this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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On the topic of boots, one book, The Iron Heel written by Jack London in early 1900s before any of the World Wars, really grabbed my interest in how stark it is in surfacing the early onset of a greed and oppression-riddled social environment of tyrannical government mechanisms.
The book entertains the thought of oligarchical entitied in capitalists economies resorting to the bloody massacres beyond non-violoent oppressions they perpetuate to practically have regular people be worked like slaves or be part of the aware or unaware collaborators in the non-violent oppression, all the while in latter years in reality saw openly tyrannical movements like fascism or Stalin's communism saw the violent oppressions almost as first maneuvers.
This latter violent-oppression-as-first-moves has become the boogeyman at the door awaiting if the capitalist oligarchs are destabilized in favor of direct governing via means of production being in the hands of workers or workers having a prominent voice in politics directly rather than being "represented" through lobbying elites or monopolized companies having the last say in their own industries and meddling with other industries.
What I want to say is that this earlier dystopian novel may have missed the mark on which countries utilized the shocking violent oppressions, but it is nevertheless very much on point in displaying the police as "pinkertons" or the literal heels or the inquisitors, agent provocateurs that we see news in these "anti-semitic protests being actually cried out by zionist instigators, shown with footages" among peaceful protests, the abyss people already being present as homeless/down-trodden/drug-abusers-as-an-escape/the extreme form of quiet quitters, corporations and billionaires owning monopoly on a starting industry and meddling with others, media being utilized to call anyone raising a hand in defense against genocides as terrorists, rapists, cannibals.and barbarians while demanding support for literal carpet bombing that is only not called as such because it is spread over weeks instead of hours, etc. in all of these so-called democracies in the west.
Any thoughts on these topics and the relevancy of the book, which I'd say in musing hyperbole that it is criminally under-discussed or mentioned?
Haha, yes, clearly it was the monopolies and oligarchies that created the Stallin regime. /sarcasm
I have a theory that what tends to fuel authoritarianism and hierarchy is power being alloted too much in any one sphere. Like if the state becomes the only power over resources the people who are predatory are drawn to positions within it. If business and private ownership is empowered and left unchecked they end up there. It's easy to forget that predatory expansionism is not simply a feature unique to capitalism. Human greed will adapt to fit whatever system where power is allowed to aggregate making it potentially tip and fall if unbalanced.
That doesn't explain the many many many dictatorships that started out from the power vacuum caused by armed insurrectionists dismantling the former state.
Generally speaking I think that's something seperate - opportunism in the face of disaster. What you are describing occurs after power aggregation and human cupidity has tipped everything too far. What I am describing is more towards the aim of prevention measures long before that point. Power consolidation has it's enemy too which is human misery lowering the barriers to violence. You either rebalance the spinning plate before it destablizes and crashes to the ground or you get stuck with whatever shitty situation ends up as a result. Gluing things back together after the fact rarely is the better solution which is why timing is critical.
If you want a full and complete veiw of my reflectiona on history it's gunna take more than a quippy summary. Not every short post is indicitive of a full and complete veiw of someone's full political theory. It's why people write very chonky books on the subject.
No, it's not separate, you don't just get to say the leading cause of authoritarian states is a separate thing from the causes of authoritatian states.
That would be like claiming heart disease isn't really what kills people, that's just cholesterol finding opportunities for people to die.
They are different authoritarian states. There isn't a one size fits all situation. An authoritarian state that comes before a state failure tends to exist using pre-established powers. Either nobility/premogenitor culture, liquid asset wealth, theocracy, assumption and exploitation of the mechanics of statehood - that kind of thing.
Once one of those crashes due to revolt you start dealing with new powers. Cult of personality militias which offer easy solutions to quelling the chaos. Your Napoleons, Cromwells and Stalins who just slip in and recreate old inequities. Or can become a civil war of factions and warlords fighting over scraps. They work on slightly different dynamics.
To my mind hierarchy to a certain extent is desired by a lot of people. There is a comfort knowing where you fit and an alleviation of anxiety in being told by someone you trust what to do and knowing that you have someone below you. Oftentimes when power is in disarray it congregates around people who just talk a good game. The danger I think of spreading power too thin is that if there isn't some kind of structure people seem to like to default to very basic heirachies based on tribalistic notions and their preconceived notions of what power looks like.
Cope
This. I want a shift towards socialism not because I think socialism is perfect but because change is good. Our system, whether it's capitalism, crony capitalism or some other term I'm too stupid to know, is stagnant.
I mean what people often get wrong about Socialism is that you have to 100% adopt every kind of publicly held property to be a socialist. It comes in a lot of different forms some of which we take for granted as normal. One has to remember that the guy who coined the phrase was writing from perspective a hundred years before things like socialized medicine, municipal fire and waste services were an idea. Private sector was practically everything and most places were still high on very extreme early versions of assistance like workhouse systems. There's a lot of writing that has been done in the interm regarding socialism but the basics are always to empower the sphere of publicly held wealth. It's easy to get disenchanted with something that's out of control and easy to forget that there are strengths in that system too. What determines the weed in the garden is sometimes just the thing that needs more pruning than other plants.
Good point. Appreciate the insight
This got me thinking about fascist takovers. Once those parties took power, they ended up taking over industry. However, in America it seems to be reaching the same goal through the opposite path. Industry is taking over the government. The parallels are scary. I am living in fear of violence from my neighbors. I see no path of escape. Malicious ignorance is insurmountable and booming.
It went the same order before, too. Hitler threw a literal meeting with the heads of industry asking to fund jis campaign, in what he claimed would be possibly the last election in a while. The US had a conspiracy that is literally called "the business plot".