America's Ruling Class, Part 5
According to Dr. A.M. Codevilla, the only serious opposition to America's Ruling Party is coming not from establishment Republicans but from what might be called the Country Party -- and its vision is revolutionary. Part 5 -- The Agenda: Power.
Every so often you stumble across an opinion piece that, after reading several paragraphs, causes you to stop and consider the profundity of its message before absorbing more. So it was this week with an article in the July/August 2010 issue of The American Spectator (TAS).
Dr. Angelo M. Codevilla is professor of international relations at Boston University, Vice Chairman of the U.S. Army War College Board of Visitors, former U.S. Foreign Service Officer, and a Senior Fellow at The Claremont Institute. He recently published a lengthy essay entitled America's Regime Class -- And the Perils of Revolution which was just reprinted and re-titled in the aforementioned TAS. To paraphrase, Codevilla details how the elite have advanced in power and station as the nation has declined -- and what is now brewing as a result.
Since Dr. Codevilla essentially serves us up a pre-election symposium along with his dissection of prevailing elitism and the forces gathering in opposition, B2Journal considers it an American public service to share his notable effort here. Due to its prodigious length, it is offered in several sections -- posted as quickly as time permits. Those of you with stamina may read The Regime Class in its entirety in .pdf format. This is a must read for Tea Partiers and conservatives:
America's Ruling Class, And The Perils Of Revolution
Part 5 -- The Agenda: Power
by Angelo M. Codevilla
Our ruling class' agenda is power for itself. While it stakes its claim through intellectual-moral pretense, it holds power by one of the oldest and most prosaic of means: patronage and promises thereof. Like left wing parties always and everywhere, it is a "machine," that is, based on providing tangible rewards to its members. Such parties often provide rank and file activists with modest livelihoods and enhance mightily the upper levels' wealth.
Because this is so, whatever else such parties might accomplish, they must feed the machine by transferring money or jobs or privileges -- civic as well as economic -- to the Party's clients, directly or indirectly. This, incidentally, is close to Aristotle's view of democracy. Hence our ruling class' standard approach to any and all matters, its solution to any and all problems, is to increase the power of the government -- meaning of those who run it, meaning themselves, to profit those who pay with political support for privileged jobs, contracts, etc..
Hence more power for the ruling class has been our ruling class' solution not just for economic downturns and social ills but also for hurricanes and tornadoes, global cooling and global warming. A priori, one might wonder whether enriching and empowering individuals of a certain kind can make Americans kinder and gentler, much less control the weather. But there can be no doubt that such power and money makes Americans ever more dependent on those who wield it. Let us now look at what this means in our time.
End of Part 5. Next, Dependence Economics
Review America's Ruling Class - Part 1 -- Introduction
Review America's Ruling Class - Part 2 -- The Political Divide.
Review America's Ruling Class - Part 3 -- The Ruling Class
Review America's Ruling Class - Part 4 -- The Faith
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