Part 1: Aristotle, Lenin and Orwell.
Our purpose here is to understand modern political power. Our aim is to answer Lenin’s question: “who, whom?” Who are the rulers? Who are the ruled? What is the structure and composition of political power in the West today?
1: Following Aristotle, there are three types of government:
A: Monarchy. One rules all. (The shadow form is tyranny.)
B: Aristocracy. The few rule the rest. (The shadow form is oligarchy.)
C: Democracy. The majority rule. (The shadow form is ochlocracy.)
Again, following Aristotle, the difference between the just and unjust forms (shadow forms) is that the rulers rule in the interests of the whole polis or people, and not for the sole good of the one, few or many.
D: Political power is defined formally as the ability to make, decide, interpret, clarify, revise and implement rules. In short, the ruler exercises judgement: exceptions, excisions, extensions and expansions — what is and what is not to be done, what can and what cannot be done.
Whoever exercises final, absolute judgement in government is the sovereign. Sovereigns are, by definition, absolute because no one else can overrule their ruling.
However, the sovereign can be absolute, but not necessarily powerful.
E: Power, both formally, and informally, is the ability to make one’s judgement (formal or informal rulings) obeyed. Power, in the extended sense, means command and control: over territory, over equipment, over people.
F: There are six types of power:
1: Military or force power.
2: Economic power.
3: Legal power.
4: Intellectual power.
5: Moral power.
6: Mass or “bio” power.
2: Democracy, in the strict sense, means majority rule. (Demos + Kratos — Greek for people power.)
3: Democracies can be morally or philosophically justified either intrinsically or consequentially.
A: If a democracy is justified intrinsically, then the fact that the government is based on majority rule means that no more justification is required — majority rule is self-evidently right in the moral sense. Democratic government is thus an end in itself.
B: If a democracy is justified by its consequences, then those consequences must be stipulated independently of democracy or majority rule. If not, then there is no way of independently assessing the rightness of democratic government.
4: If a democracy is justified via its consequences, then it is logically and practically possible (which is confirmed by political history and further demonstrated by modern China, Hong Kong and Singapore) that another type of government, such as a monarchy or aristocracy, could also bring about the same or better consequences than a democracy.
For example, if the desired goal is peace and prosperity, could a monarchy achieve these ends better than a democracy?
5: If a democracy is justified via its actual (not expected) consequences, then, in order for the voters to make decisions that are intended to promote the desired and expected consequences, they must have the necessary information or knowledge in order to decide (vote) wisely.
6: Assumption: knowledge — the principles, facts and conclusions regarding economics, defence, science, technology etc. etc., — relevant to political decision making in any government, but especially modern government, is difficult (not self-evident) to discover and understand.
Furthermore, understanding and using such knowledge in governing requires decision makers with experience and understanding of the relevant facts, and in using such knowledge practically.
Lastly, we assume that the acquisition of such knowledge and experience usually requires a person to focus (specialise) in usually one or two areas (such as defence or economics), at most. It is practically impossible for someone to possess full knowledge, understanding and experience of all knowledge relevant to governance.
7: Specialist knowledge, relevant to voter choice, is not, usually, provided by the same “specialists” (such as a scientist, an economist or a military strategist) but by “middle-men” who serve as specialists in providing such information to the voters (the general public).
8: The governments of the West, such as the U.S.A. the U.K, and the European Union claim to be democratic or represent democratic values. However, the precise, publicly available, legal and philosophical definition of democracy used by these governments is unclear. What is clear, however, is that the above regimes would claim, most emphatically, that they are neither (absolute) monarchies nor oligarchies.
9: A monarchy is a government where one rules all.
A: Monarchies can be absolute or limited.
B: Monarchies can be secular or religious.
C: Monarchies can be heredity or non-heredity.
10: An oligarchy is where the few rule the rest. There can be many types of oligarchies:
A: Military.
B: Financial.
C: Legal.
D: Intellectual or religious.
E: Party Political.
F: Some combination of all of the above.
11: We assume that Western states are not (absolute) monarchies.
12: We want, therefore, to determine if Western states are democracies or oligarchies. (We exclude aristocracy because if the regimes are not democratic, as publicly advertised, then they are automatically degenerate or Orwellian, and so are oligarchies.)
Part 2: England: An Orwellian State.
England is the mother of Parliaments and the (second) birthplace of democracy.
14: Is England, however, a democracy, or democratic in its values?
The English/British system advertises itself as a Constitutional Monarchy (though it has no constitution), and a Parliamentary Democracy that is supreme (though it isn’t).
https://www.gov.uk/government/how-government-works
http://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A591383
15: We claim that the answer is no: England is not a democracy; England is an Orwellian state.
16: We provide the following as evidence for 15:
A: England has an “unelected” House Of Lords; an “official” church and state religion; a monarch whose influence in the political process, while greatly diminished, is unclear.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/28/house-of-lords-democracy-accountability-reform
B: England has unelected judges who interpret and determine laws, including constitutional questions; thus, it is Supreme Court Judges who determine the “exception”.
The sovereign (the ultimate authority) is one who “rules” or “overrules” the rest; thus, it is the Supreme Court who is “Supreme” — the power of the “last word.”
