Of course, this has been happening for 50 years or so. But, contrary to your theory that this will slow the process down it is accelerating. Think of the USSR. There was no phasing out of the evil. It had to collapse before change could be made. The same is inevitable here.
Nothing is inevitable in human affairs projected across decades.
Let’s take the U.S.S.R. though and ask the first question: can we make a generalized induction about the class, from this single instance? To answer that, we would have to turn to other countries. Start with other communist countries: take China and Vietnam. Here are two communist countries that tackled their dwindling economies in different ways from each other and different from the USSR. Also, remember that the type of blow-up you’re thinking about comes from desperation. Cutting two car families ever so slowly down to one car families is doubtful to produce revolution. Frogs, boiled slowly, adjust. Consider the history of socialist (as opposed to communist) countries. Take India: from independence, the government slowly increased socialism, nationalizing steel, coal, airlines, banks. Times were not good, but the country did not fall into revolution, despite three minor external wars. Instead, it turned around and started to move toward freedom – this happened across the course of about two generations.
If one were to be placed back in FDR’s day, one would have lots of reason to think the U.S. was on an inevitable downward course. The government was dictating all sorts of detailed rules for all sorts of businesses, many intellectuals thought Russia was the ideal we must aspire to, the President was trying to gerrymander the SCOTUS. (Read “Forgotten Man”, if you have not already.) Yet, the country tired of it, and things went on pause for a while. If one were to live in Johnson’s “Great Society” days, one would think the country was doomed inevitably, and yet the U.S. and the whole world grew tired of it, and the 1980’s and 1990’s saw a push away from that. Of course, every such downswing has left in place laws and schemes that have made the economy less productive. Nevertheless, the intellectual trend has not been a uniform downward spiral. Thatcher broke the U.K. unions; Carter and Reagan oversaw some opening up of regulations in telecom and airlines. While the intellectual environment is still statist, even people like Obama feel they have to make noises about letting the private sector take the lead.
If one looks at history of the U.S. as well as other nations – as opposed to imagination – the best guess is that the U.S. will not dissolve into revolution and chaos and nothingness.
We must prepare, and this means spreading the truth so that when the collapse occurs we can start over with a properly limited government.
But, you see, this is impossible. If such a collapse comes it can only be because there is intense evasion. When social-security deficits are still a decade or more in the future, with current CPI and interests rates at life-time lows, people can easily evade looking for a solution today. However, as things become worse, there will be cries for a solution. I’m pretty sure a time will come where the typical “independent” voter thinks: “okay, it is time for everyone to make sacrifices”. I cannot see Americans simply hanging on forever as things dwindle. However, what’s more important is that if people let things go completely into chaos, then these are quite the opposite of the type of people who will want to start over with a properly limited government. Just the opposite. The worse nadir we reach, chances are the worse solutions will be proposed. And, this does not mean government bankruptcy. It more likely means that the government will simply appropriate what it needs from some of the richer folk. Read up about the taxes that were enforced during the depression years. Compared to those, the rich aren’t taxed at all today.
Basically, the situation you hypothesize is one that will lead to a populist demagogue, not to sudden flash of light.
On your main point, since I reject your argument that justice requires stopping all payouts overnight, I also reject the notion that to stop them is more consistent. To my mind, it would be inconsistent with justice.
