Agree, this is not Eugy’s usual beat. Talking about Oligarchs, rather than political parties, leads to more speculative things like who really is controlling the world, what kind of ancient groups, families . . . secret ancient knowledge . . . bankers . . . you know, the real crazy conspiracy stuff.
And yet, it would be naive to just accept things as they are presented to us, considering all the lies, propaganda, studied duplicity - tens of billions of dollars worth . . . every year. . . . . and there are so many things that just don’t make sense, and in fact are pretty crazy.
It appears that Democracy’s biggest problem, right now, is the obvious lack of responsiveness on the part of the representatives, to their constituents. Perhaps Democracy is now just an oligarchical charade? How can anyone justify completely neutralizing one third of their electorate?
It's easy to justify anything that helps maintain one's power. That's why those who warn about "fascism" see it as perfectly acceptable to prevent their opponents from running for office. After all, there's no better way to "defend democracy" than to limit the choices of voters.
But doesn’t the one candidate have to prove to the electorate that the other candidate is a fascist? And doesn’t he also need to educate the electorate to understand what fascism actually is? I took college courses to actually understand what Nazism was. My guess is that most of the electorate wouldn’t recognize FASCISM/Nazism if they were confronted with it. It has turned into an insult. We all know it was horrible, but many think it’s Gestapo, SS, or a hand gesture.
The fascism that is understood in English is Nazism, which translates to National Socialism. The Government is in collusion with corporations to create an economy. In Germany, the nation became impoverished due to its indebtedness to other nations of Europe. Due to its shame and poverty during
these decades called the Weimar Republic, the people were open to new leadership Unfortunately, the politician able to have a following was a hater of the Jewish people. What he promised the nation’s people that had become poor and ashamed of losing 2 wars was a strong nation again.
So it is both a type of government that requires the needs of the populace to develop over decades. Italy developed into a Nazi nation during the same time, called fascism there. Don’t know the history that enabled it to be accepted by the populace there, although it might have been joining Hitler in the Axis Powers of WWII.
Unbelievable. A few elections ago, one party’s slogan was “Democracy is on the ballot.” Another election it was “we have to Save Our Democracy, but the plan was to pass a law taking the election rules away from the States (as our Constitution specifies) and passing a law (HR-1) that would have the federal government control them - removing the demo prefix.
I am glad those that want democracy did not succeed. They missed the fact the US is a Constitutional Republic where the individual has protected rights.
Founding Father James Madison helped write the US Constitution with Mason and Jefferson said:
“Democracy is the most vile form of government…democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with the personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
The introduction to the Constitution is a paragraph that expresses that what was written was democratic-We the People…to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Additionally we have been enfranchised to elect our leaders to represent us, State and Federal. I say this not to disagree but to separate our Republic from others, like for instance, the Roman Republic. Ours is Of the People, By the People, and For the People. Though we are not a Democracy, the focus on The People suggests its focus.
"was written was democratic" like the beginning of the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?
ARTICLE 1
"The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a socialist state of workers and peasants."
ARTICLE 135
"all citizens of the U.S.S.R. who have reached the age of eighteen, irrespective of race or nationality, religion, educational and residential qualifications, social origin, property status or past activities, have the right to vote in the election"
ARTICLE 136
"Elections of deputies are equal : each citizen has one vote; all citizens participate in elections on an equal footing."
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)?
Article 4
"The sovereignty of the DPRK resides in the workers, peasants, working intellectuals and all other working people.
The working people exercise power through their representative organs—the Supreme People’s Assembly and local people’s assemblies at all levels."
The one thing that makes us so very different is not the we the people which other governments toss around, its the fact that we are not a democracy that allows a group of people to impose tyranny against the minority.
I agree we use a democratic process to elect representatives to our republic, commonwealth, state, county or city.
OT: I just have to tell you…. Looking at your handle and doggie avatar or whatever it’s called. My grandpa had a small poodle named, “Gin-Fizz” (“Fizz” or “Fizzer” for short.) So cute!
One aspect not touched though and I can understand that because you're a guy. Put three guys together, you likely got a trio of pals. Three women and you got two fighting for dominance and one victim they'll worry into shreds. The overwhelming presence of women in all leftist movements and bureaucracies ensures carnage wherever the slightest dissent might attempt to emerge.
[and an appealing painterly talent too? where yu get the time?]
alas, not my work. but if you are a painter looking for the thinnest sliver of renown, you should paint a picture of schönfels castle.
the curators of the museum there (which takes up much of the castle interior) are on some kind of insane crusade to assemble all artistic depictions of the monument in one massive art exhibit. this was one of the humbler and less pretentious attempts, also interesting historically because it was painted (iirc) around 1900 and shows the castle and village as they looked around that time.
You make a good point -- the "mean girls" have taken over the whole lefty woke movements, which is how they've become this shrieking, blathering, insanity. Women are ruthless and very mean to other women; also to men of course, but against other women there is no limit to the cruelty. I've always preferred to hang out with men, who are more calm and balanced -- laugh if you will, but woman on woman nastiness is beyond anything men do, at least in my experience.
The human race strikes me as a very sad thing, a lot of the time.
Well, the survival instinct aspect of human nature is brutal as it must be. Civilization was invented to tame it as much as can be hoped for. There's inherent goodness too but we see over and over again in the most awful ways that inherent goodness can be fatal to the good.
Keep in mind that mean girls come in all flavors. Before we had cadres of Red Guard girls we had church ladies.
Making your own corner of the world a better place is a good plan, most of the time. Where it invariably goes wrong is when people try to immanentize the eschaton, i.e. when they think of the human condition as a problem to solve, and even worse when they think they have found the solution.
A good point, since every evil ever has been portrayed by its proponents as being something that makes the world a better place. It's not like a cartoon or a campy movie where the villain knows he is evil and even celebrates it.
In reality, evil people usually consider themselves to be the good guys. Certainly that guy from Austria with the funny mustache thought he was the good guy, even as he remains the go-to example now of the definition of evil.
Anyone who sees a crack of daylight between church ladies and AWFLs needs remediation therapy for their media-infused zombie-think. Much like red v blue US politics, they say different things, and even do different things for different ‘reasons’ (snort), but both trend to precisely the same infantile terror of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
I spend an hour or two on Saturday afternoons in the nearby tobacco shop. The guys are there to relax and say what they like without someone (i.e., their wives) complaining. I go for the same reason (i.e., to get a break from some of my female friends).
Which brings us to the transsexual woman pretending to be a man. This is a special form of cruelty to women, where she (he for those who continue to insist on mis-gendering) is able to enlist the politics and alliances of both genders in her own quest for dominance. I have secondhand experience with this, and the potential is evil incarnate.
It is misgendering to call a man a woman. It is incorrect in every sense of the word. I refuse to accept their premise that maleness or femaleness is just a feeling. I'm not playing their game.
Women are who they are, and they can't help it any more than men can. Their brains are hardwired for childbearing and nurturing. They are nature itself, driven more by instinct than by the laws of civilization that men impose. They are made that way to insure survival of the species. For this reason I cannot harbor much resentment against them. I love them and habitually seek out their company, and sometimes their counsel, despite having learned, by trial and error, who and what they are.
But among them there are good ones, great ones, bad ones, and downright evil ones. And, lest we forget, ours is the gender that makes up about 95% of the prison population -- for good reason.
Like many of the commenters here, I'm wary about how much authority some of them have been given over many of the institutions that govern our lives.
There is good reason to balance the virtues of men and the virtues of women. A good balancing is, I think, much more likely to return a better result.
It is also good to remember that men and women share many things in life. We suffer, we die, we want children (maybe in different ways), we have lusts, etc, etc. We can have compassion for each other.
A good woman commonly makes a man better. And I think women too, become better with a good man.
Buddy, the modern German boy-man was so feminized by the early 2000s, I had all I could do not to holler aloud on the factory floor when our German corporate mothership would send a new one over for some project or other. There were a few men among their engineers, a hunted few, and the monoglot techs of my stratum seemed fairly standard, but I cannot possibly convey, in simple terms, the blue-lensed micro-goggled effeteness of the more successful climbers and professional management types. My star, never more than faint, began its fall when I asked the latest something-berger, at first greeting, if now was the time on Sprockets ven ve dahnce. Swear I couldn’t help it. Do it again.
In the Bible, Jezebel is remarkable for having Jewish religious leaders killed. The Bible gives no plausible explanation. In her day, Jewish religious leaders were ethnicists who claimed that other nations' deities were evil, subordinate, or fake, and (among other things) everyone should sexually mutilate infant boys. Have you read the story of Noah and the flood? It's in Koran Surah's 11 & 71, and Genesis chapters 5-10 (but mainly in 6-8). The moral of the story is that indiscriminate resentment and killing are divine.
I was thinking more of 1 Kings 21 where Jez has Naboth killed to get his vineyard. Greed, lies and violence, I do as I please and nobody gets in my way kinda thing. Jezebel was not just a passive pagan, but she was aggressive in her idolatry. Ahab was already not a shining example in the line of the kings of Samaria before he married her, but together they became a sad story.
Baal was an evil deity. People sacrificed their children to him.
As far as Noah and the flood: after the flood, we see the first mention of the death penalty (Gen 9:5-6) way before the Law of Moses. One wonders just how bad things were before the flood for God to make this explicit commandment a priority for the new world.
Back in 2012 I first started contributing to a fiction webzine that had what you might term a lively comments section, and I discovered real fast that I consistently found myself sitting at the guys' table.
