Gaius Publius — The Collapsing Social Contract

So now we are talking about the possibility of revolution or martial law in the US, at Naked Capitalism no less. Unprecedented.

Until elites stand down and stop the brutal squeeze, expect more after painful more of this. It’s what happens when societies come apart. Unless elites (of both parties) stop the push for “profit before people,” policies that dominate the whole of the Neoliberal Era, there are only two outcomes for a nation on this track, each worse than the other. There are only two directions for an increasingly chaotic state to go, chaotic collapse or sufficiently militarized “order” to entirely suppress it.…

These are not just metaphors. The country is already in a pre-revolutionary state; that’s one huge reason people chose Trump over Clinton, and would have chosen Sanders over Trump. The Big Squeeze has to stop, or this will be just the beginning of a long and painful path. We’re on a track that nations we have watched — tightly “ordered” states, highly chaotic ones — have trod already. While we look at them in pity, their example stares back at us.

We aren't there yet, but conditions are ripe for it if things keep going along the same vector, or accelerate. The authorities have already been preparing with total surveillance and the militarization of domestic security forces.

Even a short time ago saying something like this would be laughed off as conspiracy theory. Not any more.

Naked Capitalism
Gaius Publius: The Collapsing Social Contract
Yves Smith