Localism

The main strength of the doctrine of Individualism is “Locality of failure”. Under the doctrine of responsibility for self, failure is local to the individual. The individual is connected probably with 5 or 6 other people who can provide some assistance.

However, when a collectivised system fails i.e. a system where everyone is relying on everyone else, then everyone is in the same boat and there is no one capable of bailing anyone else out, let alone the whole system.

This is why all forms of coerced collectivism throughout history have killed 100’s of millions of people.

Individualistic capitalism on the other hand has created the greatest levels of wealth because it is the most robust and most immune to failures of all kinds and this is because the individual is the most fundamental component of society.

The range and complexity of issues surrounding the Covid19 pandemic has opened the debate about globalisation. These factors include the origin of the virus in Wuhan, the fact that the CCP covered up the virus and have behaved reprehensibly, e.g. buying up supplies of PPE throughout the world before going public, not to mention flat out lying about the numbers of dead, and the response of governments throughout the world, although particularly in the UK, to alleviate the economic impact of the lockdown.

There is an emerging realisation that reliance on China is a bad idea. Alongside the reprehensible way the Chinese have interacted with the world following the outbreak, the crackdown on free speech in Hong Kong has shown Xi’s regime to be a force for evil in the world. The unlawful seizure of Hong Kong is analogous to Hitler’s invasion of the Sudetenland, with the difference that it is unwelcome by the population of Hong Kong and we know where that eventually led. Anyway, it seems fairly probable that the pressures on globalisation which have been unleashed will only grow. We contend that these pressures were one of the major inputs in Brexit and logically point to a new future founded in localism.

Brexit was the assertion of control by a people who refused to be governed by a system over which they had no control and which was ultimately unanswerable to them. This genie is out of the bottle now. Our Italian friends will get it next, hopefully.

Technology is huge part of this. Technology is largely not subject to control by central authority (OK maybe the anti gravity and zero point energy stuff is controlled by the guys in Nevada or wherever 😉 ) but the everyday stuff is tumbling from the future into our lives. Technological advance has already created the conditions for localism; enhanced communication enabling instantaneous peer to peer communication, enhanced technology such as 3D printing putting vast capability into the hands of more and more of the population increasingly cheaply. These open the way for a resurgence of ‘cottage industry’ and micro societies, only on a far more efficient level. #WuFlu could just be the catalyst. There is also a whole discussion on cryptocurrency and the emerging parallel economic ecosystem based on blockchain tech.

As our grasp of the bigger picture and our role within it becomes more comprehensive, consensus is emerging that in order to preserve civilised society we cannot treat people as being economically expendable and outsource their livelihoods based solely on a narrow measure of profit (ie one which ignores certain costs), such as importing cheap labour under free movement or by offshoring to a mafia run state like China.

I believe we will eventually start to evolve a theory of organisation where we ‘think as a species’.

Each of us is voluntarily and individually responsible for adopting behaviours that promote overall well-being, without the requirement for centralised coercion. Individual self interest is not incompatible with this, since causing harm to our neighbours is harmful to the environment of which we ourselves are a part. If a new economic model is to emerge in keeping with this strain of thought, people in the UK will start to act with ‘economic localism’ as a way of reflecting these ideas.

The UK (our ‘somewhere’, the one we can influence) is big enough that we can viably operate all areas of the economy. We can have all kinds of industry. We can have a thriving agricultural sector. We can provide enough fish from our waters etc. We can be self sufficient. But we can also continue to trade globally within this framework. But further, the damage to the financial system required by the suspension of the preexisting economic model, as evidenced by ‘Rishi’s splurge’, will wake people up to alternatives. These include blockchain based distributed monetary systems as opposed to ‘fiat money as debt’. Money is nothing but ‘effective demand’ thus this technology will also impact political interactions; collective ‘centre of opinion’ will eventually come to be arrived at by blockchain token voting, i.e. true verifiable consensus, supported by digital IDs, with anonymity secured by cryptography.

The old pre-digital world ended probably about 20 years ago. A lot of dead wood will be razed by this pandemic. Scarcity will decrease and economics (the science of scarcity) will also change irrevocably.