But I think you're missing a "white elephant", which you've also identified, but it gets missed by many in these discussions, although it's now entering the zeitgeist, albeit slowly because it reveals the rot and the lack of easy answers. (Kicking the can down the road has its perks!)
I think the central issues are of ethics and culture. This should be the central thread tying things together.
"can you ever recruit good and dedicated people to do the necessary but unglamorous plumbing and maintenance that keeps society actually functioning?"
That's an excellent question and probably says a lot more about why civilizations at their peak seemingly disappear overnight. Historians usually clutch at straws because they rely on artifacts.
But the truth is selfless people don't leave much of a trace, and yet as a collective we depend on them to function.
So how do we get "good and dedicated people"? How would we even recognize these people?
Good implies ethics and morality, an aesthetic, value judgements.
Dedicated implies personal honor to live the life that's been chosen (or foisted upon). To be persistent, to uphold the standards when times are difficult, or to solve problems as you rightly point out, as and when they arise.
And what we really want is a 50 year old with 30 years of experience of shoveling shit to be at the apex of their area of responsibility, just in case.
That was my grandfather's generation, who came of age during WW2 (becoming an adult during those years must have created some tough hombres!)
What we have today are 60-70 year olds, some of whom have the right mindset (thanks to their parents and society while they were young), leaving the workforce, and 20 year olds entering it, most of whom want to get rich quick or set-up "passive income schemes" (= feudal rent extraction). And many 30-50 year olds who downed tools and walked away or were shown the door for not playing along to get along, because let's be honest, if your "highest concern" in life isn't earning +$1mil a year, you're in the wrong movie called the Modern Western World playing 24/7 on the screen.
(So maybe we also need to talk about our collective relationship with money, without falling into tropes about left & right etc)
I live in Italy and I don't think the "system" can be reformed. I don't think we've even begun to see the real rot underneath the surface narratives. My personal joke atm is that if you want to see the technocratic feudalistic future, then try to live (and start a business!) in Italy.
I've "wasted" by now half my life trying to understand what's necessary for good governance. Ok, not really wasted as that's not my day job. Just a personal hobby. Yet I think I've invested a good couple of 10k hours in this.
while being(apparently) a good manager; and having a good understanding of how complex systems work due to the day job. Also a healthy dose of inability to BS myself.
after 20 years, the only "answer" I have is "don't let sociopaths in the system". Or, ok, let as few as it's humanly possible. It's not "left", it's not "right", it's not free market, it's not the power of the state, nothing like that. Just try to keep the psychopaths out.
which is easier said than done. There's a huge asymmetry between a large majority which is PERFECTLY UNINTERESTED in the nooks and crannies of how the system works. And a minority who's VERY interested. And is willing to dedicate a huge amount of hours and effort to reach power.
"can you ever recruit good and dedicated people to do the necessary but unglamorous plumbing and maintenance that keeps society actually functioning?"
this thing that happened for less then 3 generations(and yes - it was somewhat the case for EEurope too) frankly is nothing short of amazing.
"And what we really want is a 50 year old with 30 years of experience of shoveling shit to be at the apex of their area of responsibility, just in case."
I remember that was one of the major shocks when communism fell. And I started figuring out things aren't exactly how they're supposed to be.
I was a child back then. But even so... It was this new idea that we need "managers". The hospital manager doesn't have to be a doctor; he has to be a "manager". That was the first time when a lot of alarm bells were triggered; despite the euphoria that the fall of communism brought me. It sounded very much like a new nomeclatura. Basically - a class of "bosses". A new aristocracy; but without any social pact as a vague safety net.
Even worse, it was pretty clear that this new class would be way worse than the original nomeclatura(don't ask me how I was understanding those things at ~10 years as I have no clue - mostly intuition I suppose).
At least, the original nomeclatura was formed out of rather simple people. With usually a lot of real life experience. And who were somewhat aware of their own incompetence. So they were somewhat willing to listen. Also, the original nomenclatura wasn't full of sociopaths. Many just happened to be in the right place at the right time; during a murky period. Sure... not monuments of ethics. But not necesarilly power hungry sociopaths either.
the new ones... =))
how you bring back that magic? I'm afraid it has something to do major crises. How is Russia currently "purging" their army of all the peacetime generals? Good at army politics? But crap at their actual job? By having an existential war. It sounds unappealing, for sure, but...
as I said before. During normal times, the vast majority is simply uninterested in how the system works. If I want to annoy people at a party, a sure way to do is discuss cause and effects of various policies :P
Which gives free reign to sociopaths. Sure, said sociopaths manage to generate crises with their incompetence in the actual leading. Which brings abnormal times. When the vast majority can't afford their usual lack of interest; as it becomes a life & death situation.
rinse and repeat :P
p.s. - after 20 years I'm pretty sure a "solution" to my problem doesn't exist. At least it wasn't a complete waste of time. I know by now that the problem doesn't have a solution =))
"after 20 years, the only "answer" I have is "don't let sociopaths in the system". Or, ok, let as few as it's humanly possible."
I have long said that the function of government is to keep power out of the hands of sociopaths. However, because they will do literally whatever it takes to get power, sociopaths inevitably corrupt any system and turn it sociopathic.
Not only that, once sociopaths enter a system, everyone else must turn sociopath, because the only way to beat a cheater is to cheat.
Power selects strongly for sociopathy, because sociopaths are the humans who will do whatever it takes to get power.
As sociopaths become entrenched in any system, it becomes unreformable, because those entrenched interests will not allow their share of the loot to be touched. At some point, the only thing left to do is to Burn It All Down and start over.
This is the underlying force behind Alexander Tytler's cycle of nations "from bondage to spiritual faith...."
