- “Hypernormalization”…
- Soviet Hypernormalization vs. American Hypernormalization…
- “We’re going to monetize the most valuable asset of the United States”…
Dear Reader,
Is the United States enduring “Hypernormalization?”
What is Hypernormalization?
It is a term hatched by Russian historian Alexei Yurchak. He devised it to describe life during the Soviet Union’s terminal phase.
Documentarian Adam Curtis:
- ‘HyperNormalization’ is a word that was coined by a brilliant Russian historian who was writing about what it was like to live in the last years of the Soviet Union. What he said, which I thought was absolutely fascinating, was that in the 80s everyone from the top to the bottom of Soviet society knew that it wasn’t working, knew that it was corrupt, knew that the bosses were looting the system, knew that the politicians had no alternative vision.
- And they knew that the bosses knew that they knew that.
- Everyone knew it was fake, but because no one had any alternative vision for a different kind of society, they just accepted this sense of total fakeness as normal. And this historian, Alexei Yurchak, coined the phrase ‘HyperNormalisation’ to describe that feeling.
Has the U.S. Become Hypernormalized?
The United States is not the Soviet Union of course.
And it is hazardous to sketch parallels that do not in fact exist.
Let us not chase phantoms!
Yet economic commentator Charles Hugh Smith fears the United States has entered a hypernormalized existence:
- I submit that the U.S. economy and stock market have been hypernormalized to the degree that what is now viewed as “normal” is completely detached from the real world. What we inhabit is a system that has lost all authenticity and survives entirely on the ceaseless marketing of artifice, a.k.a. narrative control that benefits the few at the expense of the many.
- In effect, “normal life” is stripped of authenticity in favor of a simulacrum “normal” that supports those at the top of the status quo. This “new normal” reaches extremes of artifice, hence hyper-normalization.
- As long as everyone thinks there are no alternatives to this hyper-normalized simulacrum, this artificial construct appears to be immutable — everything is forever.
The New Normal Under Hypernormalization
I believe Mr. Smith has hooked onto something here.
A man may dislike the system that hagrides and besieges him.
He may cluck-cluck his opposition to it. Yet he is a man resigned.
He feels powerless before it.
As moaned captives of the Soviet system: “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.”
What is the reality of Hypernormalization, Mr. Smith?
- What’s real is denial, repression of non-conforming realities, group-think, virtue-signaling and a profound loss of competence.
- In this hyper-normalized state, madness of crowds speculative bubbles are now considered normal, not just in stocks but in housing, commodities, quatloos and everything else that can be commoditized, marketed and sold.
Let us concede for the moment — correctly or incorrectly — that the United States wallows in the grasp of Hypernormalization.
And, for the reasons given.
Could such a socioeconomic neurosis develop under a sound money system?
Inflation and Hypernormalization
Let us revisit the hypernormalized Soviet Union, the birth site of the expression.
A sound money system was nowhere nor at any time in operation.
Did not Mr. Lenin propose to construct public lavatories from gold?
And the early Bolshevik regime was out to murder money altogether.
They printed so much of it, in fact… they very nearly succeeded.
In all, the Soviet epoch was an epoch of monetary inflation.
Communism, after all, is costly.
Yet Soviet economic authorities largely caged consumer price inflation.
How? By restricting the quantity of goods available for purchase.
The Soviet Way to Limit Inflation
In the free market system inflation would result — too much money chasing too few goods.
Yet not in the command economic system. Economist Ryan McMaken:
- Under the Soviet regime, the money supply — denominated in unbacked fiat money, of course — was continually expanded to increase wages and create the impression of prosperity. This would have led to price inflation quickly, but for the shortage economy and demand-killing government policies endured by the average Soviet citizen…
- By this mechanism, the regime can continue to inject new money into the economy but also prevent ordinary people from spending “too much” money and thus ratcheting up consumer prices. The downside, of course, is that the standard of living goes down considerably…
- Soviet citizens often found they had very little to spend their money on, with the result being the long queues and empty store shelves we now associate with the Soviet economy…
Hence, Hypernormalization.
Can you imagine it absent the inflationary impulse — in the presence of a sound money system?
Let us now direct our attention to the American example.
Manipulation Not of Goods, But of Credit
The American authorities do not manipulate the supply of consumer items.
Not directly, that is.
Yet the American system too features the centralized, fiat system.
America’s monetary authority manipulates the cost of credit.
For years and years the Federal Reserve reduced interest rates to reduce the cost of credit.
The result was not consumer price inflation — consumer price inflation was only up and away following the fiscal onslaughts of 2020 and beyond.
The Federal Reserve’s vast monetary inflation instead resulted in vast asset inflation.
It resulted in the all-enveloping “Everything Bubble” — in stocks, in bonds, in housing, in cryptocurrencies — in everything.
The primary beneficiaries have been owners of assets.
That is, the system’s primary beneficiaries have been largely the wealthy among us.
The primary bulk of Americans were left to scratch along on the leavings.
Thus the tip-top 1% commands approximately the same wealth as the remaining 90%.
And many Americans believe the financial and economic system is against them.
They believe it is constructed for the high benefit of elites (noun, not adjective).
Hence their descent into the grip of Hypernormalization.
The Normal Man vs. Hypernormalization
Recall, of Soviet Hypernormalization:
Everyone… knew that [the system] wasn’t working, knew that it was corrupt, knew that the bosses were looting the system, knew that the politicians had no alternative vision.
Should we then be surprised that the American electorate yanked a lever for Mr. Trump last November?
The majority of people — by definition — run to normal settings.
Normal people prefer, vastly, normalization to hypernormalization.
Yet will they get normalization?
I am far from convinced that they will get normalization — at least under under the present monetary arrangement.
That system tilts towards Hypernormalization.
Yet the hypernormalized system is an unstable system.
Consult the Soviet example if it is proof you seek.
I therefore counsel the forces of hypernormalization to beware the countering forces of normalization — and the normal man.
About this fellow, the late Sage of Baltimore, Henry Louis Mencken, had to say:
“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”
I hazard the normal man has begun to spit upon his hands.
I hazard further that he has hoisted the pirate’s black flag.
Moreover:
I fear ultimately that —- absent substantive institutional
change in his favor — the normal man may begin slitting throats.
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
