To the Vanquished Go the Spoils, Part II: A Tin-Plated Lining

This is the second installment of a series I began way back in October 2022. At that point, the COVID pandemic was just beginning to wane, and the Insurrection of 2021 was also retreating into memory. In my mind, the Politics of Consensus Reality was beginning to turn toward what seemed to me to be the most pressing issue of this millennium: the impending collapse of our precious environment.  That issue is on my mind as I write this second essay.

Donald Hynkel, at your service (NBC and DeviantArt)

But the other track of the current crisis is also on my mind today: History shows that fascist dictatorships begin as fringe groups and rarely impose themselves upon the masses by brute force. Rather, they typically come to power via popular movements that gain legitimacy through electoral means. It is usually the case that people vote for fascism. Only later, once fascists have a foot in the corridors of power and have begun replacing Consensus Reality* with ever more deliciously hateful fictions, only then is the charismatic leader in position to seize the reins of power and begin to exercise extra-legal control over the mechanisms of government. By the time fascists have a claim to legitimacy, it is almost always already too late to stanch the stench and restore Reality to health. 

Bullish on China shops (BBC and DeviantArt)

So now the bull is running amok in the China shop, with the sharp tinkle of humane realities flung to the
ground accompanied by the gentle sucking sound of wealth being slurped up by the elite. Anyone who doesn't lead is a taker, and anyone who opposes the obvious superiority of the Leader is an enemy who must not only be defeated but humiliated as well. All of it for a profit. Not your profit, mind you, but profit nonetheless.

But it was when I got out of the shower today that this thought hit me like a wet washcloth:

Every cloud has a silver lining.

The imagery and basic idea associated with this English aphorism seems to have originated with John Milton in his poem, Comus: a Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, in 1634:

       

John Milton (d. 1674) (Britannica.com)

I see ye visibly, and now believe
        That he, the Supreme Good, to whom all things ill
        Are but as slavish officers of vengeance,
        Would send a glistering guardian, if need were
        To keep my life and honour unassailed.
        Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
        Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

The modern phrasing, however, apparently was coined by The Dublin Magazine in 1840 in its review of the novel, Marian; or, a Young Maid's Fortunes, by one Mrs. S. Hall. From that point, it became very popular and spread across the Anglo-Saxon world, appearing in print in the US in 1853.** 

The expression of course gives voice to a deep longing of the heart that is not confined to English speakers: However bad a situation is, chin up! There is very often some unexpected benefit or good thing that comes with it.

This idea is found in various forms and many – probably all – languages. In French, one says Chaque malheur a une lueur d'espoir (literally: every misfortune has a glimmer of hope). The Spanish say No hay mal que por bien no venga (i.e.: there is no bad thing that does not come with something good). In Arabic, some say رُبَّ ضارة لها نافعة (many a harmful thing has some benefit), but the same idea is also expresssed in the Qurʾān thus: فَإنَّ مَعَ العُسْرِي يُسْرَى * إنَّ مَعَ العُسْرِي يُسْرَى  (So truly with every difficulty comes relief; truly with every difficulty comes relief. 94:5–6).

So, you know, hope springs eternal in the human breast.***

We are going to need this optimistic approach to the world we live in, going forward.

You see, it dawned on me that the newly reinvigorated Duke of Deceit's program of wrecking the US economy for profit may in fact contain a small, well hidden, long-term benefit – much as it pains me to have to say that.

"Ted" Cruz calls science "woke" (Esquire)

Mind you, to understand how this may be so, we have to step back, way back, and look at a much bigger picture that I am absolutely sure is invisible to the current Denizen of the Honky Château and his poisonously wealthy sidekick, Elon. Greed makes people stupid,**** so it is unlikely that even such towering intellects of the GOP as Marco Rubio, Raphael "Ted" Cruise, and the "cerebral" Jeb Bush, have caught a glimpse of it. Still, nothing surprises me anymore.