(Though this itself is not completely true, as we shall see, the situation is more “Kafkaesque”.)
Who? Whom? The people? Parliament? The Judges?
C: English citizens and English law are, nevertheless, subject to the European Court of Human Rights — an unelected, foreign panel of judges. No majority vote ever ratified this, and no national voting process can, legally, end it — after all the judge, or “rulers” can simply “over-rule” the vote.
http://www.libdemvoice.org/opinion-the-human-rights-act-undemocratic-and-illiberal-46023.html
https://www.rt.com/uk/192248-lord-judge-echr-democracy/
D: Scottish Members of Parliament, elected in Scotland, can vote on English laws, while English Parliamentarians do not have the same power. By way of comparison, what if, for example, French politicians could vote on English laws? (They already can with the EU). Would this be considered democratic? Or, what if rich tycoons could simply buy seats in Parliament? (They already can with the House of Lords.)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Lothian_question
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/21/revealed-link-life-peerages-party-donations
Is this democratic or undemocratic?
E: For Parliament to pass new legislation it requires a majority in the house; so here we have, at least, the principle of majority rule; however, this is, in fact, a minority who are making laws for everyone else which is the definition of oligarchical government.
F: To become a member of the house of Parliament, one must be elected via the first past the post system; the winner is determined by simply having the most votes. This system, however, means in theory and practice that a candidate can win, though the majority of “actual” voters voted against them. This is called splitting the vote; it is also known as divide and rule.
G: The majority of the population in England do not vote in elections, anyway. Probably, the main reason given would be that it’s pointless.
H: Whoever commands a majority in Parliament, now based on the party system, forms the government.
I: However, in respect of H, the majority did not give either consent to, or voted for, the governing party. (Democracy means majority rule.)
J: The major political parties in England are the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. Two other parties, despite winning, in some cases, millions of votes, have no or only one or two MPs; thus these voters have no “voice” or power or “representation” in Parliament. This is a result of electoral boundaries or “gerrymandering”. Who decides the boundaries? Ultimately, it’s the political parties themselves.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32954807
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/09/margate-ukip-greens-electoral-reform-farage
K: Networks of party elites select potential MPs and decide where they stand for election — a top-down process called “short-lists”.
L: In England, there is what is called “safe seats” (areas where one party dominates). Parties can, therefore, “parachute” favoured or VIP party members and the loyal supporters will, reliably, elect and re-elect and re-elect them again to Parliament. If candidates or Parliamentarians lose, safer seats can always be found.
http://www.votenone.org.uk/uk-unheard-third.html
M: In “seats” which are competitive, many voters vote for one of the two main parties (Conservative or Labour), not because they prefer the candidate or party, but because they prefer the other candidate and party not to “win”. This is called “tactical” or “insincere” voting. Democracies which use the “first past the post” system will, as a result of the system, naturally evolve into a “two-party” system — a duopoly in other words.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_voting
N: There are many issues, such as the death penalty, immigration, or European Union membership, where the majority wishes are not made law or represented by Parliament.
https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefingpaper/document/249
Click to access TCM-BritishPublicOpinion.pdf
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_Kingdom
We ask: Is England a monarchy, a democracy, or an oligarchy?
A democracy is a government based on majority rule, where the laws are based on the choices of the majority.
An oligarchy is a government where the few rule the rest; where the laws are made by the few either with or without the support of the majority.
We claim that England is an oligarchy.
Consequently, England is an Orwellian state.
An Orwellian state is a state which claims to be one thing (a democracy but is, in reality, another (an oligarchy). (There are many other ways England is an Orwellian state, but this will serve as the chief claim.)
If an oligarchy whose rule —its decisions and laws — are in agreement with majority wishes we can thus it call a “popular oligarchy”. An oligarchy, meanwhile, which rules contrary to the wishes of the majority we can thus call “authoritarian oligarchy”.
Is England a popular or an authoritarian oligarchy?
Part 3: Church, State and Democracy in America.
Section A: The Orwellian State.
17: We claim that America is an Orwellian state.
A: There are three, complementary, meanings of the term “Orwellian”.
B: The first sense is a state whose government advertises itself as one thing, but is, in reality, another. For example, the People’s Republic of China is governed by the Communist Party which advertises itself as “Communist”. However, are they actually adhering to the principles of Marx-Leninism? No.
C: The second sense of the term is a state which uses propaganda to “manufacture consent”. Manufacturing consent or propaganda can extend to anything — anything.
D: The third sense is a state that uses surveillance, informants, “struggle sessions” and “five minute hates” to practice and enforce thought-control or crimethink.
E: We claim that America is an Orwellian state in all three senses.
18: Firstly, recall claims six and seven from part 1.
Democracy is majority rule, or to weaken this definition, we can say that democracy is a system of government where political power (decisions, laws and policies) are in the hands —or rather the minds — of the majority.
19: Voting is a choice. Choices, if they are not to be arbitrary, require information.
Many questions, relevant to voting, require “specialists” to discover and understand the necessary information. However, discovery and understanding of such information is one thing, communicating such information to the public is another.
Whoever, or whatever, controls the production, distribution and supply of information, they then control, or at least influence, the minds of voters; consequently, they thus control or influence the choices of voters.
