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Equity & Debt

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. As Barataria has discussed before, business cycles are not only real but heavily define the world in social and technical development terms. These cycles are, in purely economic terms, changes in availability and attitudes towards debt.

It is more than a little chilling to think that progress naturally comes in waves because of something as mundane as debt. But a system defined by money supply which has features that are destabilizing and work against sustainability and resilience is a large part of what we might call “capitalism.” The equilibrium of markets is pushed and pulled by the availability of capital.

One important feature of Fourth Wave Industrialization has to be that these cycles will need to be broken and greater monetary stability has to be achieved for a truly open market. This is likely to mean that equity will have to be favored over debt. But what, really, is the difference?

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Corporate Debt

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Ten years ago, Lehman Brothers collapsed in a pile of overextended debt that could not be sustained by a weakening housing market, stock market, and many other bubbles. It would later be called the end of the “housing bubble” as a general panic ensued over the asset most commonly held by the general public.

But the issue at hand was, more generally, a debt crisis which fueled an unsustainable rise in asset prices in many areas. Banks were caught with more liabilities than assets as loans that should never have been made defaulted.

Today, banks are more wary, especially of consumers. But corporations have been racking up debt to a level that many feel is unsustainable.

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War Debt & Collapse of the Empire

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History is consistent in one important way. Empires always fall, and there are three main causes for the collapse. Succession crises, corruption and debt are what eventually bring them down. And the cause of debt is always an insatiable appetite for war – either from a need to defend the borders or expand them.

In the US today, there is no concern about succession, as our Founding Fathers made sure that wasn’t an issue. Corruption is certainly an issue, but it’s nowhere near Roman levels at this time. Debt, on the other hand is mounting rapidly.

What is the cause of that debt? Despite many deflections, it’s not caused by taking care of people. Our debt can be directly traced to our appetite for war.

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Cooperation, Not Combat

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The trade war with China accelerates as the Trump administration’s latest tariffs have been matched. Talks have broken down, and Trump seems to think that the taxes are paid by China, not US consumers. He’s not going to back down anytime soon.

Where does it stop? If the end goal is an even trade between the two nations, it’s not actually possible to accomplish it this way – unless it drops to zero. There are systemic problems in world trade generally and China specifically which create this issue that can and must be worked out. A competent administration would do that hard work and create a world that is much more even all around.

But no, we’d all rather just bully our way to prosperity or something.

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Industry 4.0

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Call it the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” or the more hip “Industry 4.0” if you like. What matters most is that industry, or the process of making things, is changing in ways that seem fundamental and permanent. The world is moving on to a new era which, difficult as times like this can be to understand, appears to be rather well defined and describable.

If you do a deep dive into Industry 4.0, however, there is still something missing. It’s the “why” of the process which seems to be at least assumed, if not elusive. Not just why it is happening, but why it is being driven now and why it is expected to cast aside Industry 3.0.

What’s missing in the increasing chatter of Industry 4.0 appears to be the fundamental force behind it, which is the decline of what we might call “capitalism” in favor of a purely market centered, low overhead “marketism” approach.

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