Nothing Is Too Big To Fail

It is not the strongest economy, greatest military or the most intelligent that survive but rather the most adaptable. Is America adapting fast enough to survive?

How does a nation or company survive and thrive in times of radical or disruptive changes? Are there any theories or scientific models that can provide direction and insights during our times?  Many answers to these questions can be found in three theories: Evolutionary biology and the study of survival systems applied to nation states, long wave industrial cycles applied to industry (see Message, Artificially Sustaining Outdated Industrial Models Is Foolish) and the structure of scientific evolution. Evolutionary theories and Charles Darwin predicted that it is not the strongest species that survive but the most responsive to change.  This logic applies to industries and nations as well. It is not the strongest economy, greatest military or the most intelligent that survive but rather the most adaptable. From Ancient Greece to Rome and General Motors to Toyota, once strong became weak, and weak became strong. In The Structure of Scientific Revolution, Thomas Kuhn notes that all great theories and discoveries are initially ridiculed and ignored.  Kuhn argues that, contrary to popular belief, science and development is not a steady linear developmental process, but a series of peaceful times followed by violent revolutions that shatter traditional beliefs. Great visionaries come up with powerful theories by disregarding all previously “known” facts, axioms or illusions. Albert Einstein is a classic example. He spent thirty years of his life studying what is now called a unified field theory. In the process he was roundly criticized for wasting the best years of his life. The pattern is the same today: forward-thinking theorists are at best ridiculed, and then proven correct. If conventionalists accept that a theory is real – be that peak oil, global energy, financial, health, or looming global revolutions - their livelihoods and institutions are threatened and the notion of a new theory is rejected. We now know that Einstein was fifty years ahead of his time and the once mighty U.S.S.R. joined the Holy Roman Empire.
 
The essence of what these theories tell us is that nothing is too big to fail, including the United States of America. It is the nature of men to seek the lowest state of entropy, to resist, ignore and deny, until the friction is too great.  While our Senators fiddle to sustain outdated models and practices, it is prudent to remind them that Nero also played the fiddle, while Rome burned down around him.