Since I was a little girl, I've found being with boys way more fun than being with girls. Boys and men never seem to mind us women who like to hang around with them, which is nice. Mind you, I never wanted to BE a male, I just find men to be good company. Women can be good company, but not always. If you don't have the right clothes, makeup, hair, don't shop at the right stores, don't go to the right church, whatever, they will shred you. Which is exactly what the leftist woke ideology has turned into: blue-haired women with PMS and a hysterical fear of everything, plus boundless entitlement.
Well, I've been extremely fortunate in my female friendships (with a few exceptions here and there) but I really enjoy guy friends too. Everything is chemistry, ain't it?
The thing is it's always best to go for quality over quantity. Most people, what they call friends are really just a bunch of longtime acquaintances.
It’s a very real thing for little girls in a threesome, and dreadful to watch. By teenage years, girls learn the value of keeping friendships tight, and keeping their enemies closer, as I’m sure the lefties do.
Funny you mention threesomes. From when we were super young, my mom was always warning my sister and me to "watch out for threesomes." It ended up being so true!
Rare exception: I raised two girls, close in age, and they shared their closest friends in a threesomes, even after they reached adolescence. They could play together for hours, with no problems, and these friendships and memories are treasured to this day. In my opinion, it only worked because my older daughter was oblivious to the social rules governing girls' behavior, and because my younger daughter was protective of her sister, and liked the special status of being allowed to hang out with the big girls.
Intriguing that an essay about oligarchy and climatism took a turn in the comments toward musing on women and differences from men.
I would merely observe that you probably got some of your inspiration for the new men analysis, including the term, from your knowledge of Roman history. If one transposes the analysis to the Canadian context, it yields a Laurentian oligarchy based in Ontario and Quebec, fighting a campaign to prevent the rise of regional oligarchies, particularly in the west, with its wealth of oil and gas resources. For suppression of regional oligarchy and regional new men, climatism is the perfect weapon. It has been embraced by the ruling Liberal Party because they have little political influence to lose in Alberta and Saskatchewan, but the Conservative Party does. But because the Conservatives wish to form a national government, and needs seats in climatist Ontario and Quebec, it has been tepid in opposing climatism. This must change.
They certainly keep their women under strict control.
(Entirely tongue in cheek comment by the way. No insult to Islam intended. Nor is the comment intended to foment dissent against our wonderful gov't and of course I sincerely believe that here in the UK Diversity is Our Strength).
In practical application of Islam women keep other women under strict control. The mothers-in-law of the nation, you might say. Well, I might say. John is innocent here.
Wow. Only a couple decades ago, we were lectured very insistently that female political leaders would save the world from the violent, callous men whom we used to put in charge. It took a couple decades, plus Condoleeza Rice, Madeleine Albright and Hillary 'we came, we saw. he died' Clinton to disabuse Americans of such an idea.
Well, (((as a woman))) I'm very careful about the sort of women I might choose to vote for. Well, to be honest I wasn't quite careful enough. It was only in state and local elections but I sure found out afterwards I'd voted really badly.
It must be noted that there are almost no “New Men” left in Germany, if any at all.
Decades of quasi-socialist regulations at both the national and EU level have created a cadre of CEOs who are as much bureaucratic politicians as the politicians themselves.
All our industrial successes of recent decades represent nothing more than the apotheosis of tinkering. Germany perfected its industrial processes developed more than 100 years ago, but created little that was truly new.
Our last great company was SAP, founded in the 1970s, which was fortunate to be early in its field. Since then, nothing comparable has emerged. If you look at the great companies of the last three decades, there are all from the USA, and lately of course Chinese.
The German economy was lucky three times: sheltered during the Cold War, boosted by unification, and later well-positioned to profit from globalization by exploiting cheap Chinese manufacturing.
That era is over.
We have destroyed our competitiveness. At a time of rapid change, when great powers are vying for position, Germany is led by the embarassingly stupid politicians and CEOs in its history.
Europe as a whole is the great loser of the current wave of de-globalization.
You describe the managerial class. From what I see it tends to slide sideways, mingling with its 1st cousin, the political class. They’re virtually interchangeable like board members of Pfizer and Fauci’s CDC regulators. The lines are blurred and the regularly switch places.
Poor Germany. Such a wonderful, highly intelligent, and hardworking people with incredible culture and history.
"Decades of quasi-socialist regulations at both the national and EU level have created a cadre of CEOs who are as much bureaucratic politicians as the politicians themselves."
Which is ironic, given that these are the same people accusing their political opponents of fascism, which is in part defined by a blending of the corporate world and the government.
So, eugyppius is saying: do not believe their words, and do not expect them to be logical. Follow the money. Follow the power. Or the advantage against (perceived) enemies.
Many of the enterprising people went to the USA already in the 1800s, or were later driven out (mostly to the USA) by the Nazis, if they werent killed in the wars or camps.
Fabulous. I hope some of your countrymen are reading these gems. I was recently exposed for some time to a twenty something German visiting the US. He was anti AFD for no reason he could articulate. It seemed that it was just what he absorbed in school.
That holds true for more people and their political views. Recently, in a fairly heated discussion, i asked my friend WHY it was that she agreed with this (Dutch) politician (of one of the smaller parties) and thought he was so great. Well, his viewpoints on Ukraine. So I responded ok, well what ARE his viewpoints on Ukraine and the war? Explain it to me. And then nothing came forth for she could not articulate what his views were let alone why she agreed with them. So opinionwise she is just going with the flow. Earlier, i would immediately have disagreed on the party/politician, which would have ended any discussion, but this time I finally smartened up and let her dig her own grave.
eugyppius, when I saw your headline in my email I anticipated that the post would be about climatism as a way for more technologically advanced countries to keep developing countries down and backward, but what you actually wrote is equally interesting. Thank you.
As Trump noted in his very frank UNGA address, it’s pretty much the opposite. The developed world has handicapped itself while waving the developing world into the fast lane to overtake them.
The best part. Developing nation such as.... China.... have at least two currencies, lots of opaque government, even more opaque law, don't care about CO2 at all (which is quite reasonable), do burn coal (again, not unreasonable) but do like to get cash from 'established nations' with smaller economies.
A bit of a cuckoo. (In a very deep voice - 'tweet-tweet').
Somehow China has gotten us to the point where we are sabotaging our own economies in the name of net zero, handicapping ourselves by requiring the use of wind turbines and solar panels made by... of course, the Chinese, who make those items by means of coal power.
In the same way, China has also somehow found itself in the position where the entire west has agreed to destroy its own homegrown auto industries to make room for cheap Chinese death-trap EVs. Our own governments (thankfully interrupted by Trump in the US, but the rest of the western world persists in this) force carmakers to sell an increasing quota of EVs each year, but in a (relatively) free market economy like we have in each western country, most people refuse to buy them, instead keeping their older regular cars or buying used ones. The western governments have made it illegal for their own country's car companies to sell the profitable vehicles people actually want to buy.
That, of course, will destroy the western carmakers... but have no fear, China is here to supply you with massive numbers of cheap, poor-quality Chinese EVs made with slave labor, using coal power, and subsidized by the Chinese government, in violation of the WTO rules they promised to obey if they were allowed to join.
I would say that it was quite a feat for the Chinese to work things to their own advantage in this way, but in many ways, they're just supplying the wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, and EVs the western world now demands, as part of the west's suicidal pact with net zero. We in the west are just outsourcing our CO2 production and the resultant prosperity that cheap, reliable, on-demand power brings to China, while doing nothing at all to benefit the environment-- even if you believe in the farcical idea that our CO2 emissions are driving catastrophic global warming.
This ties directly into our other recent discussions. Alex Jones said the intention behind the Covid response was as a test pilot for compliance leading to a ramp up of the climate narrative. USA was naturally more resistant.
But poor Germany… ”Criticizing a minister” officially became a criminal offense during the Coof. The culture was already hardwired to accept official diktats as well as social norms. “You don’t want to be a bad citizen do you? Everyone must do his part. Sacrifices must be made…”
I attended a private, “Chardonnay liberal” event a few years back to watch the slide show of a women’s only cruise to Antartica whose purported mission was to observe the effects of climate change. Of course there were the requisite sighs and obligatory signs of angst from the onlookers.
However, a couple of young PhD “climate scientists” were also present. They were honest and ironic enough to mention (with distain) to the group that suggested remedies such as burying trees in the ground for carbon sequestration does nothing. They didn’t even seem to be onboard with the overall “Carbon Bad” narrative but stayed relatively quiet.
Good to see the Chardonnay Libs share so much with Champagne Socialists. The latter spring up like weeds in the UK - fighting for the low paid just as long as all their characteristics fit all of the correct labels which were, of course, 'assigned at birth'.
Quite. Filling the glass with champagne while ensuring it does not flow over and fighting for 'rights' is quite tricky. I just wonder. Wouldn't Pinot Noir or a saucy dry white wine be easier to manage during a protest?
The climate fiends are of divided mind on wine grapes and the “effect” the industry has on “climate.”
In the “good” column you have the fact that grape vines are mostly drought tolerant and send down very deep roots to find moisture, thereby avoiding the need for intensive irrigation like most other crops.
In the “bad” column, they are self-pollinating and so do nothing to bolster bee populations.
Additionally, most large wineries utilize large energy consuming machinery to harvest and process grapes.
Traditionally operated wineries still rely on natural cork, therefore depleting that resource “needlessly” with a one time use. Whereas, it is felt that cork used for flooring etc has greater, long term utility. Incidentally, cork oat is considered at risk or endangered, by definition, due to its limited range and numbers. However, over the past century more trees have been planted in other places in the world and growers have diversified, finding new and expanding markets for their abundance of product.
