Of Two Minds - How Empires Die (2024)

From a systems perspective, nation-states and empires arise when they are superior solutions to securitycompared to whatever arrangement they replace: feudalism, warlords, tribal confederations, etc.

States and empires fail when they are no longer the solution, they are the problem.As the bookThe Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization explains,when the dissolution of the state / empire becomes the pain-reducing solution, the inhabitants withdraw their supportand the empire loses its grip and expires.

As I explain in my new book, Global Crisis, National Renewal, states and marketsare problem-solving structures. These structures solve problems by optimizing adaptability andbeneficial synergies that reinforce one another as evolutionary advances.

The rise of the middle class is an example of beneficial synergies: as this new class gains access tocredit, expertise, trade, enterprise and pricing power for their labor, they have the means to transform theirlabor into capital by saving earnings and investing the capital in assets, new enterprises, etc. which thengenerate income from capital which fuels synergistic increases in credit, expertise, assets and income from investments.

States / empires fail and expire when they elevate the fatal synergies created by self-serving elites.Rather than encourage the dynamics of adaptation--competition, transparency, accountability, experimentation and dissent--the elites suppresses these forces as threats to their monopolies, cartels and wealth.

Stripped of adaptability and beneficial synergies, the state / empire is no longer able to solve problems.It becomes the problem which cannot be resolved.

A key dynamic fueling fatal synergies is the hubristic confidence that low-cost abundance is a birthrightbestowed by the state /empire, so resources can be endlessly squandered on excess and extremes of consumption andwaste. The state / empire no longer focuses on securing the material sources of security (food, energy, etc.)or the accountability, competition, dissent and transparency required to solve systemic problems.

Instead, the state / empire dissolves into divisive camps seeking to protect their petty fiefdoms and expandingtheir wealth at the expense of the populace. The super-wealthy build $500 million yachts and palaces,politicians trade on their positions to accumulate fortunes, and corruption replaces governance.

Markets spiral into fatal synergies as low quality products and services, speculative excess,extremes of grotesque consumption andblood-soaked entertainment become "growth industries" while blackouts dim electrical grids and store shelvesempty of essentials.

The market solution to everyone already owning everything is to engineer planned obsolescence intoevery product and form service-sector cartels that then strip services to the bone to juice profits, a.k.a.the crapification of all goods and services.

The state / empire also fails to maintain basic security and functions such as tax collection and a fairenforcement. Petty crimes are exploited by those in power (civil forfeiture) while resistance to the state is severely punished. There are two legal systems, one for the commoners and another for the elite.

The state / empire protects those profiting from the status quo and then calls this profiteering a "solution."But this profiteering doesn't solve any problems; it is the problem, as self-serving profiteering protects itsprivileges by corrupting the state, finance and the economy.

For its part, the market seeks to maximize profits in excesses of consumption, predatory lending (student loans), the wholesale destruction of quality by monopolies and cartels and extremes of speculation. Maximizing profitsby any means available has no moral foundation; predatory student loans are profitable, obscure medical billingis profitable, selling products designed to fail is profitable, declaring software outdated is profitable, deceivingconsumers is profitable, and so on, in an endless array of shoddy, unhealthy products, rapacious services, fraudulentovercharges, etc.

Since problems go unresolved, things fall apart and the masses veer into extremes of derangement and magicalthinking: fanaticism is substituted for friendship, cults abound, common ground vanishes and all the failuresof the system are papered over with Bread and Circuses, free money, gaudy entertainments and lifelessdisplays of conspicuous consumption that reveal the decay and degradation.

Protecting the few stripmining the system at the expense of the many is not problem-solving. It adds a layer ofproblems that the state /empire is incapable of resolving. Ossified, sclerotic, self-serving, corrupt,focused on virtue-signaling and the appearance of tackling problems rather than actually solving problems becausesome sacred cow would lose its privileges and income stream, the state / empire is the problem, not the solution.