A Message to America’s Youth from an American Youth
In part, this is turning Cloward-Piven against its creators. It’s an effective way to destroy a government, it’s just that the liberals always seem to forget that they’re deeply entrenched in the government getting destroyed. However, while Cloward-Piven was designed to destroy capitalism, this strategy is designed to modify Cloward-Piven in a way that saves capitalism. Does any of this make it a betrayal of our principles? Of course not. This is a strategy, a tactic, regardless of whether it has been previously associated with a set of political beliefs. Most tactics aren’t intrinsically good or bad, because they are a tool… they can be appropriated and modified for use in the name of good or bad causes. The ultimate goal is still a world where government is limited and human freedom is maximized, but for a finite period in the interim, we must take specific, strategic actions in order to realize it. The actions in question, incidentally, are not especially contradictory with conservative ideals. We want smaller government, so taking actions to weaken the established government is a perfectly logical step for us. You might say it ultimately renders more power into the hands of Uncle Sam, but remember that the purse strings will eventually make so much hash of any political power they may accrue from instability, and our major target is the purse strings.
This strategy, as I understand it, is known on the internet as the “Let it Burn” strategy, but I prefer to think of it as the “Genie Strategy”, along the lines of the expression “be careful what you wish for”. The takeaway is that we are not trying to leave the government in control, but to overburden the federal government financially, to sufficient degree that it is incapable of maintaining control. Furthermore, we hope to do this in a short, sharp time-frame, to maintain as much of our social and physical capital for the reconstruction of America as possible. And you may hold your own opinions on the matter, but I think that given the immense and probably soon-to-be-rising interest costs, massive debt, and a dog’s breakfast of an entitlement system, we have a very good chance of victory on this front.
I’m an Xer. Are we “generation screwed”? Cause it sure feels like it. Supporting Boomers in their old age and Millennials in their debt ridden unemployment.
Yes, we are. And yes we are.
Aww… crap.
And I’m a Boomer. I’ve been talking about the unsustainability of entitlement programs and supporting politicians who wished to address it for more than two decades (anyone remember the late Paul Tsongas? He was a Democrat who actually dared to say “social security” and “may need to be changed” in the same sentence in the 1992 campaign, and was promplty clobbered for it by Bill Clinton.)
I mention this not because I want a medal or anything but so you’ll realize some of us understand the situation and agree with you. What cannot continue, ends so a reckoning IS coming, sooner or later. The only questions are how that will occur (rationally or chaotically) and what will come after. Right now, “kick the can down the interstate” is the order of the day so the reckoning, when it arrives, will be a surprise to almost everybody – that does not bode well for “rationally”, I’m afraid.
Oh, I doubt we have decades. Matter of fact, I’ll be surprised if we get two years. Shocked if we go four. I’m in the Steyn mode of thought here.
Here’s why. First, our financial situation is dire. Stephen has outlined all this before, but between the spending, and the fed’s shenanigans, disaster is like a coiled spring. It’ll happen sooner rather than later and it’ll be convulsive. Here, history isn’t on our side. None of the eurosocialist utopias started out in such bad shape.
Second, all these Eurosocialist countries, and Japan, have been able to spend like they do because Uncle Sugar has been doing the lion’s share of their defense. Not to mention the amount of aid Uncle doles out.
We don’t have that luxury. You can damn well be assured that something will pop in the next few years that’ll trigger mayhem. Hell, there’s stuff going on now that we can’t be bothered with for one reason or another.
The world is a dangerous place. And as long as Team O kid themselves about the economy and the world in general, the faster it’ll blow.
BigTex, I’m not so sure. I was nearly positive we’d be in this position at the end of O’s first term and yet we keep plugging along-with higher inflation, horrible unemployment, soaring debt, and so forth, but no societal collapse yet. As long as idiots keep loaning us money-and there are many idiots out there-we’ll just keep plodding along until we can’t plod any more. And for that, I really don’t know how long it will take. I thought it would be immediate, but as long as the money keeps coming in (again, who knows why?) then things stay mostly the way they are. So I give it longer time-maybe 15, 20 years?
Stephen had a great post this fall about how this house of cards comes undone.
I’m to lazy to look it up so I’ll paraphrase.
1. The market for US Debt is something like $3T. We know this because when it comes to selling paper, Uncle Ben at the fed buys 75%. Why? Aren’t there customers? The answer is, if it were left to the open market, the interest rates would bloom. This cannot go on forever.
2. Congress, and Obama continue to run $1-$1.5T deficits. Every year, we need to sucker someone into loaning us a trillion or so.
3. Treasury needs to roll a huge percentage of debt every year. Like $3-$4T. These are short term bonds that are maturing.
4. Uncle Ben is the largest holder of US debt. Sooner rather than later, he’s going to have to liquidate some of this. $3-5T a year. He can’t keep the funny money forever.
