“I wonder what will happen here if supplies crash (like the water supply is crashing in Atlanta), or, TPTB simply cut off supplies in selected cities for political reasons?”
—cnulan, “75th Anniversary of Genocidal Man-made Famine”
The comment I had planned to leave in the above-quoted Subrealism discussion thread was long and would have been truncated. So, I decided to publish it here and hit cnulan with a trackback.
TPTB, thanks a lot to the help they received from their militarily-skilled ancestors, have done a great job of positioning themselves to be the last ones standing if the world were forced to finally play out a military, political, or economic end-game due to extreme resource scarcity. The most avaricious, hedonistic, and megalomaniacal peoples among us, having devoted millennia to seizing much of their power from the world’s other peoples and having unmeritocratically, yet skillfully, bequeathed that power to their descendants across the ages, now have a nice selection of tools at their disposal for killing, controlling, or indebting their militarily, politically, and economically weaker (and almost always darker) worldmates. Moreover, they have proved they were more than willing to us these tools when their opulence levels were threatened or when their acquisition rates stopped increasing at what they had been taught by their ancestors were acceptable rates. Indeed, the most powerful cultural descendants of Greece, Rome, and early Europe seem to believe, quite religiously, that they are here to rule mankind and make the world obey. And they seem to have readied themselves to rule all the way to the finish if an end-game due to extreme resource scarcity begins before technology postpones or eliminates the need for the end-game.
A Brief Summary of a Few Rulers’ Tools
Military Might: Almost all the world’s other peoples are basically given a choice between a) death or b) some degree of voluntary physical or psychological servitude. None of the world’s other peoples can resist completely and survive. And the best of them might only resist partially while doing what little they can in order to help protect their peoples and cultures from some of the world’s most merciless and inhospitable ideas, symbols, and rituals.
Economic Might: First, military might or the threat of its use is used to take land away from and/or control the natural resources of other peoples. Next, those bearing the phenotypical traits of other peoples are often forced to work for those bearing the phenotypical traits of the Greeks, Romans, or early Europeans who took the land away from and/or controlled the natural resources of other peoples. And, these other peoples must labor for the descendants of those who took economic power away from their ancestors in order to get back a portion of what was taken. Few get back a large enough portion to become wealthy enough to pass on great wealth to their children. So, few of the descendants of other peoples benefit from having had wealth bequeathed to them. Moreover, those other peoples who would be most willing to help sustain the military, political, and economic systems that enable the descendants of Greece, Rome, and early Europe to rule other peoples, are heavily incented to do so. The more they think and act like or for the people who rule, the more wealth, power, or prestige they are given. Of course, they’ll never be given as much wealth, power, or prestige as their rulers.
Psychological & Cultural Might: From birth, other peoples are inundated with ideas, symbols, and rituals that lead many of them to believe everyone who looks like them is inferior and everything people who look like them have done was inferior. Not having acquired the intellectual tools they would need to critically evaluate what or how they were taught to value, they accept their rulers’ conceptions of and definitions for subjective and objective, rational and irrational, true and false, right and wrong, justice and injustice, civilization and barbarism, good language and bad language, true religion and false religion, science and pseudo-science, beautiful and ugly, artful and artless. And even those who would be intelligent and brave enough to educate themselves well enough so that they’d be able to begin thinking critically about the dominate Greek, Roman, and early European ideas, symbols, rituals they had been swimming in from birth would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to ever really persuade themselves that those ideas, symbols, and rituals they were taught to value above all others might not be the ideal set of ideas, symbols, and rituals.
Political Might: In order to keep just the right proportion of other peoples confused or satiated so that they’d not trust one another or work together in order to attempt to challenge the social systems that have been set up to help rule their kind, most descendants of Greece, Rome, and early Europe educate other peoples to think and act in ways that would help maintain or strengthen the social systems that enable descendants of Greece, Rome, and early Europe to rule other peoples. Once these other peoples have been programmed to value certain ideas, symbols, and rituals above others, they all but refuse to trust other other peoples or to work with other other peoples in order to challenge their rulers politically. When other peoples refuse to trust other other peoples and refuse to work with other other peoples towards common political goals, they also refuse to benefit from the collective political power that might enable them to wrest substantial political power from their rulers peacefully. Therefore, their rulers’ political eminence is never really threatened by other peoples, no matter what system of government their rulers choose to use.
