Politics draws the "wrong people"

How do we get the "right" people in place?

OK, let’s start with “politics.”

As John Dewey said in 1905, “Politics is the shadow cast upon society by big business.” Therefore if you were to get money and business out of politics, nothing is left, the empty cracked shell falls to the floor.

What is “politics” even good for? It represents an attempt by certain groups or individuals to redirect the majority to do their will, by using the power of the state to enact legislation supporting their desires and backing that up with the power of state enforcement, since the state is the enforcement arm of business. So you have supposed elections to choose which person to represent you in writing more rules for your life to be further regulated in the interests of big business, since government and business are the durable entities in society, unlike the mugs who can be pushed around with rules, zoning changes, etc., and who’s main purpose is to keep funding the enforcement arm of business. So what is the necessity of finding the “right person” for this work?

"The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt" - Bertrand Russell¹

Remember that the Lord Mayor of London sits in a chair above the Speaker in Parliament, and “It is the Duty of the Lord Mayor of London to open doors for business at all levels.”

So first of all, you need a revolutionary rearrangement of powers, so that business is contained within society rather than being a large, separate, shadow-casting presence gaining ever-more control of the levers of power. The US and Canadian constitutions were written before the full extent of the amassing of power of big business was realized, so serious thoughts of constraining this problem were not underwritten by the founding sets of rules. Neither were the founding rules properly set up to handle a situation in which those seeking power might be acting without good intentions (out of self-interest). It was just assumed that those in government would be acting for the public good. This was a major error that was warned against deep in history. However, most history lies unread, while the unread lie about history. People who do not study history and philosophy (another part of history) have no grounding in place or time resulting in usually meaningless opinions. And the demagogues will bend history to create their own origin myths.

Job number one for a totalitarian regime is to dismantle education especially the study of history and its warnings for the present and the future. Another aspect of the education system which they need to eradicate is its ability to develop a sense of agency, especially moral agency, in students. You can see these constrictions taking place live stream with student protests being abolished and the protesters taken away on Trumped up charges, loss of habeas corpus and representation. Along with the demise of education is banning of books, annihilation of DEI initiatives, and figuring out which group exists that almost everyone can agree to hate - Muslims fit the bill in Europe², and in the United States of Trump, the favourite groups to “other” are immigrants and trans people. All demagogues require this development of hate as a primary basis for consolidating their base of support.

All these actions are unjust and Plato demonstrates the converse of that, in saying that being “just” is of highest importance, and by being “just,” one can be happy and that by living according to the constitution (defined herein as the body of social law or society itself), which is supposed to be a just law, is not being a slave to it, but rather is a form of self-preservation. However, Aristotle was striving for a “middle” position somewhere between the extremes of oligarchy and extreme democracy (100% direct action by the full population). Quoting from Prof. M.A. Rafey Habib³ (Rutgers):

“Aristotle observes that all states contain three sections, the very rich, the very poor and those in the middle. Again invoking the principle of the mean, he asserts that to hold a “middling” amount of property is best of all. People in this condition, whom he calls hoi mesoi [the middle ones] are most easily obedient to reason; they exhibit the least reluctance and least eagerness to hold office; they are exempt from the arrogance of the very rich, who cannot understand how to be ruled; and from the wickedness of the poor, who cannot understand how to rule.”

“Aristotle positively encourages enlarging this middle section of the citizenry since it is the most secure and acts to prevent excesses from the other two classes. It is, according to Aristotle, free of faction, and when it is large enough to outweigh any combination of the other two extremes the constitution has a good chance of being permanent. In general, the better mixed a constitution (i.e. city), the longer it will last. This middle section of people has given rise to the best lawgivers, such as Solon and Lycurgus, and any current legislators, whether in an oligarchy or a democracy, should include consideration of this class.”

