We've talked about the lost decade of Japan, but few realize that they suffered an economic collapse, yet I don't see how you can describe a sudden drop of 27% of your high water GDP, a series of oscillation ups and downs between growth and contraction, and not reaching economic parity to your high until 15years later anything other than a collapse. But that is exactly what happened, their economy collapsed in on itself.
This serves as a very useful reminder that an economic collapse doesn't necessarily entail a complete collapse of society. How the economic collapse plays out depends on a variety of factors, and the fact that Japan's culture is one of conformance, coupled with the fact that they were a close US ally, helped ameliorate the situation. But this is something that we in the US need to think about, as far too often we think of economic collapses as something like we see with Argentina or Wiemar Germany. That's not to say that an economic collapse of America would play out more like it did for Japan, far from it in my opinion, but it is something to consider.
Friday, March 15, 2013
1 comment:
Disagreements and countervailing views are welcome, however, comments will be deleted if:
-They have emoticons.
-If it is obvious that you have not read the post.
-Obvious Spam, and it takes me about a quarter second to determine if it is spam since you all write your comments the same way.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Me
- Cogitans Iuvenis
- Seattle resident whose real name is Kevin Daniels. This blog covers the following topics, libertarian philosophy, realpolitik, western culture, history and the pursuit of truth from the perspective of a libertarian traditionalist.
Japan didn't have any looting after the 2011 earthquake either, as I recall. Very different culture from ours over there. But our Great Depression didn't result in nationwide lawlessness or anarchy either, dire as times were.
ReplyDeletePerceptions shape people's reaction to events. Perception is more important than reality...If society accepts a situation as reasonable, it seems to hold on well enough. Masses respond when they feel a situation is unfair (the reason novels have changed societies and political institutions). On the flip side, they are also perfectly capable of accepting all manner of nasty things if the paradigm of society considers it to be 'fair' or 'just'. So, for instance, a society that accepts child labor without any restraint, as things were in eighteenth century London, doesn’t bat an eye that only seven in one hundred children survive three years in the workhouses.
Fast forward to today, and people now feel far more entitled than ever before, empowered by a constant flow of information on the world wide web validating such claims. Take away what they feel entitled to and there's a high likelihood for social collapse and mass predatory violence. I don't see any solution other than to change paradigms in a manner slow enough to meet the acceptance of the masses. We obviously can't go on the way we are. The key word there is slowly.