[squirejons]

The collapse of large nations is a Good Thing for the working class majority: the elite always want large nations, especially large nations with lots of racial, cultural and language divisions. That makes it easier for the elite to control the nation. It's called the 'divide et impera' strategy. That was the founding principle of the USA (see the letter from madison from jefferson wherein madison writes that the divide et impera (divide and rule) tactic is the way to rule america (madison was worth 100 mill in today's dollars when he got his inheritance; jefferson, almost the same)).

When the elite can no longer hold large, divided nations together via violence and or propaganda, the working class majority form smaller, more homogeneous, less divided nations, nations that can be more easily controlled by the workers, and less easily controlled by the elite.

Factions are the friend of the rich and the enemy of the masses.

How do the elite create factions so they can rule? Enlarge the nation; import foreigners, especially those of another race and culture; create propaganda that focuses on identity politics; etc etc.

Of course the centrally controlled dogma of the american edu-propaganda system has programmed us to feel bad about collapse of nations. Oh, it's so sad that such and such nation is breaking up.

But that is an elite-centric propaganda meme. It is always a good thing when nations collapse and fall apart--a good thing from the perspective of the working class majority. Of course the more "educated" you are, the more you take the perspective of the elite--in general.

[spiderPig]

Thanks for the detailed comment. But could you go into a bit more detail about how the elite actually benefit from factions within a large nation? Like with an example taking today's elite into account.

[einhverfr]

I am going to take a stab at this. I would look at two things: the first is the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and the second is comparing Indonesia (as an American living in Indonesia) to the US.

When Rome fell, the result of the lack of central administration meant that the institution of Roman slavery began to evolve from proprietary rights over other people's actions to proprietary rights over land entrusted to other people. Over generations, the descendants of slaves became peasants with rights over the land they worked, with strong access to common resources. Nutrition improved in the lower classes. Laws were simplified.

Now this took some time. You don't see slavery turn into serfdom during the rein of Theodoric the Great, for example, but it's a general trend in history that during most of the Middle Ages, when power was not well concentrated in the hands of the King (which was the norm until relatively late) that the poor did relatively well.

Another good comparison might be between Indonesia today and the US today. Indonesia has a weak central government, with a very decentralized society. The result is that society runs, at least in the cities, in almost an inverted order to what we think of in the US: everyone but the obscenely wealthy live in gated communities, food production is widely distributed (and a substantial part of fruit and vegetable production happens in the cities). As a result, the diet of those in poverty in Jakarta tends to be rice, tempe, and fresh produce (though access to unpolluted drinking water is a problem, I suppose right now, the US has issues there too at least in some states).

Families are stronger and they become the primary form of support, instead of the government. This means that vertical transmission of wealth happens earlier in life (i.e. invest in your children's businesses because that's your retirement plan), and so forth.

On the whole, the elites in the US today use the power of the state to shape a culture where families are de-emphasized and undermined as a support structure, where we replace people with things as the necessary way out of poverty, and therefore where people are isolated from eachother in order to be made ready for the corporate workforce.

Corporations are creatures of the state. It is unthinkable that corporations could totally dominate the economy if there is no large, powerful state backing them. (BTW, one of the big issues with some strains of Libertarian thought is that if the government's role is reduced to that of enforcing contracts, then it becomes reduced to backing powerful corporations. What are the just limits of contracts cannot be purely found in the limit of a contract but has to be found from wider political controls.)

[squirejons]

the USA is a livestock operation, and we are the livestock. Growth Uber Alles! is the underlying theme. Mass immigration is the primary tool of growth, that and using american military to open up new markets for exploitation, oops, I mean spread democracy.

[einhverfr]

I think that mass immigration is part of the substitute strategy to isolate people from eachother, actually. It's also a way we can discourage people from having kids at the cost of their careers here.

[squirejons]

well, this strategy was all laid out by the designer of the american constitution over 200 years ago in the federalist papers (the ones written by madison) and his notes on the constitutional convention. Madison wrote that the primary purpose of the structure of the american govt under his constitution was to preserve wealth inequality. Madison wrote that the way to do this was to prevent the majority from uniting and discovering their common interest. The way he proposed to keep the majority from uniting was to create factions in voting districts by creating enlarged voting district (federal districts). Thus enlarged, the districts would have more factions and that would "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority" (to quote madison).

Also useful in preventing the majority from using the government against the minority of the opulent was the pseudo-democratic structure of the federal govt (strong checks and balances and separation of powers). This would hinder the ability of the majority to control the government. That would keep the wealth of madsison, jefferson, washington, morris et al., safe from that dirty, brutish mob (i.e., you and me).

The benefit to the elite of factions created by nation enlargement? The elite get to keep more of their wealth.

As the USA grows larger and more heterogeneous with mass immigration, we are less and less in control of our own govt.

Our cultural cousins in the rest of the western nations (canada, australia, UK, scandanavia, france, austria, germany etc) are all smaller and more homogeneous, and so the majority there therefore have more control of their own nations. However, as they elite cram more immigrants into those nations, factions grow and there is less majority control. And of course the elite created the EU along the lines of the USA so as to remove as much power as possible from the majority in those member nations.

[spiderPig]

Ah, I see your point. Basically, fragment the power of the existing population as much as possible by increasing heterogeneity within it. Seems like the only solution against this is an eventual educated population that despite it's cultural and racial diversity, will come to a common consensus.

[squirejons]

I agree--expose The Narrative via grassroots exposition on the web, and sooner or later the truth will spread. Slowly, but it will spread. Many europeans already know this.

[kazagistar]

We could easily halve the money held by people in the united states, and not affect the wealth of 95% of individuals. And frankly, a lot of the "wealth" in our society is in moving money, and trying to convince people to buy stuff that they don't really need and does not benefit their quality of life significantly.

Not that I think a collapse is particularly likely, but even if one happens, it is very plausible that it won't really be that bad.