Plato and Hegel saw constant changes and sometimes revolutions as the seeds that forced societies to rise to the historical occasion of their times. Moreover, both of them considered evolutionary changes the ingredient that could inspire a march of Reason to perfection. The markets are not the places where self-interest (rational or otherwise) is maximized. The markets are clearinghouses of information where people discover what is useful and valuable to them. Gradually, out of the endless transactions, a rational order is expected to emerge.
However, what would happen if the managers of the clearinghouses (not only of financial markets but also of political markets) mess up things that distort pricing information and the value of the goods and services exchanged? What would happen if the stewards of the system scrambled the broadcast signals?
Idea, Reason, and Spirit were interchangeable words for Hegel, and were more real than the material world they direct or reflect. For Plato, those interchangeable words existed prior to material reality. Let’s assume then that they emerge as part of our material reality over time, like an image painted on the spokes of a wheel. Such an image can only be seen when the wheel is set in motion.
There are circumstances when the market reality can only be comprehended when the rubber of geoeconomics hits the road of geopolitics. The unfolding of market perception over time is distorted by failures of central authorities (take as an example the unnecessary ultra-accommodative monetary policy until earlier this year, and the pronouncements of transitory inflation). When the rubber of such monetary policy hits Putin’s road of madness and Xi’s highway of insecurities, analysts start scrambling the broadcast signals (buy the dips, recession is imminent, inflation is peaking, etc.), all of which lead to market uncertainty and a volatile/flux situation where the best we could hope for is an unreasonable imperfection, and a capitulation to deconstruction.
So, whether we believe that it was Plotinus, Kant, or Johann Fichte who initially taught the concepts of procession, retrocession, and then the merger with the One, the reality is that spirit of the age (molded by geopolitics and geoeconomics) currently leads the world and the markets into a chain of events whose outcome, in our humble opinion, will redefine the State and its role, and consequently will redefine money, markets, and the institutions that shape politics, economics, and finance.
We are facing a historical reality (due to an amalgam of changes in telecoms, computing, an arsenal of weapons, authoritarianism, lost capacity to think and judge, and a myriad of incompetent idiots) in world political and economic affairs when the essential ideas that govern statecraft must change. Our emerging historical epoch will call into question the sovereignty of a State (and hence the need to redefine it, and along with it politics and economics).
Historically speaking, the birth and development of a State is the outcome of bloody wars and/or the result of laws (constitutional events). The notion of the nation-state may be coming under siege, and thus the market developments could be perceived as a capitulation to the emerging reality of a redefinition of State and its sovereignty because territorial borders could come under question while civil strife undermines the State’s/Union’s cohesiveness.
The inevitability of the next epochal war could possibly be mediated by a series of low-intensity conflicts, which, in turn will buy the time to redefine the sovereignty of a State, its markets, its laws, its international relations, the new monies and markets and asset classes, while also containing the threat imposed by mad leaders. Failing to do that, we could see a cataclysmic war whose outcome would be the annihilation envisioned by the madness of belligerent leaders who may be using pre-emptive nuclear strikes, while at the same time using extreme repression measures within their territories.
Renaissance gave us the modern State because the feudal and mercantilist global order was inefficient. The fusion of law and strategy gave us the modern State power (including the power to tax, to declare war, as well as to issue money). Today’s mutable, fickle and overindebted State/Union of States point to an impotence, which unless addressed soon, could have cataclysmic consequences. We could argue that the Great War that started in 1914 didn’t end until the end of the Cold War, given that its purpose was to replace the imperial world order of the 19th century. Since then, naïve policies allowed China into the community of the WTO, and precious resources were wasted in a war looking for weapons of mass deception, all the while allowing Russian to almost monopolize European energy options.
Therefore, while playing it safe (for a good chunk of a portfolio) and staying on the sidelines might be prudent, we should also be preparing for the Day After when new asset classes will be emerging in a state of international affairs where justice becomes the source of freedom, and where stop signs exist to protect our liberties and Reason’s march to a better imperfection from belligerent manipulators. After all, history is a series of crises and conflicts – let alone wars – where both (crises and conflicts) are products and shapers of the forthcoming deconstruction and its emerging culture, as well as significant variables in shaping the spirit of the emerging epoch.
