Chaotic Economy, Chaotic Society?
How might the former contribute to the latter?
Our (U.S.) economy is fundamentally chaotic: every part influences all other parts and is in turn influenced by all other parts. A change in any part of it can be fundamentally destabilizing, leading to changes throughout the economy. Also, that chain reaction of changes can become uncontrollable, leading to collapse — depression — or hyperinflation (quite possibly followed by collapse — though these days an amazing number of nations are carrying on with ghastly rates of inflation).
Given the place of the economy in people’s lives, the chaotic nature of the economy as a process (the process of producing/acquiring goods/services) generates a certain level of chaos — instability — for all people. Can anyone approach life with any real certainty that any plan will survive the vagaries of the functioning of the economy?
I submit that, given the place of the economy in society, the chaotic nature of the economy contributes to, is indeed the major contributor to a societal chaos more generally that has enveloped this nation throughout its history.
The evidence of societal chaos, throughout our history, has been plain to see. Since its inception observers of this nation have noted how bustling, boisterous, restless, etc. it has been. You don’t have to be Count Alexis de Tocqueville to perceive that.
Not all of that energy has been positive. This land has also always been a particularly violent place. Sure, going back in time great violence accompanied the formation of most, if not all nation-states. In all of them areas of lawlessness existed until order could be brought from the ‘center’. What is unique to the U.S. is the amount of violence that has always existed in its settled, most ‘civilized’ areas, and in the time since as a nation all of it became ‘settled’.
Our chaos has included our national politics, whenever one party has not totally dominated that geopolitical level. When one party has dominated for a period of time the other party has tended to be rather polite in its role of ‘loyal opposition’. When both sides have had a chance of winning the presidency/Senate/House of Representatives, the gloves have come off: our national politics then becomes a mirror for the general state of a societal chaos that has always existed in this nation.
To grasp how much the economy contributes to that, imagine if this nation had a truly stable economy. Imagine being able to plan a life with a near-100% certainty that one’s plan would not be derailed by inflation (including inflation in interest rates), recessions resulting in lay-offs, with a threat of even a depression, ‘downsizing’, etc. People in this nation live in a permanently agitated state for the simple reason that we cannot reasonably count on a reasonable degree of stability in that supremely important area of life.
Sure, other nations, such as in Europe, have an economy similar to ours. It is noteworthy that those nations have all, to the extent they could, adopted policies and programs that have as their goal lessening the instability of the economy and protecting people against whatever instability yet exists. All nations’ economies are dependent to an extent, after all, on the state of the ‘global economy’.
That chaos in our material lives leads to chaos throughout our society, what ends up being a cultural chaos. Human beings raised in a chaotic social environment tend to be inculcated with a ‘need’ for chaos — and the more the better. They want chaos. Where it is lacking they will do what they can to create it.
Given the dim prospects in this nation for a life that is assured to be easy and comfortable, extremism — wherever it can be found — is one product of that need for chaos. People can go to extremes in all aspects of life, including hedonism, consumerism, religion, anti-religion, living ‘off the grid’, becoming ‘preppers’, etc. A life of crime is perhaps the apotheosis of a need for chaos: those who turn to it are usually people born into a most intense version of instability/chaos.
Again, the political process is an easy target. For many people engaged in extremist politics the particular side is of less personal importance than participation in itself is. Psychologically, the important thing is the chaos that is necessarily a part of political extremism.
Extremism initiated on one side justifies extremism on the other, with the sides taking turns in those positions. In my lifetime the initiator has alternated between the ‘right’ (1950’s thru early 60’s: McCarthyism, the John Birch Society, the Ku Klux Klan, etc.) then in the middle of the 1960’s the left (the SDS, the PLA, the Black Panthers, etc.), and now we have ‘Christian Nationalism’, ‘White Nationalism’, and the MAGAs, with a shared antinomy towards democracy making all of them extremist, even those who are nonviolent. To reiterate, extremism on one side is used to ‘justify’ (desired) extremism by people on the other side — and of course which side is the actual initiator and which is reacting to the extremism of the other side is a question that can be batted back and forth forever.
It is often said, ‘If you want peace, work for justice’. We can also say, ‘If you want a less chaotic society, work for a more stable economy’. We can work for both at the same time, as it happens: “A Most Beneficial Economic Change” (a “2 min read” here in Medium, with links to articles about that proposed change from varying perspectives — with nothing I publish here behind the paywall).