Organic wines avoid the chemical fertilizers and herbicides contributing to “climate change.” However, the cost is in crop loss or otherwise extensive use of net covers made typically of non-recyclable plastic which breaks down in the sun within a few seasons and must be replaced.
Full disclosure- to me, use of glyphosates or artificial fertilizers, even most plastics, should not be derided because of the catch all, “climate.” Chemicals when harmful should be regarded as, “pollutants” and I for one refuse to acquiesce to the convolution just to be polite or out of social convenience.
I talked to one local woman whose Tesla was vandalized at a charging station. She was completely befuddled, wailing "I was just trying to save the planet!"
Too bad I didn't have the presence of mind to point out that fellow progressives were the ones doing the damage.
I was recently in the SF Bay Area. In the affluent areas of Mill Valley, Tiburon, San Rafael, and surrounds, Tesla still represents 1/3-1/2 of all the commuter cars on the road. 1/3 are German internal combustion. The rest a mixed bag. I was very surprised more people had not ditched their Teslas.
One Tesla bumper sticker read, “I bought my car before Elon went crazy.” Another read, “Imprison Newsom.”
“Follow the Science” says, go learn about the carbon cycle. No carbon, no plants, no oxygen. Tomato plants in cold country greenhouses require Oxygen pumped in for roughly half the day. The other half they require CO2 from storage tanks.
The religion of climatism relies on climate science, a subset of “the science,” the dogma of “we know,” which is the antithesis of actual science. Anyone who sees a weather forecast knows that frequently it doesn’t match the actual weather. How can they be so wrong about weather and so right about climate? That was a rhetorical question. The oligarchs declare themselves to be right, and even if proven wrong, they just remind everyone who’s in charge.
When free market forces are allowed to work is when all of the best-laid plans of the command and control centralizing authoritarians come crumbling down. Like removing the EV tax credit in a certain Big, Beautiful Bill just passed in the US shatters the façade of a market preference for EV's. With sufficient rewards (and punishments) central planners can make a market for a product they are pushing on the masses 'for their own (save the planet) good' they appear to be wise and sage. Remove the rewards (and punishments) and the illusion of a market preference shatters.
In this article notice that the writer makes sure that the central planners aren't seen as wrong and how small the market for EV's actually is (tiny niche). Just that they are ahead of their time, the market isn't ready for EV's *yet.* The vision of the visionaries not yet recognized for their brilliance.
Such it is for the elitist mindset. They aren't wrong. Ever. The masses just aren't ready for their infinite wisdom. Jilted by lesser people who don't appreciate them, too small is the mind of the little person to grasp the greatness of their 'best and brightest' academics and bureaucratic managerial class.
There's a concept known as the Circulation of Elites that Vilfredo Pareto offered and influenced the oligarchical class 125 years ago. Young students like Benito Mussolini learned much that the sociologist philosopher and mathematician taught. And applied it in their governance (Fascism). Chasing efficiency in all things, for the "greater good." Most know of Pareto through his Pareto Principle, aka 80-20 Rule. But he wrote of many things that apply to our world today. Optimization, Efficiency theories that all corporations, institutions operate under, whether for Communist aspirations, Fascist aspirations, Technocrat aspirations, Monarchal aspirations, Oligarchical aspirations. More in next comment.
Thomas Sowell has two books which speak to this: “The Vision of the Anointed”, and “A Conflict of Visions”, the latter most akin to Eugyppius’ analysis here.
Here’s a synopsis of that book:
•The Competing Visions:
Constrained Vision =
Human Nature: Sees human nature as unchanging and inherently self-interested.
Governance: Prefers limited government and emphasizes the importance of tradition, law, and empirical evidence.
Approach: Advocates for compromise and acknowledges that there are no perfect solutions, only trade-offs.
Unconstrained Vision =
Human Nature: Believes in the perfectibility of human nature and that people can improve morally.
Governance: Supports more interventionist policies and trusts in the ability of enlightened individuals to make decisions for society.
Approach: Sees ideal solutions to problems and is often impatient with traditional institutions.
"Pareto introduced a social taxonomy that included six classes, Class I through Class VI. Class I corresponds to the adventurous "foxes" in Machiavelli, and Class II to the conservative "lions," particularly in the governing elite."
Other Pareto works, including The Mind and Society:
"In this book Pareto presents the first sociological cycle theory, centered on the concept of an elite social class. The Mind and Society has been named, by Martin Seymour-Smith, as one of the most influential books ever written"
And freedom is inefficient:
'Damned Efficient Slavery’ vs. ‘Inefficient Freedom’
"Because the Soviets mobilize and direct all their economic resources from one centre, he said, they have a great advantage. “Vice-President Nixon called the Russian system slavery. All right, slavery it is. But damned efficient slavery...We cherish our freedom. All right, freedom it is, but sadly inefficient freedom.”
NYT's tool hack writer for the 'elite' penned this love note to authoritarianism in 2009, one of the times when the mask drops and true agendas are revealed, the quest for damned efficient slavery...and how manufactured climate fears help usher it in:
"One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century"
"China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down."
"The only way for us to match them is by legislating a rising carbon price along with efficiency and renewable standards that will stimulate massive private investment in clean-tech. Hard to do with a one-party democracy."
Vice-President Nixon called the Russian system slavery. All right, slavery it is. But damned efficient slavery...We cherish our freedom. All right, freedom it is, but sadly inefficient freedom.”
"Damned efficient" for whom?
Why for the oligarchs of course.
Fortunately, this myth has been debunked. If nothing in the world changed, the efficiency of central planning might hold true. A huge, automated factory that makes roofing nails might be the most efficient, but when glue becomes the best way to install roofing tiles, shifting the factory to making epoxy will be slow and difficult - if even possible. A cruise ship is the most efficient way to move people, but it's not a containership, nor is it easily converted to one. Centrally planned systems find it difficult to adapt.
Bingo! I remember reading an article/opinion piece out of China at the beginning of the plandemic from one of their official CCP English-language outlets (Global Times, China Daily or People's Daily) that touched on this. It was when the world, including D's were saying that Trump was a xenophobe and trying to weaponize a disease that wasn't contained by borders, was against all prior pandemic planning, for political gain - which turned out to be true. Flu can't be contained or controlled by man's interventions, but that's another story.
In the Chinese articles they said that if Trump wanted to go down the path of politicizing the flu, containment attempts that it would be a demonstration of how the different governing systems perform in a crisis, believing their model of authoritarianism gave them the advantage of immediacy, efficiency - much like Thomas Friedman's NYT piece lusted for, like the 1958 AP article did.
I wish I could find the exact article, I found other ones in archive searches of the CCP outlets, but in it China said that both systems have advantages and disadvantages over the other. It asserted that in times of crisis the people (masses) prefer the firm hand of authoritarianism to guide them through it, which was where the Chinese system would shine - which turned out to be true, recognizing human psychology of frightened masses. It said that while the western systems elevating individualistic notions is more inventive, more creative, more adaptive, and that those attributes are valuable, that the assertion of emergency powers and restrictions by Trump would necessarily open the door to Authoritarianism in the US and west - which turned out to be true.
And the article cautioned that a time of crisis isn't a good time to change governing models. That if the US and west wanted to become authoritarian regimes like China was that it was best to make those reforms in a gradual, deliberative manner, that introducing major system changes in crisis would be counterproductive to solving the crisis at hand, many would object, it would be divisive and messy when unity to face the challenges was needed. It read much like China was saying "if you like how we do things, fine, we'll welcome you, but for now, Dance With the One Who Brung ya."
China's advice at the time was right! They saw it, called it, knew it for what it was. They even said that antivirals (meaning drugs like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin) had proven to be very effective at treating the flu symptoms in Wuhan and elsewhere. Sometimes what our adversaries tell us contains far more truths than our own governments. Even our own "team" in our own governments. Oh how much I wish I had saved the links to those stories from February-March, 2020. They were so spot on. They acknowledged our system is more adaptive, has inherent value in it. Despite their preference for their own authoritarian system. Crazy from them, huh?
"And the article cautioned that a time of crisis isn't a good time to change governing models."
No s*!t!
At the onset of the virus hysteria crisis, I was wondering with infinitely profound dismay what had happened to the supposedly sacrosanct Bill of Rights I was brought up to have near-unwavering trust in!
And Marxist professor of linguistics (deceptive words, framing, The Science (TM) of Newspeak) Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent contains parallels to Pareto's Circulation of Elite:
"You know, it’s very striking that continually people move from one position to the other, very easily. And I think the reason for the ease is partly because they’re sort of the same position. So you can be either a Marxist-Leninist commissar, or you can be somebody celebrating the magnificence of State capitalism, and you can serve those guys. It’s more or less the same position. You pick one or the other depending on your estimate of where power is, and that can change."
Governments also hate small businesses, they talk constantly about how important they are to the economy but undermine them in every aspect, using pointless regulations and fees to keep them crippled as much as possible.
"Knitting circles, learned societies, hunter-gatherer tribes and religious communities all have their own elites."
I was formerly in a drumming-and-dancing group in which almost all members followed what one person said to do, no matter if his direction was wise or foolish. After a couple of years, the group formed a performing band called Zanzibar, although it did strictly West African drumming. I laughed away from them and did not tell any of the members were Zanzibar is.
For awhile, I was in a religious denomination with about 2 dozen members, and we followed our elite of two people despite considerable formal organization and active participation of all members. Then one day a member of our elite resigned, and the other one soon also lost interest in another month or two, and the entire denomination disintegrated immediately.
