</a>Archetypal hope-mongering

Systemic Crises as Keys to Systemic Remedies: a metaphorical Rosetta Stone for future strategy? (Part #13)

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It is with respect to any such systematically-denied underlying challenges that hope-mongering becomes most clearly evident in two distinct forms, whatever population levels are reached:

• creative responsive of human ingenuity: as noted above, the challenge with respect to this form of hope-mongering has been explored by Thomas Homer-Dixon (The Ingenuity Gap: how can we solve the problems of the future? 2000) who subsequently recognized the inevitability of collapse of civilization as it is currently known (The Upside of Down: catastrophe, creativity, and the renewal of civilization, 2006), as with Jared Diamond before him (Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed, 2005). For technocrats, as discussed elsewhere, this is the prime reason for optimism (In Quest of Optimism Beyond the Edge -- through avoidance of the answering process, 2007). Especially interesting in any comparison with the financial markets is the degree of creative ingenuity, of the highest mathematical order, that has been employed in the development of the derivative market -- held specifically to be one of the systemic factors that resulted in the financial crisis.
  
  Curiously such creative ingenuity has not been employed to anticipate future crises by extending the global modelling work of pioneered in 1972 for the Club of Rome. Especially relevant is the manner in which those efforts to analyze the evolution of the world problematique are themselves undermined in an academic context. As shown by Graham Turner (A Comparison of the Limits to Growth with Thirty Years of Reality, CSIRO 2007), the original study provoked many criticisms which falsely stated its conclusions in order to discredit it. Despite the repeated substantiation of its conclusions, including warnings of overshoot and collapse, recommendations of fundamental changes of policy and behaviour for sustainability have not been taken up. One of its principal areas of focus was population.
  
  
• hope-mongering and rapture: as noted above, equally significant if not more so, is the degree of influence on faith-based governance of the widespread belief in some form of rapture, or divine "bailout". Is this "bailout by God"? This is notably a factor in the US presidential campaign at the time of writing. It is widely believed that the more fundamental or dramatic the complex of problems faced by humanity, the higher the probability of such intervention. An extreme irony of the times is the call from economists to have "faith", "belief" and "trust" in an economic orthodoxy in a state of free-fall, as noted above by Madeleine Bunting (Faith, Belief, Trust: this economic orthodoxy was built on superstition, 2008).

  Responsible, rational strategic responses by faith-based governments may therefore be readily set aside in a celebration of short-termism worthy of the financial markets. But what if it proves to be "bailout by Allah" as the lender of last resort -- with a different conception of "Wall Street" and the system to be saved? The final crisis is then held to be both a matter of prophecy and to be welcomed for the future it will then enable, as discussed elsewhere (Spontaneous Initiation of Armageddon: a heartfelt response to systemic negligence, 2004). Is God indeed appropriately to be instrumentalized as a sophisticated form of luck-cum-bailout device, responsive to praise and appeals?

In comparing these extremes, there is a fairly high degree of historical irony with regard to the "indulgence" exhibited through the current bailouts for those who engendered the crisis. The irony is in the response of Christian church authorities to their own financial challenges centuries ago. As a demonstration of human ingenuity, the population was offered "indulgences" for sins committed to reduce any penalties in an afterlife -- in exchange for a fee effectively "bailing out" the Church in the present. Abuse of that hope-mongering system was a major factor in the Protestant reformation. Curiously the parallel to this ingenious approach has been noted with respect to carbon trading (Global Market in Indulgences: extending the carbon trading model to other value-based challenges, 2007).

Most curious in this comparison is the manner in which "faith", typically disparaged by the hard-headed as an insubstantial irrelevance, is now vigorously encouraged by the most hard-headed at the focus of the financial crisis. It is seen as central to recovery of the health of the financial system and the global economy. Economists, and those with governance responsibility, argue strongly that people should have faith, trust and confidence in the financial system which has abused that confidence -- notably as a means of ensuring that the prudent compensate for the actions of the imprudent from whom no comparable engagement is required.

Moral equivalence: Sexual abuse by clergy vs Irresponsible risk-taking by financiers?

The phenomenon of sexual abuse by clergy has been denied and covered up over decades by church authorities -- only recently publicized and leading to condemnation of the offenders and compensation for those affected. There is a distinct equivalence to the attitude to those in authority (having successfully cultivated the belief in their own worthiness of community trust) who engaged in irresponsible financial risk-taking -- using the savings and pensions of others -- richly rewarded by others complicit in the system and in the concealment of its risks. Measures are indeed under consideration to prevent such abuse in future, but no concerted action is taken to address the impoverishment of those already abused in this way. The question of possible criminality is carefully avoided -- although some may be scapegoated as a means of claiming the morality of the system. And yet the UK government has indeed invoked the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act to freeze the assets of some Icelandic banks in which UK bodies had funds. But no question of freezing the assets of those in UK banks who indulged in irresponsible risk-taking -- as a step towards recovering funds? Are the abusers to be considered "terrorists" given the resulting damage? As in the case of the sexual abuse by clergy, who has been complicit in this process and its cover-up? Who continues to benefit from such abuse? To what extent should the abused envisage compensation -- perhaps only to be achived decades in the future?

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