Instability

The Political Usefulness Of Creating An Unstable Populace

There are many causes  that can create destabilization effects within a society.  One factor that destabilizes is of course non-equitable power that cannot exist in a “natural”  human community.  If the rituals become insignificant to the structure and the rituals are utilized to support the structure (i.e. the so-called rituals of a church; or the rituals around elections) then the society becomes destabilized by the very encompassment of the structure itself.  The structured community creates a “pareto effect” although in appearance it is sometimes seen as a bell curve.  It is the bell curve that is often attempted to be restructured so that it no longer is so bell-like, but since the pareto effect is the reality and not the bell, efforts at restructuring the bell only results in furthering the bell.

Revolutions are fought to change or reinforce the top of the bell but the bell will always remain because the pareto effect is what determines the structured community, no matter who is in “charge” of the bell.

This is why it is intellectual platonism looking down on others to say everything will be solved if everyone gets a college education.  At one time it was everything will be solved if everyone gets a high school education.  And if everyone had a college degree there would still be the same platonist assumption that society’s bell has not altered because everyone needs more than a college degree. It is a hideous, and often unmentioned “ism” that has helped sway the so-called intellectuals into their own belief of their own superiority that looks down on those inferiors (without the attainment of a certain degree of intellectual achievement)as an intellectual subclass.  

This is why the simple act of voting can never alter the pareto effect as long as a structured hierarchy exists because such structures maintain society by the means of the structure.  Revolutions that don’t replace the entire structure do not succeed if the revolution’s purpose is only to redistribute the structure.  This is why Marxianism failed as a governmental platform because it was merely an attempt to redistribute the structure rather than abolishing it. Marx himself thought that if the structure was reorganized and wealth redistributed that that would end the bell and all would be equal because a structural redistribution would create some type of flat-curve instead of the bell.  But the pareto nature of the structure eliminates such a possibility from occurring.

The structure itself creates inequities by assuming that some are more valuable to the structure than others.  This creates an unstable precariousness that creates a built-in structural defect that leads all levels of the structure to remain in perpetual flux. Yes, the poor want more, but the rich fear less.  To redistribute wealth makes some afraid of losing their position and creates an insecurity that drives them to need even more power via bigger businesses that grant them more control of not only money, but primarily of persons who become subject to being employees and consumers who become subject to purchasing more from fewer.

Every level of the society either wants to maintain their position, challenge their position, or refuse to accept their position.  We can see the obviousness of this in the battles of the king, but also in the assumption of power of the industrialists.  The conflict that control of others creates induces massive insecurity in the people attempting to maintain their positions of authority.  Now let’s take “money” or “wealth” entirely out of the equation except to admit that controlling the resources is a revenue of power and the more resources (laborers, consumers, natural resources) one controls the greater the perceived power. But as I mentioned, this creates massive insecurity and fear because there will always be challenges against those who are attempting to control more from those whom they are attempting to gain control, including from nature itself and its available resources that support the efforts of the presumed leaders.  In fact, only by gaining control of the resources of nature do they have the opportunity to control people who are now dependent on their survival by those who control the resources necessary for their survival.

The dependents have the least chance to challenge the structure because of their dependency upon the necessary resources of life.  Thus programs like welfare that provide “subsistence” in fact make its recipients even more dependent and does nothing to make them less dependent.  Because it is not “wealth” redistribution that is needed but “power” redistribution that grants everyone equitable authority, or power of the individual which can only be achieved by granting people the right to select their leaders from within their community

But the greatest challenge is not from those who lack power but from those who are in a position to challenge from within the top of the structure. And this is also true of two famous revolutionary restructurings—The French Revolution in 1789 and the Russian Revolution between 1917-1921. The French Revolution was due to a growing and powerful French elite of intellectualism that surpassed the power and influence of the merchant class but at first coattailed on  the intellectuals; the Russian Revolution was slightly more complicated because of the revolution against the revolution.  It began pretty similarly to the French intellectual revolution, but the initial intellectuals led by Kerensky but who, in Russia, came from the sub-class  of secondary propertied estates and an underling class of military officers. As that revolution began it also started descending into the chaos that created the atmosphere for the tyranny in France, and the exiled  Lenin used the opportunity to sneak back into Russia, gathering an army of those favoring  his concept of “equal” wealth redistribution–Kerensky was also promising wealth distribution but who was to receive what and how the redistribution was to be carried out was driving the new parliamentary conflicts of terror amongst themselves that had occurred in France.  When it became obvious that people were flocking to Lenin’s banner and his promises, the parliament tried to unify and put up an army for defense but it was too late and too feeble and the “red” army swept into power and by 1921 had secured most of the country under their authority.  So like the French Revolution, the Russian move for freedom quickly succumbed to a new dictatorship.  Lenin immediately reinstituted the czarist secret police and judicial system and began deporting all opposition to the already established czarist gulags.  And he quickly completed his own land redistribution by consolidating all of the former serf plantations overseen by a decrepit baron class under a singular fiefdom overseen by him and his inner cadre, and any semblance to Marx or the ideology was brushed aside and the “party” became a substitute name for czar,i.e., king.  What I have never quite fathomed is the identification of what developed as “communist government” with a leftist ideology.  As far as I can ascertain, with the possible exception of the early Tito government in Yugoslavia, and the first few years of the Castro revolution in Cuba, there were never any left-leaning socialistic policies ever practiced in any “communist”government.  

On the other hand, governments often labeled fascist ascended from the discontented remains of failed anarcho-syndicalist experiments in Italy, Spain, and Portugal and were more or less anarcho-syndicalism lite.  They were much more “populist” and, policy-wise, more like Huey Long’s populist takeover of the government  in Louisiana. They built infrastructure, established hospitals and medical access for millions that previously and established expanded access to schools–albeit with a very defined program to propagandize their own achievements. I do not wish to praise them whatsoever, but the issue of “left” or wealth redistribution was much more evident in their policies—but of course, that redistribution was only for those who favored them and allied with them, as for the rest—off to the dungeons or death chambers.  “Populism” itself is kind of a misnomer, because they were never very popular, in the sense of a majority groundswell in favor of the governments, but they achieve authority with a significant minority to whom they develop a very cultish allegiance that allows them to obtain power initially and then subdue the vast majority into silent acquiescence or to pay absolutions with their lives.  Please note, I did not include Germany and the rise of Hitler and the National Socialist Workers Party had very different roots.  But the commonality, like the populist dictatorships in southern Europe, their rise was not due to a majority favoring their ideology—these guys take power with about a third of the country favoring them.  So take note, all you who say they don’t have a majority, history shows us a third of the population and a great instability in the society is enough for them to ascend.And the modern American populists are not as ignorant to history as, it seems, many of the leftist who keep decrying about their unpopular policies being unpopular with the majority of Americans.  That is the point.  The more unpopular, the more instability that can be created, the more instability, the greater their chance of success.