Economic collapse will come soon, but this is not it
by Herb Ruhs, MD
Commentators on the right and the left are billing our current economic crisis as a "collapse" of the economic system. This is a half truth. True collapse will come soon, but this is not it. What we are seeing now is not a collapse but, rather, an engineered swindle, a remaking of the financial system that excludes the vast majority of people from the arena of economic power.
We are deluged with a massive amount of financial jargon, some of it sincere attempts by technocrats to explain in their occult language what has happened, more of it is insincere smoke blown by paid propagandist for an increasingly narrow class of the super-rich. From my non-technical viewpoint the proper explanation for what we are seeing is excruciatingly simple. It boils down to, we-the-people have been robbed blind with the connivance of a so called "representative" government.
We have met the enemy and it is us.
We allowed ourselves to be robbed by choosing immature self-absorption and naiveté over sober, critical thinking maturity.
In a world teeming with thieves a baby and its candy are soon parted.
For my purposes, most of the analysis and blizzard of statistics that are available is just so much misleading flak. To my mind, the only statistic that sheds light on these ongoing financial crimes is the exponential growth in the degree of economic inequality in the US and the rest of a world that is dominated by the US imperialist hegemons and their multinational clients.
If a lot of money disappears mysteriously and one group shows up with a lot of unexplained wealth, a complex investigation is not needed to find the crooks who are responsible.
That is not to say that there is not a lot of interesting detail to be discerned about this greatest rip-off in history. The net is full of illuminating analysis, but it is nearly impossible to sort out the useful analysis from the mass of incredible bullsh*t on offer. I depend on books as my path to understanding -- books with thick indexes and abundant references. I am currently reading The Wrecking Crew by Thomas Frank, and give it my unreserved recommendation to those interested in the details of this massive heist. A couple of months ago I read The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein, which is a good compliment to Frank's work. But perhaps more deeply illuminating is Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole by Benjamin R. Barber.
The ultimate question before us is how a relatively well educated and economically secure
society could have allowed itself to be so thoroughly robbed. Robbery at the point of a gun is no
respecter of the maturity of the victim. This robbery, however, was accomplished with the cooperation of the victims in a gigantic confidence swindle, a taking of candy from babies situation.
For working people the reality is that wages have declined and debt has ballooned. Gradually over many decades working people have seen any effective power to negotiate wages eroded to due to the actions of a government of, by and for the super-rich.
The bait for the big swindle was easy credit.
In return for declining wages the people were offered unmanageable mortgages, an avalanche of credit cards, ruinous student loans, tax write-offs that put people in monster trucks and RVs that they didn't need and ultimately didn't want, all engineered by a cabal of bankers and
politicians as a scam to impoverish ordinary people and reconfigurethe US and its imperium as a Medieval
style feudal society.
Barber's book offers the most illuminating analysis because he explains how a nation of relatively mature adults was transformed into a nation of babies holding candy. We have met the enemy and it is us. We allowed ourselves to be robbed by choosing immature self-absorption and naiveté over sober, critical thinking maturity. In a world teeming with thieves a baby and its candy
are soon parted.
Am I blaming the victim? Damn right I am. My sympathies are fully committed for victims who at least try to defend themselves, but by indulging ourselves in pretend kingships, the idea of every man a king and every home a castle with a three car garage, we have allowed ourselves to become enslaved.
But don't get too depressed about all this. Suffering is the cure for such stupidity. When
Suffering is the cure for such stupidity.
When we come out the other side of the true collapse of this dominator culture, the one that eliminates the phenomenon of super-richness, we will be older and wiser.
we come out the other side of the true collapse of this dominator culture, the
one that eliminates the phenomenon of super-richness, we will be older and wiser. Maturity will again rule the house and we will have earned the right to live within our needs. Abundance will become synonymous with sufficiency. Community will eclipse the illusion of rugged individualism. We will welcome the duty to be our brothers' keeper, and safety and security will become worldwide. Imperialist politics will disappear.
Maturity can be evaded by societies for generations but not forever.
