Well at first glance the West seems very well suited to buffer the effects, The last decade shows that it is hyper sclerotic and unwilling to give even the most minor concessions to adapt to change. This will be US centric, but the US was kind of behind on this trend (e.g. Orban, Erdogan, the AfD, etc. came before Trump). The only way the political system can function is by expanding authoritarian repression. No matter which party is in charge we have to keep expanding the military and police to fight the boogeyman (China, Russia, Republican Fascism, Democratic Deep State, etc.) and only appeals to voters/platforms are by how we need to fight back the horrors of the other party (fascism and the end of Democracy, Woke-ism and Democrat conspiracies). This fundamentally comes from an unwillingness to improve or maintain the standard of living of most, but would rather use violence to keep the lower orders and economically superfluous in line. Ironically, the more problems that we face, the more that the political system is converging and unwilling to adapt. This means that in actual policy both parties have been converging closer to each other (Biden has not deviated from Trump’s immigration policy, and is in fact, working towards Obama’s record as Deporter in Chief, has clawed back pandemic protections and relief even from the low bar Trump set, has been funding police using federal programs and therefore more anti-BLM than Trump). But for electoral and political identity reasons, the more that both parties are far-right fascist parties aligned on policy, their rhetoric and political maneuvers have to be more polarized.
So, even though in external challenges and capacity on paper are in the West’s favor, I really think we cannot count out the institutional decay and how every political institution is hell-bent against ever adapting to changing conditions other than strengthening the police-state.
I did say “overall”, it wasn’t premised entirely on climate change. My concern is that the systems of government, influence and leadership have been pretty badly corrupted. No other region or culture needs to be better for this to be true … all cultures/civilisations have periods of decay without “dying” or being conquered.
If we wanted to, sure. I mean, we like you and me want to, but we have no say. We were also supposedly “best positioned to manage a pandemic” and just look how that turned out. I know I’m not saying anything particularly novel here, but the capitalist response to covid has been a trial balloon for the capitalist response to climate change, and the results are pretty grim. As long as there’s more profit to be made at the top by monetizing the rot, the problems will never be addressed.
Downfall of the West relative to who? The whole world is impacted by climate change and the West is best positioned to manage its effects.
Well at first glance the West seems very well suited to buffer the effects, The last decade shows that it is hyper sclerotic and unwilling to give even the most minor concessions to adapt to change. This will be US centric, but the US was kind of behind on this trend (e.g. Orban, Erdogan, the AfD, etc. came before Trump). The only way the political system can function is by expanding authoritarian repression. No matter which party is in charge we have to keep expanding the military and police to fight the boogeyman (China, Russia, Republican Fascism, Democratic Deep State, etc.) and only appeals to voters/platforms are by how we need to fight back the horrors of the other party (fascism and the end of Democracy, Woke-ism and Democrat conspiracies). This fundamentally comes from an unwillingness to improve or maintain the standard of living of most, but would rather use violence to keep the lower orders and economically superfluous in line. Ironically, the more problems that we face, the more that the political system is converging and unwilling to adapt. This means that in actual policy both parties have been converging closer to each other (Biden has not deviated from Trump’s immigration policy, and is in fact, working towards Obama’s record as Deporter in Chief, has clawed back pandemic protections and relief even from the low bar Trump set, has been funding police using federal programs and therefore more anti-BLM than Trump). But for electoral and political identity reasons, the more that both parties are far-right fascist parties aligned on policy, their rhetoric and political maneuvers have to be more polarized.
So, even though in external challenges and capacity on paper are in the West’s favor, I really think we cannot count out the institutional decay and how every political institution is hell-bent against ever adapting to changing conditions other than strengthening the police-state.
It’s the Onion, but I think this demonstrates a metaphorical truth about how Neoliberalism of the last 40 years removed any state capacity to deal with crises and changing conditions: https://www.theonion.com/something-about-the-way-society-was-exposed-as-complete-1846251067
I did say “overall”, it wasn’t premised entirely on climate change. My concern is that the systems of government, influence and leadership have been pretty badly corrupted. No other region or culture needs to be better for this to be true … all cultures/civilisations have periods of decay without “dying” or being conquered.
If we wanted to, sure. I mean, we like you and me want to, but we have no say. We were also supposedly “best positioned to manage a pandemic” and just look how that turned out. I know I’m not saying anything particularly novel here, but the capitalist response to covid has been a trial balloon for the capitalist response to climate change, and the results are pretty grim. As long as there’s more profit to be made at the top by monetizing the rot, the problems will never be addressed.