2011-01-10

Vox Day does socionomics

The darkening days
here is much to recommend this historical perspective; it is certainly more credible than conventional Great Man theory. But it also makes the same mistake that neoclassical economics makes with regard to economic actors in that it incorrectly ascribes rational action to nations and governments. Consider the two examples previously cited. The obvious risk to Japanese wealth in challenging American naval supremacy in the Pacific was much greater than the potential reward of controlling the oil from the Dutch East Indies, even when one takes President Roosevelt's 1941 oil embargo into account.

And the $144 billion annual cost of maintaining a military occupation force in Iraq could not possibly justify the $16 billion in oil imports from Iraq, even if the United States were taking the oil for free rather than paying for it. Nor could it make sense to defend the dollar by selling trillions of dollars worth of Treasury bonds to China when the nation is already insolvent by any traditional accounting measure.

But there is a different means of connecting what is taking place in the economy with current events, one that offers a better explanation for what appear to be increasingly awful events that are taking place with increasing regularity around the country. From the attempted assassination of Rep. Gifford in Arizona to the Mexican beheadings threatening to spill across the border and the White House's assertion of its right to murder American citizens without arrest or trial, the social mood appears to be darkening.
His article is for a general audience unacquainted with socionomics, and he touches on weakness in China and Europe.

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