Home » Posts tagged 'nation state'

Tag Archives: nation state

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXI–Loss of Trust in Government: A Stage of Collapse

October 24, 2023

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXI

June 16, 2021

Loss of Trust in Government: A Stage of Collapse

Today’s contemplation is prompted by an online media article that argues for cancelling Canada Day, our national ‘celebration’ for the day the nation state of Canada was ‘born’ (July 1, 1867). I raise this topic for the growing sense of ‘disappointment’ with our national government and, more generally, of all government/politicians. A feeling that seems to be fairly widespread around the globe and, of course, waxes and wanes depending on media attention and events.

I am thinking of this loss of ‘trust’ within the framework of Dmitry Orlov’s thesis of societal ‘collapse’ that is presented in his book The Five Stages of Collapse: Survivor’s Toolkit.

Orlov argues that “my five stages of collapse…serve as mental milestones…[and each breaches] a specific level of trust or faith in the status quo. Although each stage causes physical, observable changes in the environment, these can be gradual, while the mental flip is generally quite swift” (p. 14).

Here are his five stages:
a) Financial collapse where faith in risk assessment and financial guarantees is lost.
b) Commercial collapse that witnesses a breakdown in trade and widespread shortages of necessities.
c) Political collapse through a loss of political class relevance and legitimacy.
d) Social collapse in which social institutions that could provide resources fail.
e) Cultural collapse that is exhibited by the disbanding of families into individuals competing for scarce resources.

The concept of the ‘nation state’ and how the ‘patriotism’ one feels towards it is manipulated by the-powers-that-be/elite/ruling class are interesting sociological/psychological areas to explore and reflect upon. One of the more interesting books/essays I have read about the ‘State’ is Murray Rothbard’s Anatomy of the State. This particular section has stuck with me:

“The State is almost universally considered an institution of social service…[and that] we are the government…[But] the government is not ‘us.’ The government does not in any accurate sense ‘represent’ the majority of the people…Briefly, the State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area…Having used force and violence to obtain its revenue, the State generally goes on to regulate and dictate other actions of its individual subjects…[Moreover, the] State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for the predation of private property; it renders certain, secure, and relatively ‘peaceful’ the lifeline of the parasitic caste in society…The State has never been created by a ‘social contract’; it has always been born in conquest and exploitation…While force is their modus operandi, their basic and long-run problem is ideological. For in order to continue in office, any government (not simply a ‘democratic’ government) must have the support of the majority of its subjects…[Thus] the chief task of the rulers is always to secure the active or resigned acceptance of the majority of the citizens…For this essential acceptance, the majority must be persuaded by ideology that their government is good, wise and, at least, inevitable, and certainly better than other conceivable alternatives…Since most men tend to love their homeland, the identification of that land and its people with the State was a means of making natural patriotism work to the State’s advantage.”

The ‘State’ works hard to legitimise its position and power (their primary motivation being the control/expansion of the wealth-generating systems that provide their revenue streams). For the most part, it ‘controls’ (or, at least, heavily influences) all of those aspects of society that help to do this: legislative powers, military/security, education, money creation/distribution, taxing power, communications/media, etc..

They constantly ‘market’ themselves as representative, transparent, responsive, responsible, accountable, etc. when, in truth, the exact opposite tends to (is always?) the case. When one scratches at the surface, even gently, of the facade of what we are told is true about our governments and ‘representatives’ we find an upside down world of corruption, nepotism, self-serving interests, and manipulation. But question the status quo belief system and you are often characterised as traitorous or a conspiracy theorist because the curtain can never be drawn aside to show the emperor has no clothes. The group think and reduction of cognitive dissonance that maintains the illusion is strong.

Don’t like what the government is doing? Go vote them out of office. Problem is, citizens have zero agency via the ballot box. Nothing ever changes. The system remains. It continues to extract wealth (in terms of labour and resources) and expand ruinous policies (both environmental and social). The rich and powerful continue to pull the strings of, well, virtually everything.

And this is not some new historical phenomenon. The ‘evolution’ of complex societies and the hierarchical power structures/sociopolitical systems that develop in response to the growth of populations has often (always?) been dominated by a certain ‘caste’ of people who find themselves ‘above’ the others. This is particularly true as the society gets larger (both in numbers of citizens and geographic size) and ‘representatives’ lose touch with the ‘average’ person, socialising primarily within an echo chamber of sycophants and like-minded/educated people. As the saying goes: power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I’ve come to the conclusion that government, especially big government, is virtually the last place I am going look to for leadership, virtue, or even just common sense since their motivation is to subjugate the majority of us to serve their interests and that of their close supporters (primarily the rich and influential financiers), not mine, my family’s, or my community’s.

