When Institutions Crumble, What Remains?

I wonder how those who lived through the gaslight era viewed the future as they left the 19^th and began the 20^th century?  Did they view the passing of the century with the same dread and hard feelings we are experiencing as we leave the 20^th century behind and plunge into the 21^st?

There are a couple of significant differences between then and now.  For example, our government and its currency was based on our holdings in gold, rather than the faith and confidence in an institution called the Federal Reserve.  The Fed, as it’s known, is an extra-governmental organization that controls the real fiscal policies of the US and to a now decreasing degree the world.  What happens, as we are beginning to see, when the world and the citizens lose confidence in both the institution, and America’s ability to pay its ever-increasing debt?  Will we become a super-Venezuela with the political elite and rich cloistered behind their walls getting all they need while society collapses just outside?

Colleges were a very small segment in the grand scheme of America.  They began as institutions to train the ministers of the religions that came to America to escape persecution, and then grew as centers to educate the elite who would run the country.  I was not there, but it seems they held, for the most part, to the principles of the age of enlightenment.  Following the second World War, the US government created the GI Bill enabling tens of thousands who might otherwise never attend college to improve their education, social standing, and financial well-being.  This in turn created a new wealth for the colleges and an escalating expansion to keep up with the demand.  A demand that was further advocated by the political and educational leadership that saw great benefit in the institutions.  At some point the concepts of education seemed to have changed from exploration and enlightenment to indoctrination, as well as wealth accumulation for the institutions and their professors/administrators.  As legions of graduates leave with little prospect for great jobs that will reward them both professionally and financially what will happen to these institutions?  If we consider them an industry, as I think they should be considered, we will see a market correction where only the most adept will survive as the market draws down.  What kind of carnage will result from this abandonment of liberal education?

How about the idea of justice, and the American judicial system?  I imagine there has always been at least two standards of justice in America.  One for the rich, and the other for the rest of us.  I think it is also safe to assume the minorities have never received “equal justice” under the laws, for the system has historically been rigged by those in power.  But with today’s instant communication any idea that someone is presumed innocent until convicted has been tossed out the window.  We see that in the Travon Martin case, every police shooting, the kangaroo courts of colleges with student sexual misconduct, and celebrity scandals where we rush to judgement and condemnation based on one-sided news reporting.  We have replaced real courts and real judges with reality courts and judges who render verdicts in civil cases so the audience can set in judgement as well.  Finally, is there any hope of minority defendants getting a fair trial?  Who decides what fair is when we have entire movements intended to overthrow the legal system to get their own version of fairness.

The political institutions and parties were well established and accepted.  The Democrats were clearly the party in power in the major cities, and at the federal level, although there was just enough opposition from Republicans that they occasionally rose to prominence.  Racism and discrimination was accepted nationally, with the only question being the degree of openness.  Within the major cities of Boston, New York, and Chicago the political machines ruled with sufficient efficiency to keep any opposition at the token level.  In Chicago, it was a Republican machine, NYC was Democratic.  Third party candidates made some noise, but were one-trick ponies that never seriously threatened the system.  Today we see the crumbling of those two political parties as their complete inability to solve problems is paraded before the people on a daily basis.  The President gained the office because the average citizen grew tired of the lies and manipulations of the parties, and his opponent represented a failed political oligarchy, which assumed too much of its followers.

With the shrill whine of a Democratic Party's political elite increasingly out of touch with the middle American, and an opposition Republican Party that appears to be increasingly defined by their own ineffectiveness, it seems only a matter of time, and not too much time at that, before the institutions they control cease to function, and then to exist.  What will replace them? 

I think the next quarter of century will be an interesting time as we move from the historical concept of the United States to whatever replaces it.