Once while at a music festival, two large men started fighting, and I stepped in, pushed them apart, and ordered them to get far apart. They did, because I acted like I was supposed to be in charge.
For awhile, was in a work group that has a foreman, but someone had to take charge, so I dominated the group without a formal title.
These things worked because people need a leader for, as Eugyppius, wrote, "humans are hierarchical" by nature.
- - - -.
This is very perceptive. "You might notice that many of the wealthiest personalities in the West mire themselves in goofy charitable activities and give flabby media interviews in which they mouth whatever banal political orthodoxies happen to be the flavour of the month. They do this by way of advertising to the oligarchs that they are not a threat."
The wealthiest have other ways to show they are harmless also. Have you read any of Domhoff's books about the USA upper social class?
- - - -
"...we have had to hear so much about how bad the wealthy are, even as industrialisation and mass society have made us all vastly more prosperous and collapsed the vastness that once divided the nobility from the serfs."
It is interesting that the progressives write and talk as if we all lived in London of the 1820's or the 1750's.
- - - -
"Climatism emerged via a confluence of interests, but the oligarchs’ enthusiasm was decisive."
Well, yes but the most committed moderate and far leftists I know tend to want to be told what to think and how to act, and they view conformity to authority as morally required.
I appreciate that you note how influential people emerge without a need for cabal-type language. All the mystical language obscures the reality that elites emerge in all societies. It is a feature and not a bug, as the utopian dreamers believe. A short paper on ritualistic killings noted that as soon as hierarchies emerge, along with complex language, the elites periodically sacrifice victim(s) to maintain power by showing their brute strength fused with mysticism. Literary critic Rene Girard believed that in all the myths, the victim and the accusers believe they were guilty of some sin, but that Christianity broke the myth. Thus, the sacrificial victim is innocent. One doesn't have to be a believer to understand the ramifications. Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna stated unequivocally in an interview that the US is a bible nation, which of course is true. To deny this would be to deny that India is Hindu-based or that Confucianism doesn't inform China and Korea. Before his death in the early 2000s, Girard believed we were entering into a giant scapegoating in the West. Indeed, we are, and it is the 'native' population being sacrificed.
'native' is sort of a joke because who is truly native to any land. What Girard was referring to, I assume because this was back years ago, that our culture, our way of life was being sacrificed. Indeed if you listen to rhetoric of the elites and those who subscribe to CRT, European culture, and its degenerate offspring in the US and elsewhere, is so awful as to be irredeemable. It must be sacrificed. I came across Girard in a footnote of this short paper. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299572373_Ritual_human_sacrifice_promoted_and_sustained_the_evolution_of_stratified_societies I read a Tom Wolfe's book the Kingdom of Speech is an interesting dive into language using the Prihana people "The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech -- not evolution -- is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements."
This piece was a lesson in the gap between my ability to articulate a concept and that of a gifted writer like Eugyppius. It comports completely with my own thesis and theory from years diving deep into the subject matter... the same that I keep shouting from the rooftop only to be considered a crank and conspiracy theory nutcase (probably because I lack the capability to explain it well enough) from those who's media feeds have convinced them that the fascists have landed again.
But this is it. I live in a liberal California college town and have previously injected myself into local politics because, well, things with the city have not been going well. What I have learned is that the elites running the place fall well below the private sector merit-capability matrix... but boy oh boy do they have the academic credentials backing their name. These people are quite frankly in over their heads, but their lust for upper class status is so consuming that they become masters at the slime of politics... because they would never succeed in the competition for the path up the corporate ladder.
And we have multiplied them like roaches in the wall by pushing them all through the "higher-learning" machine where they emerge with the expectation that they be considered something special. We exploded the professional managerial class and changed the economy so that they made more money and in effect we empowered the wrong type of people to rule us. We created too many little elite monsters that are now coming back to eat at our faces.
And yes, they will not let go of that power to rule us without a fight. And that fight appears to have "progressed" to from cancel culture to assassination culture. Don't be surprised when AfD leaders start losing their lives.
We have wandered away from the Christian view that leaders are servants like Jesus was. We are here to serve whether it be our families and our communities. Today’s leaders hate self serving tyrants mostly who hate the very people they are supposed to serve. Climate change, mass immigration and covid show this very vividly.
Years ago I was talking with a guy who was born in Portugal and was now an American citizen. At the time, Hollande was president of France. I professed my amazement that Hollande, a wealthy man was a socialist. My workmate gently informed me that of course Hollande advocated socialism as this was a way for those at the top in Europe to keep down any competition for power and money. It was at that point I started to ‘get it.’
Just one thing that doesn't square the circle: the changing climate issue transformation into a threat, it pops up at various times in the 60s and early 90s as a manufactured crisis/threat needed to refocus attention of the masses. I can't find the links, but I've read about it, notably a meeting attended by Gore in 92/93, and in the 50s or 60s it was kept on the back burner by those wonderful oligarchic luminaries of the club of Rome fame.
Point is this current oligarchy is transnational. And this reinforces the national oligarchic control over their respective turfs.
I am late to this but want to get it out of my head. I'm not entirely convinced of your argument, I have a more simplistic view of climatism. Western post WWII liberal welfare states had attained their goals more or less in the nineties: health insurance, pensions, high level of academisation, social mobility, end of class struggle, "affluent society"; and, on top of that, an end of the communist menace. So, politics at this time had more or less lost its purpose. Well, that's bad news for politicians because their raison-d'être is "to do somthing about something". So this climate bullshit came quite right. I always found it emblematic that a failed career politician like Al Gore embraced this climate thing so fervently: He had nothing else to do. So the politicians (and academics, journalist and so on) looking for a cause invented an emergency and started to dabble in "climate politics". I don't go into the ramifications and side considerations (e.g. there were people, leftists especially - Trittin comes to mind -, whose purpose for sure was to wreck the hated western industrial societies). I think this is partly an explanation for Covidism as well. And when I look at the supporters on the street: white affluent middle class people and youths with too much time at their hands, no real pupose in life, no other "cause": No need for great ambition or professional success (no need because of inherited wealth and the success of the welfare state itself), no need for class struggle, no need for whatsoever. One could almost pity them, with their vacuous lives. So that is that, in my opinion. Could elaborate, but won't do here.
Have to think about if this might be even compatible with your explanation.
I think your reasons also apply, but if this were the whole explanation, I think we would not see such an eagerness accept the dire economic consequences. States would subsidise some degree of renewable energy as a fuel/emissions saving measure, emphasise additional policies to redress claimed negative consequences of climate change via technology (another project, another problem to solve), etc.
Question remains: Why is there such a big (as I see) difference in climatism in Europe and in the US? I would say: Because European welfare states were/are much more advanced than in the US - which would fit with my hypothesis. I Have to think about that somewhat more.
This may have been the most important piece you’ve done recently…no small feat.
Agree, this is not Eugy’s usual beat. Talking about Oligarchs, rather than political parties, leads to more speculative things like who really is controlling the world, what kind of ancient groups, families . . . secret ancient knowledge . . . bankers . . . you know, the real crazy conspiracy stuff.
And yet, it would be naive to just accept things as they are presented to us, considering all the lies, propaganda, studied duplicity - tens of billions of dollars worth . . . every year. . . . . and there are so many things that just don’t make sense, and in fact are pretty crazy.
It appears that Democracy’s biggest problem, right now, is the obvious lack of responsiveness on the part of the representatives, to their constituents. Perhaps Democracy is now just an oligarchical charade? How can anyone justify completely neutralizing one third of their electorate?
It's easy to justify anything that helps maintain one's power. That's why those who warn about "fascism" see it as perfectly acceptable to prevent their opponents from running for office. After all, there's no better way to "defend democracy" than to limit the choices of voters.
But doesn’t the one candidate have to prove to the electorate that the other candidate is a fascist? And doesn’t he also need to educate the electorate to understand what fascism actually is? I took college courses to actually understand what Nazism was. My guess is that most of the electorate wouldn’t recognize FASCISM/Nazism if they were confronted with it. It has turned into an insult. We all know it was horrible, but many think it’s Gestapo, SS, or a hand gesture.
How would define fascism, in 100 words, or less?
The fascism that is understood in English is Nazism, which translates to National Socialism. The Government is in collusion with corporations to create an economy. In Germany, the nation became impoverished due to its indebtedness to other nations of Europe. Due to its shame and poverty during
these decades called the Weimar Republic, the people were open to new leadership Unfortunately, the politician able to have a following was a hater of the Jewish people. What he promised the nation’s people that had become poor and ashamed of losing 2 wars was a strong nation again.
So it is both a type of government that requires the needs of the populace to develop over decades. Italy developed into a Nazi nation during the same time, called fascism there. Don’t know the history that enabled it to be accepted by the populace there, although it might have been joining Hitler in the Axis Powers of WWII.
See above. I answered this last night.
Unbelievable. A few elections ago, one party’s slogan was “Democracy is on the ballot.” Another election it was “we have to Save Our Democracy, but the plan was to pass a law taking the election rules away from the States (as our Constitution specifies) and passing a law (HR-1) that would have the federal government control them - removing the demo prefix.
I am glad those that want democracy did not succeed. They missed the fact the US is a Constitutional Republic where the individual has protected rights.
Founding Father James Madison helped write the US Constitution with Mason and Jefferson said:
“Democracy is the most vile form of government…democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with the personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
Basically mob rule
And it was destroyed by letting women vote.
