People will tend to use the tools at hand to get the job done, which applies as much to ideas at it does to bricks. There's also the golden age bias - when in a collapse phase, the previous era looks much better. The combination of the two is why societies regenerating from collapse will tend to emulate what came before.
Ameliorating that, there's also the sense that there's a reason the previous society fell apart; so while whatever comes next is generally built out of the predecessors physical and ideological parts, in conscious immitation, no one wants to replicate it in every detail.
Best case scenario is probably a highly federalized, limited-franchise republican system. Buy-in for a monarchy in the general population isn't likely, given the political biases inherited from the last few centuries. That said a much stronger executive branch, and/or a more prominent role for the military, are by no means ruled out.
Why even assume regeneration? The successor state may well be as flawed as the current one. After the fall of the USSR Russia endured a decade of mayhem. My guess is that we may very well see the US enter its own extended period of drift and frustration.
The regime will be shaped by the compromises that it is forced to make to establish legitimacy and attract loyalty. Much will depend on the expectations of the constituencies whose support it will need. The choice will be between ethnic peace and ethnic conflict, social peace and class war. A key issue will be how the new regime is financed. If the petrodollar falls, the regime may not necessarily be able to borrow internationally.
Best case: aggressive and prickly hyper-federalism, with citizenship restricted to residents and US born citizens of good character from other states. Each state must have some capacity to restrict entry and to set meaningful standards for political participation and for social acceptance. State sovereignty. Local or regional currencies backed by bullion or a parcel of commodities. Strong state-based militias.
What is more likely than that is a nominal democracy with ceremonial elections, just like now. Barring a catastrophe which destroys the state per se, I'd expect the successor regime would take the form of sate-capitalism with most of the features of the present regime but with much more camouflage. A more authoritarian character is vastly more likely than a freer one.
The real-world alternative is probably between a Venezuelan gangster state legitimised by the struggle for racial justice (the mobilisation of BIPOCs against whites and transfer of wealth on racial grounds) and some form of civic nationalism focused on social peace through economic development.
What is more likely than that is a nominal democracy with ceremonial elections, just like now.
This is it. Barring some kind of catastrophe, the plan will be a little more taxes here, a little more surveillance there, a little lower quality here, a little more expensive there. Day to day, the world will look the same. The contrast will only become clear after a decade or two.
Your time-frame is about right. The regime has had extraordinary success in maintaining control so far. It faces no organised mass opposition (MAGA was a potential threat, a political fan club, nothing organised like Solidarnosc in Poland in the 80s) and the most vocal critics are either greying fast or confined to steadily shrinking ethnic groups. The regime has control over the entire spectrum of institutions. Incremental progress is the preferred way.
The only immediate problem is managing the expectations of regime supporters. There are so many that the allocation of resources is becoming problematic. The pauperisation of the middle classes is viable, so long as the political energies remain focused on targeting white supremacy. This keeps the SJWs busy, the BIPOCs content (so long as spoils keep flowing from affirmative action and DEI) and the majority of whites cowed.
EXACTLY! The US is big enough and complex enough to incorporate a vast range of wildly divergent socio-political experiments...as it did in colonial times with the Quakers and their German neighbours in Pennsylvania, Roger Williams in Rhode Island, Royalists in Virginia, displaced Anglo-Scots from Ulster across the highlands of the south and the trade mart of New York (headquarters of Loyalism until the Hanoverians started to lose).
A coherent, consistent, resolution of the present problems that vindicates the nut-jobs, droolers and dreamers of Left, Centre and Right alike is precisely what we will not see. The movement of peoples and investment flows (white flight, onshoring and selective reindustrialisation) are laying the foundations for a fissiparous near future of considerable complexity. The future belongs to the pragmatic and reality-focussed.
To say nothing of the various Amerindian confederacies, which thrived alongside the colonial states for centuries as per Stone Age Herbalist's latest.
Did you ever read Lind's Virginia? It depicts a post-fracture scenario in which exactly this kind of wildly diverse political patchwork emerges, with various regions pursuing different experiments according to their locally pragmatic or utopian cultural preferences.
I disagree with this sentence: "For those of us in the present system as it undergoes collapse, there’s very little that we can personally do to direct the way things shake out."
We can do. Specially now, when talking to friends, family or in any debate or public speaking with people we know we have information and finally see, why there is big movement of LGBT, the WOKE ideology, Quantitative Easing, how the government and media are corrupted and also how things really were with pandemic. It can just help, to talk about that openly, nothing more, just to share this insight, and I am sure now people will listen.
What I love about your writing Theophilus is that you are able to present these complex macroeconomic historical patterns into clear trends. After you explain the arcs of history, it seems so simple.
Reminds me very much of Asimov's Foundation, which I was reading last week. Sadly America more and more resembles the Imperial decay of Trantor.
People will tend to use the tools at hand to get the job done, which applies as much to ideas at it does to bricks. There's also the golden age bias - when in a collapse phase, the previous era looks much better. The combination of the two is why societies regenerating from collapse will tend to emulate what came before.
