Czar Gazing

Democracy, as a way to govern nation-states, is on the decline. With the help of Russia, politically four centuries behind the West, the U.S. could be headed for czarist rule. The Russian word czar comes from "caesar" and was the title first assumed by Ivan the Awesome (or the more popular pejorative, "the Terrible").

If our political regression stays in step with our fall back through the growth of civilization to agrarianism, we could see an autocrat in power in a decade or so. Czar Barron has a certain ring to it.
Czar Donald sounds cartoonish, but since we don't execute traitors anymore, Junior may be first in line to inherit the throne after the patriarch croaks. He might want to change that to "The Don" to give it more of a fear factor and to divert attention from the history of his ascent at the behest of Russian propagandists. Oh, wait... the Don is a Russian river.

Aww. Who cares what people think? Junior might be found guilty of conspiring with a foreign government to influence our elections, but Old Blowhard will surely pardon him as soon as Congress shows no capacity to invoke impeachment in spite of the so-called President's failure to faithfully execute the laws, receipt of emoluments, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. Continuity is so key to establishment politicians that they would sell the country into totalitarianism. Continuity may then come in the form of dynastic periods.

On the other hand, if Congress decides that 400 years of progress in democracy is worth preserving, they may cast off their inhibitions and send Blowhard to prison, or at very least replace him. That's a lot to ask of Congress. The disruption of continuity may cost them their jobs, because when the people who are supposed to run this country - the voters - are given their next chance, they could use the opportunity to bring in new leadership to start the transition to a more federated form of democratic government suited to the limitations of our situation.

You Can't Be Green Enough These Days

Helpful as their contributions are, the efforts of most established agricultural literacy organizations do not extend to encouraging young people to take up farming. Aside from the Future Farmers of America (which I've always seen as geared to keeping the kids down on the farm) and 4-H, organizations like National Agriculture in the Classroom and the American Farm Bureau Foundation seem to be geared toward PR for agribusiness. The mission of FoodCorps is somewhat better because it involves children in gardening and appreciating healthy, fresh food that they help to grow.

Though all those organizations raise agricultural literacy, none of their programs will prepare the next generation of adults for what they are about to face. For that, permaculture education must be emphasized. Big Ag will go away with deindustrialization. Folks are going to have to know how to provide for themselves without relying on lengthy, automated supply chains.

Since the public school system does not appear to recognize the need to prepare the young for a hardscrabble future, permaculture schools are doing what they can to make up for it. One program that is heavily youth oriented is John Liu's ecosystem restoration camps. Their proposition seems to be, 'come and help heal the land, and we will teach you some vitally useful things.' Those things include formal permaculture training.

By Eatswords

There are also children's programs teaching permaculture. If only the lower income schools adopt this curricula, wealth inequities will shift in favor of today's poor once the economy collapses into agrarianism. The good news is that there is a curriculum offered online that parents can take along with their children. Agricultural literacy must set a higher bar than just getting kids to realize that chocolate milk doesn't come straight from the cow's udder.

Bye-Bye Miss American PI (Post-Industrialism)

Back around 2011, when I first began reading The Archdruid Report, John Michael Greer detailed his outlook for America in posts about "catabolic collapse." He throws that term out often and even describes it in macroeconomic terms, but all it means is collapse that feeds on itself, just as the opposite (anabolic growth) means compounding growth caused by self-reinforcing vitality. Though Greer frames his analysis around individual civilizations, he arrives at pretty much the same place I did by drawing from the World3 (Limits to Growth) and BEST models - America eventually becomes a herder/cultivator society. He sees America's collapse starting in 1974 when the rust belt started seriously rusting, and occurring thereafter in stages wherein America devolves into a contented third world country (or several countries) as early as 2030 and continuing to decline if we ...

Fast forward another few decades, and another round of crises arrives, followed by another respite, and another round of crises, until finally peasant farmers plow their fields in sight of the crumbling ruins of our cities.

Though this collapse takes decades, it is many times faster than the centuries-long rise from wilderness settlements to superpowerdom. Greer's description doesn't distinguish between a herder/cultivator and an agrarian society (I edited my own oversight two posts back), but according to  The BEST Model (pg. 1-9), one of the distinguishing differences is that agrarians have the advantage of farming with fossil fuels and metal tools. Agrarians can still form empires, but the best herder/cultivators can do is organize groups of villages.

Perhaps schools today should be training kids on how to get by on the terms they are likely to encounter in their adulthood, but for those reading this today, let us consider the near-term implications of  the world collapsing relatively quickly from an integrative post-industrial economy with international democratic organizations to industrial economies with nationalist democracies. This is the destination Trumpist isolationism appears to favor. Soon after we have re-industrialized, more collapse will likely thrust us further down the chain so that, come 2030 or so, we may find ourselves rediscovering agrarianism under autocratic governments (Russia today) and decades later, after fossil fuels are no longer available, back in the herder/cultivator stage under familial rule.

