Declining power is reactionary

The method is probably as old as minority rule. When people come together in large numbers to protest and claim their rights, provoke them to some act of violence, if necessary by infiltrated agitators, and use that as a pretext for massive repression. Just firing tear-gas canisters and rubber bullets at a peaceful crowd will often do the trick. Make them angry enough and they may riot, resorting to looting and arson. That brands them as criminals indiscriminately. It alienates public opinion and motivates the forces of repression. Opposing armed violence with unarmed non-violence is difficult and may be impossible. Strikes can be effective and a general strike even more so. But they suppose the existence of factories and organised labour, both of which have largely disappeared in the developed world.

Power has a vast experience of dealing with protest. It has learnt brutal and sophisticated forms of repression and diversion. It can resort to the hard tools of police violence, mass incarceration, torture and assassination, but it also uses the soft tools of propaganda and corruption. There is always a mix of the two, though the latter is preferred as it is less disruptive. If it is generalised, ultra violence hinders industry, commerce and the production of wealth. Far better is the propagation of ideology, the same ideas heard repetitively from cradle to grave. This means controlling the information in circulation and, ultimately, the vocabulary that transmits it. However, this also handicaps production as it severely inhibits initiative, creativeness and entrepreneurship.

The practice of power must navigate between the fear of brute force and the ties of ingrained convictions. However, too much fear paralyses society, and convictions need the constant repetition of the same story. Thought control – albeit the Orwellian dystopia – cannot be completely estranged from reality, and it must constantly ward off contrary ideas. This is often facilitated by language barriers, as a local idiom is less permeable to external influences. Power can control education, the press and all Hertzian emissions quite effectively, but printed material, audio and video tapes or disks are easily smuggled, and internet remains difficult to regulate. However, China and Russia have constructed separate national webs, which make incoming and outgoing material much easier to scrutinise. And this may be a trend that other nations will implement. The free circulation of ideas threatens the hold power has on what people think. The certainty of its ideology is questioned. When that certainty is triumphant doubts are drowned by the cheering, and power can by quite liberal in its censorship. When the ideology strays from reality the questioning strengthens, and control must tighten correspondingly. When the ideology of power fails, that power is vulnerable and dangerous. It will be swept away, but its relegation to history’s dustbin can leave a wasteland.

A few dominate the many with a monopoly of weapons and ideas. But power is a corruptive agent that corrodes ideals and favours force. It tends to be absolute and destructive. While sharing power is a complex, difficult and often chaotic alternative. Instead of being fearful and obedient, people are outspoken and demanding. Instead of receiving orders, they take initiatives, and society is turbulent and creative. But somehow this state is always ephemeral, as power and wealth accumulate again inexorably. It is often easier to be told what to do than to decide oneself. And all children are led to believe that their elders know better. They usually do, but all depends on how this knowledge is transmitted. Is it dogmatic or is it reasoned, and can it be questioned? Is the world view taught as a certainty or as the most probable explanation at a given time? And then there are all the mystifications and outright lies, such as Father Xmas at a very early age, a primordial imposture that is soon followed by others. The deceits of childhood lead to those of adulthood, and power plays with them to expand its reach. But reality lurks in the background, ever ready to burst the dream bubble.

Power imposes itself by force and by acquiescence. Tyranny is always assisted by countless petty tyrants. Many accept power and are its willing servants (1). The central power over all gives them local power over some. But power always overreaches its capacities. This all-powerfulness may seem real for a time, but it is a mirage that finally dissipates. To be conclusive, power must expand and grow. When it falters and contracts, its foundations are threatened and it can only consolidate them by force. Waning power gets more violent. As it loses its prestige, it increases its brutality. A stick and a carrot, and when the carrot is eaten only the stick remains.

Power is basically the force of arms, but it constructs a story that provides a different legitimacy. In various roundabout ways kings were anointed by gods. Religion consecrated power and bolstered it with ideology. When that ideology was brought down kings lost their heads (London 1649, Paris 1793). But religion as such did not disappear, and power still insists it has some sort of god on its side. As the rule of might needs the varnish of right, the pen writes the sword’s panegyric. Today’s god is money, its religion is profit and its clergy are bankers. That ideological construction is showing signs of weakness. Shrinking profits (and zero interest) are sapping its foundations and will soon have it tumbling down. Then power will resort to all the force it can muster, and now is the last chance to restrict that force as much as possible, so that toppling power does not bring the whole world down with it.

1. See “Discourse on Voluntary Servitude” by Etienne de la Boétie (1530-1563)