Thus, those who are in the art and science of controlling or influencing —moulding, manufacturing and motivating —the “masses” therefore command the masses, and by commanding the masses, they then control the state.
However, if these people, and the institutions they work for, are formally or informally a part or a branch of the state, then it is government (who) controlling the people, and not the people (whom) controlling the government. If not, then who, whom?
David Hume said that all governments are founded on “opinion”. A modern, mass democracy, is supposed to be founded and governed, or at least guided by public opinion.
However, if public opinion guides the government, and if public opinion is itself guided……
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_(book)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippmann
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism#Lippmann-Dewey
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Opinion_(book)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Information
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America
Section B: Separation of Church and State.
20: American has, as a constitutional principle, separation of church and state.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States
21: The reason why separation of church and state is thought to be important in a democracy is because if a church, such as the Catholic Church, tells the voters how to vote, and if the church has sufficient influence and control over the beliefs and behaviours of sufficient numbers of voters, then the church, via the voters, controls the government.
Thus, the concept of a democratic government is nullified, because the real political power is in the hands of a religious oligarchy. These types of oligarchies, or if they are monarchies, are called theocracies.
22: If a church (a religious oligarchy) controls the government, then it can use the power of the government to benefit itself and harm the interests and rights of its rivals.
23: What, however, is a church?
A church is an organisation that assumes certain specialist knowledge about reality (reality defined in the broadest possible sense); secondly, a church informs and often requires people to believe certain things about reality, value certain ideals, and act in certain morally “necessary” or “obligatory” ways.
Simply put, a church is an organisation that tells people what to believe, what to value, and what to do.
Crucially, however, a church often commands obedience under threat of punishment of some kind; for example, spiritual, legal, moral and or social punishment (shaming and ostracising).
24: What is a university?
A university is an institution that claims to possess specialist knowledge of reality (reality defined in the broadest possible sense). Secondly, universities tell students and people what to believe, what to value and what to do. Thirdly, universities can punish students and staff (institutionally, morally and socially) for failing to believe, value and act in ways the university demands.
http://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers#Summers.27s_opposition_and_support_at_Harvard
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37869062
http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2007/09/the_hidden_impact_of_political/
What, however, is the difference between a church (defined in 23) and a university (defined in 24)?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University#Medieval_universities
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_University
Section C: Who informs the informers?
25: Who informs the public?
That is, who tells the public what to believe, what to value and what to do, including “who” to vote for?
Answer: Journalists directly. Teachers inform indirectly via political or civic education in primary and secondary schools.
26: Who teaches the teachers? (Journalists and teachers.)
Answer: Other teachers. Or, to be more exact, professors.
Who teaches professors?
Answer: other professors.
27: Where do professors teach?
Answer: universities.
28: Who decides if someone can become a professor, and teach other, potential teachers, journalists and professors?
Answer: other professors.
29: In a theocracy (where the church controls the state), the church is funded and supported via the state either by taxation, borrowing or by fiat money created by the government.
In Western democracies, who funds the universities?
Answer: The government, mostly.
30: How is a government funded?
Answer: a government is funded either by taxing the people, borrowing, or creating money by fiat.
31: If America requires separation of church and state, and IF universities are churches, then how are the universities and state separate?
Who, whom?
Are universities controlled by the government, or is government controlled by universities?
Part 4: The Corporation.
32: A corporation is an organised body of people working together for a common purpose.
33: The basic structure and composition of a corporation are executive, managers and employees.
A: An Army is a corporation with a Field Marshall (an executive), officers (managers) and privates (employees).
B: A football club is a corporation with a manager (the executive, in England they are called “gaffers”), “backroom staff” (managers) such as the coach, the physiotherapist, and other trainers; finally there are the players (employees).
C: The American government (USG) is a corporation with an executive, (President); managers (senior civil servants, senators, judges, and generals); the employees, meanwhile, are junior civil servants and public servants such as the police, firefighters, doctors, teachers, lawyers, scientists, public health inspectors and diversity officers.
34: The United States Government, like the European Union, like the People’s Republic of China, is a corporation. What, however, is the purpose of the United States Corporation?
35: Can a corporation be a democracy, however? (Democracy defined as majority rule, where the laws and decisions are made by the majority; or, less concretely, where the government is guided by public opinion.)
A: An army is not a democracy.
B: A football club is not a democracy.
C: For-profit corporations (such as Apple or Amazon) are not democracies.
Corporations are rarely, if ever, democratic.
Is America a democracy or a corporation?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_of_command
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/2236.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Part 5: Priests of the Demos.
36: Firstly, recall propositions 5, 6 and 7, 18, 24 and 25.
Recap: A democracy is majority rule, or at least involves popular elections; the voters, meanwhile, must be able to make informed choices in a democracy.
Successful, prudent governance depends upon sound information (or knowledge).
Specialists are necessary to discover and organise such information.
However, the specialists who discover or systematise specialist knowledge are often unable and uninterested in communicating this to the majority, or the general public; thus a different type of specialists are required to communicate this information to voters.
Power in a democracy supposedly depends upon public opinion; thus, whoever is able to command, control and channel public opinion can command and control the government.
