Last edited Mon Jul 16, 2012, 02:40 PM - Edit history (1)
JMG's answers to comments/questions from readers.
Void, depends on what you mean by the lower classes. The current system, for example, could keep running about as well as it is now -- which admittedly is no great prize -- after the extermination of every American who makes seven figures or more a year. Not that I'm suggesting that, please note, but the rich don't actually contribute that much to the functioning of the system -- a point they may discover the hard way in the future.
CGP, I'd encourage you to think about just who actually has access to all those technologies of control; it's not the elite, it's a bunch of employees hired from the polyester-wearing class, who are being paid low wages to sit in front of the screens and do the scut-work of managing a security state. Their interests are not necessarily the same as those of their bosses. The French monarchy had a very extensive system of secret police, domestic spies, and soldiers, and the great majority of them simply refused to do their jobs when push came to shove, because the collapse of legitimacy affected them as much as anyone.
I'd encourage you to remember the collapse of East Germany a few decades ago. The East German state had arguably the most comprehensive system of repression ever put in place, with something like half the population spying on the other half, and it fell over, twitched, and died in a matter of weeks because not even the secret policemen believed in the system they were hired to uphold. That's the way revolutions unfold -- and it's also the reason why Orwell's 1984 is a great novel and an inaccurate prophecy.
Robert, there were significant factions in French society who supported the aristocratic party against the claims of the crown and its bureaucratic supporters, for much the same reasons that lower middle class Americans support the Tea Party against the Democrats and federal bureaucracy. The swing toward condemnation of the entire elite class came only after the revolutionary process got under way, and I think you'll see the same thing this time around.
Odin's Raven said...
The leading American aristocrats have transferred their productive estates, and their vulnerable persons, offshore. When America's cities burn, they may expect to watch the display on television, from the comfort of a yacht moored at a well guarded Greek island, or a Paraguayan ranch,or in a tower block in say, Shanghai; whilst sipping a Chateau Lafitte, and texting each other about the dumb behavior of the low class cattle.
John Michael Greer said...
Raven, sure, and a week after they no longer have the US to protect them, all those rich exiles will be quietly interned "for their own protection" and never seen again. It's part and parcel of the upper class sense of entitlement that so many people fail to realize that money isn't real power any more than it's real wealth.
John Michael Greer said...
Raven, you're quite right that there will be plenty of opportunities for the able and ruthless. That's why the current American aristocracy is doomed; all they know how to do, again, is manipulate a hypercomplex and idiosyncratic system, which is coming apart around them. It's not today's bankers and corporate bureaucrats who will lay the foundations for the feudal system of Dark Age America, but a mix of Hispanic drug lords, successful gang leaders, midlevel military officers, and here and there an unusually gifted mayor or county commissioner.
Justin, there's anarchy in theory and anarchy in practice. Anarchy in theory is wonderful. Anarchy in practice is so far to the opposite extreme that most people will embrace even the harshest tyranny in its place.
Jennifer D Riley said...
The latest excuse in favor of the 1% came last week from a unemployed conservative: "There's no reason to attack or get rid of billionaires. If you do, then another set of rick, wealthy people will just pop up in their place. The billionaires will always be with us." As if billionaire and mushroom DNA has cross-bred.
John Michael Greer said...
Jennifer, is your unemployed conservative friend a Christian? If so, you might mention to him that he's got his Bible exactly backwards -- Jesus said "The poor ye always have with you." One more data point for my suggestion that the GOP is a pack of Satanists...
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