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Primary Processes of Change

Let us now examine the primary processes of change in modern Neoliberal economies (or whatever domestically convenient ideological labels they attach to themselves).

1. Opaque influence of Elites. Since they hold the levers of concentrated power, Elites within the State (especially the Executive branch) and financial Plutocracy can launch profound changes on their own.

Within recent history, the Vietnam War is a prime example: the war was escalated by a mere handful of men in the Executive branch, with fatal consequences for 50,000 Americans and approximately 1.5 million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians.

Neither the public nor the financial power Elites were clamoring for a land war in Asia, though the Elites soon exploited the windfalls the war spending opened.

On occasion a State Elite may instigate a positive change; For example, Theodore Roosevelt enabled the National Park system and limited some of the worst excesses of his class via "trust busting" regulations.

Another recent example is the relaxation of various regulatory structures that were legacies of the Great Depression. Neither the public nor the State's high-caste bureaucrats were clamoring for the evisceration of financial regulations; the rentier-financial Power Elites instigated these changes in order to open more windfall-exploitation opportunities.

This process is the standard methodology Elites deploy to increase their share of the national income.

Examples include: lobbying a campaign-donation-hungry member of Congress to insert a tax break in a voluminous and therefore opaque bill; lobbying the Pentagon to include specifications for a weapons systems which narrow the potential contractors to one; insert language in a pension reform act which vastly increases the opportunities for public retiree looting of the pension system, and so on.

The key is that the lobbying is discrete, opaque and difficult to expose. In general the only way such opaque influence comes to light is via an insider; hence the violent and immediate suppression and punishment of any whistleblowers who dare expose the collusion, cronyism, capture of the regulatory process, looting, embezzlement and fraud at the heart of the State and Plutocracy.

2. Market forces. Despite the best efforts of the State and capital Elites to manage and control market prices, prices based on supply and demand fluctuate as global markets are not within complete control of the Plutocracy or the State. While certain price fluctuations can be extremely profitable to the Plutocracy, the State prefers prices to be stable lest the citizenry rouse themselves from their slumber.

Thus if gasoline doubles in price due to various global supply/demand/speculative forces, then demand will drop accordingly. If money/credit becomes cheap, then borrowing will increase, and so on. Market forces, especially in energy, can trigger rapid changes in other markets, creating domino effects that ripple through the global economy and trigger negative feedback from the State: price controls, release of strategic reserves, etc.

3. Financial-geopolitical shocks/natural disasters. The world is a collection of uncertainties and instabilities bound by various feedbacks, but all systems are prone to non-linear events which can be characterized as chaotic, fractal, etc. The State responds in some fashion to counteract the instability, and the success or failure of that attempt to restore stability to the system can unleash further change.

Recent examples include 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, oil doubling in price, the Federal bailout of mortgage lenders, etc.

When the State response fails to counter dissolution of stability, when supply/demand lead to chronic shortages and price spikes--in other words, when negative feedbacks fail--then interlocking forces can cascade in falling-dominoes fashion, setting off changes which might at first glance appear unrelated to the initial instability.

As noted