What Sort Of Despotism Democratic Nations Have To Fear - 11-13-2010 (1)

 [Note to the reader, I read my original opening and wondered how I came to the conclusion that de Tocqueville feared a tyrannical bureaucracy. The opening quote was, “But it would seem that if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days, it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them….” Conservative Republicans and their patrons in the business class find the administrative state oppressive by cutting into their profits to protect the public good. I cannot say now that my reading of de Tocqueville is correct. Instead, I start with my second paragraph. sch 8/25/2024.]

I believe that Newtonian physics applied still to politics. For every action, there is a reaction. People may love equality and conformity, but there is a limit to that love. As Henry Ford learned, people want more than black cars. People will eat Big Macs, but Burger King will make it your way.

We also have a history that de Tocqueville lacked. We saw the gray, dullness of Soviet life, punctuated by fear and depression. Furthermore, we know the outcome of totalitarian equality.

We have seen the equality of fascism and Nazism — imposed by nationality and ethnicity and fear.

We know where we do not want to go and where we should not go. But we must also recognize human nature has not changed since de Tocqueville's day. People will value security over democracy. Ben Franklin said something like that. We would do well to remember that when we seek out leaders to save us from ourselves. [I think I skipped over a transition or a premise back in 2010. History shows us the freedom promised by autocrats falsifies its security. Its security is the security of the slave. Nietzsche railed against the herd instinct of democracy, only it is belonging to the security of the democractic herd that we have a truly just security. Those who say only a strongman can keep us safe want not justice but power over you. sch 8/25/2024.]

Too many of us live in the badlands. We struggle paying our bills. Who will not be tempted into wanting security — even if it means giving up your liberty? We had economic security in my childhood because General Motors had no competition. In my middle age, we have allowed a concentration of wealth and capital, and a fleecing of the middle class without any social benefit. We entered the Information Age years ago with the working class awaiting the return of unskilled factory jobs. The President has been raised to the level of secular savior. We live in a country where de Tocqueville's fears of despotism may come from the billionaire class.

The business cycle once broke established wealth in favor of new money. The capital demands of new businesses are great just as capital gets scarce. Small businesses fund a huge amount of the American economy. They also lack the organizational funding capable of gaming the American political system. All this passed by de Tocqueville because Big Business will not exist for decades after he published his book. Large numbers of workers working in large factories are as dead as the dodo. Nor have our politicians truly explained how we must fill the holes of economy with small businesses left by the demise of the old industrial model. What we got was the service economy.

sch

[It seems to me a lot of what I wrote here still applies in Muncie. I have worked with people who wax nostalgic about the loss of General Motors jobs. Educational levels are high school or GED, mostly. There are no calls from on high are heard extolling the virtues of higher education. There are even more signs of the billionaire class directing the government for their benefit, rather than the general good. The one thing left us is the ballot. 

To be continued in “What Sort Of Despotism Democratic Nations Have To Fear — 11-13-2010 (2)”

sch 8/25/2024.]