FerFAL: Understanding Societal Collapse

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Yes here in the PNW we have them too, some in our yard. The berries are expensive to buy so it's worth it to grow your own bushes.

What I described about blueberry production is basically what has happened to all of modern agriculture, for all crops. The point I make is that people do not produce the blueberrries, ecosystems do; we merely facilitate their production by modifying the ecosystem and the genetics of the plants, then harvest the results and most importantly, supply them to the market.

According to Wikipedia, the first line defining capitalism is "an economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit".

The first line defining socialism is "a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production".

There we have it: the main difference between socialism and capitalism is in who owns the means of production. Since capitalist and socialist theories form the basis of the entire world's economy, you'd think it would warrant a pretty thorough analysis and understanding of what means of production actually are.

The Wikipedia page for means of production barely fills my computer screen, that's how small it is, and it has no description of real world processes actually producing things for us to consume. It basically doesn't say anything meaningful.

The Wikipedia page for productivity actually is pretty thorough and I think does a good job. Productivity is a measure of how much output you get from a production process given a set of inputs. The limitation with the idea of "productivity" is that it treats the production process as a black box. It says nothing about how inputs are actually turned into outputs. It's kind of like, I can describe and measure a lot of the things my iPhone does, in comparison to earlier models and other brands, but that doesn't necessarily mean I have a clue how the phone works to do those things.

So to learn more about how production processes actually work we go to the Wikipedia page on "production". Incredibly, that page is 90% copy / pasted directly from the productivity page and says nothing!!!

I think it's safe to say that the economic theorists from all walks and persuasions do not understand how production processes work. How can they? They don't study any science.

Here is where the sly part comes in though, the crux of the problem, and the place where the economists' minds gloss over the most important topic in economics without having a clue that they're doing it: if you go to the supply and demand page on Wikipedia you'll see a discussion of supply and demand. Great. Then you'll notice that partway down that page they say this, pay attention to their language:

"A supply schedule is a table that shows the relationship between the price of a good and the quantity supplied. Under the assumption of perfect competition, supply is determined by marginal cost. That is, firms will produce additional output while the cost of producing an extra unit of output is less than the price they would receive."

Did you see what they did there? They started talking about suppliers of goods in one sentence. Then two sentences later they switch terms to the word produce. Economists understand suppliers and producers to be the same entities!

Wow! Considering the length I just went to to explain how people do not actually produce blueberries (or anything else); we merely harvest, transform and supply things, this devious switching of terms seems to me to be more than just semantics.

Here is the problem: production and supply are NOT the same thing! Similarly, demand and consumption are not the same thing!

So, if no one understands the difference between supply and production, then how can we hope to have any meaningful discussion about the merits and problems of all the various economic models out there, particularly capitalism vs. socialism?

Maybe I'm seeing something everyone else doesn't or maybe I'm making it all up in my head, but this seems to me like an emperor-has-no-clothes situation. Is it a huge opportunity for me to write a book basically turning economics upside down at its foundation? I've been thinking about this for a while. I am very busy with work and don't have time to take a year off to write a book.

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Christopher, I am referencing the Capitalism that developed at the latter half of Mercantilism then took over once Mercantilism was jettisoned in England.   
 

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We have to do a thought experiment since a true Free Market has never existed on a national scale.   We can use experiments of economy and politics to get hints of what works and it points to Free Market (similarities are what America was founded on with Federal/State set up).   In the thought experiment there is Market A: over time Actor C takes over Actors B, E , D, and G and prices start to rise.   Entrepreneurs see this increase in price (and hear the bitching) so some start new companies in Market A offering lower price and better quality.   Actor C not being able to leverage government regulation to protect its cartel finds it cannot compete on the new terms and consequently goes bankrupt (and is not bailed out).   Remaining Market A Actors buy Actor C assets at auction to redeploy.  

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Rather than focusing on the thought experiment, I'm fascinated by the fact that a true free market has never existed on a national scale.
Why might that be?

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Because then politics comes to the fore and cronyism develops.  The question is how to prevent this from happening.   Probably focus on tax code and judicial system.

