The black and gray market is one poised for rapid growth. Recently,
horsemeat was found in hamburgers in the UK instead of beef. This has far
larger implications than ruined fast food. This was due to the authentic
product being too expensive for the supplier to handle. This is a type of
“stealth inflation,” a substitute of lower quality goods instead of the
advertised content. A recent Supreme Court case in the US threatens to gut what
remains of consumer protections and the ability to sue for violations of them. Given
the massive money printing in the US, UK, EU, and other economies, stealth
inflation is sure to rise as the currency wars expand.
System D, the globalized black market, rushes to fill the
gap. From anonymous currencies like Bitcoin to shady distributors, the
alternative networked economy may soon replace the economy that political and
financial talking heads dwell within. Like the Potemkin villages of the Soviet
Union, the economic “growth” benefits a few connected individuals at the
expense of the many. As Charles Stross writes, worldwide democracy is
malfunctioning, as politicians race to defend the illusion of the prior status
quo at all costs.
Those costs increasingly include everything that made those
nations free and pleasant places to live in the first place. Civil liberties,
developed infrastructure, and other quality of life metrics increasingly circle
the drain. The political elites and business elites escape trial with impunity.
Faith in governments and economies decreases as do the natural resources that
fuel the status quo too many people take for granted. The entire
socio-political structure resembles a decaying bridge with heavy trucks driven
across it. The wrong one will set into motion a costly cascade of economic and
political failures.
As Alvin Toffler wrote in "The Third Wave," the dominant
political and economic machinery of the Second Wave (industrial, bureaucratic nation-states)
increasingly fails and falters. The reason many corporate and political elites
grasp for power is not out of confidence in the future but desperation. Ironically,
the desperate measures they use may easily accelerate the negative trends instead
of fixing them, such as silencing and prosecuting whistleblowers instead of
dealing with corruption. This allows the tumor of corruption to grow unchecked,
and capture or compromise the rest of the "checks and balances"
against it. This is why bureaucracies may be vulnerable to "regulatory
capture," especially at the highest levels. This is by no means limited to
"socialism," as private companies may have books cooked by a corrupt
executive seeking to cover up numbers seem better than they actually are.
The answer lies not in returning to feudalism (whether
corporate socialism or "First Wave" agrarian feudalism), but in a
"Third Wave" society. The Third Wave (Information Revolution) could create
all manner of new systems. Cyberdemocracy, semi-direct democracy (perhaps some
fusion of the Swiss and Icelandic models), or perhaps even a distributed polity
in the style of "The Diamond Age" may prove viable.
One possible vector for infiltrating an existing political
entity is a form of "auto-immune disease," turning its political and
economic machinery against it. Imagine a non-profit corporation, or a
corporation serving as a "host" for related subsidiaries, sharing a
new organizational structure (workplace democracy with company catered
dorms/lodging/etc.). New
industries (including ones to make it self sufficient) could easily bud off and
spread. It could offer social capital, technical capital (in the form of
education and training), and perhaps legal or political capital (assuming
lawyers could be hired). Of course, keeping such a structure from becoming a
cult of some sort is another challenge. Of course, some religious and cultural
enclaves (especially close-knit ones from various diasporas) could be a good
example or place to start from.
Such alternative polities are a topic for later, however.
The bottom line is that despite its best efforts, the Second Wave institutions
and status quo are their own worst enemies. New institutions are arising, and
often employ swarming tactics against their slower foes. A Second Wave enemy
may act like a great white shark, while a Third Wave enemy may act like a
school of piranhas. Time will tell how long the Second Wave system takes to
fail past, or if it drags the world ecology down with it. As the illusion falls
away, the world's Potemkin economies will be revealed for the frauds that they
are.
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