[Ibon]

7 billion on the planet divided into nation states that are juggling domestic and international obligations, treaties, trade alliances and environmental accords. How will increased domestic tensions that follow the consequences of human overshoot affect nation’s ability to hold together global alliances when populist movements will invariably arise that will call for isolationism and nationalism?

How solid is the global community beyond the trade alliances? If global recessions, depressions, deflations, inflations result in a severe economic contraction. If you remove a big chunk of commerce that currently binds nations together what will remain of the global community in terms of cohesion? Let’s see, there is tourism, internet, cultural ties, common languages (South America), humanitarian NGO’s, and religions. These are the non-trade cohesions that bind nations and regions and continents.

How resilient are these cultural alliances once consequences severely pull back trade alliances as nations focus inward and become more isolationist. These are big questions. We can logically assume that nation states and continents will be forced increasingly to prioritize domestic agendas to maintain social stability over the cohesive forces of globalism.

If we look at Honduran children being sent back to their countries in the Western hemisphere or the Mediterranean denying ships full of immigrants from entry to ports these are the early manifestations of human overshoot.

Human Overshoot encompasses a whole suite of phenomenon; economic contraction, immigration, climate change, geo political conflicts, trade alliances, environmental accords, etc.

Viewing conflicts through the lens of human overshoot allows us to understand the macro changes happening in the global community that will increasingly shape the 21st century zeitgeist.

There are neighborhoods today in Baltimore for example whose disenfranchised population has the same prospects for opportunities as we see in some of the worst 3rd world countries.

What will be the first strong inflection point that will heighten tensions in nations between cohesion or isolationism?

Will it be a pandemic, peak oil, resource wars, climate change, droughts, terrorism or the correction and possible collapse of the global financial markets as the debt bubble finally meets the end of the road in this desperate attempt at one way linear growth?

How can we ever expect international accords around climate change or biodiversity loss to ever have a chance when domestic instabilities will increasingly dominate the agendas of nations?

Big questions. What do you guys think about this?

[KaiserJeep]

We are all going to die. But first, the price of everything needed to live will gradually increase 1000% or more. Currency will become worthless. There will be war. Game over, man.

Baltimore is no different from past riots in Watts, New Orleans, St. Louis, Detroit, Harlem, etc. Whether the damage gets repaired or we abandon the damaged areas is an interesting question. Parts of Detroit, St. Louis, and New Orleans are being abandoned.

There was only one thing I wanted from Barack Obama, and that was improved racial politics in the USA. But he poured burning oil onto already troubled waters. What a total disappointment he is.

[Pops]

Globalism via container shipping, labor arbitrage and digital command and control Is the American version of colonialism. Of course it was enabled by American militarism and power projection initially. Which is all fine and dandy as far as it goes. Global markets make micro specialization possible and those processes can be far more efficient than was ever possible at the local level or even national level. The result is 32 different versions of pet shampoo on your supermarket shelf.

A greater percentage of the global population has at least some say in how their countries are run than at any time in history. The American System has spread so pervasively and "opened" so many "markets" that now there are multinational business entities that are in fact supranational "states" in their own right. They in fact have monetary power greater than some nations and their political power is only different in name, they are a constituency of the .001% that has veto over most every political decision. Those entities are in effect "Rogue States" in that they are completely authoritarian, wield vast power — in fact, near absolute power if you consider the control they have over their "citizen's" lives. They are at the moment very successful in co-opting the political process to undercut what rights their citizens have remaining, take "Right To Work" as an example of Orwellian DoubleSpeak for "no right to bargain or organize labor in defense against the Corporation"

So on one hand you have many countries, the US of course has been the leader, whose goal nominally— and I'll even grant that most politicians feel actually—is to promote world peace through trade. It ties nations together and makes resource or territory aggression counterproductive. The downside of the Peace Dividend is unrestricted global markets empower increasingly unrestricted supra-national corporations.

So the result of near universal democracy and world peace is a new, de facto world power, interested in and in fact "legally" bound to be interested in, only one thing, profit.

And at the moment, that power is using the democracy that created it to perform the Great Head Fake:
Look! The UN wants a One World Government! And Socialists want to take your money! And Muslims want to rape your babies!
By the way, vote for these increases in the unlimited power of Corporate Persons and we'll stand up to the evil.


I'm less sure than ever that overshoot per se will be our demise. In fact, after a decade of somewhat intense study and a lifetime of at least casual reading, I find myself less and less convinced by the various Coefficients Of Doom (CODs) bandied about to prove this or that premise; "ecological footprint," "Energy Returned on Energy Invested," "Ultimately Recoverable Reserve" and on and on. Not to argue that we can or will increase our numbers forever, just that I am less and less convinced of the veracity of the various CODs.

I believe the next round of drama will result from the increasing concentration of resources and political power in this new supranational pseudo-state, known now in the US as the Corporate Person.