The “specialists” who inform the public directly are called journalists.
No one elects journalists.
The specialists who indirectly inform the public (when they are in infancy, adolescence and early adulthood) are called teachers and professors.
No one elects teachers or professors.
Who informs the informers? Who teaches the teachers?
Answer: Professors, who teach, or who profess, in a university.
Again, no one elects professors.
A university is a kind of church. A university tells students what to believe, what to value, and what to do.
The church, or the university, has three “principal”, “direct and indirect” ways of influencing and controlling the government: professors who influence and control prospective and junior professors; professors who teach journalists; professors who teach teachers.
37: What other members of the government, however, does the university (church) usually influence?
A: Politicians.
All American Presidents, in the last century, have attended university.
Obama, for example, was a professor of law and got his degrees from Columbia and Harvard University.
John Kennedy studied at Harvard.
Franklin Roosevelt studied at Harvard.
Woodrow Wilson was President of Princeton and a graduate of Harvard.
Obama joins list of seven presidents with Harvard degrees
In England, the key Cabinet members, and Prime Ministers, have all attended university, and many have studied a specially tailored course called Politics, Philosophy and Economics (David Cameron and George Osborne are two such examples); other politicians have often studied law at university (Tony Blair is one such example).
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2014/09/the-politics-of-ppe/
B: Lawyers and judges are taught at universities by law professors.
C: Senior civil servants are taught at university.
D: Political activists, strategists, staffers and spin doctors are taught at university.
E: Economists, financiers and bankers are taught at universities.
All the people who govern, or exercise power and influence over the government, were taught at university by unelected professors, paid, of course, by the government.
How would you feel if all these people were taught at madrassas or the Catholic Church instead?
38: If a university is a church, and if professors are like theologians, are teachers, journalists, judges, lawyers, civil servants, and politicians not a kind of priest then?
Priests, however, require a doctrine, an ideology.
Do the members of the governing, oligarchic class have an ideology, a doctrine, a religion?
Part 6: Catholicism and Universalism.
39: Catholic means universal. Roman Catholicism is a universal religion for all humanity because all humans are created equal in the eyes of God. All men, from all cultures, countries and races can be Catholics.
Roman Catholicism is a system comprising of beliefs, values and commands.
Roman Catholicism is a universal system.
40: Do the oligarchic class of Western democracies have an ideology, if so, what?
41: Claim: all members of the oligarchy share a fundamental, architectonic, belief in human equality and or uniformity: physical, psychological, and moral.
Nevertheless, this mixture of epistemic beliefs (“facts”) and moral values are only rarely explicitly and authoritatively defined. Furthermore, the beliefs and values do not usually rest upon authoritative texts (except, perhaps, for legal definitions). Disputes inevitably arise among the more intellectual members of the oligarchy as to scope, nature and application of these beliefs and values.
However, these beliefs and values will be collectively defended against questioning and criticism.
See:
https://www.edge.org/conversation/steven_pinker-preface-to-dangerous-ideas
http://www.newstatesman.com/node/156284
http://inversions-and-deceptions.com
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-016-0081-5
http://www.humanbiologicaldiversity.com
42: The test that is proposed for verifying both a believer in the ideology of the oligarchy and of the existence of the ideology itself is the following questions:
A: Do you believe it is possible that physical, cognitive, emotional, and personality differences resulting from innate, biological, genetic or neurological differences plausibly can explain —in ways currently undetermined —observable and measurable differences in human intellectual and physical abilities?
B: Are all humans equally valuable, thus providing, at least presumptively, that they should be treated morally, legally and politically uniformly?
A negative answer to the first and a positive answer to the second will likely reveal that the respondent is a subscriber to the oligarchical ideology.
Further “tells” will be emotional discomfort involved in answering the question; closed-mindedness to any kind of contradictory evidence or argument; and most importantly, offence, disgust or anger at even being asked to answer or even consider the questions.
43: Upon verification, further tests can be conducted.
The hypothesis advanced here is that the respondent will answer affirmatively, or positively, to the following propositions:
A: Culture explains more about human behaviour than biology.
B: Humans are, by and large, peaceful, altruistic and sociable.
C: Human aggression, criminality and exploitative behaviours are best explained as consequences of poverty, abuse, poor schooling and or discrimination.
D: Governments can solve or greatly improve problems in C by intervening in society and re-distributing wealth; implementing affirmative action policies, and requiring institutions to be “diverse”.
E: Democracy is the only justified type of government.
F: Humans have human rights.
G: Government institutions should avoid “politics” and “partisan behaviour” in favour of impartial, informed and responsible civil service management.
H: All humans should be treated equally.
I: Religious belief, such as Catholicism, should not serve as the basis of legislation.
J: Progressive taxation of wealthy individuals and corporations is a good and necessary policy in order to benefit those who are disadvantaged and discriminated against.
K: Certain restrictions should be placed on “speech” on grounds of avoiding hurt, offence and or racial or religious “incitement”.
L: Corporations are a threat to human liberty and dignity.
M: Teachers, academics and journalists should not be censored or punished by the government.
N: Judges have a duty not just to implement the law as written, but to interpret and implement laws that are actually just.
O: Governments have a duty to intervene in society in order to ensure fair and just outcomes.
