Note: I have a post up behind the green door on the Mary sue that was allowed to play sportsball with the boys last week.
In the industrial age, the power centers in Western societies were capital, the government and the workers in that order. Because money is power, the capitalists could exert influence over governments, so they were at the top of the power structure, but that had its limits. Government has the monopoly of force and must be responsive to the people, even in private government. Labor, of course, had numbers and even in the most repressive regimes, numbers count for a lot.
Of course, there was natural conflict between labor and capital. Then as now, capitalists wanted to exploit their workers as much as possible. One solution to this was tripartism, which is economic corporatism. Labor, government and employers work together to form economic policy. Labor would be organized into unions, whose leaders would sit at the table with representatives from the state and industry to fashion polices that maintained social stability and economic prosperity.
For most of Europe, this has been the explicit arrangement. In Scandinavia, what is often called socialism is actually corporatism. Workers get generous benefits, but the state protects business from competition. In other parts of Europe it is not as explicit, but the social contract is based on the cooperation of the government, business and labor unions. The irony is that this was the approach favored by fascist movements, but no one dares mention that bit of history.
In America, this arrangement was never formalized. Industrial unions flourished in the north, but never got traction in the rest of the country. Into the 20th century, the central government was too weak to bring labor and capital to the table. Instead we got an informal version of tripartism, with activist groups inside the political system negotiating on behalf of labor. The political class used regulation, rather than force, to bring business owners to the table.
For the most part, this system worked well enough through the 20th century. It was not perfect, nothing is, but all the measures of society improved. Even as the West moved into post-industrial economies, the system held up. That’s increasingly not the case, especially in America, as we move fully into the technological age. That old informal arrangement is falling apart and being replaced with a bipolar social order, centered on money and information.
You see this with the Democratic Party. A generation ago, Democratic politicians would court industrial labor unions and salt their platforms with promises to the middle and working class. They were the party of labor. Today, Democrat politicians would not be caught dead with a union boss. Instead they hang out at Davos with bankers and global titans of the information age. They salt their platforms with weird aspirational messages that resonate with bourgeoise bohemians.
The new system is an informal arrangement between Silicon Valley, Wall Street and the political class in Washington. Left out of this is not only labor, but the bulk of business, which does not operate globally. You see this with Covid. Exceptions were made for the giant corporations, but the small and midsized business forced to knuckle under to draconian measures. A great transfer of power and money is underway from the middle-class to the elites.
Just as capital was able to exert influence over the state in the old industrial tripartite system, money and information is now able to push around the political class. You see this with the tech monopolies. Many in Washington know this is a serious problem, but they are powerless to stop it. Not only can the tech giants buy the votes they need, they get to read everyone’s e-mail and text messages. In the information age, control of information is as important as controlling the money.
What America is racing into is bipartism, an informal alliance between Silicon Valley and Wall Street, with Washington as junior partner. Silicon Valley controls the flow of information, while Wall Street controls the flow of money. When necessary, Washington supplies the force. There is no role for labor or even for the public at-large. In a world where elections are ceremonial, there is no need for Washington to appeal to the voters or even pretend to do so.
The problem with this emerging social arrangement is that it is not rooted in anything other than short-term greed. Corporatism of the industrial age was rooted in Catholic social teaching, where the parties had reciprocal duties. Human dignity and the common good were overriding concerns. The three parts of the system were bound by reciprocal duties to the other, but also bound by a duty to society. There was a clear moral component, rooted in 2000 years of history.
The system that is emerging is explicitly free of any moral duty to society, as it rejects the very notion of society. After all, society is about boundaries and the open society is about no boundaries, which is a contradiction in terms. The rhetoric is to disguise the fact that the whole point of this new order is to consume social capital, converting it into money and power for the two stake holders. Human dignity and the common good have been monetized to benefit the new ruling order.
The main flaw in this is that a world without social capital is a world without trust. This is why personal liberty is quickly shrinking. Prisons are low trust societies and they are controlled by limiting the choices available to inmates. The emerging social credit system and “freedom passes” are what the new ruling class thinks will replace the social capital they have devoured. Instead of a sense of community and an obligation to society, people will be motivated by their smartphone.