.

[Ibon]

now there are multinational business entities that are in fact supranational "states" in their own right. They in fact have monetary power greater than some nations and their political power is only different in name, they are a constituency of the .001% that has veto over most every political decision. Those entities are in effect "Rogue States" in that they are completely authoritarian, wield vast power — in fact, near absolute power

I agree.

I believe the next round of drama will result from the increasing concentration of resources and political power in this new supranational pseudo-state, known now in the US as the Corporate Person.

When you take this concentration to its logical extreme you have a dis empowered middle class and vast number of exploited poor people. This is a huge pool of the disenfranchised. I agree there will be drama around this with populist movements and I would say this is one of those inflection points.

I'm less sure than ever that overshoot per se will be our demise. In fact, after a decade of somewhat intense study and a lifetime of at least casual reading, I find myself less and less convinced by the various Coefficients Of Doom (CODs) bandied about to prove this or that premise; "ecological footprint," "Energy Returned on Energy Invested," "Ultimately Recoverable Reserve" and on and on. Not to argue that we can or will increase our numbers forever, just that I am less and less convinced of the veracity of the various CODs.

So we have this convergence of this corporate hegemony of power just when we are approaching ecological and resource limits. So the human population is getting squeezed from both ends, on one side the constraints that happen due to the disparity of wealth from this corporate hegemony and on the other side constraints from energy, fresh water, climate change etc. I don't see these two forces as unrelated.

In fact some of the cultural movements you see from young emerging generations are adapting to both of these parallel forces. Don't feed the corporate kleptocracy by consumption, share stuff instead of buying and learn to live sustainably reducing your eco footprint.

This position is a kind of passive resistance. Do you foresee the next round of drama being a more active rebellion a la french revolution? Bankers heads on the guillotine sort of thingy?

[Pops]

I linked somewhere to an editorial by a guy who knew Jeff Bezos back in the day. Since he knew Jeff, he invested in his new start up company (Amazon) and that guy now is a billionaire. He said he thinks economic class stratification may cause heads to roll, and mentioned pitchforks specifically. LOL

But right now I don't see it, mainly because folks with a belly full of Doritos aren't liable to do much actual violence. And as well, anti-worker sentiment is amazingly widespread at the very time the workers are being undercut. Yesterday when I read about the teacher who took down the kid with a gun in WA, (it was at the high school my grand daughter had attended) the first thing I thought about was the whole anti-teacher-union thing in WI. Were people up there that jealous of teacher salaries they thought teachers should not have a right to bargain collectively?

And beyond that, there is no palace to storm. Whose heads are gonna roll? The pernicious thing about the corporation is the "owner" is only liable to the extent he is vested. The "veil" is the beauty of the corporation, the "company" can do anything really and the people who "own" it are only on the hook for the amount they put up when they purchased stock and never for any criminal wrongdoing. Rarely is an director level employee ever held to account criminally, regardless of whatever criminal acts they directed the corporate "person" to commit. Everything is reduced to a monetary value fine - written off the bottom line just like the electric bill.

[ennui2]

There was only one thing I wanted from Barack Obama, and that was improved racial politics in the USA. But he poured burning oil onto already troubled waters. What a total disappointment he is.

I don't see how he poured oil onto troubled waters other than deciding to run for the presidency in the first place and upsetting a large block of white America in the process for daring to exceed his station in life. You know, the birther and impeachment crowd.

[ennui2]

the Great Head Fake:
Look! The UN wants a One World Government! And Socialists want to take your money! And Muslims want to rape your babies!
By the way, vote for these increases in the unlimited power of Corporate Persons and we'll stand up to the evil.

Thumbs way up. This is exactly how it works, and people get the result they deserve for being so gullible and wrapping their arms around an ideology that actively works against their best interests. And it's depressing how many posters here, despite supposedly being armed with the facts, continues to parrot Fox News talking points about liberals or government being the problem rather than deregulation and hypercapitalism.

[Ibon]

the Great Head Fake:
Look! The UN wants a One World Government! And Socialists want to take your money! And Muslims want to rape your babies!
By the way, vote for these increases in the unlimited power of Corporate Persons and we'll stand up to the evil.

Thumbs way up. This is exactly how it works, and people get the result they deserve for being so gullible and wrapping their arms around an ideology that actively works against their best interests. And it's depressing how many posters here, despite supposedly being armed with the facts, continues to parrot Fox News talking points about liberals or government being the problem rather than deregulation and hypercapitalism.

With automation, off shoring of jobs and the continued decimation of the middle class, what measures will corporations take to insure that there is still a middle class resilient enough to buy their products?

[Pops]

The US and OECD middle class are fading but there are billions of newly "rich" third worlders to take their place. Fire 50 million US union workers and hire 500 million Chinese 12 year-olds. Productivity goes up, labor cost per unit goes down and Voila.

