Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Ten Reasons Why Our Liberal Ruling Class is in Trouble

In The Ruling Class Gaetano Mosca writes that a ruling class needs certain qualities in itself as a group and in its individuals.

  1. It should be united. 
  2. It should be careful about unrest in the masses and respond to it. 
  3. It should be able to adapt to changes, in wealth, knowledge, etc. 
  4. It should be excellent in the virtues of the age. 
  5. It should be seen to be excellent in the virtues of the age. 
  6. And so on.  

 You can see that our liberal friends are not doing too well on the ruling-class virtue front. But let us count the specifics. Just to help them out.

  1. A good Ruling Class does not steal elections; it does not need to.
  2. A good Ruling Class does not even appear to steal elections; such behavior is beneath it.
  3. A good Ruling Class does not call the masses "deplorables" or "bitter-clingers." It is the benevolent lord of all it surveys.
  4. A good Ruling Class does not legislate a "Great Society" and instrument it with social science so it can praise itself and then find out that it made things worse, and then do nothing about it. (Charles Murray in Losing Ground)
  5. A good Ruling Class does not call Charles Murray a racist for pointing out in The Bell Curve that the modern era benefits the "cognitive elite" and that blacks, that exhibit lower than normal IQs, would likely not do too well compared to people with high IQs.
  6. A good Ruling Class does not ignore Charles Murray in his Coming Apart when he writes:  that the top 20 percent of whites in America is doin' fine with great careers and merger marriages; that the middle 50 percent of whites is doin' so-so; that the bottom 30 percent of men don't work much and the women don't marry much.
  7. A good Ruling Class does not hang the white working class out to dry for half a century.
  8. A good Ruling Class does not let blacks molder away in crumbling, crime-ridden cities for half a century.
  9. A good Ruling Class does not censor the opposition with its tame tech lords. It does not need to.
  10. A good Ruling Class does not let its supporters riot in the cities. It would be beneath such crudity.

I could go on. My point is that a good Ruling Class does not have to cheat. It does not make life great for itself and its supporters at the cost of real decline in the welfare of people outside the Ruling Class. It allows a little fun and frolic from the masses, because it wants to know what the masses think and feel, the better to rule them.

And another thing. A good Ruling Class knows when it is in trouble, and knows what to do and does it. It does not dig the hole deeper.

No comments:

Post a Comment