Years ago Bob Dylan observed that the world was always in transition from the old to the new; and “that he not busy being born is busy dying”. People usually found themselves partway between these worlds, like an elevator between floors. The times when the elevator perfectly aligned with the world outside were passingly rare, though they were the moments we noticed. But left unsolved was the hardest question: which world was being born? Which world was busy dying?
Western Canadian asks what happens when institutions that are too big to fail finally collapse? What do we see on the day when we wake up dead?
We are witnessing the collapse of Democratic Socialism. This will have a much larger effect on the world’s economy than the collapse of Communism. The USSR was almost entirely separate from the economy in the rest of the world. Its collapse was bad for Russia but not a big deal for the rest of us. Today Democratic Socialism is the gospel in huge parts of the world economy. Its collapse will have a huge effect on the world’s economy.
The rise and fall of political systems appears to be some dismal word game using Feudalism, Communism, Fascism, Capitalism, Democratic, Socialism. After Democratic Socialism, what’s next? Feudalistic Capitalism? Democratic Fascism? There are 30 permutations of word pairs from 6 words plus the six single words by themselves. Of these 36 possible political systems it looks like we have 35 choices left (assuming Democratic Socialism won’t be chosen again). That’s 35 possible replacements for Democratic Socialism. I wonder which will it be?
“I wonder which will it be?” So do Peter Schiff and Cornell West, who debate how the world should work. How the world has worked. In the video below one is struck by how different both their visions of the future and their memory of the past is. They not only disagree about what floor the elevator should stop at; but even which way it is heading. Whose world is being born? Schiff’s or West’s? Or maybe it is some other place of which we have no memory, nor even a presentiment. Until we finally get there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Mrqe9E3b4
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