Now that the overlapping crises are upon us and the banquet of consequences is being served, we’ll see just who our elites and leadership really are.
The erosion of trust does not need intent, it only requires the blind pursuit of self-interest above all else. Trust is basically reciprocity and sincerity: to develop trust, we must each perform our agreed-upon obligations and be sincere about our efficiency and actions.
Lies, obfuscation, misdirection and the sins of omission are all Kryptonite to trust. Those who put the pursuit of self-interest above all else like to believe they can finesse their greed by leaving out the truth rather than providing a fabrication/ lie. But being social animals whose survival eventually rests on trust, humans are acutely sensitive to the distinction between the truth/ honesty and self-serving prevarications such as the sins of omission.
America’s elites and those living big in secured fiefdoms have actually convinced themselves that their ruthless pursuit of self-interest has no cost or repercussion. Easily neglecting Adam Smith’s volume on the ethical structures needed to support capitalism, they think “the undetectable hand” of the marketplace is nothing more than a feeding frenzy of self-serving greed, and so their relentless pursuit of self-interest will somehow magically transform their robbery and free-riding into a steady economy and society.
This is why trust has actually been lost in America. Everybody with any hold on power utilizes that power exclusively to benefit themselves and their cronies, under the tissue-thin guise of “serving the public” (and even more egregiously, “doing God’s work”– please hand me a barf-bag …).
When everybody is issuing an unlimited spew of BS to cover their own self-enrichment, trust is deteriorated and then lost. When everybody with any shred of power is scrambling to free-ride the system to serve their personal interests above all else, the system itself can no longer be trusted.
This is why institutions have actually lost public trust. Those happily ensconced in a politically powerful fiefdom can increase their private gains at the expenditure of the public interest with no worries that the public can ever make it through the intricacy thickets they’ve put up to ring-fence their fiefdom.
The elites rig the system behind lightweight legal screens and state the system one of “limitless chance” without discussing some are more equivalent than others. Markets are rigged, politics is theater and those in the know celebrate as their personal fortunes broaden like clockwork.
All of this is betrayal of the general public trust and the general public interest, and betrayal has an expense and effect: trust is lost. Betrayal hurts due to the fact that our companied believe the pretenses and guarantees of the lying, cheating prevaricator. Once the truth leaks out, we’re made with the phony/ free-rider/ self-serving BSer.
This is where we are: trust has been lost and there’s no going back. As the chart listed below shows, social trust– our desire to trust strangers– has decreased for years. There are lots of threads in this decline, but one is that everybody has transmogrified into a fraudster or grifter, attempting to draw out something from us while giving us absolutely nothing in return other than empty pledges, phony thankfulness or the pretense of reciprocity.
Just what is the distinction in between the beggar with a counterfeit story, a political leader “explaining” a brand-new junk charge or a private-sector elite rigging the system to benefit their business? There is no distinction. All are masking their pursuit of self-interest behind a fake story. The beggar’s story of needing $10 for gas is clearly threadbare; so too are the stories of pickpocketing “leaders” and SillyCon Valley monopolists.
As the chart below shows, the middle class that as soon as relied on markets, organizations and civic leaders has actually seen its share of the national wealth decline as the top 1%’s share increased. Wealth wasn’t “grown,” it was transferred. Eventually “investors” finally accept they’re absolutely nothing but marks for the financial elite to skim and rip-off and so they leave the fake 3-card-monte “market.” The skimmers and fraudsters, bereft of marks, whine and beg for a go back to the excellent old days when they could make use of all the relying on marks.
Those who have looted the public trust for their own private gain now decry the loss of trust. Their tears are as fake as all their other stories. What they mourn is the marks awakening to their unlimited skims and scams, and the opting out of those who’ve lastly had enough.
Whatever’s gone so well that those with wealth and power have actually had the ability to pretend to be wonderful. But now that the overlapping crises are upon us and the banquet of effects is being served, we’ll see simply who our elites and leadership really are. Pretending will no longer work, and all the self-serving prevarications worldwide will no longer shield us from the effects of a society removed of public trust.
As soon as trust has been destroyed, there’s no going back.
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