
The End of Power - pelle
http://reason.com/archives/2013/04/14/the-end-of-power
======
vonskippy
When a small fraction of one percent controls well over 2/3 of the world's
assets - explain how the "current power brokers/structure" is ending.

This article is nothing but pie in the sky fantasy.

~~~
akiselev
Who cares who controls the majority of the world's assets when global
standards of living are increasing, apparently quite drastically? It seems
like living in the developed world puts you in a bubble relative to the world
that is similar to the culture on Wall Street. It doesn't matter that everyone
(still there after the recession) is stil getting paid an order or two of
magnitude more than 99.5% of the country, many traders are still ridiculously
competitive and hung up on the fact that there are people up the ladder making
more than them while entirely taking their good fortune for granted.

The world is getting better for everyone and the point of the article is that
the luxuries that come with increased wealth (internet, mobiles, greater
political awareness, travel) make old power structures harder and harder to
maintain, in almost every facet of society.

It's easy to get lost in the massive problems and doom and gloom facing
everyone but if you step back and look at the forest, it's not all that
gloomy.

~~~
rvkennedy
Revolutions occur not during, but _after_ times of intense hardship. When the
general population has enough time and resources to inform themselves of
perceived imbalances in the power structure, and isn't expending all their
efforts on survival, they have the opportunity to become politically active.

This is why smart dictators keep their populations in constant poverty and
either war, or war-readiness.

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parasubvert
I think the author is correctly pointing out that the nature of power bases
are shifting, but otherwise I think this article is mostly a bunch of wild
stabs in the dark.

That said, these sorts of articles do resonate with an idea that's been
growing in my head the past few years, that the dominant base & form of power
is changing as technology has progressed, and the old power base is ramping up
its efforts to fight this trend.

In that vein, a philosophy book that really hit home for me on the nature of
power in today's IP-connected world was __Protocol__ - How Control Exists
after Decentralization, by Alexander Galloway. Now, this sort of read may not
be everyone's thing, and as with most philosophy books in the French tradition
(think Deleuze & Guattari) , it often tries too hard.... but it's a
provocative way of looking at how Internet protocol architecture and its
resulting conflict patterns are starting to bleed into real world politics --
e.g. the control that others have over you by remaining connected vs. the
power of being disconnected; "exploits" as the new dominant form of resistance
against the power of protocols to control, etc. I'm not doing it justice here,
but may be a good read if you're at all interested in postmodern philosophy
(other than to laugh at, or justify the first two Matrix movies... which
admittedly, is mostly what the discipline is good for).

------
adventured
I disagree with the core premise. There's nothing fundamentally new about
what's going on. Authority is not being undermined more than it was in the
past. Technology may be speeding up the process, and enabling easier
communication however.

The Christians effectively toppled (or consumed from within) the Roman empire,
starting from an exceptionally small base.

Starting from a small group in each country, Communists took over Russia and
China - the world's largest countries by land mass and population - and they
did it exceptionally quickly considering.

Other examples: Simon Bolivar, Fidel Castro, the Founding Fathers, Khmer
Rouge, Saddam Hussein, 1979 Iranian revolution, the Taliban. And those are
just a few examples from the last couple hundred years. History is littered
with a gazillion more, small and large, of varying ideologies. None of which
needed smart phones or the Internet.

These types of things have always happened throughout history.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Good point. In fact, I would go further and say that there is a new mega power
emerging to which all of these new and emerging "micropowers" are subjugated.

All of the "progress" we see in developing nations joins them to the global
economy as both consumers and sources of cheap labor. Increasingly, the spoils
of this globalization are accruing to a smaller and smaller subset of
corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals.

When you look around at recent so-called disruption that potestors and modern
"revolutionaries" enact, you realize that none have succeeded in displacing
powers that are aligned with the global capitalist agenda. Indeed, those that
do succeed have all served the interests of that agenda.

~~~
richardjordan
Agreed.

The libertarian fantasy that once we sufficiently undermine governments they
will fall and a utopia of individual action free of tyranny will reign is just
that - a fantasy. Governments are being weakened by the forces of corporate
globalization and the winners aren't the masses. They're a tiny band of
corporations and a small wealth elite that controls access to resources via
control of those corporations. While overly oppressive government can indeed
by a terrible problem, it is often overlooked that an elected government is
the only means by which the masses can effectively contain the voracious
appetites of giant corporations (which will often act in ways that aren't even
in their own long term interests, destroying much of the economy on which they
feed).

Free markets when well regulated by a government accountable to the people
represent a happy medium, which served us well for an extended period in the
20th century. We seem to have lost that. Instead we're left with crony
capitalism and government which acts on behalf of the highest bidder. The
worst of both worlds. It is a lot harder to overthrow our corporate overlords
in this world of weak governance than to overthrow an oppressive ideological
political regime.

~~~
cinquemb
Well noted.

In addition to the "The libertarian fantasy that once we sufficiently
undermine governments they will fall and a utopia of individual action free of
tyranny", all processes that uphold all forms of government around the world
are merely an illusion that reinforces the status quo globally.

But then again, things can change whether we want them to or not ;)

------
msutherl
I find it interesting that many of the claims to progress cite percentage
deltas, but presumably those statistics don't factor in population growth.
Could it be, for instance, that just as many people are in extreme poverty as
in the 70's, but that there are simply more well-off people now?

~~~
akiselev
Going from six to seven billion people is a 16% growth whereas a lot of the
statistics show much larger changes so even before factoring population the
figures are probably still significant. There are nuances such as the
exponential effects of the internet and mobile phones (a mobile phone or
internet connection can have a massive impact on a remote community) and other
unknown factors. If you dive into the academic literature I'm sure you can
find some analysis of the figures.

I believe the extreme poverty goal used absolute numbers. Percentiles wouldn't
make sense to begin with because extreme poverty is largely inherited and as
you said could be dwarfed by population growth.

~~~
signalsignal
Is a person in "extreme poverty" with a cell phone?

~~~
akiselev
Extreme poverty means living on less than $1.25 a day (not sure if it's per
family or per person), not what technology you own. I'm sure that there is
overlap and that is a testament to how pervasive technology has become. I'm
sure mobile phones are playing a big role in raising people out of extreme
poverty too.

------
rodrigoavie
I agree with the three "revolutions" described in the article. I really
believe they are happening and actually believe we can expect them to continue
happening.

Its just that the numbers are to good to be believed. I may be biased tho.

Anyway, I sure hope the article is 100% correct.

~~~
akiselev
It's definitely way more nuanced than the author suggests. By developed world
standards, poverty is not much better than extreme poverty (but fed is better
than not), many of the stats regarding international commerce and investment
came with unforseen social and political consequences, and much of the social
progress in the middle east has resulted in the unaffected countries to become
more paranoid and governments that are different, but not necessarily much
better.

But this is an upward trend going for three decades now, let's hope it
continues.

