- Location
- [REDACTED]- United States of America
You know I failed to notice this earlier in thread but state power has seemingly only increased from the Second World War. What makes you so sure mobilization of resources and population is beyond them?
A Golden Island To The West — California ISOT from 2018 to 1850
- Thread starter Instant Sunrise
- Start date
- Original 19th Century Supernatural
You know I failed to notice this earlier in thread but state power has seemingly only increased from the Second World War. What makes you so sure mobilization of resources and population is beyond them?
Over on AH.com I tried to get some discussion going on an ISOT of the Adropov-era Soviet Union getting ISOTed to 2012, and also of ISOTs of countries between alternate worlds and got pretty much no interest.
Regards,
fasquardon
the atom
Anarcho-Kemalist Thought Leader
- Location
- Comfortably numb
In what regard has state capacity increased since WW2
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
You may have missed this little episode in politics called neoliberalism.
Through a combination of willing surrender and losses to wealthy interests, western states have surrendered whole chunks of their capacity to mobilize resources, and it would take a lot of political will to rebuild from that.
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- Location
- San Francisco
Case in point, i am posting from my phone because the power's been out for the last 3 days. This is because CA gave PG&E a monopoly on its power grid and doesn't care how many wildfires it starts from its piss poor practices. The upper crust (of filth) would rather die than return it to a utility.
- Location
- [REDACTED]- United States of America
It surrendered the public good not the states capacity to organize violence. Like fundamentally could the state. The main concern in regards to mobilization is if the state has given up the nessecary institutions and powers needed to excute on it.
Like the entire point of an all volunteer force is that they're a force of all time professionals who can be deployed for extended periods of time without having to call on unpopular lass molbolizations but if you have a need for mass mobilization the modern state has only grown in power and most maintain the institutional capability to do so.
Unless you're name is the United Kingdom in which case you still have laws on the books but have absouleily cored military recruitment through a shoddy privitization effort in recent memory and you're still recovering from that massive L. But if the U.S. has the will to mass mobilize there's nothing stopping the state from enacting it's will. Legally the precedents have only been growing in lockstep with state power and the US in particular maintains the institutions and burecracy nesscary for such a task explicitly so that it can. I'm part of the the selective services after all and that exists as a form of non-draft but still draft that you are heavily penalized for not registering for.
Edit: this is a mess since I'm writing this on my phone but to summarize the paragraphs above. The United States at least retains the capacity to mobilize manpower and the means to force everyone to get within the program in the case of a need.
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- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
There's only so much threats can do to mobilize resources. Sure, cops haven't been cut alongside other parts of the state unless you're the UK. But you can threaten people to work as much as you want, it won't magically organize said work. The state has maintained the strength to force people into an emergency labour force at gunpoint but not the organization to put that force to use effectively into providing solutions.
Remember, the emergency the state will be facing immediately following an ISOT will be economic, not military.
- Location
- [REDACTED]- United States of America
I'm not talking in the sense of forcing people to work at gunpoint here. I'm talking mass mobilization in the sense of a war-effort, thinking along the lines of defense production act and
No I'm assuming a modern state OTL can mobilize because if the political will exists and say Article 5 gets invoked the legal framework has existed since the cold war and the actual bureacracies that exist to execute it still exist as well and haven't been getting any smaller for decades since even through the public good has been privatized the actual federal government or its budget hasn't been getting any smaller.
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
First and most obvious: the federal government isn't getting ISOTed.
Second, and I think more importantly: none of those bureaucracies have been built to plan an economy on a survival basis when all external resources disappear. They're all built on top of a machinery that run on a world market in which all roads lead to America through the all powerful dollar. No, I don't think America has the same state capacity to intervene in its own economy that it had at the height of the New Deal. And I also think its political class has been carefully cultivated to lack the political will to pick the fights necessary to rebuild that capacity. The budget is a terrible metric for state capacity because most of it gets funnelled back into the private sector that stole that capacity away.
You might throw the military at the now missing supply chains but as much money as the US shovels into the MIC pit, its military isn't that big compared to the sheer scale of its civilian consumption.
Legal frameworks collecting dust in a corner are no substitute for performing organization.
- Location
- [REDACTED]- United States of America
I was never talking about the ISOT I originally framed the question I'm the light of why assume modern states cannot mobilize.
As far the idea that the modern political class would be unwilling to mass mobilize the general population or the broader economy in the middle of a serious war conventional war… why??
More broadly I think we differ on how much we believe capitalist brainworms have infiltrated the political class but I contend that asserting that the state of US politics is so far gone as to preclude mobilizing in the case of an actual conventional war is a step too far.
Because look. Push comes to shove the state still has the tools and the legal framework and acquiring the political will wasn't even something I that I was even considering. I was wondering if you had ideas to the contrary in this regard in my original question on the topic.
Short of actually stress testing the system we will never know for sure. But can is something that I've always contended is not in the question.
And more broadly. The idea of mass mobilization not being a thing modern states can actually do grinds directly up against the wall of Finland who in the case of war had designed a military expressly around that concept.
There is no fundamental rule that results in modern states being unable to mobilize, unless they go out of their way to actively deactivate that capacity. And only the UK came close to doing that and even then they privatized military recruitment not keeping a list of potential draftees and industries that might be converted to war production.