13 Comments
Thanks for the shout Ed. I know you have to study, so I’m not looking for your usual carefully considered responses, just quick and dirty summary opinions.
How old and how extensive do you believe the current structure of elite rule to be?
What do world wars and arms races suggest to you about the cohesiveness of the ruling elite?
Do you believe that there is a level of elite control transcending the level of the ruling elites who continue to practice war with one another? i.e., an adjudicating body? Is this adjudicating body - if you think it exists - older than the current structure of elite rule and what is the basis of its power?
(historical example might be the ecclesiastical power of the catholic church which both predated and coexisted with the feudal aristocracy)
A theocracy rules Persia, a technocracy rules the U.S., what with the nuclear arsenal under civilian control, presumably other examples exist across other nodes of “warring elite” control, e.g., India, China, Russia, Japan…,
cnulan:
I studied at least 60 hours last week. I’m a little ahead of schedule on my prep, so I’m trying to chill a little today.
How old and how extensive do you believe the current structure of elite rule to be?
About 2500 years. Extensive enough so that the leaders of world’s most powerful eight to twelve political economic systems have agreed to share the spoils of their global rule.
What do world wars and arms races suggest to you about the cohesiveness of the ruling elite?
It breaks down when one of them gets the crazy idea in his head that he is going to try to rule the other rulers. Rulers don’t like it when folks like Napoleon or Hitler start to have fantasies that they are reincarnations of Alexander. Some wars occur when one rogue member or a few rogue members of the ruling elite give the bird to the balance of global power.
Do you believe that there is a level of elite control transcending the level of the ruling elites who continue to practice war with one another?
I think this is likely. However, I believe the most powerful ruling elite probably view people (and nations) as pawns and wars as chess games. The most powerful ruling elite and their closest captains are rarely put in harm’s way. They let their pawns fight it out, and then they have their captains sign treaties when the chess games (we call their friendly chess games “wars”) are done.
Is this adjudicating body - if you think it exists - older than the current structure of elite rule and what is the basis of its power?
I believe so. I suspect the bases of their power are their supreme control over the world’s natural resources, the means of economic production, the means of transportation, the means of communication, and the world’s monetary systems, which gives them their military, political, and economic might and which has been accumulated and bequeathed across millennia as a result of military conquests, imperialism, colonialism, inequitable globalization, and several other innovative forms of the suzerain-vassal political economic system.
Very, very interesting.
I’d guess the age of the thing at about 500 years, rather than 2500, and, I’d guess that the corporation and the state are its particular and general systems of embodiment. The state acts more or less as a malleable game board and commons for contractual/legal enforcement and compliance.
While it just so happens that Muslims sit on top of all that sweet light crude in the gulf, one of the other mitigating factors that has gotten the Islamic world in the TEP’s crosshairs is the fact that it still hasn’t fully accomodated the corporation as a legal person, prohibits usury and generally requires a higher degree of social cohesion and personal accountability than the western world requires of its large business elites.
I like and concur with your chess game analogy.
Do you think that political leaders EVER manage to get off their leashes, or, do you think that political leaders only ever front for elite cohorts which themselves from time to time allow their ambitions or loss prevention motivations to get the better of them?
Lastly, what do you view as the relative strengths and merits of theocratic and technocratic institutions and authorities vis-a-vis the contemporary “warring elites” span of control? Obviously they’re building blocks of the cultural commons and resources are allocated to their maintenance and continuity.
Now that we’ve entered the era of computational genomics, (fusion of information technology and biotechnology) - do you believe there’s enough potential for disruption that the status quo power relationships are seriously threatened? Could technocrats seize a much larger share of governance power than they’ve ever previously wielded - with for example, life extension, capabilities expansion, bioengineered energy, and a host of other possible near term developments?
