Un Autre Couple Historique
When a natural system reaches the point of criticality and collapses through a phase transition,
it goes through a simplification process that results in greatly
reduced systemic scale, which also reduces the risk of another
megaevent. This is not true in all man-made complex systems. Government
intervention in the form of bailouts and money printing can temporarily
arrest the cascade of failures. Yet it cannot make the risk go away. The
risk is latent in the system, waiting for the next destabilizing event.
One solution to the problem of risk that comes from allowing a system to
grow to a megascale is to make the system smaller, which is called
descaling. This is why a mountain ski patrol throws dynamite on unstable
slopes before skiing starts for the day. It is reducing avalanche
danger by descaling, or simplifying, the snow mass. In global finance
today, the opposite is happening. The financial ski patrol of central
bankers is shoveling more snow onto the mountain. The financial system
is now larger and more concentrated than immediately prior to the
beginning of the market collapse in 2007.
p. 211
Luxury is therefore absolutely necessary in monarchies; as it is also in
despotic states. In the former, it is the use of liberty; in the
latter, it is the abuse of servitude. A slave appointed by his master to
tyranniee over other wretches of the same condition, uncertain of
enjoying tomorrow the blessings of today, bas no other felicity than
that of glutting the pride, the passions, and voluptuousness of the
present moment. _ Hence arises a very natural reflection. Republics end
with luxury ; monarchies with poverty. †
p. 107
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