P: It is morally acceptable for privileged students to show solidarity with oppressed groups by “no-platforming” (censoring) speakers who incite bigotry and hatred.
Q: Nationalism — the belief that loyalty to one’s country is good, and that the state should advance the interests of a nation over other nations — is bad.
R: Western nations have oppressed and exploited foreign cultures and peoples in the past; colonialism and imperialism denied subject peoples the right to national self-determination.
S: Men and women, in general, have few, if any, intellectual and emotional differences; what differences do exist are a consequence of “socialising”, probably unjust “socialising”.
T: There is no God-given morality because there is no God; thus, there is no absolute right and wrong.
U: All humans are equal, all humans have rights, all humans have moral duties towards all other humans. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a brilliant creation (discovery?) that inspires a vision of Universal Humanity United by a common moral code.
44: The above statements can be defined as part of the ideology, or religion, of Universalism.
The greater the assent, and the stronger the emotional affirmation of the above statements, the more a person represents the Universalist ideology.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Universalism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregational_church#Unitarianism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_socialism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/philosophy/human-rights-religion-christianity-philosophy-theology
45: What are the similarities and differences between Catholicism and Universalism?
A: Both claim to be universally applicable, but with some subsidiarity (small scale, local variations in application and practice).
B: Both claim to have foundations in reason.
C: Both claim to be true, good and right.
D: Both claim to value and desire peace, but both accept the philosophical, moral and legal necessity of war to advance the aims of peace — peace according to their respective ideologies.
E: Both form comprehensive doctrines regarding politics, law, economics, education, morality, family, sex, race and other religions.
F: Both make use of authorities, authoritative texts and authoritative structures.
For example, the Catholic Church claims that the Pope is infallible in matters of faith; that priests have “teaching authority” and are responsible for the beliefs, values and behaviours of the flock; the Catholic Church makes use of a number of authoritative texts such as Canon law, Papal decrees, theological arguments and the Bible. The Catholic Church’s structure is based explicitly on hierarchy and authority.
Universalists, despite having no Pope, see Supreme Justices as, while not infallible, having final authority over all questions that are brought to it.
Teachers, professors and journalists, meanwhile, possess university granted, and institutional, government sanctioned authority to teach, inform, monitor and judge people’s beliefs, values and actions.
Priests, teachers and journalists are not elected, nor can they lose their authority and power via election or recall; they are not subject to the authority of elected politicians (a politician cannot fire journalists, teachers or professors).
Positive law is the ultimate textual source of authority for Universalists. Crafted by lawyers, lobbyists and other unknown persons; interpreted by lawyers and judges, and enforced by state-controlled police; individual consent and voluntary contract with these laws are, of course, irrelevant; compliance is absolutely categorical — unless so interpreted by a prosecutor or judge. (Needless to say, lawyers and judges – with some exceptions in America – are not elected and cannot be removed from public office by popular vote, or fired by politicians.)
Humans who are born into Universalist countries (America, England and Germany say) are as subject to these involuntarily imposed laws, as Muslims are to Sharia law in Saudi Arabia (a theocracy).
Universalists, furthermore, also have “authoritarian” (non-democratic) structures:
1: Local, State, Federal Courts and an International legal system. These legal systems are hierarchical and exclusive.
For example, entry requirements are university legal degrees, then entry examinations, then promotion (selection) from within the system. Finally, these legal systems are closed to democratic control, influence and accountability, except in an attenuated way. For example, in America, the President nominates Supreme Court Justices who are then passed with the Senate committee’s approval. As for the Judges of the European Court of Human Rights, they are elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Who elects the “Assembly”? National governments either selects, or their Parliament elects people to the Assembly.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/07/01/rule-of-lawyers/
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/the-rule-of-law-is-being-usurped-by-the-rule-of-lawyers/
2: Civil service bureaucracy. Local to national to transnational: Whitehall, the “Fed”, the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and, of course, the bureaucratic masterpiece: the European Union. Again, the civil service bureaucracies are hierarchical, exclusive, and closed to democratic control, influence and accountability.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_cage
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Burnham#The_Managerial_Revolution
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaucratic_collectivism
https://balkin.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/skeptical-view-of-constitution-worship.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/12176234/Nine-deceptions-in-our-history-with-the-EU.html
To read the book The Great Deception see:
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=85035
3: The “Press”. Informal hierarchies, networks, “status publications” and cliques exist. The press frame the agenda, set the parameters of “discourse” and decide what and what not to focus on. The 2016 Presidential election has provided a wealth of information that demonstrates corruption, bias and the power of the press. However, following the election of Trump, it is clear that the traditional press is weakening.
Background:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Opinion_(book)
http://folk.ntnu.no/tronda/articles/media-dynamics.pdf
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org
http://www.people-press.org/2000/04/30/self-censorship-how-often-and-why/
https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/rather-dan
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/03/real-journalism-versus-professional-journalism.html
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-08/new-poll-ranks-credibility-mainstream-media-outlets
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/blog/?p=53
The 2016 Election: Trump, Clinton, the Press, Propaganda, Intellectual “Bubbles” and Bias.