The introduction to the Constitution is a paragraph that expresses that what was written was democratic-We the People…to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Additionally we have been enfranchised to elect our leaders to represent us, State and Federal. I say this not to disagree but to separate our Republic from others, like for instance, the Roman Republic. Ours is Of the People, By the People, and For the People. Though we are not a Democracy, the focus on The People suggests its focus.
When The Constitution was written women didn't have the vote, Dear. And they never should have.
"was written was democratic" like the beginning of the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?
ARTICLE 1
"The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a socialist state of workers and peasants."
ARTICLE 135
"all citizens of the U.S.S.R. who have reached the age of eighteen, irrespective of race or nationality, religion, educational and residential qualifications, social origin, property status or past activities, have the right to vote in the election"
ARTICLE 136
"Elections of deputies are equal : each citizen has one vote; all citizens participate in elections on an equal footing."
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)?
Article 4
"The sovereignty of the DPRK resides in the workers, peasants, working intellectuals and all other working people.
The working people exercise power through their representative organs—the Supreme People’s Assembly and local people’s assemblies at all levels."
The one thing that makes us so very different is not the we the people which other governments toss around, its the fact that we are not a democracy that allows a group of people to impose tyranny against the minority.
I agree we use a democratic process to elect representatives to our republic, commonwealth, state, county or city.
OT: I just have to tell you…. Looking at your handle and doggie avatar or whatever it’s called. My grandpa had a small poodle named, “Gin-Fizz” (“Fizz” or “Fizzer” for short.) So cute!
You took the words right out of my mouth. Only I might say most important piece ever.
Incisively analyzed and clearly explained.
One aspect not touched though and I can understand that because you're a guy. Put three guys together, you likely got a trio of pals. Three women and you got two fighting for dominance and one victim they'll worry into shreds. The overwhelming presence of women in all leftist movements and bureaucracies ensures carnage wherever the slightest dissent might attempt to emerge.
[and an appealing painterly talent too? where yu get the time?]
alas, not my work. but if you are a painter looking for the thinnest sliver of renown, you should paint a picture of schönfels castle.
the curators of the museum there (which takes up much of the castle interior) are on some kind of insane crusade to assemble all artistic depictions of the monument in one massive art exhibit. this was one of the humbler and less pretentious attempts, also interesting historically because it was painted (iirc) around 1900 and shows the castle and village as they looked around that time.
You make a good point -- the "mean girls" have taken over the whole lefty woke movements, which is how they've become this shrieking, blathering, insanity. Women are ruthless and very mean to other women; also to men of course, but against other women there is no limit to the cruelty. I've always preferred to hang out with men, who are more calm and balanced -- laugh if you will, but woman on woman nastiness is beyond anything men do, at least in my experience.
The human race strikes me as a very sad thing, a lot of the time.
Well, the survival instinct aspect of human nature is brutal as it must be. Civilization was invented to tame it as much as can be hoped for. There's inherent goodness too but we see over and over again in the most awful ways that inherent goodness can be fatal to the good.
Keep in mind that mean girls come in all flavors. Before we had cadres of Red Guard girls we had church ladies.
Oh yes, all flavors of mean girls! Church ladies for sure! 😅
Humanity always has so much that's good, so much potential for greatness, and yet there's that road to Hell thing going on...
I said somewhere else that "make the world a better place" is the actual root of all evil.
[edited to correct my own quote]
Making your own corner of the world a better place is a good plan, most of the time. Where it invariably goes wrong is when people try to immanentize the eschaton, i.e. when they think of the human condition as a problem to solve, and even worse when they think they have found the solution.
Ain't that what I said? Above and down below in the thread?
A good point, since every evil ever has been portrayed by its proponents as being something that makes the world a better place. It's not like a cartoon or a campy movie where the villain knows he is evil and even celebrates it.
In reality, evil people usually consider themselves to be the good guys. Certainly that guy from Austria with the funny mustache thought he was the good guy, even as he remains the go-to example now of the definition of evil.
It's not that.
What it is is expanding decency from one's immediate community to encompass everyone everywhere, all the time, relentlessly.
I can attest from experience that church ladies are indeed very nasty.
Without exaggeration, all those I know are some of the most disgusting and despicable human being I have ever met.
Sometimes I kind of think they are church ladies because they need the “redemption” because they can feel instinctively how bad they actually are…
Well, it's just that women always police other women no matter what the religion--traditional or modern secular sects--is.
Anyone who sees a crack of daylight between church ladies and AWFLs needs remediation therapy for their media-infused zombie-think. Much like red v blue US politics, they say different things, and even do different things for different ‘reasons’ (snort), but both trend to precisely the same infantile terror of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
I spend an hour or two on Saturday afternoons in the nearby tobacco shop. The guys are there to relax and say what they like without someone (i.e., their wives) complaining. I go for the same reason (i.e., to get a break from some of my female friends).
Men will, when provoked, kill each other.
But then it's over, of course.
Women will *ruin* a person. And let them live with it.
Which brings us to the transsexual woman pretending to be a man. This is a special form of cruelty to women, where she (he for those who continue to insist on mis-gendering) is able to enlist the politics and alliances of both genders in her own quest for dominance. I have secondhand experience with this, and the potential is evil incarnate.
It is misgendering to call a man a woman. It is incorrect in every sense of the word. I refuse to accept their premise that maleness or femaleness is just a feeling. I'm not playing their game.
Yes, there is so much wrong with the transgender ideology that it makes the head spin.
Women are who they are, and they can't help it any more than men can. Their brains are hardwired for childbearing and nurturing. They are nature itself, driven more by instinct than by the laws of civilization that men impose. They are made that way to insure survival of the species. For this reason I cannot harbor much resentment against them. I love them and habitually seek out their company, and sometimes their counsel, despite having learned, by trial and error, who and what they are.
But among them there are good ones, great ones, bad ones, and downright evil ones. And, lest we forget, ours is the gender that makes up about 95% of the prison population -- for good reason.
Like many of the commenters here, I'm wary about how much authority some of them have been given over many of the institutions that govern our lives.
There is good reason to balance the virtues of men and the virtues of women. A good balancing is, I think, much more likely to return a better result.
It is also good to remember that men and women share many things in life. We suffer, we die, we want children (maybe in different ways), we have lusts, etc, etc. We can have compassion for each other.
A good woman commonly makes a man better. And I think women too, become better with a good man.
"for good reason"?? No, it's because male bad behavior is criminalized, female bad behavior is excused, brushed aside or simply forgiven.
Numerous studies find the exact same acts get different treatment based on your skin color and gender.
Great observation. Not just simply women though. They are all crazy and hateful to the extent that they are beginning to remind me of Jezebel.
Buddy, the modern German boy-man was so feminized by the early 2000s, I had all I could do not to holler aloud on the factory floor when our German corporate mothership would send a new one over for some project or other. There were a few men among their engineers, a hunted few, and the monoglot techs of my stratum seemed fairly standard, but I cannot possibly convey, in simple terms, the blue-lensed micro-goggled effeteness of the more successful climbers and professional management types. My star, never more than faint, began its fall when I asked the latest something-berger, at first greeting, if now was the time on Sprockets ven ve dahnce. Swear I couldn’t help it. Do it again.
In the Bible, Jezebel is remarkable for having Jewish religious leaders killed. The Bible gives no plausible explanation. In her day, Jewish religious leaders were ethnicists who claimed that other nations' deities were evil, subordinate, or fake, and (among other things) everyone should sexually mutilate infant boys. Have you read the story of Noah and the flood? It's in Koran Surah's 11 & 71, and Genesis chapters 5-10 (but mainly in 6-8). The moral of the story is that indiscriminate resentment and killing are divine.
I was thinking more of 1 Kings 21 where Jez has Naboth killed to get his vineyard. Greed, lies and violence, I do as I please and nobody gets in my way kinda thing. Jezebel was not just a passive pagan, but she was aggressive in her idolatry. Ahab was already not a shining example in the line of the kings of Samaria before he married her, but together they became a sad story.
Baal was an evil deity. People sacrificed their children to him.
As far as Noah and the flood: after the flood, we see the first mention of the death penalty (Gen 9:5-6) way before the Law of Moses. One wonders just how bad things were before the flood for God to make this explicit commandment a priority for the new world.
That's not been my experience with women in my small town government, although I do usually hang around with the guys.
There's a reason you usually hang around with the guys.
Ha Ha! So true. I'm a woman and have always preferred to hang around with the guys.
Back in 2012 I first started contributing to a fiction webzine that had what you might term a lively comments section, and I discovered real fast that I consistently found myself sitting at the guys' table.
Since I was a little girl, I've found being with boys way more fun than being with girls. Boys and men never seem to mind us women who like to hang around with them, which is nice. Mind you, I never wanted to BE a male, I just find men to be good company. Women can be good company, but not always. If you don't have the right clothes, makeup, hair, don't shop at the right stores, don't go to the right church, whatever, they will shred you. Which is exactly what the leftist woke ideology has turned into: blue-haired women with PMS and a hysterical fear of everything, plus boundless entitlement.
Well, I've been extremely fortunate in my female friendships (with a few exceptions here and there) but I really enjoy guy friends too. Everything is chemistry, ain't it?
The thing is it's always best to go for quality over quantity. Most people, what they call friends are really just a bunch of longtime acquaintances.
Shaking hands!
It’s a very real thing for little girls in a threesome, and dreadful to watch. By teenage years, girls learn the value of keeping friendships tight, and keeping their enemies closer, as I’m sure the lefties do.
Funny you mention threesomes. From when we were super young, my mom was always warning my sister and me to "watch out for threesomes." It ended up being so true!
