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Hurlock's avatar

Good post overall.

But monarchies leak power too.

In fact, if we were to go really historic on this topic, absolute monarchies leaked power like a motherfucker.

It is in fact the leakage of power of absolute monarchies that ended up birthing absolute democracies and their constituent bureaucracies. The process, (as described by Jouvenel, with which you are familiar) goes something like this:

The King wants to do King shit. But he is limited by the influence of those pesky Aristocrats, in essence mini-kings in the Pyramidal hierarchy of the Feudal System. These guys are lame, because they want to limit Power. They want to limit it, because they don't have all of it. And they can limit it, because they have some of it. Separation of Power is actually a thing - but only if you literally split the kingdom in a lot of actual mini-kingdoms. Derp Montesquieu.

Anyways, at one point the King figures out how to circumvent the pesky Aristocracy. The solution, it turns out, is simple - he will start leaking power to the lower classes. If he leaks power to the plebs he can create a brand new class of loyal followers, whom he can use to staff his own government. They are loyal, because yesterday they were plebs. They know they are nothing without this willful power leakage by the King. So the King can be pretty sure he will not get fucked by them. For now.

So the King uses the new loyal class to staff his government and replace all the aristocrats who previously occupied these positions by the right of blood. This new way is better, the King says. The right of blood sometimes selects people who are retarded. Genetics can be quite random, unfortunately. In this new way, the King, in all his kingly wisdom, can select only the *best* men for the job. Or so he says. We will call this new selection mechanism "meritocracy" - selection by merit, not by birth! Or so he claims. Of course, he simply selects for what expands his Power.

So the King has effectively created a new class. And not just any new class, a new class which has the potential to exercise Power. The king has thus expanded the scope of the elite from which the ruling class is staffed. In Mosca's terms, the ruling class is no longer purely Aristocratic in its selection mechanism. It is now also Democratic. What shall we call this new section of the elite class? Maybe pick some fancy-sounding french word?

I am maybe getting carried away. By now it is obvious where I am going with this. Eventually, the bourgeoise, being elite products of a new selection mechanism and being capable of logical thought realize that the elite products of the old selection mechanism - the aristocracy - are its enemies. Enemies, which would definitely kill them if they could, or would promptly turn them back into poor and powerless plebs. Because they are competition. And "competition is for losers" - Peter Thiel. Aristocratiam delenda est, concludes the bourgeoise. So they invent the guillotine. But wait, isn't our gracious King also an Aristocrat? Oui. Unfortunately, his head also has to go. The King, in his thirst for power, has knighted his own executioners. But Power is a blind instinct.

ANY monarchy has an incentive to leak power. No, scratch that. ANY regime has an incentive to leak power. Because Power wants to expand. Leaking power allows to expand the scope of power beyond its formalized borders. And expansion is the only thing that Power wants. Hell it is the only thing it knows. It doesn't want to do anything else. Is it possible for a regime to exist, which doesn't have an incentive to leak power? I don't think so. Maybe at first it doesn't leak, but eventually entropy gets a hold of everything...is this possibly what the ominous "for a while..." inserts stand for?

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NPC#1821633's avatar

Nice references to Elon lol

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