The Media War Against Trump.
https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-10/reuters-explains-how-it-rigged-its-polls
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/2/florida-newspaper-apologizes-for-anti-donald-trump/
The New York Times:
Collusion:
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/10/17/20330/journalists-shower-hillary-clinton-campaign-cash
Bubbles:
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/06/is-99-a-reasonable-probability/
http://quillette.com/2016/11/12/donald-trump-and-the-failure-of-mainstream-social-science/
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/fail-prweek-s-survey-22-pr-pros-found-zero-predictions-trump
Commentary:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/06/manufacturing-normality/
http://donsurber.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/we-are-not-alone-in-calling-out-anti.html#more
https://mises.org/blog/mainstream-media-goes-full-mccarthyite
http://www.dailywire.com/news/10555/how-political-medias-corruption-destroyed-americas-john-nolte
https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2016/11/07/the-trust-vacuum/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/31/the-podesta-emails-show-who-runs-america
The Guardian’s “explanation” of what is going wrong:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/12/how-technology-disrupted-the-truth
4: The University system . Universities have formal hierarchies among professors, but also informal hierarchies of prestige (impact). Universities have league tables as well as informal hierarchies of prestige.
The most prestigious university in the world is Harvard University.
If a university is a church, and if the Vatican is the pre-eminent religious institution of the Catholic Church, then Harvard is like the “head church” —the “Vatican” — of Universalism.
Again, professors, departments, funding, and institutional behaviour are not subject to elections, except for small and unimportant universities.
However, universities, like with the judicial system, the civil service and the press, are entirely insulated from the “democratic will of the people”; carping malcontents in California have as much democratic power over Harvard as Hungarians do over Oxford.
What Harvard is to the universities, The New York Times is to the press,
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger is the publisher and Chairman of the New York Times; he has, unsurprisingly, degrees from Tufts and Harvard. Harvard, Tufts and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are all in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is part of New England, America’s North East, where all the “Ivy League” universities are. New England was founded by English Puritan separatists. The most influential among the Puritans, were called “Boston Brahmins”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Brahmin
The “Brahmins” are the most influential group in America history. It was they who began the “Boston Tea Party” and started the American war of secession.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams
It was the Brahmins in Massachusetts, New England, who started the abolitionist movement, the transcendentalist movement (one of their beliefs was of innate human goodness); furthermore, Massachusetts was also the first state in America to recognise same-sex marriage:and also in implementing “Obamacare.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_reform
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Massachusetts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Walker_(abolitionist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Great_Awakening
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lloyd_Garrison
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism
Massachusetts is the cultural, religious, moral and political power in America.
Since America is the most powerful country in the world, that makes the current Brahmins of New England, Massachusetts and Harvard the world’s power elite, the power centre —the rulers of the ruled.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_New_England
“Global leadership” Power and Power:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Power
Where does progress come from?
It comes from Harvard.
It comes from the New York Times.
Harvard formulates “policy” and trains the “priests” and the Protest (protestant) leaders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Winslow_Taylor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_governance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_policy_school
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/degrees/teaching-courses/course-listing/iga-103
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Goodman
The New York Times, meanwhile, formulates “propaganda” and promotes the various “policies”; then, secondary publications and outlets follow the “fashionable” and “influential” New York Times who then persuade or educate the minor priests (teachers, activists, celebrities); they then persuade people in their “social network”. And so on……down……
From Protestantism to Puritanism to Progressivism to Power.
Again, to return to our theme of democracy and power, there is zero democratic control over the Times or Harvard University.
It is irrelevant if more people read the National Tattler as do the Times; because, as the Times has it with “all the news that’s fit to print”, all the people that matter read the New York Times.
And by people that matter, we mean the oligarchy:
Here is a random sample of Harvard’s “Brahmins” past and present. Study their beliefs, their actions, and their social networks. Look for patterns and continuities, evolutions and divergences across the last three-hundred-years. The following are not intended to be the most powerful, or influential – though they, of course, are – it is simply a quasi-random selection:
1: John Adams.
2: John Quincy Adams.
3: Charles Francis Adams Jr.
4: Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
5: John Kennedy.
6: Herbert Bush.
7: Barack Obama.
8: Walter Lippmann.
9: Louis Brandeis.
10: Robert McNamara.
11: Charles Peter Philip Paul McColough.
12: David Rockefeller.
13: Arthur Meier Schlesinger Sr and Jr.
14: Elena Kagan.
15: Al Gore.
16: Jared Diamond.
17: Henry Kissinger.
18: Samantha Power.
19: Margaret Atwood.
20: Ray Dalio.
21: Ellen Pao.
22: Steve Ballmer.
24: Sheryl Sanderberg.
25: John Rawls.
26: Edward Said.
27: Patricia Greenspan.
28: Amy Goodman.
29: Nicholas Kristof.
30: William Kristol.
31: Ursula Kroeber Le Guin.
32: Natalie Portman.
33: William Ellery Channing.
34: Theodore Parker.
The Founder and Presidents of Harvard, past and present:
X: John Harvard.
XX: James Bryant Conant.
XXX: Catharine Drew Gilpin Faust.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Harvard_University_people
The above people (those alive anyway) constitute an extended “social network” or a caste, an ideological/religious oligarchy. They rule America, and since America rules (much) of the world, they thus rule the world.
