I lived through some of the Cold War and witnessed different political and economic theories put to the test. There were varied results.
Communism seemed like a great idea if you believe people are basically empathetic, generous and fair. They aren’t. That theory died in a fire. If Communism met Democracy, who knows?
Socialism came out ok after it realized that it works best in homogeneous societies that are basically tribal and have a vested interest in the common good. Socialism needs a good political system, like Democracy to be viable in most situations, but it shows a lot of promise. The sooner we realize that we’re all in the same tribe on this small planet, the sooner this economic model can succeed.
Capitalism looks good, functions on the principle of greed, seems to work pretty well and as long as people are basically empathetic, generous and fair we should be just fine.
I kid. I’m a kidder.
Capitalism is a voracious beast, that left unfettered will swallow the world. Once again, Democracy must come to the rescue. Capitalism without Democracy is just Fascism.
Those are the big three that I know about and I Googled and found 28 others. Most of them are not very appealing.
Democracy is the only political solution that has a chance of making any of the above economic models succeed. Without Democracy there is no viable, long-term functional government of any stripe that can stand for long without the people having some voice.
We have a new and completely unexpected threat to Democracy. It challenges the most basic assumptions about the political system. Democracy, it turns out, has some vulnerabilities, just like software, and the two are oddly linked. If Democracy fails, it all fails.
Social Media is new and it is the greatest propaganda vector ever invented and it will destroy our Democracy if we let it. It is an intellectual and communications link directly between your brain and every other plugged in brain on the planet. You have your brain plugged into the Internet and you aren’t even running an anti-virus. Prepare to be exploited.
Internet Memes are a social media idea or information virus. They spread across social media, unchecked through FaceBook and Twitter into everyone who is plugged in. It was cute when it was kittens and everyone on Earth was laughing at Grumpy Cat but things have taken a decidedly downward trajectory since then. An Internet meme cannot be stopped and it is many times more influential, immediate and persuasive than anything we’ve encountered before. We do not understand the implications for our democracy.
The Russians understand the implications for our democracy.
Facebook was founded in 2004 and Twitter in 2006. Both would take a while to catch on with the general public.
Both were in their infancy for the first Obama campaign, although I’m sure there was a lot of groundbreaking work done back then. 2012 a lot more people started to get it and some unintended consequences started to rear their ugly heads. At this point, we’re mostly ignoring any of the negative consequences of any of this. We are in for some really big surprises and a lot of them won’t be pleasant.
It’s worth it to note at this point that Twitter and FaceBook have been around for 10 years or more and have no real competition in their markets. They both hold total monopolies with no government control at all. Facebook has direct access to 1.79 billion minds on the planet.
And here we are today, brains connected. We don’t have firewalls or anti-virus or even the very basic things you need to be safe on the internet, like a proper education. Our computers are protected much better than our minds. And minds are vulnerable. Barnum was right.
Democracy is not dead, but it has a bad infection and we have no immune system and no treatment and we better get to work quickly.
BTW, one of those surprises I was talking about is no longer such a big surprise I guess. Donald Trump will be President of the United States in a little over a month.
Surprise.