When this financial collapse started becoming more serious, though we lost some retirement funds, part of me was relieved. I have had a discomfort for quite awhile that this level of consumption we love, we push, we need, we demand, is not sustainable- especially not for the whole world. So I thought this will be good for us all.

Perhaps some real changes could happen somehow with some unusual consensus brought on by further fears. This seems distant. The idea there should be more consumption on the part of those who need to consume more in order to live better than very poor is good but it escapes dealing with the ultimate problem of too much consumption. So elevating those that live lives that are substandard is also unsustainable in the end. This planet can’t sustain itself the way we have been going. We are not now making those kind of drastic changes we need to make. Mostly all I hear, except those on this panel, those who are awakened ( and thank you for it) is the antsy desire that this “thing” that we have that may be a depression, would somehow go away like a bad cold, if we either wait it out patiently or inject the right remedy- if only the stock market would again rise and more cars and homes would be bought again, more could be made, built, sold.

I get the sense that mere end of the notion and practice of unfettered capitalism won’t do it. It is not the end of capitalism either. There still will be fettered capitalism practiced very broadly and surely with not enough regulation force or foresight/wisdom to contain the selfish cleverness of individuals which we depend on for our growth habit.

We should worry. Thank you.

“…the U.S. cannot maintain it’s status as both a superpower and a nation-state…”

I was reminded of something I read once (I can’t seem to recall the source at present). However, the concept was essentially that throughout the history of the development of the nation-state, there have been three critical technological innovations that signaled periods of unprecedented dramatic change, radically redistributing the balance of power, and consequently re-defining geopolitical realities and socio-economic systems. Indeed the very conception and constitution (composition) of the nation-state.

The three (if I recall correctly): the stirrup, permitting an armor clad warrior to remain in the saddle while engaging forces on foot; gunpowder; and nuclear weapons. Perhaps the affects of the printing press, the steam engine and internal combustion ought to be considered as well.

I wonder if now we ought not to number the Internet as yet another? This argument is predicated upon the idea that the nation-state and its mode of governance (optimal organizational structure) emerges as a function of the means of production it must preserve, serve and administer. Whenever, you have radical technological innovation or change in the means of production, you would expect corresponding change in the mode of governance, and the geopolitical realities determined by the mode.

I wonder if the current global crisis is not inherent in the tension between the compulsion and need to adapt to new realities emerging as a consequence of innovation on the one hand, and the natural inclination towards resistance to change within the current power structures — the institutional will to survive — on the other?

If, as a consequence technological innovation (the emergence of the personal computer and the Internet), our mode of governance has been rendered obsolete or anachronistic, what ought or might the emergent mode look like? Something more distributed and networked as opposed to the centralized, hierarchal structure of the federal bureaucracy perhaps? If there is any validity to this theory, the critical question seems to hinge on whether we are able to anticipate the need for change and effect a deliberate, peaceful transition, or whether catastrophe, collapse, and decay are required to clear the field for the emergent. Within the creative-destructive cycle, must the destructive function always entail chaos, violence and mass blood letting?

What can be done if the solutions are consumed like food crops that never catch up with the problems? Does this imply violence rather than co-operation and sharing?