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Don't get me started on thought experiments! That is another oxymoron of terms since by definition experiments occur with real things outside of our heads. The problem with thought experiments is that someone else can come up with their own thought experiments whose conclusions completely contradict yours. Then who is right? And more importantly, who decides who is right? Whomever has the greatest political clout and can convince the most people that their own particular thought experiment is correct? All they have to do is keep the competing thought experiments quiet so people don't think about them. IMO this is how economics has developed over the centuries.

That's why real-world experiments are necessary. I agree that at the level of economics experiments are difficult to perform so at the very least we have to invoke real-world data and analysis and make the best of it.

You say that actor C takes over all the other actors, and that Actor C is not able to leverage government regulation. What makes you think Actor C, who is now stupidly wealthy due to his monopolistic activities, is not going to have an incentive to buy his own politician so he can make sure new companies can't compete with Actor C, ie "leverage government regulation"? If there are no regulations to stop it, what will stop it?

And you are assuming that there is sufficient means of production for entrepreneurs to rise up and offer a better product for better price to put the cartel out of business. That's the whole point I was refuting with my blueberry example. But what if that cartel owns all the productive assets?  I'm thinking farmland in the USA. Classical capitalistic economics asserts that "people" produce blueberries but I have shown that people do not produce blueberries. I don't know how these little players are going to rise up and provide better blueberries to the market to shut down the cartel when they don't own any land with which to produce blueberries.

Furthermore, that cartel is in bed with the media and can sing the praises of their GMO high-yield crops as a good, safe alternative food source. And that all the antibiotics and hormones in the meat is OK to eat. They can buy their politicians who cave in and allow GMO food to be sold without labeling as such. They can buy the FDA so that the health risks associated with these hormones and antibiotics aren't properly investigated and the results aren't made easily available to the public. They can buy the advertisers who target kids with their high-fructose corn syrup based foods, and the regulators so that they look the other direction. Then the taxpayer is forced to foot the bill for treating the diabetes everyone has because they got addicted to junk food as kids from the advertising from the big companies. Who is going to counter all this? Will the average person care, or even know about it? No, all the public ends up doing is wondering why they have all these health problems…

"Free" markets don't factor in prices for all the environmental services we get for "free" (clean water, air, stable climate, etc.), and externalize the costs of pollution, resource depletion or animal rights (it is now illegal in the US to expose to the public how animals are treated inside private meat factories – those animals basically have zero rights. But I guess we should have trust in the capitalists because it is in their profit incentives to treat the animals humanely, right? LOL. Why should we care? They're just cows, they don't have feelings, right? Well, according to some people. According to others, they don't want to live in a society that treats its animals that way.) Companies using publicly owned utilities like roads don't pay for them directly on a pay-per-use basis. The shale oil "producers" are wrecking North Dakota's highway infrastructure from all their trucks driving over it which they do not pay for. Pharmaceutical companies don't pay for all the damage their drugs cause to amphibians and aquatic ecosystems when they get flushed down the toilet – water treatment facilities aren't designed to remove those things. Should big pharma be slapped with extra taxes to pay for upgrading the sewage treatment plants? How is that going to happen in a free market? I think this free market utopia would not be so utopian if private firms were actually operating in a fully privatized world and had to pay for all the services they currently get for free or subsidized by the taxpayer. And this assumes that there even are mechanisms for pricing these things in. How could we possibly privatize air and charge companies to use / pollute it? How do you attach a price to a species of amphibian going extinct? Who would "own" that? Wouldn't simple government pollution regulations be a much simpler and more effective way of dealing with it?

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Because then politics comes to the fore and cronyism develops.  The question is how to prevent this from happening.   Probably focus on tax code and judicial system.
So lets see.  We fix the tax system and the judicial system - and there won't be any more corruption, politics, and cronyism?

Can I ask?  Who administers this new system?  People?

The single concern I have for a "true free market system" (never yet seen on a national scale in human history) is that they require an more or less incorruptible judicial and tax system as a baseline for success.