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In a society where we’re a plurality among minorities (probably headed toward minority status too, and faster than any official calculations estimate), any power we’ll have will basically be like that of Chechen clans or Afghani warlords, which is to say we can be a thorn in the side of our rulers to the point where they’re forced to withdraw, go around us, or make concessions to go through our territories. We’ll have a much harder row to hoe than some goatherds, though, as most of us lack basic skills (the worship of college here in the Anglosphere really hobbled… Read more »
I can live with that, go around us and leave us alone
We’ll have a much harder row to hoe than some goatherds, though, as most of us lack basic skills (the worship of college here in the Anglosphere really hobbled us), Still. If it spares me from diversity and it’s hateful, slothful, vengeful commissars, I wouldn’t mind. Each day brings a new realization of the daftness of unrestrained modernity. I think I’d happily give up a lot of these ‘benefits’ that make me far more reliant on a centralized system in order for a break away from diversi-tyrants. Don’t mind being governed by a warlord (within reason), as long as he’s… Read more »
There are solutions to the government’s resettlement policies, it’s just that those solutions remind people of a class of people they don’t like. But it is the nature of things that society is supported by unpleasant people doing unpleasant things.
[…] ZMan looks behind the curtain. […]
There are many platforms which encourage/require their users to spend their own social capital, ostensibly for their own benefit, but also for the benefit of the platform’s owners. DonorsChoose is one such place; it’s a place where teachers can post projects that they want funded, which the school system won’t fund. For example, an art teacher wants to give crayons and paper to the students but it’s not in the school’s budget. The teacher doesn’t want to spend their own hard earned cash, so they go begging to the general public by posting a funding request on DonorsChoose. The website will skim 25% of whatever… Read more »
Sounds like those cookie sales they used to have where you donate and have to buy the vendors option of cookies
I’m not totally clear on this “social capital.” Is it the value that people give you, as you? So, someone like Scott Adams (just to use an example) is trusted by so much of society, that he has the ability to say something that people will believe, is THAT “social capital?”
It’s a lot more than just “trust”; it’s whether or not others are willing to help you out, lend you money, bail you out. Or do they blow you off because you’re not worth it to them. Did you buy at their kid’s lemonade stand?? then they’ll help push your car when you’re stuck in the snow. Donate money towards your students’ supplies? Did you spend hours listening to them bitch about their life? Quid pro Quod.
It’s funny how tech utopists want to create a walled garden of limited choices. It sounds rather Edenic, but for some reason humans have consistently chosen to operate outside the confines of utopian limits. Because human nature is immutable in this way, the attempt by tech companies to control people by their smartphones will eventually run into the issue of enforcing compliance. People on the margins will only be motivated by violence, not ostracism, and as more people are marginalized more violence is needed to maintain order, which becomes increasingly expensive and less effective. But yes, knowing how to code… Read more »
This is known more commonly as “The Looting Phase of Empire” and is the penultimate phase.
Violence during “The Collapse of Empire” is assured, and results in cities awash in blood.
Remember the Phil Collins Driver’s Ed song?
Who’s Phil Collins?
I think he was that bloke who flew the Apollo 11 command module around the moon, whilst the other two (forget their names) went down to check it out.
He sang while he orbited the moon too.
Buzz Lightyear, and Martin Armstrong.
We’re truly in the Age of Quicksand. Justice has been replaced with emotional oscillation, beauty sullied by vile ugliness, harmony shattered by discord and all of it is permeated by a sense of frantic fleetingness. I’m feeling a definite animus out there that nothing is concrete anymore, everything relative & arbitrary. What was a safe bet yesterday will get you in trouble today, solutions that used to be effective are now risky, to say the least. And so…we vanish into the quicksand, sink into a quagmire of nihilism and horror. I think the order of the day is camouflage and… Read more »
We’re moving from a Western moral code to an Eastern one. The only pleasures to be had in the bazaar come from haggling and getting one over on the other guy. Since this isn’t something decent people enjoy, all our joys and pleasures will have to come far away from the madding agora where all these monsters thrive.
We’ve also been separated from any higher moral meaning. The last line of all those horrible BLM signs are ‘kindness is everything’ and a lot of people believe that but it is empty sentimentality that will not hold up under duress
If central authority breaks down (I mean it has, but once it becomes obvious and people realize it and start taking greater advantage of it), I’m not sure I’d want one of those signs in my yard…or even to be remembered as someone who once had one in their yard.
