Nordmann,
thank you as ever for your clear and understandable reply.
"For vested power interests that wish to avoid being at least overtly so petty the real trick seems to be to allow criticism, but to present straw man targets towards which any criticism can be almost imperceptibly (but effectively) redirected. In the UK for example the monarchy and a parliament presented as pantomime in the popular media achieves this goal tremendously well.
In that sense I would tend to disagree with your simple distinction between oligarchies and "more open" societies, Paul. In terms of how either accommodates internal criticism and dissent the rules and machinery may differ but the ultimate effect can be quite similar."
"For vested power interests that wish to avoid being at least overtly so petty the real trick seems to be to allow criticism, but to present straw man targets towards which any criticism can be almost imperceptibly (but effectively) redirected. In the UK for example the monarchy and a parliament presented as pantomime in the popular media achieves this goal tremendously well."
I studied for another forum the in between the wars period in Belgium. As a bit everywhere in Europe and even in the world there were tendencies to denigrate the work of the parliaments, those "talking shops". Even our king Leopold III was a fervent adept of the authoritarian rule. A parliament that he was imposed to endure through the constitution. But even that "talking shop" parliament was able to avoid after a while by the will of the voters the emergence of the Fascist parties as the VNV on Flemish side and the Rex party on the Francophone side.
I agree that a lot is still to be done better, but in an open society, the government can't be always lying or mistifying events as the media with all their trivia let filter through, perhaps without purpose or really knowing it, what is really going on.
For instance in my view and that of many others the war in Vietnam did not fail militarily but due to the home front, the voters, the body count from the fallen soldiers and the open resistance from an increasing public opinion.
No the governments, and I agree the authoritarian too, have to be more and more inventive and ingenious to deceive the man in the street.
But they can still as in the old days reckon on the basic group's sentiments perhaps inherited from the dawn of humanity
as jingoist feelings, my country nothing else and if the "patria" is in danger...
as the dogmatic sectarian religions, we the true believers and the others the "infidels" that have to be convinced
Or more recently the struggle of the several social classes within society...
As the Socialist are last years in every poll are loosing the party is looking for a more leftist character defending the lower strata of society against the bourgeois mentality and especially the super rich...
I was always a bit for a society where the performing people share with the ones who for different reasons aren't that performant as the others. And the Socialists want to implement that by state intervention (a Socialist government in the state).
And in principle I am not against it, but one can't deny that for a good running of wathever business, work, one needs a kind of meritocracy, who has most personal gifts or do most his best for the working of the business has to earn more for that than the others. One who succeeds in his business has to be compensated for that success.
If there is no compensation of the effort people don't do it anymore. If for instance, the government by all kind of regulations intervenes on the free hiring market to compensate for their own deficient and subsidized govenment ruled hiring market, then if the return isn't high enough anymore I stop the business and with me thousands of others and the hiring market implodes
The Socialists have to understand that the State is we, and even a State has to be runned as a business and can't loose money. Not to say that the capitalistic system of the global free market economy is the ultime good either. There is still too less regulation and a lot of shady groups can still act without government control. And that government control cannot be implemented while the several governments are still divided allover the globe and even a constellation of the size of a European Union isn't big enough to counter the abuses of for instance the banking sector, as the hedgefunds and other hocus pocus.
And even with that global regulated banking system one has still the big differences in society in the several countries of the globe, even in a so close comparable circle of the "Western" society, where the US system seems still ultra liberal in comparison with the more "socialist" European Union.
Nordmann, excuses for the deviation, tomorrow back to the subject
...
As you see there is still a lot of work to do and there will always be something to critizise
...
Kind regards, Paul.