 

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I'm not sure how big or small you want to go, so maybe this is an irrelevant response… I just believe no place will be safe. Even if the gov't or militias are not rampant, there are issues with growing environmental stressors (like disease, as if the tropics weren't bad enough in normal times, and look at the drought in Argentina now). Then there is the aspect I am not sure of first-hand, the risks to ex-patriots in a strange land, who have not assimilated, when economies implode.
We just moved to zone 4 (SE Minnesota, which I understand is similar to many areas of Canada). Everyone thought we were crazy (and that is people who just got 3' of snow this past winter, who had droughts for the 7 yrs previous, including many bad laws in corporate favor, like not being allowed to save water from your rooftop, letting banks foreclose without proof of owning the note, and the lack of property rights in favor of the gas drillers). 

We moved for the nutrient-rich soil and free water from the sky, as well as a more reasonable cost of living/land.

The seasons are short… but as we have begun making forays into the 'sustainable farming' arena, we note that it's catching on all over. A hoop house here, a greenhouse there… and these Farmer's Markets are surprisingly going strong… with a few tweaks and a little effort and experimentation, I'm convinced this could be markedly improved upon.

What I think is the next logical step, is inside growing - using dutch buckets, Kratke tables, and various other hydroponic and aquaponic systems.

There are un-used buildings all over, and wind-solar power for heat and lighting. It is amazing to see all the innovation taking place with energy these days. Admittedly, containers are not good for production of some things like grains (oats, wheat, corn…) but as an alternative I think those can be sprouted for nutrition, rather than sown in-ground. 

The point is, that we have all learned we can't expect to rely on others for an income, or even for earned pensions. There is little to no protection of any kind any more It seems property land could one day be at risk for takeover or something else out of control… and indoor growing allows food security despite unreliable weather. 

Peru and Chili… I am sure you can find a lot of eye-opening info on "expat" forums. As we were researching this several years ago, I found a lot out by looking at "Going Galt in Chili"…an idea which was worthy of consideration, and many apparently did make that move.  I'm convinced now that we are better off staying where we are, and doubling down on our efforts. 

Good luck to you. 

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The greatest danger , in my opinion, to civilization is the corruption of the news media. The lack of information and hence informed discussion about the real  policies of governments throughout the world enables the corruption that is evident pretty much everywhere. Sites such as Peak Prosperity are therefore extremely valuable.
It is evident from the Washington, Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil that once corruption takes hold it is extremely difficult to reverse. Chavez appears to have had good intentions. Perhaps he would have done better if, like Cuba, the USA had outlawed business contacts with the country. But then Cuba did not have oil. Capitalism,Communism, Socialism. All academic boxes that are kind of irrelevant if corruption flourishes because the media won't reveal it.

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Well worth watching. The beginning starts off a little slow as you wonder why these ordinary people are running so fast, then you see why. Six minutes of various footage from various stores to show that this is the everyday…
https://youtu.be/isO52VeBUaQ

Even more reason to prepare.

Poet

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"You say that actor C takes over all the other actors"  –Mark_BC
No, please reread.   There are at least 2 Actors not taken over.   I never meant to imply a thought experiment conclusively proves a point; the thought experiment allows us to consider the environment.   I do not think humans can ever get rid of cronyism and naked greed that does real harm because we are animals.   However, I would like to live in a world where things only crash once every 20-30 years instead of 3 crashes in 15 years.  My goal would be to slow the take over by psychopaths.  It would require a very well educated population, something not provided by public schools who I see as the main tool to take over the society and ruin it.

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Corruption is built in so the only question is how to control it.  Clearly the more power the government has the more likely there will corruption.  As they say 'follow the money' (from the CB).

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Corruption is built in so the only question is how to control it.  Clearly the more power the government has the more likely there will corruption.  As they say 'follow the money' (from the CB).
Yeah, I disagree with you on that.  Government isn't inherently corrupt - people are.  So one might say people in government can be corrupted.  Presumably, the private sector also has people too, so the people in the private sector can be corrupted also.

I believe the most effective way to control corruption is for no one entity to dominate.  If you diffuse power among the various groups of people, a controlling corrupt force becomes more difficult to achieve.  Not impossible - just more difficult.

The "ism" matters a lot less than the diffusion of power.  Handing all the power to the private sector = a controlling corrupt private sector cartel.

