As we sink deeper into the abyss of unrelieved depression and economic ruin, savants ought to listen closer to Igor Panarin and ponder the possibilities he envisions. Nations are not held together with super-glue; the bonds that keep disparate people together are economic, social, and political. The fundamental bond is economic. Not to get all Marxist on you, but the material means of wealth production determine everything else in society--its politics and social arrangements and law and even religion. Economic realities are fundamental; they are the foundation of everything else.
In America these economic realities are crashing. While we were busy watching TV and shopping, our so-called leaders in government and private industry during the last 25-30 years changed the economic reality on which 20th century industrial America was based. We stopped being a production-oriented economy and became a finance-oriented economy. We out-sourced and off-shored our industrial base and decided to live not by production of wealth but by the magic of compound interest. Why work for a living when you can "invest" for a living and live off the compounding profits?
Of course, like all magical thinking, the "magic" of compound interest income is nonsense. As Michael Hudson has pointed out for years, your compound interest income is somebody else's compound interest debt payment. You, the investor (and for that term you should read "creditor"), can prosper indefinitely only if other people go deeper into debt indefinitely and keep up their interest payments. This "magic" system craps out the moment debtors default. That moment for America is right now. Since we have eviscerated our once-great industrial infrastructure, we have nothing to fall back on.
When the foundations crack up, the building collapses. The economic foundation of modern America is cracking up, and the social, political, and legal superstructures resting on it cannot stand unsupported. Thus Igor Panarin envisions the consequences of this crack-up, and what he sees is pretty grim--at least for Americans. Maybe the most startling aspect of his ideas is how quickly he anticipates the crack-up of America to happen. 2009 will be a year of misery and despair and lost illusions; 2010 will be the year 300 million dispirited, impoverished Americans go their separate ways. Think it can't happen here? When Mr. Panarin made his original predictions in 1998, people laughed. There's not a lot of laughter these grim days.
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