This is why the ancient Bronze Age civilizations had the "andurarum/deror" -- the return to the "mother state" by the regular wiping out of debts, known to the Hebrew tradition as Jubilee. This concept was lost during the Bronze Age Collapse and we have been suffering under rule by the rural usurers and their heirs ever since.
We recently had a replay of the "farmers borrow too much, the state forgives farm debts" cycle. The Philippine government in 2023 forgave a billion dollars in farm debt. The ""New Agrarian Emancipation Act"".
Well, those people you're talking about don't emerge in a vacuum as atomized individuals; they BELONG -- to families which are themselves in turn rooted in community with ties unsullied by the cash nexus. In our market fundamentalist societies, these arrangements have been increasingly dissolved, with devastating socioeconomic consequences, and when we encounter them in foreign lands they are an anathema to be dissolved by our "rules based order" or bombed into oblivion.
Virtue is blocked and actively fought by unrecognised trauma, especially if "virtue" has come to represent refusal to square up with/recognise one's own errors and imperfections (e.g. the Church).
What do you mean by technocratic? Just because we have "modern technology" the system itself is not technocratic. Technocratic implies expertise, professionalism. Aurelien clearly makes the point that that doesn't exist any longer.
I agree that professionalism (as an ideal, as an amalgam of virtuous characteristics) is dwindling or doesn't exist anymore.
In terms of technocracy, I'll give you an example of something that happened to me recently. The Italian IRS decided in March there was a mistake on my 2019 tax returns. So they sent me a fine (pay x within 60 days or else).
Because I'm not a moron, some of the time, and I knew of this problem back in 2019, I solved the problem the following year and paid what was needed (through my accountant; because even if you earn less than 100k in Italy you need an accountant, it's that complex a web to navigate: tax returns aren't 1 page).
So what did I do now in 2024? I paid the fine I had already paid in 2020, again. Or I could have passed a month talking to my accountant, sending in more documents, trying to figure out why, who, what, etc.
The best part about all this wasn't the fine but that my Italian bank had already preloaded the payment options online without any input from me. Isn't that interesting?
It's basically only one step away from automatically deducting the money from my account with me none the wiser.
Since a form of fascism is corporatism, which we could define in simple terms as an incestuous relationship between private enterprise and the state, my recent personal lived experience would suggest we're more or less there right now. Add a strong dose of bureaucracy and technology, pick an ideology from the menu and what could possibly go wrong?
isn't it funny when you're facing such asymmetries? =))
You pay the fine. The fine is small/smallish. But it didn't register and they want the money one more time. And you're confronted with the dilemma: waste x hours to prove you paid. Or pay again.
I BS myself that what I have to pay divided by x is way less than I make per hour. So I should just pay it again.
Which is obviously bullshit and lying to myself, but... how was in the original? "... they needed to be able to distinguish between causes that were hopeless, and causes worth fighting for. "
guess we're both decent politicians :P
p.s. - just had exactly the same crap last month. Different country, same shit =))
If it ain't broke, it doesn't need fixing. The Confucian system lasted for around 1500 years, give or take. That's saying something.
Sometimes it's better to keep something that works but is imperfect than attempting perfection but creating more problems down the line.
As Vlad noted, a class of managers (post 1950s) with no societal obligations... further down the line... (post 1990s) and suddenly we're in deep trouble.
We all know that after a hundred years or so, or perhaps sooner, every regime in China got corrupt and finally collapsed. There was simply no counterveiling power there to punish corrupt officials. I would have got against Confucian ideals, according to which an official per definition always was good.
Yes, of course, our system is corrupt too, probably because of the public contracts. But the confucian system is no alternative.
Look at "Confucian civil service history". It started around 200 BC and lasted until the 19th century. It survived dynasties and was reformed early on to include children from peasant families. Modern China is a mess until you read about how the Chinese communist party reintroduced the Confucian system in the early 2000s. Recently I read you need a 140+ IQ to pass the test (intake is 1400 pple per year unless mistaken).
If we stop being infatuated with the ancient Greeks we westerners might realize we can learn interesting things from elsewhere.
I'm not saying they're perfect, but we need to be less arrogant.
Actually, our own civil service is based on the Confucian system. It was much adored in the late 18th century (despite Heshen, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heshen) and when it was reformed in Europe, with a beginning in England, they relied much upon Confucius. Probably, any civil service must have a certain dose of it.
But it is not enough. There must always be someone guarding the guardians. Otherwise they will deform society to fit their own egotistical needs, and run away with the family silver.
Not yet. The Chinese get it better each year. But the urban middle-class youth seems to become somewhat fed-up byt the onesided focus on material wealth.
Emmanuel Todd in "La Défaite de l’Occident" is clear: political elites are no longer representatives of the people; they represent themselves. They "know" better; anyone who wants to serve the people is dubbed a populist.
Very thought provoking, and coincides with both my father's experience being on a committee of experts dealing with the increasing problems of waste management in one of the wealthiest suburban communities in the country, and my experiences working in non-profits to "serve" the public and being on urban transportation committees. All dysfunctional and corrupt to the point of being surreal.
But what, then, of societies that are improving, and largely working?
Take the case of Russia under Putin. Everybody, practically without exception, who has been in Russia since the 1990's until today say that Russia, as a country, and a society keeps on getting better and better. Remember, Putin's experience in St, Petersburg was in working with businesses who wanted in to invest in the city. This meant dealing with thorny and intractable problems, corruption, etc. In short, dealing with the real world and finding solutions. Another point in case, the current shake-up in the Russian military -- dealing with corruption and careerism.
