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February 8 - February 26, 2023
Michels’ entire study, he sums up as the iron law of oligarchy,
The socialists might conquer, but not socialism, which would perish in the moment of its adherents’ triumph.”
A man’s conduct (that is, human action) is “logical” under the following circumstances: when his action is motivated by a deliberately held goal or purpose; when that goal is possible; when the steps or means he takes to reach the goal are in fact appropriate for reaching it.
Pareto's
Finally, action is non-logical when the means taken to reach the goal are in fact inappropriate to that purpose. If the carpenter tried to pound his nails with a sponge, then his means would be inappropriate, no matter how suitable he might himself think them. So, too, if a surgeon used a pickaxe for an appendectomy; or if an oppressed people thought they could overcome a despotic social regime by an assassination or two; or if a democratic electorate believed that by voting a change of parties in power they might be guaranteed an era of endless prosperity.
Whoops...
Pareto not only shows that non-logical conduct is predominant; his crucial point is that the conduct which has a bearing on social and political structure, on what he calls the “social equilibrium,” is above all the arena of the non-logical. What happens to society, whether it progresses or decays, is free or despotic, happy or miserable, poor or prosperous, is only to the slightest degree influenced by the deliberate, rational purposes held by human beings.
The point is not that these slogans, ideals, programs, and declarations do not influence action. Under certain circumstances they undoubtedly do, and tremendously. But they are not and cannot be part of logical or rational action. I am not taking logical steps in pursuit of a goal if the presumed goal is nothing definite. I can say, no matter what happens, that I have attained the goal; and you can say I have not. In spite of what I may think, the expressed goal itself and the deductions I draw from it have no logical relation to what I do.
Activity. Most human beings constantly feel the need to “do something,” whether or not the something done can accomplish any desired purpose. Ignorance of medical science in no way stops the family from bustling about when someone is ill.
It takes guts to choose to do nothing.
The tone and feeling with which these simple assertions are made and accepted, especially if they are constantly repeated, may give them great persuasive value. This point is stressed in Hitler’s discussions of propaganda in Mein Kampf: “Any effective propaganda must be confined to a very few points, and must use these as slogans until the very last man cannot help knowing what is meant.… Propaganda must limit itself to saying very little, and this little it must keep forever repeating.…”
The seeming influence of the derivation is in reality the influence of the residue which it expresses. It is for this reason that the “logical” refutation of theories used in politics never accomplishes anything so long as the residues remain intact. Scientists proved with the greatest ease that the Nazi racial theories were altogether false, but that had no effect at all in getting Nazis to abandon those theories;
The truth seems to be that no general conclusion can be drawn. Sometimes the individual best secures his own happiness by conforming to the group standards; sometimes by disregarding or violating the standards. It all depends upon the individual in question, and upon the circumstances. Nevertheless, though this is the truth, it would, generally speaking, be disadvantageous to society for this truth to be known. Almost always it is socially useful, it contributes to social welfare, to have people believe that their own individual happiness is bound up with acceptance of the community standards:
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Is the truth, or rather a knowledge of the truth, always advantageous to society? is falsehood, or nonsense, always harmful? To both of these questions, the facts compel us to answer, No. The great rationalistic dream of modern times, believing that social actions are or can be primarily logical, has taught the illusion that the True and the Good are identical, that if men knew the truth about themselves and their social and political life, then society would become ever better; and that falsehood and absurdity always hurt social welfare. But things do not stand in that simple way. Sometimes
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Many scientists who are supremely great in the natural sciences, where they use logico-experimental principles exclusively or almost so, forget them entirely when they venture into the social sciences.[*]
From these considerations it follows that a relatively free circulation of the élites—both up and down the social scale—is a requisite for a healthy and a strong society. Conversely, it follows that when in a society the élite becomes closed or nearly closed, that society is threatened either with internal revolution or with destruction from outside.
