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Understanding politics
The smaller the pie the bigger the politics. Nothing explains the complexity of politics better than that trite saying. Another way of defining politics is expressing concern over trivial things that would be inconseqeuntial in times of surplus. For example, office politics is common when a company is in financial dire straits and is looking to cut back its workforce. As soon as employees begin to doubt the value and security of their job they look to politics to stand above their peers. In other words, employees start concerning themselves with how other people dress, what times they come/leave work, and other seemingly innocuous behaviour.
An excellent book that researches this topic is Collapse by Jared Diamond. Dr. Diamond shows how most major civilizations collapse because society grows unchecked when food is plenty. The societies end up destroying the environment and their food supply as result of their overpopulation. Once that happens the whole society collapses because no backup plan was ever made as politicians only focused on fueling the overpopulation instead of limiting it.
The problem is people are unable to make changes in their life to adapt to a changing environment. People should sense times are changing and invest time to learn new skills to cope with the changing market. Instead people get stuck in their habits and refuse to change. They would prefer to sit right were they are and fight tooth and nail to resist change. What they do not realize is learning something new is actually a lot easier than fighting to preserve an obsolete way of life.
People turn to politics to separate themselves from their peers . It is implicit that by turning to politics you are accepting your situation and are relying on the misguided hope that others will perish before you . Politics lets you stand a little higher above the shoulders of your peers, but if the tidal wave is coming it is not going to make any difference who stands a foot taller.
So when you see politics in a situation use it as an indication that something bad is impending and the current situation is existing on shoe-string. Avoid getting in that situation by diversifying your skill sets and arming yourself with as much knowledge on a broad range of subjects.