Briefly, let's take the case of China. Lifting a cool half billion out of poverty and becoming the largest economy in the world, by far (PPP), without initiating a major war. I have many Chinese friends and acquaintances, and they all talk of the corruption in China. When I ask for examples, the stories related invariably speak of low-level nepotism: Someone getting a city job because of a family member in the CP, etc. When I ask if they could advance if they were completely corrupt, I am told no, they must perform at their job. Compared to the structural and epistemic issues you raise, this is almost laughably minor in scope. Indeed, the work experience of Xi Jin Ping is an exemplar of rising through the ranks because of demonstrative competence and success. Not a single Western leader could match his curriculum vitae.
So, in brief, what is the difference between societies which are largely working (not without constant problems and challenges, but which manage to overcome them), and societies which are not working?
Do geopolitical outcomes drive society (England's diminishing empire and economic relevance in the world), or do functional societies drive better geopolitical outcomes.
I don’t know how it is in China, but in Russia everyone works. If you don't work hard, you won't survive in Russia. There are no large benefits on which you can live without working in Russia. Moreover, the Russians themselves do all the hard work. For example, Russians work everywhere at a blast furnace or at a rolling mill at a metallurgical plant. I think the British haven’t stood at blast furnaces for a long time. They probably don't exist in Britain at all.
I have written previously about how the elites are very good at spectacle, abstraction and the like, but that this has little real world bearing, any more than a selection of really strategically gifted footballers are likely also to be genius-level mathematicians. I won't bore you with it, again.
I wills ay that what Sunak and Macron are doing makes perfect sense. They know they cannot "win" an election and that their popularity and the popularity of their Ukrainian pet will only decline with time, especially once the bodies start to come home in large numbers. That ship has sailed. That train has left the station. The horses have left the stable and are down the road, fornicating with the neighboring farmer's cows.
Macron and Sunak are not only trying to lose less badly, although that is a large part of their logic. They also want to make support for American hegemony in general and the War on Russia in particular to be part of the price of power that their political opposition must pay, and they want to makes sure that the opposition pays that price now and incurs sunk costs in doing so, before that war becomes even more politically toxic.
Yes, I get the sense that Sunak in particular is in a hurry to have himself removed so as to be as far away as possible when all of the shit he and the Tories have piled up for the UK really hits the fan. As for Macron, he's going to be stuck with the job (absent outright resignation) regardless of the electoral outcome in France, so it is less clear to me how this little tantrum of his is going to help him.
Not exactly, More like "if this ship is going done, then you're going down with it! Meanwhile, I got me a think tank fellowship to take up or a venture capital fund to start!"
"...make sure that the opposition pays that price now and incurs sunk costs in doing so, before that war becomes even more politically toxic."
mine: "Live to fight another day" The ones that take the lead now, are the fall guys. The public sensory is not refined enough to accept the complexity of true. Take away the energy abundance that Putin manages, and ...he will fail.
"Modern politics, including even communication and the management of political campaigns, consists very largely of the attempt to apply theoretical and normative models to real life, and then to blame the failure of the ideas on those implementing them, not on the stupidity of those ideas in the first place."
Bingo. I have been wondering where the mind virus of putting theory above praxis originated. It infected marxism-leninism. It was already there in the medieval times. It was already there when the ancient doctors derived treatments from their humoral theories, rather than from common sense and trial and error. Any ideas? I am baffled.
I have ideas, but I am not sure how germane they are to your specific question. I believe that the "putting theory before praxis," as you put it, is simply another aspect of our species ability/tendency/penchant, for inventing fictions and then having those fictions control us. Money, religion, borders, race. All are ideas that have no basis in reality, but we have become incapable of living without them.
That suggests there's no easy way to overcome this. Certainly constant vigilance is only the start of what is required.
Religion is only 'an idea that has no basis in reality' if one is an out and out materialist. Philosophically, there are inescapable and insoluble problems with such a stance. While there are also problems with the cruder forms and practices of religion, it is also an indispensable tool for social cohesion (in it's widest sense only).
Science works from paradigm to paradigm. It is obviousl that this present paradigm of how the polis is being run is well beyond its due date... But those in power would rather not change anything than to loose a little bit. Rather they would gamble and end up loosing everything....
As a former (and repented or, as they said in Italy in the Years of Lead, dissociated) business school professor, I cannot but accept your view of the "MBA textbook" as essentially a literary genre akin to Hollywood movies, where the good "white hats" with neat theories and mathematical models and excel spreadsheets would arrive at the last minute to save the day. Alas, the child is grown, the dream is gone...
There is an irony. Most western states are nominally responsible for a higher share and absolute value of GDP than has probably ever been the case except in conditions of total war or Soviet style communism. But at the same time their competence, power and inclination to take objective decisions on behalf of their citizens has regressed heavily since the mid twentieth century peak. It feels like a leviathan that just gets bigger but as it does so it becomes more and more rotten at the core.
The west in this way does seem to be heading in the direction of state and societal failure, with different countries moving at different speeds but all on the same trajectory. I wonder if this change will be gradual or whether we shall see a catalyst of some form that accelerates it.
By the way, the corporate sector is no better. Most of it in the west seems these days to be predominantly rent seeking, with the executive class very much cut from the same cloth as the politicians.
Regarding "corporate... rent seeking": Hollywood -- both in terms of rebooting/remaking/reimagining (not necessarily) "older" movies, and the current (well into its second decade) superhero/DC/Marvel Comics "genre".
Excellent essay. It complements a bit with Simone Weil's "On the abolition of political parties", because of the Iron Law of Bureaucracy, which is a wrinkle of the Iron Law of Oligarchy (when you destroy the state, everything can be privatized, non?!)
Deep state refers to the policies and actions taken by the unelected officials, that go back decades, against the interests of the people and in conflict with the elected officials and their promises made to the people. Trump administration, war on Russia etc as an example.
"Deep state" was a term invented top cover all the routines of the state. These routines are built layer upon layer until in the end nobody knows exactly how they work. So nobody can be said having responsibility for anything (except possibly in the legal sense, but they try to avoid it since they don't want to take responsibility for things they don't understand).
