much as in the 1930s, that I can't see it getting much worse. Younger generations are already having none of it. The older leaders can suppress the resistance to their authority now, as they are now doing in dozens of countries, but for how much longer? Meanwhile, the march of globalization can in no way be stopped. It has already been the reality for over a century, and the recent trend of denial will soon be overwhelmed.
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - David Horn - 06-14-2021
(06-12-2021, 02:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think the climate crisis might be a big thing in the 2090-2010 4T, but we can also, by getting a few more Republicans out of office in 2022 and keep them from taking the congress back (and hope Kamala Harris is not nominated for president in 2024), turn the trend around; and much innovation after that might stem the growing climate Crisis due to explode in 2090-2010. If we don't act now, then the USA might very well not exist by 2010, or else it will be another people who act to stem the Crisis in 2090-2010. I have the start for this 4T scheduled for about 2087-89.
But really, it's now or never. Just because some people don't realize this, doesn't mean it isn't true. If we don't turn the trend around in this 4T, then I'd say that the climate crisis will not belong to one turning after that, but will be an expanding and ongoing disaster. The tipping point will have been reached in 2030 from which there's no escape. Civilization will then fail in due course. We lazy boomers need to get off our duffs and quit thinking we can postpone the battle to get rid of Republican power, so we can make progress again and end the tide of regression.
It's worse than that. The right has won the narrative war, for now at least. Ask anyone what's more important: living wages for low income workers or cheap and readily available products and services. People always support higher wages for the poor, but asked to pick, the cheap products and services win every time. As long as solutions fall outside the parameters of "acceptable thought", suggesting them is like howling at the wind. It takes a long time to alter a narrative, unless something traumatic happens to hasten it along. That COVID didn't trigger that process is one of the reasons I think this will be a highly unsatisfactory 4T.
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - Eric the Green - 06-14-2021
(06-14-2021, 10:20 AM)David Horn Wrote:(06-12-2021, 02:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think the climate crisis might be a big thing in the 2090-2010 4T, but we can also, by getting a few more Republicans out of office in 2022 and keep them from taking the congress back (and hope Kamala Harris is not nominated for president in 2024), turn the trend around; and much innovation after that might stem the growing climate Crisis due to explode in 2090-2010. If we don't act now, then the USA might very well not exist by 2010, or else it will be another people who act to stem the Crisis in 2090-2010. I have the start for this 4T scheduled for about 2087-89.
But really, it's now or never. Just because some people don't realize this, doesn't mean it isn't true. If we don't turn the trend around in this 4T, then I'd say that the climate crisis will not belong to one turning after that, but will be an expanding and ongoing disaster. The tipping point will have been reached in 2030 from which there's no escape. Civilization will then fail in due course. We lazy boomers need to get off our duffs and quit thinking we can postpone the battle to get rid of Republican power, so we can make progress again and end the tide of regression.
It's worse than that. The right has won the narrative war, for now at least. Ask anyone what's more important: living wages for low income workers or cheap and readily available products and services. People always support higher wages for the poor, but asked to pick, the cheap products and services win every time. As long as solutions fall outside the parameters of "acceptable thought", suggesting them is like howling at the wind. It takes a long time to alter a narrative, unless something traumatic happens to hasten it along. That COVID didn't trigger that process is one of the reasons I think this will be a highly unsatisfactory 4T.
I don't think either side has won the narrative yet. The 4T has just passed the half-way point. It is quite a self-deception and very-wishful thinking to believe we are near the end of it, due this year or in 2025. I don't think it's wrong to pick cheap prices over living wages. The people need both, and victory will be achieved when we get both. There's no use for living wages, and they aren't living wages, if we can't use them to buy what we need. "It takes a long time to alter a narrative, unless something traumatic happens to hasten it along." Yes, and that is still ahead. The 4T battle is far from won. But since victory over COVID19 is being achieved by the blue side, and not by the red side which made it worse, is why the new narrative has a 12% approval rating now.
Boomers need a self-esteem boost. Many people on these forums, and even William Strauss, put down our own generation, as if we have failed. But we can win our self-esteem back by leading, fighting and winning the battle over the next 8 years. We have our captain, our very-gray champion, at the helm now.
