How Democracy Dies

Shadow polities explained

Jul 12, 2022

Often the official possessors of power aren’t those who really exercise it. That’s why you need to understand shadow polities.

There are five main kinds:

Plutocracy is when the wealthy seek to subvert a constitution that doesn’t give them the power they desire. Since ‘all things obey money’ (Eccl. 10:19), all human societies must always be on guard against this. Lobbying requires money so can undermine democracy.
Kritocracy is when judges legislate while pretending to merely interpret law. This happens when the outlook of the intellectual elite deviates too far from that of the masses who selected them. Law is not downstream of culture.
Bureaucracy is when civil servants get unofficial power. Small rules regarding transactions become too burdensome. As Churchill put it, they are ‘no longer servants and no longer civil’.
Pornocracy — literally, ‘rule by harlots’ — is when the exercise of power is corrupted by lust. Like plutocracy, it is a constant danger. Plato said the tyrant is a man most of all ruled by lust, and the city is the soul of the ruler writ large.
Theatocracy is when men are ruled by those who possess the means of mass communication. Frequent repetition causes men to believe whatever these rulers want them to. No matter how absurd.

The different kinds of shadow polity can all co-exist:

Rule by the wealthy
Rule by judges
Rule by civil servants
Rule by lust
Rule by the possessors of the media

And perhaps they all do co-exist today.

Edward Bernays described manipulating mass opinion as ‘the engineering of consent’. ‘If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind,’ he wrote, ‘is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it?’

Here is how his book Propaganda begins:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. [. . .] in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons . . . who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires, which control the public mind.

He was the nephew of Sigmund Freud and the great uncle of the co-founder of Netflix, Marc Bernays Randolph.

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Peter

Rule by the wealthy doesn`t quite cover the money aspect of non-democratic control.

There are those who have been granted the right to control the money-supply, and create and destroy money itself. There is a famous quote from Rothschild in 1815 : "I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls the British money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply."

Maynard Keynes has some interesting comments about Lenin`s appreciation of the effectiveness of debauching a currency, in his book, "The Economic Consequences of the Peace". :

"Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose".

Keynes points out that the "profiteers" who get vilified as a result of the consequent inflation are usually the entrepreneurs who are actually contributing to society, another subtle twist to the process.

And a quote from Thomas Jefferson : "The issuing power of currency shall be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." Don`t hold your breath....

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