Politics is the struggle for power.
The fundamental power struggle is between the people of a place and the mobile classes.
Few people would turn their own garden into a motorway or commit their next door neighbours to slave working. The mobile classes can do these things without conscience because their garden and their neighbours are not fixed.
Locality is central to politics because it separates real issues from ideological issues. Real issues such as being unable to find work, having insufficient money to pay for the basics of life, having poor schooling and healthcare etc. are all local. If you are mobile you can move to somewhere that has work and good wages, schools and healthcare.
If the answer to any problem is to change locality then the problem is not solved, it is avoided for you personally but the problem remains for others. If politicians must live among those who suffer the results of their political decisions then those decisions must be humane but if they can move away then the decisions can be selfish.
The primary objective of those seeking power for themselves is to acquire loyal mobile supporters. The primary objective of those seeking power for ordinary people is to acquire loyal local supporters.
Democracy in the UK arose from the demand for localities to be represented through Parliament. This was established through the English Civil War and Bill of Rights. The Civil War meant that the mobile elite experienced a huge setback that increased as representation spread to all genders and classes.
As democracy spread the mobile upper classes needed to find a new way to dominate. They found that teachers, students and academics are essential for the development of mobile power. In Europe these supported the Marxist Leninists in 1917 and the Third Reich in 1933. Those who have been removed from their roots and who deal in ideas can be most easily detached from reality.
There are three modern routes to power for the mobile classes: to
expand the state so that the various localities cease to have a common purpose, to
control the education system and to
control the mass media. Once these have been achieved the mobile class is the sole remaining group with real power.
The duty of democrats is to contain the threat to democracy from the mobile classes and those who control them. As we have seen in China, the possibility of a Total Surveillance State means that once the powerful have removed free speech and so removed democratic accountability there may be no way to resist. Ever.
A few examples.
The Norman Conquest was a power grab by a mobile group of violent entrepreneurs.
The Islamic conquest was a power grab by a mobile group and also involved the creation of an education system to indoctrinate the people.
The steady increase in powers of the US Federal Government is due to a lack of common purpose among States exacerbated by the common purpose of the mobile Federal elite.
The Russian Revolution was driven by mobile academics and their backers such as Marx and Engels. It also used indoctrination through the education system.
1930s National Socialism was a mobile middle class movement.
The British Empire was developed by mobile Multinational Companies (East India Company etc).
The EU was created by a mobile elite so that the countries of Europe would never again develop separate political, economic and social systems that might one day oppose each other. In doing so it is progressively reducing locality to insignificance.
The Jet Set - big houses or even castles at home but also in Tuscany etc. Money is motion.
The parts of empires seldom unite to overthrow the centre, empires fall because of outside finance and military support for secessionists. The non-mobile parts can seldom make common cause and this explains why empires do not fall rapidly after creation.
Of course, it is those who control the mobile classes such as Dictators, Corporate CEOs and Kings and their lackeys who gain the greatest personal material benefits from power. In the modern age nearly all mobile political power is "Corporate", stemming from Public Sector bodies such as universities and the BBC, from multinational corporations and from other corporate groupings, it will eventually culminate in dictatorship or oligarchy.
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Goodbye to all this
My blog appears to have been no-platformed. Of course it is quite possible that it has just become boring but the change in reader numbers suggests no-platforming. I have been ejected from Twitter about 5 times over the past 5 years despite having broken no Twitter rules. My requests for clarification of why I was ejected have been met with absolute silence. There is no requirement for Twitter or Google to explain themselves to non-US citizens. Its a crazy world when UK political debate is in the hands of foreigners.
I expect this is happening everywhere as the AIs become ever more adept at no-platforming opinions that contradict the desires of the owners of Google, Twitter etc. Unless the UK develops substitutes for Google etc. and stops external versions it can never be fully independent.
So I wish my reader "goodbye", thanks for dropping in and good luck.
9/8/2021
Comments
Anyways just a thought John....