The Ambitious Government

I saw this pic and was reminded of Hitler. So I started thinking about the world today. We are living in a very dangerous world was the conclusion I was forced to. I compared items from papers and other writers from both times and found some pretty alarming similarities. The more I studied, the more similarities I found. All over the world today and back then, there was a rise in populist politics. Today and then, military force was being used to further various countries economic ambitions.

Interestingly, the economic battles then and now are about resources. The military battles are being fought in the same way. Speaking of the pre-WW2 period now, both the US and Germany along with Italy, England, and France were extending their power militarily. Fighting or encouraging war in other countries in order to further their ambitions.

Politically, then, the British Empire was on the wane while the US empire was growing but not yet the power it would become by the end of the war. As then, so now. Except the US empire is on the wane and the Chinese and the Indian empires are growing but not yet at their peak.

If we extend these comparisons and add the greater complexities of a world facing climate change, peak oil and huge technological change it is easy to see trouble around the corner. The difference is the weapons of the US now compared to the weapons of Britain then.

My fear is that the normal evolution of political and economic empires, rising and falling will logjam. China and India will keep growing while the US looks likely to fall into internal dispute. All with weapons of mass destruction. The dangers talked about the Islamic Jihadist politics are nothing but scaremongering compared to these dangers.

Where are the new ideas, social and political that could give us a way through these difficulties? Buried in the billions of words spoken and written every day. One thing I know, while no one is looking bad things happen and no new ways can succeed.

My poor solution: Each country's citizens create a citizen's parliament and define the ambitions of the real people who will suffer the most when the politicians fail to control the situation. Those ambitions should be the defining narrative of any election. This is too important to leave up to those whose ideas were formed decades ago, before half the modern problems we have ever arose. A country's ambitions should be the core of any government, not some hackneyed old political philosophy.

As an aside, capitalism makes a fine tool and an absolutely terrible dictator. Thus, capitalism should not be a political philosophy, just a simple tool used by governments to measure how they are doing on fulfilling the country's wishes.

Government for the people, by the people.

Not government by politicians for the powerful.