The fact that food and how one adverties what they eat - as well as what consumer products one should or should not buy due to "ethics" or whatever other silly reason, or "the environment" (whatever the hell that means) are some of the biggest talking points in the political sphere and sends people's blood pressure through the roof when someone disagrees with there little aesthetic ought to affirm to you day in and day out that we are bored and just like to "talk politics" - but for the most part, everything is OK.
There will always be "major disagreements" over what I think is essential hairsplitting nonsense, this will never resolve, because a disagreement with words and aesthetics is part of our survival mechanism, it is one more affirmation of "the will to power", comparative advantage, adapting and thriving, or whatever you want to call it. Just be glad we are nitpicking very loudly over more silly aesthetical bourgoise things like organic and healthy food rather than fighting over clean water or whatever.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
I prefer to eat organic food because of my ethics and my duty to fight for a clean environment.
for the most part, everything is OK
I don't think this is correct. US government debt - indeed, debt of almost every government in the world - is ballooning. Most of this debt is "funny debt", i.e. double-book-keeping to disguise inflation but that doesn't make any difference to the reality of the situation. In reality, most governments have become rapidly pathologically obese over the last couple decades and their combined weight has a real human cost that we are not seeing accurately reflected in the headline news coverage.
The middle class is, to this day, mostly blithely ignorant of the severity of the situation... their 401(k)s are holding basically flat and that tells them "things aren't great like they were in the late 90's but they're still basically OK." When this illusion bursts - and it will burst - we're going to face a true economic catastrophe. There will be no inflationary exit plan even to put off crisis for a couple more years as there was in 2008. This will be what Marc Faber has termed the "final crisis", i.e. it is predictably going to result in economic devastation and depression or war or both, barring a miracle such as Ron Paul being elected President and following through on his promises. Even with a miracle, we will at least experience a depression. The correction is coming, the only question is exactly how the authorities will go about exporting the costs of that correction onto us.
US foreign policy has reached an absolute mania. We are bombing Afghani children for "their own good." We're raining down high-explosives from Predator and Reaper drones over multiple countries, many of them undeclared (Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Libya) and we have drones spying on many more countries (always a prelude to high-explosives dropping from those same drones). We have these archaic relics of stone age military strategy called "aircraft carriers" that - in the modern age of cheap rockets and underwater munitions, are little more than target practice for the Iranis, should we be fool-hardy enough to push them that far. Now, we're rubbing salt in the wounds of the Muslim world. The pattern is unmistakable... whoever is controlling US foreign policy is using it to pick a war with the entire Muslim world.
We are very, very far from everything being mostly OK.
Clayton -
I don't think this is correct. US government debt - indeed, debt of almost every government in the world - is ballooning
This is your strongest argument. As money is the most "real" thing that govt has to do with us - and the only real (and radically empirical) indicator of real social interaction, choices, psychology, and prefrences. It is "real", and has an affect on our day to day action. And it must be noted people are getting a bit agitated with all the bad money going around with govts - but that is to be expected, it is a "hiccup" in the ystem that will correct itself. And frankly, I just don't see it as that fatal - the worst that can happen is govts prolonging the inevitable belief in ghosts (which is what they are doing) - in the end though obviousness will manifest itself more clearly.
That said, the US debt problem is something I can ignore, I can make reasonable expectations without it. And seeing middle class tea partiers and/ or college type intellectuals protesting is just not that big of a deal to me. In no way is that an indicator that the shit has hit the fan, as much as it is an indicator that the govt has been fiddling around with money a little to long, and for the 1st time in a long time we are able to notice the obviousness wrongness of fantasy money in our day to day lives. And the fact that when comfortable people find a minor nusance they will be bored enough to jabber on about it - protesting in the US is a good indicator of leisure time, think of it as a social signaling recreation activity.
