Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the goal of every government is to keep the right people in power. It’s not to guard the rights of the masses, defend justice, or create a system where prosperity can thrive. Those things are what we are told it does. That’s the manipulation. What makes it pernicious is that sometimes it does do those things, or at least appears to. Since we tend to believe that which we want to believe, the fact we can occasionally point to examples of justice, gives us permission to believe government is benevolent. That mindset serves those in power just fine. Here is the sly part though, the true power isn’t in the limelight… true power pulls strings from behind a curtain. An ivory tower that exists above and outside the power structures, that’s a jail as much as a palace.
The wire-pullers are always the real power in any government. Many think they are the politicians, others the bureaucrats, still others think the bankers are the real power… and the list goes on and on. Politicians even with blatant election fraud are still subject to scandal. The wire-pullers can exploit this to their advantage against the elected officials. Bureaucrats are mere cogs on a sprocket. They might add friction but if they become a real source of irritation to the real powers, they are easily replaced. The bankers, executives, and billionaires have boards and stockholders to answer to. Every group you can think of is constrained, yet we live in increasingly unconstrained times. Why? I would say it’s because there isn’t a group of people that are in charge, but a spirit that’s the real power.
If the politicians, bureaucrats, or executives get too far out of line with that spirit they are replaced and ostracized. This is a strong mechanism to regulate them into compliance. What that means is those people in power are largely in power because they serve that spirit. Moreover, those who seek to upend the system are in opposition to that spirit. So the mechanisms of power will be exploited to protect those that support the spirit, and undermine those that offend the spirit. This strongly suggests that government does indeed try to keep those who are in power, in power. Whether they are politicians, bureaucrats, or executives. Elitist theory says as much. The ten percent will defend political foes because they have more in common with each other than with us.
The spirit I am referring to is the societal myth. That’s the idea that drives the society forward. In warrior cultures it’s individual bravery, in cosmopolitan cultures it’s compliance, and in extractive societies it’s conniving. Often a society will start with one societal myth then evolve it until the society collapses. Meanwhile the role of government doesn’t change. It maintains the status quo despite the changing societal myth. Those elites that object to the evolution are tossed for more compliant elites. That evolution is driven by success. A warrior culture sometimes finds itself in a position of power. That power allows it to become wealthy and then cosmopolitan. A warrior ethos is unsuitable for a cosmopolitan society, so the societal myth evolves to be more suitable.
As the societal myth evolves so too do those in power. Government then becomes a means to maintain that evolving societal myth. To do so it must keep those who favor it in power. This is why as a society becomes prosperous, the societal myth evolves to become more cosmopolitan, then extractive. Small extractions of the glut of wealth grow. This continues as the societal myth evolves not only to allow but demand extraction. Extraction becomes an obligation. The elegant part is that as we watch our societies and social myths evolve, we think those in charge are the enemy. We are wrong. The real enemy is the evolving societal myth that protects its cronies and not justice, our Constitution, or prosperity. So we need to focus on the spirit instead of the red herring.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
