Heinberg: Putting In Place Mechanisms For An Authoritarian Regime

[Strelnikov_]

I think Heinberg puts together the pieces of what the effects of a resource limited future will be. So when he makes the following statement, I have to wonder.

Diebold, anyone?

A Conversation with Richard Heinberg
The Oil Drum
Fri Sep 30

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/24/233315/937#more

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SS: The lessons from Cuba do seem to be the best one can find of a society that was faced with a similar issue and handled it about as well as one can imagine handling it.

RH: I think so.

SS: What do you think are the lessons of that?

RH: There are a lot of lessons for the U.S. in the experience of Cuba. As dysfunctional as planned economies can be, and socialist governments can be, there was an advantage in this instance in that they were able to make decisions quickly and change their modes of agricultural production rapidly. One person could say, “This is the way we’re going to go,” and cause a whole chain of responses within the system. They could decide to pay agricultural workers better than urban engineers and that would happen overnight. It's a very difficult scenario to imagine that happening in the U.S. with a diversified economy and a political class that is so deeply corrupt and dysfunctional. So, lessons from the U.S. will have to be learned by individuals and small groups who are willing to learn them. The U.S. government is not likely to learn many lessons from Cuba because I don't think they're paying attention. I wish it were otherwise.

SS: In history, when societies get into crisis, you sometimes see great people emerge as leaders that you might not have expected. For example, in the Great Depression we have FDR. Then on the other hand you can look at Weimar Germany, where they elected Adolf Hitler. Crisis will certainly bring out something different in us. What do you think it might be?

RH: In the U.S. I'm sad to say, the deep leadership, not the people we elect but the people who are actually making the decisions, are aware of the general trend of events. They see the American standard of living cannot be supported. Rather than informing the American people of this and asking for a national consensus based on a shared willingness to cooperatively reduce living standards, what they're doing is to quietly put in place the mechanisms for an authoritarian regime. When the time comes they will enforce that on the American people. How that will come about, when, I don't know.

SS: You're not optimistic about us finding an FDR?

RH: Maybe there's someone waiting in the wings who could be the benevolent dictator under these circumstances but I don't see that person out there. The American political system has been eviscerated in terms of democracy - in my opinion the last two presidential elections were fraudulent. At this point if there is a benevolent dictator in the wings, it’s not going to be somebody we actually elect, or if we happen to elect them it will only be a coincidence that we vote for the person the elites have chosen for us. It’s not a very happy place to be in, but the evidence I see points to it.

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