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - David Horn - 06-14-2021
(06-14-2021, 10:46 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:(06-14-2021, 10:20 AM)David Horn Wrote:(06-12-2021, 02:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I think the climate crisis might be a big thing in the 2090-2010 4T, but we can also, by getting a few more Republicans out of office in 2022 and keep them from taking the congress back (and hope Kamala Harris is not nominated for president in 2024), turn the trend around; and much innovation after that might stem the growing climate Crisis due to explode in 2090-2010. If we don't act now, then the USA might very well not exist by 2010, or else it will be another people who act to stem the Crisis in 2090-2010. I have the start for this 4T scheduled for about 2087-89.
But really, it's now or never. Just because some people don't realize this, doesn't mean it isn't true. If we don't turn the trend around in this 4T, then I'd say that the climate crisis will not belong to one turning after that, but will be an expanding and ongoing disaster. The tipping point will have been reached in 2030 from which there's no escape. Civilization will then fail in due course. We lazy boomers need to get off our duffs and quit thinking we can postpone the battle to get rid of Republican power, so we can make progress again and end the tide of regression.
It's worse than that. The right has won the narrative war, for now at least. Ask anyone what's more important: living wages for low income workers or cheap and readily available products and services. People always support higher wages for the poor, but asked to pick, the cheap products and services win every time. As long as solutions fall outside the parameters of "acceptable thought", suggesting them is like howling at the wind. It takes a long time to alter a narrative, unless something traumatic happens to hasten it along. That COVID didn't trigger that process is one of the reasons I think this will be a highly unsatisfactory 4T.
I don't think either side has won the narrative yet. The 4T has just passed the half-way point. It is quite a self-deception and very-wishful thinking to believe we are near the end of it, due this year or in 2025. I don't think it's wrong to pick cheap prices over living wages. The people need both, and victory will be achieved when we get both. There's no use for living wages, and they aren't living wages, if we can't use them to buy what we need. "It takes a long time to alter a narrative, unless something traumatic happens to hasten it along." Yes, and that is still ahead. The 4T battle is far from won. But since victory over COVID19 is being achieved by the blue side, and not by the red side which made it worse, is why the new narrative has a 12% approval rating now.
Boomers need a self-esteem boost. Many people on these forums, and even William Strauss, put down our own generation, as if we have failed. But we can win our self-esteem back by leading, fighting and winning the battle over the next 8 years. We have our captain, our very-gray champion, at the helm now.
It still stands that the default view is all pro-capital, even though it's not understood that way. The Billionaires aren't just winning the money battle, they're way ahead in the hearts-and-minds battle too. The idea that taxing or even discomforting the wealthy will destroy jobs is still accepted as gospel. Likewise, poor people who don't want to take really bad jobs for even worse pay are faulted as lazy or even welfare cheats. Knowing that's wrong doesn't fix it, so there has to be a counter narrative that literally crucifies the wealthy (unfair, but the current narrative is worse), or it won't be powerful enough to turn the tide. 90+% of the Dems don't have it in them, and the <10% aren't enough to get the job done.
I see this as a 2T event. The passion isn't there today, and it's not emerging either.
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - pbrower2a - 06-15-2021
If the last Crisis is any indicator, then the slightly-more-than-a-dozen years between the rise of Antichrist Hitler in Germany and V-J Day was roughly the start of World War II in Europe. Pick either the signing of the Pact of Devils (Ribbentrop and Molotov slicing eastern Europe between the "spheres of influence" of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union) on August 23 or the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1. The Crisis was six years from its settlement in ways that nobody foresaw.
So imagine a timeline of events for someone who hates the Axis Powers:
October 1939. What is going on in Poland is simply unspeakable.
April 1940. Things are going very bad very fast. The British did take Ethiopia from the Italians, and that decides only one thing... the Horn of Africa.
June 1940. From Kirkenes in the Arctic to Perpignan in the Pyrenees, Adolf Hitler is Master of Everything. Britain is next.
October 1940. The Blitz is over in Britain... but who knows what follows?
May 1941. Hitler controls everything in continental Europe that he has sought so far. His Empire is Hell. Is this the Apocalypse in Revelation?
July 1941. Hitler has stabbed Stalin in the back, and he seems to be getting away with it. It's a long struggle remaining -- maybe decades.
December 1941. Who expected the Japanese to take on the British, American, and Dutch colonial empires? The Soviets are defending Moscow successfully... this time. What about the next time?
February 1942. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere has entrenched itself all the way to New Guinea and Burma. It will be a long, hard struggle, perhaps taking decades.
