Hey Shirky, The Collapse “is” Part of System Design

‘You can become wealthy by creating wealth or by appropriating the wealth created by other people. When the appropriation of the wealth is illegal it is called theft or fraud. When it is legal economists call it rent-seeking’

– John Kay, “Financial Times”.

In regard to Clay Shirky’s, The Collapse of Complex Business Models, Clay should do a little more historical homework, because the elite always crash the system to transfer enormous wealth while blaming it on the public. These are not organic events, as Shirky would want us to believe, but come about through system design that is intentionally deceptive to those with normal human biology (ie. the vast majority that are not psychopathic).

Here’s some of what Shirky would like for us to believe:

“Complex societies collapse because, when some stress comes, those societies have become too inflexible to respond….When societies fail to respond to reduced circumstances through orderly downsizing, it isn’t because they don’t want to, it’s because they can’t.

In such systems, there is no way to make things a little bit simpler – the whole edifice becomes a huge, interlocking system not readily amenable to change. … Furthermore, even when moderate adjustments could be made, they tend to be resisted, because any simplification discomfits elites.

When the value of complexity turns negative, a society plagued by an inability to react remains as complex as ever, right up to the moment where it becomes suddenly and dramatically simpler, which is to say right up to the moment of collapse. Collapse is simply the last remaining method of simplification.”

While reader of Shirky’s blog may want to become familiar with Jean Baudrillard’s work on Simulacra & Simulation, Clay might want to start with this book by Fred Harrison…

The Predator Culture: The Systemic Roots and Intent of Organized Violence
Fred Harrison

Fred Harrison draws on global-wide case studies to show how the violent birth of nation-states, whether the result of territorial conquests or colonialism, splits the population into two classes, victors and vanquished. This division is perpetuated and legitimated through the system of land tenure. The pathological consequences – as diverse as failed states, organized crime (mafia), religious fundamentalism and the re-emergence of piracy – are the result of the violent uprooting of the original inhabitants from their homelands. Understanding the territorial basis of political power and wealth is the pre-requisite, Fred Harrison argues, for making sense of issues as diverse as genocide, narco-gangsterism, terrorism and fascism. The struggle over land and resources, he contends, is at the root of all of today’s global crises. Some attempts are being made to restore land to those in need, ranging from the offer of land in Afghanistan to the Taliban as an inducement to set aside their violent strategies, to the sharing of the rents of oil in Nigeria to entice eco-warriors into mainstream politics. But these piecemeal tactics fail to synthesise the conditions for peace and prosperity. “The Predator Culture” provides a framework for truth and reconciliation in what has become a violent world that is slipping dangerously out of control.