5. That puts the market at best 6 to 7 trillion of US paper that has to be sold.
The upside here was inevitably we’d need 19% of every country in the worlds GDP to keep this up. That ain’t gonna happen.
And this is before 2014, when Obamacare kicks in and we see people flock or get kicked out to the gubmint exchanges. Peak baby boomer retirement also is way closer than 15 years.
To all this, you have a large part of the gubmint kidding itself about “investment”.
The problem of run-away inflation in the Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe and other places didn’t happen overnight, but when things reached the tipping point, they happened very quickly.
I don’t find it comforting to know America is following the same policies that made Zimbabwe the international economic powerhouse it is today.
Steve, thank you very much for allowing this to be posted. An excellent essay on a vital topic. More, please!!
This strategy genuinely has a “be careful what you wish for” vibe to it. This strikes me as too rosy a very of the collapse of the American economy. I am not sure we should assume it will fall apart so quickly or peacefully. On the most extreme side of the scale, North Korea muddles along, even though people have been talking about the possibility of its collapse for a long time. The Soviet Union took 70 years to fall. And will the people who benefit from all of the government sponsored goodies be so quick to give them up, even to the point of violence? And even then, will anyone learn anything from the experience? Hundreds of years passed between the fall of the Roman Republic and the fall of the Roman empire and no seemed to learn much from the experience for a thousand years.
This is somewhat reminiscent of Communists who assisted the Nazis in the early years in the hope that Nazism would push the country to a state of unrest that would make way for a Communist revolution. They got in way over their heads.
I’m afraid you’re taking a rather simplistic view of that story. Communists — in the person of one Joe Stalin — have indeed missed the mark, but not my so much. In fact, it is scary by how little they have missed it. And in a global economical collapse that is sure to follow the collapse of US economy, someone else might do this again, and miss not. Guys, I’m sorry, but having grown up in the paradise of the ole’ USofA, you haven’t seen how bad things could become, and how quickly
I’m almost 30, but I’ve lived overseas. I utterly agree with Max. Now, I’d say mainstream American culture, with its love of justice, freedom, peace and ingenuity, will never let things get that far, but, unfortunately, mainstream American culture no longer dominates in many parts of America (and arguably even the American military).
The point I was trying to make was that German communists thought that fascism would lead to an internal German communist revolution and that most of those folks ended up being killed. That East Germany went Communist was more because of Soviet tanks than because of the German communists choice to aid and abet Nazism.
Overall, my suspicion is that if things go down the pipes, people will not be looking to restore freedom, but to restore order. And they will be told that the people looking to restore freedom want to increase chaos. Among other things, I don’t want to be one of the people who cleared the way for the American Pol Pot. And I don’t want to be a part of sacrificing thousands or millions of people –and true collapse will kill lots and lots of people — in the hope that there is a conservative comeback at the end of it all.
The world may ultimately deserve what terrible things are likely coming, but I don’t think it is right to be an active contributor to making those terrible things happen.
What they thought was totally irrelevant. They did what Joe told them to do.
Feature, not bug. Those not killed ended up wearing Soviet uniforms — military and NKVD.
It was exclusively because of Soviet tanks, and the only reason West Germany did not follow suit was that there wasn’t enough of those tanks when it mattered. Which comes back to that missed mark, in summer of 1941.
WWII was scary indeed, but yet not as scary as it might have been…
+1000. Especially since it won’t be just American and there might not be a place to hide from him.
Name me one, just one, successful revolution in the name of middle-class property-owners that was precipitated by an economic collapse.
This is a fool’s errand. There’s an excellent reason why progressives don’t fear an economic collapse, and conservatives are terrified by it. It’s because progressives want the totalitarian state that would be accepted…nay, demanded by the American public after such a crisis.
I come down on Neil’s side. The essay does make some good points, but my belief is that the citizenry is already debased enough that a collapse would result first in extreme violence in the streets and second by totalitarian rule.
The debased types aren’t the ones lining up to buy guns. If there’s violence in the streets, it’s not going to go well for them.
I like thinking that thought. Then I get back to Earth and hope to be in New Zealand with my family (and hopefully with most of my money) six months before trouble in the streets begins.
I take a pass on all the-worse-the-better arguments. It seems like a devil’s brew of perfectionism, defeatism, and clueless optimism about bouncing back inevitably from complete societal collapse.
I think the “let it burn” strategy is the correct one for two reasons:
First, a slow slide towards the pending collapse will only increasingly enervate those willing and able to mount an economic recovery,
Second, it gives authorities sufficient time to disarm the citizenry, thereby making a post-apocalypse tyranny inevitable.
Considering that various influential gun-grabbers are going all out in their disarmament efforts, best to have a rights revolution when people are armed and able to resist the totalitarians.