All Ruling Classes are Conceited

One of the fallouts from the current electoral fallout is this: what in the world did our Democratic friends expect? How could they not have seen this coming from miles away? 

I mean, come on. The welfare state had gone about as far as it can go decades ago. And you guys want to pile on with pre-K and free college and I know not what right now in 2021?

The answer is, of course, that all ruling classes are like this. They go on doing what they do until, as per Wiley E. Coyote, they suddenly see nothing below them but disaster.

It's a conceit, that's what it is, the conceit that we are the good people, the smart people, the evolved people, the knowledgeable people,we courtiers in our magnificent silken court apparel.

Earth to rulers: that's not how the world works. The world is not the glorious reign of the Sun King in whose shining light the world is reflected. The world is an emergent phenomenon, constantly adapting out of apparent chaos into an order that is always dissolving back into chaos.

If you think you have got it all figured out, I got one thing to tell you. No you don't, and if you don't find that out this year, then wait until next year.

Here's how the world works. Today, it looks like things are pretty good. But tomorrow the world changes and you'd better be ready to adapt.

The conceit of today's educated ruling class is that the neo-feudal government structures built up over the last century are magnificent temples that will last for a thousand years.

I suppose that's the conceit of every temple-building ruling class down the ages. I suppose that's the conceit of every plutocrat that ever built a weekend cottage at Newport, Rhode Island.

I suppose that's the conceit of every corporation in the Dow Jones Industrials index. Only, the average corporation spends about 20 years at the top, and then declines and disappears, merged into another corporation, it it's lucky.

Here's the problem with the magnificent temples of the welfare state. They are soon going to crumble and fall.They are already crumbling, only nobody wants to admit it. If the ruling class had known what it was doing it would have designed repair and renewal right in from the beginning.

If it cared about the people it would have put in serious reforms two decades ago. Oh yeah, remember how the Republicans went in to talk to Bill Clinton about a reform of Social Security around 1997. Just hours before the Lewinsky scandal put Bill Clinton in survival mode.

But, of course, the programs were not really designed for long-term use. They were just designed to win an election: 1936 in the case of Social Security and I know not what in the case of Medicare.

And so, in the end, every program eats the budget and can never be reformed, can never be reduced.

Because hell hath no fury like a beneficiary scorned.

And then, when the whole temple crumbles and the roof collapses onto the floor in some earthquake, the people starve and the rulers retire to their patrimonial estates.

If they are lucky.

Of course, maybe our educated ruling class will recover itself and nobly rule for another generation, or another 50 years. Or not.