Wednesday, May 21, 2014

The coming authoritariansims

Climate change events (extreme storms, flooding, loosing of arable land, habitat destruction, drought, famine, pandemics) will continue to severely challenge the ability of modern governments to respond. Add to that the looming disappearance of cheap energy supplies, especially oil. The net result is that every modern nation is going to be extremely stressed and many of its citizens will be facing various types of pain, from physical to economic. It's inevitable that authoritarian movements will grow as people demand a restoration of order and punishment for various scapegoats.

The reality is that there is no going back to the cheap energy, safe climate world of the mid-20th century. Every modern nation will be facing emergencies that they have never before faced and the traditional remedies, from "drill, baby, drill" capitalism to brutal crackdowns on weaker groups or nations is not ultimately going to solve the real problems of climate and energy. Governments will struggle to remain in control and in some of the larger nations, they may eventually find that like the Roman Empire in decline, they simply cannot and are better off letting the nation fracture into smaller more manageable regions.

In the US, the Tea Party represents one such movement demanding an impossible restoration of prior order. This is what "I want my country back" is about. In Europe, with its history of fascism, it's not surprising that some nations are again looking to right wing ideologies, even wearing Nazi inspired uniforms, and selecting the usual scapegoats for condemnation (e.g., Jews, immigrants).

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