Re: <nettime> merkel, macron: europe on its own

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>]

On 2017-06-01 19:13, Morlock Elloi wrote:
> The evolution of the attitude towards nuclear war from terrible
> (1946+) through unthinkable (1970s) into impossible (2000+) is a
> testament to the power of Kool Aid. While the planet was continuously
> and uninterruptedly ruled based on the military power balances alone,
> the public discourse ballooned into the 'we got more civilized'
> stratosphere. This is the most serious sin of the thinking class(es).

Nobody thinks that nuclear war is impossible, but most think that it
should be avoided at all costs, while some begin to think that it
might be contained and this can be tactically used. Either way, there
are no determining instances in history, not even the military or the
secret services.

The point to remember, I think, is that when stable geo-political
arrangements start to shift, there is no telling where they will end up.
War is not impossible, not a forgone conclusion.

One of the more interesting, since unpredictable, side effects of
Trump's new stance towards NATO is that he basically exposed the Eastern
Europeans, such as Poland, who always trusted the US more than Germany
to protect them from the Russians (for obvious historical reasons). 

If this is coupled with a expansionary (rather than 'austeritarian')
integration of the EU, it's really hard to predict where it ends,
particularly since the Brits are out. With Macron and Merkel there
are now two politicians in power who have a mandate (and will likely
get it renewed in the coming elections) to strengthen the political
Europe.

Given all of this, it's amazing how much the ground has shifted in the
last 6 months.


On 2017-05-31 17:19, Brian Holmes wrote:
> I think you missed the bit in Alex's post about Germany going
> forward with its China trade? That's 200+ nukes and a space program
> in favor of a perfectly complementary high-tech/high-production
> partnership between two state-capitalist giants united by a land
> bridge. They already built the tracks and caught the train for the
> next history-changing economic expansion, while the US lurks in the
> bathroom contemplating resentment and Russia follows its chosen path
> to stifling authoritarianism on the verge of social death.

I totally agree with Brian, the world economy is overdue to be
reorganized around a new paradigm, which I think is obvious to all to
see, will be "green". This has nothing to do with touchy-feely, but
Chinese cannot breath anymore in their capital, coal-powered plants
are cancelled in India and China because renewable energy has become
cheaper, the Germans are seeking to reorient their industry (to save
it) and France wants to capitalize on all the basic research that
they are doing. Italy and Spain will go along, they have little to
loose in this regard. Poland might not have another choice than to go
along too, now that the NATO shield look more shaky than it used to.
And, who knows, maybe some parts of Africa can leapfrog directly to
renewable energy (as they did witht cell phones).

I think even in the US -- despite Trump's pulling out of the Paris
accord -- the growth of innovative industries will not stop there is
too much capital already invested. Іf they want to produce for export
markets they orient will have (and want to) themselves towards these,
particular if some large states like California keep their targets.

The purchase of politicians like Rick Santorum, who praised Trump with
the argument that solar is not reliable because the sun doesn't shine at
night, is finite.

All the bits and pieces -- technological, financial, socio-cultural
-- necessary for such a transformation are are more or less heere
and perhaps we are seeing them slowly shifting into place to build a
self-accelerating system, aka a techno-political pradigm.

The question is now becoming more urgent is what kind of arrangement
these elements will enter. I have serious doubts that something
like "green capitalism" can exist, because capitalism without
externalities (and the environment has been one of its major ones)
is not longer capitalism. But this is really interesting political
discussion, something that coalitions can be built around.










-- 

 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| http://felix.openflows.com
 |OPEN PGP:  https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?search=0x0C9FF2AC

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: