Modern Nation States are Very Fragile
One of the arguments which I often run into when talking about future of western countries goes something like this: “not much will change in the west since existing systems of governance, including institutions and bureaucracies, are too strong to let that happen”. There are many reasons why people want to believe in this idea- ranging from not wanting to see the current status quo upset during their lifetime to an actual childish belief in the power of western institutions. We cannot also forget that people often equate outward appearances of strength and control to actual strength and real ability to control. These issues are, of course, not new. Every single empire which has ever existed in human history could never imagine its demise, till one day it was all over. With that in mind, let us talk about the weak points and structural issues intrinsic to contemporary western nation states.
But before we do that, let us define what we are talking about. What do I mean by contemporary western nation states? How are they different from those preceding it? Well let me explain by using two examples. Consider the entity known today as UK or United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. While this entity, in roughly its current territorial form has been around for at least two centuries, the way it is run or governed has changed a lot over those 200 years. And yes.. I am aware that the entire island of Ireland was part of UK until 1922. To better understand what I talking about, let us examine how this entity was governed in early 1800s and compare it to the present. At that time, as today, UK was a constitutional monarchy run by a bicameral parliament. But this is where the similarities end.
The UK of 1800s was a pre-industrial open oligarchy with very restrictive voting rights and large percentages of its people lived in conditions little better than slavery. It also lacked many familiar institutions such as universal medical care, universal schooling, public universities, publicly funded infrastructure, universal pensions etc. There was also no income tax, VAT or almost any other tax. My point is that the UK of early 1800s was a very different type of nation from UK of 2022. In fact, much of what people in that country would recognize as “normal” did not exist before WW1 and much of what we see today began in the years following WW2. In other words, UK as we know it today has been around for less than eight decades or barely one human lifetime. As you will see, this becomes very important later on in this post.
A second example, with which some of you might be more familiar, is USA. While USA was officially formed in 1776 or 1787, depending on how you define things- the boundaries of that nation as well as the mode of governance at that time was very different from today. The country as we know if today has existed only since 1964 or 1968, depending on whether you believe that upholding civil rights of non-whites or the abolition of race-based immigration was the more fundamental change. Even a more optimistic view of history would suggest that USA, in a form recognizable today, did not exist before the 1933. Once again, the country as we know it has not been around for about a single human lifespan. Almost every country in Europe from Germany and France to Poland and Hungary have also not been around in anything close to their current forms for much longer than a single human lifespan.
So why am I am fixated about these countries in their current form not being around for more than a single human lifespan? For starters, the period after WW2 to present has been very uneventful and atypical in the West. Sure.. there was a lot of economic growth in the first few decades after WW2, but all of this occurred in an era without any real challenges. The cold war era , despite all the money spent on weapons during that era, was unusually peaceful- if you lived in the West. Even after era of economic and technological stagnation began during the 1980s or 1990s, things didn’t get too bad for the majority. Decent cars and houses were affordable for almost everybody, education was very inexpensive, medical care was good and inexpensive, vacations and consumer goods got less expensive etc.
To summarize the previous paragraph, the system of governance and its institutions in western countries was never under under any real stress between 1946 and 2020. Sure.. there were occasional disruptions in the form of surprise election results, mild civil disturbances, mild to moderate but transient economic crises etc. But nothing serious enough to actually challenge or test the robustness of institutions in western countries occurred until the mid-2010s. Things started to change in the past decade, initially from the aftermath of Global Financial Crisis of 2008, but more fundamentally due to the long-term effects of neoliberalism and “free trade” bullshit. While these toxic ideologies had started to slowly corrode and destroy western societies and economies beginning in the 1980s, their initial progress was slow and there was enough inertia in the system to prevent the real effects of these policies from emerging on a large scale until the early to mid-2000s. By that time it was too late to change course.
To make much worse, the entire governance structure of western countries from elected political leaders to mid-level bureaucrats in “regulatory” agencies is now filled with incompetent losers whose claim to their current position lies in having worthless “credentials”, “pedigrees”, “worldviews” etc- all of which which have zero correlation with actual ability or competence. This is how we get dumb and short-sighted morons such as Jacinda Ardern and Justin Trudeau or Emmanuel Macron and Mario Draghi and their flunkies running countries. To be fair, things in this country are not much better- with a bunch of PMC-types from groups with myopic and often conflicting agendas running the country on behalf of the senile pedo “elected” in 2020. And things were not much under his colorful predecessor or Obama or Bush43, Clinton42, Bush41, Reagan 40.. you get the picture. But this lack of competency at the the top looks like a minor inconvenience when you look at the true scale of this problem.
The sheer size and scale of this problem becomes much more apparent when you look at the many institutions found in western countries. In this country, these range from regulatory one such as the FDA, NTSB, EPA, CDC etc to professional ones like AAP, AMA etc. Over past two decades, these institutions had been increasingly recruiting a certain type of delusionary conformist moron and now their leadership is full of people who are unable or unwilling to deal with reality. But why stop there.. just look at all the winners recruited by universities and schools during the past two decades. If you don’t believe me- just have a talk with most people recruited to universities in past two decades. Let us just say, that it is hard to find a bunch of more ideologically conformist and creatively empty people with borderline sociopathic tendencies competing for meagre paychecks. And it gets worse..
Almost all institutions and corporations are now full of people allegedly performing a multitude of administrative and “regulatory” roles, who spend their days trying to justify their parasitic existence. The much publicized DEI bureaucracy is only the tip of this shit iceberg. And don’t forget the media and entertainment complex, which is now almost completely full of incompetent parasites who can barely get things done. The point I am trying to make is that almost every single institution in western countries is now full of incompetent grifters and scammers. While the negative effects of such a large parasitic load would be less obvious and slower under otherwise favorable circumstances, that is not the world we live in today. In fact, the large number of these parasites are actively making increasingly disastrous decisions and have been doing so for almost two decades.
Consider the invasion of Iraq in 2003 or Afghanistan in 2001. Were it necessary to perform either boneheaded move to get what the American government wanted? The short answer is NO, as both both objectives could have been achieved for far less money and lives lost by simply bribing the right individuals in both countries. Sure.. it would have not have looked like a “real” military operation- but who cares as long as the main objectives were achieved. USA spent trillions in both country and, to be quite honest, failed in most of their objectives. Or consider the subprime housing and bond scams which led to housing crash of 2007. Were those scams really necessary and did the risks outweigh the potential profits? NO.. and everybody except a few very rich people lost a lot of money and faith in the system. You can say almost the same thing about every major and large fuckup we have witnessed in past two decades.
Moving on the current era- is it possible to move away from fossil fuels by 2030 or even 2050? NO! Is it possible to run electric grids on “green” renewable energy? NO! Is it possible to ban internal combustion engine vehicles without totally screwing up transportation? NO! Is it possible to ban most single use plastics without very serious negative consequences? NO! Will injected vaccines provide mucosal immunity against a respiratory virus like COVID-19? NO! Will people like “woke” entertainment? NO! Is it possible to develop usable general purpose AI anytime in foreseeable future? NO! Is it possible for Ukraine to win against Russia in the ongoing war? NO! Is it possible for west European countries to stay afloat with Russian gas, oil and coal for next few years? NO! I hope you are seeing a trend here.
Every brainfart being pushed by western Establishment and its institutions nowadays is bound to fail and in many cases the results of such failure will be catastrophic to the rest of people in those countries. Every major failure makes the remaining parts of the system progressively more fragile. It won’t matter whether they can remain in control, because there won’t be much left to control. The rest of world, which now accounts for majority of all manufacturing and other types of real work will just move on and leave the self-crippled and demographically screwed west behind.
What do you think? Comments?