A Big Picture and a Big Picture Frame

The Big Picture escapes these people, but the frame of that Big Picture is not beyond their grasp. So let's begin with the frame:

Rachel Carson (d. 1964) an actual hero
who knew whereof she spoke
(Britannica)

We are destroying the environment we depend upon for survival at an alarming rate. This has been clear to anyone paying attention since at least the 1960s, and even the most blinkered climate denier has to
suspect, deep down inside where those inklings dwell that we only face in the dead of night, that something is up. Certainly the fossil fuel industries have known about it since then and have waged an unrelenting war on the facts – or at least, public perception of the facts – in order to preserve their sweaty grasp on Almighty Dollars.

Greed makes people stupid. Do these clowns really think that all their money will somehow protect them once the ice is all gone and they have to keep the truly hungry people from strangling them in front of their refrigerators?

And as with the patrons, so too for their clients in the government – both R and D – who love their cushy jobs and their sense of privilege, and who are therefore terrified to actually govern. Governing all too often requires taking unpopular decisions. Gone are the days when we were able to elect fearless adults who are capable of leading. Class traitors like the Roosevelts, or race traitors like LBJ. OK such people too often were driven more by crisis than by foresight. But at least when the chips were down, they were capable of doing what needed to be done.

I mean, it's not like the politicians haven't been warned, repeatedly, about what's coming. One of the great unsung heroes of our age has to be NASA climate scientist James Hansen, who testified before the US Senate that

Coal is the single greatest threat to civilization and all life on our planet ... The dirtiest trick the governments play on their citizens is that they are working for "clean coal." ... Trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death. 

An unsung hero singing like a canary in a coal mine.

He has also stated that

Several times in Earth's long history rapid global warming of several degrees occurred ... In each case more than half of plant and animal species went extinct. New species came into being over tens and hundreds of thousands of years. But these are timescales and generations that we cannot imagine. If we drive our fellow species to extinction we will leave a far more desolate planet for our descendants than the world that we inherited from our elders.*****

As someone who has studied these things, he ought to know. But obviously, the Senate was not really listening.

Written in bold, cursive letters across the frame are the words It's not sustainable!

Here I'm going to say what most people must surely realize but cannot bring themselves to admit: If we want our descendants to have something like a pleasant, habitable world to live in, we have to stop doing what we are doing. Right now. Not tomorrow.

The Big Picture itself is the bold fact that we have to completely re-imagine what "the good life" should look like. It has to be simpler, less grotesquely affluent, less encumbered with stuff, and less damaging to the environment. We have to be willing to do without screens. To put up with walking more and being a little less clean and eating less and repairing things instead of tossing them out. We have to start doing without wherever possible.

And here, in the richest, most powerful nation on the planet, we have to take the lead. If we don't do it no one will.

How will that look while we are achieving it, so that once we arrive at the bottom of the slide we land on our feet, not our asses and without banging our heads on the ground?

The entire MAGA universe, starting with the Mango Mussolini and down through the two branches (ultra-rich tech barons vs. the poor suckers in MAGA bling) to the street, is completely incapable of envisioning that big picture. They only know that they have what they have (or don't have what they think they want) and want to protect that at all costs. They are so typically American and so typically selfish in that way.

And this is our predicament, and this is the picture in the frame: If we don't do what's necessary, necessity will be the mother of our demise. We are headed for a very rough landing indeed, one which some of the darker alleyways of science fiction have already envisioned for us. It won't be pretty.

Hmm, does We the People  include me?
Is that why you're pointing a gun at me?

And thus also the other pernicious reality that the Duke has fostered: He has pitted us against ourselves so effectively that a) he gets to be powerful and call all the shots for his own ego's and wallet's fulfillment, and b) we cannot unite to stop him let alone our own impending doom.

But here's where a tin-plated lining appears: Although he and his family and his cronies are robbing us blind, and the net result is likely to be a precipitous overall reduction in the nation's economy, if it goes far enough, that by itself could even actually begin to slow down our grotesque over-consumption. Imagine that! Through a fascist oligarchy we learn to be frugal and survive a massive reduction in our standard of living. Will that itself prove to be the beginning of mankind's salvation?

"Fate, it seems," said Morpheus, "has a sense of humor."

It is simply the case that many people will die because of climate change. That's inevitable. And it is looking more and more like many others will die because of our country's depraved abandonment of its obligation to care for those who cannot care for themselves. Greed makes people stupid. And cruel.

