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The Telltale Signs Of Imperial Decline
Nothing is as permanent as we imagine – especially super-complex, super-costly, super-asymmetric and super-debt-dependent systems.
Check which signs of Imperial decline you see around you: The hubris of an increasingly incestuous and out-of-touch leadership; dismaying extremes of wealth inequality; self-serving, avaricious Elites; rising dependency of the lower classes on free Bread and Circuses provided by a government careening toward insolvency due to stagnating tax revenues and vast over-reach–let’s stop there to catch our breath. Check, check, check and check.
Sir John Glubb listed a few others in his seminal essay on the end of empires The Fate of Empires, what might be called the dynamics of decadence:
(a) A growing love of money as an end in itself: Check.
(b) A lengthy period of wealth and ease, which makes people complacent. They lose their edge; they forget the traits (confidence, energy, hard work) that built their civilization: Check.
(c) Selfishness and self-absorption: Check.
(d) Loss of any sense of duty to the common good: Check.
Glubb included the following in his list of the characteristics of decadence:
— an increase in frivolity, hedonism, materialism and the worship of unproductive celebrity (paging any Kardashians in the venue…)
— a loss of social cohesion
— willingness of an increasing number to live at the expense of a bloated bureaucratic state
Historian Peter Turchin, whom I have often excerpted here, listed three disintegrative forces that gnaw away the fibers of an Imperial economy and social order:
1. Stagnating real wages due to oversupply of labor
2. overproduction of parasitic Elites
3. Deterioration of central state finances
War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires
To these lists I would add a few more that are especially visible in the current Global Empire of Debt that encircles the globe and encompasses nations of all sizes and political/cultural persuasions:
1. An absurdly heightened sense of refinement as the wealth of the top 5% has risen so mightily as a direct result of financialization and globalization that the top .1% has been forced to seek ever more extreme refinements to differentiate the Elite class (financial-political royalty) from financial nobility (top .5% or so), the technocrat class (top 5%), the aspirant class (next 15%) and everyone below (the bottom 80%).
Now that just about any technocrat/ member of the lower reaches of the financial nobility can afford a low-interest loan on a luxury auto, wealthy aspirants must own super-cars costing $250,000 and up.
A mere yacht no longer differentiates financial royalty from lower-caste financial Nobles, so super-yachts are de riguer, along with extremes such as private islands, private jets in the $80 million-each range, and so on.
Even mere technocrat aspirants routinely spend $150 per plate for refined dining out and take extreme vacations to ever more remote locales to advance their social status.
Examples abound of this hyper-inflation of refinement as the wealth of the top 5% has skyrocketed.
2. The belief in the permanence of the status quo has reached quasi-religious levels of faith. The possibility that the entire financialized, politicized circus of extremes might actually be nothing more than a sand castle that’s dissolving in the rising tides of history is not just heresy–it doesn’t enter the minds of those reveling in refinement or those demanding more Bread and Circuses (Universal Basic Income, etc.)
3. Luxury, not service, defines the financial-political Elites. As Turchin pointed out in his book on the decline of empires, in the expansionist, integrative eras of empires, Elites based their status on service to the Common Good and the defense (or expansion) of the Empire.
While there are still a few shreds of noblesse oblige in the tattered banners of the financial elites, the vast majority of the Elites classes are focused on scooping up as much wealth and power as they can in the shortest possible time, with the goal being not to serve society or the Common Good but to enter the status competition game with enough wealth to afford the refined dining, luxury travel to remote locales, second and third homes in exotic but safe hideaways, and so on.
4. An unquestioned faith in the unlimited power of the state and central bank.The idea that the mightiest governments and central banks might not be able to print their way of our harm’s way, that is, create as much money and credit as is needed to paper over any spot of bother, is unthinkable for the vast majority of the populace, Elites and debt-serfs alike.
That all this newly issued currency and credit is nothing but claims on future production of goods and services and rising productivity never enters the minds of the believers in unlimited state/bank powers. We have been inculcated with the financial equivalent of the Divine Powers of the Emperor: the government and central bank possess essentially divine powers to overcome any problem, any crisis and any conflict simply by creating more money, in whatever quantities are deemed necessary.
If $1 trillion in fresh currency will do the trick–no problem! $10 trillion? No problem! $100 trillion? No problem! there is no upper limit on how much new currency/credit the government and central bank can create.
That there might be limits on the efficacy of this money-creation never enters the minds of the faithful. That pushing currency-credit creation above the limits of efficacy might actually trigger the unraveling of the state-central bank’s vaunted powers never occurs to believers in the unlimited reach of central states/banks.
