JOURNAL: LOYALTY?

Here's a very short deep think post.  Enjoy.

"...in the Clinton days, the hallmark of policy was, if you did this, how would it affect the bond market?" James Carville.

Globalization is in the process of eviscerating traditional loyalties.  In the 20th Century, loyalty to the nation-state (nationalism, often interwoven with ideology), was supreme.  In today's environment, a global marketplace is now the supreme power over the land.  It has drained the power of nation-states to control their finances, borders, people, etc.  Traditional ideologies and political solutions are in disarray as the fluctuating and often conflicting needs of the global marketplace override all other concerns.  As a result, nation-states are finding it increasingly impossible to govern and the political goods they can deliver are being depleted.   

Interestingly, nothing of any size that can attract loyalty has stepped into the breach, nor is it likely to.  Loyalty to a faceless and capricious (and sometimes vicious) global marketplace is impossible.  NOTE:  there is an animistic, in that it attaches meaning to natural phenomenon, cult in Anglo-Saxon countries devoted to 'free markets', which attracts some belief/faith but little true loyalty (in that few people would die for it).  With the replacement for the nation-state, that advances the interests of its members nowhere in sight, we have seen a growing shift in the primary loyalties of people to smaller groups that will -- to the corporation, family, gang, tribe, religious group, clan, virtual group, etc.

This shift in loyalty is proliferating, growing in strength since these groups can as easily access the global marketplace as easily as any nation-state.  With this access, they can deliver the benefits to their members that nation-states cannot or will not deliver.   

Comments

[juegos de estrategia]

globalization nuclear will destroy us

[Duncan Kinder]

"Interestingly, nothing of any size that can attract loyalty has stepped into the breach, nor is it likely to."

The Roman Catholic Church

[RAISER William]

Is the global, multi-national (non-national) corporation the entity stepping into the breach?

Perhaps more generally, money has become the only focus of "loyalty."

[EN]

"Free Market" economics if practiced by a nation state is something I'd die for. However, I've not seen any free markets yet. If they were free then they could fail, and that's out of the question. I won't die for government protected markets under any circumstances.

[Eminence Grise]

In my job search, I've run into more and more companies who want to hire someone "for the long run" and who is not a "job-hopper" who will bolt the instant the economy improves. Yet these same companies insist on long hours and low pay.

Aside from the obvious disconnect (an employee is more likely to be loyal if treated fairly when times are tough), the sheer hypocrisy is remarkable: it seems clear to me from the events of the past few years that the companies themselves (or at least their executives) have no loyalty to anything but profits. Yet they expect the serfs to be different? Unbelievable.

At this point, my chief concern is finding my "tribe" so I can have someone worthy of giving my loyalty to. But in a disconnected, fragmented society, that's proving tough.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=597307299]

"In that few people would die for it"....

I'd be a lot more comfortabe if that said "willing die for it". Thousands of people have died and are dying for it - they just don't know it.

[complexfatwa]

Re Eminence:
You are not alone in these experiences; this kind of behavior from corporate managers is endemic these days. I'm about to graduate college and this is the story I've heard over and over from recent grads. What's more, often after working long hours for low pay, the company: a) promotes people who spend more time manipulating the system than actually being productive (cronyism), or b) replaces you with another recent-grad that they can exploit all over again (plantation-employment). The social contract is broken at all levels.

[Hatty]

What are the characteristics of people who study the benefits of economic freedom and the consequences of the state that make us cultists?

[Hatty]

Oh, and while I would not kill to have a free market I would die to make free even the smallest market from aggressive violence.

[WarLord]

Globalization = Tea Baggers...

Interesting piece, the increasingly shrill and angry (cultish) political disourse on all sides seems to track with increasing globalization. Grid Lock is the natural offspring of this political anger so its a cascade or self fulfilling prophesy

[James Bowery]

Harry, since I've been very active in the Campaign for Liberty since the early days of the Ron Paul candidacy, I can tell you exactly what is cultish about the Austrian school of economics. It is quite literally unthinkable to them that sovereign individuals might not sign a social contract that obligated them to sacrifice themselves to protect the property rights of the wealthy:

"I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline. Particularly when one can’t see the details. Just the shapes and the thoughts that made them. The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window - no, I don’t feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body."

--Ayn Rand

[complexfatwa]

"It is quite literally unthinkable to them that sovereign individuals might not sign a social contract that obligated them to sacrifice themselves to protect the property rights of the wealthy"

Unfortunately, a huge segment of the American population has bought the sleight-of-hand that protecting the rich's property rights is synonymous with protecting their own wealth, an absurd formulation that's akin to the peasants thinking the landowner shares their interests.

The grounding of all moral goods in property rights is a hyper-materialist perversion.

[Daley]

James Bowery,

"I can tell you exactly what is cultish about the Austrian school of economics. It is quite literally unthinkable to them that sovereign individuals might not sign a social contract that obligated them to sacrifice themselves to protect the property rights of the wealthy:"

I'm not sure what the purpose of bringing up a bombastic, absurd quote from Ayn Rand is. Austrians aren't the same as Randians. Many Austrians have problems with the Randians.

And Austrians don't necessarily claim that individuals will always "sign a social contract that obligated them to sacrifice themselves to protect the property rights of the wealthy." Some Austrians are anarcho-capitalists, for example.

Aside from the politics, do you have major criticisms of the economics of the Austrian school? If so, I'd be interested in hearing them, as I've found some of your ideas on economics (such as the net asset tax) to be quite interesting and informative.

[Helmsley]

Funny that someone brought up Ayn Rand.

I love how people will cite Ayn Rand as some sort of refutation of Kevin MacDonald's thesis.

As if the kind of extremely atomized, hyper individualistic society completely driven by commerce and finance that Rand advocates is one which somehow wouldn't advance the interests that MacDonald analyzes.

That grotesque quote above - the New Yawk worship - says it all really.

An individual that shall dwell alone, prostrate before New Yawk, worshipping a people that shall dwell alone.

[id.themel.com]

Ayn Rand: "And then people tell me about pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage."

Of course, when those temples were built, the people ordering their construction were also on top of a prosperous society, probably including court philosophers who justified their supreme culture by pointing out its mighty works. History has proben THEM wrong, it may still prove Ayn Rand wrong.

[CAPT JOHN BIRCH]

MY GOD WHAT BRILLIANCE I SEE HERE....HAVE I DIED AND GONE TO IVORY TOWER ACADEMICA......ME THINKS AMOS AND PETRAEUS SHOULD CREATE A TRILOGY ON THE ,,US ARMY/MARINE COUNTER INSURGENCY FEILD MANUAL.........

IT IS WINTER NOW IN THE ANZA BORREGO DESERT......THIS WINTER WE WILL REENACT A ROMMEL TUYPE WAR AS IN THE 1164 CRUSADE.......

AS WE SWHOULKD ALL KNOW.....THIS IS NOT A GLOBAL CABAL...NOR TRIBAL POLITICS.......

THIS IS ROMAN CATHOLISISM VERSUS ISLAMIC FACISIM....

ONLY THE TALIBAN AND THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA NEED APPLY..........

[complexfatwa]

Why are you screaming? Are we supposed to take you more seriously because you can push caps-lock?