This phenomenon is necessary in a big organization. Big organizations have to work by routines. And these routines have to get oblique with time. Until some disaster happens because something in the surroundings have changed that they didn't think about.
This is the ideas of Dan Davies: The unaccountability machine, 2024. He points out that there should also be some routines to deal with disasters – but that these were sorted out because the economists argued so brilliantly that they weren't needed. So here we are.
Greetings and thank you for the time and effort dedicated to this essay. I have to wonder, however, at the likely oversight contained here when you write,
The most recent expression of this dislike of the State, which seems to be the case across the
political spectrum, is the so-called “Deep State” phenomenon. As such, it is incoherent and described
in numerous contradictory ways, but it takes its origin from the fact that if States are to be effective,
they have to contain career professionals who know what they are doing, and have been doing it for
a long time.
Agreed, for the United States to be effective, the government has to contain professionals who know what they are doing. We've got that is spades - however, what those professionals have been doing and continue to do is antithetical to a well-run government concerned with the well-being of it's citizenry. This is your "Deep State", here defined as unelected persons both within and without the government, who by threat and/or enticement dictate policy to the politicians who thereby implement said policy. I submit that those inept, out of touch, corrupt politicians you describe are the symptoms of this likely terminal ailment. The cause of the disease, however, are those very professionals who "know what they are doing." Want a better country? Get better professionals.
I think that this essay and the commenters should take the time to re-read this essay and then spend the time reading Curtis Yarvin's essay over at his place.
Lots of grist between the two essays. I have to admit, sometimes I find Yarvin to be unpleasant, but he is thoughtful and many times presents a view of the world that is accurate.
We are in a time of change. None of the old methods are particularly effective and a lot of the time our hopes and preconceptions of the way the world is dash against an unpleasant reality
Making a profit is about assuming the most responsibility and then delegating it for the cheapest. The individual political entrepreneur's goal is to pile responsibilities on government that also do not fall on them individually, in order to avoid consequences.
I'm a fair bit more pessimistic in that regard. While you could have people being more accepting of outliers, I think that the whole selling point of representative democracies is that people can offload responsibilities rather than assume them. The higher you are on the totem pole, the more power and responsibility you have - but more is also forced on you (running a business, estate, or government is hard!). Proportionally, people lower down the totem pole have a lot less power, but also fewer responsibilities - someone who owns their home has to fix it, while someone who rents it leaves it to the landlord.
This allows people who prefer to take on responsibility to take on more and fill the seats of power, while those who want less can offload their responsibilities onto someone else, all according to their personal preference.
Democracy, as a practical matter, is basically an exercise in passing the buck, in avoiding responsibility. Everyone in power claims to answer to and derive their authority from someone else, going ultimately back to "the people" who themselves do not directly exercise power, and who would find it difficult to exercise as a collective action problem, even if they had the formal authority to do so.
What this means is that real power is often in the hands of unelected bureaucrats, who typically don't even want to stand for election because they don't want the voters to know what their programs are, much less to exercise any oversight. Robert Moses is the classic example here.
Even that minimal level of scrutiny is too much for some, and real power is often exercised by people not formally part of any government structure. Corporate lobbyists or Robert Kagan come to mind.
So, taking into account how wildly unpopular most western politicians and their policies are with their respective publics, "democracy" is basically a cover for rulers to do what they want. The technical term for this is a "beard".
After all, your elected representatives approved this. If you don't like it, you can vote for a different carefully vetted corporate imperialist muppet, so until then, shut up and fall in line!
Once upon a time I did some minor administrative and political job. It was overtime, unpaid and despite we did some critical good to the community most people either pretended they did not notice or told their neighbours that we are stealing community money. People in Russia have very contradictory views on politicians. On the one hand everybody is confident that every politician is a fraudster and a liar. On the other hand when something needs to be done they expect the guy they loathe to jump in and make everything right. In the it was indeed my sense of duty that helped me stay afloat until all the major stuff was done and I could finally leave this position.
I find it interesting that in your articles (which I greatly appreciate), the factor of dishonesty and/or corruption of individuals or organizations does not seem to have much weight.
Maybe from a more European perspective...
As a resident of South America, I see a very important weight of this aspect in political-administrative decisions.
Great essay 👍🏼
But I think you're missing a "white elephant", which you've also identified, but it gets missed by many in these discussions, although it's now entering the zeitgeist, albeit slowly because it reveals the rot and the lack of easy answers. (Kicking the can down the road has its perks!)
I think the central issues are of ethics and culture. This should be the central thread tying things together.
"can you ever recruit good and dedicated people to do the necessary but unglamorous plumbing and maintenance that keeps society actually functioning?"
That's an excellent question and probably says a lot more about why civilizations at their peak seemingly disappear overnight. Historians usually clutch at straws because they rely on artifacts.
But the truth is selfless people don't leave much of a trace, and yet as a collective we depend on them to function.
So how do we get "good and dedicated people"? How would we even recognize these people?
Good implies ethics and morality, an aesthetic, value judgements.
Dedicated implies personal honor to live the life that's been chosen (or foisted upon). To be persistent, to uphold the standards when times are difficult, or to solve problems as you rightly point out, as and when they arise.
And what we really want is a 50 year old with 30 years of experience of shoveling shit to be at the apex of their area of responsibility, just in case.
That was my grandfather's generation, who came of age during WW2 (becoming an adult during those years must have created some tough hombres!)
What we have today are 60-70 year olds, some of whom have the right mindset (thanks to their parents and society while they were young), leaving the workforce, and 20 year olds entering it, most of whom want to get rich quick or set-up "passive income schemes" (= feudal rent extraction). And many 30-50 year olds who downed tools and walked away or were shown the door for not playing along to get along, because let's be honest, if your "highest concern" in life isn't earning +$1mil a year, you're in the wrong movie called the Modern Western World playing 24/7 on the screen.
