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Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

I'm sad that America is maybe the only one to go the other way -- to have been founded on the principles of The Enlightenment and to slip into plutocracy.

Hardly. This is a very traditional political cycle that was first documented by the Greek historians and philosophers. Polybius and Plato aptly named it "Kyklos" (Cycle) and goes from Anarchy -> Democracy -> Aristocracy -> Monarchy.

This period of cycle is different however as there is no more "West" to go and start your anarchic society so it should be interesting to see what happens this time round the cycle.

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In Europe it's gone:

Anarchy -> Democracy (Greece, early Rome) -> Aristocracy (late Rome) -> Monarchy (imperial Rome, middle ages) -> Revolution (brief partial anarchy?) -> Democracy -> Aristocracy (Eurozone) -> ???

I wonder if it's one of those "wheels of reincarnation," kind of analogous to the mainframe/PC cycle of centralization vs. decentralization. Decentralization creates problems that can only be solved by centralization (tragedy of the commons, paradox of thrift, etc.), but then centralization creates its own new problems that drive decentralization (corruption, arbitrary power), rinse and repeat.

Right, well you just described the cycle well with example. Anarchy is usually short lived as people naturally form groups.

Why do you say the Eurozone is an aristocracy?

I think Plato listed them in decreasing levels of desirability as:

Aristocracy->Timocracy->Oligarchy->Democracy->Tyranny

I envision that Space is the new "west" or final frontier.

Unfortunately I don't. Space has a lack of most of the basic things needed for humans to survive. Like air, water and land. Trivialities I know.

They lack those things now. But who knows what the future holds. Personally, I believe that eventually those "necessities" you mention won't hold individuals back from exploring that new frontier.

Maybe once we are cyborgs, but not before then.

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