Capitulating to Market Deconstruction: The March to an Unreasonable Imperfection
Author : John E. Charalambakis
Date : August 30, 2022
Plato and Hegel saw constant changes and sometimes revolutions as the seeds that forced societies to rise to the historical occasion of their times. Moreover, both of them considered evolutionary changes the ingredient that could inspire a march of Reason to perfection. The markets are not the places where self-interest (rational or otherwise) is maximized. The markets are clearinghouses of information where people discover what is useful and valuable to them. Gradually, out of the endless transactions, a rational order is expected to emerge.
However, what would happen if the managers of the clearinghouses (not only of financial markets but also of political markets) mess up things that distort pricing information and the value of the goods and services exchanged? What would happen if the stewards of the system scrambled the broadcast signals?
Idea, Reason, and Spirit were interchangeable words for Hegel, and were more real than the material world they direct or reflect. For Plato, those interchangeable words existed prior to material reality. Let’s assume then that they emerge as part of our material reality over time, like an image painted on the spokes of a wheel. Such an image can only be seen when the wheel is set in motion.
There are circumstances when the market reality can only be comprehended when the rubber of geoeconomics hits the road of geopolitics. The unfolding of market perception over time is distorted by failures of central authorities (take as an example the unnecessary ultra-accommodative monetary policy until earlier this year, and the pronouncements of transitory inflation). When the rubber of such monetary policy hits Putin’s road of madness and Xi’s highway of insecurities, analysts start scrambling the broadcast signals (buy the dips, recession is imminent, inflation is peaking, etc.), all of which lead to market uncertainty and a volatile/flux situation where the best we could hope for is an unreasonable imperfection, and a capitulation to deconstruction.
So, whether we believe that it was Plotinus, Kant, or Johann Fichte who initially taught the concepts of procession, retrocession, and then the merger with the One, the reality is that spirit of the age (molded by geopolitics and geoeconomics) currently leads the world and the markets into a chain of events whose outcome, in our humble opinion, will redefine the State and its role, and consequently will redefine money, markets, and the institutions that shape politics, economics, and finance.
We are facing a historical reality (due to an amalgam of changes in telecoms, computing, an arsenal of weapons, authoritarianism, lost capacity to think and judge, and a myriad of incompetent idiots) in world political and economic affairs when the essential ideas that govern statecraft must change. Our emerging historical epoch will call into question the sovereignty of a State (and hence the need to redefine it, and along with it politics and economics).
Historically speaking, the birth and development of a State is the outcome of bloody wars and/or the result of laws (constitutional events). The notion of the nation-state may be coming under siege, and thus the market developments could be perceived as a capitulation to the emerging reality of a redefinition of State and its sovereignty because territorial borders could come under question while civil strife undermines the State’s/Union’s cohesiveness.
The inevitability of the next epochal war could possibly be mediated by a series of low-intensity conflicts, which, in turn will buy the time to redefine the sovereignty of a State, its markets, its laws, its international relations, the new monies and markets and asset classes, while also containing the threat imposed by mad leaders. Failing to do that, we could see a cataclysmic war whose outcome would be the annihilation envisioned by the madness of belligerent leaders who may be using pre-emptive nuclear strikes, while at the same time using extreme repression measures within their territories.
Renaissance gave us the modern State because the feudal and mercantilist global order was inefficient. The fusion of law and strategy gave us the modern State power (including the power to tax, to declare war, as well as to issue money). Today’s mutable, fickle and overindebted State/Union of States point to an impotence, which unless addressed soon, could have cataclysmic consequences. We could argue that the Great War that started in 1914 didn’t end until the end of the Cold War, given that its purpose was to replace the imperial world order of the 19th century. Since then, naïve policies allowed China into the community of the WTO, and precious resources were wasted in a war looking for weapons of mass deception, all the while allowing Russian to almost monopolize European energy options.
Therefore, while playing it safe (for a good chunk of a portfolio) and staying on the sidelines might be prudent, we should also be preparing for the Day After when new asset classes will be emerging in a state of international affairs where justice becomes the source of freedom, and where stop signs exist to protect our liberties and Reason’s march to a better imperfection from belligerent manipulators. After all, history is a series of crises and conflicts – let alone wars – where both (crises and conflicts) are products and shapers of the forthcoming deconstruction and its emerging culture, as well as significant variables in shaping the spirit of the emerging epoch.