We Need to Change the Way Things are Run

If this post does not get me knocked off my platforms, I do not think anything will. However, it is a subject which needs to start to be discussed frankly. I will see how it goes.

There are a lot of blogs talking about socialist, anarchist, and Marxist theory. Most of them are a waste of electrons, but some have some useful news and information from outside of liberal assumptions. You can get a good education from some of them, about post capitalist political/economic theory.

There is not much that tries to construct what a post capitalist economy and society would really look like. There is almost nothing looking at how to get from here to there. We seem to be still in the 1970s on this topic; assuming it is all going to happen magically without anyone doing anything.

There seems to be a wide spread realization of this problem. I keep encountering people who say that the problem with Canada is there has not been a good ‘shake up’ since colonial times. Yet there is a reluctance to utter the “R” word, let alone really think through the implications of it.

People used to talk more about this fifty years ago. It is only recently getting talked about again. But in an advanced, well educated society like Canada, in the twenty first century, during such a time of social and systemic decay, it should not be a controversial topic.

Younger people these days often say something like “we need to change the way things are run”. I wait, all ears, for them to tell me what we are going to change it all too, and how. They all seem to have some trouble working this out.

I long ago learned that the Marxist theorists are the last people to offer any insight into these problems. When a revolution gets going, they will be among the last to notice and will be no help to it, or will actively obstruct it. The basic failure of Marxism has always been, they are mighty experts on the problems with capitalism, but have really no ideas about what comes after it.

Yet all the basic ideas are there. We know how to go about overthrowing capitalism and how post capitalism will work. The ideas are not being put together.

The ideas do not fit with the various theories which the various theorizers have. They require admitting facts a lot of people find hard to accept. They contradict a lot of concepts which are deeply rooted in western culture.

This seems to be the biggest problem with making change. The right ideas are always there. In fact, there are very few really new ideas. It is that people have trouble dropping old ideas which do not work or do not apply in the new context.

This is why, to get a revolution happening in the right way, you need some really good leaders. Among other characteristics, they need the ability to find the right ideas, even if they are not popular initially. From this they need to be able to collaborate with other sentinel intelligences to form and execute plans.

Such people can inspire a well placed confidence and can communicate plans clearly to followers of a revolutionary movement. Such people are what a certain school of sociology call “sentinel intelligences”. A more common term is “natural leaders”.

Ruling classes always make sure such people are in short supply. Yet elites also need such people to keep things running for them. Especially, to fix the messes they make.

We are in a situation in the western countries, the Atlanticist countries, where the elites are becoming incapable of governing. We need a change, a shakeup, a revolution. The object is to get competent people, sentinel intelligences, people with some expertise at actually running things, in charge of society.

However, there are better ways of doing revolutions than the ‘storm the Bastille’ model most people have in mind. The problem with most revolutions in the past is that they came about rather spontaneously. This usually led to the wrong kinds of people coming into power; crazy, overly ideological, or just having no idea what to do next.

A more gradual approach would be much better. Revolutionists need to understand correctly why they are making the revolution, and what they intend to put in place. A revolution needs to be planned, and carried out step by step.

The people to lead the overthrow of capitalism may not be the right people to lead the transition to post capitalism. The leaders must be selected and trained, and power seekers and mental disorders weeded out. The last thing the human race needs is another Stalin.

Within the Marxist ‘tradition’, there is a great theoretician of this “long march through the institutions” approach to a revolution; Gramsci. Most modern Marxists seem to disdain him. I am a more of a Gramscian than anything else.

One thing I am definitely not is a pacifist. That does not mean I want people to start throwing bombs around. It is that any objective study of pacifist methods finds it an ineffective way of challenging power, and usually a good way to get people hurt or killed.

Gramsci was a proponent of a Machiavellian approach. Since Machiavelli is among the most misinterpreted of political philosophers, I must here explain what he was actually about. He did not write a ‘handbook for tyrants’, but one for overthrowing tyrants. His political career was about trying to protect the Florentine republic from the Medicis.

Machiavelli’s most famous quote is “hence it comes that all armed prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed prophets have been destroyed.” In other words, if you try to fundamentally change anything, and you are not able to defend yourself, you will be destroyed. Gramsci was much influenced by Machiavelli and believed that the “long march” had to be led by an “armed prophet”.