(A main theme in Aristotle, was finding a mean, a middle ground. In his book “Ethics,” he indicated that virtue is a mean between excess and deficit)

“Hence democracy fosters genuine individuals, who resist the reduction of their social function, or indeed their natural potential, into one exclusive dimension. Also, democracy nurtures all parts of the soul equally, refusing obeisance to the law of reason. Above all, the “greed” for liberty is the hallmark of a democratic society. Such a constitution is the archetype of social disorder, individuality, emphasis rather than suppression of difference, and insubordination to reason. Its nature is rooted in self-will and physical pleasure, in a refusal to acknowledge the hierarchy either within the soul or that between the soul and body.”

Note the difference between an actual democracy with its “greed for liberty” - (strong desire for liberty) and the neo-liberal inversion into the liberty of economic freedom (greed).

“From the disorder of the democratic state, maintains Plato, tyranny will arise, with one man claiming to represent the interests of both social order and the downtrodden majority. In terms of the evolution of one system of government from another, Plato’s point is that tyranny, though ostensibly initiated as a reaction against the chaos of democracy, is in fact an extension of it. Tyranny embodies the utmost depths of anarchy and lawlessness. Hence the degeneration from aristocracy through oligarchy to democracy and tyranny represents not only the collapse of the original unity of the state but, equally importantly, of the unity of the individual into a lawless multiplicity.”

Therefore you can demonstrate the embedded evils lurking in the neo-liberal “philosopher’s” manipulation of society via their network of interconnected “think tanks” around the world, devising strategy to promote the acquisition of economic freedom above any other virtue. (See previous posts) The depth of penetration of this skewed reasoning is revealed by its pervasiveness - for one example, even the lefties (and important climate scientists) are bemoaning the demise of the carbon tax even though it was an integral part of the neo-liberal strategy of financialization of Nature which promotes The Market as a better arbiter of environmental concerns rather than thoughtful, rational and science-based government regulation.

The engine driving these think tanks is funding from and the inherent ideological messaging of big business. People who have specialized in that quasi-sociopathic mindset of business have blocked out the generalist thinking required for improving the social construct. These high-level business people are the oligarch class where greed and economic freedom reign supreme, while their foot-soldiers, the think tank workers, are mere transmitters of ideology via supposedly academic research fed through their retail ideology retailers, being what’s left of mass media. This media, instead of their higher calling of furthering societal education, have become distributors of propaganda by their embedded think tank influencers, who of course remain nameless.

Everyone would be better off if all election advertising were banned; voters having their minds reset by this influence are not making an informed choice; their vote has little value. Voting then devolves to an emotional rather than rational choice. The emotional choice is grounded by two aspects - a sense of belonging and participation developed in campaign rallies and a sense of retribution enabled by attacking the “other” in the ballot box. And absolutely nobody needs these jerk politicians running around the country buying votes with the tax money appropriated from that same set of people.

Generally I say that government should run in the background, as a utility, rather than lying there on the surgical table waiting for the next ideologue to come in and start hacking away. If it’s set up to run properly, why the constant ideological rejigging and manipulation? A system such as Steiner’s Three Fold Social Order, you set it up and it runs. But it is not amenable to immigration.

So really, you need to first devise a working system of governance that is constantly correcting for human failures, given that humans are not a domesticated species, and will always try to scam whatever system you create. Then, perhaps, maybe, you could figure out what types of people should be doing what kinds of work.

Another section (emphasis added) from Professor Habib’s article (notes such as VIII, 545D-547A refer to book, page in Plato’s Republic):

“Even the ideal city, acknowledges Plato, will ultimately crumble. Its deterioration will be caused initially by flaws in the selective breeding of guardians, generating intermixture and dissension in the ruling class itself (VIII, 545D-547A). The timocracy [where pursuit of honour is paramount] eventually produced [following the decline of the original aristocracy] will retain some features of the aristocracy such as honouring of rulers and the abstention of the warrior class from money-making; but in admitting to office men of high spirit rather than reason it will hold itself perpetually in a posture of war. Moreover, “a fierce secret lust for gold and silver” and private gain will infect its rulers. Such will be a state guided by the coveting of honour (VIII, 547D-548C). This system naturally gives way to oligarchy where government office is attached to a property qualification (VIII, 550C) and where the city is no longer a unity but divided effectively into two cities, between the rich the poor (VIII, 551D). Owing to this inequitable condition, such a city will be marked by crime and the pervasive presence of beggars.”