October 1942. The Germans seem close to cutting off the Transcaucusus region from the rest of the Soviet Union, and they did get close to the Nile Delta at El Alamein. This struggle could take decades.
December 1942. The Germans have been pushed back toward Tunisia and are in retreat in Libya, and the Soviet Army has cut off Stalingrad. We shall see how that turns out. That's progress, but it is a long way from victory. Meanwhile Hitler is ramping up the massacres that make no sense.
February 1943. The Red Army is advancing into Ukraine , and the Axis armies are being reduced to a small pocket in Tunisia.
Not until late 1944 does the Axis seem undeniably doomed. Historical events then move quickly. Maybe as late as December 1944 the Allies expect a protracted struggle against their demonized enemies. What looked like a decades-long struggle (barring a sudden Axis victory) might take a couple years to complete. It will take four months only in Europe only because the Nazis would rather die fighting than be strung up as the war criminals that they were. For much the same reason, the Japanese would fight until the country was on the brink of famine.
.... This time the Crisis involves mass death from a respiratory infection that supposedly does not afflict people at least superficially-healthy in the advanced industrial world. It has killed over 600,000 people in America, which would be a shocking total characteristic of a badly-managed shooting war. (Pardon a pun, but this is a war which America wins in the ends by ensuring that people get shots). The death toll is now between 2019 Census estimates of the population of Milwaukee (30th at 589,067) and Louisville (29th at 618,338). The death toll is slowing down because fewer people can be infected now.
Meanwhile we have yet to see the full consequences of the Capitol Putsch. Many attitudes will change. Perhaps an organization such as the Oath Keepers that seemed harmless enough will start to be lumped with such despised entities as KKK and neo-Nazi groups. People are being prosecuted, and a key figure (Fernando Klein, a Trump political appointee) copped a plea. There will be long prison terms for people who attacked police, snooped into areas of classified information, or organized the riot.
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - Captain Genet - 06-15-2021
(06-10-2021, 03:10 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(06-09-2021, 04:15 AM)Captain Genet Wrote: I agree that deaths of polarizing boomer politicians, like Trump, Putin, Netanyahu or Poland's Kaczynski, will mark the definite end of millennial saeculum.
No, it won't. The radical right wing has controlled the Republican Party for 40 years. The defeat of neo-liberal ideology, as well as Trump nationalism and racism, will mark the definite end of millennial saeculum. Silents and Gen Xers have supported these ideologies as much as, or more than, Boomers have.
What would it take to bring back the "compassionate conservatism" platform Bush ran on in 2000? And to make it the dominant strain of the Republican Party, instead of a cloak for Mammon-worship?
Quote:The tyrannical leader of Poland today is named Duda. He is an Xer, not a Boomer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrzej_Duda
His ideas are formed by Kaczynski, but Kaczynski's death won't make him abandon these beliefs.
Back to Britain and America, the anti-PC, anti-cancel-culture movement is mostly Xer. While bashing Inclusivism, they really bash any morality. As teenagers, the same people bashed Christianity, often pretending to be Satanists. The nihilism stayed the same.
Triumphant end to this turning? More like a break from the 4T mood before it kicks in again. There is no guarantee the cycle will run smoothly. I think France was in 4T mood from 1789 to 1870, with some short breaks like the restoration of Bourbons.
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - Tim Randal Walker - 05-14-2023
Was reviewing John Xenakis web site. Focused on a couple terms I came across:
1. Mini-Crisis.
2. Fifth turning. Even a sixth turning has been postulated.
Think of a mini-Crisis as a 4T like situation/reaction that may last, at most, a few years. Examples-Covid and 9/11.
A fifth turning, if I understand correctly, is a sort of supplemental crisis if society fails to enter a full fledge 4T.
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - Tim Randal Walker - 05-14-2023
Xennial made some interesting comments regarding France.
As I recall, somebody made similar observations regarding the Soviet Union. There seemed to be a very long 4T, basically revolution through WWII. But there were a couple breaks. One was the New Economic Plan (NEP), described as an abortive 1T.
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - pbrower2a - 05-18-2023
Thank you, Tim, for your effort to restart this site. I had abandoned it
We need remember that all Turnings are themselves transitions. Had it not been for the American involvement in World War II, America was already taking on 1T characteristics and abandoning 3T ways. The generational cycle so works even without apocalypse.