The possibility that the central state/bank’s powers are actually quite limited is blasphemy in an era in which the majority of the Elites and commoners alike depend on the “free money” machinery of the central state/bank for their wealth and livelihoods.
It is instructive to ponder the excesses of private wealth and political dysfunction of the late Roman Empire with the present-day excesses of private wealth and political dysfunction. As Turchin and others have documented, where the average wealth of a Roman patrician in the Republic (the empire’s expansionist, integrative phase) was perhaps 10-20 times the free-citizen commoner’s wealth, by the disintegrative, decadent phase of imperial decay, the Elites held wealth on the scale of 10,000 times the wealth of the typical commoner. Elite villas were more like small villages centered around the excesses of luxury than mere homes for the wealthy and their household servants. Here is a commentary drawn from Turchin’s work:
“An average Roman noble of senatorial class had property valued in the neighborhood of 20,000 Roman pounds of gold. There was no ‘middle class’ comparable to the small landholders of the third century B.C.; the huge majority of the population was made up of landless peasants working land that belonged to nobles. These peasants had hardly any property at all, but if we estimate it (very generously) at one tenth of a pound of gold, the wealth differential would be 200,000! Inequality grew both as a result of the rich getting richer (late imperial senators were 100 times wealthier than their Republican predecessors) and those of the middling wealth becoming poor.”
Following in Ancient Rome’s Footsteps: Moral Decay, Rising Wealth Inequality(September 30, 2015)
We can be quite confident that these powerful elites reckoned the Empire was permanent and its power to secure their wealth and power was effectively unlimited. But alas, their fantastic wealth vanished along with the rest of the centralized, over-extended, complex and costly Imperial structures.
There is a peculiarly widespread belief that Elites are so smart and powerful that they always manage to evade the collapse of the empires that created and protected their wealth. But there is essentially no evidence for this belief when eras truly change.
Yes, Elites have proven to be adept at shifting with the political winds; thus the guestbooks of French chateaux were filled with the names of Nazi dignitaries during the German occupation of France, and with the names of Allied bigwigs after the war ended the 1,000-year Reich.
But the complete collapse of the financial system and centralized power is not a war or financial crisis–these are storm waters which the Elites have the wherewithal to survive. But when a tsunami disintegrates the entire structure and carries it out to a nameless sea as flotsam and jetsam, there is no transfer of wealth from the Old to the New.
The Roman Elites did not become Barbarian elites who just so happened to own the same villas and vast estates they did when they wore togas and dined on super-refined delicacies. They were pushed aside along with everything that supported their wealth and power.
Nothing is quite as permanent as we imagine–especially super-complex, super-costly, super-asymmetric and super-debt-dependent state/financial systems.
* * *
Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog
114 Comments on "The Telltale Signs Of Imperial Decline"
JuanP on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:12 pm
Delusional Davy “Juanita, I would say south Florida takes that prize.”
Well, we are not that far on this point. I call Miami the world’s shithole. LOL!
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:16 pm
BTW Davy,
Just an FYI. Asperger’s is a form of autism, and more often than not is associated with abnormally high levels of intelligence.
https://www.iidc.indiana.edu/pages/Genius-May-Be-an-Abnormality-Educating-Students-with-Aspergers-Syndrome-or-High-Functioning-Autism
JuanP on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:21 pm
Delusional Davy “The gang loves to see the gimp come on and dish it out.”
Well, we all ready know that Davy discriminates against the young and old, other races, other nationalities, women, gays, bisexuals, atheists, the mentally disabled, and other religions, so we shouldn’t be surprised if he disrespects the physically disabled, too.
JuanP on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:29 pm
Delusional Davy “In the morning, at lunch and in the evening I am on a real computer and that is when I can copy and paste articles.”
You are the only “farmer” I know that doesn’t work early in the morning and late in the evening to keep away from the heat during the Summer. You must have an air conditioned farm! LOL!
MASTERMIND on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:34 pm
Michael Cohen pleads guilty, says Trump ordered payments with ‘purpose of influencing election’
https://globalnews.ca/news/4399826/michael-cohen-plea-deal/?utm_source=notification/
Sissyfuss on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:38 pm
You will be known by company you keep is too subtle an axiom for the deplorables but everyone else is getting it. Some it doesn’t bother.
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:39 pm
“Your life likely is horrible because that is your regular demeanor on this board. You are angry, mean, and purposeless.”
You’re projecting again Davy.
Oh, and if you really want to maintain your angry, mean, and purposeless reputation and demeanour, you might consider finding a different slur against Anonymouse1. Asperger’s is something that people are normally proud of.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:39 pm
Greggie, I never said Asperger was dumb just without a formed personality. He is a walking personality disorder and likely a ticking time bomb for pain and suffering.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:41 pm
Juanita, I farm you garden, there is a big difference.