All this is anathema to those with a liberal mentality and the ideas of a ‘liberal democracy’. It is hard to break free from these ideas because they are so widely assumed, even by people who believe they are opposing liberalism and capitalism. These ideas must be overcome if we are going to get out of the present growing crisis.

Pacifism, ‘reason’, and ‘rule of law’ are all liberal ideas which set people up for victimization, and to accept unjust social order. The present order in ‘peaceful and reasonable’ Canada is in fact, ultimately maintained by violence. Law works only to protect power, which has no reason to be ‘reasonable’.

The most pervasive and harmful liberal idea is that we live in a democracy. In other words, as it is said, the biggest threat to democracy is the idea that we already have one. Canada is not a democracy and never has been.

Anyone who thinks all this nonsense about elections, electoral parties, and ‘representation’ is about democracy, has no idea what a real democracy would look like. All the above is how an oligarchy works. Any time something like real democracy has functioned, it has worked by direct assemblies, delegation, and sortition.

We do not live in conditions within which a real democracy could become established and could operate. We live under a capitalist oligarchy. The only way to eliminate it and eventually bring about a democracy, would be first to establish a transitional dictatorship.

‘Dictatorship’ has become a dirty word in western culture. It is acquainted with coups and tyrannical government. Much of the world has a different view.

The western model of ‘democracy’ is seen in much of the world as government by plutocrats and criminal syndicates who can steal elections and loot the public. Often dictatorship is the only alternative to total collapse of government and society. Many cultures have developed traditional forms of government which are much more democratic than western liberal ‘democracy’.

‘Dictatorship’ originally meant commissioners appointed for short terms to deal with a crisis which the regular government apparatus could not cope with. Marx wrote about the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, a transitional period during which the capitalist’s government and means of suppression are dismantled, and new institutions established. Latin Americans often had ‘dictablandas’ ‘white dictatorships, which cleaned up the mess after military juntas and prepared the transition back to civilian rule.

The concept of a transformative or transitional dictatorship will throw most middle class, middle of the road Canadians into conniptions. But there are no electoral or legal solutions for the crisis growing upon us. We are in the classic collapse situation in which any attempt to stabilize the system destabilizes the powerful interests which are destabilizing the system.

These interests must be broken up and they are unlikely to simply allow themselves to be broken up. They have plenty of means of protecting their power. Anyone thinking these powers can be constrained by law from attacking anyone seeking to curb them, would be in for a most unpleasant surprise.

We are headed for a collapse of our social, political and economic system. The usual response of oligarchic power interests is to create its own dictatorship. This is commonly called fascism.

A period of fascism could last a long time. They are always very bad for most of the people of a country, except the privileged. They usually end when they cannot manage their system any longer.

Right wing and fascist dictatorships are usually replaced by another attempt to establish a liberal democracy without fixing the underlying problems in society which led the last one to fail. Or, there could be a leftist revolution which is not brought off in a good way and usually leads to bad government and failure.

At some point in time this cycle of failure most be broken and an intelligent dictatorship established which can correct these underlying problems. These transformers will not be given power. They will have to take it.

Most of the population is angry about the present order of things. Yet they are deeply committed to the ideas underpinning it. They will be very hostile at first to the transformational dictatorship.

Our Gramscian armed prophets must be able to take power by force, protect themselves from violent reaction, and enforce their directions, until general understanding and support for their purposes develops. Winning public support for a transformation program will be like freeing people from a mind control cult. Western societies really do work much like such cults.

In fact, there are multiple cults, and cults within cults. Different factions within oligarchy create true believer followings around constructed ideologies. This is possible due to the way people are socialized and educated, and the sophistication of modern mass indoctrination techniques.

People living in dysfunctional societies become ‘normalized’ to it. People in most western countries, including Canada, do not realize how crazy society has been made, or how dysfunctional the system has become. No democracy is possible while most people are so lacking in basic self understanding, let alone adequate analytical skills.

This brings us back to the problem of leadership. There would have to be available a minimum number of “sentinel intelligences”, with enough education and expertise, who get the point of a revolution, who would commit to a leadership role and accept the risks. They would have to be able to organize and lead a revolutionary movement, and set up a transformation government.

A significant number of capable people would have to be available to be trained to do the fighting, which may or may not be needed, and the intelligence work which definitely will be. There would need to be a substantial pool of supporters able to supply funding and logistical assistance. The support of most of the population would not be required for a revolution to succeed, but a good number of active supporters would be needed.

