The Wages of Injustice

a good ruling class keeps injustice to a minimum

Last week we saw a special prosecutor report on the Biden classified files scandal. The special prosecutor recommended against prosecution.

At the same time Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is prosecuting former President Trump for mishandling classified documents.

In 2020 there were the mostly peaceful protests that caused billions of dollars in damage and included attacks on court houses and police stations. Elite institutions have condoned these attacks because of the death of George Floyd in police custody.

On January 6, 2021, there were mostly peaceful protests at the Capitol in Washington, DC at which one woman protester was killed. Numerous protesters have been arrested, tried, and imprisoned. Elite institutions have branded these protests as “insurrection.”

Left-leaning groups conduct protests on climate and race and are seldom prosecuted.

Right-leaning groups conduct protests at abortion clinics and are sometimes arrested and prosecuted.

Left-leaning groups campaign every day to publicize the risks of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in agriculture and back a vast global effort to fight climate change. Fighting against GMO crops and climate change is acceptable and admirable.

Anti-vaxxers protesting against the risks of mRNA vaccines are considered to be conspiracy theorists.

There is a word for all this: injustice.

What is going on?

I mean, we are Americans. We believe in equal justice under law. We believe in free and fair elections. We believe we are a cut above the tin-pot dictatorships that weaponize the legal system against their opponents.

I am not that scandalized, and I realize it is because my understanding of politics goes beyond the philosophy of our Founders and the modern philosophy of the educated class that believes itself specially qualified to direct traffic on the political highway.

And my understanding goes beyond the beliefs of libertarian conservatives in a minimal state.

I realize that I have acquired these beliefs in recent years at least in part from the writings of Curtis Yarvin and his discussion of Italian political scientist Gaetano Mosca and Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. And so I came to read Mosca’s The Ruling Class which is an analysis of how ruling classes rule and what they need to do to stay in power. And also Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political.

I have attempted to distill the essence of The Ruling Class here, and The Concept of the Political here.

The fact is that we are all taught, from an early age, to believe in a kind of National Myth that is almost religious, that our countries are bound up in the destiny of humankind and that our founders and outstanding politicians are demi-gods.

But Mosca and Schmitt bring it down to Earth.

The Ruling Class is an effort to understand ruling classes: how they function; how they stay in power; how they fall from power. Mosca proposes that every ruling class rules through a “political formula” that invents a moral or legal basis for its power. In other words, a Narrative. But ruling classes also need to refresh themselves with talent from the lower orders to be ready to handle the inevitable challenges of rule. You can see that his analysis brings the usual semi-religious Narrative of every ruling class down to the nuts and bolts of competent government.

The Concept of the Political also demystifies politics. Forget about the high-flown words; it all comes down to friend vs. enemy. Every political leader is leading a fight against the enemy. Curtis Yarvin says “there is no politics without an enemy.”

These thinkers illuminate our present situation with a harsh light, and, for me, they help me understand the world.

Why do our liberal friends endlessly harp on about racists and Nazis and “insurrectionists?” Because there is no politics without an enemy: there must be an enemy. If there is no enemy to be fought then we don’t really need rulers.

What is the “political formula” of our liberal friends, the moral basis for their rule? Obviously, it is the Allyship notion, that our liberal friends are the Allies of the Oppressed Peoples in their fight against the White Oppressors. What Oppressed Peoples, what White Oppressors, you ask? Doesn’t matter. What matters is that our liberal friends really believe their political formula. Indeed, the recent study by Rasmussen of The Elite 1% shows that, indeed, our elite rulers really believe what they have been carefully taught!

Given this, it makes complete sense that our rulers were first flummoxed by the rise of Trump and then determined to stop him at any cost. Our rulers believe in their right to rule: who else but the best and brightest is qualified to govern a complex society? Trump must the the enemy of all that is good and true. But Trump ran for the presidency basically defining the “Deep State” as the enemy. In other words, the Elite 1%. What? But Trump is a real-estate billionaire! And he is a buffoon! And he insults people with mean tweets! And he once had a phone call with someone in Ukraine.

You may say that the left’s hatred of Trump is ridiculous, but that misses the point. The whole point of politics is to have an enemy to fight. Don’t believe it? Then would you believe that Wikipedia’s article on Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals has fifteen instances of the word “enemy?” And the twelve rules include “enemy” three times in the in the first four rules?

You can see why rulers down the ages were inclined to think of themselves as God’s Anointed. And you can see with the soldiers of the ruler tend to think of themselves as engaged upon a sacred quest.

I believe that this attitude goes deep into the human unconscious. It's obvious, really. If male chimps band together to fight the troop next door they must have some instinct that provokes them to go out and defend against the enemy together. Don't think that humans have evolved very far away from that instinct.

So, how dare the white middle class challenge the rule of the educated class. Who do they think they are?

The problem is, of course, that when rulers use their power to game the legal system the people on the receiving end experience it as injustice. And that tends to degrade the Narrative of the rulers as God’s Anointed.

There is a saying that politics is civil war by other means. Really, when you are a ruling class you want to avoid civil war. Hey, you might lose it! And the point of law — apart from its vital role in transmitting the assets of the departed to their heirs — is to get people to think that when they have a problem with the government that they can get a fair hearing in the legal system. If the legal system is gamed to favor the rulers, then the ruled are likely to start thinking of “other remedies.”

It is my belief that our rulers have two problems. First, believing in their divine mission they are shocked and surprised by the rise of Trump. Second, believing that they are the good guys they really do not understand how deeply the system has been gamed to favor themselves and their supporters.

But, as Gaetano Mosca wrote, a competent ruling class pays attention to the complaints of the discontented and it makes sure that, even as it favors itself and its supporters, it still allows the rest of the population to wive and thrive.

I believe our rulers are failing on both understanding the opposition and also how much their policies and programs hurt ordinary people.