This time we have been slower to abandon 3T ways, perhaps because those ways well fit the desires of economic elites. 3T ways failed catastrophically during the horrid years from 1929 to 1933 with the loss of 85% of the valuation of corporate stock in America and the rise of Satan Incarnate in Germany. In the 1930's the old moneyed elites were hit so hard that they were more concerned with survival than with buying the political process and establishing an aristocratic order. Eighty years later the economic elites did what they could to buy the political process and harden an aristocratic subjection in a time in the only way in which to succeed was to be born into the economic elite. The elite dream was a mirror image not so much of Marxism (unless in repression) as of Georgism; theirs is the idea that asset ownership is everything, toil whether in productivity or services is super-cheap, modernization stalls, and most people are obliged to suffer with a smile on behalf of elite profit, indulgence, and gain as was so in the Middle Ages. Economic rents become the definition of prosperity instead of quality-for-quality dealing essential to industrial-era capitalism.
A new aristocratic order is not a welcome way for most of us. It will take enforcement, and that will require the modern equivalent of the torture-chambers and witch-burning. We must demand better. Such is not only of our leaders, economic and political, but also of ourselves. Should we become swine, then so shall our rulers. Animal Farm is a worthy fairy tale; elites who have just found themselves taking over the power of an aristocratic elite take over the aristocratic ways and become just as exploitative.
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - pbrower2a - 05-20-2023
Today I saw a site called Catalist (sic) that suggested political trends that doom any third wave of the 3T political culture of the Reagan-Trump era. Combine the evidence from this site with the Skowronek Cycle (that suggests that Reagan started a new era with bold initiative -- however flawed -- and that Trump largely brings about the logical conclusion of failure as those initiatives have have become threadbare), and the Reagan-Trump model is doomed.
It is well worth the read.
Comment:
In a highly-polarized society in culture, politics, and moral visions, either extreme and callous ruthlessness forces events (think of Francisco Franco in Spain; Trump is similarly extreme and callous in his ruthlessness, if less effective) or demographics shape a free political process. Yes, Spain in the 1930's has been a fitting model for describing the political and cultural polarization in America in recent times, with parts of Spain being as forward-thinking and culturally-daring as New England at the time and parts of Spain being essentially pre-modern in attitudes by standards of the 1930's. Franco's fascists rejected everything modern except the tools of warfare, propaganda, and terror, and those are enough to maintain power indefinitely.
Catalist suggests that demographic trends with free elections will doom the Reagan-Trump agenda, ensuring that there will be no rebound. If a new conservatism should arise, then that new conservatism will owe far more to Obama than to either Reagan or Trump. Rule of law, precedent, protocol, sobriety, sexual moderation, and tradition are all old conservative virtues. If Obama is more multicultural in his attitudes, his sort of multiculturalism implies that the traditions of America's Model Minorities will prevail in their turf more than they will meld. As we go into a 1T, we will see less acceptance of any avant-garde that offers neither a quick payoff nor obvious harm.
The attempted revolution of January 6, 2021 may have been the peak of danger to the political order following the mass-death that COVID-19 caused. COVID-19 killed in numbers characteristic if a war and the near-zero inflation that Reagan succeeded in establishing (if at the cost of super-cheap labor. Millions of people whose working lives have largely been during the Reagan-Trump era who were never able to put together any semblance of a retirement fund because they were underpaid through most of the era will experience harsh old age due to poverty.
RE: There Will Not Be A Triumphant End To This Turning - pbrower2a - 11-22-2023
Remember: for all the talk of apocalypse in a 4T, a 4T is itself a transition. 4T apocalypse is eventually unsustainable because destructive revenge and pervasive regimentation become unsustainable. A 4T is in part the replacement of 3T values with 1T values."Every one for himself" gives way to "no man is an island". Slow and steady as an objective in economic life replaces the desire for a "killing in the market". People begin to accept low-yield, illiquid long-term investments instead of high-risk, high-return investments that are highly marketable... until some panic as in 1857, 1929, or 2008 after which the high-flying assets crash and burn in the final stage of the 3T. In a 1T people save, buy life insurance, and invest in single-family housing. It is telling that the Dow-Jones never reached the once-heady values of the speculative boom in the late summer of 1929 until 1952, and even then with much-deflated money in an era of higher taxes on 'unearned' incomes (dividends and interest). Economic results tend to even outin contrast to the wide dispersion of a 3T. In corporate board rooms, investments in plant and equipment become preferable to mergers and acquisitions.