(So maybe we also need to talk about our collective relationship with money, without falling into tropes about left & right etc)
I live in Italy and I don't think the "system" can be reformed. I don't think we've even begun to see the real rot underneath the surface narratives. My personal joke atm is that if you want to see the technocratic feudalistic future, then try to live (and start a business!) in Italy.
I've "wasted" by now half my life trying to understand what's necessary for good governance. Ok, not really wasted as that's not my day job. Just a personal hobby. Yet I think I've invested a good couple of 10k hours in this.
while being(apparently) a good manager; and having a good understanding of how complex systems work due to the day job. Also a healthy dose of inability to BS myself.
after 20 years, the only "answer" I have is "don't let sociopaths in the system". Or, ok, let as few as it's humanly possible. It's not "left", it's not "right", it's not free market, it's not the power of the state, nothing like that. Just try to keep the psychopaths out.
which is easier said than done. There's a huge asymmetry between a large majority which is PERFECTLY UNINTERESTED in the nooks and crannies of how the system works. And a minority who's VERY interested. And is willing to dedicate a huge amount of hours and effort to reach power.
"can you ever recruit good and dedicated people to do the necessary but unglamorous plumbing and maintenance that keeps society actually functioning?"
this thing that happened for less then 3 generations(and yes - it was somewhat the case for EEurope too) frankly is nothing short of amazing.
"And what we really want is a 50 year old with 30 years of experience of shoveling shit to be at the apex of their area of responsibility, just in case."
I remember that was one of the major shocks when communism fell. And I started figuring out things aren't exactly how they're supposed to be.
I was a child back then. But even so... It was this new idea that we need "managers". The hospital manager doesn't have to be a doctor; he has to be a "manager". That was the first time when a lot of alarm bells were triggered; despite the euphoria that the fall of communism brought me. It sounded very much like a new nomeclatura. Basically - a class of "bosses". A new aristocracy; but without any social pact as a vague safety net.
Even worse, it was pretty clear that this new class would be way worse than the original nomeclatura(don't ask me how I was understanding those things at ~10 years as I have no clue - mostly intuition I suppose).
At least, the original nomeclatura was formed out of rather simple people. With usually a lot of real life experience. And who were somewhat aware of their own incompetence. So they were somewhat willing to listen. Also, the original nomenclatura wasn't full of sociopaths. Many just happened to be in the right place at the right time; during a murky period. Sure... not monuments of ethics. But not necesarilly power hungry sociopaths either.
the new ones... =))
how you bring back that magic? I'm afraid it has something to do major crises. How is Russia currently "purging" their army of all the peacetime generals? Good at army politics? But crap at their actual job? By having an existential war. It sounds unappealing, for sure, but...
as I said before. During normal times, the vast majority is simply uninterested in how the system works. If I want to annoy people at a party, a sure way to do is discuss cause and effects of various policies :P
Which gives free reign to sociopaths. Sure, said sociopaths manage to generate crises with their incompetence in the actual leading. Which brings abnormal times. When the vast majority can't afford their usual lack of interest; as it becomes a life & death situation.
rinse and repeat :P
p.s. - after 20 years I'm pretty sure a "solution" to my problem doesn't exist. At least it wasn't a complete waste of time. I know by now that the problem doesn't have a solution =))
"after 20 years, the only "answer" I have is "don't let sociopaths in the system". Or, ok, let as few as it's humanly possible."
I have long said that the function of government is to keep power out of the hands of sociopaths. However, because they will do literally whatever it takes to get power, sociopaths inevitably corrupt any system and turn it sociopathic.
Not only that, once sociopaths enter a system, everyone else must turn sociopath, because the only way to beat a cheater is to cheat.
This is the kernel of The Iron Law Of Oligarchy.
Power selects strongly for sociopathy, because sociopaths are the humans who will do whatever it takes to get power.
As sociopaths become entrenched in any system, it becomes unreformable, because those entrenched interests will not allow their share of the loot to be touched. At some point, the only thing left to do is to Burn It All Down and start over.
This is the underlying force behind Alexander Tytler's cycle of nations "from bondage to spiritual faith...."
This is why the ancient Bronze Age civilizations had the "andurarum/deror" -- the return to the "mother state" by the regular wiping out of debts, known to the Hebrew tradition as Jubilee. This concept was lost during the Bronze Age Collapse and we have been suffering under rule by the rural usurers and their heirs ever since.
IIRC, debt forgiveness was also a part of Julius Caesar's economic program.
Indeed, and likely played no small part in the Senate getting rid of him.
We recently had a replay of the "farmers borrow too much, the state forgives farm debts" cycle. The Philippine government in 2023 forgave a billion dollars in farm debt. The ""New Agrarian Emancipation Act"".
https://www.barrons.com/amp/news/philippines-writes-off-1-bn-in-farmer-debt-to-boost-food-production-17c1abc0
"I don't think the "system" can be reformed. I don't think we've even begun to see the real rot underneath the surface narratives"
That.
Well, those people you're talking about don't emerge in a vacuum as atomized individuals; they BELONG -- to families which are themselves in turn rooted in community with ties unsullied by the cash nexus. In our market fundamentalist societies, these arrangements have been increasingly dissolved, with devastating socioeconomic consequences, and when we encounter them in foreign lands they are an anathema to be dissolved by our "rules based order" or bombed into oblivion.
As someone once said, we cannot expect a society lacking virtue to produce virtuous people. And we need virtuous people more than ever now....
Virtue is blocked and actively fought by unrecognised trauma, especially if "virtue" has come to represent refusal to square up with/recognise one's own errors and imperfections (e.g. the Church).