For the most part all of this stuff is ignorable. I have nothing to do with th US debt problem, Mid East crises - and the fact that you say most people are ignorant about such things - just shows how good of a situation we have. If I can not worry about this stuff, if it does not interfer with my day to self enjoyment, if I can just "render it unto Ceaser" so be it - it's pretty easy to do as I am not invested all to much in these problems. Which is my main point, there is no "GREATER PROBLEMS" there are only my problems - and for the most part I bet if we wanted to we would know how to thrive, prosper, consume, and enjoy ourselves in a relatively decent bourgoise way of living if we wanted to. The environment is reasonable enough, and one is able to have a good enough sense of expectations to do so.
Thinking about Afghans, Syrians, Chinese, protesters, the US Debt problem is a phantom unless it is something real you are using to own, exploit ,and manipulate to press your own prosperity, concerns, and affairs. I can for one say thinking on the US debt has done nothing for me - and I still enjoy all my little middle class hobbies just as I did before and as I will probably do after the US debt problems come to a resolution.
If anything ccould be speculated why not look at it like this:
it may be a good way to look at a type of "cosmoplitan transfiguration" going on. As we are, by our very nature more powerful/smart/ better than all the rubes of the past -as yet another device for communication has made it easier to see obviousness and how to manipulate the world to ones self enjoyment (the internet), people are probably "self actualizing" a bit more and a bit better.
All the old institutions, customs, etc are easier to question and examine for the ghost in machines they are - so it is easier to get more frustrated with nonsense. Either way look at this as a liberal transfiguration of sorts, how we change due to the growth of our power as individuals when surrounded by BS idealistic boogey men. The end result will probably be going from the situation we are in now, to an even better one, once the transfguration "hiccup" is over.
The kitchen sink has been thrown at the liberal way of life and nothing has toppled it down, I say because it has essentially "figured out the mosaic", all that's left is the way for liberalism to sort itself out even more. This "hiccup" is just showing the bad grammer and old tribalistic habits and feudal ideas of the past catch up with you in this current state of liberalism, as they are stagnant pricniples - and it is "correcting itself".
I mean the fact of the matter is worrying about "The Syrains", "revolutions", the environment, health food, or wars that I am physically not fighting or consuming shows their nonsense. I can say I am concerned about these big ideas, but I call BS - I am saying it as a social signaling "currency" and wanting my opinion subsidized and paid for by making these non thing, things and ideals. The end result is my worries are no more of a consumer good than my desire to eat a McDonalds cheesburger. The reality is I am probably more concerned about not beating level 13 in space invaders or stubbing my toe than what Barak Obama is doing "to the country" - because that is not a real thing I OWN. I would say the debt problem and people's increasing frustrusration with gibberish, as well as praxeological law - are all things that address this point.
there is no "GREATER PROBLEMS"
This true to an extent... much of what passes for "crisis" on the news is just an attempt to push a collectivist mentality by making us feel like we're experiencing the misfortunes of a truly unfortunate minority, such as the victims of Hurricane Katrina. "The nation" has "suffered" a "terrible loss" and so on.
However, I don't agree that it is wise to just shrug off thought of the political machinations of our rulers... after all, I can be drafted at any time. I think of it more like watching the weather... there's no use in tying myself up trying to change the weather patterns because I can't, yet if I can clearly see there's a big storm coming, it's wise to make preparations.
One final thought is that the kind of preparations that are typically pushed by the survivalist types on LRC are unhealthily individualistic. I can't survive alone during good times, how the hell do I think I'm going to survive alone during bad times? The single best preparation for hardship brought on by political conniving is to build healthy friendships and reinforce family solidarity and even community ties with our neighbors. The division-of-labor can work to mainain subsistence even among small groups of people who are otherwise surrounded by economic collapse.
The more durable our families and communities, the less we can be threatened by the machinations of the ruling Elites and, really, the freer we are.
Clarification:
I wasn't speaking of Individualism in the survivalist way. It was not on my mind. When I use the words "my concern" I'm just talking about ontological reality - that is in so much something asserts "it is", the same holds true for me and the proposition can not exceed my claim.
