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the 1950s are often referred to as the "consensus" period of american history, a time when labor, capital, and the political class cut a bunch of deals to run postwar "prosperity" to failure. the 2020s are another "consensus" period, except labor is out of the equation
there's a long-term reckoning that few are thinking about right now, a problem that is likely to ramify over time: what does it mean that all of the major corporations + the political/pol-adjacent class agree on an enforceable code of conduct without many offsetting concessions?
again, i don't truly care - i'm someone who has always been lost in history, "untimely" on my best day - but the point of "consensus" here will ultimately be a kind of "run to failure" situation for the US. & the "code of conduct" will stay within these borders
the ramifications, for example, of extended "lockdown" (whatever that means) simply by itself necessitate such a new consensus. when various payment suspension and eviction grace periods expire, things will get real touchy. this "consensus" offers a path forward, such as it is
all of the great ideas of this time, the animating impulses, are tied to intermediate or long-term decline, the "run to failure" of life itself. COVID, climate change, a grudging acceptance that workers can bargain for a certain kind of protection "at best" ("Amazonism")
these are not simply appearing out of the ether, as "fundamentals" indicate "declension" is "inevitable" (again, whatever that means, and yet it means a heck of a lot). but out in the world, on any specific day, the sun may be shining & you may eat a pizza, or you might stay in
i am just not sure - and here i would urge people to read emil cioran, if no one else - that people have reckoned with the sense that something, perhaps everything, is being buttoned up. and if it isn't true, it could become true, like n. taleb rooting for the COVID black swan