JuanP on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:41 pm
Delusional Davy “I have been consistent which generally shows honesty. I am nothing special but you make me into much more by your constant hate rants. This is great. The gimp really does hate me. Mission accomplished.”
You only started talking about goats and pretending to be a Permaculturist AFTER I talked about it, not a word in years about that before. You are a very consistent liar. At this point I don’t even believe you live in the Ozarks; you are probably a St. Louis basement dweller. Nobody hates you here, so if your goal is to be hated as your comment implies, your “mission accomplished” claim is as empty as GW’s. LOL! We dislike and pity you because you are extremely repulsive and pathetic.
JuanP on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:43 pm
I have been farming for two years, Exceptionalist! You claim you farm; it is not the same. LOL!
JuanP on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:48 pm
Delusional Davy “Greggie, I never said Asperger was dumb just without a formed personality. He is a walking personality disorder and likely a ticking time bomb for pain and suffering.”
More lies and projections from the board’s most insane regular. He calls Anon dumb several times a day. To claim that he NEVER did is beyond the pale! And, if anyone here is a “walking personality disorder” and a “ticking time bomb” it is Davy. The FBI should investigate Davy before it is too late!
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 5:54 pm
Juanita, you live in a beach front condo and claim to be a farmer, what a joke.
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 6:01 pm
“Juanita, you live in a beach front condo and claim to be a farmer, what a joke.”
There is no need for jealousy Davy. You can always get your own beach front condo too.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 6:32 pm
Juanita, dumb and dumbass are two different conditions.
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 6:58 pm
“Juanita, dumb and dumbass are two different conditions.”
While they may be different conditions, they both have one thing in common. They are names that children call each other when they are unable to get their emotions out of the way. Although admittedly, children from good upbringings usual don’t use the slander dumbass, until they reach their pre-teen years.
JuanP on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:01 pm
Delusional Davy “Juanita, you live in a beach front condo and claim to be a farmer, what a joke.”
I live in a beachfront condo and I am an urban farmer who rents space in a local urban farm. My wife and I volunteered weekly there for a year and then farmed for another year, and we have already committed and paid for one more year. We also are helping four farmer friends who are starting a new farm, a commercial nursery, and an herbalist business. We volunteeer at other local farms, too. I also grow organic food at community gardens and teach others how to do it at community, school, and hospital gardens. I also manage a community garden which I designed for the county and volunteer as a Master Gardener. I also design and build raised bed gardens and food forests for other people.
JuanP on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:03 pm
Delusional Davy “Juanita, dumb and dumbass are two different conditions.”
They are not conditions, son of a whore, they are infantile insults!
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:13 pm
“Greggie, I never said Asperger was dumb just without a formed personality.”
Most geniuses have difficulty socializing with less intelligent people. One of the biggest hurdles they have to overcome in life, is being compartmentalized into the lowest common demoninator.
The average IQ in the world is ~100. Just slightly lower in both the U.S. and in Canada. Anonymouse1, or Asperger as you so fondly call him, is obviously far more intelligent than the average human being.
There really is no need for you to attack him over that Davy. Just try to enjoy your own life with your own personal intellectual limitations.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:20 pm
juanita, you are not a farmer you are a glorified gardener. Give it a rest. You do not live the life. You live in a beachfront condo and commute to a garden. You may advise people on gardening. A real farmer lives the life 24/7. A real farmer rarely leave his real farm because you have no time to spare. Real farming is a marginal affair. You barely make ends meet and there is never enough time. I am not talking the corporate farms or large well integrated family farms. I am talking small farming and part time/full time farming where a spouse works off the farm. If you were a real farmer you would not be living at the beach playing the beach games you do.
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:21 pm
“I also manage a community garden which I designed for the county and volunteer as a Master Gardener. I also design and build raised bed gardens and food forests for other people.”
There is no need for you to explain yourself to Davy, JuanP. He is very well aware of your accomplishments, and had nothing but good things to say about you here for years, before he lost his marbles, and went completely off of the deep end.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:24 pm
Greggie, this is who you are defending and being friends with. I think you have the serious intellectual limitations:
“Anonymouse1 on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 4:54 pm Since comprehension is not your strong suit, here is it again. You are not working in any ‘field’ not, figuratively, nor literally. Dumb-ass. Your ‘field work’, consists entirely of what you are doing now. Furiously mashing the refresh button on your discount cell-phone. You are a habitual liar, and prone to fits of wild exaggeration, and self-aggrandizement. A feature, not a bug. Dumbass. Your ‘articles’ such as they are, consist almost entirely of zerohedge cut and pastes that no one reads, that you hide behind tinyurls. The other half of the time, you steal other words, and cut and paste them without even attempting attribution. When you are not doing that, its a endless torrent of delusions, rants, and bile form the boards resident mental case. If not from you directly, then form one of sock-puppets. Its a busy ‘work’ schedule indeed, exceptionlturd, and one, you clearly take, just a little too seriously….”