What do you mean by technocratic? Just because we have "modern technology" the system itself is not technocratic. Technocratic implies expertise, professionalism. Aurelien clearly makes the point that that doesn't exist any longer.
Technocratic = technology + bureaucracy.
This is how I define it.
I agree that professionalism (as an ideal, as an amalgam of virtuous characteristics) is dwindling or doesn't exist anymore.
In terms of technocracy, I'll give you an example of something that happened to me recently. The Italian IRS decided in March there was a mistake on my 2019 tax returns. So they sent me a fine (pay x within 60 days or else).
Because I'm not a moron, some of the time, and I knew of this problem back in 2019, I solved the problem the following year and paid what was needed (through my accountant; because even if you earn less than 100k in Italy you need an accountant, it's that complex a web to navigate: tax returns aren't 1 page).
So what did I do now in 2024? I paid the fine I had already paid in 2020, again. Or I could have passed a month talking to my accountant, sending in more documents, trying to figure out why, who, what, etc.
The best part about all this wasn't the fine but that my Italian bank had already preloaded the payment options online without any input from me. Isn't that interesting?
It's basically only one step away from automatically deducting the money from my account with me none the wiser.
Since a form of fascism is corporatism, which we could define in simple terms as an incestuous relationship between private enterprise and the state, my recent personal lived experience would suggest we're more or less there right now. Add a strong dose of bureaucracy and technology, pick an ideology from the menu and what could possibly go wrong?
isn't it funny when you're facing such asymmetries? =))
You pay the fine. The fine is small/smallish. But it didn't register and they want the money one more time. And you're confronted with the dilemma: waste x hours to prove you paid. Or pay again.
I BS myself that what I have to pay divided by x is way less than I make per hour. So I should just pay it again.
Which is obviously bullshit and lying to myself, but... how was in the original? "... they needed to be able to distinguish between causes that were hopeless, and causes worth fighting for. "
guess we're both decent politicians :P
p.s. - just had exactly the same crap last month. Different country, same shit =))
Ot seems to me that you are a Confucian, Stefano. But the Confucian system didn't work very well either. It always ended up in some Heshen.
Ideas and cultures are there because certain clases or groups want them to be. If others don't like it, it's their job to provide something better.
If it ain't broke, it doesn't need fixing. The Confucian system lasted for around 1500 years, give or take. That's saying something.
Sometimes it's better to keep something that works but is imperfect than attempting perfection but creating more problems down the line.
As Vlad noted, a class of managers (post 1950s) with no societal obligations... further down the line... (post 1990s) and suddenly we're in deep trouble.
We all know that after a hundred years or so, or perhaps sooner, every regime in China got corrupt and finally collapsed. There was simply no counterveiling power there to punish corrupt officials. I would have got against Confucian ideals, according to which an official per definition always was good.
Yes, of course, our system is corrupt too, probably because of the public contracts. But the confucian system is no alternative.
Look at "Confucian civil service history". It started around 200 BC and lasted until the 19th century. It survived dynasties and was reformed early on to include children from peasant families. Modern China is a mess until you read about how the Chinese communist party reintroduced the Confucian system in the early 2000s. Recently I read you need a 140+ IQ to pass the test (intake is 1400 pple per year unless mistaken).
If we stop being infatuated with the ancient Greeks we westerners might realize we can learn interesting things from elsewhere.
I'm not saying they're perfect, but we need to be less arrogant.
Actually, our own civil service is based on the Confucian system. It was much adored in the late 18th century (despite Heshen, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heshen) and when it was reformed in Europe, with a beginning in England, they relied much upon Confucius. Probably, any civil service must have a certain dose of it.
But it is not enough. There must always be someone guarding the guardians. Otherwise they will deform society to fit their own egotistical needs, and run away with the family silver.
One of your best.
I've been reading Chinese history and I think the current leadership class has lost the Mandate of Heaven.
Not yet. The Chinese get it better each year. But the urban middle-class youth seems to become somewhat fed-up byt the onesided focus on material wealth.
Emmanuel Todd in "La Défaite de l’Occident" is clear: political elites are no longer representatives of the people; they represent themselves. They "know" better; anyone who wants to serve the people is dubbed a populist.
It's a book I wrote about a few weeks ago. Highly recommended.
I'm reading Emanuel Todd's book, currently at page 200. It's brilliant.
It seems I missed your review although I do try to read all your articles. Could you provide a link or the title? Thx.
It was here, though the essay was about other things as well.
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/the-revolt-of-the-outer-party
Unilingual peasant that I am, I have to wait for the English translation ... :(
Very thought provoking, and coincides with both my father's experience being on a committee of experts dealing with the increasing problems of waste management in one of the wealthiest suburban communities in the country, and my experiences working in non-profits to "serve" the public and being on urban transportation committees. All dysfunctional and corrupt to the point of being surreal.
But what, then, of societies that are improving, and largely working?
Take the case of Russia under Putin. Everybody, practically without exception, who has been in Russia since the 1990's until today say that Russia, as a country, and a society keeps on getting better and better. Remember, Putin's experience in St, Petersburg was in working with businesses who wanted in to invest in the city. This meant dealing with thorny and intractable problems, corruption, etc. In short, dealing with the real world and finding solutions. Another point in case, the current shake-up in the Russian military -- dealing with corruption and careerism.
Briefly, let's take the case of China. Lifting a cool half billion out of poverty and becoming the largest economy in the world, by far (PPP), without initiating a major war. I have many Chinese friends and acquaintances, and they all talk of the corruption in China. When I ask for examples, the stories related invariably speak of low-level nepotism: Someone getting a city job because of a family member in the CP, etc. When I ask if they could advance if they were completely corrupt, I am told no, they must perform at their job. Compared to the structural and epistemic issues you raise, this is almost laughably minor in scope. Indeed, the work experience of Xi Jin Ping is an exemplar of rising through the ranks because of demonstrative competence and success. Not a single Western leader could match his curriculum vitae.
