From the American Spectator:
While the article may get a tad out there, this is a very good 101 sum up of the culture of leftism:
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print
I think the most interesting and most important aspect of this article is stressing how the “right wing”/ “Republican” aspect of politics has and always will be the “junior partner” in the ruling class
Codevilla does provide a Rothbardian level of specific details regarding the history and identity of the American power elite. However, his thesis - “Our ruling class’s agenda is power for itself” - did stimulate an interesting thought. Liberal critics of the power-elite often present them in a cartoonish light… they seek power for its own sake. But this is not praxeologically consistent. Power is never an end in itself, it is always a means to some other end. What one end do the power-elite have in common? I think there is only one end that holds up to scrutiny and that is to consolidate their position as “market winners” or, as I prefer to call them, Kingpins. It is easy to arrive at this conclusion. Imagine you are someone like Sam Walton who started a relatively small business and, through fierce competition, built it into a large national or international business. When you were small, you would have opposed government measures that reduce competition in the marketplace because you would be hurt by such measures and the big players would benefit. But once you’ve reached the head of the pack, the incentives are reversed… you want to consolidate your business’s successes and freeze out new competition. So you begin to favor government regulations that stifle competition. Once you rise to the top, you have nothing to gain from further competition with your inferiors.
The power-elite are the embodiment of this general principle. They are already the leaders. They have already achieved wealth or social influence in one form or another. They are already the champions and they have nothing to gain from further social mobility. So, they move to block the routes to upward social mobility (to all except their own family and friends) and freeze out new competitors. Since all those who are already at the pinnacles of wealth and power (or Hilltops as I call it) share this in common, they naturally collude with one another. This explains why the power-elite can form a stable cartel (government, class structure, etc.) even though they stand in ultimate competition with one another. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” That is, even though the power-elite do not love each other, they all share a common enemy… the upwardly-mobile masses.
Clayton -
While I agree “power for the sake of power” is not really a good theory (even if one wants to say everrything is power for the sake of power); I think the most interesting thing about the article is stating how people like Ronald Reagen and Sam Walton are, at best, junior partners and don’t really classify as worth talking about or picking on. In this sense the “elite” he seems to be refering to is straight up Zeitgeist Enlightenment nonesense.
There is a system and a social structure that has been set up for quite some time, the ones that tend to work best in it are on the left, probably because of the very nature of the social structure in place.
I listened to the interview with this guy on Radio Free Oklahoma, and he is right wing populist nationalist. Make no mistake, he is no anarchist and he believes in statist principles. He takes umbrage with who gets to run the state and under what premise.
In this regard he’s not much more than a right wing Chomsky.
As I get deeper into Austrianism and less dogmatic as a libertarian, I find class analysis increasingly silly, for the same reasons it is silly when Marxians do it.
I find categorization useful. Just check out a high school for example, and see how people divide into groups that can be conveniently categorized. Or better yet look into different and sometimes overlapping disciplines in the humanities and social sciences and see how they are separated into different fields. It may not be necessary for some analysis, but I find it interesting. And yes this guys article is a bit off, but it is still an interesting and positive sum up as a whole for a sociological analysis. For me it is worth looking at what social structures are in place, why they are there, what they subsidize, and why people benefit off of them. This goes a bit out of the range of flat out market analysis and into the realm of philosophy, sociology, history, and psychology among other fields (though I do agree, over looking or under stating market analysis is a mistake).
I usually find it more fun calling myself an anti-leftist (or maybe anti-intellectual or anti-Enlightenment) rather than saying “they are all the same”. In social groups calling oneself an anti-leftist has a completely different result in the environment, and it is usually a much more daring thing to do (and for good reason). That said, the crux (which the article misses the point on) of ones argument is recognizing the power and positive forces of markets and decentralization. The good thing is, there are many different ways to focus on it and present the idea.
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