The institutional practice of allocating power within a society, which generally includes the assignment and exercise of authority [legitimate power] by various means, including violence.
One of the effects of the penetration of money into every realm of life is the corruption of human values. The growing tolerance for, even blindness to, corruption in politics seems obvious. But it seems to pervade both everyday life and business as well. Corruption is not new. Neither are bribes, theft, or betrayal. Americans … More The Found Art of Self-Dealing and the Corruption of Everything
Talk of the so-called “political gridlock” in Washington has become so commonplace that it certainly qualifies as a full-fledged cliché. For too long, the three branches of the federal government have been pandering to the short-term economic interests of power elites. They have done little else. Yet they also work in high conflict with one … More Republicans, Democrats, and the Climate Tipping Point
I watched the entire dash-cam video over and over again. The South Carolina State Trooper shot a young black man when he reached for his drivers license as directed. Many major news outlets played it. Maybe that is because it wasn’t a gruesome bloody scene and the victim fell beyond the dash-cam range upon being … More Images of American Violence: What Sense Do They Make?
What will it will take to reduce world carbon emissions enough in the short time necessary to fend off the worst of the effects of climate disruption? So much of the economy and energy technology is involved that it is hard to even imagine the magnitude of resulting social disruption. Yet here we are, faced … More The Dilemma of Transformation: From Petro-Economy to Eco-Society
The mass media continue to present the issue of climate change as if it were an unsettled scientific topic for political debate. Of course, the mass media are owned by the very corporations that have externalized the real costs of their pollution of the environment. If the real costs to people and the planet were … More Climate Science or Social Science?
What is the point in viewing and attempting to understand the events in Ferguson, Missouri, over the past few weeks? Is it about: 1) another unjustified killing of a black youth by a police officer; 2) an unruly teenager whose behavior escalated a situation that led to his death; 3) a history of bad relations … More Victims, Protesters, Bully Boys, and Looters: On Missing the Point
The concept goes way back in the intellectual history of the West, also the East. Simply put, “creative destruction” suggests that in the creation of the new, something of the old is destroyed. Innovation often makes “the old ways” of doing things obsolete. Not surprising. Examples abound in the history of the growth economies of … More Creative Destruction Transformed
A number of books and articles have appeared over the past few years raising the specter of societal collapse. The crises of climate disruption and hyper-inequality in an increasingly unstable U.S. and global economy are converging toward destabilization. These converging destabilizing forces will likely produce some form of radical change –like it or not. But … More State Secrecy: Collapse or Transformation
What is money? What is speech? We take these concepts for granted and operate as if we know what they are, but do we, really? More importantly, does the Supreme Court understand the relationship between money and speech? Apparently not, or more likely, the Court is in denial about that relationship, for entirely political reasons. … More Money Is Not Speech
No power elite in the world is immune from becoming a perpetrator of the process of destruction of a population of Others. Unwarranted extreme power of corrupt officials is often enhanced by manipulation of the mass media to demonize an “out group” of Others. Information control and propaganda allow elites to control “public opinion” and … More Living in Fear of the Other: The Process of Destruction
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 