Re: Infrastructure - the joy and end of us all.
Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2005 5:17 pm
Let us go back a few hundred years when the infrastructures of today didn't exist. "Der Bauer" (german, meaning farmer or peasant farmer) was more of less self sufficient in a number of ways, especially if he was fortunate enough to own his own little chunk of land. So, there were the rich and the dirt poor and in between stood Der Bauer.
As the industrial revoltution began, the dirt poor that might luck into opportunity or the Bauer who left the farm might make his way into a proto-middle class/working class of people as supporting infrastructures like banks merchants, shippers and haulers needed ever more personnel as their businesses expanded. The church was no longer the number one employer.
Certainly by 1800 there was a burgeoning middle and upper middle class in the world as education became recognized as a stepping stone out of abject poverty. By the late 1800's there were vast stratifications created within the middle classes from the lowest common laborer to the skilled laborer, to the clerks, secretaries and lower level managerial positions on up to the upper middle class living and working as upper level managers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers or owning their own small businesses creating even more infrastructure.
The twentieth century heralded an explosion in infrastructure as technology went totally nuts. The middle class from its lowest rungs to its highest levels far out numbered the poor and the rich within any industrialized nation. This meant ever higher standards of living for all, as all in such countires became totally inmeshed in infrastructure and ever more dependent upon it.
The worlds resources were tapped to support the richest nation's infrastructures which it could easily do as most of the world still remained ignorant and lived in crushing poverty not far removed from how their forebearers lived 300 years ago.
Probably right after world war II as all the world became aware of how everyone else lived thanks to instant and global communications, Many of the "lesser", "supplier nations" wanted their piece of the pie. After a lot of independance fights to free themselves from the last of empire colonial rule and the subsequnce despot and nutball rulers, they come into th 21st century as rich and eager nations with their own growing middle classes consuming and spending just as their distant idols in the "free world" do.
More infrastructure is heaped on and the older industrialized nations now find themselves have to pay big money for the earth borne treasures of these distant lands that used to be cheap as one stagnant despot could be happy with far less than a modern entire nation will require to grow and expand.
So everyone finds that the rich nations have used and are continuing to use the bulk of the world's resources just to maintain a way of life and the valuable infrastructures so necessary to keep the bulk of their people in the status quo.
The meanest intelligence can see that this can't continue and that the infrastructure will collapse back to a certain lower level of performance and capability leaving many out of work and starving or worse in the streets creating a total breakdown of the social order all because they feel nearly instantly disposessed and lost for reasons their little minds can't fathom. They need and will find many suitable scapegoats that may or maynot be among the guilty for they themselves will bear a huge responsibility for most of the problems which will be debt related.
In the end, Der Bauer might once again be the man in the catbird's seat. He needs little or no infrastructure and little or no cash to survive. What he needs, he can sell his goods to acquire, as all about him scream the sky is falling. I hope the fall doesn't throw us that far back, but one never knows how bleak and black it will become. It will all depend on how irretrievably damaged parts of the infrastucture are and the period required to regain a fiscally sound society based on living and having much less than we enjoy today.
In a world where total isolation and self-sufficiency is looked at with suspicion and bemusement, such a lifestyle might be the one to have in future as many have already put their comments down here in favor of.
Richard Hull
As the industrial revoltution began, the dirt poor that might luck into opportunity or the Bauer who left the farm might make his way into a proto-middle class/working class of people as supporting infrastructures like banks merchants, shippers and haulers needed ever more personnel as their businesses expanded. The church was no longer the number one employer.
Certainly by 1800 there was a burgeoning middle and upper middle class in the world as education became recognized as a stepping stone out of abject poverty. By the late 1800's there were vast stratifications created within the middle classes from the lowest common laborer to the skilled laborer, to the clerks, secretaries and lower level managerial positions on up to the upper middle class living and working as upper level managers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers or owning their own small businesses creating even more infrastructure.
The twentieth century heralded an explosion in infrastructure as technology went totally nuts. The middle class from its lowest rungs to its highest levels far out numbered the poor and the rich within any industrialized nation. This meant ever higher standards of living for all, as all in such countires became totally inmeshed in infrastructure and ever more dependent upon it.
The worlds resources were tapped to support the richest nation's infrastructures which it could easily do as most of the world still remained ignorant and lived in crushing poverty not far removed from how their forebearers lived 300 years ago.
Probably right after world war II as all the world became aware of how everyone else lived thanks to instant and global communications, Many of the "lesser", "supplier nations" wanted their piece of the pie. After a lot of independance fights to free themselves from the last of empire colonial rule and the subsequnce despot and nutball rulers, they come into th 21st century as rich and eager nations with their own growing middle classes consuming and spending just as their distant idols in the "free world" do.
More infrastructure is heaped on and the older industrialized nations now find themselves have to pay big money for the earth borne treasures of these distant lands that used to be cheap as one stagnant despot could be happy with far less than a modern entire nation will require to grow and expand.
So everyone finds that the rich nations have used and are continuing to use the bulk of the world's resources just to maintain a way of life and the valuable infrastructures so necessary to keep the bulk of their people in the status quo.
The meanest intelligence can see that this can't continue and that the infrastructure will collapse back to a certain lower level of performance and capability leaving many out of work and starving or worse in the streets creating a total breakdown of the social order all because they feel nearly instantly disposessed and lost for reasons their little minds can't fathom. They need and will find many suitable scapegoats that may or maynot be among the guilty for they themselves will bear a huge responsibility for most of the problems which will be debt related.
In the end, Der Bauer might once again be the man in the catbird's seat. He needs little or no infrastructure and little or no cash to survive. What he needs, he can sell his goods to acquire, as all about him scream the sky is falling. I hope the fall doesn't throw us that far back, but one never knows how bleak and black it will become. It will all depend on how irretrievably damaged parts of the infrastucture are and the period required to regain a fiscally sound society based on living and having much less than we enjoy today.
In a world where total isolation and self-sufficiency is looked at with suspicion and bemusement, such a lifestyle might be the one to have in future as many have already put their comments down here in favor of.
Richard Hull