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Edited on Mon Dec-21-09 09:30 PM by galileoreloaded
The artifice of authority
Posted by Kes at 5:00 pm, December 21st 2009.
I share much consternation, albeit little surprise with many of you, regarding the net effect of the federal government's recent actions in regards to health care reform. There are some questions in many people's minds regarding the legitimacy and transparency inherent within in the process itself, as senators lined up to vote very late in the evening. These kinds of political maneuvers of course have been quite common place throughout history, but there is a palpable and overwhelming sense of unease associated with this most current kabuki.
As I pointed out to another group earlier today, a sense of disenfranchisement that any individual feels is only proportional to the ability that he allows himself to be manipulated, molded, and at the end of the day, obedient. You see, we feel frustrated at a system that doesn't directly, or even indirectly for that matter, represent us in a way that we can measure. We accept the vision of others, government ( federal, state, local) specifically to have our best interests at heart. Yet when the apple cart gets upset, it has a profound impact on our collective psyches. As humans we are essentially a social animal. We require a certain amount of community, cohesiveness, shared values, and to some degree fraternity. It is the essence of our tribal nature. The appearance of betrayal, whether real or imagined, has an accumulative effect on our ability to trust.
For many years, governments have worked to repress these tribal elements, and often quite successfully. While businesses can and do exist even in the presence of economic and social maelstrom, both political and business leaders much prefer to operate under the cloak of stability. Even if this stability is wrought at the hand of oppression, a steady profit and the ability to plan for and around it, have innumerable tangible and intangible values. Years have passed and the old traditional geographical tribal connections have faded into a blurry line of technical ability and global communication. Not to sound cliche, but the reality is that you can take the boy out of the jungle but you might not be able to get the jungle out of the boy.
Part of my conversation this morning was reassuring people that specifically within health care reform, mandates are wholly unenforceable. The reason I bring this up is that there have been large miscalculations made at the national leadership level regarding the homogeneous nature of the American population. As a group we are finding it more and more difficult to find that one word or common words that define who we are. If you would've asked a citizen here in 1950, "what are you", the answer most surely would've been "an American. Today, that becomes more difficult. The typical Americans inability to readily and definitively identify themselves and their place in broader society makes it nearly impossible for a national politician to meet the needs of even a small percentage of their constituency. As such, they've abandoned this wholeheartedly and moved on to meet the needs of their patronage.
This makes enforcing mandate provisions nearly impossible, as the societal disconnect grows wider and wider between individual and institution. It's very difficult to assume control of a constituency that you share no common values or ideals with. Relatively recently this has become exacerbated with the open warfare that's been perpetrated by corporations acting in their own interest. This is not necessarily an opinion, nor is it a judgment. I think most people would recognize that a corporation as an entity has a responsibility to ensure its continued survival. There is, however, a flip side to that coin. As a corporation has a responsibility to ensure its own survival, individuals also have a responsibility to the tribe that they most readily identify with. Therein lies the crux of the issue.
We are embarking upon a time that is, in the collective conscious of the US, very similar to the period antecedent of the American Revolution. Now, I don't know if that means that there are fifes and drums in the air around Lexington and Concord, but what it does mean is that people are starting to consider agonizing questions as to who they are, what tribe they belong to, and what common goal does maintaining obedience to a central authority both cost and provide. I believe it is overly simplistic to assume that we are moving towards some overarching Balkanization. What I do not think is unreasonable though, is that a sense of isolation from the herd ( for lack of a better term) will cause significant fractures in the ideas of common cause.
What I refer to as the GFC (global financial crisis), is essentially an institutional and systemic problem. The individual crisis can better be defined as feeling hurt, all alone, in the dark, and on the side of a mountain and it's going to snow. The main thrust of reinforcing the social safety net, while some aspects (SS,Medicare,Medicaid) do apply to the individual, has been focused primarily on the institution. This display of inequity, no matter how functionally necessary, only serves to further isolate the individual from the herd, and requires that that particular individual adjust their frame of reference inward. Life begins to take on the most Third World of realities, as the people begin to realize that they really can only count upon themselves. Social institutions are crumbling.
As such, the majority of people will begin to withdraw financially from the collective. There is very strong evidence, specifically regarding revenue collection versus spending at the total government level, that shows this bifurcation beginning to take place. Anecdotally, I know several people that own their own business' who will not be filing income tax returns for 2009. They are left with a conundrum, having made taxable income in the first half of this year, and saving the equivalent payment (quarterly payment NOT withheld).
The last six months have been slow, they have no idea if the next six months will be slow or even non-existent, and are forced to make a decision based upon the severe instability of their future income. So, the $30,000 sitting in the bank right now, that $30,000 that needs to be in a check written to the Internal Revenue Service, will instead come out of the bank into cash, as a bulwark towards their future immediate need. As this mentality becomes prevalent, it also becomes very worrisome to central planners and authorities. When faced with survival, the Internal Revenue Service isn't as scary as it used to be, so what OTHER institutions becomes not as scary as it used to be.
Austerity is a great equalizer and a bitter roommate.
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