{"id":76502,"date":"2022-01-25T14:54:21","date_gmt":"2022-01-25T20:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=76502"},"modified":"2022-01-25T14:54:21","modified_gmt":"2022-01-25T20:54:21","slug":"76502","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=76502","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

BLUF:
\nThis is the true meaning of \u201cOur Democracy\u201d\u2122: an oligarchy in fact but with the external trappings of democracy to provide rhetorical legitimacy.<\/strong> We stand at a crossroads. We as citizens will either reclaim the mantle of republican self-government or, by meekly submitting to the rule of our oligarchic elites, bid a sad farewell to the American commonwealth.<\/p>\n

\u2018Our Democracy\u2122\u2019: Oligarchy With Democratic Trappings<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the past few months, it has become common for Democrats and progressives to invoke \u201cOur Democracy\u201d\u2122 whenever they criticize efforts to ensure election integrity or condemn the perpetrators of the January 6 \u201cinsurgency.\u201d On one level, the phrase is just another annoying example of debasing the language by the very people who have been working overtime to rewrite the Constitution.<\/p>\n

But on another level, the phrase suggests something even more sinister: that those who invoke it literally mean \u201ctheir\u201d democracy, i.e. a regime that belongs to them, validated by the votes of the \u201cright people\u201d who approve of their so-called progressive enterprise. Anyone who doesn\u2019t approve is, by definition, an insurgent, an enemy of the state. Any attempt to limit their power\u2014e.g., by insisting on election integrity\u2014is therefore \u201canti-democratic.\u201d<\/p>\n

I am only one of a number of writers who have argued that the United States has devolved from a\u00a0republic<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0commonwealth<\/i>\u00a0to an\u00a0oligarchy<\/i>. Lest we succumb to the error of progressives and simply use a word to mean something we don\u2019t like, it is important to understand the nature and background of oligarchy. It is not just any \u201cruling class\u201d but an elite and ruling class of a particular sort. In this regard, it helps to examine the taxonomy of regimes outlined by the first political scientists, Plato and Aristotle.<\/p>\n

These writers identified three types of rule: the one; the few; and the many. Each form had a good and bad version, the former based on rule for the benefit of the entire polity and the latter rule on behalf of the ruler or ruling class alone. Thus, the good form of rule by the one was\u00a0kingship<\/i>; the bad form\u00a0tyranny<\/i>. The good form of rule by the few was\u00a0aristocracy<\/i>; the bad form\u00a0oligarchy<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0plutocracy<\/i>. And the good form of rule by the many was\u00a0politeia<\/i>\u00a0or a balanced constitution, which the Romans translated as\u00a0res publica<\/i>\u00a0and which is most properly rendered as\u00a0commonwealth<\/i>\u00a0in English; the bad form was pure\u00a0democracy<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0ochlocracy<\/i>: that is, mob rule.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For Aristotle, all regimes were subject to\u00a0metabole<\/i>, a process of change that included corruption and decline. His successor Polybius went further, suggesting that all political regimes were subject to the \u201ccycle of constitutions\u201d (anakuklosis politeion<\/i>). He saw the cycle proceeding this way: A kingship begins virtuously, but over time the rule by the one on behalf of the whole deteriorates into tyranny. The virtuous few, the\u00a0aristoi<\/i>, depose the tyrant and reestablish well-ordered rule. But over time that aristocracy deteriorates from the rule of the\u00a0virtuous<\/i>\u00a0to the rule of the\u00a0wealthy<\/i>: oligarchy. The oligarchs are then overthrown by the virtuous many (the people), but the balanced constitution that is put in place inevitably deteriorates into unruly democracy. Then the cycle repeats itself. This process of degenerating constitutions was the central problem for the Greek founders of the science of politics: essentially, that good forms of rule become corrupted and descend into bad forms.<\/p>\n

The United States seems to have been subject to the same\u00a0metabole<\/i>\u00a0described by the Greeks. What was founded as a commonwealth has devolved into an oligarchy, the interests of which are at odds with those of the people at large. This ruling \u201celite\u201d includes not only unelected bureaucrats ruling in their own interests but also corporate leaders in tech, finance, and media, who establish rules from which they themselves are exempt or of which they are the beneficiaries.<\/p>\n

Of course, all complex societies have a \u201cruling class,\u201d which can be either aristocratic or oligarchic. The United States has prospered when its ruling class has been aristocratic\u2014prosperous but public-spirited philanthropists devoted to the common good. In such cases, the interests of this aristocratic ruling class have coincided with interests of the nation as a whole. But problems arise when an aristocratic ruling class devolves into an oligarchic one\u2014motivated by a self-interest that diverges from that of the republic and its citizens.<\/p>\n

We have seen this with the evolution, or rather devolution, of previous American elites from aristocracy to oligarchy:<\/p>\n