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The notion that "policy change is an option" is, to put it mildly, an illusion. We are prisoners in an historical process, whose momentum is now beyond all human control. We are doomed to be horrified spectators and/or participants in a monumental smash-up of all present social institutions.
For a long time I have thought that the end of the present American social system would be very messy and irrational, that it would involve fiscal crisis and incompetence and delusion in the American ruling class. In short, that it would resemble the French Revolution rather than the Russian Revolution.
The rich and powerful of the world are determined to destroy themselves, just as they have done all through history. It behooves sensible people to get out of their way and not interfere with their complicated ritual of self-immolation. The ability not to be caught up in their death-throes will be a proof of the luck and intelligence of the survivors. It is too late to prevent their suicide; what is important is to build up the embryo of social institutions which will replace those which the rich and powerful are in the process of destroying.
Nothing is ever done until everyone is convinced that it ought to be done, and has been convinced for so long that it is now time to do something else.
---F. M. Cornford
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