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History has shown that all civilizations go through a pattern of rise, peak, and fall.  We have thousands of examples to pull on here, and not a single one has ever escaped this fate.  Dr. Joseph Tainter has probably presented the best template for this phenomenon in "The Collapse of Complex Societies".
This leads to a simple but penetrating question.  WHY do all civilizations eventually decline and fall?  I think that the answer to this is fairly simple, and rooted in human evolutionary biology.

For the overwhelming majority of our time on this earth (up until about 7500 years ago) we lived in groups which typically did not exceed 150 individuals (Dunbar's number).  This was true whether we were in nomadic bands or more settled communities that subsisted from ocean bounty or horticulture.  The significance of this limited size was that it allowed us to maintain personal relationships with everyone else in the community.  This meant that sociopathic behavior on the part of individuals within the community (i.e. stealing, accumulating wealth, cheating/lying, etc.) could be easily identified, the perpetrators discouraged, or in the most extreme circumstances, the offender thrown out or killed.  In short, people within a community could TRUST the other members of the community, and that common trust was constantly reinforced through a code of conduct passed down from generation to generation and recurring symbolic ritual.

Civilization creates a society that vastly exceeds Dunbar's number.  As such, instead of encouraging egalitarian and communitarian behaviors, it offers the kind of anonymity that enables psychopathy.  In case you doubt this, take a realistic look at pretty much any of the "great leaders" in human history.  All of them achieved their legacy through Machiavellian political maneuvering, brutal conquest, and generally taking what they want while killing anyone who got in their way.  Depending upon the level of "advancement" of the society in question, this could manifest itself in palace intrigue (as in ancient Rome or the peak of Chinese dynasties), political gamesmanship on the domestic and foreign policy fronts (as in our current system), or outright gangsterism (as in Western Europe after the fall of Rome).  But the general thrust remains the same: psychopathy rules.

This is why I think that any hopes to bring sanity back to our system through things like focusing on the tax code and justice system are mostly fool's errands.  Any successful reforms will be clawed back within a couple of generations at the most, especially as those who lived through a prior crisis begin to die off and its causes are forgotten (see: repeal of Glass-Steagall).  So long as we continue to organize ourselves into groups that exceed our evolutionary training, we will continue to be ruled mostly by the least human among us.  Leopold Kor had it right when he said that the chief cause of human misery was "bigness".

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ChrisH-
I'll agree with the general trust horizon concept, although I suspect the long-ago nomads probably didn't trust everyone - they just knew who everyone was, good points and bad, and so nobody could hide their bad acts for very long.  Small towns are like this too.  You can get lost in the big city and do whatever you want, but in a small town, everyone knows your business, for good or for ill.  Perhaps gossip is a survival characteristic.  We sure seem to have that built-in.

I'll refine what you said slightly.  I think it's a fool's errand to expect that reforms of the tax code/judicial system will fix things in a permanent manner.   (I also think giving all the power to the private sector will have predictable and very rapid results - most likely quite surprising to the pure free marketeers).   I think our "big society" has a corruption cycle (let's call it "forces of entropy") that take a reasonable system and corrupt it over time.  Things swing too far, people get upset and/or stuff blows up, and the corruption gets reduced, rinse, repeat.  If things go too far and people don't react in time - society collapses.  Some stuff you just can't come back from.

That said, I'm still in favor of restoring Glass-Stegall, to fix things for another few generations, once our current crop of citizens get too tired of the corruption and the cycle turns once again.  Diffusion of power will keep things in check for a long enough time to be worth the effort, and that's the essence of Glass-Stegall.

I'm not willing to say that all great leaders are psychopaths.  Simple example: Caesar let his enemies live after the roman civil war.  They eventually killed him for it.  No way a psychopath does this.  Perhaps he's guilty of overconfidence, but not a psychopath, I think.

Also, since I'm a saver, I don't think its sociopathic behavior to accumulate wealth.  Think: squirrel saving up nuts for winter.  Its just prudent.  Some people are motivated that way, and some aren't.

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I appreciate this conversation; some of you seem well-educated, and I am learning a lot of history that I wasn't aware of.
Someone earlier mentioned he was a saver, and that there was nothing inherently wrong with that, as a parallel illustration: squirrels 'save up'…  I didn't notice anyone replying to that as a non-parallel to today's financial system (if that's what it  referred to). There is nothing wrong with harvesting or saving, or hoarding against winteror hard times… the problem comes in with the methods of usury, deceit, fraud,and extortion upon others in order to get the wealth/nuts you're 'saving'. How exactly did you get the wealth opportunity? 

