Avoiding military tyranny is not easy

The word republic comes from the Latin res publica, which translates as the public thing. The idea developed as a reaction to absolute monarchy. The state could not be left in the hands of one person. The general welfare should have precedence over individual whims. This led to determining who was best able to decide what that welfare was. In ancient Rome, the landed aristocracy took control. They formed the patrician class and adult males were members of the senate, the city’s legislative chamber. The government of Rome had a class prejudice, but it depended on the plebeian class for productive labour and military conscripts. Urban and rural labourers had to be fit for war and combative. These were early days, and Romans only waged war in winter when the fields were fallow. Most of Rome’s wars were successful, and captured enemies were made slaves. Then, as military campaigns spread further and further, the conscript armies became professional. The legions no longer returned to their ploughshares like the legendary Cincinnatus, and their labour was replaced by growing numbers of slaves. But the profusion of slave labour devalued free labour, which meant workers could no longer earn a living wage and raise a family. This provoked social conflict and civil wars. Finally the republic was replaced by an imperial regime whose legitimacy relied on military force. The army decided who ruled the empire, often one of their generals. Later the heart of the empire moved east to Constantinople and became a Hellenised Christian theocracy, while Western Europe was invaded by various Germanic tribes and divided back into kingdoms.

Perpetual wars can only be fought by those who make war their profession. The conscript thinks of going home, while the professional thinks of advancing his/her career. Empires are adepts of forever wars. That is how they constructed themselves. And having conquered, they must fight off adversaries and stamp out insurrections. Empires are ever more dependent on military power, and this military industrial complex plays an ever more important political role. And its interests soon supersede the welfare of citizens, who must content themselves with bread and circus games. Republics are “things” that belong to an oligarchy and tend to the military tyranny of empire. They are built on the illusion that the public thing is held in common by all. But when the reality of oligarchic rule becomes apparent, the ensuing social upheavals are dealt with by the force of arms. This puts government in the hands of the military and the other security services. The oligarchs are still in place, but armies have command structures that lead up to a Commander-in-chief, not to a group of people obsessed with money. Rank is achieved by merit. It is not inherited or taken from the labour of others. But that merit is based on obedience, which makes armed forces the perfect top-down instrument for just about anything.

Republics have never been public. They serve to bring people together in support of the wellbeing of oligarchs and plutocrats. But when the growing gap between the few who have much and the many that have little or nothing gets excessively obvious there is revolt demanding a restoration of republican equality and the common wealth. The oligarchy resolves this by violence, but it has been unmasked and its republican discourse is no longer credible. The distance between what is claimed and what is done widens extravagantly, true and false get confused, and outright lies slowly become the norm. That is usually when the oligarchs hand over power to the force of arms. The soft power of conviction gives way to the brutality of compulsion. An army exists in a totalitarian organisation of time and space. Orders received must be obeyed. Schedules are strict. Conformity is imposed. Uniforms and living apart make this possible by isolating armed forces from the rest of humanity. This of course is not how societies function. They are constantly searching, experimenting, doubting and hoping. They have no certainties and blunder on with no particular plans. When the military take over all is ordered and may seem successful for a time, but social creativity is stifled as everyone just does what they are told to do. It supposes that governing a nation is like going to war, with strategies and tactics and a final victory or defeat. It reduces society to obedience and drives it along a path that depends on the knowledge, perspicacity, empathy, ruthlessness or imagination of the leader. The republic reaches the end of its term with a return to monarchy. This repetition through history could mean that the only forms of government are oligarchy and monarchy. The rule of just a few or of just one, whereas the rule by and for the people is just an empty slogan. However, an oligarchy is not monolithic. There is competition between landowners and merchants and, more recently, between industrial tycoons and bankers. This division of interests is the basis of a political division and of a two party system. And their struggle over wealth and power involves the people, who are called on to support one side or the other. But the process is cloaked in nationalism and demagogy. The real interests must not be revealed. When they become apparent, when the mechanisms of wealth extraction by capital become too obvious, the republican myth falls apart. This ideological void is then filled by the absolute certainty of brute force. When political institutions are seen to be a lie, a cover up for the sharing of profits between corporations and banks, a society finds itself without foundations. That is when the absolute military hierarchy appears to many people as the only remaining point of stability. And a more or less blatant military regime is installed. There is not necessarily a coup. It can happen progressively with the appearance of legality as new laws replace old ones. The rule of law is the rule of those who make the law.

Profit capitalism is close to a cliff edge. Global debt has reached incredible heights and productions of goods and services are waning. Meanwhile climate disruption is an existential threat for all life on Earth. The pending collapse of credit, demand and ecosystems will be propitious for military takeovers. The control of societies by an oligarchic ownership of finance and production will no longer function, and recourse to brute force is the easiest alternative. When survival is at stake, violence can seem the only choice. But other paths have been tried, where people take their destiny in hand, locally and sometimes on a nationwide scale. They were short lived experiments, however, mainly because debating, arguing, deciding and governing are a full time occupation, and most people have other things to do, such as growing food and making things, providing healthcare and shipping stuff around. In ancient Athens, when the idea of democracy – government by the demos, the tribes, the people – was invented, those concerned were adult men of independent means. They could dedicate their time to politics and military training because the work was being done by slaves, servants, women and children. But even then, some Athenians chose to occupy themselves with trade or industry, which made them richer than their fellow citizens and disrupted the city’s social cohesion. For people to govern themselves, they must not have much else to do. As this is generally not the case, power needs to be delegated by the many to a few. Once that transfer of power is institutionalised, the political process is taken away from the people, who become mere viewers of a perpetual spectacle. The original democracy turns into an oligarchic republic. Once upon a time there were labour unions and neighbourhood communities that were the back-bones of more general political organisations. Since then, unions have lost their influence outside the public sector, through legislation, ideological disparagement, their own mistakes, their rigidities and the gradual disappearance of permanent employment. And neighbourhoods have been dispersed in search of work and by “gentrification”. The traditional base for resistance to militarised tyranny is weak and new forms of revolt, such as Extinction Rebellion, the yellow vests or the mass protests in Hong Kong, Santiago, Teheran and many other cities are still in their infancy. The ancient knowhow and this modern energy may be able to coalesce and win over the military and security services to their cause. But their task will not be easy and time is running out.