Harvard and other “Ivy League” universities are, by their very nature, “elite” institutions.
Elitism cannot co-exist with equality.
Elitism and aristocracy cannot co-exist with democracy.
Who? Whom?
5: Political Parties. Political Parties are oligarchies within the oligarchy. Their informal rule-based structure, the constant faction fights and political backstabbing; their vertical integration of town, county, state and country reveal them to be nothing more than a cartel, or an organised criminal fraternity who engage in racketeering, bribery, corruption and extortion of the subjects they wield near exclusive control over.
The American parties — Democrats and Republicans — probably receive billions of dollars’ worth of foreign money ( from states, monarchs, dictators and corporations) who in exchange for money receive whatever favours and privileges Senators and Presidents can grant.
The parties are nearly, but not quite, democracy proof. The Trump insurrection and the Bernie Sanders debacle have not only demonstrated gaping holes in the oligarch’s security fence but that the voting public is exasperated by the pre-selected, uniform, asinine candidates.
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/12/history_comedy.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel_party_theory
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_triangle_(US_politics)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
Click to access gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
http://www.unz.com/article/political-sciences-theory-of-everything/
All in all, 500 years after the Protestant Reformation, we now have a kind of inverted pre-Reformation Catholic Church.
Part 7: Conclusions, Implications and Further Considerations.
47: The conclusions drawn from this analysis then is the following:
The design and evolution of the oligarchical structure are not in service of democracy, or to advance democratic aims and agendas, but to expressly prevent it.
Click to access Post-Democracy.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/nov/10/jurgen-habermas-europe-post-democratic
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/dec/06/mario-monti-technocracy-europe
Wikileaks Proves Primary Was Rigged: DNC Undermined Democracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-democracy
Again, governments can either be monarchies, democracies, or oligarchies.
The structure and composition of Western states are best defined as an Orwellian, ideological/religious oligarchy.
The problem, however, is that the oligarchical structure is out of control, like late Republican Rome.
This is so for two reasons:
A: The structure itself is unstable. No corporate executive, or business professor or strategist would ever tolerate or teach the current system as a desirable management structure.
B: The oligarchy exists in an intellectual bubble. Their understanding of the world is inaccurate; consequently, the practical conclusions derived from such false premises lead to unintended and perverse consequences. Furthermore, the structure of government creates perverse feedback loops in which the government attempts to achieve or avoid X but ends up bringing X about, or making X worse. The consequence of this is the expansion of government itself, and so on, and so on……
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-21/three-stages-empire
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_consequences
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuous_circle_and_vicious_circle
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition
https://www.twigh.org/twigh-blog-archives/2015/7/31/aid-dependency-the-damage-of-donation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_dependency
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terror
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gray_(philosopher)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Genealogy_of_Morality
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
The oligarchical structure has enslaved, impoverished and degraded the lives, liberties and well-being of its own subject while enriching themselves.
The structure and the oligarchical ideology (in past and present evolutions) have wreaked death and destruction across the entire globe.
The structure maintains its control via massive, invasive, ingenious propaganda, mass distraction and manufactured controversy; in addition, the structure makes use of thought-police, crimethink and good-think, informants and surveillance; purges, show trials, inquisitions and the occasional use of paramilitary violence.
The structure’s Orwellian sham of multi-party democracy maintains the illusion of choice and competition.
The structure’s ingenious hybrid of Huxlean hedonism and Orwellian thought-control has allowed it to bamboozle and brow-beat not only its own people but foreign states; ironically, it has bamboozled even itself:
https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2016/12/10/situational-unawareness/
https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2016/12/14/james-t-putin/
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/washington’s-idiotic-echo-chamber
The structure, however, is breaking down.
Security for itself and its subject populations is slowly deteriorating, while its ability to win wars and intimidate enemies is increasingly being challenged and questioned.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1253.html
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1325
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/middle-east/need-strategy-well-tactics-1089
https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/middle-east/al-qaeda-growing-stronger-minute-1089
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-europe-attacks-timeline-idUKKCN1061Q4
https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-warns-threat-more-500-potential-attackers-142053075.html
The structure’s economic system, meanwhile, based on flawed assumptions, fiat money, fractional reserve banking and maturity transformation, as well as outsourcing, mass immigration, cheap credit and free trade has, while enriching and empowering the oligarchy, impoverished and, especially for the younger generation, chained them to a lifetime of debt and wage slavery.
https://mises.org/library/failure-new-economics-0
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/20/alan-greenspan-cult-of-expert-and-how-it-collapsed
https://mises.org/blog/inflation-may-be-causing-long-term-rise-unemployment
https://mises.org/blog/bank-england-turns-more-easy-money
https://mises.org/blog/we-cant-live-borrowed-time-and-borrowed-money-forever
Click to access NoRecovery_FINAL_120516.pdf
Finally, the media, rather than investigate, report and interrogate the various problems, engages in techniques of propaganda and distraction; the result, as with artificial currency inflation, is a steadily deteriorating deflation of public trust in established, official, government and state, informational institutions.
48: Politics is the struggle for power and pre-eminence.