So with the ongoing use of preparation for (forever) war as a driver of economies, the entire social construct is perverted and captured by the militaristic industrialists, yet another neo-philosophical ideological controller of society. At present, the UK and possibly France and Germany are ramping up preparations for war, citing yet again the “Russian menace” as well as in preparation for the demise of NATO which would eliminate the income from 100,000 US troops stationed in Europe. And they cite this buildup as a necessary economic stimulus! Sorry, building things that just get blown up is non-productive GDP as well as the opportunity cost of what else could have been built with that (borrowed) money. Not to mention that France and even more likely the UK are near default.

The military-industrial-complex people are another group that should be barred from politics, along with the above-mentioned think tank influencers, and that includes their candidate-puppets such as Pierre Poilievre in Canada who will not divulge his think tank connections, and the Trump puppet in USA who claimed he had not read (can he actually read?) the Project 2025 report, but when elected immediately proceed to enact it.

The other aspect of business influence on government (see “What Now?”) is that business should be restricted to one vote every four years like all other people and they would be restricted to that being their only available influence on governance. Thus all lobbyists would be sent looking for a real job instead of continuously injecting their weasel-words and other influence directly into government. Until these control and propaganda systems have their “cold, dead fingers” pried off the levers of government, there is little hope for social progress.

Should anyone, business or citizens, have continuous input into what their representatives are doing? Business, certainly not, as mentioned above, it must be shoe-horned back to within society. Business organizations don’t need to keep reminding the government to accommodate people’s participation in the market, statistics will soon enough inform a government if it is causing economic failure. For citizens themselves, it is complicated by the question of what the purpose of government is, such as are more and more laws necessary? Is it one big pubic ATM? Really important matters of national security need immediate responses, thus you need like-minded people to represent you in these matters; one can’t be second-guessing from the sidelines via text-in voting schemes. And again, the temporal desires of the hoi polloi (the masses) at any particular moment are not worth much, being directly affected by the wash of propaganda and the latest internet meme. Government doesn’t even ask sincere questions. Early in the rule of Trudeau the Lesser, to satisfy a campaign promise, he tossed out a query to the whole country on electoral reform. I sent in a detailed proposal to the parliamentary committee, outlining a simple solution. Later on, I inquired of any results. They said that there was no consensus on that proposal. So, you ask if there is anyone who can give you a good answer, then say there was no consensus on that answer? Why ask the question - political theatre?

And never, as far as I can tell, in the history of government has there ever been an assembly representing the collective private interest, a people-facing body that acts in the interests of the tax payers to ensure accountability of the governing body that represents the collective public interest.

So who is left that might be the “right people”? (An interesting left/right juxtaposition) Most of the remainder of the population are permanently stressed out being trapped in the grinding wheels of the economic system designed to sweep any surplus wealth up to the top. Really, you do need people who study history, who can actually think, but then they will be dismissed by others as “elites.”

References:

1) - Bertrand Russell - "Christian Ethics" from "Marriage and Morals" (1950), quoted from James A. Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief. Cited by https://bukowskiforum.com/members/bukfan.126/

2) - The Chris Hedges Report “Erasing history - how fascism works” accessed 2025/02/28

3) - “Identity and Difference: Plato and Aristotle on Democracy” by M.A.R. Habib, Dept. Of English, Rutgers University, The University College of Ripon and York, July 14, 1998 (Updated May 10, 2013) https://habib.camden.rutgers.edu/talks/plato-and-aristotle/

I highly recommend reading that full Habib paper, it is very comprehensive and only 2-3 pages long. There are many typos, dropped words, etc., but you can get through it.

“What good is democracy …” by Bill Astore

https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/p/strategic-voting-required

https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/p/what-now