[Opinion, Analysis and Tunes]
Consider the following: The war in Ukraine, tensions over Taiwan, the advent of Artificial Intelligence, UAPs, nuclear proliferation, shifting political influences in the Middle East, ever-increasing military, economic and international Chinese influence, global warming, rising ocean levels, rampant pollution and more. * The list goes on. Every day we seemingly step into a world with brand new and ever more dangerous challenges.
Perhaps the most significant consequence of the never ending change everyone is experiencing is that no one can expect to settle down and have a relatively settled and predictable life. It just isn’t in the cards and those who have that expectation are only kidding themselves.
On the economic front, some businesses will succeed while some will fail. Some that have succeeded for a long time will go the way of Sears and take bankruptcy and perhaps go out of business. Meanwhile, new formerly unheard of businesses, will spring up, like Amazon and take the place of old firms like Sears.
This, of course, means the loss of jobs and the displacement of workers, all of which, in turn, leads to much anxiety amongst not only employees but also members of their families. Just as importantly, the mere fear of job loss will become ever more pervasive in society because changes will occur at a faster and faster rate. The bottom line is that all of the foregoing affects the happiness of a large portion of the general public. And, as changes occur more and more quickly, larger and larger portions of the general public are going to feel a sense of unease more frequently. Left unchecked, this is likely to be a source of ever greater political and social instability.
Note that the foregoing does not even take into account any unease the public may feel because of such things as inflation, the threat of war and military service, taxes and public health all of which can also create considerable anxiety in all or a substantial portion of the general public.
In short, change, especially when talking about jobs and the economy, is often a major cause of societal discord. This is because when change occurs some people benefit from the change, while others find themselves less well-off, if not totally left out in the cold. This is all merely to say that usually when economic or political change occurs some people get jobs, while others lose their jobs.
It’s the people who lose their jobs and the ones who fear that they will lose their jobs who are most prone to anger and desperate acts, including at the ballot box. People who have lost their jobs, or who fear losing their jobs, or have no hope of finding a job, are the ones who are most likely to look for scape goats and to blame others for the misfortune that they either fear or that they have, in fact, experienced. Let’s call these folks the “LESS FORTUNATE”. Let’s call the folks who benefit from these changes “THE FORTUNATE”.
All the foregoing is not to say that the “THE FORTUNATE”, are not sometimes induced to follow demagogues or extremist parties. The opportunity to earn high income and/or to achieve more political power can seduce even THE FORTUNATE to follow bad political leaders and demagogues.
Let’s focus here, however, on the LESS FORTUNATE because how the LESS FORTUNATE react will affect unemployment which in turn affects the level of government and societal expenditures for things like unemployment benefits as well as a variety of other governmental programs for food, housing and medical, not to mention the funds needed to re-educate and/or re-train the LESS FORTUNATE. Moreover, all of the foregoing, affects the taxes that everyone, particularly THE FORTUNATE pay. In short, the LESS FORTUNATE are a major cause for the need of many call a governmentally paid for “safety net”. And, of course, the size of the governmentally funded safety net affects tax rates and/or the size of the federal debt which, in turn, effects the amount of money which the government needs to borrow, which also often impacts both the general level of both interest rates and the amount of overall inflation in the economy. We’ve addressed the inflationary aspects of the government budget deficits and borrowing in other articles and videos.
Moreover, if because of war, famine, and/or other economic or political causes, the number of LESS FORTUNATE people in foreign countries rise, or if their suffering becomes more intense, it becomes more and more likely that foreigners will seek to emigrate from their country and enter, whether legally or illegally, another country where they perceive their economic opportunities to be greater. Here again, this is often a cause of political tension and instablility. And, what is perhaps worse, it can be the cause racial and religious tensions, and provide ammunition for demagogues and would be dictators to get the LESS FORTUNATE to support them, all on the promise of getting rid of society’s troubles. In doing so, they often wrap themselves in their country’s flag, claim that that they are saving their country from some, often exaggerated threat of foreign or malignant religious influence and then promise to cure society’s problems either by eliminating, expelling or subjugating the societal group that they deem to be undesirable troublemakers. And usually the alleged targeted troulble makers are immigrants and/or folks who have a different racial and/or religious makeup than society as a whole. An example of course, would be Hitler’s claiming of the superiority of Germans and the Arian race and demonizing the Jews, Slavs, other non-Arians and homosexuals. In short, he fired up a downtrodden German public (who, like much of the rest of the World was suffering from the throes of the Great Depression and the reparations required of Germany under the Treaty of Versailles) all to gain enough support to supplant the democratically elected Weimar Republic as the governing power of Germany prior to World War II.
The foregoing is not to say that demagogues and authoritarians only exist on the political right. There have been plenty of leftist demagogues and authoritarians. Lenin clearly was one. The difference being that leftists tend to demonize the THE FORTUNATE, the monarchy and/or the political establishment of the county in question. Moreover, leftist authoritarians have been just as guilty, if not more so, of committing genocide against their perceived enemies as Hitler. Stalin and Mao Zedong, like Hitler, were also responsible for murdering, enslaving and/or incarcerating tens of millions of people. But the point is that usually both left wing and right wing demagogue supporting followers, if successful, in getting their leader in power, tend to ultimately install and/or impose an authoritarian government amounting to a dictatorship.
To avoid dictatorship, government must be effective in addressing the needs of its people. How is this done. Clearly the social, political and governing philosophy of both voters and leaders plays a crucial role in determining the effectiveness of government.
Previously, in another article, we delved into the question of whether a faith based or a more scientific and rational approach was better. Here’s the link to that article:
https://reasonandbalance.com/faith-versus-religion-how-this-ties-to-politics-and-peace/
Without repeating what’s in the linked article, it’s worth mentioning here that in subsequent articles we emphasize that when dealing with social, political and economic matters there is almost always some need for balance at some point. We did not mention that in the linked article, however, any attempt to limit, restrict or abolish religion would be wrong and/or inadvisable for a number of reasons including: (i) the First Amendment, Freedom of Religion clause, to the U.S. Constitution would probably prohibit it; (ii) religious views are often so firmly held by religious people, that political and/or armed conflict may result; and (iii) anyone trying to keep the peace, knows that trying to limit, restrict or abolish religion would endanger national unity and might well cause considerable violence, if not civil war.
Given, the foregoing, perhaps the best that can be said and/or done is for everyone to focus on those aspects of religion that emphasize peace, love, tolerance and the Golden Rule and hope for the best.
In the future we will move on and also compare philosophies that emphasize: (a) power versus principle; (ii) competition versus cooperation; and (iii) autocracy (authoritarianism) versus democracy.
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David Dixon Lentz 6/25/23
© Copyright 2023; David Dixon Lentz; All Rights Reserved.
* Not to mention a possible coup and/or civil war in Russia, which as we write this is a developing story of profound global importance.