ideas once on the fringe....

Hell....I thought the South lost!  so what's going on????
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204482304574219813708759806.html

Maybe Jefferson Davis was right....the issues of the 1860s  were bound to reassert themselves......are reasserting themselves

Today’s devolutionists, of all stripes, can trace their pedigree to the “anti-federalists” who opposed the compact that came out of Philadelphia as a bad bargain that gave too much power to the center at the expense of the limbs. Some of America’s most vigorous and learned minds were in the anti-federalist camp; their ranks included Virginia’s Patrick Henry, of “give me liberty or give me death” renown. The sainted Jefferson, who was serving as a diplomat in Paris during the convention, is these days claimed by secessionists as a kindred anti-federal spirit, even if he did go on to serve two terms as president.

The anti-federalists lost their battle, but history, in certain respects, has redeemed their vision, for they anticipated how many Americans have come to feel about their nation’s seat of federal power. “This city, and the government of it, must indubitably take their tone from the character of the men, who from the nature of its situation and institution, must collect there,” the anti-federalist pamphleteer known only as the Federal Farmer wrote. “If we expect it will have any sincere attachments to simple and frugal republicanism, to that liberty and mild government, which is dear to the laborious part of a free people, we most assuredly deceive ourselves.”

In the mid-19th century, the anti-federalist impulse took a dark [indeed!!,,,, this and the following is that narrative that must be overcome] -]turn, attaching itself to the cause of the Confederacy, which was formed by the unilateral secession of 13 southern states over the bloody issue of slavery. Lincoln had no choice but to go to war to preserve the Union  [nonsense --- he went to war to get  the precise result this author is now weighing in with a "new" oberservation about] —and ever since, anti-federalism, in almost any guise, has had to defend itself from the charge of being anti-modern and indeed retrograde.... [which it was.....that is part of the point.... this is the modern and ancient world clashing]

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Jack Molloy

The U.S., as envisioned by some percolating secessionist movements.

But nearly a century and a half has passed since Johnny Rebel whooped for the last time. Slavery is dead, and so too is the large-scale industrial economy that the Yankees embraced as their path to victory over the South and to global prosperity. The model lasted a long time, to be sure, surviving all the way through the New Deal and the first several decades of the post-World War II era, coming a cropper at the tail end of the 1960s, just as the economist John Kenneth Galbraith was holding out “The New Industrial State,” the master-planned economy, as a seemingly permanent condition of modern life.

