Farewell to Bourgeois Kings

[randy]

Hat Tip to Kim: https://tinkzorg.wordpress.com/2021/08/ ... ois-kings/

[Weetabix]

I won't be silly and +100 this, but everyone should go read it, and think about it. Quite a lot.

[BDK]

Its the same as the Ivy League vs. top-tier state schools split. The Ivies no longer work. They just go into finance and government. Cal-Tech, Cal-Poly, MIT, GT, U of MI, Texas A&M, etc lead the real world.

Soft-heads aren't any better in the reality of politics, than they are in business.

[Vonz90]

It is a thoughtful essay and there is a lot that I agree with. However, I think the author ultimately overstates his case.

He does it because he makes two a classic error in these cases.. He is assuming tends and watershed moments run in one direction, so once an "elite" looses its legitimacy it is done, but that is not always the case. They do evolve and change and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

There are counter examples to his (particularly in Greek and Roman history) but to pick one that parallels the author's example, let's talk about 1806 and the War of the Fourth Coalition in which the Prussian elite fell apart and were shown to be as crappy as any elite ever was. But of course they survived, cut out a lot of dead wood, reformed how they did business in innumerable ways and ended up being one of the leading elements in defeating Napoleonic France and set themselves up for tremendous growth over the next 100 years (and set in place what turned out to be their downfall later by not having sufficient institutional controls over the military, but nothing is perfect).

The point being that elite institutions fail, because everything fails. Whether that failure results in destruction or renewal depends on how they react to that failure.

As for our institutions, I agree many are failing, but I am not convinced that renewal is not possible especially as our decentralized systems allows others to grow and compete with the older ones and that keeps them stronger in the long run (or be softly replaced which comes to the same thing.)

[blackeagle603]

decentralization, and balkanization of sorts, is our great hope at this time. Rediscovering the 10th Amendment is a start. States, Governors and Sheriffs asserting themselves, remembering the Federal Government derives its (limited) powers by the consent of the States that formed that Federal Government.

[Precision]

a good piece. One of the commenters has a good point. The technonerds are very good at self protection and that will keep them afloat longer. It will also make the inevitable fall much harder, so that is a thing to look forward to.