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Anyone who is paying attention to society today notices a growing anti-government sentiment. While most people are not anarchists; libertarianism is growing more and more popular. People don't want to pay taxes and support welfare programs, or even government services at all. There has been a movement towards home schooling, and since the 1980s a push by both business and the general public to privatize everything.
The fall of communism has accelerated this process towards privatization and more corporate and less public control of the commons. While in the early post Cold War days (the 1990s to mid 2000s) nationalism caused people to identify and support their governments, the bailout and Eurozone crisis have caused a situation that is in my opinion, class warfare in the making. Nationalism is dying because of multiculturalism and people no longer having pride in their history and where they are from, because of its association with racism.
The middle class blames both the upper class and the lower class for the meltdown. The middle class folk with leftist views blame corporate greed, and the middle class people on the right blame people on welfare and Social Security.
The popularity of the Internet has caused information to be more easily accessible, but at the price of being much more difficult to trust. Anyone online can say anything and it can spread and become widely believed. Once reputable institutions of journalism have had to lower their standards because of the competition with the amateurs.
This makes it much harder in the Internet Age to understand what is actually happening in the world. This has caused conspiracy theories to flourish and trust in government institutions to come to all time lows.
While I'm not a lover of government myself, I realize that it is a necessary institution. Not necessarily the kind of government we have now exactly, but without government the only alternate options are:
1) Going back to a nasty, brutish and short existence
2) Social darwinism, where the strong (rich, smart and well-connected) prevail over the weak (poor, not so smart and unpopular).
Perhaps we need a new model of government. Direct democracy, perhaps? Of course, the common person often does not know what is good for them, and often oppresses the minority. No system is perfect.
Do you think though, that because of internationalism and loss of faith in government, and the ever-growing consumer culture, we are on our way to becoming a world of consumers rather than of citizens?
Heady stuff. Deserves consideration for sure. I do know that technology of the instant kind (computers, phones) has made the new global economy take off.
While I'm not a lover of government myself, I realize that it is a necessary institution. Not necessarily the kind of government we have now exactly, but without government the only alternate options are:
1) Going back to a nasty, brutish and short existence
2) Social darwinism, where the strong (rich, smart and well-connected) prevail over the weak (poor, not so smart and unpopular).
No evidence that either of your claims happens in any anarchial system.
Plenty of evidence both scenarios exist in governmental systems.
But it won't happen overnight. It will be a slow creep, so slow you won't even notice what is happening until it's too late.
Copenhagen is a good example of that creep. Thank China that it all fell apart otherwise we'd be caught up in the global "carbon credit" ponzi scheme that other countries are already playing and paying dearly for.
But it won't happen overnight. It will be a slow creep, so slow you won't even notice what is happening until it's too late.
Copenhagen is a good example of that creep. Thank China that it all fell apart otherwise we'd be caught up in the global "carbon credit" ponzi scheme that other countries are already playing and paying dearly for.
I'm not sure a global tax on carbon is the right way to go myself. I do think the fact "Hopenhagen" failed epically is evidence that if there is a "NWO", they obviously aren't very unified.
I think globalization is more of an emergent property, though there's definitely advocates of it. Michio Kaku for example refers to what is essentially a one world system as a "Type 1 Civilization".
...without government the only alternate options are:
...
2) Social darwinism, where the strong (rich, smart and well-connected) prevail over the weak (poor, not so smart and unpopular).
Every soup ladled to the hungry, every blanket draped over the cold signifies, in the final sense, a theft from my gigantic paycheck.
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Perhaps we need a new model of government. Direct democracy, perhaps? Of course, the common person often does not know what is good for them, and often oppresses the minority. No system is perfect.
If you're interested in that issue, you'd probably enjoy reading Public Opinion[super]1[/super] and Propaganda[super]2[/super].
1) "Public Opinion is a book by Walter Lippmann, published in 1922, that is a critical assessment of functional democratic government, especially the irrational, and often self-serving, social perceptions that influence individual behavior, and prevent optimal societal cohesion. The descriptions of the cognitive limitations people face in comprehending their socio-political and cultural environments, proposes that people must inevitably apply an evolving catalogue of general stereotypes to a complex reality, rendered Public Opinion a seminal text in the fields of media studies, political science, and social psychology."
2) "Propaganda is a 1928 book by Edward Bernays. It argued that the scientific manipulation of public opinion was necessary to overcome chaos and conflict in society" (This is a short book - propaganda for propaganda, too)
It's been too long since I reviewed anything on the matter or really thought about it to have something to say. The books are quite good, though. People were more honest about this kind of thing then.
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Do you think though, that because of internationalism and loss of faith in government, and the ever-growing consumer culture, we are on our way to becoming a world of consumers rather than of citizens?
I pin it more on cultural shifts. My generation (mid 20s) seems to be a new high water mark in the transition from a nation of citizens to one of sovereign consumers. We're pretty much the least politically engaged generation around and that isn't healthy. Whether we're citizens or consumers is a matter of self-selection and cultural norms.
I think that the internet is making information regarding government and its actions more availible to the public as a whole. No more having to watch the "big three" for news or CNN, Fox or MSNBC. One has to be careful as there is a lot of misinformation out there. I think personally that the internet is not necessarily making government obsolete as it is making it more responsible as very little is escaping the public "eye" as far as the goings on as opposed to, let's say, four decades ago.
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