Day 913

Day 913 Sunday July 7, 2019

484 Days until the 2020 election and 562 days until the Inauguration

What if the American Experiment in Democracy is Over?

I pose this question quite seriously.

What if the American Experiment in western liberal Democracy is Over?

Let us look at the evidence that may suggest that it has already happened, that it is over and all that is going on now is the pounding of the last few nails in the coffin?

There is the world as we wish it to be and there is the world as it is. Joseph Campbell wrote that civilization is founded on myth, on some sort of belief system. What if the belief system has changed that underpins our civilization?
I’m not sure we are there yet, but … I dunno.

I’m going to scrap together various bits of evidence, evidence of something, and then ask the question posed to Mr. Natural*, “What does it all mean?”
*Mr. Natural is a graphic comic character created by R. Crumb. Mr. Natural has a long beard and sports an ankle length hair shirt and is bald. He seems to get annoyed when people ask him what it means and typically responded, “It don’t mean shit.” (In case you were wondering.)
Or the answer given in “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” which is “42.”
Are we at a point where we will look back at all these bits and say, “Why didn’t we see this coming?”
There are those Eureka moments in people’s lives when they’ve been looking at all the pieces and trying to make sense of it, when all of a sudden it all falls into place. Two of my favorites are Watson and Crick asking “What if the valence of one of the atoms is not what we’ve been told?” and it wasn’t and then the whole DNA molecule fell in place. The other is the separating of the UNIX fork and exec system calls into those two now well known calls instead of making it a single call. The merits of which were immediately understood after it was done but not before. (Obviously, this doesn’t have to be explained further because everyone knows the story.)

One of the things I’m good at doing is taking in diverse inputs and stitching them together in some sort of semblance of order. It’s taken we a long time to realize that there are things that I see that seem obvious to me, but aren’t at all obvious to others.

When dealing with a problem, especially behavior problems, it is hard to know what to do, at first. Sometimes you have to let the problem or condition sit in your lap for awhile. You need to pick it up and examine it, put it down and think about it. This process may go on for a long time. Eventually, one hopes to reach a conclusion, a new understanding, and perhaps see things in a different way.

Recently, a friend of mine from elementary school has asked me some questions about the current political, social, and economic situation. She has very extreme conservative views, However, her questions and reply comments seem to be thoughtful and genuine. It has caused me to state my beliefs without malice or ad hominem. That has been an interesting exercise and it continues.
Another friend of mine whom I worked with a Fannie Mae has sent me an article by Robert Reich that looks at the difference between China and the U.S. economically for the last forty some odd years.
Thirdly, are my own comments and observations on the state of our country: the political and social landscape; the economic conditions of people, companies, the government; the mythos that has bound us together as a nation.

What if I put all those threads together? Where are we? What if the conservative hopes and dreams are realized? What happens to the country that we have known? What if China becomes the dominant economy in the world? What if the influence of the Chinese becomes such that nations side with China and not the U.S.?

Here are some data points:
The U.S. has been going into debt more and more. This is recognized as unsustainable.
The U.S. has invested in wars. China has invested in projects around the world that have increased it’s economic influence.
In 1978 China was an agrarian society, they have transformed themselves into an economic powerhouse, lifting million out of poverty. Since 1980 the middle class in the United States has not had a raise, has seen their economic opportunity decline, and they have gone further in debt. Many have slide into poverty. The Chinese have been growing at 9% a year. The U.S. has only seen growth in the rich and corporations.
Corporations, many of which were founded in the U.S., have moved their headquarters to mailboxes in tax-free islands or similar principalities. Corporations have also moved operations to places that allow them to pay the lowest possible wages. Corporations in the U.S. and the west in general, have as a objective to increase shareholder value. The other unspoken thing is that CEOs do whatever they can to increase stock price because much of their pay is tied to that price. That and their ability to get paid astronomical salaries. The disparity between a CEO and an entry level employee has grown wider and wider over the last four decades.
In China, as Reich points out, the purpose of corporations is different. The purpose is to increase the influence of China Maybe, I’m not stating that well, but it’s not to increase shareholder value or pay their CEOs an ungodly amount. I’d say it’s more about expanding their influence in whatever area they are pursuing. Is the economy controlled in China? Yes. What does that mean? It seems that this means government officials visit your company and ask what your numbers are going to be for the quarter. Then they ask that you either increase them a bit or push some of the sales/profit into the next, because the objective of these officials is to keep the growth of their area and hence the country as a whole in a consistent growth pattern. How is this different from a western company where the boss asks his sales team to push out a sale to the next quarter?
However, the fundamental difference is Chinese companies owe loyalty to China, while western companies have no such overall objective. Well, theoretically companies in the west serve at the pleasure of the political entity in which they are operating, but the reality is that big international corporations move to wherever the conditions are best. This means lowest taxes, cheapest labor, etc.
There is a myth that by helping companies they will help the economy and in turn help everyone, but this is not true, as President Obama learned after bailing out the banks from the mess left to him by his predecessor. (ie the banks didn’t loan money to the average person and thus didn’t really help stem the tide of the problem they created. True, they saved themselves – and pocketed a bunch of money in the process. But actually help the average person? Forget it. Just like they didn’t help after the stock market crash of ’29; they tightened credit in ’32, which led to the Great Depression. They blamed it on the stock market, but that isn’t really true.

The agenda of the rich and powerful (be they individuals or corporations) is moving along nicely and it is leaving everyone else out.

If this doesn’t change we as a society, as this great experiment in democracy is finished.

484 Days until the 2020 election and 562 days until the Inauguration

PS ’52 Mercury – lowered with lakes pipes, Continental spare tire kit, spinner wheel covers, remote door openers, white walls, spotlights, tint.*
*Thanks to my brother for the final bits of auto-tech specs.