Like I'm pretty sure we're talking past each other here because I started this conversation with but why assume that a modern state can't mobilize? and you seem to have taken it as why can't California in the timeline mobilize and assume that a neoliberal reluctance to intervene in the market will result in a state never mobilizing state resources even when the state is faced with a conventional war?
Like we used the defense production act under Trump in the most hamhanded stupid way. But at least it demonstrates a clear willingness to use it even when the situation quite frankly did not call for it.
Edit: posted from my phone again and see that my post is a bit of a mess. Also fixed some auto corrupt.
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- Location
- Washington DC
Oh I've met them. But I note that most of them are not in positions of party leadership (at least until relatively recently which is well after the point of divergence with this timeline). The problem with such ideologies is that they only play well with people who already buy them, and if that's not enough to win an election you're out of luck (unless you cheat of course).
The point I was making is that those sorts of crazies won't be the ones making party platforms for the CA Republican party in this timeline, and said party platform (coming as it does from the early Trump years when there was still some institutional resistance to him inside the party) will likely reject such ideologies if only to maintain a shot at some form of electoral support and political relevance.
EDIT: Crazy wingnuts that hole up in compounds on the edge of civilization dreaming of race wars and genocide don't scare me. Its the people who are able to act sane enough to get elected and only reveal their genocidal intent once they hold power that scare me. Law enforcement can handle the former. They tend to get coopted by the later.
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Also worth noting is that this ATL has a California that radicalized enough to vote to leave the Union pre-ISOT, and the radicalization was entirely in response to Trump's incompetent fascism. The state is much further to the left than OTL. Even with the "centre" in American politics being neoliberal regulatory capture hell, Golden California isn't that.
- Location
- France
- Pronouns
- She/They
You're talking about conventional war and I just am not so that explains why we're both shouting in the void
If you want to make this work, an independentist party in charge of California and preparing for likely economic disruption and need to do mass organization to succeed would be a good reason to have it work out, yes.
So you have a general Direction of Where you want the story to go but (as long as I understand the word muse correctly) you just don't know the How yet. Am I in the ballpark at least?
Instant Sunrise
Queen Shit of Liesville
- Location
- Los Angeles
- Pronouns
- her/she
No you're pretty much bang on the money.
- Location
- Péta Lúuma, CA
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2018 was a different time, and this story was of its time.
the atom
Anarcho-Kemalist Thought Leader
- Location
- Comfortably numb
One thing I never quite got about this TL is that it starts off with California voting to secede, but when they get sent back they spend a lot of effort trying to make it work being part of the 1850s US. Why would they even bother?
- Location
- Most likely California
It's been a while, but I think it was because they wanted to avoid giving the Southern states a precedent. Because the 1850s US was trying to walk a fine line between pro-slavery and anti-slavery fractions even before the ISOT, which everyone now knows would have failed anyways, and if California just declares itself independent, it damages the prestige of the federal government while giving the would-be CSA proof that its fine for states to secede by force over slavery.
More than that, it was less that California actually wanted to remain part of the 1850s US, but that pretending to be let them purse their own interests as long as possible. Namely, trying to weaken the pro-slavery fractions and earn as much positive PR as possible before things finally blow up. Being still a state on paper means that legally they are "American citizens" rather than "foreign agitators", thus legally them more leeway in building political connections, exporting technology, and anti-slavery propagandizing in the Eastern States.
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King Washington
Semi-Depressed Lurker
- Location
- Indiana
Wondering how the American-Californian War is going to conclude. I'm guessing that the US more then likely ends up straight up collapsing into a civil war that's much more chaotic than OTL.
Part of me wonders how much of a 'sitzkreig' situation may develop with the portions of the officer corps which recognizes the practical difficulties in militarily compelling California to do anything putting forth enough effort to appease the ideologues in/backing the Cass administration and not a whit more.
King Washington
Semi-Depressed Lurker
- Location
- Indiana
If it isn't just the South attempting to secede after Cass gets inevitably thrown out of office, perhaps will either see civil war start when a rival government is declared in Philadelphia or something, or some of the northern states try to secede themselves because irony.
CaesriusPolybius
Worldgate Mechanic
- Location
- United States. Ish.
There have been some secessionist rumblings in the north over Cass' BS already in the story, IIRC.
There are too few TLs where the North secedes over the South's slavery bullshit.
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- Location
- Reynoldsville, Pa
It's gonna be hilarious if this sparks an early civil war with California and the North beating the south like a red headed stepchild.
- Location
- Amman, Jordan
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
It's going to be worse than that. Supply issues aside, California can just do artillery and drone strikes and bleed the US Army to death, while their medicine means Northern casualties end up shrinking because nobody has to die of gangrene or sepsis because of injuries, bad food, or botched medical procedures.
What happens after, though, is going to be a bit of a tragedy. A Union defeat (mainly because the South is leading it) would end the USA, causing there to effectively be three or more countries instead of one. The !USA in the south, still running off slavery and fuming at its defeat and humiliation, California to the west doing its own thing, a sort of Northern Federation, consisting of the abolitionist states trying to figure out what they're going to do now that they're no longer part of the USA, and a whole lot of empty space in the center now that the Federal government can no longer project power as it did in the Lost Timeline.