The meaning of this optimum combination can be translated as follows into more usual terms: (1) The masses have faith in an integrating myth or ideology, a strong sense of group solidarity, a willingness to endure physical hardship and sacrifice. (2) The best and most active brains of the community are concentrated in the élite, and ready to take advantage of whatever opportunities the historical situation presents. (3) At the same time the élite is not cynical, and does not depend exclusively upon its wits, but is able to be firm, to use force, if the internal or external condition calls for
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“To ask whether or not force ought to be used in a society, whether the use of force is or is not beneficial, is to ask a question that has no meaning; for force is used by those who wish to preserve certain uniformities [e.g., the existing class structure of society, the status quo] and by those who wish to overstep them; and the violence of the one stands in contrast and in conflict with the violence of the others. In truth, if a partisan of a governing class disavows the use of force, he means that he disavows the use of force by insurgents trying to escape from the norms of the given
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subject-matter of political science is the struggle for social power in its diverse open and concealed forms.
The laws of political life cannot be discovered by an analysis which takes men’s words and beliefs, spoken or written, at their face value.
The theory of democracy as self-government must, therefore, be understood as a myth, formula, or derivation. It does not correspond to any actual or possible social reality. Debates over the merits of the theory are almost wholly valueless in throwing light on social facts.
majority; all societies, including societies called democratic, are ruled by a minority. But the ruling minority always seeks to justify and legitimize its rule in part through a formula, without which the social structure would disintegrate.
Bonapartism. It can hardly be denied that this trend exists, that it is the most indisputable political tendency of our generation. In every advanced nation we observe the evolution of the form of government toward that wherein a small group of leaders, or a single leader, claims to represent and speak for the whole people. As the embodiment of the will of the whole people, the leader claims an unlimited authority, and considers all intermediary political bodies, such as parliaments or local governments, to be wholly dependent on the central sovereignty which can alone stand legitimately for
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The Bonapartist leader can regard himself, and be regarded, as the quintessential democrat; his despotism is simply the omnipotent people ruling and disciplining itself. This is just what the Bonapartist leaders themselves, and their spokesmen, argue. When democracy is defined in terms of self-government, there can be no convincing democratic answer.
Some people have the naïve opinion that in other countries despotism was established in the name of despotism, that dictators who were in the process of destroying freedom made clear to the people that they were doing just that. Naturally, it never happens that way. The modern despotisms have all marched to the tune of “the workers” or “the people.” The Stalinist Constitution of 1936 is, we are assured, the most democratic in the world. Nazism expresses, according to its own account, the aspirations and highest freedom of the entire German people, and, indeed, when Europe begins to get
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hmmm, apparently we are forced to use the keyboard... anyways... This is something to teach the young generations early on, the fact that your side is saying they're fighting fascism doesn't mean they're fighting fascism...
In practice, in the real world rather than the mythical world of ideologies, a “democracy” means a political system in which there exists “liberty”: that is, what Mosca calls “juridical defense,” a measure of security for the individual which protects him from the arbitrary and irresponsible exercise of personally held power. Liberty or juridical defense, moreover, is summed up and focused in the right of opposition, the right of opponents of the currently governing élite to express publicly their opposition views and to organize to implement those views.
And again, this has to hold for the people we disagree with the most in order to have any value
“It follows that before a theory can be considered true, it is virtually indispensable that there be perfect freedom to impugn it. Any limitation, even indirect and however remote, imposed on anyone choosing to contradict it is enough to cast suspicion upon it. Hence freedom to express one’s thought, even counter to the opinion of the majority or of all, even when it offends the sentiments of the few or of the many, even when it is generally reputed absurd or criminal, always proves favorable to the discovery of objective truth.”
Liberty or freedom[*] means above all, as I have said, the existence of a public opposition to the governing élite. The crucial difference that freedom makes to a society is found in the fact that the existence of a public opposition (or oppositions) is the only effective check on the power of the governing élite.
As anyone with experience in any organization knows, even a small opposition, provided it really exists and is active, can block to a remarkable degree the excesses of the leadership. But when all opposition is destroyed, there is no longer any limit to what power may do. A despotism, any kind of despotism, can be benevolent only by accident.
