Note: Behind the green door is a post about the Super Tuesday results and a post about my thoughts about moving from Lagos. The Sunday podcast was posted late, as I was tied up on some projects. Subscribe here or here.
One of the things the paleos missed when they began to flesh out managerialism in the last century is how it assumes the qualities of democracy. This is something Robert Dahl picked up in his analysis of American government against the standard of democracy he developed. While the institutions of America were not democratic and could never be democratic, the people in these institutions were motivated by a democratic sense in that they wanted to act according to public will.
This explains, in part, how our institutions have grown increasingly authoritarian over the last three decades, while the people running them have become obsessed with defending what they call “our democracy.” They do not view democracy as a process, but rather as a goal. The truly democratic society is open, and the people freely exchange the right ideas. Defending democracy in this sense means dragging the people to this place, by force if necessary.
This democratic sensibility within democracy is important in understanding the reckless behavior of the people running the institutions. If one were to pick a single word to describe the cause of the current crisis it would be “reckless”. Whether it is reckless foreign policy adventures or poorly conceived domestic fads, the ruling class seems to take pleasure in reckless projects. They operate like gamblers with unlimited credit that they assume will be repaid by others.
The Ukraine war is the latest example. When the Russians threatened war, it was over the Minsk agreements not having been followed. They had a specific set of claims against Ukraine, and they wanted help from the West to enforce those claims, but instead they got bellicose threats from Washington. In retrospect, we now know that the West wanted war with Russia. Deliberately picking a fight with the world’s biggest nuclear power is about as reckless as it gets.
For two years the West has steadfastly refused to have any dealings with the Russians, instead demanding total surrender. Every few months the West seeks some new “red line” to cross, hoping to provoke the Russians. Now the French are recruiting the micronations of NATO to send troops into Ukraine. The whole point of this is to bait the Russians into responding in a way that will then let NATO pretend they are being attacked by Russia so they can invoke Article 5.
Project Ukraine is a pointless and risky adventure, but even as the Russians gain the upper hand, the Western managerial elite remains addicted to it. Like drug addicts, they crave only the next hit of foolish risk in this thing. So much so that they look for new ways to make it so they cannot change course. There is a burn the boats mentality to this project, where they seek out policies that further commit the West to the project in such a way that no one can apply the brakes.
This burn the boats mentality is everywhere. The immigration crisis is not simply about border management, something that could be fixed. It is aimed at making it a permanent crisis, a permanent project for the managerial class. Tens of millions of illegals now roam the countryside, raping and killing Americans. Even if a new president wants to fix the problem, he will still be left with the tens of millions of criminal aliens unleashed on the cities and towns of America.
One of the defenses of aristocratic rule is that it is naturally cautious. The king has an investment in his country and people in that he directly benefits from them. Who he is as a king depends upon the health and welfare of the people and the land on which they live, so he is not going to be quick to risk either of those for novelty. In fact, he is going to be cautious of change, especially in domestic affairs, because he has everything to lose and little to gain.
This is not true in democratic systems where the rulers have no investment at all, as they can be replaced at the next election. Hans Hermann-Hoppe noted that in democratic systems, the people holding office often despise the office they hold, as they gained it only as a steppingstone toward some other goal. The people have nothing but their vote, so they are willing to take great risks. The result is a system that is willing to take enormous risk for theoretical and ephemeral gains.
America is not a democracy, but a sense of democracy is there in the institutions controlled by the managerial class. What we have is a managerial polyarchy, where the elites use the institutions to chase the mirage of the democratic society. Because the goal is not real, it is maximally alluring. This is why the elites are willing to trample the democratic process to defend “our democracy.” What they are defending is not a real thing but the imagined end point of history.
It is that democratic spirit that makes them so risk happy. This burn the boats approach to public policy comes from the sense that this condition of society is temporary and therefore the positions held by the elite are temporary. In a real sense, those positions are temporary, as all managers keep their resume up to date for a reason. Throw in the fact that failure never comes with consequences and the result is a ruling elite that operates like a desperate gambler looking for a score.
The great lesson in democratic risk taking is Athens in the Peloponnesian War where the Athenians were determined to spark war with Sparta. It was the Athenian decision to roll the dice on an invasion of Syracuse that led not only to the end of the war but the destruction of Athens. Given the similarity between America and Athens, it is fair to assume the same fate awaits the American empire. Democratic empire will turn out to be a suicide pact crafted by people addicted to risk taking.
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“Chesterton’s Fence” is dead. My observations come from corporate world, but believe are applicable to government. In reality it’s a “barbell” approach. Utter inaction followed by “swing for the fences”. Acting when a reasonable, less risky solution is available is long gone.
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There seems to be a slimy film of propaganda over everything now -politics at every level, the news of course, corporate communications, even sports. I find my self wondering if it was there 40 years ago I wasn’t noticing.
I don’t think this many people were putting in more effort on the spin than the substance of their jobs.
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“It is aimed at making it a permanent crisis, a permanent project for the managerial class.”
On a side note, this influx has been deliberately orchestrated. It didn’t just occur because of laxity and negligence at the border with Mexico. The Biden administration has been complicit in this but there have been other active and malevolent forces involved as well.