Can Any Nation-State Survive the Era of Inequality and Scarcity?

December 8, 2021

Can Any Nation-State Survive the Era of Inequality and Scarcity?

We have an extraordinary opportunity to transform our unsustainable “waste is growth” economy and toxic inequality to sustainable systems that optimize well-being rather than collapse.

The possibility that the United States could fragment is no longer a marginalized topic. Maps displaying various post-U.S. regional configurations accompany essays exploring how and why a break-up of the U.S. would be a solution to regional and ideological polarization, for example, Max Borders’ recent article, Dear America: It’s Time to Break Up.

But two forces larger than political polarization may fragment nation-states across the globe, including the U.S.: inequality and scarcity. Inequality and corruption go hand in hand, of course, as the wealthiest few influence the state to protect their monopolies and backstop their speculative gains.

Inequality also goes hand in hand with the collapse of nation-states, as this seminal paper explains: Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies.

The parasitic elite can accumulate the majority of income, wealth, political power and resources in eras of expanding abundance, as what’s left is enough to support an expanding populace that consumes more per capita every year, i.e. broad-based prosperity.

But once abundance transitions to scarcity, the economy and society can no longer sustain the dead weight of its outsized parasitic elite. The parasitic elite believes its bloated share of resources, wealth and power is not only sustainable but can be expanded without consequence, and so it deploys all its formidable power to keep the status quo unchanged even as scarcity lowers the living standards of the bottom 90% and hollows out the economy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Merkel & Macron Tag-Team – Surrender Sovereignty to Brussels

December 31, 2018

The Merkel & Macron Tag-Team – Surrender Sovereignty to Brussels

QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; Merkel has come out and said that “Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty.” This is what you have been saying that the agenda is to federalize Europe. Would you care to elaborate on her latest statement?

Thank you from Berlin

ANSWER: Merkel has stepped down as leader of the CDU. She knows that she is on the way out. She hopes to cling to her position of power until she is dragged out by the hair. This statement is indeed the behind the curtain view. But she qualified that statement insofar as yielding sovereignty to Brussels over especially migration. This is a shot across the bow at the rising nationalism. You must look at the entire statement she made in order to expose the thinking process.

Merkel condemned any notion that Germany should join a fast-growing number of nations pulling out of the migration agreement. Even Australia pulled out of the UN migration agreement. She said that “there were [politicians] who believed that they could decide when these agreements are no longer valid because they are representing The People”. What is interesting is how she is splitting a democratic form of government which represents the people and one of an anti-democratic position because politicians know better than the people. She continued to remark that “the people are individuals who are living in a country, they are not a group who define themselves as the [German] people.” She holds the position that migration is inevitable, necessary and desirable. She refuses to admit that allowing in the refugees was a mistake.

Her reasoning states that nationalism “is not patriotism, because patriotism is when you include others in German interests and accept win-win situations.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Angela Merkel: Nation States Must “Give Up Sovereignty” To New World Order

December 28, 2018

Angela Merkel: Nation States Must “Give Up Sovereignty” To New World Order

“Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty”, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who told an audience in Berlin that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty.

No this wasn’t something Adolf Hitler said many decades ago, this is what German Chancellor Angela Merkel told attendants at an event by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin. Merkel has announced she won’t seek re-election in 2021 and it is clear she is attempting to push the globalist agenda to its disturbing conclusion before she stands down.

“In an orderly fashion of course,” Merkel joked, attempting to lighten the mood. But Merkel has always had a tin ear for comedy and she soon launched into a dark speech condemning those in her own party who think Germany should have listened to the will of its citizens and refused to sign the controversial UN migration pact:

“There were [politicians] who believed that they could decide when these agreements are no longer valid because they are representing The People”.

“[But] the people are individuals who are living in a country, they are not a group who define themselves as the [German] people,” she stressed.

Merkel has previously accused critics of the UN Global Compact for Safe and Orderly Migration of not being patriotic, saying “That is not patriotism, because patriotism is when you include others in German interests and accept win-win situations”.

Her words echo recent comments by the deeply unpopular French President Emmanuel Macron who stated in a Remembrance Day speech that “patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism [because] nationalism is treason.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

International Monetary Fund: Storm Clouds Of The Next Financial Crisis Are Gathering

December 12, 2018

International Monetary Fund: Storm Clouds Of The Next Financial Crisis Are Gathering

The International Monetary Fund is sounding the alarms of another global crisis. IMF is warning that the storm clouds are currently gathering for another financial crisis.

