The Crises Yet to Come

"Controlling the narrative" to justify destabilizing asymmetries won't change the consequences.

That the Trump Reformation / Counter-Reformation is disrupting various nodes of the status quo is viewed as an existential crise by many. The choice between Reformation / Counter-Reformation seems to cleave on this basic perception: the status quo in its 2024 configuration was ably serving the common good, or the the status quo in its 2024 configuration had veered from the basics of accountability, efficiency and transparency into self-serving self-righteousness, defending its sclerosis and inefficiency via political correctness and narrative control.

The Trump Reformation / Counter-Reformation isn't the crisis, it's the symptom of a status quo approaching crisis. The real crises are still ahead, and while the nature of the polycrisis gathering force over the horizon is open to debate, its basic dynamics are already visible.

Longtime readers know I have discussed cycles and historical waves over the past 20 years. We can dismiss the timing pf previous crises as coincidence, but it would be unwise to dismiss the dynamics that generate cycles and waves of crisis and collapse.

Correspondent Bruce H. recently posted this summary of a core dynamic in long-wave cyclical crises:

"We are in the midst of a wider historical pattern, I think.

During the expansive, formative stage of an empire, there is a dynamic approach to each new problem, finding solutions, overcoming obstacles, and building on success. Genius comes from every level of society and frequently climbs from the lowest group to the top. Society is in flux, with people moving up and down the social strata. The poorest experience increased wealth, but there is not too much disparity between them and the very top.

At a certain point, the elites begin solidify into a relatively fixed group, the flux of people between strata begins to slow. The dynamic creative approaches to new problems begins to wane. Those at the top in the final stages of any empire, which scholars have noted tend to have a median life of 250 years, the elites develop a mental sclerosis wherein they cannot conceive of any new ways of doing anything. They only collectively remember what brought them to the top, and, instead of finding novel solutions to new issues and problems, prefer to redefine the problems in such a way that the old solutions become the way to address them. Of course this does not actually solve the underlying real issues, which then metastasize into intractable crises.

The proletariat loses faith in the system and begins to abandon it.

Usually, a charismatic figure arises, promising to reform the system and returning to a glorious past time, but who suffers a crisis which finally splinters the whole polity.

Does this pattern sound at all familiar?"

I would add this: the system first abandons the working class, who then abandon the system. I call this abandonment opting out, and it has a great many variations.

The status quo's core hierarchy isn't political, as most imagine: it's the economy rules all, and finance and technology rule the economy. The economy gathers up the resources, capital and labor, and distributes them according to the incentives embedded in finance and economic structures. Society picks up whatever crumbs fall off the economic wagon, a nameless, ignored beggar.

While finance and technology attract the best and brightest and savor the glory of endless euphoric worship, the forgotten fabric of the status quo--the social order--is unraveling. In broad brush, society and the economy interact in two ways: the Pareto Distribution (the 80-20 rule) and the relative ease / porousness of social mobility.

Pareto found that over time 80% of the wealth ends up in the hands of the top 20%. This same distribution is found in the top 20%: 20% of 20% is 4%, 80% of 80% is 64%, so the top 4% hold roughly 64% of the wealth. Income is also concentrated in the top 20%, but to a lesser degree than capital / wealth.

The question of economic abandonment (and thus of social stability) boils down to: how is the wealth / income distributed within these broad parameters? In the U.S., over 90% of all financial wealth--stocks, etc.-- is held by the top 10%. As expected in the 4/64 distribution, the top 5% own the lion's share of this wealth.

This exceeds the expected 20/80 distribution, meaning the bottom 80% aren't even holding 20% of the income-producing wealth. Their "wealth" is in assets that cost money rather than generate income: vehicles, the family home, student loans, etc.

This extreme asymmetry undermines the social order, and as Bruce outlined, it ossifies social mobility, the flow of individuals and households sliding from the top 20% into the bottom 80% and ascending from the bottom 80% into the top 20%.

Again in broad brush, if the top 4% have moated their position at the top and the bottom 64% have little opportunity to rise into the top 20%, the social order will fray and unravel even as "the economy" generates vast profits for the few. In other words, the economy can appear robust while beneath the surface the asymmetries built into the economy are dismantling society.

The majority of commentators are looking at financial, political, geopolitical or environmental sources for a global crisis. Few seem to notice that the economy has effectively abandoned the bottom 64% of the citizenry, who no longer have the means to buy a "middle class" life of homeownership, a family with resources to invest in children, and some modicum of financial security.

While the media glorifies finance and tech, our social order in unraveling. I have family and friends who were police officers, so I have some familiarity with the rigors and pressures of what is often an impossible job.

That the police are now the frontline of America's mental healthcare system--if it even deserves to be called a system--is proof-positive that our social order is well on the way to a collapse few reckon possible, much less inevitable.

The Invisible Man: We see right through the unshowered soul living in a car by the beach, or by the Walmart, or by the side of the road. But he's there, and he used to be somebody. He still is. A firsthand account of homelessness in America.

It isn't just the bottom 4% who have been abandoned--the bottom 64% have been abandoned, too, and the Reformation / Counter-Reformation isn't going to change that enough to matter. As long as the economy is our real-world religion stewarded by the priesthoods of finance and tech, the abandonment will continue to the point of social dissolution.

This snapshot of the bottom 50% reflects the abandonment of the bottom 64%. Yes, mainstream economists slave away to find arcane ways to mask this reality and glorify their masters' dominance, but this is the reality the top 20% is desperate to ignore, explain away or obfuscate.



When the concentrations of wealth and income in the top few exceed the Pareto distribution, and those at the top have dug a wide, deep moat around their position at the top, the center of the social order cannot hold.



Yes, we all worked hard over the past 50 years. My Social Security work record is 54 years and counting. But "working hard" is no longer enough to open the doors of social mobility, and our denial of present-day realities only accelerates the unraveling.



Political reforms don't change anything if the economic-financial asymmetries remain firmly in place or become even more asymmetric. Humans excel at self-justification, explaining away uncomfortable truths and weaving all the threads of narrative control.



Controlling the narrative to justify destabilizing asymmetries won't change the consequences. The crises generated by these immense asymmetries are rumbling over the horizon. Few see the storm front because it threatens the security of their worldview. But turning a blind eye to wholesale abandonment that favors the few at the expense of the many isn't going to make the storm go away, or change the seating at the banquet of consequences.

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