We the People Series: The following paragraph summarizes history’s “maleness” through the lens represented by Brett Kavanaugh’s recent appointment to SCOTUS. So here goes.
Safety in social relations is on top of the list, but it has matured into a desire to live free from fear. The need for physically strong protecting leaders facilitated male dominance. However, the connective tissue composed of dominant men throughout this history fails to reveal alternatives. It must. John Elkington’s introduction of TBL brings this point home in the last sentence of the first chapter.
“Developing this comprehensive approach to sustainable development and environmental protection will be a central governance challenge – and, even more critically, a market challenge – in the 21st century.”
Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business,” Capstone, 1997
The expression and fulfillment of need, once represented by trade as a social and economic activity, has become the abstraction of “stock” as an economic activity. Elkington asks,
“Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?”
The “central governance challenge” has yet to be accepted in the following decade. The Senators are talking without listening, members of Congress scurry and hurry better than ever. There are warnings by Elizabeth Warren (D-CT) on the weakening of Dodd-Frank’s demand for accountability.
Tribes form, and trade or war between matures into national security through conquest, or becoming interdependent through trade. Little has changed in this give-and-take process for 5,000 years. One problem, though, physical supremacy is still considered the final prize. It is not.
The annual value of trading derives from bets on labor, innovation, and cheating. Today, the dividend value of this bet is thousands of times higher than the total paid in wage income in the same period. From the viewpoint of observers, this path leads to catastrophic social events, the most recent being the Great Recession of 2008. A few years later, in January 2020, Elkingon’s prognosis of the challenge exposed once more the fragility of assumptions built on capital and nothing but wealth, so help them, God.
A few years later, in January 2020, Elkingon’s prognosis of the challenge exposed once more the fragility of assumptions built on capital and nothing but wealth, so help them, God. Tribes form, and trade or war between matures into national security policy through entirely new forms of conquest, such as becoming interdependent through trade. Little has changed in this give and take between men and “their” families, tribe, and nation for 5,000 years. One problem, though, physical supremacy is still considered the final prize. It is not.
How Did We Get Here?
One of the sources of this failure comes from establishing a basis for congressional independence and power. Bruce Babbitt, Bill Bradley, James Fallows, Mike Kinsley, and Chuck Peters were encouraged by Nicholas Lemann, Gary Hart, Paul Tsongas, and other privileged white males to develop workable across-aisle relationships with the minority party and the Executive Branch. Upon implementation, that became Bill Clinton in 1992, when the Congress of the United States lost its ability to govern.
A new, wealthy group of equity owners arrived to forecast the shift from manufacturing to the information age. Supporting working families and unions decreased in favor of technical professionals. Laborers live in other countries. Economists called it the “death of distance.” The influence smelled like big packs of crisp hundred-dollar bills in every urban electoral district. The government’s national leadership fell into vats of cash because they needed it. The tragedy of the George Bush wars and the policy obstruction aimed at the Barach Obama presidency like a shotgun exposed every raw nerve of America, leading to POTUS45.
If this sounds a little off to you, please read about the Atari Democrats. The Atari video game is gone, but not the rise of the neo-liberal compromise. Make your case for when and how we got into this mess (Comment) (NY Times Story).
The logic of how technology stole government, from the lessons stretching back to the Atari Dems to today, leads this “we the people series” to the root of being good people to the third in this series. If you subscribe a return to it in a couple of years will occur. Got now, please read Truth in a Hurricane.