Musings on the current situation: According to party leaders in power, the big macro figures are fine, were well into recovery etc etc. Meanwhile on the ground in local economies that for the most part should be immune given their nature, we are seeing the ill effects in terms of emigration due to there being no jobs etc. An idiot will tell you that people are lazy etc etc. But, less of an idiot, the harvard proffessor for economics, Christensen, will tell you that the innovation cycle is broken due to high investment focusing on short term investment models that accrue the highest profit in the shortest term. Of course this breaks the job cycle because empowering innovations, those that create societal health, jobs, and which have longterm stability inherent in their form, these have longer payback periods for all the more impatient investors. Another man, also not an idiot, Mr. Piketty, notes that r>g by aout 700% currently in europe, namely that the rate of capital returns (r) exceed national income growth (g) by that amount 700%. This is a divergent economic reality, meaning, it creates social inequality by virtue of wealth disparity, creating a two tiered system where foolishness allows people be convinced that were alright jack as the big macro figures point out. But were not alright. Centralisation is structural, what does that mean? well it is based on an abstraction , a useful one, of the way in which organizations issue commands, the order of information exchange etc. The levels have economic weights, with the upper levels accruing higher amounts of repayment etc. Capital operates on the basis of enclosure, the beginning of which we are seeing here with Irish Water, and with which you (I was in conversation with a corporate finance manager from a toll company) will be familiar from your work with Toll roads, where you will have encountered, if not , had a hand in, the privatisation of sections of vital infrastructure. Also where your work touches waste management and renewable energy you will note the centralization of supply, and of value accrueing to shareholders etc through the enclosure of certain resources. (enclosure is the term given to privatization as a general praxis of capital) You say that there is nothing wrong in this, and yet the world is falling apart for those with patience and eyes enough to see. Be you mildly mystic in the respect of balance, or acutely aware of the details of wealth disparity, social inequality, the effects on family size, global population, the energy (waste) cycle, soil and food quality, the effects on the greater globe in terms of environmental degradation and so on, you will note that imbalance is not healthy. There is a pretense to disacknowledge the alternatives, but there are many, and as with centralisation, a useful abstraction can suffice to explain them. Distributed (as oppose to centralized) structural form implies each node is connected to each other node. There is a horizontality, though equally, a multidimensionality , implied in the model. A fully connected topography as they call it in network theory, is far more dureable in times of crisis, than the card house of centralized hierarchy from which we as a society are in the process of outgrowing. Which is to say that that is the choice, the one of two where society survives...the other, the result of business as usual being stubbornly stuck with, is societal breakdown at scale. This much is assured.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 11:37:40 +0000