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UK Politics - Closing Down Sale


Derfel Cadarn

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Not news to the people in this forum -- or the US Politics forum, since we've got the same forces from the same types converging here too -- which outcome is exactly that desired by Putin, China, Korea, Turkey, Brasil etc.

Britain is Sleepwalking into Societal Collapse -- The sacking of the Chancellor is a symptom of the escalating incoherence of Liz Truss’ Government – not a sign that it is changing course to become more coherent

Long Read.

https://bylinetimes.com/2022/10/14/britain-is-sleepwalking-into-societal-collapse/

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I have spent two decades studying the dynamics of social crisis and societal collapse. It’s now clear to me that Prime Minister Liz Truss is leading Britain into a convergence of crises that is likely to culminate in an unprecedented social and economic collapse that cascades across the government, economy, housing markets, energy, health, the judiciary and beyond.

Worse, these crises risk triggering a global financial crisis bigger in scale than the 2008 crash – one that, like that crash, could have potentially irreversible impacts on global civilisation.

The sacking of her Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, after 38 days in office, is unlikely to significantly reverse these prospects. In fact, it signals a systemic level of incoherence the only outcome of which, at this stage, can be continued breakdown. The danger is that, as this Government collapses, it brings the rest of Britain down with it.

Systems collapse when they are unable to adapt to change. The policies of the Truss Government are not only accelerating conditions of change beyond the capability of British institutions to adapt, they are generating crises across multiple institutions simultaneously in such a way that they are overwhelming the overall system’s abilities to respond.

When a system is overwhelmed in this way, we start to rapidly run out of options within the existing framework. The more it moves in different directions to quell the crisis, the more it inadvertently stokes the crisis. As a result, the system itself becomes an accelerator of its own collapse – and this is exactly the predicament that the Truss team has managed to pull Britain into.

These ingredients are critical preconditions for the collapse of complex societies. Such collapses have taken place over decades, in some cases centuries, in others. While collapse doesn’t necessarily entail the complete evisceration of a society, it involves a breakdown of institutional complexity. This results in a loss of societal capabilities, potentially entailing reductions in living standards and population.

Liz Truss’ agenda is accelerating the risk of such a collapse in a way that is unprecedented. While, to some extent, this can be explained by a penchant for disaster capitalism designed to benefit elites at everyone’s expense, the deeper problem is that the Truss Government appears to be fundamentally incapable of grappling with complexity. ....

 

 
 

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With Mordaunt answering urgent questions for the PM and Hunt making all the economic decisions, I can only conclude that in a last fit of spite, Truss has decided to give all her leadership rivals except Sunak a turn at running the country.

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Outside of just the awfulness of Truss and co, it has been interesting / scary to see just how much the markets can basically dictate government policy.

 

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 That this happened so quickly, and with more than half an eye towards markets, is a symptomatic of a far bigger deal.
Govt policy is being dictated not by the Tory party or Parliament but by financial markets.
I can’t remember another occasion we’ve had that since 1992.

 

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I heard Kwarteng was meant to be some kind of economic historian. How the hell did an economic historian decide that history has shown that trickle down economics works and is the correct course of action?

Though I guess for the wealthy trickle down economics has worked exceedingly well for them. So perhaps he did learn from history, but failed to understand today's context is different to that when trickle down was first implemented.

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3 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I heard Kwarteng was meant to be some kind of economic historian. How the hell did an economic historian decide that history has shown that trickle down economics works and is the correct course of action?

Though I guess for the wealthy trickle down economics has worked exceedingly well for them. So perhaps he did learn from history, but failed to understand today's context is different to that when trickle down was first implemented.

 

4 hours ago, mormont said:

Don't blame us, we only voted for her.

Would Sunak really be better?

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6 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

Do we think that Kwasi is just severely constipated?

 

Damn English and Muricans. Both of you always beating around the bush. Just say he is full of shit instead of dancing around it with euphemisms of him being severely constipated. :cool4:

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2 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

 

Would Sunak really be better?

 

 

Yes. Which is not to say that he wouldn't be appallingly dreadful, but as the debates made clear he was the only one of the lot with even a basic understanding of economics, and is therefore less likely to have collapsed things by trying to force through impossibilities. 

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3 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Would Sunak really be better?

Hard to say. He wouldn't have attempted the 'dash for growth' nonsense but I'm sure he'd have been awful in other ways.

The Tory party ran out of qualified, non-awfulcandidates for PM a considerable time ago.

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10 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I heard Kwarteng was meant to be some kind of economic historian. How the hell did an economic historian decide that history has shown that trickle down economics works and is the correct course of action?

Though I guess for the wealthy trickle down economics has worked exceedingly well for them. So perhaps he did learn from history, but failed to understand today's context is different to that when trickle down was first implemented.

From my perspective both Kwarteng and Truss are simpletons. We have a class of parasitic wealthy who extract vast amounts of wealth for themselves out of society while contributing little of substance to it. These people generally have a rag tag of libertarian style theories that they use to justify themselves. Kwarteng and Truss swallowed these theories whole, genuinely believed they were true, and acted on that basis, with the inevitable consequences. It appears to me that currently Kwarteng is in denial, while Truss is just shell shocked.

 

6 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Would Sunak really be better?

At the time I thought that Truss would be less dangerous. She and Sunak are both on the economic libertarian right, but while Sunak is competent and pragmatic, she is neither, so I assumed that she would discredit and crash the Tories. (Though not as quickly as she actually has!)

At this moment I am not sure that I was correct. But I would marginally choose Hunt over either of them.

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11 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I heard Kwarteng was meant to be some kind of economic historian. How the hell did an economic historian decide that history has shown that trickle down economics works and is the correct course of action?

"What about Buster? He had business classes." 

"18th Century Agrarian Business classes. Tell me. How concerned are you about an uprising?" 

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