Elites And Counter-Elites In US Electoral Government
Elections are assumed to represent the interests of the general public, but the income brackets of a person tend to correlate strongly with the effect their vote has on the political system. Working class people who vote were shown to have no correlation to influencing political outcomes to policies they prefer, while for the wealthy the correlation was very strong. I won’t be focusing on elections themselves as a flawed governing method because I have previously written about this, but instead focus on the idea of elites and counter-elites in the US and how the battle between these two groups are the real deciding factor in why the political parties behave the way they currently do.
For clarity, an elite is someone who holds a large amount of wealth and power within a society and is able to use that to control the systems of the society to create a desired outcome for themselves and their social class. A counter-elite is someone who is wealthy and powerful, but is not as influential as an elite who has deeper entrenched power and connections to the White House or other power structures. There are different reasons this can happen, but the end result is that capitalist society has a power struggle where the newer wealthy like millionaires and tech bros are fighting for power against the billionaires and the few families who own major infrastructure like oil and banking. The average middle class or working class person is an afterthought, treated like ants by the political system unless they can disrupt society enough to make the system unable to ignore them. Even in that case, they will deal with violent repression and a real risk of being assassinated or jailed for political reasons.
How this plays out in the current political system is that current elites are represented by the Democratic party because a strong middle class and tolerance are good for preserving the status quo of society and the existing power structures. The Republican party has policies that are nonsensical and intentionally destructive because instability and chaos would allow counter-elites to claim power and overthrow the entrenched ruling class. The atrocities and slavery the working class endures are just an afterthought to these people living in a different social class and fighting for power. We like to believe that policies enacted are the result of some sort of logic, but if we believe in elite theory, the behavior of US political systems begins to make a lot more sense.
For any Technocrat, engaging in politics means entering a war zone with no allies and no limits to what the people are willing to do to protect their money and power. A truly scientific government would be opposed by all kinds of elites who would need to justify policies to data and ultimately remain bound to it, likely at the expense of their own power. Ultimately though the most likely result is the creation of selective science with elite money funding research and running experiments until the data matches their class interests. It is because of this consequence that class struggle and a focus on working class interests and energy accounting is indispensable for any real Technocratic movement to succeed and stay true to its principles. It is also evident that engaging with a system designed for the elite class to fight for power amongst themselves is useless to anyone without the money and power to participate. Technocrats must find creative, disruptive, and perhaps even hostile methods of influencing the governments of countries where money and elite connections are the main political currency. Strikes, protests, propagandizing and perhaps even sabotaging the current system ideologically are all avenues worth exploring.
For clarity, an elite is someone who holds a large amount of wealth and power within a society and is able to use that to control the systems of the society to create a desired outcome for themselves and their social class. A counter-elite is someone who is wealthy and powerful, but is not as influential as an elite who has deeper entrenched power and connections to the White House or other power structures. There are different reasons this can happen, but the end result is that capitalist society has a power struggle where the newer wealthy like millionaires and tech bros are fighting for power against the billionaires and the few families who own major infrastructure like oil and banking. The average middle class or working class person is an afterthought, treated like ants by the political system unless they can disrupt society enough to make the system unable to ignore them. Even in that case, they will deal with violent repression and a real risk of being assassinated or jailed for political reasons.
How this plays out in the current political system is that current elites are represented by the Democratic party because a strong middle class and tolerance are good for preserving the status quo of society and the existing power structures. The Republican party has policies that are nonsensical and intentionally destructive because instability and chaos would allow counter-elites to claim power and overthrow the entrenched ruling class. The atrocities and slavery the working class endures are just an afterthought to these people living in a different social class and fighting for power. We like to believe that policies enacted are the result of some sort of logic, but if we believe in elite theory, the behavior of US political systems begins to make a lot more sense.
For any Technocrat, engaging in politics means entering a war zone with no allies and no limits to what the people are willing to do to protect their money and power. A truly scientific government would be opposed by all kinds of elites who would need to justify policies to data and ultimately remain bound to it, likely at the expense of their own power. Ultimately though the most likely result is the creation of selective science with elite money funding research and running experiments until the data matches their class interests. It is because of this consequence that class struggle and a focus on working class interests and energy accounting is indispensable for any real Technocratic movement to succeed and stay true to its principles. It is also evident that engaging with a system designed for the elite class to fight for power amongst themselves is useless to anyone without the money and power to participate. Technocrats must find creative, disruptive, and perhaps even hostile methods of influencing the governments of countries where money and elite connections are the main political currency. Strikes, protests, propagandizing and perhaps even sabotaging the current system ideologically are all avenues worth exploring.