Eclipse

Compared to the sun the moon is a woman, 
Cold as the distant diamonds of a crystal mine, 
Gentle as the fallen flakes of an untrod snowfield, 
Shy as a rabbit peeping out from under a bush. 
Round as the refracted lens of a heavy raindrop. 
 
Compared to the Earth the moon is a man, 
Dry as the surface of a windswept desert, 
Hard as the rocks of a volcanic beach, 
Mobile like the dreams of an ambitious youth, 
Rough as the future of an industrialized nation. 
 
But when the moon is eclipsed, the light 
From neither shines on it, leaving it one color, 
A single entity, undivided under God, 
Bracing itself against the darkness beyond, 
Silhouetted by a circle of light created 
By two bodies revolving, like man and woman. 

World Federalism is True Globalization

Rodrik's political trilemma offers the conditions in which a truly globalized world economy cannot function.  According to him there are three necessities of pure globalization: democracy, the nation-state, and economic integration.  The trilemma states that governments can only utilize as many as two out of three of these, but never all three.  Any effort to infuse a third quality tips the balance.  Those with strong nationalism and global trade, like China, are called "golden straight-jacket" governments, for their lack of interest in democracy.  Those with strong nationalist and democratic policies are categorized by the "Bretton Woods compromise", a fancy way of describing all the international institutions that regulated economies after World War 2.  Those with only democratic policies and economic integration in mind are leaning toward "world federalism", a concept that does away with the nation-state, focusing instead on election-based globalist policies. 

I used to shun globalization for all the adverse effects it caused.  Pollution and lopsided trading, leading to the idea of there being "third world countries", were two of my biggest concerns.  But the positives might outweigh the benefits on one condition: that we get rid of the nation-state as one of these political "necessities".  A purely globalized world economy can only exist if the nation-state corner of Rodrik's trilemma is done away with entirely.  I believe that national economic institutions should be limited to promote democracy and free trade with other countries.  War would decline more than it already has, and countries would work together to create higher standards for countries who are behind on infrastructure.  By definition, purity as it relates to globalization should not depend on national institutions at all, for these are only concerned with the state and not the global economy.  

Unfortunately, it's very difficult to reject all the preconceived notions and cultural biases that are the building blocks of our national pride.  Every country has proud citizens, no matter what age we are living in.  The idea is impractical at this stage in our social evolution, yet all the available evidence tells me it's the only possible way to still save this planet.   

Which will prevail, nationalism or globalism?  I don't think humanity can progress using both, certainly not the former. 

 

Service Economies, the Ultra-Capitalist Dream Quest

Modern economies have grown in three stages: agrarian, industrial, and service.  Agrarian economies were the first in human history to develop, supplying the basic resources for civilization.  They thrived for centuries before technological advancements in the West allowed for industrial economies to take shape.  This also created a boon for education, which skyrocketed after the Industrial Revolution.  Industrial economies grew so fast that it wasn't long before service economies like ours came to center stage.  Once all that technology made goods easier to manufacture, many people didn't need to work in factories anymore.  They'd migrated from the country, an agrarian region; to the cities, denser areas of industry; and thence to the urban sprawl, areas of the economy that are service based. 

Suburbia is overflowing with strip malls that offer nothing but services, and its population has not stopped increasing since it gathered a firm footing in the 1950s.  This is the hot spot of the consumer age, a place where middle class families can buy everything they want at the nearest convenient store.  The Industrial Age and all the technology that came with it made everything so easy for us that it devalued the gold standard, creating cryptocurrencies of paper money that were easy to manipulate by stock brokers, bankers, and CEOs.  The result was a widening in the gap between rich and poor, breaking a false sense of faith in the fairness of a free market economy. 

Social market economies seem to be working best.  Many countries in Europe use a mixture of capitalism and socialism to find a balance between the free market and all the inequality that comes with it (unfair wages, working hours, health hazards).  To a lesser extent the U.S. does this as well, although its policies have not done as well to keep its classes within reasonable distance of each other.  The result is a dangerous squeeze, where the lower class ends up working just as hard as they would in an agrarian or industrial economy.  You may have wondered at some point in your life why all this technology is supposed to make life easier for us, yet we are more fast-paced and stressed than ever.  One explanation is that we are consuming products at a greater rate than ever before, but that doesn't seem like enough.  Another is that the upper class has taken advantage of a capitalist-heavy system that transfers all the benefits that technology gives us right into their bank accounts. 

You can see this by following any trail of efficiency, from agrarian to industrial to service economies.  Service economies cannot function on their own.  Agrarian and industrial economies still exist, they've just gotten pushed out of the country to make room for this new revolutionary type.  The Midwest U.S. still has an agrarian economy, but it's inhabited by many poor farmers who oddly elect people whose job is to keep the poor man down, reinforcing the pattern.  You may still find industries in the U.S., though many of these have been exported overseas.  This wasn't done by accident.  The intent was to distance as much primitive labor as possible from our utopian suburbs, our consumer-friendly sprawls of paradise.  Agrarian and industrial economies do not bring in as much money as service ones, it's that simple.  Bypassing them helps many of the top companies in the country sidestep the grueling processes of digging up materials and manufacturing them by outsourcing it to others. 

The adverse effect of a service economy is that it devalues education.  Nobody in the service industry really needs a college degree, just a well-rounded knowledge about the type of products a company is selling.  Back in the Industrial Age, people needed degrees because many of the logistics in manufacturing required years of study.  This may be why tuition rates are rising while literacy is falling.  Frankly it doesn't appear that a service economy has made us more cordial either, judging from some of the service I've received.  There was a time when people who weren't cut out for customer service didn't feel the pressure of a surplus market for service jobs.  The decline in quality service is ironically a consequence of an economy that's supposed to elevate it. 

 

The Karst Mountains

 Deep in the heart of China there's a vast garden of freshly groomed mountains that sleep on the green Earth like they were giants.  A calm, azure river carves its way through them, dotted by the canoes of local fishermen.  Sporadic farmers linger through rice terraces, fields of sorghum and stalks of sugar cane, tending to their crops.  The boaters and laborers are often seen gathering their goods in the misty purple hazes of sunrises and sunsets, especially from the convenient balconies of cruise ships, such as the one I’m on now. 

My stomach is saturated from the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet upstream, near the departure docks of Guilin.  From there I’d set off down the Li River through that limestone-lacerated paradise.  I don’t believe I’ve ever seen any mountains that are this beautiful, except for the Rockies in Montana.  These mountains rise over the fanned-out palms of the river with a moist, green, marble-cast coating that rivals those of the Andes near Maccu Piccu.  They flatten out towards the top, like buttes in the American southwest.  If I could make my way to the top of one of them, no doubt a vista of overwhelming wonder would flood my mind with seeds of awe.   

The mountains extend in all directions for hundreds of miles.  They are soiled by rich farmland, hearty rivers, and a semi-polluted atmosphere that enhances the sunlit haze, serving up a variety of colors on both sides of the rainbow.