This is a truth readily seen from history; from contemporary observations and from the study of biology and evolutionary psychology.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_realism_(international_relations)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Melos#The_Melian_Dialogue
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roman_Revolution
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/morg6.htm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilfredo_Pareto#Sociology
https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/the-extreme-warrior-gene-a-reality-check/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate
49: In the 21st century, political struggle — conflict — will be dynamic, and multi-dimensional; the resources of power are:
1: Military and Military technology, and the psychological and political capacity to wield mass and targeted violence.
2: Wealth. The ability to bribe, enrich, and impoverish allies and enemies.
3: Legal and political (institutional) structural and ideological instruments of power, violence and domination.
4: Moral power. Hume said: “reason is the slave of the passions.” Moral power here means the ability to generate “passion” in service of power, violence and domination.
5: Intellectual power. This means creating intellectual rationalisations of power, violence and domination.
6: Mass or “bio” power. This means mobilising the “masses”, but also groups, networks, and individuals to serve the interests of power.
At the macro level, 21st-century conflict will involve civilisations and culture; it will, however, involve institutions, power centres, and the actors within them.
The institutions and power centres of 21st-century conflict are:
1: Harvard.
2: Kremlin.
3: Mecca.
4: Zhongnanhai.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clash_of_Civilizations
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdai_speech_of_Vladimir_Putin
https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-twilight-of-the-liberal-world-order/
50: Robin Hanson, in his essay The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It? considers the possibility —in answer to the Fermi Paradox of why we do not see intelligent life elsewhere in the universe —that space colonising life is so improbable because it destroys itself before it can colonise the Cosmos.
The Great Filter and the Fermi Paradox forces us to consider that intelligent, technological life will cause a self-destroying catastrophe.
The catastrophe need not be existential, only that it destroys civilisation enough to prevent space colonisation.
Humans have always been at war, but the global destructiveness of even current technology (never mind future “advances”) guarantees that a new, global, total war will be absolutely catastrophic.
The physicist, Sir Martin Rees, considers the possibility that this may well be Human’s “final century”.
Richard Fernandez calls the current era the “modern crisis”.
Global and domestic security breakdown.
Economic decay and even collapse.
The decay and collapse of traditional information systems.
http://www.webcitation.org/5n7VYJBUd
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Final_Hour
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_catastrophic_risk
Now, the emergence of new players such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and now Donald Trump are challengers, disrupters and spoilers of the post-war, progressive, American-led global order.
The global order now enters a period of uncertainty, tension and conflict. The global order has never been more “polarised”.
We end with two extracts. The first is the opening paragraph of a speech delivered to Harvard University in 1947 by George. C. Marshall the then U.S Secretary of State. The second, from Michael Totten, one of the most informed, and astute reporters working today.
Marshall:
I need not tell you gentlemen that the world situation is very serious. That must be apparent to all intelligent people. I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. Furthermore, the people of this country are distant from the troubled areas of the earth and it is hard for them to comprehend the plight and consequent reactions of the long-suffering peoples, and the effect of those reactions on their governments in connection with our efforts to promote peace in the world.
http://marshallfoundation.org/marshall/the-marshall-plan/marshall-plan-speech/
Michael Totten: Open Letter to the Next Leader of the Free World:
The world is a mess, as it usually is, and taking on this awesome responsibility right now is like trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube that a devious trickster messed with by moving some of the stickers around.
You are not battling a Hitler or Hirohito that you can bomb into submission. Nor are you facing down a Stalinist empire that you can outspend into oblivion.
You and the citizens whom you have been elected to serve are beset instead by a constellation of problems—international terrorism, rogue states, and a renascent expansionist Russia. These persistent features of our international landscape may not be as dangerous as the Nazi rampage across Europe or the threat of all-out nuclear confrontation, but they are much more intractable. They will bedevil us throughout your presidency and beyond.
You will not be able to democratize the Middle East and drain the swamp of its political pathologies by using regime change or any other tool at your disposal. Nor will you be able to diplomatically “engage” your way to being liked by the Vladimir Putins and Ali Khameneis of the world. You can flush the terrorists of ISIS out of their nests and vaporize them with Predator drones, but they’ll pop up again in some other unstable and anarchic part of the world.
I hate to break it to you, but these are problems to be managed rather than solved. At least the Israelis, who have become masters of this art throughout the brief existence of Jewish state, can commiserate with your unenviable role.
You’re going to have to come to grips with it, though, because it’s all on you now.
The American president, the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Armed Forces, is practically a foreign policy dictator. You can start wars without going through Congress. (Congress and the public will complain, don’t kid yourself about that, but it will be too late.) You can end wars—or at least choose to stop fighting and let them continue without you. You can order daring raids against the likes of Osama bin Laden if you think you know where they’re hiding, you can forge and unmake alliances, and you can initiate all kinds of black ops that the public is unlikely to discover as long as they don’t catastrophically fail.
You will have more power and authority on foreign policy than you will over any other area, and since what you do with this power can affect the entire human race, you’d damn well better wield it wisely.
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/michael-j-totten/open-letter-next-leader-free-world.
The 21st century has now begun.
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I recommend Filmer’s observations on Aristotle’s forms for an interesting series of criticisms of them. It’s short, and very interesting.
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