Discover more from Douglass’s Newsletter
What if the 1%ers have all dropped out?. That’s enough to bring any management of the whole to a stop. An experience in the last few days here in Montenegro: a cruise ship named The World stopped by:instead of renting rooms for expensive cruises, the ship is made of about 150 apartments that sell from between approximately 20 million and half a million US. (The ship has a good web page)The buyers have given up lliving on land and live on the ship with the best of cruise ship amenities and a global itinerary chosen by voteThese are probably mostly retired executives who seem to have given up on engagement with society, except through their accountants and lawyers. Some other conversations with a couple of execs who are still on the mainland, and in their companies showed another way of dropping out, their only concern being their growth model for the next two years. No mention of climate and when it was brought up they were quickly dismissive.
All of which leads to the possibility, certainly not proven, that our leader ship has dropped out, from the extreme of living on the World to leading an agenda for their company which is disengaged from key, global facts. I have noticed that key managers of US foreign-policy, white house, state, defense, energy, commerce seem to speak, increasingly, without reference to our historical context. Maybe an occasional reference to World War II, but not to the dynamics that created it and certainly not to enabling trees such as West Phalia.
So we have to face the possibility that we have no leadership, that it has abdicated in place. Which leads to the possibility that we do not have in place the things that define us us as a nation.
so there is a vacuum not recognized by many hand vacuums to not last long. From the actions necessary to deal with climate, the state of affairs could be positive though disruptive.