Every other day there's a news story out of the UK describing its descent into some sideshow version of totalitarianism. It wasn't brought low by Nazis or Vikings. Some homosexuals, transsexuals, feminists and university sociology departments turned the nation into a gulag without spilling a drop of blood. What the fuck happened?
There's pervasive institutional rot across the western world due to legalism and financialization. The Reformation provides a good historical analogy for this period, but maybe the "white flight" era in the US is even better.
My great grandfather moved his family out of the city into the far exurbs of Cleveland after a thief broke into their home. That happened decades before the racial strife of the late 60's and long before the highway system made it feasible to commute to city centers for corporate jobs. The quality of life in cities couldn't really compare with the life in the country for many people. Consequently many cities in the US just fell apart as the increasingly mobile population left for literally greener pastures. People made individual choices and moved en masse without any government intervention.
I think we'll start to see the same thing happen--not as a result of physical movement of populations, but by abandonment of institutions, like universities, corporations, and banks.
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