Staying in the game? What do you mean? What game/
Add it all up, and seems to me we are in a place similar to early 20th century where the only option is to blow it all up in the war to end all wars arguments I would have with LIbs went this way. I would argue that Yes, you can have gay men marrying, but then you upset a lot of people who are left steaming and stewing in private. As these things layer up thicker, people either say screw it, blow it all up, or find me a strongman. If the libs would have just taken things slow,… Read more »
It seems the leftard takeover and corruption of society and our culture was fairly gradual up until the last decade or so. Since, the degradation has gone into overdrive and a lot of people are looking around, thinking WTF and perhaps getting closer to a screw it all mentality and hoisting the black flag.
I see your point. There is a safe, natural rhythm to ‘progress’. Start changing things too quick and then tell people they cannot say anything about it does no one any favours in the long run. I think there was a Taki’s article by Jim Goad where he spoke about the possible reasons that so many mass shooters left behind lengthy manifestos.
Problem is, as we know, the average wokist is pissed off that you:
What’s beyond the black pill? I’ve come out on the other side, gone through all the Kubler-Ross, emerged with eerie Zenlike calm, because I’ve realized: people want this. For every fraudulent Biden vote, there was a real Biden vote, because universal prosperity is a blind alley of human evolution. Homo twitterus. Now I know his the Neanderthals felt.
Yes professor Sev, and now we Western civ. Cro magnons might be in for the same fate.
One of the many reasons I retired from the professing biz was that I no longer saw the point. I loved teaching. I was one of those stereotypes who felt like it was almost a calling. If I could just reach *one* student… But one can only act like King Canute for so long. My blood pressure couldn’t take it anymore. Trust me: the 2020 graduating class *loves* Big Brother.
Teaching IS a holy profession. Unfortunately, the left has turned teaching into factory work where the end product is indoctrinated morons.
Yeah, neanderthals were driven to extinction in the first explosion out-of Africa
The system that is emerging is explicitly free of any moral duty to society, as it rejects the very notion of society. Yes, a strange one this. No moral duty to society as measured by actions, say: building houses for workers, encouraging family development etc. But the proponents of the system are indeed moral people – they signal their moral virtue in every dimension possible. Like everything in our modern age, style over substance has reached – and I think will continue to reach – ever greater heights. Put simply, we now have population that loves to invite government into… Read more »
Never understood why the people with the guns and the strong backs cower to money men and stalkers. Maybe because of public ignorance? Well, that’s changing fast. These really aren’t formidable people.
Everything you write is very good but this is exceptional. Reminds me a lot of Jim Kalb’s writing.
Agree, this post and the previous one (“Suspicious minds”) truly are masterpieces.
If you aren’t chipping in a couple of bucks on Subscribestar, you are missing some excellent content.
Welcome to the emerging trans human paradigm. AI is the new government. How will the criminal enterprise cope with being replaced by brain chips? Do they have the intellectual wherewithal to resist? I’m pretty sure they are outgunned, in that respect.
I’ve resolved myself to being a slave; but I also think of myself as a wily peasant. This state of mind takes one away from any thought of being on top—or being frustrated when you figure out your effort within the system doesn’t get you to the brass ring. Let someone else chase credentials. Many of us white guys are smarter than average and perfectly capable to do just fine. You just need to quit negotiating with a rigged system and use your brain given the nasty circumstances. In my opinion this starts with doing the math of putting your labor through the W-2… Read more »
In 1996 Christopher Lasch wrote “The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy.” Where we are today has been in the works for quite a while.
It’s not all corporatism, the Saturday after thanksgiving is small business day. Sponsored by American Express.
It’s simple: TPTB have no ability to run the show. They’re very good at taking advantage of an existing community’s social trust for profit, but they can’t maintain communities (except their own parasitic community). Modern technology has allowed a concentration of power not possible before. No king in the middle ages could watch everyone. No banker could control cut themselves in on every deal. Society was just too diffuse. But computers, television, the internet, etc., allow a very small number of people to control society. The problem is that this small group has no ability nor desire to maintain or,… Read more »
Their calls of “it’s different this time” (a play of “real Communism has never been tried”) assures me that it is exactly the same this time.
Thus the amazing, last-ditch phenomenon of Trump, who should not exist, or whose existence is impossible. Thus the example of Trump’s demand that Section 230 be overturned, or he won’t sign the bill in front of him. Like I said, last ditch effort.