Many historians, sociologists, and students of change and revolution have come up with the figure of five percent. The number of sentinel people, with real intelligence and awareness, is considered as being five to ten percent of the population. In really self governing communities, and those with participatory processes, the portion who show up and participate constructively seems to be about five to ten percent.

It is often treated as an axiom that when five percent of a country’s population is so alienated with the government that they are willing to cause some serious trouble, that is all it takes for a serious ‘shake up’ to occur. So five percent would seem to be the minimum population which needs to be mobilized to achieve an effective revolution and put competent people in charge. A little more than that would be better, but you would not want the active group to be too large.

If there is one thing clear about disruption and removal of falsely constituted authority, it is that smaller, more focused groupings are much more effective than big, loose groups. There are too many mentally disturbed people around. The main method false authority uses to suppress opposition is to “saturate the zone” with its own agents.

Thus, nobody joins the core group until they have been vetted, are in line with the groups aims, and are a net asset to it. The rule should be that nobody shows up for actions who were not invited. This is for the success of the group and the personal safety of everyone involved.

This is very different from the way things go in Canada when there are attempts to resist abuses of authority. Usually, such initiatives are quickly shut down. Groups such as I describe have rarely been tried in Canada.

Many, if not most, people, will see me as a maniac or at best a dreamer, for describing this. However, such groups are often very effective in other countries. There is some scientific study of how non lethally armed resistance, civil disobedience, or direct action groups succeed or fail.

The lesson is that neither pacifism or straight out violence work very well. Movements which are clear about their objective, which do not initiate violence, but are willing to defend if attacked, will achieve at least part of the objective, more often than not, and are least likely to be attacked by police. Those who initiate violence rarely succeed and are always attacked by police. Non violence usually fails and is likely to bring attacks.

If you follow news about the increasing number of public uprisings in the world, you should notice something. Not all of them are ‘color revolutions’, organized by hostile foreign spy services. Some are spontaneous and they very often succeed, initially, in overthrowing the government.

They are often very surprised at how easy it was, although they should not be. Most governments are really very weak. But then the rebels have no idea of what to do next, and they fall apart.

It is still very hard to do a really socialist revolution, though there are some successes. The global intelligence system, which reacts against any such development, is weakening. The number of authentically socialist states is growing.

The leading socialist state is China. This statement will be mightily contested by most Canadians who think they are socialists. They do not understand what socialism is.

Socialism is defined as; the organization of an economy to meet the needs of the population. This is opposed to capitalism; the organization of the economy to maximize profits to capital. Socialism has nothing to do with any theory about private property or equal distribution.

So there are not so many real socialists in Canada. Real ones understand how valuable China is as a model. Of course it is not an ideal model.

The core capitalist states, mainly the western states, are collapsing. This includes Canada. So we need good models of what needs to be done and how to do it.

But to succeed we also need working models of what the end goal is. Successful socialist countries combine meritocracy with delegative democracy. They all came about through a long process which always, at some point, required violent removal of an established order.

No country which moved from capitalist oligarchy to real socialism did so merely through elections. Generally, the election happens after the battle in the streets is won. Any party or coalition which has tried to implement socialism without having some force behind them has been destroyed, often with great violence and bloodshed.

Unarmed prophets fail. At best they are hustled out of office before they know what happened and are left bewildered. Often their subsequent lives are ruined. Often they are killed.

There is no reason to believe this would happen any differently in Canada. However, things tend to happen in Canada well after they have become established in other developed countries. Soon Canadian activists will9have many more examples of how to achieve a socialist revolution in a formerly “economically developed” western country.

Again, this kind of thing must be planned and organized, by people who have some education and experience at organizing and planning things. Any debate over what the aim is and how to go about it, must be over before proceeding. Such a movement must proceed quietly until it is able to mount an effective protection force.

Whether to engage in electoralism would depend on the situation. An authentic socialist movement has no point in engaging in an election unless it can win. It must make it clear that truth is not a matter of opinion and it is not going to get into a freak show contest with an establishment mass reality distortion machine.

It may be better to forget electoralism and simply take power. This would require a powerful street force which can put decisions of a transformation council into effect. Much of this would consist of going into government offices, showing establishment functionaries the door and enabling selected competents to sit down and take charge.

Even if a true socialist party were able to win office by election, such a street force would still be required. As many elected socialist governments have discovered, taking office is not the same as taking power. It must be made clear that this party is not there to work within the existing system, but to replace it.