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:26 pm
“You barely make ends meet and there is never enough time.”
Then where, pray tell, do you find so much time to troll this forum, let alone electing yourself as the self appointed moderator, of an unmoderated Internet discussion forum? I know, it does sound a little bit crazy, would you not agree?
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:27 pm
“There is no need for you to explain yourself to Davy, JuanP.”
One thing is apparent about you two is how much you like to brag about yourselves and on each other. No wonder you are best of friends.
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:33 pm
“Greggie, this is who you are defending and being friends with. I think you have the serious intellectual limitations:”
People have been asking you Davy, for years now, to please keep it civil, but you continue to refuse. You have shit in your own bed, and now you get to sleep in it. There is only one solution to your little problem, but I have absolutely no doubt, that you don’t have the intelligence to figure it out.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:35 pm
Well greggie I work all day long and every day. I take very little time off. I don’t watch TV or listen to the radio. I farm and screw with extremist on PO dot come. You should be the one talking. You don’t do shit but sit on your ass most of the day at the hacienda on PO dot com and pointing fingers at me. I am doing fine. It is you all that can’t stand the fact that I am good at what I do and still man handle 5-6 extremist sometimes at one time. Geeze, you gangbangers come at me 5-6 at once. What a bunch of losers
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:36 pm
“One thing is apparent about you two is how much you like to brag about yourselves and on each other. ”
I know far more about you Davy, than you know about both myself, and JuanP put together.
You’re projecting again Davy.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:39 pm
“The gang of extremist have been asking you Davy, for years now, to please keep it civil, but you continue to refuse to be belittled and attacked by us. We have shit in your bed, but you throw it back at us and make us sleep in it. There is only one solution to our little problem, but we have doubt we can ever change. We don’t have the intelligence to figure it out because we are too extreme and emotional.”
There fixed that stupidity from the board troll
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:41 pm
“It is you all that can’t stand the fact that I am good at what I do and still man handle 5-6 extremist sometimes at one time. Geeze, you gangbangers come at me 5-6 at once. What a bunch of losers.”
All of the individuals that you refer to Davy, are entitled to their own opinions. The fact that you continue to believe that you can tell others what they are allowed to think, feel, believe, or post, not only makes you an extremist, but completely delusional.
You need psychiatric help Davy, in a bad way.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:45 pm
Greggie, you are the definition of a hypocrite mixed with bad manners.
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:45 pm
” We have shit in your bed, but you throw it back at us and make us sleep in it.”
In all honesty Davy, can you not see how totally insane your above post is?
You need help Davy.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:50 pm
“All of the individuals that you refer to Davy, are entitled to their own opinions.”
Greggie, don’t flatter yourself. It is group censorship from a very small group of sick people engaged in emotional extremism.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:52 pm
“In all honesty Davy, can you not see how totally insane your above post is? You need help Davy.”
Greggie, you are the troll that comes on here daily looking to fight with an American. You need to get back to that psychiatrist you told us about in November.
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:57 pm
“Greggie, you are the definition of a hypocrite mixed with bad manners.”
Davy, I was a business executive of a large organization, with billions of dollars in assets. I have hired and fired hundred of people. To this day, thousands of people know me by name, which is the main reason why I do not use my real name on this forum. I was recently elected as the president of my local community organization. I am highly respected by both my family, and my community.
There is only one person on this forum Davy, who is routinely in conflict with others. That person would be you.
I have both the experience, and the credentials, but I can’t help you to get your life back on track. Only you can help yourself by taking that first step.
Please, for the love of God, go and speak with a mental healthcare professional, and stop trolling all of the other people on this forum.
Anonymouse1 on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 7:58 pm
The exceptionlturd only latched on the term ‘Asperger’ because a least one other poster some time back, stated the he (the eturd), appeared to be suffering from it himself. Wasn’t me, or any of us btw.
Davyturd as it happens, has, along the way, been accused, or asked, if he was suffering from pretty much every mainstream mental disability there is. Yes including his latest favorite slur. I doubt he even knows what the term means. Eventually, he will get tired of it, and latch onto some new term that someone more insightful than himself uses in a sentence. He tends to ride others coat-tails and appropriate others achievements and even turns of phrase, as his own. His rampant cutting and pasting without attribution is but one example of this behavior.