But perhaps, just perhaps, the Duke of Deceit will have done America a huge favor ... not by restoring fiscal responsibility and making America great and blah blah blah blah blah. Far from it. The super-wealthy whom he represents are every bit as profligate as the rest of us. But it may turn out that driving us to economic ruin could realistically be the best option for humanity's future in the long run.

You will have to forgive me if I don't thank him, though. It really really didn't have to be this way.

* consensus reality: n. Reality or real events that take place in conditions that are not subject to invention by individuals, but which have actual, measurable, demonstrable impacts on the world and people's lives.

** Garry Martin's Phrase Finder blog is a useful resource for this kind of word sleuthing: www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining.html 

*** Another optimistic English aphorism, this one coined a century later by Alexander Pope in his Essay on Man (1733-1734).

**** Yet another aphorism, one that I myself have coined. You're welcome to spread it around a bit for me? .

***** www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/james-hansen-testified-senate-climate-change/ 

The Cryptocurrency Chimera

So the Duke of Deceit wants to establish a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" and a "Digital Asset Stockpile." Since the US government is already one of the largest environmental offenders on Earth, this is completly in character. But it is far from clear exactly what "strategic" benefit will derive from this amassing of climate-busting ones and zeroes, other than boosting the "value" of the holdings of people who already own these cryptocurrencies. And after all, he is the president of that lot. So, again, in character.

The first and most important thing to remember about the current cryptocurrency craze is that all money everywhere has always been a matter of shared fictions. Even when money has been tied to a "precious" metal, still that depends on everyone agreeing on the "value" of that metal. For example, the ancient Egyptians valued silver over gold in some eras of their long history. Or consider silk, which functioned as currency on the ancient Silk Roads for centuries in part because it was simpler than maintaining complex calculations among the relative values of the many currencies traveling the routes. It's all about what people think is valuable.

bbc.co.uk

Fickle fiat currency*

Cryptocurrencies will always be subject to the same human realities as fiat money, because they are fiat currencies themselves, and indeed money itself is a human psychological construct. Do not be fooled by the fantasies of some economists: There is nothing like a “natural law” that governs it all. There is nothing “objectively” valuable. All is governed by the fickle human attribution of importance to things and ideas. As culture changes, so does economy. Consider all the Roman coins made of gold and silver that are today only as valuable as what someone is willing to pay for them. Most of their value lies, not in the gold or silver itself, but in the perceived value of their having been minted two thousand years ago. Otherwise, they are worth almost nothing. 

So let's not cling to illusions: Any currency is only as "good" as people think it is. What makes fiat currency relatively stable is the fact that behind it lie huge economies that people find reliable. The volubility of cryptocurrencies shows this clearly: The failure of one broker — just one — nearly crashed the whole system because there is at present no economy behind it large enough to support a value beyond the very limited reach of the crypto-world itself. Yes, huge profits can be made by people with enough liquid wealth (as valued in traditional currencies, mind you) who can jump in and then jump out in time. But the wealth created always translates into the ability to buy resources evaluated by some number in a traditional fiat currency…which the entire rest of humanity considers valuable. 

            Block chains are not for blockheads **

Moreover, cryptocurrencies come with their own costs — to the environment, for starters — which are very, very substantial. The “computing power” (ultimately, the electrical power) necessary to execute one crypto transaction is around 850 KW, about equal to one US household's electricity use for a month. The total for crypto transactions is staggering — currently estimated to be between 155 TWh and 172 TWh annually, roughly equivalent to the energy consumption of the nation of Poland. Why? Because that is the only way to ensure the privacy (i.e. the security) of the transaction itself. Maybe somehow, some day, an alternative to the elaborate “block chain” technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible will emerge. Maybe. But for the foreseeable future, investment in cryptocurrencies is an investment in massive energy expenditure. So, how do you value that? 

And then there are the social costs. Any economic engine that concentrates wealth at the top of the social ladder exacerbates the already huge disparities between the super-wealthy and everyone else, and that's dangerous. According to one estimate, just 1% of Bitcoin owners own more than 90% of the total Bitcoin supply. That's mostly financial companies and the ultra-wealthy who can afford to speculate at that level. Now, those financial institutions do offer various "products" that lower-level investors can buy, but since middle-income families own just 5% of all investments, it's pretty clear that crypto-finance serves primarily the people who already have a lot of money.

