Class analysis/was Re: [extropy-chat] letter concerning presidential growth

Technotranscendence neptune at superlink.net
Thu Dec 15 16:31:13 UTC 2005


Those interested in class analysis might want to read Roderick Long's
"Can We Escape the Ruling Class?" at:

http://libertariannation.org/a/f21l2.html

I was particularly fascinated by his splitting the American ruling class
into Bureaucrats and Plutocrats.  He states:

"A ruling class need not be monolithic, however. In fact, most ruling
classes are divided into two broad factions, which we may call the
political class and the corporate class. The political class comprises
those who are in direct control of running the state - politicians,
civil servants, and the like; the corporate class, on the other hand,
comprises the wealthy quasi-private beneficiaries of state power - the
collectors of subsidies, government contracts, and grants of monopoly
privilege. These two groups might be called the Bureaucrats and the
Plutocrats.

"These two wings of the ruling class have similar interests, and they
work together. But their interests are not identical, and each side
strives to become the dominant partner in the relationship. When the
political class gains the upper hand, the polity tends toward socialism;
when the corporate class gets the upper hand, it tends toward fascism.
In the United States today, each of the two major political parties
works (mostly unintentionally, through the invisible hand process
discussed above) to advance the interests of both wings of the ruling
class - but the Democrats tend to lean more toward the Bureaucrats,
while the Republicans lean more to the Plutocrats.

"This model serves as a remarkably good predictor of Republican and
Democratic policies.  High taxes on the poor are in the interest of both
ruling parties, and so both parties in practice enact these, whatever
their rhetoric.  But high taxes on the rich benefit the political class
at the expense of the corporate class, so Republicans support and
Democrats oppose a capital gains tax cut.  On the health care issue,
Democrats favor socialized medicine - giving the political class control
over health care - while Republicans favor the status quo - keeping
health care largely in the hands of quasi-private beneficiaries of state
privilege, like insurance companies and the AMA. (A genuine free market
in health care is the last thing either faction wants to see.)  Both
sides have an interest in gun control, in order to keep the subject
population disarmed and docile, but for the corporate class this
interest is partly offset by the interest that weapons manufacturers
have in keeping guns available; thus Democrats are strongly for, and
Republicans are weakly against, gun control. And so on. Thus most of the
major political debates in this country are merely squabbles within the
ruling class."

I'm sure similar analyses can be applied to other nations.

Later!

Dan
http://uweb1.superlink.net/~neptune/




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