-
danbpgh commented on the blog post Crushing State Budget Cuts Wiping Out Stimulative Effects of Tax Deal
The public policy question for progressives is this, I suggest: “How to redistribute a shrinking economic pie?” This incorporates the ecological/thermodynamic reality of peak oil with the financial capture of government, wealth inequality and the fiscal and economic policies of government, all of which are [wrongly] premised upon a return to the physical expansion of the economy. So the two opposed sociological tendencies are the well-known hierarchical have-have nots versus the egalitarian/communitarian. This is, in my view, the place to start rethinking society and stop waiting for a return to business as usual. Corporations and the federal government do not have a bright future due to energy constraints, but they could devolve into essentially totalitarian social institutions. However, the thrust of energy decline is to eventually make social organization localized, and this can lead to democratic forms of life.