There is no one force, no group, and no class that is the preserver of liberty. Liberty is preserved by those who are against the existing chief power. Oppositions which do not express genuine social forces are as trivial, in relation to entrenched power, as the old court jesters.
A considerable degree of liberty is not usual in human society. If we review the history of humanity, so far as we know it, it is apparent that despotic regimes are far more frequent than free regimes, and it would therefore seem that despotism is more nearly than freedom in accord with human nature.
The Marxists and the democratic totalitarians claim that freedom can now be secured only by concentrating all social forces and especially economic forces in the state which, when they or their friends are running it, they identify with the people. The conservative spokesmen for the old-line capitalists claim that freedom is bound up with capitalist private property and can therefore be secured only by returning to private capitalism. The two groups are, though for different reasons, both wrong; or, rather, their arguments and programs are both simply myths that express, not movements for
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A more direct and peculiar difficulty consists in the unwillingness of men to adopt a scientific attitude toward the study of political and social events, or to apply the canons of scientific procedure. “Sentiment,” as Pareto would call it, interferes.
they block freedom of inquiry whenever it threatens, as it so often threatens, to undermine their power. From the time of the Greek sophists until today, everyone who, by objective inquiry, discloses some of the truth about power has been denounced by official opinion as subversive.
they being the powerful
“first approximations,”
nice wording
It would seem rather pedantic for an expert in physics to tell us, first, that our crude generalization about falling bodies is absolutely false because there are facts (as there are) which disagree with it; and, second, that therefore we have no right, on the basis of such falsity, to step aside from the path of the stone. This, however, is just the way that some of the academic experts reason and advise about social matters.
So that was happening even then...
An honest statement to the masses, which by the nature of the case of a politician cannot give, would have to say: you cannot rule yourselves; distrust all leaders, and above all those who tell you that they are merely expressing or representing your will; erect and cherish every possible safeguard against the unchecked exercise of power.
It is ludicrous for the authors of books like this one—that is, serious books about society—to pretend to speak to “the people.” The great bulk of the people in this country neither buys nor reads any books at all—thereby avoiding a great quantity of nonsense. The potential audience for this sort of book is, as statistics show, limited to a comparatively small section of the élite.[*] The absurdity does not at all prevent the authors from covering page after page with rhetorical advice to the masses about what they can and should do to run society for their own welfare and interest.
Hmm...
they have only, they say, carried out the people’s will; if the masses are stupid or selfish or easy-going or short-sighted, who are their humble rulers to be blamed? [*] Small wonder that rulers do not encourage the growth of a science of politics!
The fate of an entire society is frequently—whether one likes it or not, and unjust as it may seem usually to be—bound up with the fate of its ruling class.
If the generals are no good, the army will be defeated; but the soldiers also—in fact, primarily—will be the ones who are slaughtered. A society—a city or a nation or an empire—may become as a whole so thoroughly rotten that it is better that it should be destroyed as a social organism; but this too is seldom fortunate for the individual members of the society, ruled as well as rulers.
Political liberty, too, in the longer run, usually aids both rulers and ruled. We have already seen that this is so from the point of view of the ruled; from the side of the rulers, liberty is a safeguard against bureaucratic degeneration, a check on errors, and a protection against revolution.
The political life of the masses and the cohesion of society demand the acceptance of myths. A scientific attitude toward society does not permit belief in the truth of the myths. But the leaders must profess, indeed foster, belief in the myths, or the fabric of society will crack and they be overthrown. In short, the leaders, if they themselves are scientific, must lie. It is hard to lie all the time in public but to keep privately an objective regard for the truth. Not only is it hard; it is often ineffective, for lies are often not convincing when told with a divided heart. The tendency is
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This is the underlying thesis of the State Department’s “White Paper,” Peace and War, which was issued in January, 1943. As the magazine, Life, correctly notes: “It justifies itself for doing what [the State Department claims that] the people wanted by proving that the Department knew all along that what the people wanted was wrong.”