Rare exception: I raised two girls, close in age, and they shared their closest friends in a threesomes, even after they reached adolescence. They could play together for hours, with no problems, and these friendships and memories are treasured to this day. In my opinion, it only worked because my older daughter was oblivious to the social rules governing girls' behavior, and because my younger daughter was protective of her sister, and liked the special status of being allowed to hang out with the big girls.
Intriguing that an essay about oligarchy and climatism took a turn in the comments toward musing on women and differences from men.
I would merely observe that you probably got some of your inspiration for the new men analysis, including the term, from your knowledge of Roman history. If one transposes the analysis to the Canadian context, it yields a Laurentian oligarchy based in Ontario and Quebec, fighting a campaign to prevent the rise of regional oligarchies, particularly in the west, with its wealth of oil and gas resources. For suppression of regional oligarchy and regional new men, climatism is the perfect weapon. It has been embraced by the ruling Liberal Party because they have little political influence to lose in Alberta and Saskatchewan, but the Conservative Party does. But because the Conservatives wish to form a national government, and needs seats in climatist Ontario and Quebec, it has been tepid in opposing climatism. This must change.
eugyppius introduced the topic in his essay, and it's a frequent theme of his.
"Don't try to understand women! Women understand women, and they hate each other."
--Al Bundy
You betcha!
Maybe Islamism has a point?
They certainly keep their women under strict control.
(Entirely tongue in cheek comment by the way. No insult to Islam intended. Nor is the comment intended to foment dissent against our wonderful gov't and of course I sincerely believe that here in the UK Diversity is Our Strength).
I like a little sarcasm. Sometimes a LOT.
In practical application of Islam women keep other women under strict control. The mothers-in-law of the nation, you might say. Well, I might say. John is innocent here.
Wow. Only a couple decades ago, we were lectured very insistently that female political leaders would save the world from the violent, callous men whom we used to put in charge. It took a couple decades, plus Condoleeza Rice, Madeleine Albright and Hillary 'we came, we saw. he died' Clinton to disabuse Americans of such an idea.
Well, (((as a woman))) I'm very careful about the sort of women I might choose to vote for. Well, to be honest I wasn't quite careful enough. It was only in state and local elections but I sure found out afterwards I'd voted really badly.
BINGO!
It must be noted that there are almost no “New Men” left in Germany, if any at all.
Decades of quasi-socialist regulations at both the national and EU level have created a cadre of CEOs who are as much bureaucratic politicians as the politicians themselves.
All our industrial successes of recent decades represent nothing more than the apotheosis of tinkering. Germany perfected its industrial processes developed more than 100 years ago, but created little that was truly new.
Our last great company was SAP, founded in the 1970s, which was fortunate to be early in its field. Since then, nothing comparable has emerged. If you look at the great companies of the last three decades, there are all from the USA, and lately of course Chinese.
The German economy was lucky three times: sheltered during the Cold War, boosted by unification, and later well-positioned to profit from globalization by exploiting cheap Chinese manufacturing.
That era is over.
We have destroyed our competitiveness. At a time of rapid change, when great powers are vying for position, Germany is led by the embarassingly stupid politicians and CEOs in its history.
Europe as a whole is the great loser of the current wave of de-globalization.
New entrepreneurs will arise. In Europe somewhere. But over-regulation is an existential threat.
You describe the managerial class. From what I see it tends to slide sideways, mingling with its 1st cousin, the political class. They’re virtually interchangeable like board members of Pfizer and Fauci’s CDC regulators. The lines are blurred and the regularly switch places.
Poor Germany. Such a wonderful, highly intelligent, and hardworking people with incredible culture and history.
"Decades of quasi-socialist regulations at both the national and EU level have created a cadre of CEOs who are as much bureaucratic politicians as the politicians themselves."
Which is ironic, given that these are the same people accusing their political opponents of fascism, which is in part defined by a blending of the corporate world and the government.
So, eugyppius is saying: do not believe their words, and do not expect them to be logical. Follow the money. Follow the power. Or the advantage against (perceived) enemies.
"Our last great company was SAP, founded in the 1970s."
I've taken to asking my friends and family in the USA the following question:
When was the last time Europe achieved anything notable?
It seems to me the whole continent has become little more than a museum for middle and upper middle class Americans to visit and enjoy.
IMO, our great time ended in 1914, with WW1.
Many of the enterprising people went to the USA already in the 1800s, or were later driven out (mostly to the USA) by the Nazis, if they werent killed in the wars or camps.
I - an American - agree with your take.
Thank you!
Fabulous. I hope some of your countrymen are reading these gems. I was recently exposed for some time to a twenty something German visiting the US. He was anti AFD for no reason he could articulate. It seemed that it was just what he absorbed in school.
That phenomenon is epidemic today, esp on college campuses, where actual critical thinking has become taboo.
That holds true for more people and their political views. Recently, in a fairly heated discussion, i asked my friend WHY it was that she agreed with this (Dutch) politician (of one of the smaller parties) and thought he was so great. Well, his viewpoints on Ukraine. So I responded ok, well what ARE his viewpoints on Ukraine and the war? Explain it to me. And then nothing came forth for she could not articulate what his views were let alone why she agreed with them. So opinionwise she is just going with the flow. Earlier, i would immediately have disagreed on the party/politician, which would have ended any discussion, but this time I finally smartened up and let her dig her own grave.
eugyppius, when I saw your headline in my email I anticipated that the post would be about climatism as a way for more technologically advanced countries to keep developing countries down and backward, but what you actually wrote is equally interesting. Thank you.
As Trump noted in his very frank UNGA address, it’s pretty much the opposite. The developed world has handicapped itself while waving the developing world into the fast lane to overtake them.
The best part. Developing nation such as.... China.... have at least two currencies, lots of opaque government, even more opaque law, don't care about CO2 at all (which is quite reasonable), do burn coal (again, not unreasonable) but do like to get cash from 'established nations' with smaller economies.
A bit of a cuckoo. (In a very deep voice - 'tweet-tweet').
Somehow China has gotten us to the point where we are sabotaging our own economies in the name of net zero, handicapping ourselves by requiring the use of wind turbines and solar panels made by... of course, the Chinese, who make those items by means of coal power.
In the same way, China has also somehow found itself in the position where the entire west has agreed to destroy its own homegrown auto industries to make room for cheap Chinese death-trap EVs. Our own governments (thankfully interrupted by Trump in the US, but the rest of the western world persists in this) force carmakers to sell an increasing quota of EVs each year, but in a (relatively) free market economy like we have in each western country, most people refuse to buy them, instead keeping their older regular cars or buying used ones. The western governments have made it illegal for their own country's car companies to sell the profitable vehicles people actually want to buy.
That, of course, will destroy the western carmakers... but have no fear, China is here to supply you with massive numbers of cheap, poor-quality Chinese EVs made with slave labor, using coal power, and subsidized by the Chinese government, in violation of the WTO rules they promised to obey if they were allowed to join.
I would say that it was quite a feat for the Chinese to work things to their own advantage in this way, but in many ways, they're just supplying the wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, and EVs the western world now demands, as part of the west's suicidal pact with net zero. We in the west are just outsourcing our CO2 production and the resultant prosperity that cheap, reliable, on-demand power brings to China, while doing nothing at all to benefit the environment-- even if you believe in the farcical idea that our CO2 emissions are driving catastrophic global warming.
Dear Silvia, you make many good points.
The Chinese cars....
The West (USA, Europe, Japan, South Korea) have taught well so the quality is at least from new, is rather good.
However, once the market is captured - the China business approach is only domination - they would be free to decide what is given to consumers.
It is unbalanced, and China have zero interest in any other sort of deal.
Further the strategy has taken 40 years so far to deliver.
Trailing right now by about 20 years is wiping out both Airbus and Boeing in commercial aviation.
Should we refuse to import? No.
Should we redress the balance? Yes.
Should we compete - better products at better prices? Yes.
Europe became complacent, costs outstripped what the market was prepared to pay, and here we are.....
Time to dig deep, and do what the West does best: Innovate.
How to explain the second thing?
One of the pillars of Leftism is that the West is colonialists.
And the developing world are the oppressed.
So, it is half-way logical, to handicap the West and put the developing world in the fast lane.
China the developing world? Hmm. No longer. Africa? Yes, ok, fair.
Anyway, stupid ideas. But sometimes leftism is kind of "logical."
This ties directly into our other recent discussions. Alex Jones said the intention behind the Covid response was as a test pilot for compliance leading to a ramp up of the climate narrative. USA was naturally more resistant.
But poor Germany… ”Criticizing a minister” officially became a criminal offense during the Coof. The culture was already hardwired to accept official diktats as well as social norms. “You don’t want to be a bad citizen do you? Everyone must do his part. Sacrifices must be made…”
Readers may find this pertinent and interesting.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy2ju_qPtuM&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5tD
Trump could end "climate change" and the leftist by simply telling them CO2 is good to inhale.
They'd go on an oxygen strike, refusing to exhale!...lol.
Hilarious.
I attended a private, “Chardonnay liberal” event a few years back to watch the slide show of a women’s only cruise to Antartica whose purported mission was to observe the effects of climate change. Of course there were the requisite sighs and obligatory signs of angst from the onlookers.
However, a couple of young PhD “climate scientists” were also present. They were honest and ironic enough to mention (with distain) to the group that suggested remedies such as burying trees in the ground for carbon sequestration does nothing. They didn’t even seem to be onboard with the overall “Carbon Bad” narrative but stayed relatively quiet.
