It's easier to break interconnected systems then to rely on them. What's happening with Russia, Coronavirus, it's all part of this trend. The world will splinter up before it actually acts with unity in the current system. And maybe that's fair enough. This big network can't be relied upon to go anywhere good. Our future is too much of a fuzzy animal in the dark to be worth chasing.
But is this going to do enough to get someplace good?
First off; I must say I appreciate you making these threads with such regularity. I gather that they're not everyone's cup of tea but it is cool to see
novel ideas pop up every now and then
But to answer the question, it'll probably depend on where you live and what station you were born into. We will see a significant divide in the living standards of the mobile and the immobile. And I don't just mean socially mobile, I mean literal, physical mobility. The kinds of people who can afford to just move to whatever country they want at any time of the year for any reason or no reason at all are naturally going to be able to adapt and exploit the changes where they are beneficial and avoid them where they are calamitous. For the rest of us, it's just a toss of the dice whether we win or lose.
Interconnectivity in the global system is fairly hard to break by accident. Even when you try on purpose, it's still pretty damn hard to break. Consider the start of globalism. The Ottomans and Venetians cut the Portuguese off from the lucrative spice trade; a connection is severed. Yet it drove the Portuguese to search elsewhere and discover the Americas & the Cape of Good Hope. The despot Napoleon tried his best to enforce a continental blockade against Great Britain, but even then trade links couldn't be stamped out completely, and new links were forged with the Americas. Even at the height of European Imperial protectionism, much of the European states traded more with their rivals than they did with their own colonies - even with heavy import tariffs in place.
For states like Russia, they may be in a spot of trouble. Stuff like their regional governors blocking exports of sugar to other Russian provinces tend to herald the decentralisation of the state into many smaller independent polities. And unlike maritime states, being an inland Russian province doesn't lead to many alternative connections being available. Russia may fragment; even I hear from Russian friends living in Moscow that basic medicines are out of stock and the only thing the pharmacist has available is vodka. How long until even the vodka is gone? Who knows.
Wars, pandemics - these brought the Roman Empire's economy to its knees and forced local governors to become self-sufficient lords of their own provinces, the precursor to their own kingdoms. These days these remain threats, but I fear the worse to come will come from climate change. We'll not see anything yet until our standard for "mass migration" changes from millions to billions, as the world is forced from their homes
Author
Topic: The Great Breakage (Read 1448 times)