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Bernie Sanders as a candidate in the 2016 US elections was a bit of a game changer for US politics; a self-declared socialist gaining traction would of been unheard of a few decades earlier. How did this happen?
After some consideration, I had the realization that changes in social support structures in the USA are forcing a shift towards socialism; it's virtually unavoidable. There are several main support structures for individuals in a society: the key ones I've identified so far include, in order: self-dependence; family; friends; community; and humanity. The order I picked can change in some radical alternative societies, but it's the order that I feel our current society follows.
A strong self is important, as if one is independent, the rest of the support structure is unneeded. Unfortunately, few are fully self sufficient and even then, having a strong family to ensure a good upbringing is often needed to learn independence.
Family is not always a possibility for some; either by means of increased divorce rates or children having fewer siblings; both parents tend to need to work as well these days, pushing support roles further down the column.
While friends can be valuable and supportive, within a weak society friendships could be toxic. Increased drug abuse is an example of a society where too many are falling through the cracks in a society, allowing friends to propagate a bad addiction. In a healthy society, friends can be counted on more often and instead more often be positive role models.
Community in a capitalistic society is not heavily invested into by the state, but historically the church and smaller towns would have tight bonds that ensured support. Modern day, church has been minimized and towns have been replaced by city blocks, which do not allow for relationships or communities to form as strongly. As a result, for support structures in a community to persist, they need to be funded and invested in quite heavily by government and charities. Schools are a modern form of community investment, where the pay off is a future generation that is able to continually able to support the system.
This leads us to the last level of support; general humanity. Empathy and altrusim can lead to acts of kindness by those outside one's perceived community. This is largely a result of human emotion and religion, but it's a mechanism that supports cross-borders and allows one man to help a random other man in time of extreme need.
At the end of this all though, we see that modern society has begun to erode the family unit. Smaller families and less stable families will push more individuals to rely on support of friends, who are increasingly also needing support, so there is a boom to drug abuse.
This all needs to a growing pressure on community, and with that comes a demand for greater investment into community support efforts. Socialized healthcare, education, childcare, etc. These efforts further undermine the family and self-independence -- individuals end up relying more on the state than for self or others. This will only further put pressure on the community.
As community supports structures become further invested in, it becomes hard to afford such efforts and monolithic efforts begin to form to address larger populations. These tend to be fairly cookie cutter in nature.
With increased pressure on the community foundation, either the burden of modern globalism will catch up on cause an economic collapse of the system, or there would be a shift towards communism.; or some other unforeseen outcome.
With the self-independence of individuals made extinct by the high reliance on the community, the fall of the community support structure would leave the entire system prone to complete unrecoverable breakdown. This could happen if the community as a regularized structure fails to correctly be implemented, or the economic burden of a system is unable to keep up with the growing investment need for ever increasing support requirements. Globalism, and the subsequent growth of wealth across nations, could cause what was once a solid economic socialized plan to fail.
Humanity tends lead us towards globalism, which could be detrimental to existing socialized nations. The same thing goes with technology, where jobs are not outsourced by foreign nations, but by robots and artificial intelligence.
At the end of the day, egalitarian societies and the death of god is leading to the break down of traditional family units, which is one of the catalysts for needing a greater community support investment, which will only snowball into greater reliance and eventually failure.
Is progress always good, if it is leading one off a cliff?
Is a capitalistic society, where those who fall thru the cracks, seem all that bad compared to a society where everything crashes down due to an over-reliance on an unsustainable community structure?
I'm not sure, but it does seem like increased socialism is unavoidable, and perhaps, could lead to the complete and utter failure of western society. It could be centuries before the nation could recover, if ever.
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You have made some good points.
Interesting view.
ReplyI like the phrase "over-reliance on an unsustainable community structure".
Eventually, under socialism, economic progress grinds to a halt because no one is left pulling the wagon of government dependency because everyone has jumped on board.
Yeah everyone will be equal; equally poor and suffering.
Reply