yesterday's Daily Reckoning

Lurching Toward an Impasse

Where We Are on the Looping Sequence of Reformation

Joel Bowman Reporting from Buenos Aires, Argentina... Something is happening here and you don’t know what it is, Do you, Mr. Jones? — Bob Dylan, “Ballad of a Thin Man” >From Wall Street to Los Angeles, sea to shining sea, occupiers are taking to the streets. No longer is it credible to say of protests and massive civil unrest abroad “It will never happen here.” To do so today would be a denial of reality. It is here...wherever that “here” may be for you. And if it is not, it soon will be. For many Mr. and Mrs. Joneses, this is quite a confusing time. Frightening, even. They know something is happening here...but they don’t know what it is. And that includes many of the Joneses in the occupying camps themselves. They know they are angry...that they have been dealt a rotten hand...that they are the “have nots.” But they don’t know why...or who to blame. Then, along comes an “open source” movement. They didn’t even know such a thing existed a few weeks ago. But they are drawn to its energy and their fellow downtrodden within it. The see that it is going somewhere, doing something. It is on all the news channels and in the paper. And now they are neck deep in it, swept along with the tides of change, resistance and revolution. The oldies put on their old Dylan records and imagine they are young again. The young put on their new Dylan records and wish they were old enough to remember the originals. They link arms, swap sad stories and reason that they are on the same side, the team of the cheated and the scammed. On this point they might well be right. But on what to do about it, opinions differ wildly. And so the movement marches on...some say right into the winds of a new kind of “reformation.” Here’s John Robb of Global Guerrillas, an expert in open source warfare, with a “simplification of the historical pattern of Reformation”: Universal system. Compliance and participation enforced by violence. Bureaucratic and lethargic. Corrupt and unfair. Hardship and misery. Loss of legitimacy. Challenged by reformers. Corruption exposed. New technology unleashes a cacophony of criticism. Reforms are rejected by the existing bureaucracy. New, competitive systems are launched. An exodus begins. People leave the old system to join the new. The old system fights back. A fight ensues between the old and the new. Eventually a peace is achieved and a new era begins. If indeed Mr. Robb’s thinking here is correct — or even close to it — one might fairly ask, “Where are we, approximately, along this historically looping sequence?” Certainly the “compliance and participation enforced by violence” point has been with us for a while...as has the bureaucracy, lethargy, corruption and consequent misery for the masses. But what about the rest? Some might argue that the financial collapse of 2008-09 first exposed the fetid corruption of the system, causing its legitimacy to be, at the very least, called into question. Further along the steps, the Occupy Wall Street crowd has formerly adopted the “open source warfare” Mr. Robb describes — enabled largely by huge leaps in communications technology. The OWS movement is based on the Arab Spring model — horizontal, no hierarchy or bureaucracy, geographically decentralized, consensus decision making, etc. Now take a look at the movement. Listen to it. “Cacophony of criticism unleashed”? Check. That leaves us somewhere between “Reforms are rejected by the existing bureaucracy” and “New, competitive systems are launched.” The world is lurching toward an impasse, a crossroads between the old and the new. Awaiting rejection from the establishment...and mounting challenges to its hegemony. It is an epoch of sorts. A chance for a brand new experiment in freedom and voluntarism...or an opportunity to dive back into the failed model of the state, only to begin the loopback process all over again. The role of the economist — and for any astute social observer — is to shine a light on the unseen. Any old wirebug can report what’s happening before his very eyes. But what’s going on behind the scenes? What’s happening on the fringe? Change, after all, is nurtured at the margin, far from the nipple of the bell curve...far from anyone calling themselves “the other 99%.” There is, indeed, another movement under way. Its participants are not wasting time camping out on Wall Street or attending occupations in other capital cities. And they’re certainly not marching on the steps of Washington DC, as one republican presidential candidate — who hopes one day to occupy the White House himself — urged them to do. They know there’s no point in pleading with those who aggress against them. They understand it’s like asking a sociopath to show them a little empathy. It’s impossible. And a waste of valuable time just the same. These people realize that, to be successful, an appeal to reason must be first directed toward reasonable people. These individuals also know there is a target on their back...and that there’s little point talking to the maniac with the gun. They have gone underground. They are saving — NOT “hording” — gold, trading alternative currencies, experimenting with resilient communities, preparing for a new world and generally thinking outside the box. And they are not begging permission from the state to do so. These revolutionaries are not utopians. They are realists. They understand that change must come about peacefully, through means of voluntary exchange and the spread of ideas. And they are building communities — on and offline — to facilitate just that. Above all, they are aware, as Murray Rothbard expressed in his work, For a New Liberty, that they must pay close attention to the failed experiments of history if they wish not to repeat them. Wrote Mr. Rothbard: “The idea of a strictly limited constitutional State was a noble experiment that failed, even under the most favorable and propitious circumstances. [the Jefferson Davis - died of a theory idea] If it failed then, why should a similar experiment fare any better now? No, it is the conservative laissez-fairist, the man who puts all the guns and all the decision-making power into the hands of the central government and then says, ‘Limit yourself’; it is he who is truly the impractical utopian.” More on this to come... Bill has more on the growing discontent in today’s essay, below...

The Daily Reckoning Presents

Vive La Revolution!