So, in brief, what is the difference between societies which are largely working (not without constant problems and challenges, but which manage to overcome them), and societies which are not working?
Do geopolitical outcomes drive society (England's diminishing empire and economic relevance in the world), or do functional societies drive better geopolitical outcomes.
I don’t know how it is in China, but in Russia everyone works. If you don't work hard, you won't survive in Russia. There are no large benefits on which you can live without working in Russia. Moreover, the Russians themselves do all the hard work. For example, Russians work everywhere at a blast furnace or at a rolling mill at a metallurgical plant. I think the British haven’t stood at blast furnaces for a long time. They probably don't exist in Britain at all.
I have written previously about how the elites are very good at spectacle, abstraction and the like, but that this has little real world bearing, any more than a selection of really strategically gifted footballers are likely also to be genius-level mathematicians. I won't bore you with it, again.
I wills ay that what Sunak and Macron are doing makes perfect sense. They know they cannot "win" an election and that their popularity and the popularity of their Ukrainian pet will only decline with time, especially once the bodies start to come home in large numbers. That ship has sailed. That train has left the station. The horses have left the stable and are down the road, fornicating with the neighboring farmer's cows.
Macron and Sunak are not only trying to lose less badly, although that is a large part of their logic. They also want to make support for American hegemony in general and the War on Russia in particular to be part of the price of power that their political opposition must pay, and they want to makes sure that the opposition pays that price now and incurs sunk costs in doing so, before that war becomes even more politically toxic.
Yes, I get the sense that Sunak in particular is in a hurry to have himself removed so as to be as far away as possible when all of the shit he and the Tories have piled up for the UK really hits the fan. As for Macron, he's going to be stuck with the job (absent outright resignation) regardless of the electoral outcome in France, so it is less clear to me how this little tantrum of his is going to help him.
Labour are as ardent as Conservatives when it comes to groveling before the uk's American Master.
The Far Right in France will quickly find out the price of a seat at the adults' table. LePen in particular seems well aware of this.
In other words, a bit like, "Apres moi, le deluge?"
Not exactly, More like "if this ship is going done, then you're going down with it! Meanwhile, I got me a think tank fellowship to take up or a venture capital fund to start!"
"...make sure that the opposition pays that price now and incurs sunk costs in doing so, before that war becomes even more politically toxic."
mine: "Live to fight another day" The ones that take the lead now, are the fall guys. The public sensory is not refined enough to accept the complexity of true. Take away the energy abundance that Putin manages, and ...he will fail.
"Modern politics, including even communication and the management of political campaigns, consists very largely of the attempt to apply theoretical and normative models to real life, and then to blame the failure of the ideas on those implementing them, not on the stupidity of those ideas in the first place."
Bingo. I have been wondering where the mind virus of putting theory above praxis originated. It infected marxism-leninism. It was already there in the medieval times. It was already there when the ancient doctors derived treatments from their humoral theories, rather than from common sense and trial and error. Any ideas? I am baffled.
I have ideas, but I am not sure how germane they are to your specific question. I believe that the "putting theory before praxis," as you put it, is simply another aspect of our species ability/tendency/penchant, for inventing fictions and then having those fictions control us. Money, religion, borders, race. All are ideas that have no basis in reality, but we have become incapable of living without them.
That suggests there's no easy way to overcome this. Certainly constant vigilance is only the start of what is required.
Religion is only 'an idea that has no basis in reality' if one is an out and out materialist. Philosophically, there are inescapable and insoluble problems with such a stance. While there are also problems with the cruder forms and practices of religion, it is also an indispensable tool for social cohesion (in it's widest sense only).
Yet another element of why societies bottom out. Very to the point.
Creating models of the world is as old as humanity...
I don't mind models as such. Or theories. But to put them above "your lying eyes" is a mental illness...
Science works from paradigm to paradigm. It is obviousl that this present paradigm of how the polis is being run is well beyond its due date... But those in power would rather not change anything than to loose a little bit. Rather they would gamble and end up loosing everything....
Thank you Aurelien🙏
Yes, indeed…great article. Especially find the situation of an untrained person in leadership position, with
a bristly ego, uncomfortable in seeking more competent people to advise. Have seen this in academia where
university faculty were encouraged to help out in local high schools but the public school faculty resisted,
afraid of the comparison. Also incident at a university when the education school revamped their physics
curriculum and avoided asking their fellow physisists for advice.
‘physicists’…spelling error…sorry
As a former (and repented or, as they said in Italy in the Years of Lead, dissociated) business school professor, I cannot but accept your view of the "MBA textbook" as essentially a literary genre akin to Hollywood movies, where the good "white hats" with neat theories and mathematical models and excel spreadsheets would arrive at the last minute to save the day. Alas, the child is grown, the dream is gone...
Thank you.
There is an irony. Most western states are nominally responsible for a higher share and absolute value of GDP than has probably ever been the case except in conditions of total war or Soviet style communism. But at the same time their competence, power and inclination to take objective decisions on behalf of their citizens has regressed heavily since the mid twentieth century peak. It feels like a leviathan that just gets bigger but as it does so it becomes more and more rotten at the core.
The west in this way does seem to be heading in the direction of state and societal failure, with different countries moving at different speeds but all on the same trajectory. I wonder if this change will be gradual or whether we shall see a catalyst of some form that accelerates it.
By the way, the corporate sector is no better. Most of it in the west seems these days to be predominantly rent seeking, with the executive class very much cut from the same cloth as the politicians.
Regarding "corporate... rent seeking": Hollywood -- both in terms of rebooting/remaking/reimagining (not necessarily) "older" movies, and the current (well into its second decade) superhero/DC/Marvel Comics "genre".
