California

…is so over:

…we are producing a California that is the polar opposite of Pat Brown’s creation. True, it has some virtues: greener, cleaner, and more “progressive” on social issues. But it’s also becoming increasingly feudal, defined by a super-affluent coastal class and an increasingly impoverished interior. As water prices rise, and farms and lawns are abandoned, there’s little thought about how to create a better future for the bulk of Californians. Like medieval peasants, millions of Californians have been force[d] to submit to the theology of our elected high priest and his acolytes, leaving behind any aspirations that the Golden State can work for them too.

I don’t know what it will take to break the back of this destructive aristocracy.

[Monday-morning update]

Jerry Brown’s Oedipal struggle.

[Bumped]

13 thoughts on “California”

  1. The only thing that makes society work is people agreeing on the rules and enforcement, but that’s not really possible after time and must always eventually fail. Jeremiah 10:23

  2. Semiconductor manufacturing in China.

    Right now the low scale and medium scale jelly bean semiconductors are all done in Asia. Processor cores *will* follow.

    Innovation happens quickest where the product is made. It’s almost a direct relationship as if it were a physical law (physics).

    That will be the end of California as we now know the coastal fiefdoms. Software can be done anywhere and doesn’t require the lab infrastructure of nearby Universities. Academia will become as balkanized in driving industry in California as it has become and has been for some time on the East Coast.

  3. Watching Californians go nuts with water restrictions rather than develop more water sources reminds me a lot of Interstellar.

  4. ” But the business leadership often seems to be more concerned with how to adjust the status quo to serve privileged large businesses, including some in agriculture, than boosting the overall economy.”

    Just let the free market do its thing, and the overall economy will be just fine. Business leadership can concern themselves with whatever they want – it is insane to try to tell business leadership what strategy they should be using.

    But it’s also becoming increasingly feudal, defined by a super-affluent coastal class and an increasingly impoverished interior. As water prices rise, and farms and lawns are abandoned, there’s little thought about how to create a better future for the bulk of Californians.

    Feudal? Please. The right way to create a better future for the bulk of californians is to get out of the way of both the super-affluent and the increasingly impoverished, and them work out the best way to create a better future for *themselves*, not the “bulk”.

    Rand, why are you reommending articles written by collectivist state-schtuppers?

    1. The right way to create a better future for the bulk of californians is to get out of the way of both the super-affluent and the increasingly impoverished, and them work out the best way to create a better future for *themselves*, not the “bulk”.

      How does that work, short of leaving California (which many are doing)? Yes, it is a feudal system, run by the aristocracies in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.

    2. The rural areas have no fair representation, thanks to Baker v Carr and Reynolds v Sims. It isn’t a state stupper idea to give the rural areas a chance to vote on resource management.

    3. Feudal? Please. The right way to create a better future for the bulk of californians is to get out of the way of both the super-affluent and the increasingly impoverished, and them work out the best way to create a better future for *themselves*, not the “bulk”.

      That’s not happening and that’s not Rand’s fault. I think the solution is the same. Let the less crazy people flee the state, then pick up the pieces for pennies on the dollar, when the more crazies are through with the state.

    4. “Rand, why are you reommending articles written by collectivist state-schtuppers?”

      Geez, for a moment I thught Rand was recommending an article by Bobbers or Baghdad Jim.

      1. Here is my break down of the article, one of the most left-wing articles I’ve ever seen Rand recommend:

        Paragraph 1: Looking for state solutions
        Paragraphs 2 & 3: Praise for state-built aqueducts
        Paragraph 4: Focus on the needs of the collective
        Paragraph 5: (chatting talking about the weather)
        Paragraph 6: Beating up on businessmen, calling for more regulations
        Paragraph 7: The benefits of the tax-payers’ government interfereing with the free market
        Paragraph 8: Responsibility for the future lies with political leadership, not the free market.
        Solutions involving state-funded infrastructure
        Paragraph 9: Soution involving changing government policy by fiat, rather than a finding free market solution.
        Paragraph 10: Praise for the old progressives
        Paragraph 11: Praise for large government projects, albeit also praise for private industry
        Paragraph 12: Psychobabble, but also complaints about government policy, not looking for a free market solution again
        Paragraph 13: Calls for more state-funded big infrastructure projects (freeways, not trains, but tax-payer funded projects either way)
        Paragraph 14: Socialist class warfare
        Paragraph 15: Resentment of the wealthy
        Paragraph 16: Finally! A non-leftist paragraph!
        Paragraph 17: Psychobabble
        Paragraph 18: Criticism of the business leadership
        Paragraph 19: Second guessing entrepeneurs and businessmen
        Paragraph 20: More class warfare
        Paragraph 21: Class warfare, calls for collectivist thinking.

  5. This scenario is a microcosm of what would happen if we got rid of the US Senate, as Jim and others want.

Comments are closed.