I see this big picture portrayed here- that humanity is a captive victim of tyranny, slavery, destitution, and war cycles. It's our destiny! (For a few there are cycles of wealth and positions of power - be they corrupt or just opportunistic or lucky.)

What are we hoping to achieve here on the forum? Is this just a discussion of illustrations on how history is repeating itself? Is this group effort going to help anyone in real life? Does anyone here really have hope?

Do you think buying 4 or 5 acres and putting it into production, learning a cottage craft/skill, marketing your stuff, and even owing nothing on your mortgage will give you a real/lasting security (vs just a 'sense of security')? You MUST make money to live, even if you can provide for all your needs- because the county tax against your home ownership requires it. (Soon they may not accept cash). Nothing wrong with having some local gov't to provide for the library, enforce local laws, etc., but if you don't pay they sell your home out from under you.  And that's when they ARE NOT corrupted. 

Is this why people 'go Galt'?  am not convinced even that extreme would equal security, either against scarcity or tyrannical forces. All they have to do is make it illegal to burn wood in your wood stove or to collect rain in a barrel and you're compromised. It's nearly impossible to get out of the system. People speak of boiling frogs that don't notice the water heating up slowly, the problem is that some of the frogs DO notice, but they find the jumping muscles are already fused to the pan. I am not convinced that anyone will be able to extract themselves to watch history unfold from a safe distance. You can't build a wall of security made of permaculture projects. 

What are we even voting for in this election? The whole construct is seemingly corrupted, and the process is really becoming strange. At the end, there is no accountability, no transparency, and no power to stop the growing corruption… so why do we still pay taxes and vote - is anyone convinced voting matters? (I'm beginning to think they 'let' us 'vote' so we will continue to pay taxes). 

Sigh. I've been studying current economic and political events and the progression of entropy for 4 yrs. now and I thought I had moved beyond despair to acceptance… but how does one accept these things without despair? (And it's not as if I'm not highly involved in personal actions to improve our chances long term and enrich our lives in the moment).

I have to ask, does anyone here think we will overcome a repeat of history? If so, why do you feel hopeful - is it on a personal-prepper level, a community-pulling together level, or even in the sovereign masses bringing a new political venue that your hope lies? Just reading that question makes me understand why people like the idea of The Rapture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In regards to the bigness problem, which I also subscribe to, I always encourage it's peaceful deconstruction.  Business gives ongoing examples of spinoffs, selloffs, incubator cells, etc. and breakups or even bankruptcy achieves many of the benefits we allude to as creative destruction.  Fired workers and disgraced CEOs still have many skills and lessons learned to contribute to rebirth somewhere else.  Politically (and religiously at times) it's much harder because guns are involved in the "discussions" of how to achieve it, but it is possible even at the largest scale, witness the Soviet Union collapse (and be grateful Putin was not able to grab power there sooner).  So I promote secessionist movements wherever  they arise, in Quebec, Basque Spain, or Texas.  However, any successful division should agree to the same principle with regards to parts of the new entity that want to break from it.  Over time I think a more appropriate paradigm for human organization would not be tied to any lines on a map bur rather more diffuse organizational ties to food, transportation, energy, and all of Maslow's needs.  Admittedly the path from here to there does not look likely given today's assumptions, power structures and historical precedents, all of which point towards a more catastrophic emergent transition.

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Hope For the Best Expect the Worst-The Twelve Chairs-Mel Brooks 1970 - YouTube
Mustard Please!

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And avoid the rush.

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Check out the 2nd picture down in this article from tfmetalsreport.com , "The Weimar Republic of Venezuela", juxtaposing a photo from Venezuala food lines now (2016), and food lines during the Weimar Republic hyperinflationary event in 1923.  Pretty eerie.
Link: http://www.tfmetalsreport.com/blog/7657/weimar-republic-venezuela    Hopefully this article is part of tfmetals's publicly accessible content.

-You have to watch the photo for 10 or 20 seconds to see it switch from one to the other.