Eurodystopia: A Future DIvided
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The underlying idea here is that the individual units (statelets) should have no more than 5-10 million inhabitants.
Heineken brings a new meaning to
“Big fish in a little pond”
“Doomstead”
As a doomstead Lybia fell, Syria is in the process of failing.
If one was fortunate to survive the transition, living in one of those “statelets” would not be pleasant.
Think N. Korea.
I just picked this story up on Reuters. Note the time frame (3-6 months).
https://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/10/idINL2E8J6D7920120810
Hold onto your hats, people!
Heineken was a remarkable man. I still remember his kidnapping:
https://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/oct/21/kidnapper-heineken-film-willem-holleeder
They made a film of the kidnapping and one of the kidnappers has taken the film-makers to court accusing them of “damaging his reputation”. This guy is in prison again for a much-later offence 🙂
I saw that note in Reuters..and other places like zero hedge.Lost of things are liable to happen after the elections.
I tend to agree living in one of these statelets might not be to my liking…think about the worst southern-cracker judicial system mixed with a all-powerful federal,also subject to abuse…euuu ick…Bad Idea..
Bee good,or
Bee carefulsnuffy
Political scientists, geographers, historians, scientists, pundits – like to redraw political boundaries based on some superb logic. The boundaries we have are hard won and are the basis for identity in this world. Not everyone agrees, but that doesn’t change much. Civil war is not pretty. Political boundaries are the basis of identity. You wear your nation, state, or local government hat. In each case adults have a direct vote, pay taxes and get services. There are both economies and dis-economies of scale for governments. They persist based on the cumulative infrastructure of the societies and the civil obedience of the community. That creates stability and security. Global capitalism has messed with that. The economists have been blind to the impact of credit and debt in the private sector, for corporations and individuals. In this environment, the people struggle to maintain a vision of the future and perpetuate their families and values. Community motive, that greater force which has enabled human survival and growth of civilization, will overcome the recent infatuation with the lesser profit motive, something that can only exist within community.
Hi Ilargi,
This reminds me of Dr Gall’s “Systems People”:
“The preceding considerations have provided convincing evidence that the System has its effects on the people within it. It isolates them, feeds them a distorted and partial version of the outside world, and gives then the illusion of power and effectiveness(1). But Systems and people are related in another, subtler way. A selective process goes on, whereby Systems attract and keep those people whose attributes are such as to adapt them to life in that System:
SYSTEMS ATTRACT SYSTEMS-PEOPLE
Systems-people everywhere share certain attributes, but each specific system tends to attract people with specific sets of traits. For example, people who are attracted to auto-racing are likely to be those who enjoy tinkering with high-powered cars, driving fast, and beating other people in fierce competition. The System calls forth those attributes in its members and rewards the extreme degrees of them.
However, the particular attributes that a given System fosters can only rarely be correctly inferred in advance; the actual situation is likely to contain surprises. And such attributes are not necessarily the attributes required for successful operation of the System itself; e.g., the qualities necessary for being elected President are not the qualities needed for properly running the country.” (caps in original) (From: John Gall, 2002, “The Systems Bible”, p.55.)Note Chap 10: (1), Irving L.Janis. “Groupthink.” Yale Alumni Magazine 36: 16-19, (January) 1973.
Current thinking is no good as regards solutions to the problems, we need something new; but paradoxically we haven’t thought of that yet… and are unlikely to until the ‘situation’ arises.
L,
Sid.Funny, governments like those of Stockton, California and Cyprus … are proving unaffordable. Perhaps it’s time to redefine government …
There is too much thinking on the idea of management as if this situation we find ourselves in is a matter of the head and policy, of bad software in the computer up in the office at the top floor of a high building. Adjusting the head, reprogramming the computer will ‘solve’ the problem and everyone can get back to ‘doing business’.
The problems are in the basement, in the foundation, they are structural cracks that are growing. There is decreasing capital, we cannibalize capital, we burn it up for nothing. It’s no longer a matter of adjustments so that we can consume capital more rapidly. It’s a matter of hanging on to what we have and learning to get by without using it, without bringing the entire enterprise down around our heads.
Say what you will about management in Europe and elsewhere, underway is conservation by other means.
It’s no longer an option. It’s the future.
BTW, the image from Dreamslayer artworks is so wrong it’s laughable. The only way to see the Manhattan Bridge behind the Brooklyn Bridge as seen in the painting is to stand on the waterfront in Brooklyn and look north. Needless to say, the Empire State Building is in Manhattan, across the river about 4 miles from the two bridges.
If you stand where the Empire State Building is looking toward Manhattan- and Brooklyn bridges the former is in ‘front’ of the latter and neither can be seen … they are around a bend in the East River.
It’s as bad as having Yankee Stadium in Queens or the Eiffel Tower in Copenhagen.
The regionalisation of Europe is an interesting idea. Unfortunately when it is pursued as a policy by the central EU bureaucracy it could be a centralising influence since the regions are not able to counter the central power as much as the nation states were. The central EU bureaucracy shows little sign of abolishing itself.
The map of England is virtually that of the old Anglo-Saxon heptarchy yet those seven kingdoms have been effectively united since at least 973AD with the coronation of Edgar at Bath Abbey. I think we can call that ‘resilience’.
In my opinion a bigger problem in England currently is the overwhelming power and wealth of the money factory called London that distorts all economic life here.When a region loses the plot in the (often but not always economic) narrative of why it should be a part of a larger nation, it may strive for autonomy, but the larger nation still may have a compelling reason to keep it. That’s how large kingdoms like France and Great Britain were built in the first place. There may be little mutual advantage, but a Skåne, Corsica, or Galicia (both of them) may still be prevented from walking off on its own.
By the way, a convention on Vermont’s possible independence from the USA will be held in the Vermont Statehouse, Montpelier, Vermont, on September 14th. See here for details: https://vermontrepublic.org/2012-vermont-independence-party
Such ideas are always around…
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