Interesting, I have a much different view of this and the relation to the division of labor. I was thinking the more transient and free roaming cosmopolitan the world became the better off. The easier it would be to create one's own sphere, to enter into and out of social circles at ones will, and the easier it would be to find one and/or create one for one to rise to the top. I think a view of family and community as too stagnant, and frankly I see them both as dead institutions that people clearly care little about, A world of "transition and process is a world where no stagnant non things can thrive like fake money or fake ideas (all ideas?) like a "nation" or any other institution. The customs and poor psychologisms they cause would simply vanish into the nothingness of the ideas they are made of. I think life as we know it is already somewhat acknowledigng this fact and will continue to do so the more obvious the workings of things become. This would also show a very diversified division of labor.
I think a view of family and community as too stagnant, and frankly I see them both as dead institutions that people clearly care little about,
At the danger of going down a rabbit-trail, I believe that the power of the ruling Elites is rooted in the solidarity of their family structure. It is the one, truly distinguishing feature between them and the rabble.
I've developed my ideas a little further since I wrote that article. I refer to "power centers" but I think I can give that a slightly more definite meaning: undeputized power. Deputed power is power that is merely conferred and may be, therefore, withdrawn. The deputizing power is the client of the deputy but not in a market sense, because power is inherently coercive (that's what makes it different from property and exchange between peers). Deputed powers are conditional on obedience and, therefore, they reflect to one degree or another the will of the deputizing power. This relationship is hierarchical since some deputed powers can be deputed again. It can be difficult to tell from inspection whether the power of a particular individual (for example, the President) is undeputized power or deputized power.
We all have undeputized power over our own body. Rothbard calls this the inalienability of the will. Whatever other resources you effectively control, you have undeputized power over. For example, a pirate who buries treasure on an abandoned island has undeputized power over that treasure because no one can take it from him. A business magnate who operates a multi-jurisdictional corporation whose assets cannot be seized by any one jurisdiction has undeputized power over the business. "Power centers" are those "fountains" or sources of undeputized power that flow not merely from volitional control over the body but from either the division-of-labor or the submission of other human beings.
The great discovery of the Industrial Revolution is that the undeputized power that flows from the division-of-labor is immense. It is powerful enough that power centers built on the division-of-labor (businesses, industries) can overthrow power centers built on submission (governments). This is the root of the debate between "public" versus "private". The old system of power through submission is waning relative to the more recent system of power through the division-of-labor. The essence of anti-liberal economic philosophies such as communism or fascism is the attempt to co-opt the new-fangled system of power through division-of-labor and tame it under the umbrella of the system of power through submission.
The problem is that the two systems of power are inherently incompatible. Division-of-labor is so much more productive than serf- or slave-production precisely because it does not involve submission. So, the "New World Order" types are trying to bring into being a contradiction... a system of highly productive division-of-labor in which all power is submitted to a single, global Establishment.
2 points:
1) I think the strong family thing is just a consequence of powerful men. People who are inherently more powerful will create stronger and more lasting bonds. In the old days the family made good sense - now, I don't see it. Either way, it would be no different than a strong corporation, union, nation, firm, business etc. The stronger the social power - the stronger and more lasting the bonds due to mutual benefit or flat out raw coersive power.
It is when one of these things is looked at a a "thing in itself" - some type of mystic communion will it be handily deconstructed and demolished as it is a nonsense thing- both from within and without as it gives easy "intellectual fodder" for weaker people in the circle to "deconstruct" using chincy intellectual tactics. This probaby why intellectuals are great "liberators" (I onlly mean this half jokingly)
2) Serfdom, slave economies etc are part of the division of labor. It is still social and productive action compared to the war of all against all or lone wolves walking around like beasts. It is just less effecient and less desirable than a capitalistic structure.
In the old days the family made good sense - now, I don't see it.
Human biology dictates that blood relation matters. Technological and social shifts that have resulted from the Industrial Revolution will reach equilibrium and the social order will go back to a more "traditional" form yet again. Just like the socialists failed to turn off the "self-interest gene", so the collectivists and political unionists are going to fail to turn off the "family first gene."
Serfdom, slave economies etc are part of the division of labor.
Of course, but the very inefficiency of such a social order contains the seed of its own demise.