The system is going in a direction that should make everyone feel like passengers on the Titanic. So we are gearing up for another election. How do these two facts relate? I guess some folks believe that if the right people win in this coming election things will get better. A number of questions are raised by that belief. First and foremost is "How will they get better?" Second one has to ask how such a blind belief could survive the actual result of the last election (2008)? I do not have to spell this out. Either you are in so deep a state of denial that you can actually not be seeing what I mean or you will try to wish your way out of facing the fact that I simply am observing what is there for all of us to see. Insert here the usual list of what this administration has accomplished to rebut my statements. They fail to rebut them. Why can I say that with such assurance? Well, if I must I will go over this again. read on below and we will look at what makes this whole inane discussion both possible and even relevant.
There are all sorts of systems ideas floating around here. One of the strongest is the fact that no matter what the two parties do their very existence and apparent struggles with each other have one overriding effect: They stabilize the system! They keep people from knowing that there is no real democracy here. They hide the plutocracy behind the curtain like in that great movie about Oz. Let's just ask: Let's pretend the democrats sweep the November elections. What will that mean with respect to the real needs out there? What will it do to solve the Climate problem, and the resource problem, and the poisoning of the soil and water and the rest of the environment problem? Oh and the fact that the economic system is now global, it is not sustainable, and it no longer benefits from having a middle class to stabilize it. Sort of like the end of slavery in a way.
I'd sure like to know what the pundits who are soliciting time and money to support the good guys and women in the coming election have to say to make these questions irrelevant. I hope I am wrong. I have hoped that so many times before. Sometimes I am and that makes me happy!
Those of you who have been following this series have to know what I have up my sleve. I am especially cocky today because Jim Coffman has been working his butt of on our book and it should be out within the year. I just read over his latest revision of chapter 5: Metabolism and Repair in the Global Economy. In this chapter we use the modeling relation to examine the relationship between the entailment structure of the Global Economy (In context as part of a larger and highly interconnected system) and what we know from systems theory. The result is as one might expect. The system has matured to a point where its flexibility and options to deal with threats to its survival have become frighteningly sparse. Jim has done a lot with others to develop a concept of "systems senesence". The idea is not that difficult. it comes in great part from evolutionary theory and, in particular, that part of evolutionary theory that looks at extinction. Oh that word. In our book we focus on that notion for though the threat we make as a species appears to be a threat for the planet, realistically it is really directed at our species.
If the planet, as we believe it is, has metabolism and repair capacitiy, then it will deal with disease and heal once it has. That disease, to say it all too crudely, is us! So I return to the theme of this diary: What will the outcome of the November election do to deal with these matters? I anxiously await your responses.