It is just a matter of time until we see the Koch family enthroned. The funny part to me is that with the system they rode to the top it need not be them. Someone would be there. A lot has been said and written about them and yet they are still just filling a niche the system has created.
This is really not about values or ideology. It is about evolution of systems in a realm we have not studied nearly well enough. The part we have trouble understanding with our human minds is the way a self organizing system evolves. Because human players are so intimately involved it seems like they have to be in control.
The thing about the evolution of this system is that it has a history. That history tells us a lot. Read on below and I will explain.
For some of that history Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the Twenty-First Century has a lot to provide. My main take from that book is a bit different than what he proposes to be central, but I am looking at it in a broader context.
The history is a that of a system evolving and developing with a marked pause in that trajectory at WWII and just after it.
There are other histories that also will make my point about the fact that evolution of the system is not a product of human design. It is certainly a product of human activity. That's where it gets very complex very quickly.
Human activity is responsible for science and technology and all they have done to make the system grow and develop into what it is. That science and technology is in no way created for that purpose. People who are not usually scientists pick and choose and invent and market and things sell and create wealth. There is a lot of complex causality buried in that last sentence.
A lot of study has gone into the way certain things get selected and fill socio-political-economic niches and tend to dominate those niches. Again this well known phenomenon is not a product of human design but is a product of human activity.
In harmony with this a lot has been said and written about the way technology seems to have a life of its own. This is because of its role in the system's evolution and development.
In our book Global Insanity: How Homo sapiens Lost Touch with Reality while Transforming the World we make this point
Development of any complex system reinforces specific dependencies while eliminating alternatives, reducing the diversity that affords adaptive degrees of freedom: the more developed a system is, the less potential it has to change its way of being. Hence, in the evolution of life most species become extinct. This perspective reveals the limits that complexity places on knowledge and technology, bringing to light our hubristically dysfunctional relationship with the natural world and increasingly tenuous connection to reality.
We cite many modern works that back these ideas up.
In Reich's Supercapitalism he also makes the point in a different way using Walmart as an example. He discusses the nature of the system and posits that if we were to eliminate Walmart from the picture another player (or players) would fill the niche the system makes possible.
You can not have it both ways. Either these people are geniuses or they have been very fortunate to be in the right places at the right times.
As a biologist (among other things) I see the system evolving like any complex self organizing system would. The role of particular human players is to be agents for evolution and development not creators of what they are using for gain. Pointing the finger at them misses the point.
Over history many have struggled with what we now see developing to its final stage. Another biological analogy does some good here. We are growing and using up resources and fouling the sustaining growth medium. This can not go on forever. The Koch family will not live to see what they have been helping along and yet they are so active in their support of denial.
The United States has been an interesting part of the system's evolution. The finding of the new continents and their settlement allowed one stage of stagnation to be overcome and opened the door to what has come to pass.
Democracy has always been an illusion yet we believe we have something worthy of that name. The idea that any democratic system could produce what we are now is silly.
In our book we speak about the imperfections and limits of human intelligence. We trace some of the inherent limits to the relationship between the two hemispheres in our brains. It seems obvious that we are flawed and that the flaws are rather major.
I ask you to ponder the amount of human resources and energy that has gone into paving the way for today's senate vote on the pipeline. Think about it and try to project what future struggles will be like.
The 2016 election is being set up now. The Koch interests are committing and amount of money roughly equivalent to what each candidate spent in 2012. They have more if they need it.
Lobbyists have resources of great magnitude as well. The media is owned by these interests. The scenario does not make me optimistic. Does it you? I think we do not need a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing. I hope I am wrong.