Have you listened to any of the Intelligence Squared debates?
Good stuff. I’m listening to the one about China right now.
Do you think that political leaders EVER manage to get off their leashes, or, do you think that political leaders only ever front for elite cohorts which themselves from time to time allow their ambitions or loss prevention motivations to get the better of them?
I believe almost all modern political leaders, and especially those that must be elected, are only fronts or captains for the ruling elite, and that these fronts or captains are not the final decision-makers for the most important global military, political, or economic actions.
Lastly, what do you view as the relative strengths and merits of theocratic and technocratic institutions and authorities vis-a-vis the contemporary “warring elites” span of control?
Institutions that aren’t backed by military might can be made to answer to those that are. And, those that have superior military might will use it when they believe doing so would be the most economical way to protect their supremacy. I suspect the leaders of theocratric and technocratic institutions are witting or unwitting captains or fronts for the ruling elite. The unwitting ones who believe they are in positions to wrest control away from the ruling elite haven’t been made to bow down to military might yet.
Now that we’ve entered the era of computational genomics, do you believe there’s enough potential for disruption that the status quo power relationships are seriously threatened?
No. I believe the ruling elite will rule until scientific and technological innovations make almost all of us equally or near equally economically powerful.
Could technocrats seize a much larger share of governance power than they’ve ever previously wielded - with for example, life extension, capabilities expansion, bioengineered energy, and a host of other possible near term developments?
I believe technocrats can and will be allowed to have a much larger share of power than non-ruling elites have ever wielded. However, I doubt their individual or collective powers will ever be strong enough to seriously threaten the ruling elite, who will have military might at their fingertips.
When political might, psychological and cultural might, and economic might can no longer be used in order to keep power-hungry up-and-comers in check, then military might will be there to save the day.
Have you listened to any of the Intelligence Squared debates?
No. But they look interesting. I’ll check them out after finals.
‘TPTB’, eh? Hmmmmm….
I read Craig’s citation of the anniversary of the Soviet pogrums in the Ukraine. What I gathered from it is the fact that many of the human tragedies we witness today are in fact created, if not made worse by The Nature of Man. I’m not convinced, however, that a ruling class exists so powerful, impenetrable, and unified of purpose that it can maintain a tyranny ad infinitum, especially in ‘Western’ cultures.
My explanation is simple: the butterfly effect. Somewhere, a teenager working in the basement is developing something, right now, while eating his day-old pizza that will alter the course of human history forever.
That’s precisely what I was on about in comment 3. You just never can tell where the current round of Basement Researches will lead…., and I believe there’s some major scrambling going on among the membership of the TEP (aka TPTB) to figure out when, whether, and how to put a lid on the potential disruptions - because they want the bounties and the deus ex machina salvation from the energy and food crises that these technologies portend (and so can’t afford to squelch them) - but at the same time - realize full well that this genie once out of the bottle will be profoundly difficult to put back.
MIB:
“I’m not convinced, however, that a ruling class exists so powerful, impenetrable, and unified of purpose that it can maintain a tyranny ad infinitum, especially in ‘Western’ cultures.”
I do believe a ruling elite can maintain a tyranny ad infinitum, even while I believe it is possible that the ruling elite’s power can be decreased significantly or taken away by the same people who are the sources of their power, those who make up the voluntarily or involuntarily ruled herd. However, I believe it is extremely unlikely that the ruled, who grant the ruling elite their power, will ever really join forces at the right time and in the right numbers to take the ruling elite’s supreme power away for good. The ruling elite have so many tools to keep the ruled satiated or controlled.
