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In danger of collapse… but why?
Republicans & Democrats finally agree; US’ democracy is “in danger of collapse”. How did we get here?
It’s all too easy to blame, as Biden did this week, the other side.
That’s a mistake.
Both sides, in fact, blame the other side in equal measure.
So who or what is really at fault?
Like most things in life — war, famine, obesity, opioid addiction, depression and so on — we have to look at the economics that drives social change forward, which gives it energy and which sustains — often accelerates — change.
In a capitalist society, economics is always at the heart of change.
So how is economics tearing democracy apart?
It’s simple;
Our entire world view — from what we know of the world through news media to which friends we interact with on social media — is driven by software algorithms designed & engineered to increase engagement and attention, in turn to sell us items as trivial as socks & shoes.
Little by little, over decades, this attention-based economy has driven social discourse towards often-false, usually over simplified but almost always viscerally enticing dichotomies.
