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Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Vox Popoli: Not 4GW... yet


William S. Lind explains why the current New World Disorder is a precursor to 4GW across the West rather than the phenomenon itself:
In more and more places, states are failing to maintain order but remain as vehicles of the New Class, the Establishment.  The Establishment runs the state, not to provide security of persons and property for all, but for its own benefit. It uses its control of the state to give itself careers, money (lots of it), power, prestige, etc.  It then employs these to exempt itself from the consequences of state failure, i.e., it lives in gated communities, its kids go to private schools and its jobs don’t get shipped overseas.

One of the interesting characteristics of the new world disorder is that it is coming primarily from the middle class.  The yellow vests are a striking example. But the young people filling the streets of Baghdad and Hong Kong are also often of middle class background.  They are college students or recent college graduates. They are taking to the streets because around the world, the middle class is under ever growing pressure.  College degrees no longer bring good jobs. Pensions and paychecks no longer last to the end of the month. Maintaining even a vestige of a middle class standard of living requires going even deeper into debt.  The state arose to provide security, but it now yields growing insecurity for the middle class.

So far, the disorder appears to be directed against the Establishment that runs the state, not the state itself.  That is why it is not Fourth Generation war. If it proves possible to boot the Establishment out and replace it with governors who serve the middle class instead of themselves, the state is likely to remain.  However, if the Establishment is able to hold on to power despite its failure in governance, then at some point people are likely to start giving up on the state itself. At that point we will be looking at 4GW, and lots of it.

One thing is already clear, however. The Establishment is not going to give up power voluntarily, regardless of how the electorate votes.