Photo by 1nelly

Seeing as how we should expect further collapse of our post-industrial system back to a straight industrial system in the next decade, factory jobs should be prized by jobseekers. At least Trump is aiming to bring those jobs back home. Small business manufacturing is a good way to go - for the environment, cultivation of long-term relationships, and adjustment to a more fragmented nation. Employment at a factory out in the countryside might offer a chance to segue into agriculture when the factory shuts down. Ideally, living among relatives engaged in small farming or other sustainable vocations would position one for the next level of collapse to hunter/cultivator villages. Ecoforestry is ideal for this latter stage. Since all of these changes could take place over just a few decades, it will be important to have a job with enough time off to allow one to acquire the tools and skills that will enable one to live in the future as it spirals down. We are 42 years into the catabolic collapse and only have a few decades left before America begins to look like it did before the Europeans arrived.

Riding Out the Storm

The world is entering what is likely to be the most horrifying period in history. Civilization is about to collapse globally for the first time. Not that it proves anything, but has there ever been a time when so many large-scale hunger crises have occurred simultaneously? Somalia, S. Sudan, Nigeria, and Yemen are just the beginning. We have a choice to help or to abandon other parts of the world as they undergo collapse. Our choice should depend on the global context.

Neil Howe would have us understand that The Fourth Turning applies not only to the United States, but to most of the civilized world. With the rise of globalism, the cycle of collective consciousness, disenchantment, destruction, and revival has taken on more synchronicity among developed nations. In foreign policy, Trump/Bannon would cede upholding liberal democratic principles to the assumption that fourth turnings will spawn nationalism around the globe. In addition to cutting foreign aid, they can't see much return in continuing our campaign to democratize the East.

Against this dismissal of relationships with emerging democracies cultivated over decades, Michael Gerson argues that abandoning those efforts would result in a renewed reliance on "spheres of influence" among the great powers to deconflict geopolitics. Gerson cites a speech by recently retired elder statesman Dan Fried who proclaimed,

A sphere of influence system would lead to cycles of rebellion and repression, and, if the past 1,000 years is any guide, lead to war between the great powers, because no power would be satisfied with its sphere. They never are.

The Green Party platform lauds the spread of grass roots democracy while also calling for less manipulative foreign relations:

We strongly feel that our country should view itself as a member of the community of nations... not above it. The United States could well play a leadership role in that community but only if we become committed to an eco-social vision of peace, national self-determination, and international cooperation... Reducing militarism and reliance on arms policies is the key to progress toward collective security.

The Green Party wants us to be less assertive not only in democratizing, but also in military coercion. Yet, wouldn't it be nice if we could maintain some continuity in our efforts to promote freedom and democracy, at least as a sign of good faith until we make it through our crisis period?

To answer that question, let us consider the global context of what the world will be like after our crisis is over. My assertion that world civilization is headed for collapse is based on the Limits to Growth study, which, in the World3 model, shows the tipping point to collapse occurring around 2030. Assuming the rest of the world bears the brunt of whatever this collapse entails, isolationism for the U.S. would, perhaps, allow us to survive long enough for the next Spring of the secular cycle.

This existential crisis of encountering the Age of Limits could become the focal point of America's resolve to exit the fourth turning. Trumpists are battening down the hatches and getting us set to ride out the storm.

Photo by Frans Berkelaar

Isolationism may be essential to surviving the coming collapse. Trump is preparing to wall us off from, not only Mexico, but from other parts of the world where we currently have military, diplomatic, and economic relations. This leverages our geographic advantage to isolate us from wars and refugees. Our advantageous geographic position insulates us from much of the turmoil of migrating hordes and resource wars. Self-preservation is a natural human tendency. Under the expectation that the rest of world's problems would overwhelm us, can anyone blame America for pulling back? Governments are expected to protect their citizens.

If rapid global collapse occurs during this fourth turning, the "high" that follows will be like coming out of the ark after the great flood. When we emerge, the geopolitical chessboard will be completely rearranged. As for the concerns over great powers' "spheres of influence," there won't be any great powers left. Any diplomatic love shown now may be long forgotten in the light of the new day.

Juxtapositioning the Fourth Turning concept on the Limits to Growth, as I have just done, offers the horrifying realization that the next decade may well be as close to hell on earth as the world has ever come. The Limits to Growth model does not project the depth of the collapse, e.g. in population or production. Though the graphs show the metrics past the point of collapse, the World3 model would have to be reworked at that point based on the new arrangement of civilization. That rearrangement, if we do not resolve our energy shortage, would place us three steps back into a herder/cultivator economy. If we were able to transform our energy sources and take only one or two steps back from our global information-centric world, we would retain industrialism or agrarianism  (The BEST Model pg. 1-9). We may be able to transform the energy system post-collapse, but the recovery would take immensely longer.