According to a report by The Guardian, David Lipton, the first deputy managing director of the IMF, said that “crisis prevention is incomplete” more than a decade on from the last meltdown in the global banking system. Not only that but on an individual basis, people are largely unprepared for a major financial downturn. “As we have put it, ‘fix the roof while the sun shines.’ But like many of you, I see storm clouds building and fear the work on crisis prevention is incomplete,” Lipton said.

Lipton said individual nation states alone would lack the firepower to combat the next recession while calling on governments to work together to tackle the issues that could spark another crash.

“We ought to be concerned about the potency of monetary policy,” he said of the ability of the US Federal Reserve and other central banks to cut interest rates to boost the economy in the event of another downturn, while also warning that high levels of government borrowing constrained their scope for cutting taxes and raising spending. –The Guardian

Lipton said individual nation states alone would lack the firepower to combat the next recession while calling on governments to work together to tackle the issues that could spark another crash. Which is an odd position to take considering the central banks and governments of the world cause recession and economic crises in the first place.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

To Save Lives, We Need More Conflicts. And a Strong Economy Needs More Failure.

December 1, 2018

To Save Lives, We Need More Conflicts. And a Strong Economy Needs More Failure.

How could more conflicts be a good thing?

Well, imagine 50 wars among city-states that each kill 30,000. That is a staggering 1.5 million deaths.

Or one war among nation-states, say World War II, which killed an estimated 60 million people.

Call me crazy, but I’ll take more conflicts if it means fewer deaths overall.

And according to Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book Antifragile, smaller governments resembling city-states produce overall more peaceful results for society. Even when there are more conflicts, they claim fewer total lives than years of buildup to explosive large wars.

Or consider that the Soviet Union post-World War II was relatively peaceful towards other nation-states… while Stalin murdered millions and millions of Soviet citizens.

“Stalin could not have existed in a municipality.”

Small is beautiful in so many other ways. Take for now that the small–in the aggregate that is, a collection of small units–is more antifragile than the large.

This means that the overall group is more likely to survive if it is made up of smaller units. And the units which survive will be better for withstanding the tests.

Even in the Soviet Union, this proved true. For instance, under centralized control, Stalin stole the food of the entire nation of Ukraine, orchestrating a famine which starved somewhere around 6 million people.

But most of the Soviet Union did not starve, because food production remained relatively decentralized. Each village produced much of the food it needed, so they were less affected by the horribly inefficient food distribution of the Soviet centralized state. And cities which did not produce their own food fared much worse.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump Takes Italy by Storm: the Rise of Matteo Salvini and of the Italian Right

June 21, 2018

Trump Takes Italy by Storm: the Rise of Matteo Salvini and of the Italian Right

Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Italian League and Minister of the Interior since June 2018. During the past few weeks, he has gained political prominence in Italy by adopting Trump’s style and policies. Here, you see him together with the slogan “Italians First.”

During the past few weeks, we have seen a true political revolution in Italy. Matteo Salvini, leader of the Italian League, has successfully exploited his new position of Minister of the Interior to gain personal prominence. The M5s movement had won the elections, this year, but it has been emarginated to a secondary role, while Salvini acts and looks like if he were the real Prime Minister. If new elections were held now in Italy, Salvini and the League would win hands down.

All politics is, after all, about blame shifting. So, political success means simply finding someone to blame. Matteo Salvini was successful by adopting the same style and content that made the political fortune of Donald Trump. Both Trump and Salvini found a good target to blame with immigrants and foreigners in general. Both used harsh language, insults, callousness, and plain racism. Both found that the more shrill and violent their utterances were, the more they were approved by the public. It took a remarkably small effort to convince a large majority of Italians that all their troubles are caused by immigrants and, in particular, by the Roma people (less than the 0.2% of the Italian population). Salvini also capitalized on demonizing the Euro and the European Union, although he can’t afford (so far) to exaggerate with insults and threats in that field. In any case, right now, it seems that 72% of Italians approve Salvini’s actions.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Where are Europe’s Fault Lines?

November 9, 2017

Where are Europe’s Fault Lines?

Beneath the surface of modern maps, numerous old fault lines still exist. A political earthquake or two might reveal the fractures for all to see.

Correspondent Mark G. and I have long discussed the potential relevancy of old boundaries, alliances and structures in Europe’s future alignments.Examples include the Holy Roman Empire and the Hanseatic League, among others.