Who knows, maybe he will go back to ‘Weasel’ again someday.
Dumbass.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 8:03 pm
Greggie, that is why you are so fucked up. You think because you were “what you dished on yourself above” that that makes you special and right. You are a double standard hypocrite with severe emotional problems. Some of the worst personalities are ones that came from what you say you were made out of. You come here to let out anger for your miserable life by attacking Americans. It is simple greggie you assassinate characters that you don’t agree with. You don’t do shit with your life and now you are angry and that is why you find pleasure here.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 8:06 pm
Asperger, this is not a social media place it is a place to comment ideas and facts. Your last comment that could be considered a contribution was 7/28. Until you say something you are nothing. Your stupid stories about this and that person you hate are regurgitations. You say the same thing over and over. You rarely comment ideas that mean something. You are the definition of noise and emotional disturbance.
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 8:16 pm
“ou come here to let out anger for your miserable life by attacking Americans. It is simple greggie you assassinate characters that you don’t agree with.”
More of your usual delusional bullshit Davy. I could care less what tax farm people were born into, and I firmly stand behind my assertion that people are entitled to their own opinions. Whether I agree with their opinions, or not, is of zero relevance.
You’re projecting again Davy. Please get some very badly needed psychological help.
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 8:19 pm
“Asperger, this is not a social media place it is a place to comment ideas and facts.”
Correct, an unmoderated Internet discussion forum where people are free to present their own views, ideas, thoughts, and opinions, without being attacked by you Davy, on a daily basis.
Give it a rest already.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 8:23 pm
Greggie, give it a rest. Calm down and please don’t kick the dog. You need anger management classes. You shouldn’t be on a blog like this where you lose your temper. Think about your family and friends and the mental deterioration you have gone through since your retired and now spend most of your time here.
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 8:25 pm
Correct, an unmoderated Internet discussion forum where people are free to present their own views, ideas, thoughts, and opinions, without being censored by the gang of extremist.
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 8:29 pm
Nobody is telling you what you are allowed to think, feel, believe, or post Davy. They are only asking you to be civil, and to stop attacking them because their views do not support your agenda.
You are projecting again.
Anonymouse1 on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 8:30 pm
Dumb-ass
Moderate that, excpetionalturd
Davy on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 8:37 pm
Greggie, stop trying to convince yourself you are right. You are not. You are not civil and you and your gang practice group censorship. The fact dumbass Asperger chimed in on your behalf is just more of this bad behavior of group censorship. What comment have you made today? I know Asperger hasn’t made one. I believe you haven’t said a friggin thing. This whole time you have been here today has been you attacking me an American. You hate Americans like me and you can’t control yourself. You need to get back to that psychiatrist you told us about in November. Asperger needs to get in to see one. Juanita needs to go back on his meds. The three of you have serious personality problems.
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 8:57 pm
My username on this forum Davy is not greggie. As long as you choose to bully, harass, personally attack, disrespect, belittle, and act out like a spoiled brat, the retaliations will continue. You have been repeatedly warned by both myself, and other far more respectful people than yourself.
Give it a rest already Davy. Enough is enough. Please go and speak with a mental healthcare professional. You are not only a danger to yourself, but to other people. You need to be reported to your local authorities ASAP.
GregT on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 9:06 pm
And Davy,
There is only one person on this forum who believes that he is the self appointed moderator, who is allowed to tell others what they are allowed to think, feel, beliebve, or post.
That person would be you, and you have absolutely no right to do so.
JuanP on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 10:14 pm
Greg “There is no need for you to explain yourself to Davy, JuanP.”
I know. I just hope that someone else may read that and feel inspired to do those things, too. I consider those activities rewarding and worthy. I think urban farming and growing organic food in backyards need to become growing trends in a collapsing world.
JuanP on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 10:17 pm
Delusional Davy “A real farmer lives the life 24/7. A real farmer rarely leave his real farm because you have no time to spare.”
And I am supposed that is what you are, right? ROFLMFAO! God, you are a pathetic freak!
Anonymouse1 on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 10:24 pm
A real troll lives the life 24/7. A real troll rarely leaves the interwebs because you have no time to spare.
Fixed it for ya, expcetionalturd. You’re welcome, no need to thank me.
JuanP on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 10:27 pm
Delusional Davy “Well greggie I work all day long and every day. I take very little time off.”
God, my fucking throat hurts from laughing so hard. I consider myself smart and creative but I couldn’t make up more ridiculous shit if I tried with all my heart. We really unhinged the freak today. Mission accomplished! LOL!