All the ruling elite need to do is make social engineering adjustments along the way that would enable them to manage their ruled herd. For example, when a few talented, enlightened, and courageous members of the herd would begin to get too many other members riled up, the ruling elite could buy them out with a little wealth, power, or prestige, or the ruling elite could satiate or control them in other ways. The ruling elite might also just eliminate key members of the ruled herd when doing so would not create martyrs of them, uneconomically riling up the ruled herd even more. And, as a very last resort, the ruling elite could always use military might to make key members of the ruled herd or entire nations bow down. The ruling elite have their professional soldiers trained well and there are enough soldiers who would be psychologically, culturally, politically, or economically disconnected enough from those they would kill or capture, that these soldiers would not abandon their military duties if called on to enforce the ruling elite’s will on the ruled. Additionally, the ruling elite, each year, develop more military tools that they could use sans highly-trained soldiers or standing armies.
So, I believe the ruling elite have plenty of tools at their disposal in order to maintain a tyranny until there were no additional wealth, power, or prestige to be gained from maintaining a tyranny. I believe the end of tyranny’s value, with respect to the ruling elite’s efforts to sustain social systems that maintain inequitable and unmeritocratic wealth, power, and prestige distributions in their favor, might occur during the post-singularity era or at a stage of humankind’s scientific, technological, and biological evolution at which economic power would be the same or almost the same for all human beings. And, I listed only four of the tools the ruling elite will be able to use along the way in my original post. By simply using these four tools, one at a time, all together, or in any combination, the ruling elite would be able to easily deal with all sorts of individual, organizational, ideological, or institutional threats to their supremacy.
Derrick Bell does a pretty good job of breaking down the legal games the rulers play on and through their ruled in his blog post “Racial Gamesmanship” and in some of his other writings more generally. Indeed, this morning I was reminded of Bell’s sobering theories about the games our rulers play on us and through us while I was flipping through one of the legal case books he co-edited, Race, Racism, and American Law.
Craig. Me thinks Ed described… (hmmm, what could it be?)…. Yep. That’s the ticket!! The Global System of Racism/White Supremacy!
I probably will watch V for Vendetta again this weekend since this subject brings me memories of that movie.
I will say it if no one else will…in addition to EC well said comments in #9 regarding tools..the best tools in the ruling class arsenal is ignorance of the masses.
Especially the masses that deny or do not believe how much power the ruling class have and actually accept orthodox beliefs they have not challenged on a critical level.
“Power is a dish best served cold”
When we speak of a ‘ruling elite’ we’re actually describing an oligarchy — or rather an informal coalition of oligarchies that hold sway over our institutions. But the principle tool employed by oligarchs and oligarchies is economics. With this information in mind, the weaknesses of the oligarchs are evident for all to identify and target.
Geopolitics and globalism being what they are, I would think that the regular readers of Maxambit recognize the lessons from history detail the trend throughout civilization toward democracy and self-rule, augmented by the (ongoing) advances in technology. American society in particular is notable for oligarchies always being present, yet not being comprised of the same elements. The gentry of the 18th century were supplanted by the industrialists of the 19th century, who in turn have been replaced by a infocentric technocracy (See, ‘Microsoft’, ‘TimeWarner’, et al.). Mediums of exchange have changed; we’ve gone from using whiskey as currency to ‘e-dollars’. Entire fortunes have been built on unsecured borrowing. Mobility exists in our society. The ‘game’ isn’t locked as popular wisdom suggests.
The other thing about an oligarchy is it functions more like a network than a unit. There are rivalries within the oligarchy and other conflicts-of-interest that collectively function as a practical ceiling on its limits. Some of the oligarchy’s nodes are going to succeed at the expense of others. It’s commonplace for one oligarch to consume another, thereby dispatching somebody from the proverbial halls of power. Here again, I believe oligarchs routinely (if not unintentionally) sow the seeds for their comeuppance.
My point being there will always be an oligarchy, just as there’ll be a middle-class and a… proletariat (LOL). It’s composition and direction, however, is subject to constant change as is the nature of Man.
MIB,
I understand what you are saying as I know a good example. In Chicago during the early 80s, the bougie Blacks socialites rejected and snubbed a newcomer to the Chicago area….some lady named Oprah Winfrey…do you need me to continue this story?