Good to see the Chardonnay Libs share so much with Champagne Socialists. The latter spring up like weeds in the UK - fighting for the low paid just as long as all their characteristics fit all of the correct labels which were, of course, 'assigned at birth'.
So tiring.
Quite. Filling the glass with champagne while ensuring it does not flow over and fighting for 'rights' is quite tricky. I just wonder. Wouldn't Pinot Noir or a saucy dry white wine be easier to manage during a protest?
TMI alert:
The climate fiends are of divided mind on wine grapes and the “effect” the industry has on “climate.”
In the “good” column you have the fact that grape vines are mostly drought tolerant and send down very deep roots to find moisture, thereby avoiding the need for intensive irrigation like most other crops.
In the “bad” column, they are self-pollinating and so do nothing to bolster bee populations.
Additionally, most large wineries utilize large energy consuming machinery to harvest and process grapes.
Traditionally operated wineries still rely on natural cork, therefore depleting that resource “needlessly” with a one time use. Whereas, it is felt that cork used for flooring etc has greater, long term utility. Incidentally, cork oat is considered at risk or endangered, by definition, due to its limited range and numbers. However, over the past century more trees have been planted in other places in the world and growers have diversified, finding new and expanding markets for their abundance of product.
Organic wines avoid the chemical fertilizers and herbicides contributing to “climate change.” However, the cost is in crop loss or otherwise extensive use of net covers made typically of non-recyclable plastic which breaks down in the sun within a few seasons and must be replaced.
Full disclosure- to me, use of glyphosates or artificial fertilizers, even most plastics, should not be derided because of the catch all, “climate.” Chemicals when harmful should be regarded as, “pollutants” and I for one refuse to acquiesce to the convolution just to be polite or out of social convenience.
Just look how the association with Trump hit Elon's "good" green cars.
I think this was a net win for Trump, as slews of Tesla owners learned that all political violence comes from the left latey.
I talked to one local woman whose Tesla was vandalized at a charging station. She was completely befuddled, wailing "I was just trying to save the planet!"
Too bad I didn't have the presence of mind to point out that fellow progressives were the ones doing the damage.
Your better nature probably just steered you to be polite.
You're very generous, but no. I was interacting with this person in my capacity as a local government employee. Best to avoid politics.
I was recently in the SF Bay Area. In the affluent areas of Mill Valley, Tiburon, San Rafael, and surrounds, Tesla still represents 1/3-1/2 of all the commuter cars on the road. 1/3 are German internal combustion. The rest a mixed bag. I was very surprised more people had not ditched their Teslas.
One Tesla bumper sticker read, “I bought my car before Elon went crazy.” Another read, “Imprison Newsom.”
Hahaha. So true.
“Follow the Science” says, go learn about the carbon cycle. No carbon, no plants, no oxygen. Tomato plants in cold country greenhouses require Oxygen pumped in for roughly half the day. The other half they require CO2 from storage tanks.
Germans are great. It’s a damn shame how they get manipulated by their own dumb politicians.
The religion of climatism relies on climate science, a subset of “the science,” the dogma of “we know,” which is the antithesis of actual science. Anyone who sees a weather forecast knows that frequently it doesn’t match the actual weather. How can they be so wrong about weather and so right about climate? That was a rhetorical question. The oligarchs declare themselves to be right, and even if proven wrong, they just remind everyone who’s in charge.
"How can they be so wrong about weather and so right about climate?"
That's a great way of phrasing the issue!
When free market forces are allowed to work is when all of the best-laid plans of the command and control centralizing authoritarians come crumbling down. Like removing the EV tax credit in a certain Big, Beautiful Bill just passed in the US shatters the façade of a market preference for EV's. With sufficient rewards (and punishments) central planners can make a market for a product they are pushing on the masses 'for their own (save the planet) good' they appear to be wise and sage. Remove the rewards (and punishments) and the illusion of a market preference shatters.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/30/ford-ceo-jim-farley-ev-incentives.html
In this article notice that the writer makes sure that the central planners aren't seen as wrong and how small the market for EV's actually is (tiny niche). Just that they are ahead of their time, the market isn't ready for EV's *yet.* The vision of the visionaries not yet recognized for their brilliance.
Such it is for the elitist mindset. They aren't wrong. Ever. The masses just aren't ready for their infinite wisdom. Jilted by lesser people who don't appreciate them, too small is the mind of the little person to grasp the greatness of their 'best and brightest' academics and bureaucratic managerial class.
There's a concept known as the Circulation of Elites that Vilfredo Pareto offered and influenced the oligarchical class 125 years ago. Young students like Benito Mussolini learned much that the sociologist philosopher and mathematician taught. And applied it in their governance (Fascism). Chasing efficiency in all things, for the "greater good." Most know of Pareto through his Pareto Principle, aka 80-20 Rule. But he wrote of many things that apply to our world today. Optimization, Efficiency theories that all corporations, institutions operate under, whether for Communist aspirations, Fascist aspirations, Technocrat aspirations, Monarchal aspirations, Oligarchical aspirations. More in next comment.
Thomas Sowell has two books which speak to this: “The Vision of the Anointed”, and “A Conflict of Visions”, the latter most akin to Eugyppius’ analysis here.
Here’s a synopsis of that book:
•The Competing Visions:
Constrained Vision =
Human Nature: Sees human nature as unchanging and inherently self-interested.
Governance: Prefers limited government and emphasizes the importance of tradition, law, and empirical evidence.
Approach: Advocates for compromise and acknowledges that there are no perfect solutions, only trade-offs.
Unconstrained Vision =
Human Nature: Believes in the perfectibility of human nature and that people can improve morally.
Governance: Supports more interventionist policies and trusts in the ability of enlightened individuals to make decisions for society.
Approach: Sees ideal solutions to problems and is often impatient with traditional institutions.
Both are Brilliant books!!
Sowell has been sharing great ideas and insights for a long, long time! I'm not 100% simpatico with him, but far more than not.
Vilfredo Pareto (wiki overview):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilfredo_Pareto
The Circulation of Elites (wiki overview)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation_of_elites
"Pareto introduced a social taxonomy that included six classes, Class I through Class VI. Class I corresponds to the adventurous "foxes" in Machiavelli, and Class II to the conservative "lions," particularly in the governing elite."
Other Pareto works, including The Mind and Society:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_and_Society
"In this book Pareto presents the first sociological cycle theory, centered on the concept of an elite social class. The Mind and Society has been named, by Martin Seymour-Smith, as one of the most influential books ever written"
And freedom is inefficient:
'Damned Efficient Slavery’ vs. ‘Inefficient Freedom’
SAN FRANCISCO (AP), January 4th, 1958
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist0158uvic_1/mode/2up?view=theater
"Because the Soviets mobilize and direct all their economic resources from one centre, he said, they have a great advantage. “Vice-President Nixon called the Russian system slavery. All right, slavery it is. But damned efficient slavery...We cherish our freedom. All right, freedom it is, but sadly inefficient freedom.”
NYT's tool hack writer for the 'elite' penned this love note to authoritarianism in 2009, one of the times when the mask drops and true agendas are revealed, the quest for damned efficient slavery...and how manufactured climate fears help usher it in:
Our One-Party Democracy - Thomas Friedman
The New York Times, September 8, 2009
https://archive.ph/RBOvl#selection-663.0-663.310
"One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century"
"China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down."
"The only way for us to match them is by legislating a rising carbon price along with efficiency and renewable standards that will stimulate massive private investment in clean-tech. Hard to do with a one-party democracy."
Vice-President Nixon called the Russian system slavery. All right, slavery it is. But damned efficient slavery...We cherish our freedom. All right, freedom it is, but sadly inefficient freedom.”
"Damned efficient" for whom?
Why for the oligarchs of course.
Fortunately, this myth has been debunked. If nothing in the world changed, the efficiency of central planning might hold true. A huge, automated factory that makes roofing nails might be the most efficient, but when glue becomes the best way to install roofing tiles, shifting the factory to making epoxy will be slow and difficult - if even possible. A cruise ship is the most efficient way to move people, but it's not a containership, nor is it easily converted to one. Centrally planned systems find it difficult to adapt.
Bingo! I remember reading an article/opinion piece out of China at the beginning of the plandemic from one of their official CCP English-language outlets (Global Times, China Daily or People's Daily) that touched on this. It was when the world, including D's were saying that Trump was a xenophobe and trying to weaponize a disease that wasn't contained by borders, was against all prior pandemic planning, for political gain - which turned out to be true. Flu can't be contained or controlled by man's interventions, but that's another story.
In the Chinese articles they said that if Trump wanted to go down the path of politicizing the flu, containment attempts that it would be a demonstration of how the different governing systems perform in a crisis, believing their model of authoritarianism gave them the advantage of immediacy, efficiency - much like Thomas Friedman's NYT piece lusted for, like the 1958 AP article did.
I wish I could find the exact article, I found other ones in archive searches of the CCP outlets, but in it China said that both systems have advantages and disadvantages over the other. It asserted that in times of crisis the people (masses) prefer the firm hand of authoritarianism to guide them through it, which was where the Chinese system would shine - which turned out to be true, recognizing human psychology of frightened masses. It said that while the western systems elevating individualistic notions is more inventive, more creative, more adaptive, and that those attributes are valuable, that the assertion of emergency powers and restrictions by Trump would necessarily open the door to Authoritarianism in the US and west - which turned out to be true.
And the article cautioned that a time of crisis isn't a good time to change governing models. That if the US and west wanted to become authoritarian regimes like China was that it was best to make those reforms in a gradual, deliberative manner, that introducing major system changes in crisis would be counterproductive to solving the crisis at hand, many would object, it would be divisive and messy when unity to face the challenges was needed. It read much like China was saying "if you like how we do things, fine, we'll welcome you, but for now, Dance With the One Who Brung ya."