In the long view, Europe has cycled between periods of consolidation and fragmentation for two millennia, starting with the Roman Empire and its dissolution. Various mass movements of tribes/peoples led to new political structures and alliances, and a dizzying range of leaders rose to power and schemed their way through an equally dizzying array of wars, alliances and betrayals.

Regardless of the era or players, security is a permanent priority: this includes defensible borders, alliances to counter potential foes, treaties to end hostilities and whatever is necessary to secure access to resources and trade routes.

When consolidation served these priorities, then fragmented polities either consolidated by choice or by conquest. When smaller polities served these priorities, then imperial structures fragmented into naturally cohesive territories that were unified by language, culture and geography.

Security is also economic, as people support structures that keep their bellies filled and enable social stability and mobility.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the European Union is the high water mark of consolidation, and the next phase is fragmentation. Where are Europe’s natural fault lines? Much has changed in the past 600 years, but geography hasn’t changed, and that defines some basic security threats.

German Army Prepares For “Break-Up Of European Union” Or Worse

The Germans are making contingency plans for the collapse of Europe

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Can the UK Survive Brexit?

January 5, 2016

Can the UK Survive Brexit?

LONDON – The upcoming referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership in the European Union, almost certain to be held this year, could turn out to be yet another major catastrophe to hit Europe. If, as seems increasingly plausible, British voters chose to leave, the result would be a profoundly destabilized EU – and a shattered UK.

The problem is that, with the EU seemingly mired in perpetual crisis, the case for “Brexit” carries significant intellectual and emotional allure. Even before the eurozone’s debt problems emerged in 2009-2010, it seemed clear to many British that, in order to be resilient to shocks, a currency union requires greater integration, in particular, some form of fiscal union. In other words, Europe would need to act more like a nation-state. And that is one arrangement that the UK has never been willing to abide.

And, on an emotional level, fear of large-scale immigration, from both within and outside the EU, has fueled a populist backlash, which the recent refugee crisis has intensified. The populist response relies on the bizarre but evidently resonant argument that Europe – or, more specifically, Germany – is encouraging the refugee inflows.

Meanwhile, the defenders of Britain’s continued EU membership have made one mistake after another. Many have apparently pinned their hopes on the unrealistic expectation that they could renegotiate the EU treaties. In particular, they tried to present a case for weakening crucial elements of the European integration process, especially with regard to labor mobility.

Furthermore, the pro-EU camp has sounded the alarms over the economic shock that Brexit would cause. This may have seemed like a reasonable strategy, but fear is not rational; it may well drive voters toward the apparent certainties offered by the nation-state.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tensions Between the U.S. and Russia Are Worse Than You Realize – Remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov | Liberty Blitzkrieg

December 2, 2014

Tensions Between the U.S. and Russia Are Worse Than You Realize – Remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov | Liberty Blitzkrieg.

Despite an interest in geopolitics, I haven’t really written anything on the concerning and worsening tension between the government of the United States and the government of Russia. I intentionally wrote government twice in order to emphasize the fact that 99.9% of Americans do not have real grievances with actual Russian people, and vice versa. This is a high-level conflict between powerful “leaders” playing a game of Risk with average citizen as pawns. This is how it’s always been. As human beings, we should never lose sight of this so the mistakes we make in the future aren’t nearly as tragic as those made by our ancestors.

One disconcerting thing I have noticed amongst some “liberty-minded” people I follow, is a knee-jerk tendency to pick a side in this affair. When it comes to powerful men running centralized nation-states with nuclear weapons, there are no church boys involved. I have noticed a desire to defend Russia every step of the way in what appears to be a simple-minded emotional reflex birthed in justifiable disgust with what they see happening in their home nations (the U.S. and UK in particular).

This behavior has always made me uncomfortable, and reminds me very much of how people get upset with one fake political party and then vote for the other guy simply because they are not a Democrat or a Republican. The best choice is to accept they are both useless and not vigorously defend either party. I take the same tact when it comes to battles between nation-states. Just because I am disgusted and horrified with what is happening in these United States, doesn’t mean I need to slavishly defend Russia, Vladimir Putin or pick any sides in a conflict in which the primary losers will always be powerless civilians.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tag Archives: nation state

Content

Post categories

Economic Links

Energy/Resource Links

Environmental Links

Geopolitical Links

Liberty Links

News Links

Other Links

Survival Skills

Post Archives by Category

Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XXI

Latest Posts