Bill Bonner The Occupy Wall Street movement is getting a fair amount of press. The movement, as you know, dear reader, is a loose assembly of the jobless, the homeless and the shiftless. Troublemakers, every one of them, with no coherent or sensible view of what is wrong or how to fix it. But what’s wrong with that? The Occupy Wall Street protests started on Sept. 17 with a few dozen demonstrators who tried to pitch tents in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Since then, hundreds have set up camp in a park nearby and have become increasingly organized, lining up medical aid and legal help and printing their own newspaper, the Occupied Wall Street Journal. About 100 demonstrators were arrested on Sept. 24 and some were pepper-sprayed. On Saturday police arrested 700 on charges of disorderly conduct and blocking a public street as they tried to march over the Brooklyn Bridge. Police said they took five more protesters into custody on Monday, though it was unclear whether they had been charged with any crime. On Monday, the zombies stayed on the sidewalks as they wound through Manhattan’s financial district chanting, “How to fix the deficit: End the war, tax the rich!” They lurched along with their arms in front of them. Some yelled, “I smell money!” The US is probably getting ready for a revolution. Back in the Cold War days, the CIA was asked to do a portrait of a country that might have a revolution. It decided that such a country would have three characteristics: A big gap between rich and poor. A middle class that was disappearing...or one that never existed in the first place. A lot of people with a grudge. The US fits each of these criteria. And then some others the spooks hadn’t thought about. The U6 broad measure of unemployment is going up...with 16.5% of the population without work. There are 6.2 million people who have been looking for a job for more than 6 months. Americans are $7 trillion poorer, according to David Rosenberg, than they were 4 years ago — and property prices are still going down. Yes, there’s also a Great Correction in progress. It, along with the policies of the US government, grind the faces of the poor. Millions of marginally successful people think the system has failed them. Youth joblessness is at Great Depression levels. More than 45 million are on food stamps. People come to think what they must think when they must think it. So, a person who feels he has failed must come to terms with it. He must find a reason that gets himself off the hook. It must be someone else’s fault. It was not his fault he failed his chemistry exam. The ‘system’ should provide him with a good job anyway. It was not his fault his house got taken away; the system caused prices to fall...and his job got exported to Mumbai. It was not his fault he didn’t save any money; the banks took advantage of him mercilessly. He may even get a “deficiency notice” — telling him he has to pay the bank for its loss on his foreclosed house. Add insult to injury, why don’t you! The guy has a legitimate beef! It wasn’t his fault that the Nixon administration cut the link to gold in 1971. It wasn’t his fault the Chinese produced things better and cheaper. It wasn’t his fault that the feds kept stimulating the economy...and encouraging him to go deeper and deeper into debt at artificially low interest rates. And it certainly wasn’t he who caused the housing bubble to blow up...or who caused it in the first place. But one thing you can depend on. Not many people will do the hard work of connecting the kneebone of this disaster to the legbone that caused it. And he won’t want to make the sacrifices necessary to protect himself from it either. (Our advice: cut expenses to almost zero...save money...buy gold...become a bankruptcy lawyer.) Instead, he’ll join the revolution. Of course, people do not join revolutions for good reasons. They join them for bad ones. They expect miracles. One wants free money. The other wants power. One wants to see his brother-in-law, who earns big money as a currency trader at JPMorgan, brought low. Another just wants to get high. One expects his mortgage to disappear. Another wants the whole neighborhood to disappear. One hopes to see his dead wife rise from the grave...the other hopes his live wife will fall into it. One believes the bankers are rich and evil. Another believes the oil companies are rich and evil. A third thinks all rich people are evil. And a fourth believes that all people are evil, even those in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Some want to save porpoises. Some want people to use only natural deodorant. And a third thinks the world uses too much oil...and that only people who drive Priuses should be allowed on the road on Sunday. He owns a Prius dealership. It is fun to mock the protestors. That’s why we do it. They are such easy targets. But here at The Daily Reckoning we always stand with the powerless, the aimless and the witless. We are champions of the underdog...the lost cause and the diehard. So, we lock arms with the protestors and pledge our solidarity. Vive la revolution! But the poor protestors are just victims of history. When the US embraced its empire it condemned its middle classes. Why? Because that’s how empires work. They bring in cheap goods — and sometimes money itself — from outside. Whether they are taken as booty or traded for the imperial currency, the effect is about the same; they undermine local industries and local wages. Ancient Rome imported wheat from Egypt, by the boatload, and gave it to citizens (an early form of food stamps). Result: the price of wheat collapsed. Small farmers couldn’t compete with free wheat. They couldn’t earn a living. The Romans also brought in slaves. Rich, politically-connected Romans took over the small farms, consolidated them into big plantations, and ran them with slave labor. Again, the local labor was out of luck. Things got so bad for the small farmers that they sold their children into slavery...and then, themselves. Then, in alarm, an edict prohibited Roman farmers from selling themselves into slavery. They were required to remain on their farms...and at work. Spain ran a very different, short-lived empire in the 16th century. It conquered New World civilizations and imported gold and silver on a colossal scale. It was as if they were printing money! This easy money made the Spaniards rich. They used it like America uses her dollars — to buy things from overseas. Pretty soon, the Spanish neglected their own manufactures and their own farming. Prices rose. Spain’s nascent middle class was smothered in the crib. Are things so different now? The rich get rich. The middle classes get poorer; they have to compete with imperial plunder...riches coming from Asia, bought with dollars that were never earned...and never will be redeemed. America’s middle classes were happy to sell their own children into perpetual debt servitude. The kids face obligations 5 to 15 times as great as annual output. Unless they revolt, they will have to work their entire lives to pay for their parents’ excesses. But what will they do when future generations can take no more? They cannot sell themselves into slavery. They’ve already done so. Most face a lifetime of student debt, mortgage debt, and medical debt (aka Medicaid and Medicare), already. What can they do? Join the revolution! Regards, Bill Bonner, for The Daily Reckoning