Wednesday
The more sophisticated that societies become, the more specialised become the functions that gel them together.
In the 21st century we have an intensely specialised society. No one person anywhere can produce from scratch any single product above the level of a reed basket or clay pot. Even people with those ‘whole skills’ are few and far between. Adam Smith’s division of labour has assumed global micro proportions.
Finished goods are a complex fusion of thousands of individual transactions utilising raw materials and skills from all around the planet. Every single one of those myriad transactions is facilitated by money. Government’s replacement of money with fiat debt notes has grossly distorted each step of the process, to the degree that the system is now irretrievably broken.
System failure means that the world will crash from the glittering peak of technology right back to the stone age, with the only delay being through recycling the remnants of what once was.
The odd thing is that hardly anyone is worried. Most people understand that governments are a problem, but not enough understand just how much of a problem.
Some hoard Gold and silver and think that this is all that they need to do to secure their future. Gold’s stability of value has very little merit in a world where goods can no longer be produced, let alone traded.
A few actively resist a return to honest money. Most of these are ignorant; a small proportion are evil.
The majority of people just lack the courage to clearly look at where the road leads.
Total system failure is a bit like that; conceptually hard to confront.
We are living at a unique point in history – the end point of the most advanced civilisation that has ever been. And nobody is too bothered.
How weird is that?