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 Time Travel Oligarchy
The tourism industry is trying to help to prop up many countries as manufacturing and trade dissolve into the mist. Many folks are painfully aware of the economic challenges that face businesses, political systems, and families around the world. So what are we, as a civilization, as a global community, looking at in terms of a corporatist future? Are we revisiting the corporatist past, potent in the vestigial memories of all but the most dense of us? What is corporatism, and what is an oligarchy, why does any of this matter what it is? Oligarchy (from Greek "ολιγαρχια," oligarkhía [1]) is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with an elite class distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, commercial, and/or military legitimacy. The word oligarchy is derived from the Greek words "ολιγος" (olígos), "a few"[2] and the verb "αρχω" (archo), "to rule, to govern, to command".[3] Throughout history, most oligarchies have been tyrannical, relying on public servitude to exist, although others have been relatively benign. Plato pioneered the use of the term in Chapter Four, Book Eight of "The Republic" as a society in which wealth is the criterion of merit and the wealthy are in control. The actual literal translation from the Greek is "rule of the few". However oligarchy is not always a rule by wealth, as oligarchs can simply be a privileged group, and do not have to be connected by bloodlines as in a monarchy. Some city-states from ancient Greece were oligarchies.
Examples of Oligarchies Since the collapse of the Soviet Union on 31 December 1991, privately owned Russia-based multinational corporations, including producers of petroleum, natural gas, and metal have become oligarchs. Privatization allowed executives to amass phenomenal wealth and power almost overnight. In May 2004, the Russian edition of Forbes identified 36 of these oligarchs as being worth at least US$1 billion.[4] A fictional oligarchy is represented by the Party in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Modern Democracy as Oligarchy Robert Michels believed that any political system eventually evolves into an oligarchy. He called this the iron law of oligarchy. According to this school of thought, modern democracies should be considered as oligarchies. In these systems, actual differences between viable political rivals are small, the oligarchic elite impose strict limits on what constitutes an acceptable and respectable political position, and politicians' careers depend heavily on unelected economic and media elites. Thus the popular phrase: there is only one political party, the incumbent party. Corporate Oligarchy (Corporatocracy)
Corporate oligarchy is a form of power, governmental or operational, where such power effectively rests with a small, elite group of inside individuals, sometimes from a small group of educational institutions, or influential economic entities or devices, such as banks, commercial entities that act in complicity with, or at the whim of the oligarchy, often with little or no regard for constitutionally protected prerogative. Monopolies are sometimes granted to state-controlled entities, such as the Royal Charter granted to the East India Company. Some (see Kalle Lasn) are of the opinion that due to the effects of the unfettered laissez-faire capitalism present in its economy, the increasingly powerful influence of corporations on its political system is turning (or has already turned) the modern United States into a corporate oligarchy. While this claim is accepted by some, it is also rejected by others who voice that laissez-faire economics has never existed in true (or unfettered) form and that the collusion of regulators and industry would be the more plausible source of power.
Athenian Techniques to Prevent the Rise of Oligarchy Especially during the Fourth Century BC, after the restoration of democracy from oligarchical coups, the Athenians used the drawing of lots for selecting government officers in order to counteract what the Athenians acutely saw as a tendency toward oligarchy in government if a professional governing class were allowed to use their skills for their own benefit.[5] They drew lots from large groups of adult volunteers as a selection technique for civil servants performing judicial, executive, and administrative functions (archai, boule, and heliastai).[6] They even used lots for very important posts, such as judges and jurors in the political courts (nomothetai), which had the power to overrule the Assembly.[7] Do you care about this future? Are you fine with it,
or do you feel there are other options? Do you have suggestions, ideas,
solutions to these issues? Write to TravelingBoy and let us know if
you’ve experienced the economic pressures abroad that affect us all.
The Tea Party and the Occupy Movement, and other groups in the USA and
elsewhere have touched primal beliefs and concerns about the very survival
of our culture. Am I being too dramatic? Write to us! |
ome
argue that the United States is a failed empire that is descending into
a doomed corporatist oligarchy. Ask visitors from other countries, and
travel to Europe, where political cynicism has always been more rampant
than in the USA. Look at failing economies and bankrupt states across
the globe.
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Stay tuned.
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