"I woke up this morning thinking about Jair Bolsonaro [president and retired military officer] and the kleptocracy he's furthering in Brazil as he drives that country very quickly toward a disaster that will affect all of us. It seems we've never left the day of the dictator, that income inequality has laid the foundation for ever less democracy and ever more inequality and economic and environmental rape and ever more unhappiness virtually all over the world. What a mess; I fear the 21st century will be potentially as bad as the 20th...
Heaven help us all."
I think he expressed powerfully the worldwide angst of 2019.
And beyond.
What in the world -- literally -- is going on?
I went in search of a new explanation.
I found it in what is oldest.
* * *
“He who has the money is always the master of the other."
-- Charles de Montesquieu, "De L’Esprit des lois.” --
Let´s start at the start.
The United States never had a democracy.
It had a system which -- Aristotle argued -- is better than a democracy.
That system was a “политей” -- "polity" or hybrid oligarchy/democracy moderated by a large middle class, and which tends toward democracy.
Aristotle thought the polity was the best government. Among other things, it allowed the rich and the poor to peacefully coexist:
“There is no risk, in such a case, of the rich uniting with the poor to oppose the middle class: neither will ever be willing to be the subject to the other; and if they try to find a constitution which is more in their common interest than the ‘polity’ is, they will fail to find one.” (Aristotle, "The Politics of Aristotle," translated and edited by Ernest Barker, Oxford University Press, New York, 1962, p. 185. (Book IV, Chapter XII).
Aristotle detected the polity´s major defect: it doesn´t last.
The reason is, the equal partners, oligarchy and democracy, aren´t equal.
Eventually, the oligarchy seizes control:
“[Forgetting the claims of equity], they not only give more power to the well-to-do, but they also deceive the people [by fobbing them off with sham rights]. Illusory benefits must always produce real evils in the long run; and the encroachments made by the rich [under cover of such devices] are more destructive to a constitution than those of the people.” (Ibid., p. 186. (Book IV, Chapter XII). Brackets made by translator)
The First American Revolution in the 1700s shook up the world. It was a revolution in the full sense of the word -- a change of, not in, political systems, viz., from a monarchy to a polity.
Although they never called it by its real name, the American Founding Fathers were fully aware that the system they were building was a polity and not a democracy. In their "Federalist Papers," the polity jumps out again and again, between the lines.
The Fathers pulled off the greatest ideological maneuver of all times. They created a polity and convinced everyone (almost) it was a democracy.
It is amazing the American polity lasted for over 200 years.
"Encroachments made by the rich" gathered force, reaching a climax in 2008-9. The oligarchs felt secure enough in power – see below -- to step out from the behind the curtain. They stuck out their hands in the full light of day, and were gifted astronomical amounts of the public´s money.
In case you forgot:
The economic crisis of 2008 induced the Federal Government to pass the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) which doled out $700 billion to banks with failing assets. During the next six months, TARP was dwarfed by other guarantees and lending limits. Bloomberg found the Federal Reserve had, by March 2009, committed $7.77 trillion to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of the gross national product of U.S. that year.
2008-9 marked The Second American Revolution. The 200-year-old polity was replaced by an oligarchy with democratic residues, décor.
The capsizing of the polity is occurring simultaneously in numerous nations. Globalization and the accompanying “encroachments by the rich” explain what we are seeing. Capital -- not labor as Marx predicted -- went international.
That capsizing drove millions of people into the streets.
The solution: The Third American Revolution. It would bring back the polity, but with greater power for the democracy component, less for the oligarchy.
Impossible? We will return to this subject.
* * *
My friend noted that income inequality is undermining democracy.
I would add this nuance: it undermines the democratic component of the polity; hence, it destroys the polity.
What caused the fall of the polity in America: its middle class foundation was hollowed out.
Google search Census Bureau, Historical Income Tables, then H-2, all races. The bureau divides the national income pie into five equal slices, from poorest to richest, which allows for tracking of each piece over time. The three middle pieces-- the middle class -- in 1987, were 50.0% of the pie. After that, its portion fell and never again reached the 50% threshold. It made no difference who or what party was in power -- the trend continued.
That 1987 event was a decisive moment in American history -- as decisive as it was unnoticed. Less than 50% meant the middle class was no longer the majority of Americans; its ability to balance the other classes was gone.
From 1987 to 2018, the share of the national income pie going to the poorest fifth fell from 3.8% to 3.1%. The share of the richest fifth rose from 46.2% to 52.0%.
Rich richer, poor poorer, middle class smaller. No political party or candidate anywhere in the world is addressing seriously that calamity. Here´s why:
What is eroding the middle class are fundamental processes in the prevailing economic system. To mention one:
The core of the American middle class is no longer in the production sector. It is in services, i.e., tasks which require higher levels of training and education (doctors, technicians, scientists, etc.).
The specialization of labor characterizing the production sector was late to enter the service sector. However, that specialization has arrived and is coming down hard, with both feet. In fact, the conversion of services into commodities is the key economic feature of our times. It is another event which is as decisive as it is unnoticed.
Why specialization of labor is ruinous to the service sector middle class:
Specialization breaks down tasks into their component parts, simplifies them, routinizes them. Higher levels of training and education are no longer required to fulfill them.
* * *
My friend mentioned “environmental rape.”
Here is where, I think, Pre-Columbian America in general and the Patecte in particular, score.
Ancient indigenous groups such as the Cañaris who created the Patecte were earth-centered. They had to be. They were agricultural societies; they worked with nature every day.
Solstices, equinoxes: the ancients were devoted star gazers. No choice there either. If they planted too soon or too late, thousands of people could starve.
As the earth continues to deteriorate – and it will – the principles and practices of the ancients will receive renewed attention and respect. That appreciation will result not from learned treatises or political speeches or articles like this one, but from the bad facts of a degrading world. No choice there either.
The only question is, at what point will a qualitative change in awareness occur? Will it require paying $10 for a gallon of safe drinking water? $20?
Clearly, the time has not yet come for our world to seek out the ancestral knowledge of the earth gained by Pre-Columbian societies over millennia of errors, catastrophes, deaths.
But it will.
* * *
Will the worldwide protests lead to meaningful change?
The people in the streets are making the usual, fatal mistake: they are failing to institutionalize their demands. The powers that be look out their windows, sigh, shrug ... "it will all blow over."
You already know the result. More "Illusory benefits." More “Sham rights.”
More “devices.”
To conclude:
The solution, The Third American Revolution -- the restoration of the polity -- would be a revolution in the fullest sense of the word.
As far as I can find, it has never occurred before in world history.
Images: 2019 protests in France; David Alfaro Siqueiros, “Barrancas (paisaje veracruzano),” 1947.
Paragraph. Haz clic aquí para editar.