China's advice at the time was right! They saw it, called it, knew it for what it was. They even said that antivirals (meaning drugs like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin) had proven to be very effective at treating the flu symptoms in Wuhan and elsewhere. Sometimes what our adversaries tell us contains far more truths than our own governments. Even our own "team" in our own governments. Oh how much I wish I had saved the links to those stories from February-March, 2020. They were so spot on. They acknowledged our system is more adaptive, has inherent value in it. Despite their preference for their own authoritarian system. Crazy from them, huh?
"And the article cautioned that a time of crisis isn't a good time to change governing models."
No s*!t!
At the onset of the virus hysteria crisis, I was wondering with infinitely profound dismay what had happened to the supposedly sacrosanct Bill of Rights I was brought up to have near-unwavering trust in!
"Centrally planned systems find it difficult to adapt."
They are inherently brittle.
And Marxist professor of linguistics (deceptive words, framing, The Science (TM) of Newspeak) Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent contains parallels to Pareto's Circulation of Elite:
https://chomsky.info/19890315/
"You know, it’s very striking that continually people move from one position to the other, very easily. And I think the reason for the ease is partly because they’re sort of the same position. So you can be either a Marxist-Leninist commissar, or you can be somebody celebrating the magnificence of State capitalism, and you can serve those guys. It’s more or less the same position. You pick one or the other depending on your estimate of where power is, and that can change."
I was taught about the theory of "Pareto optimal" policies, those which make at least some better off and nobody worse off.
Governments also hate small businesses, they talk constantly about how important they are to the economy but undermine them in every aspect, using pointless regulations and fees to keep them crippled as much as possible.
Yep.
Governments hate successful small businessmen and women because they have a degree of autonomy from the political class.
"Knitting circles, learned societies, hunter-gatherer tribes and religious communities all have their own elites."
I was formerly in a drumming-and-dancing group in which almost all members followed what one person said to do, no matter if his direction was wise or foolish. After a couple of years, the group formed a performing band called Zanzibar, although it did strictly West African drumming. I laughed away from them and did not tell any of the members were Zanzibar is.
For awhile, I was in a religious denomination with about 2 dozen members, and we followed our elite of two people despite considerable formal organization and active participation of all members. Then one day a member of our elite resigned, and the other one soon also lost interest in another month or two, and the entire denomination disintegrated immediately.
Once while at a music festival, two large men started fighting, and I stepped in, pushed them apart, and ordered them to get far apart. They did, because I acted like I was supposed to be in charge.
For awhile, was in a work group that has a foreman, but someone had to take charge, so I dominated the group without a formal title.
These things worked because people need a leader for, as Eugyppius, wrote, "humans are hierarchical" by nature.
- - - -.
This is very perceptive. "You might notice that many of the wealthiest personalities in the West mire themselves in goofy charitable activities and give flabby media interviews in which they mouth whatever banal political orthodoxies happen to be the flavour of the month. They do this by way of advertising to the oligarchs that they are not a threat."
The wealthiest have other ways to show they are harmless also. Have you read any of Domhoff's books about the USA upper social class?
- - - -
"...we have had to hear so much about how bad the wealthy are, even as industrialisation and mass society have made us all vastly more prosperous and collapsed the vastness that once divided the nobility from the serfs."
It is interesting that the progressives write and talk as if we all lived in London of the 1820's or the 1750's.
- - - -
"Climatism emerged via a confluence of interests, but the oligarchs’ enthusiasm was decisive."
Well, yes but the most committed moderate and far leftists I know tend to want to be told what to think and how to act, and they view conformity to authority as morally required.
'It is interesting that the progressives write and talk as if we all lived in London of the 1820's.'
Exactly.
The reality in the contemporary USA is incredibly far from being Dickensian, yet political discourse from the Left is always framed as if it is.
I appreciate that you note how influential people emerge without a need for cabal-type language. All the mystical language obscures the reality that elites emerge in all societies. It is a feature and not a bug, as the utopian dreamers believe. A short paper on ritualistic killings noted that as soon as hierarchies emerge, along with complex language, the elites periodically sacrifice victim(s) to maintain power by showing their brute strength fused with mysticism. Literary critic Rene Girard believed that in all the myths, the victim and the accusers believe they were guilty of some sin, but that Christianity broke the myth. Thus, the sacrificial victim is innocent. One doesn't have to be a believer to understand the ramifications. Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna stated unequivocally in an interview that the US is a bible nation, which of course is true. To deny this would be to deny that India is Hindu-based or that Confucianism doesn't inform China and Korea. Before his death in the early 2000s, Girard believed we were entering into a giant scapegoating in the West. Indeed, we are, and it is the 'native' population being sacrificed.
'Indeed, we are, and it is the 'native' population being sacrificed.'
What do you mean?
'native' is sort of a joke because who is truly native to any land. What Girard was referring to, I assume because this was back years ago, that our culture, our way of life was being sacrificed. Indeed if you listen to rhetoric of the elites and those who subscribe to CRT, European culture, and its degenerate offspring in the US and elsewhere, is so awful as to be irredeemable. It must be sacrificed. I came across Girard in a footnote of this short paper. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299572373_Ritual_human_sacrifice_promoted_and_sustained_the_evolution_of_stratified_societies I read a Tom Wolfe's book the Kingdom of Speech is an interesting dive into language using the Prihana people "The Kingdom of Speech is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech -- not evolution -- is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements."
This piece was a lesson in the gap between my ability to articulate a concept and that of a gifted writer like Eugyppius. It comports completely with my own thesis and theory from years diving deep into the subject matter... the same that I keep shouting from the rooftop only to be considered a crank and conspiracy theory nutcase (probably because I lack the capability to explain it well enough) from those who's media feeds have convinced them that the fascists have landed again.
But this is it. I live in a liberal California college town and have previously injected myself into local politics because, well, things with the city have not been going well. What I have learned is that the elites running the place fall well below the private sector merit-capability matrix... but boy oh boy do they have the academic credentials backing their name. These people are quite frankly in over their heads, but their lust for upper class status is so consuming that they become masters at the slime of politics... because they would never succeed in the competition for the path up the corporate ladder.
And we have multiplied them like roaches in the wall by pushing them all through the "higher-learning" machine where they emerge with the expectation that they be considered something special. We exploded the professional managerial class and changed the economy so that they made more money and in effect we empowered the wrong type of people to rule us. We created too many little elite monsters that are now coming back to eat at our faces.
And yes, they will not let go of that power to rule us without a fight. And that fight appears to have "progressed" to from cancel culture to assassination culture. Don't be surprised when AfD leaders start losing their lives.
We have wandered away from the Christian view that leaders are servants like Jesus was. We are here to serve whether it be our families and our communities. Today’s leaders hate self serving tyrants mostly who hate the very people they are supposed to serve. Climate change, mass immigration and covid show this very vividly.
Years ago I was talking with a guy who was born in Portugal and was now an American citizen. At the time, Hollande was president of France. I professed my amazement that Hollande, a wealthy man was a socialist. My workmate gently informed me that of course Hollande advocated socialism as this was a way for those at the top in Europe to keep down any competition for power and money. It was at that point I started to ‘get it.’
Great essay, really beautiful.
Just one thing that doesn't square the circle: the changing climate issue transformation into a threat, it pops up at various times in the 60s and early 90s as a manufactured crisis/threat needed to refocus attention of the masses. I can't find the links, but I've read about it, notably a meeting attended by Gore in 92/93, and in the 50s or 60s it was kept on the back burner by those wonderful oligarchic luminaries of the club of Rome fame.
Point is this current oligarchy is transnational. And this reinforces the national oligarchic control over their respective turfs.
I am late to this but want to get it out of my head. I'm not entirely convinced of your argument, I have a more simplistic view of climatism. Western post WWII liberal welfare states had attained their goals more or less in the nineties: health insurance, pensions, high level of academisation, social mobility, end of class struggle, "affluent society"; and, on top of that, an end of the communist menace. So, politics at this time had more or less lost its purpose. Well, that's bad news for politicians because their raison-d'être is "to do somthing about something". So this climate bullshit came quite right. I always found it emblematic that a failed career politician like Al Gore embraced this climate thing so fervently: He had nothing else to do. So the politicians (and academics, journalist and so on) looking for a cause invented an emergency and started to dabble in "climate politics". I don't go into the ramifications and side considerations (e.g. there were people, leftists especially - Trittin comes to mind -, whose purpose for sure was to wreck the hated western industrial societies). I think this is partly an explanation for Covidism as well. And when I look at the supporters on the street: white affluent middle class people and youths with too much time at their hands, no real pupose in life, no other "cause": No need for great ambition or professional success (no need because of inherited wealth and the success of the welfare state itself), no need for class struggle, no need for whatsoever. One could almost pity them, with their vacuous lives. So that is that, in my opinion. Could elaborate, but won't do here.
Have to think about if this might be even compatible with your explanation.
I think your reasons also apply, but if this were the whole explanation, I think we would not see such an eagerness accept the dire economic consequences. States would subsidise some degree of renewable energy as a fuel/emissions saving measure, emphasise additional policies to redress claimed negative consequences of climate change via technology (another project, another problem to solve), etc.
Question remains: Why is there such a big (as I see) difference in climatism in Europe and in the US? I would say: Because European welfare states were/are much more advanced than in the US - which would fit with my hypothesis. I Have to think about that somewhat more.