[lbo-talk] Re: Undecided Until the Last Minute Re:Dean'sSelf-Demolition

[Eubulides]

I'm becoming increasingly interested in the notion of "punctuated
equilibrium" as at least a metaphor and perhaps an actual description of
political history. Within this context a really serious version of ABB
has to regard the Bush Administration as an actual or potential
"Punctuation" in the equilibrium of neoliberal capitalism. That is, ABB
represents the liberal analogue to that small number of
hole-in-the-corner marxists & anarchists who think in terms of
"revolution or nothing -- now."

[Digression here. "Punctuations," as Eldredge, Gould, et al use them are
brief only in geological terms: i.e., a punctuation might last 45,000+
years. I don't know what the length of a metaphorical punctuation in
history would be, but not "overnight."]

Political punctuations are _not_ predictable.

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Economic and biological evolution:
A non-equilibrium thermodynamic theory
Jing Chen
http://www.ecoeco.org/Documents/thermo.pdf

"In general, any economic or biological system, as a dissipative system,
is
only metastable instead of absolutely stable. Its survival and growth
depend
crucially on its institutional or biological structure, which may or may
not be
able to adapt to the changing environment in the course of time. The main
theme of economic and biological evolution is the tradeoff between
competitiveness of high fixed cost systems in a stable environment and
flexibility of low fixed cost systems in a volatile environment. Since
there is
no dominant strategy in all environments, the beautiful and diverse
ecological system does not reach an equilibrium state, even after four
billion
years of biological evolution. For the same reason, economic organizations
and systems will not converge to an equilibrium state."