[Kylon]

I personally think that Mega corporations will continue to have massive power as long as the United States of America does.

But whenever America effectively collapses economically, monetarily, or politically, I think that will be the end of multinationals calling the shots.

The multinationals currently hold all the cards, due to effective enforcement of global property rights, through formal and informal means. These means are projected by the United States government, via various organizations.

These companies are effectively gutting the middle class, the working class, and the people who allow the United States to produce the wealth, and the tax revenue necessary to power the various organizations and the military necessary to secure global property rights.

As the U.S loses economic power, it will also lose the power to project force soft and hard overseas, and therefore lose the power to enforce global property rights, that the current system is predicated on.

Also, multinationals have been transferring intellectual capital and know how from the West to the developing nations. Once enough has been transferred to satisfy the developing nations, the leverage, and hence power of the corporations will decrease significantly.

Once that happens, each country will gain a tremendous amount of leverage vs. the corporations, especially if those countries band together the way labor unions have in the past.

Once that happens the power of the multinational will effectively be subservient to the state. The dominance of economic power will be replaced by who has the most political power. Unfortunately a lot of the countries that will have this new political power will be authoritarian, so you end up replacing one set of despots for another.

I can see that corporations might try to secure control of these countries through bribery before the transition to a weaker United States, but in countries that are more authoritarian I think they have a fair shot of eliminating more corruption via bribery, due to stiffer penalties than would be allowed in the West.

[Apneaman]

IMO the biggest single killer of civilizations has been drought. It tends to magnify all other problems. For rich western countries we will not see famine like in Africa (not for awhile), but industrial civilization requires enormous amounts of water and conservation and efficiencies will only go so far and you need everyone to play nice for that to work. California is in year 4 - what would year 20 look like? It's happened before. In fact, drought did in the first civilization Sumer; the Mayans too - it's a long list.
If your looking for an excellent primer, check out Anthropologist, Brian Fagan's book "The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization"

Here is a talk he gave that covers a small part of the book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY_1x0FPTjo

[Ibon]

Fire 50 million US union workers and hire 500 million Chinese 12 year-olds. Productivity goes up, labor cost per unit goes down and Voila.

This is a confirmation of both human overshoot and the rise of corporate power. Reduced wealth gets spread very thin over a vast population of aspiring new consumers.

For the weakened middle class in the US for example, the liabilities of globalization will at some point so clearly out weigh the benefits that this surely should give rise to a populist movement.

Or are the corporations putting something in those Doritos to keep us compliant and dumb?

[vtsnowedin]

the Great Head Fake:
Look! The UN wants a One World Government! And Socialists want to take your money! And Muslims want to rape your babies!
By the way, vote for these increases in the unlimited power of Corporate Persons and we'll stand up to the evil.

Thumbs way up. This is exactly how it works, and people get the result they deserve for being so gullible and wrapping their arms around an ideology that actively works against their best interests. And it's depressing how many posters here, despite supposedly being armed with the facts, continues to parrot Fox News talking points about liberals or government being the problem rather than deregulation and hypercapitalism.

Are you saying that there are not people in the UN that think we should have one world government? Or that socialists are not always talking about income redistribution and fairness and is not the news full of Muslims kidnapping young girls and beheading their brothers? I don't know how giving corporations more power would defend us from any of these but find it amusing that we are debating the issue on computers furnished to us by corporations.

[Cid_Yama]

In the major popular uprisings we have witnessed, the one shared and most critical factor was that parents were being forced to watch their children starve with no other options available.

Never has an ideology been the motivating factor, but was merely applied after the fact by those who subsequently grabbed the reins of power.

It was that way in both the French and the Russian Revolutions as well as the 'Arab Spring'.

The American Revolution was not a true revolution. It was more of a coup de tat, where the elite in the colonies seized power from an Empire an ocean away. There was no popular uprising. It required the playing of major adversary nations against Britain. It was a diplomatic victory.

History shows the masses were generally indifferent, you know, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

We tend to play loose with the term revolution, perhaps intentionally, to hide the difference between popular uprisings and coups orchestrated by opposing elites.

If it springs forth, fully formed, complete with ideology, it's a coup.

Popular uprisings are not necessarily preceded by protests, they are preceded by attempts to obtain the required necessities of life by whatever means necessary, spikes in crime, riots.

Not only food, but water, or any other absolute necessities, will precipitate popular uprisings, which will be met brutally by TPTB.

They will also precipitate migrations from places that can no longer support the population. We are already seeing that in the Mediterranean.

Around the planet refugees will flee toward, first the cities, then, when they find conditions no better there, towards where they perceive their best chances of survival to be.

So you may see more migrations and genocides, rather than popular uprisings.

[Pops]

I think that's right Cid, to an extent. The American revolution was not about starvation, neither was the US Civil War or Teddy Roosevelt's actions against the "trusts" (precursor to corporations).

