I've been thinking about this with respect to America's future. Basically, suppose people want a revolution. Well, that would require a competent leader to make the mob effective. This is the rub, if you have leadership skills then you make bank and would be in 'the system'.
One thing US politics has been phenomenal at is ensuring that there will never be organized resistance to the government. Divide and conquer is the name of the game. I do not think it's a coincidence that politicians seem to have been focusing on issues that are increasingly incendiary, arguably in lieu of more relevant issues.
When the country is split down partisan lines, it ensures that any action taken will also be cast in this light and demonized accordingly. And even better for the status quo, it can also be used to get people to even vote against their own interest. How many people voted for Hillary or Trump because they thought 'yes, this person truly represents my interests and views'? How many voted for them because they thought 'oh dear god the [other person] winning is simply unthinkable!'?
How did the American revolution happen? Aside from having a huge number of competent leaders, it was framed as a unified citizenry 'us' versus the outsider English politicians 'them'. And this is a general theme of revolutions. It is 'us' versus 'them' when 'us' is the people and 'them' is a detached government. Yet in the US 'us' means one half of the population and 'them' means the other half while the government seemingly works to further antagonize this divide.
> I do not think it's a coincidence that politicians seem to have been focusing on issues that are increasingly incendiary, arguably in lieu of more relevant issues.
I do not know whether you intend to, but "this is not a coincidence" sounds like it implies a conspiracy.
I believe it is a coincidence, but in the same way that evolution is based on coincidence. Random mutations create by coincidence an organism that is better adapted to its environment, hence it survives. There is no need for a conspiracy to arrive at a political system like ours (it's just stabler than average and thus survives), just like how evolution does not need an intelligent designer to come up with intelligent designs.
Divide and conquer is a strategy as old as they get. The US government has also been outed engaging in such in the past to help stabilize themselves. COINTELPRO is probably the most well known example of this - a program that lasted through 4 political administrations. Faced with the rising political influence of groups ranging from civil rights protesters, to the Communist Party of the USA, the FBI engaged in an extensive and far reaching program designed to "increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections". The Wiki entry [1] gives a decent intro. The program was only revealed after a number of activists burgled an FBI field office and hit the jackpot.
So, our system is already absolutely a product of exactly what I'm describing. Now let's zoom forward to today. Congressional approval in the US ranges from the low teens to the single digits. [2] Think about that for a minute. That means upwards of 90% of people are dissatisfied with the most basic functioning of our government. If we weren't so divided among one another, our government would be replaced in short order by democratic consensus. But with what..? That question even gives politicians a sort of cognitive dissonance to put themselves as the 'good guys.' It's entirely possible we could, in retribution, elect individuals that could cause immense harm to this nation.
So you're a politician. What to do when you want to help ensure you and your fellow party members continue to get elected, even when 90% of people think you're doing a bad job. What do you do? You could do a better job, but that's tough - you need and rely on "donations" to get into and stay in office and the unspoken promises of those "donations" are a large part of the reason people think you're doing such an awful job. Making people despise and distrust the other group so much that they are willing to vote against their own self interest is one very obvious solution. Let's go back to COINTELPRO and look at some of its intended effects:
- 1. Create a negative public image of activists by publicly smearing their character
- 2. Break down organization by spark internal conflicts and exasperating racial tension.
- 3. Restrict the ability to groups to protest by using infiltrated agents who promote violence and lawless behavior at protests.
- 4. Restrict the ability of individuals to participate by engaging in surveillance, false arrests, and character assassination.
The implicit assumption here is that American firms actually higher leaders based on some kind of objective leadership skills (and that the market will suck them all up).
I'm guessing whoever wrote this hasn't grown up poor/discriminated against, didn't beat their peers and find themselves never-the-less judged/ousted because they "weren't of the right background/proper means/cultural fit".
And remember, all it takes is a few key leaders. And that includes those who may have been part of the system but were unjustly ousted...(or those who just think they are getting a wiff of the winds of change and want to be on the right side)
/I'm not making any actual prediction of revolution the US incidentally. I'd be inclined against any theories of imminent revolution. Just pointing out that simple theories of "it wouldn't happen here because of our fake-meritocracy" are pretty off the mark.
The problem with your statement is that many people did and continue to do exactly what was stated going from rags to riches. Elon Musk is probably the most well known example. Now one of the most influential business and technological leaders in this nation, he immigrated from South Africa with little more than to rely on than his ability, motivation, and work ethic. A soft spoken immigrant with a slight speech impediment and South African accent is not exactly what you'd call 'the right background/means/cultural fit', yet it posed little issue.
More fundamentally the problem is that in America there is a very distorted sense of self. A total of 4% of Americans think they are less intelligent than the average American. [1] And so the vast majority of people in this nation who are not particularly meritorious think they absolutely are, or at the worst no less meritorious than average. Yet that, no matter how you measure it, is simply not the case.
The reason I chose Elon Musk is because he's a household name and most people are familiar with his story. However, 67% of all "high-net-worth" Americans are self made, with only 8% directly inheriting their wealth. [1] If you consider only men (as women have an easier time marrying into wealth) it's 76%.
I used to be more aligned with what you're saying. An eye opening paper for me was this [2]. I ran into that when actually searching information on the chiseling out of the middle class. And that paper does describe that. In 1979 the middle class controlled 46% of all income, and the upper/rich classes controlled 30%. Today (well at least today as of 2014) the rich and upper class control 63% with the middle class left with 26%. There's even been a chiseling out of the middle class as a whole declining from 38.8% of society to 32% of society.
But the eye opener is this. This is the change in the size of each economic group between 1979 and 2014:
- Rich: 0.1% -> 1.8%
- Upper Middle Class: 12.9% -> 29.4%
- Middle Class: 38.8% -> 32%
- Lower Middle Class: 23.9% -> 17.1%
- Poor or Near-Poor: 24.3% -> 19.8%
If you're concerned that partisan bias may be tilting those numbers (as such figures are certainly subject to a variety of different interpretations), wiki has a section on the political stance of the Urban Institute [3]. Beyond that, that paper is quite readable and their methodology very transparent. It's extremely eye opening.
That describes a ton of populist leaders throughout history though. Sometimes it is more beneficial to raise a mob and usurp power than to stay withing the system.
History has been defined more by classes and royalty and rich familes, and America has more people that have risen based on their ability to execute. My claim is that this creates a release valve of sorts where people that can execute can rise in ranks.
> History has been defined more by classes and royalty and rich familes, and America has more people that have risen based on their ability to execute.
Can you be sure that this assertion is true of both the past and the future?
