Golden State

In her critically acclaimed novel, Golden State New York Times best-selling author Michelle Richmond describes a future in which California is on the edge of secession. In her personal blog, she describes this as an actually possible scenario based on fiscal reasons.

Michelle Richmond's blog

For California to secede would require a disruptive change. As described by Horace Deidu, disruption is when the strong defeat the weak, more precisely when those with unlimited access to resources have them taken away by those with limited or no resources.

Understanding Disruption

For example, the economic development of India and China in the past fifty years can be considered to be a disruptive change which occurs in the case of asymnetric competition.

On the contrary, Scotland and Greece recently attempted disruptive change and it was not succesful. With Proposition 8, California had a taste of the same thing closer to home.

According to Deidu for disruptive change to be succesful, the weak must not be taken seriously by their strong, indeed their actions are initially welcomed. A second factor for disruptive change to be succesful is for it to take place over an extended time period so that mentalities can change.

Recent political events in California, such as a declaration that the consumption of gasoline needs to be halved, the granting of drivers licenses to illegal immigrants, or the statement that Hispanics form the largest group in the population draw a lot of attention. They also contribute to disruptive change.

So-called progressive businesses in California such as Google, Facebook and Apple that contribute to technological innovation also support policies at the national level by political donations.

There is no resulting innovation however in government, education, or health care and the money goes simply down the drain.

What can be expected is that within the next ten years federal taxes will have to increase to pay outstanding debt. There have been suggestions also that private savings in 401-K accounts be redirected to Guaranteed Retirement Accounts

Currently the federal government owes a large amount of money to Japan and China and taxing citizens is a natural attempt at resolution.

Time will tell how people will react given the burden on seniors. Let's not forget what happened with  Proposition 13.