Are you saying that there are not people in the UN that think we should have one world government? Or that socialists are not always talking about income redistribution and fairness and is not the news full of Muslims kidnapping young girls and beheading their brothers? I don't know how giving corporations more power would defend us from any of these but find it amusing that we are debating the issue on computers furnished to us by corporations.

You miss the entire point, corporations are becoming the defacto One World Government. While you focus on how much money the Russians gave Hillary, corporations have been giving her many multiples of that regularly for "speaking fees."

You can't have it both ways, either money buys you love or it doesn't.

[Pops]

For the weakened middle class in the US for example, the liabilities of globalization will at some point so clearly out weigh the benefits that this surely should give rise to a populist movement.

I don't know. I'm pretty far out of the US middle class now and life ain't too bad. My folks were much poorer and worked much harder than I ever have. So as far as actual living standards I don't see too much problem. To me the problem is more about the direction once limits kick in. Like everything else, surplus energy overcomes a multitude of sins.

[Cid_Yama]

I'm pretty far out of the US middle class now and life ain't too bad. My folks were much poorer and worked much harder than I ever have. So as far as actual living standards I don't see too much problem.

I imagine that's how most feel. As long as the pot heats up slow enough, there is no actual moment that triggers action.

Only when great personal loss is imminent, will anyone act, and they will act individually. If numbers reach critical mass, then you may see mobs or riots, but nothing organized.

I suspect that the mythos that change comes through organized action is disinformation intended to get troublemakers to step forward and identify themselves.

The only reason the working class got a break in the 40's and 50's was that the Business Plot was uncovered, and FDR had them by the short and curlies.

He also caught them funding Hitler and supplying the Nazis with war materials, and held the Trading with the Enemy Act over them.

This allowed the Labor movement some breathing room. But they just backed off and bided their time. They may have also done that after Nixon. Let the Hippies think they won, so they would then all go their separate ways.

Eisenhower warned that the 'military-industrial complex' was just waiting in the wings, working behind the scenes. During the Eisenhower Administration there was a split in the Republican party, between hardliners like McCarthy, and the Administration. Nixon, though vice president, belonged to the hardliners.

I may be one of the last of the Eisenhower Progressives. Yes, there were once Republican Progressives, and I was one of them. (I was a teenager at the time, but ardently pro-Eisenhower.)

After Eisenhower, I rooted for Kennedy, as Nixon, in my eyes, was a traitor. I started my career with the State Department during the Johnson Administration.

[Timo]

These companies are effectively gutting the middle class, the working class, and the people who allow the United States to produce the wealth, and the tax revenue necessary to power the various organizations and the military necessary to secure global property rights.

As the U.S loses economic power, it will also lose the power to project force soft and hard overseas, and therefore lose the power to enforce global property rights, that the current system is predicated on.

US economic power and US military power are not the same thing. If the gloabal standard currency ceases to be the dollar, that will not remove the accumulated arsenal at our military's disposal. In fact, if the US loses its economic dominance over the world, the US military dominance might become a much larger factor in an effort to reestablish BAU. What then happens when a nations becomes economically irrelavant, but still has globally dominant military power?

[Ibon]

Like everything else, surplus energy overcomes a multitude of sins.

I have been making the case lately that we don't do good with abundance. Your comment makes the opposite point. Your point is valid in terms of social sins. My point is in reference to the externalities of pollution, overshoot and environmental degradation. It's interesting to note the difference.

Cid was mentioning that labor got a reprieve in the 40's and 50's. Besides the points he brought up is the affluence that emerged in those decades up until the late 60's when the USA was an exporter of both finished goods and energy. That was an unprecedented wealth where there was enough abundance for corporations and labor to have enough a pie where a blue collar worker could put two kids through college with no debt.

I appreciate many of the comments here. My expertise is ecology. My interest in social change is due to the upcoming pressures of constraints and what the trigger points will be that will influence this human juggernaut on the planet.

[vtsnowedin]

You miss the entire point, corporations are becoming the defacto One World Government. While you focus on how much money the Russians gave Hillary, corporations have been giving her many multiples of that regularly for "speaking fees."

You can't have it both ways, either money buys you love or it doesn't.

Oh I got your point just don't think corporations are quite as evil as you do. Some of the top executives on the other hand should be in jail. My main income today is from a retirement account that is heavily invested in stocks so to argue against corporate profits would be self defeating.
As to Hilliary's Russian "gifts" I do think they are more treasonous then corporate gifts and fees but they are all bad and just prof that US politics is a retail store most of us are priced out of. Watch her raise and spend the 2.5 Billion dollars and lose in the end because people will turn their backs on her thievery.
Just think of how many Miles of old water mains could be replaced with the six billion or so they are collectively going to spend on this campaign.