Excellent essay. It complements a bit with Simone Weil's "On the abolition of political parties", because of the Iron Law of Bureaucracy, which is a wrinkle of the Iron Law of Oligarchy (when you destroy the state, everything can be privatized, non?!)
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/simone-weil-on-the-abolition-of-all-political-parties
Also, if your electorate goes to another party, why not abolish that party?
https://rmx.news/germany/germany-moves-closer-to-afd-ban-greens-claim-party-is-a-security-risk-for-people-and-democracy/
The ban on the AfD is baked in the cake. The only task is to time that ban so as to prevent the AfD from reforming under a different name.
Cynical? Yes, but so what?
Deep state refers to the policies and actions taken by the unelected officials, that go back decades, against the interests of the people and in conflict with the elected officials and their promises made to the people. Trump administration, war on Russia etc as an example.
"Deep state" was a term invented top cover all the routines of the state. These routines are built layer upon layer until in the end nobody knows exactly how they work. So nobody can be said having responsibility for anything (except possibly in the legal sense, but they try to avoid it since they don't want to take responsibility for things they don't understand).
This phenomenon is necessary in a big organization. Big organizations have to work by routines. And these routines have to get oblique with time. Until some disaster happens because something in the surroundings have changed that they didn't think about.
This is the ideas of Dan Davies: The unaccountability machine, 2024. He points out that there should also be some routines to deal with disasters – but that these were sorted out because the economists argued so brilliantly that they weren't needed. So here we are.
Greetings and thank you for the time and effort dedicated to this essay. I have to wonder, however, at the likely oversight contained here when you write,
The most recent expression of this dislike of the State, which seems to be the case across the
political spectrum, is the so-called “Deep State” phenomenon. As such, it is incoherent and described
in numerous contradictory ways, but it takes its origin from the fact that if States are to be effective,
they have to contain career professionals who know what they are doing, and have been doing it for
a long time.
Agreed, for the United States to be effective, the government has to contain professionals who know what they are doing. We've got that is spades - however, what those professionals have been doing and continue to do is antithetical to a well-run government concerned with the well-being of it's citizenry. This is your "Deep State", here defined as unelected persons both within and without the government, who by threat and/or enticement dictate policy to the politicians who thereby implement said policy. I submit that those inept, out of touch, corrupt politicians you describe are the symptoms of this likely terminal ailment. The cause of the disease, however, are those very professionals who "know what they are doing." Want a better country? Get better professionals.
I think that this essay and the commenters should take the time to re-read this essay and then spend the time reading Curtis Yarvin's essay over at his place.
https://graymirror.substack.com/p/the-trials-of-trump
Lots of grist between the two essays. I have to admit, sometimes I find Yarvin to be unpleasant, but he is thoughtful and many times presents a view of the world that is accurate.
We are in a time of change. None of the old methods are particularly effective and a lot of the time our hopes and preconceptions of the way the world is dash against an unpleasant reality
Making a profit is about assuming the most responsibility and then delegating it for the cheapest. The individual political entrepreneur's goal is to pile responsibilities on government that also do not fall on them individually, in order to avoid consequences.
Responsibility this ain't.
https://argomend.substack.com/p/responsaintbility
Another good point made. Outliers, by the way, not "outsiders" is what we need, then tune the public into accepting the complex, not the chaotic.
I'm a fair bit more pessimistic in that regard. While you could have people being more accepting of outliers, I think that the whole selling point of representative democracies is that people can offload responsibilities rather than assume them. The higher you are on the totem pole, the more power and responsibility you have - but more is also forced on you (running a business, estate, or government is hard!). Proportionally, people lower down the totem pole have a lot less power, but also fewer responsibilities - someone who owns their home has to fix it, while someone who rents it leaves it to the landlord.
This allows people who prefer to take on responsibility to take on more and fill the seats of power, while those who want less can offload their responsibilities onto someone else, all according to their personal preference.
https://argomend.substack.com/p/global-paradox-2023
Democracy, as a practical matter, is basically an exercise in passing the buck, in avoiding responsibility. Everyone in power claims to answer to and derive their authority from someone else, going ultimately back to "the people" who themselves do not directly exercise power, and who would find it difficult to exercise as a collective action problem, even if they had the formal authority to do so.
What this means is that real power is often in the hands of unelected bureaucrats, who typically don't even want to stand for election because they don't want the voters to know what their programs are, much less to exercise any oversight. Robert Moses is the classic example here.
Even that minimal level of scrutiny is too much for some, and real power is often exercised by people not formally part of any government structure. Corporate lobbyists or Robert Kagan come to mind.
So, taking into account how wildly unpopular most western politicians and their policies are with their respective publics, "democracy" is basically a cover for rulers to do what they want. The technical term for this is a "beard".
After all, your elected representatives approved this. If you don't like it, you can vote for a different carefully vetted corporate imperialist muppet, so until then, shut up and fall in line!
It’s a feature, not a bug!
Once upon a time I did some minor administrative and political job. It was overtime, unpaid and despite we did some critical good to the community most people either pretended they did not notice or told their neighbours that we are stealing community money. People in Russia have very contradictory views on politicians. On the one hand everybody is confident that every politician is a fraudster and a liar. On the other hand when something needs to be done they expect the guy they loathe to jump in and make everything right. In the it was indeed my sense of duty that helped me stay afloat until all the major stuff was done and I could finally leave this position.
I find it interesting that in your articles (which I greatly appreciate), the factor of dishonesty and/or corruption of individuals or organizations does not seem to have much weight.
Maybe from a more European perspective...
As a resident of South America, I see a very important weight of this aspect in political-administrative decisions.
I devoted an essay to this subject last year. https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/honesty-whats-in-it-for-me