The Decline and Fall of the Progressive Empire

Today I am starting a new topic, the decline and fall of the present ruling class. But let's steal the words of Edward Gibbon, he of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Why did the Roman Empire decline and fall? According to academic Michael Mann in The Sources of Social Power, it began to decline when its modus operandi no longer worked. Up until the second century AD the Roman Empire fed on conquest and slavery. Its army would conquer a new province and the empire would feast on the plunder and the slaves. But then the Empire got too big, and the frontiers too far away from the center. And so the potential for conquest and plunder started to dry up.

But whatabout the empire in which we live? And what do we call it, anyway? Liberal Empire? Lefty Empire? White Supremacist Empire? Capitalist Empire? Empire of the Educated?  I think I will stick with Progressive Empire for the time being.

The reason I prophesy the decline and fall of the present regime is that its anthems, its agendas, are getting rather threadbare.

There seem to be two justifications for political power. The first is the promise of physical protection. This obviously goes back to the apes, that the males protect the band and its food-growing territory from invaders. I consider this a male thing. The second is the promise of protection from evildoers within society, the backstabbers and gossipers that are the bane of every woman's life. I consider this a female thing.

In the last century, the century of the educated ruling class, our rulers have heroically defended us -- or rather we have defended our rulers -- from the menace of Kaisers, of Hitlers, or Commies, of oil sheiks. Golly, where would we have been without them! But now our leaders are promising, at enormous expense, to protect us from climate change.

You know what I think? I think our rulers are running out of reasons to protect us. This climate change thingy depends on the predictive computer models of gubmint scientists -- which are completely different from the divinations of the temple priests and soothsayers of old, completely different. In other words, climate change looks and feels like a scam.

In the last century, the century of the educated ruling class, our rulers have heroically defended us -- or rather we have defended our rulers -- from the internal menace of monopolists, exploiters of labor, Southern racists, and now patriarchs, white supremacists and the menace of systemic racism.

You know what I think? I think our rulers are running out of moral menaces with which to terrify us. The proof is in the moral narrative of "allyism," that America is composed of "oppressed peoples, allies, and white oppressors." What "white oppressors?" Educated white liberals in the schools, universities, and journalism? Heavens no, those are all allies. Evil corporate moguls? Heavens no, those all pay their indulgences to Black Lives Matter. Would they be Trump Car Paraders and crazed Qanon cultists wearing viking costumes in the US Capitol? Yep, that must be it.

But why? Why is our ruling class singing such ridiculous anthems to their rule? What is really going on? Is it a conspiracy?

I think it is because the basis of human social cooperation has been transformed.

I think the old system, of male defense of the border, and female defense of the hearth, made complete sense back in the days of the chimps: that's what Nicholas Wade says in Before the Dawn. And more or less sense in the days of the hunter-gatherers, and even down through the agricultural age. You needed brave warriors to defend the food-growing land, and you needed moral arbiters to sort out troublesome youths and quarreling women.

But not any more.

Loot and plunder of the neighbor's lands? But wealth today is in intangible capital, ideas and techniques.  Loot and plunder does not pay, except in the internal taxation and regulation systems by which today's rulers fleece their own sheep, not the neighbor's sheep.

Calling sinners to repentance? But today's market economy rewards trust and names and shames cheaters and defaulters in a hundred different ways. Oh yeah, we need a few cops to crack heads here and there; but the vast majority of people go with the program, because there is a huge benefit in doing so, and a huge penalty for being identified as untrustworthy.

Obviously this new situation is so brand new as to be breathtaking. It has really taken hold only in the last 200-300 years, whereas the agricultural age extended for, say, max, 50,000 years, and the hunter-gatherer age a million or so, and the chimps for tens of millions of years.

We cannot expect our rulers, our neighbors, and ourselves to have suddenly adapted to the new setup. We are programmed for another age.

Instead, we should expect everyone -- from noble lords to cathedral priests to young punks to the nice ladies next door -- to keep punching the old buttons, and being completely flummoxed when the old actions don't have the desired effect.

But, "scientists say," the future belongs to those that adapt. And the number of people adapting, "experts agree," will be a minority. This will mean, "ethicists believe," a profound change in human society.

Because, as I say, every story is a survivor story.