OK, so the image of the Cathedral of Notre Dame burning seems to many of us to be a metaphor for our age.
When I was last in Paris I went to up to Notre Dame, but decided not to go in. I guess my experience with the cathedral in Florence, and the duomo in Siena, is that these buildings are monuments to civic pride, more an expression of "our team is better than yours" than religious devotion.
But it wasn't the burning of Rome that caused its downfall. It was simply that the rulers' economic game didn't work any more.
Rome had operated for centuries on a loot and plunder model. The Roman Army would conquer some place out in the hinterlands, and the loot and plunder would flow back to Rome and enrich the coffers of the state and the ruling class.
But by, let's say, 200 AD, the game was about played out, because the frontiers of the empire were too far out. It was just too hard to find new lands to plunder, keep control of the commanders of the legions, and get the loot back to Rome.
Of course the end of the feudal era was a bit different, but still, similar. The rise of manufacturing disturbed the loot and plunder model of the landed feudatories. And the agricultural revolution meant that wealth and power belonged to people that could adapt agriculture from conservative peasants sitting on the land to energetic improvers using land drainage and new methods to increase crop yields.
Even then in the later stages of the agricultural era the landed magnates still had a good thing going. A lot of their revenue was not from land rent, but from court fees in their manor courts from local farmers buying and selling the leases on the land they farmed.
But ruling classes are all alike. They want to set up a system to loot and plunder the people so they can reward and keep their supporters. As in my maxim:
The beautiful thing about our current system of the market economy is that it is the complete enemy of the fixed system, with some elite "farming" the nation for themselves and their supporters. The market insists of serving the consumers, and it insists on what we might call "permanent revolution," so that today's dominant corporation becomes tomorrow's basket case.
So the wise ruler rails and complains about the evil capitalists, but still lets things take their capitalist course. Our Bolivarian socialist pals in Venezuela show what happens when the rulers think they are smarter than the capitalists and staff the technostructure with political hacks: they can't even keep the lights on!
So, in the United States in the wake of the Crash of 2008, caused by the ruling-class policy of low-down and liar mortgages, which resulted in the nationalization of bankrupt General Motors and the bankrupt mortgage twins Fannie and Freddie, the government has sensibly let their nationalized basket cases return to private ownership, and they have eased up a bit on the liar loan thing.
But everyone in the ruling class believes -- and always has believed -- in command and control. That is the internal logic of political power. You rally the nation -- or tribe or army -- to face the foe, and of course that means that all the young men must be enlisted in the army, and the rest of the nation must be subordinated into a common effort that will save us from existential peril.
And jolly good fun it is for the ruling class, win or lose, and indeed for many down the chain of command that get to step out of the normal life of wiving and thriving and do their bit for the cause.
Yes, this is a crucial aspect of a ruling class. They get to thrive, most likely, win or lose. Did Napoleon die on the battlefield of Borodino? Not a bit. When the decision was made to retreat from Moscow, Napoleon rode home in his carriage; the rest of the army struggled and starved their way home to France -- if they got home at all.
We are in a situation today where all the cunning plans of our ruling class are coming to ruin, because they are inflexible top-down stupidities that cannot adjust to changing times.
The US rulers could have set up a pension plan that forced every worker to save ten percent of his wages in a private savings account. In a system like that the worker retires when he can afford to. If there is a nasty recession then maybe he has to put off retirement for a couple of years. But in the system our rulers did set up the pensions are fixed by the politicians, with no idea what will happen in 30 years, and we just hope that the money is there.
Our rulers could have set up a system for senior health care that allowed seniors to determine whether they wanted heroic care or palliative care at their end of life. Obviously, if the government is going to force the income taxpayers to pay for elderly care, as we do now, then everyone wants the gold-plated version. But, I tell you, if I were paying for my Medicare without government assistance, I don't think I would want to pay for heroic surgery up onto my late 80s. But the system our rulers gave us doesn't have that flexibility, at least, not on the surface. But below the radar they have done all kinds of cunning things to make Medicare viable by limiting care. Here's one little item. If you are on Medicare and you can no longer swallow, they don't put you on a feeding tube. The protocol is that you go on Medicare Hospice, and you die in a couple of weeks in a flurry of home health care aides.
Back to the top, and the ruin of Notre Dame and the threat of the end of the world.
The end of a civilization is generally not due to God's will or the sins of the people. It is usually due to the fact that the ruling class's loot and plunder system runs out of other peoples' money.
