When the going gets tough…you are on your own!


Creative Commons License photo credit: Busko
It is interesting to see how the social dynamics between individuals are mirrored exactly in the same way in a global and macro-economic scale. Whereas in the good times states cooperate with each other with more flexibility, when the situation worsens, not only each system actor shuts down to outside cooperation, but what is more alarming, they look for scapegoats to explain their own failure. This has already started:

Bloomberg on migration and the UK

Business week: senators target visa loopholes

On a global scale, as the economy worsens -and these emerging forces are pushed to greater extremes by populist politicians- this has historically lead to war.

Will it be different this time?
It may be so, if we consider the cracks already starting to appear at the local level. In the case of the state of Philadelphia, notice that the local government is going against national commercial rules with this decision:

http://www.reuters.com/article/gc03/idUSN2830318520080328

This has no recent-history precedent but may well be a sing of things to come, leading the the splitting of nations into smaller, self-administered regions. Expect the same growing tensions as well within the European Union, as the richer states start to drag their feet on the Union idea as they feel they are subsidizing in excess the poorer states…

April 2, 2008 · Filed Under Analysis, Europe, Future, Politics

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