Tipping the Balance of Power
Last week I mentioned that the ruler’s needs verses the people’s needs is what makes a government work. And this sounds like a democracy tidbit - but historically, when people can’t feed their families - under any system of government - they revolt.
Interestingly enough - in a revolt like this the rebel leaders often turn to a democracy type government.
There’s some seriously wild history of this phenomena…
The French Revolution was the background for beheading of Marie Antoinette a spoiled queen child (she was about 16) who said of her starving subjects, “Let them eat cake!”
They executed her for that because she didn’t have enough empathy to realize what her people needed. She wasn’t listening.
This revolution was part of a series of conflicts where the power of ‘divine right to rule’ was tested. Out of a conflict at the same time - came the United States of America’s Declaration of Independence.
The quest for independence in the Thirteen Colonies who would later become the United States of America, started with the British not caring to listen to their colonists. The British were focused on profit from the lands they considered theirs, and it was profit at any means - including high taxes. When the United States Colonists were faced with paying their taxes or feeding their families and keeping their businesses afloat - they chose revolution.
They chose this path because they had tried to make their voices heard - and were openly ignored. It wasn’t just a flip the switch decision. It was a long calculated process of consistent results where the colonists needs were ignored.
This methodology of ‘ruler puts their needs over the people’s needs’ always leads to conflict. As modern history panned out - divine right of kings and the kings answering to a god - disappeared. But the idea of a ‘right to rule’ continued because of power imbalances. The king had an army. The people had farm tools.
And then the women revolt….
The French Revolution was started with women armed with farm tools marching into the cities because they couldn’t feed their kids.
Russia in 1921, just after the end of World War I, was nearly a democracy because women with farm tools fought the czar’s (king) army, and their sons on the front lines of World War I quit the international war and went to help mom. This is called the Kronstadt rebellion.
Its the moment where the common people of Russia almost created their own Declaration of Independence, but it ultimately failed because the Communist forces were prepared to fight and the farmers had been starved and killed to the point where they couldn’t sustain a battle.
China, under British rule had a movement for democracy - but because the Japanese during World War II took over China from the British colonists, the democracy movement was pushed to the lower populated and lower resource holding areas of the country, and post-World War II, the forces were so scattered that they couldn’t move successfully against Mao and China ended up communist.
But the peoples needs verses the ruler’s needs doesn’t end with communist or totalitarian systems.
Communism was supposed to cure this divide by equalizing everything. And wherever its implemented - it fails, because the people who run it, are the same people who started the revolution. They know how to get things done with violence and force. This isn’t a skill that’s easily put aside… because those who survive the revolutions and power shifts do it because they’re paranoid. Hypervigilance is a survival skill that if not held in check leads to paranoia.
Paranoia always puts your needs above everyone else. Its never safe enough to see someone else’s point of view because you might be wrong. And in the case of revolutions - if you’re wrong - you’re dead.
Essentially, paranoia becomes the higher power that a leader serves when their needs make the people angry. And that forms a religion called ‘control’.
If it helps… here’s that shown in the Star Wars spinoff Andor…
(There is some language in violence, but I think its important, because sometimes story speaks louder than the facts.)
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