Having that much wealth concentrated in so few hands creates instability and promotes economic injustice. The super-wealthy are not generally famous for investing in the rest of us. Rather, with a few exceptions, they tend to look to their own interests first, and too often consider the rest of us mainly to be valuable sources of income for themselves. As long as we produce wealth – and not cost – for them, they like us.

Class traitor extraordinaire. (Credit: NPR)

It took a class traitor like FDR to rescue the US economy from the Great Depression, and even then, he could not accomplish that in the face of elite resistance without the help of a global war that forced the super-wealthy to open their wallets. Some classic cases to consider: the end of the Roman Republic, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution. All cases where the super-greed of the elite spurred popular uprisings led by men who promised the people revenge. Sound familiar?

My point: We have to ask ourselves whether the huge investment in resources entailed by any cryptocurrency transaction offsets the vast expenditure of resources involved in the "traditional" fiat money-based economy. Moreover, what does the society at large — the people you will actually be trading/exchanging with — value, and will it value that enough so that you can get the resources you need to survive? Or is it just another sandbox, just another artificial domain for generating “valuable” numbers on some computer somewhere that people who already have a lot of wealth can use to generate more? What is its value to you? And what will it be a year, five years, twenty years from now?

In a very real sense, the marketing of cryptocurrencies is no different than the marketing of any other consumer product: How many new televisions do you need? Do you need that new iPhone? Really? What benefits, real or imagined, do you believe you are buying, and what will the cost to the environment be? And how will that be shaped by changes in the technology that are sure to come?

I don't have an answer for any of these questions — it's up to the individual, I think. But we should be clear that that is what is going on. Cryptocurrencies will always be only as stable as the size of the economy behind them and the capacity for the environment to sustain their use. If one has the luxury of pouring one’s resources into that medium of exchange, at least be clear about what you are doing to the environment in the process. And be prepared for the limits that choice involves; do not be dazzled by the “freedom from the fiat economy” bamboozle used to sell the thing: It’s all fiat. Every last byte of it.

And, perhaps most importantly, it is certainly not free from the exploitative structures that characterize the fiat-currency economy. Because it is itself a fiat currency. Always always always there will be people who have more and consider their wealth to be part of a zero-sum game. Because at bottom, it is: The amount of economic value — wealth — available at any one time is as finite as the imagination of humanity as a whole (which history shows is pretty limited).

 

In a very real sense, at the moment cryptocurrencies are one more vehicle by which the wealthy classes in wealthy countries can exploit the fantasies for profit. Who is creating the value of these currencies? Only the people who invest in them. And should the cryptocurrency market begin to collapse, you can bet that the “big boys” will exit immediately, pocket their profits, and turn to other mechanisms for “earning” wealth by contributing nothing material of their own. And everyone else will be left holding the virtual bag. The cryptocurrency system is no more or less exploitative than the “analog” economy. And it will remain tied to that “analog” economy because the economy behind it is not large and stable enough to support stability outside the traditional economy.

Bottom line, this is all very much a "first-world" issue: Do the people who really need to step away from the exploitative global financial system — the ones most negatively affected by it — have the actual option to do so? Hardly. They don't have the web access (they don't even have the computers) necessary to free themselves. And even if they did somehow develop a local cryptocurrency economy, they would find themselves having to plug back into the global system in any case to obtain most of the resources they need from outside their immediate locations. Despite what is claimed by the cryptocurrency carnival barkers, there is nothing particularly liberating about them. They are only as good — or as bad — as the economic structures they were created as alleged alternatives to.

* Some ancient fourée (“bogus”) coins from CoinWeek.com (https://coinweek.com/bad-money-ancient-counterfeiters-and-their-fake-coins/) Left front: a counterfeit gold semissis from the time of Theodosius II, mid-5^th century CE; center: a tetradrachm from Athens, 5^th century BCE; right front: a “nugget” from ancient Lydia, ca. 7^th century BCE; right rear: an iron die for a Roman denarius, ca. 101 BCE.

** One of the bazillion such graphics at Freepik.com.