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RESEARCH NOTES
The Paradox of the ruling elite: they often seem completely incompetent whilst maintaining a high degree of control. This is because of inherited postwar hegemony.
Inheritance of “The Great Old House” of The West. A house does not collapse overnight from lack of maintenance, nor does a civilization.
“There is no such thing as a completely incompetent regime.”
Coming through libertarianism ←
“A body that exercises political authority must maintain and grow its power, through technical means, through subterfuge, or outright force. Otherwise it is an authority in decline—a subsidiary of some other growing power.”
The Elite are a class with conflicts, but basic shared interests:
A Breed Apart: the elite see themselves as a class apart from “The Mass,” even if those on the bottom rung do not feel like “Elites.” They go to the same schools, they know the same people. There is, privately, imbued within them the class consciousness of a ruling class. A level of initiation separates them.
<Starmer / Rayner donations row, Sue Grey row demonstrate this>
They are, like old world aristocracy, a heritable aspect to the modern elite - but without the honesty of an open ruler & ruled relationship.
Inter Elite factions & rivalry: the ruling elite are not a monolith, they have competing factions, powerful families & conflicting agendas as they elbow for position. The elite acting as a class & therefore having shared class interests help mitigate conflicts that could shatter their power base in the immediate term.
Pettiness & waste: the unaccountable manager status the current ruling elite has over “Public Money” incentives a lot of waste, often for petty reasons or based on a lack of feedback from reality. Crucially, it is not their own money this is squandered, so it does not have an exhaustive endpoint barring national bankruptcy.
“Meshing The Gears:” world-be power brokers within the elite class are most effective when they attempt to demonstrate their agenda allies with multiple factions within the elite. Their Is a degree of internal “rule by consensus,” with the hard power centres intervening only when needed to course correct towards the ultimate goals of Power. The permanent postwar agenda is like a tide that carries the current elite along In a direction that was determined to be “best for us” 80 years ago.
Maintenance of Power: the elite are most effective when they feel their immediate interests threatened, especially interests of Power. The brutal & sometimes unimaginable outpourings of death The Free World is prone punctuate a status quo that is boring & confusing, even to those inside The Elite.
Succession:
The Elite are aware of the issue of succession:
Worked example, Klaus Schwab: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/18/mutiny-erupts-among-wef-staff-over-role-of-mr-davos-klaus-schwab
Seeing Behind the Curtain:
“A lack of Bandwidth” is a management speak phrase used to describe the lack of competence & resources within the public departments with seemingly infinite budgets. They are classic worked examples of public sector maximising price & minimising productivity. We must keep in mind Managerialism is effectively a giant DMV, or Job Center. It is inefficiency incarnate. You can't print competence.
The current ruling elite, through resource mismanagement, is simply failing to do the essential functions of state in favour of pet projects. The clearest example being The Foreign Office:
“Political Capital” is a nebulous but important concept when looking at the actions of the current elite. They are very cautious about what they decide not to do, often neglecting difficult but important areas that expend political energy but do not immediately benefit them. There is infinite political energy to “solve the far right riots” but not to stop an explosion in low level crime.
‘Elite’ overproduction & the bottom rung: Journalism & NGOs function as elite welfare, as do bottom rung political positions. It's ALL sewn up. Hegemony + elite overproduction = sprawling of ‘minor elites.’ Widening & flattening.
The case of Katie Culthorp:
https://x.com/LeeAndersonMP_/status/1616005190036987906
Visible Incompetence:
Ruthless class of political climbers, not necessarily technically competent.
This leads to a class of appointed court scientists & technocrats, a solution of “rule by experts” often posited by leftist ideas. “Scientific Government” and the myth of scientism as objective neutral government.
A simple lack of care: where there are competent people in positions, they often simply do not care. They are incentivised to keep their head down, to nod along & to run out the clock for their pension. Caring is dangerous, on the rare occasions someone in the power structure demonstrates genuine care they are often hounded out.
Science as magic: the managerial class, as an increasingly non technical class, view science & especially fashionable popular science as magic. Since the end of world war two especially, those in charge of social organisation see science as an endless pool of problem solving arcana that can dig them out of any hole.
Performative failure: those In power will pretend to undertake programs contrary to their interests, only to demonstrate the “failure” of those ideas, often ideas that have functioned uncontroversially for hundreds of years like borders.
They operate a giant bureaucracy they often fail to pay full attention to. Apathy is supplemented by ignorance. Many of the current elite inherited parts of the managerial machine they do not understand, they excel at defending their positions being occupied by incompetent people to demonstrate loyalty. In power politics this demonstrates strength not weakness, but is entropic.
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