When I was last in Paris I went to up to Notre Dame, but decided not to go in. I guess my experience with the cathedral in Florence, and the duomo in Siena, is that these buildings are monuments to civic pride, more an expression of "our team is better than yours" than religious devotion.
But it wasn't the burning of Rome that caused its downfall. It was simply that the rulers' economic game didn't work any more.
Rome had operated for centuries on a loot and plunder model. The Roman Army would conquer some place out in the hinterlands, and the loot and plunder would flow back to Rome and enrich the coffers of the state and the ruling class.
But by, let's say, 200 AD, the game was about played out, because the frontiers of the empire were too far out. It was just too hard to find new lands to plunder, keep control of the commanders of the legions, and get the loot back to Rome.
Of course the end of the feudal era was a bit different, but still, similar. The rise of manufacturing disturbed the loot and plunder model of the landed feudatories. And the agricultural revolution meant that wealth and power belonged to people that could adapt agriculture from conservative peasants sitting on the land to energetic improvers using land drainage and new methods to increase crop yields.
Even then in the later stages of the agricultural era the landed magnates still had a good thing going. A lot of their revenue was not from land rent, but from court fees in their manor courts from local farmers buying and selling the leases on the land they farmed.
But ruling classes are all alike. They want to set up a system to loot and plunder the people so they can reward and keep their supporters. As in my maxim:
Government is an armed minority, occupying land and taxing the people thereof to reward their supporters.The problem is that the world is always changing, so a system of taxing and rewarding that has worked like a charm for centuries may cease to work, at some point. And, of course there is the little problem that the supporters always want "more."
The beautiful thing about our current system of the market economy is that it is the complete enemy of the fixed system, with some elite "farming" the nation for themselves and their supporters. The market insists of serving the consumers, and it insists on what we might call "permanent revolution," so that today's dominant corporation becomes tomorrow's basket case.
So the wise ruler rails and complains about the evil capitalists, but still lets things take their capitalist course. Our Bolivarian socialist pals in Venezuela show what happens when the rulers think they are smarter than the capitalists and staff the technostructure with political hacks: they can't even keep the lights on!
So, in the United States in the wake of the Crash of 2008, caused by the ruling-class policy of low-down and liar mortgages, which resulted in the nationalization of bankrupt General Motors and the bankrupt mortgage twins Fannie and Freddie, the government has sensibly let their nationalized basket cases return to private ownership, and they have eased up a bit on the liar loan thing.
But everyone in the ruling class believes -- and always has believed -- in command and control. That is the internal logic of political power. You rally the nation -- or tribe or army -- to face the foe, and of course that means that all the young men must be enlisted in the army, and the rest of the nation must be subordinated into a common effort that will save us from existential peril.
And jolly good fun it is for the ruling class, win or lose, and indeed for many down the chain of command that get to step out of the normal life of wiving and thriving and do their bit for the cause.
Yes, this is a crucial aspect of a ruling class. They get to thrive, most likely, win or lose. Did Napoleon die on the battlefield of Borodino? Not a bit. When the decision was made to retreat from Moscow, Napoleon rode home in his carriage; the rest of the army struggled and starved their way home to France -- if they got home at all.
We are in a situation today where all the cunning plans of our ruling class are coming to ruin, because they are inflexible top-down stupidities that cannot adjust to changing times.
The US rulers could have set up a pension plan that forced every worker to save ten percent of his wages in a private savings account. In a system like that the worker retires when he can afford to. If there is a nasty recession then maybe he has to put off retirement for a couple of years. But in the system our rulers did set up the pensions are fixed by the politicians, with no idea what will happen in 30 years, and we just hope that the money is there.
Our rulers could have set up a system for senior health care that allowed seniors to determine whether they wanted heroic care or palliative care at their end of life. Obviously, if the government is going to force the income taxpayers to pay for elderly care, as we do now, then everyone wants the gold-plated version. But, I tell you, if I were paying for my Medicare without government assistance, I don't think I would want to pay for heroic surgery up onto my late 80s. But the system our rulers gave us doesn't have that flexibility, at least, not on the surface. But below the radar they have done all kinds of cunning things to make Medicare viable by limiting care. Here's one little item. If you are on Medicare and you can no longer swallow, they don't put you on a feeding tube. The protocol is that you go on Medicare Hospice, and you die in a couple of weeks in a flurry of home health care aides.
Back to the top, and the ruin of Notre Dame and the threat of the end of the world.
The end of a civilization is generally not due to God's will or the sins of the people. It is usually due to the fact that the ruling class's loot and plunder system runs out of other peoples' money.
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