[lbo-talk] a question regarding the future

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Doug:
> I'm highly allergic to crisis talk. Yes, things could fall apart
> someday, and that someday might just be around the corner. But a lot
> of people, from folks on the street to hardcore Trotskyist
> revolutionaries, amplify concerns about a problem into a crisis. I
> think the entire US recovery/expansion that began in 2001 has been
> troubled - despite massive fiscal and monetary stimulus it's been
> able to generate the weakest GDP growth of any of the 10 post-WW II
> expansion, and the worst employment growth by far. GM and other firms
> in the auto industry are in terrible shape, and workers and
> pensioners could get hit hard. With energy prices and interest rates
> rising, we may have a recession next year, and it could be deeper and
> longer than the ones of the early 1990s and early 2000s. But that's
> different from "collapse."

I am fully with you on the predictive aspect of the crisis talk, but you
seem to forget your own advice to look into what makes people "tick."  Doom
saying is a bunch of hogwash if you take it as an advice to build your
future on it, but it tells you something about the state of mind of the doom
sayers.  Like their idealism or religious mind-frame that is eager to
substitute wishful thinking for a rational analysis of material reality.  Or
willingness to obtain instant gratification or relief from their
frustrations by saying magic words.

For many people words and symbols are far more important than reality - some
consider themselves "middle class" while other believe that "the end is
near."  These words and the delusions they involve make them tick.

Wojtek