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Hazelwood, Missouri, School District
15yo White Christian girl’s skull crushed by raging ch!mpanzees.
WARNING: NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART
https://tinyurl.com/mpp2tjfm
The only white girl in the company of a pack of ferals. All those glowing TV commercials are doing their job.
“The great lesson in democratic risk taking is Athens in the Peloponnesian War where the Athenians were determined to spark war with Sparta. It was the Athenian decision to roll the dice on an invasion of Syracuse that led not only to the end of the war but the destruction of Athens. Given the similarity between America and Athens, it is fair to assume the same fate awaits the American empire. Democratic empire will turn out to be a suicide pact crafted by people addicted to risk taking.”
The ultimate irony here is that the definitive account of the Peloponnesian War was written by none other than Donald Kagan! (I just finished it a few months ago. It’s a good but somewhat confusing read). They don’t even read their own books.
1
A university course I remember well even after 50+ years was “History of the Origin of Wars”, taught by Donald Kagan, father of the Kagan clan everyone loves to hate. The first war studied was the Peloponnesian War and the required reading was of course Thucydides. The inevitability of the war, wrote Thucydides, was brought about by “[t]he growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon”. As Athens became an empire, Sparta tried to dissuade Athens from building a defensive wall, but Sparta’s initiative failed. Things went downhill from there and proud Athens eventually overreached. Father Donald’s expositions of Thucydides seemed to have fallen on deaf ears with respect to conclusions drawn by the younger members of the clan. And yes, there are parallels between the GAE as Athens and Russia/China as Sparta and the Persians. What was it Santayana wrote about those who do not learn from history? Perhaps even in the case of those who teach it, one might ask.
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Donald Kagan’s books are excellent. Like the rest of the neocons from that generation, he was a smart and educated man, but his children all turned out to be barking mad.
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I listened to one of his courses on iTunes U a good while back, and it was excellent, until the very end. Iirc, he was wistful about Greeks dying for a lost cause against the Macedonians. Maybe the crazy was always there but didn’t show itself until old age. Idk.
Speaking of which, I watched an interview between Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan. It was fascinating. They really don’t try to hide how they view people outside their tribe. Frankly, it’s a chilling.
Anyway, the interview was about ostensibly about US foreign policy between WWI and WWII, but the primary point that Kagan kept making is that the American people didn’t know what was good for them and needed to be tricked into getting into WWII for their own good. However, once the US was in the war, the American people rallied like no other and won the war, he noted.
What’s odd is that they acknowledge that the US is militarily and even economically more or less invulnerable, but that it’s our duty to impose a liberal world order on the world, naturally defined by and run by people like Kagan and Kristol Why? Well, because they say so, that’s why.
Of course, Kagan was saying that our Middle East wars have had a similar effect on Americans as WWI, i.e., they don’t want to fight anymore stupid, pointless foreign wars that have nothing to do with us. And, of course, Kagan and Kristol agree that these stupid goys need to ignored and tricked just as they were in WWII.
Btw, the voices and mannerisms of Kagan and Kristol are stunningly annoying. Just being in the same room with them would make me want to punch them.
1
Is this the one you watched? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzwxsgSZhi8
Ever since Trump came on the scene, our rulers seem to have been in the grips of a manic fever. As Z notes, they jump from one mad scheme to another. Trump is Hitler. Covid. BLM. White nationalists. Ukraine.
They can’t seem to calm down on their own, which means that they’re going to keep jumping from one mad scheme to another until something breaks.
Btw, I don’t know if Ukraine will go down as GAE’s Syracuse, but I do believe that it will be seen as a significant turning point in global affairs. The world doesn’t fear the US military as it did before the war. The US can definitely still throw a punch, but that punch isn’t fatal. What’s more, the US can only throw a few punches before it wears out and other countries can punch back more than the US is willing to accept.
That leaves the US with one big weapon that puts real fear into other countries: the dollar. But deploying the dollar as a weapon isn’t as easy as sending a carrier group and it comes with serious risks to our own system.
GAE is in a much less powerful position today than before Ukraine.
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“… crafted by people addicted to risk taking.”
It’s not that they are addicted to risk taking, it’s that they pay no personal price for being wrong. That’s called “skin in the game” and when you have none of it, messing around with people’s lives and institutions is cost-free, to you at least.
1
It is amusing to watch elected officials step down to become lobbyists — and military generals retire to become defense contractor executives. There is a whole cornucopia of rewards awaiting you if you play ball while you’re in power.
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The notion that the managerial class is risk takers is not quite right. They’re more like Hollywood players than anything else.
In the movie biz, it is preferred to have a big flop than a piddling success of a movie. Their big Hollywood egos enjoys big things. They aim to swing the bat for it out of the park — or, screw it, we’ll just strike out gloriously.
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In 1905, the Japanese Empire, acting on the orders of the ceremonial emperor in Tokyo, took over Korea. They held this territory effortlessly until 1945. Perhaps 2024 America is like 1905 Japan — expansionist, full of vim & beans, in it for the Long haul.
Only, with America, the world is their Korea.
7
I look at someone like Eric Cantor and think he is probably glad he lost in 2014. Makes more money now and probably works a lot fewer hours. There are many more like him.
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