Ameliorating that, there's also the sense that there's a reason the previous society fell apart; so while whatever comes next is generally built out of the predecessors physical and ideological parts, in conscious immitation, no one wants to replicate it in every detail.
Best case scenario is probably a highly federalized, limited-franchise republican system. Buy-in for a monarchy in the general population isn't likely, given the political biases inherited from the last few centuries. That said a much stronger executive branch, and/or a more prominent role for the military, are by no means ruled out.
Good analysis John Carter
Why even assume regeneration? The successor state may well be as flawed as the current one. After the fall of the USSR Russia endured a decade of mayhem. My guess is that we may very well see the US enter its own extended period of drift and frustration.
The regime will be shaped by the compromises that it is forced to make to establish legitimacy and attract loyalty. Much will depend on the expectations of the constituencies whose support it will need. The choice will be between ethnic peace and ethnic conflict, social peace and class war. A key issue will be how the new regime is financed. If the petrodollar falls, the regime may not necessarily be able to borrow internationally.
Best case: aggressive and prickly hyper-federalism, with citizenship restricted to residents and US born citizens of good character from other states. Each state must have some capacity to restrict entry and to set meaningful standards for political participation and for social acceptance. State sovereignty. Local or regional currencies backed by bullion or a parcel of commodities. Strong state-based militias.
What is more likely than that is a nominal democracy with ceremonial elections, just like now. Barring a catastrophe which destroys the state per se, I'd expect the successor regime would take the form of sate-capitalism with most of the features of the present regime but with much more camouflage. A more authoritarian character is vastly more likely than a freer one.
The real-world alternative is probably between a Venezuelan gangster state legitimised by the struggle for racial justice (the mobilisation of BIPOCs against whites and transfer of wealth on racial grounds) and some form of civic nationalism focused on social peace through economic development.
What is more likely than that is a nominal democracy with ceremonial elections, just like now.
This is it. Barring some kind of catastrophe, the plan will be a little more taxes here, a little more surveillance there, a little lower quality here, a little more expensive there. Day to day, the world will look the same. The contrast will only become clear after a decade or two.
Your time-frame is about right. The regime has had extraordinary success in maintaining control so far. It faces no organised mass opposition (MAGA was a potential threat, a political fan club, nothing organised like Solidarnosc in Poland in the 80s) and the most vocal critics are either greying fast or confined to steadily shrinking ethnic groups. The regime has control over the entire spectrum of institutions. Incremental progress is the preferred way.
The only immediate problem is managing the expectations of regime supporters. There are so many that the allocation of resources is becoming problematic. The pauperisation of the middle classes is viable, so long as the political energies remain focused on targeting white supremacy. This keeps the SJWs busy, the BIPOCs content (so long as spoils keep flowing from affirmative action and DEI) and the majority of whites cowed.
I could very easily see all of those possibilities existing simultaneously in a post-fracture North America.
EXACTLY! The US is big enough and complex enough to incorporate a vast range of wildly divergent socio-political experiments...as it did in colonial times with the Quakers and their German neighbours in Pennsylvania, Roger Williams in Rhode Island, Royalists in Virginia, displaced Anglo-Scots from Ulster across the highlands of the south and the trade mart of New York (headquarters of Loyalism until the Hanoverians started to lose).
A coherent, consistent, resolution of the present problems that vindicates the nut-jobs, droolers and dreamers of Left, Centre and Right alike is precisely what we will not see. The movement of peoples and investment flows (white flight, onshoring and selective reindustrialisation) are laying the foundations for a fissiparous near future of considerable complexity. The future belongs to the pragmatic and reality-focussed.
To say nothing of the various Amerindian confederacies, which thrived alongside the colonial states for centuries as per Stone Age Herbalist's latest.
Did you ever read Lind's Virginia? It depicts a post-fracture scenario in which exactly this kind of wildly diverse political patchwork emerges, with various regions pursuing different experiments according to their locally pragmatic or utopian cultural preferences.
Never forget the Amerindians! I vaguely recall a novel (never read) set in a post-collapse future by a Lind. Can't remember his first name.
William, it's the guy who wrote the 4GW manual.
I disagree with this sentence: "For those of us in the present system as it undergoes collapse, there’s very little that we can personally do to direct the way things shake out."
We can do. Specially now, when talking to friends, family or in any debate or public speaking with people we know we have information and finally see, why there is big movement of LGBT, the WOKE ideology, Quantitative Easing, how the government and media are corrupted and also how things really were with pandemic. It can just help, to talk about that openly, nothing more, just to share this insight, and I am sure now people will listen.
Power leads to wealth - there is no wealth without power.
Wealth is a claim on power, but not power itself.
Judeo-Christianity confuses this concept, but it's important to point out.
Unimportant note.
💬 It’s important to note...
↑↑ Immediately sounds like ChatGPT talk 🤭
What I love about your writing Theophilus is that you are able to present these complex macroeconomic historical patterns into clear trends. After you explain the arcs of history, it seems so simple.
Reminds me very much of Asimov's Foundation, which I was reading last week. Sadly America more and more resembles the Imperial decay of Trantor.