Failure of administration

#2881

The middle class is so vulnerable because it exists through contractual relations within an economy which is extractive, not grounded. Its higher income placing them in the “middle class is the result of a long struggle to arrange those contracts so some live well on the a backs of many who live poorly, and those who live poorly do so often getting up at 5,  with long commutes and two full time jobs. Toynbee says the collapse of empires is usually

“the failure of administration and the ruin of the middle class”.

The failure of the administration comes from not adequately, professionally , addressing the problems facing the state. An example: the Mesopotamian ancient empire of Iraq, depended on a 1000 year long development and maintenance of a system of irrigation canals. But constant wars repeated destroyed parts until the people gave up repairs. The canals broke into disconnected ponds breeding mosquitos and destroying the fish that lived on mosquito larvae. Malaria thrived for the first time and killed off the human population. The mosquitoes were not the cause but the result of the decay in the irradiated landscape.

Two days ago we traveled to Podgorica the capital of Montenegro and then Yesterday, to Budva an ancient city on the Adriatic. Huge number if tourists and hundreds of tour buses but overwhelmingly cars.  It is landscape not of trees or buildings, but of cars, cars cars.

*Excerpt From

A Study of History: Abridgement of Volumes I-VI (Royal Institute of International Affairs)

Toynbee, Arnold J.