Now back to the delicate topic of what a revolutionary group will do, as would be almost inevitable, when it encounters violence from state or private enforcers, or from foreign directed forces. This is something I advocate very strongly; a real revolutionary movement absolutely cannot allow itself to be attacked. If they do not have a sufficient force trained in non lethal weapons, which can deal with police riot squads, private thugs, or people trying to hijack an action, they are idiots to attempt anything.

Further, a transformational street force would have to be covered by a well armed and trained rifle force. These would be kept well out of sight until a situation arises where they have no choice but to act. This might be a group of psychotic police who decide it is in their job descriptions to shoot into masses of people carrying nothing lethal.

Wealthy interests will frequently organize violence against revolutionary movements. So will agents for foreign intelligence services. Bringing in mercenaries to fire on crowds is an old play in such people’s handbooks.

A transformational socialist government would be in danger from a coup until it consolidates control. Thus it would quickly need to develop an armed force it can rely on. This would enable it to insure control over the police and army.

Civilian intelligence services would, of course, need to be quickly disbanded, its records seized, its former agents cautioned, monitored, and where necessary put away for awhile. Certain foreign powers are not going to like this. However, by time something like this finally gets going in Canada, these will likely be much less able to do anything about it.

A Canadian socialist transformation will soon have foreign allies. Also, examples of how to go about it, and some training resources as well. Any authentic socialist democracy should be lending support to such movements in other countries simply to enhance its own security.

Aside from the military security aspect, there are two things such a revolution would need to do quickly to secure itself. One is to take control of the ”Finance, Insurance, Real Estate” sector of the economy and start issuing the money and credit. The other is to shut down free speech.

The latter will produce the biggest howls of opposition in much of the population. It will leave most people at least confused until they begin to understand it. The purpose is not to suppress truth but to enable truth.

“Freedom of Speech” was always a ridiculous idea. Social media should have made that obvious, if nothing before it ever did. If people are not made responsible for what comes out of their mouths, speech and public discussion becomes largely meaningless.

For the first few years of this transformation, most people will be very uncomfortable with having “unelected” competents in charge. Most people understand that the present order of things is not working and they do not like it. What keeps the present in place is that most people have no idea what they really want, and even less of what they need.

Many people will have definite ideas about what they want, but these will often be unworkable, if not delusional. The correct solutions for problems are easily found by logical processes. However, there is rarely a consensus around optimal solutions.

People brought up in the present social/political milieu are mistrustful of all authority. They often think their own little group has all the the answers. They usually do not even have the questions.

Thus, people will be very unhappy with a dictatorship of competents. This new order must be defended by force until it becomes established. Once people find their lives dramatically improving, most will begin to support a socialist order.

The word “revanchist” means, people who had benefited from a previous order, or thought they did, who now seethe with anger that the present government does not serve their interests alone, and look for revenge and restoration of the previous order. The history of human progress shows that these attitudes can continue for generations and will be destabilizing unless ruthlessly suppressed.

Thus, it can take generations for a real democracy to be fully established. However, once the control mechanisms of the previous oligarchy have been dismantled, a beginning can be made. This must be done quickly and efficiently, and new systems put in place, before revanchism can get going.

This is, to repeat, the big problem with Marxist theoreticians. Overthrowing capitalism is really the easy part. Building socialism is the hard part and a “revolutionary” or transformation group absolutely must know what it is going to do after it takes power, before it takes power.

Thus, the big problem is how such a group can come together while capitalist oligarchy is still in control. It would most likely need some outside help. The people would need the sense to build quietly, without drawing attention, until things are ready.

Such a network would take some time to prepare. I am not aware of such a group in Canada. It would be just as well that people like me are not aware of it. I am not someone who could offer anything to such a group, so I do not need to know about it at this point.

I just hope it is there. We all should, because things are going to keep getting worse until the revolution occurs. Right now it is legal to talk and write about it. However, we are likely to go through a period of right wing extremism and it could become unsafe to do so.

So, to complete my circle of reasoning, things will not get better on their own. Change will not come through the existing arrangements. All social advancement in history came about through revolutions.

It will be no different this time. However, revolutions have often gone wrong, or had less than optimal results. We need to learn from past mistakes and get it right.

We want things run right. We want the best qualified people in charge of running things. We want them put in place and overseen by really democratic processes.