02-29-2016, 01:16 AM
Guest post: (Episode VII) The Mob Awakens
Guest writer
| Feb 26 09:30 | 14 comments | Share
This is a guest post by Timothy R. Ferguson founder and president of The Institute for Anacyclosis, a non-profit advancing the study of Polybius’s cyclical theory of political evolution.
According to the original version of Polybius’s theory of Anacyclosis, society begins as tribal monarchy, develops into royal monarchy, then degenerates into tyranny. This in turn is overthrown by aristocracy, gets corrupted by oligarchy, and is later succeeded by democracy, which itself is perverted into ochlocracy (mob-rule) — finally opening the door (once again) to the chaos that makes autocratic rule palatable, thereby restarting the cycle.
The base cycle being referenced over and over again is thus one-few-many.
While political evolution does not rigidly conform to any fixed sequence, a sufficient duration of time seems to average out the occurrences of chance. For example, England in the beginning was ruled by kings, then by an aristocracy, which quickly became oligarchic. Now it fancies itself democratic, even if in truth it has become rather more plutocratic.
The democratic phase alone, however, generates the broad sense of liberty, prosperity, equity, and stability we have come to associate with modern life. It is thus the most desired of the phases, and can be — if well instituted — the longest lasting. It is also among the rarest of the phases from the historical perspective.
Despite its pedigree, however, Polybius’s original version of Anacyclosis didn’t account for everything. It failed, for example, to register foreign interference in internal revolution, international integration, or even geopolitical conflict. This is a particularly striking omission perhaps given that Polybius was a Greek who experienced the Roman occupation of his homeland. But Polybius also failed to account for evolutionary mutations occasioned by accidents of chance, those leading to a non-anarchic ending to democracy, or properly identify the people’s champions as the true rulers in a collapsing democracy, rather than the swelling proletariat.
We now have the benefit of an additional twenty-two centuries of human political experience which Polybius did not have when he first laid out the template of Anacyclosis. This advantage allows us to supplement Polybius’ original model and more fully abstract general rules of evolutionary causality.
The middle class contribution to the cycle
The greatest defect in Polybius’s original model of Anacyclosis may have been its failure to clearly link the development of stable democracy with the emergence of a strong middle class, or the ephemerality of democracy with a weak middle class, as Aristotle did.
Man’s preoccupation with improving status fuels economic progress, but also animates political struggle. When the middle class is ascendant, you approach freedom and independence, aspire to equal justice under law, and promote moderation, which together channel human ambitions into creative and productive enterprises.
A declining middle class is consequently the harbinger of revolution, for the diffusion (and concentration) of wealth tends to precede the diffusion (and concentration) of political power.
When productive, unsubsidised wealth is more broadly and equitably diffused among a population, which is relatively rare, political power tends to be more broadly diffused. This is why a middle economic stratum precedes the first appearances of democracy. Not coincidentally, the Puritans who settled New England fortified their democratic institutions by preventing both the poor and the rich from joining their colonies from Britain, and by distributing land to colonists on a relatively equal basis.
This is also why the full sequence of Anacyclosis is rarely seen on the global scale: the emergence of an independent middle class large and stable enough to long maintain democracy is historically rare. Conversely, the re-concentration of wealth, particularly after democratic institutions have been entrenched, tends to produce a re-concentration of political power leading to antipathy among the middle classes.
The forces of Anacyclosis in play again
Ed Miliband’s recent article in the London Review of Books opens with an American billionaire’s premonitions of pitchforks. The billionaire in question is Nick Hanauer, and his 2014 Politico article warned his “fellow zillionaires” that there was likely an angry mob in their future.
Roughly a month before Mr. Hanauer issued this warning, Tina Fordham, Citi’s chief global political analyst, ran a piece in FT Alphaville elaborating the dramatic increase of so-called “vox populi” risks; risks of popular discontent arising from “anxious middle classes”.
In his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, meanwhile, French economist Thomas Piketty identified income and wealth inequality as one of the pervading factors behind declining economic prosperity. And Larry Summers, the economist, is today rallying in support of the reconstitution of the American middle class as an independent and prosperous sector of society. In an op-ed written for the Washington Post, Summers described the issues faced by the middle classes of industrialized nations as “the most challenging economic issue ahead of us” and ties it to economic stagnation in our time.
But it was two millennia before all this that Polybius first described how democracy inevitably degenerates into mob-rule, or “ochlocracy”.
Anacyclosis: a window to upcoming instability?
By linking the distribution of power to the distribution of wealth – and by correlating the diseases of the middle class to those of democracy – we can use Anacyclosis to analyse the concerns banks and billionaires now raise: understanding and mitigating the adverse consequences of sociopolitical evolution.
As wealth becomes re-concentrated among a small elite, society becomes increasingly stratified between the opulent and the dependent. (Or, to use Aristotle’s terms, masters and slaves, comprising “one class envious and another contemptuous of their fellows”.) The institutions of democracy do not retreat as quickly as the middle class declines, however, hence the rise of the “populist menace”.
The dependence of the masses on the wealthy and the state will lead to an orgy of pandering by politicians, with the eventual transformation of democracy not into ochlocracy, but rather, by virtue of patronage, into “demagarchy”. This rule by demagogues — the people’s champions — will echo the rise of Pompey, Julius Caesar and Octavian in ancient Rome. As was the case then, however, it stands to initiate a tournament of demagogues which, like any other tournament, can ultimately only have one champion. When that champion comes to the fore, the circle will be complete because the transition into and out of ochlocracy represents the seventh and final phase.
Drawing on yet more historical parallels, it’s probably no coincidence that Polybius was contemporary to the Gracchi, reformers who tried to rehabilitate the Roman yeoman farmers, the pre-imperial Roman middle class. This class had long been the backbone of the Republic, but by various causes was exhausted, its wealth concentrated into the plutocracy.
As Frank Frost Abbott, the historian, wrote:
Contemporary readers may be surprised to learn that, even in antiquity, the Gracchi resorted to arguably socialistic measures in an effort to restore this middle class. Yet the process of social stratification and territorial integration had advanced so far, and the intractability of the plutocracy was so complete, that there was little choice but to encroach upon the ancient constitution or else watch it evolve out of existence.
Can anyone break the wheel?
As it turned out, the Gracchi could not stop Anacyclosis. Had the Gracchi succeeded in restoring the Roman hoi mesoi, they probably would have forestalled the contest of demagogues that dragged Rome from plutocracy to monarchy. But they were murdered by the plutocracy, and within a century Rome was ruled by an emperor. From the monarchy of kings to the monarchy of emperors, the wheel of history completed one revolution.
It’s worth noting that land reform in postwar Japan and South Korea proved far more successful, although fears of Communist revolution and the presence of America’s occupation forces probably helped concentrate minds in ways unavailable to the Gracchi.
But, as we see now, what happens in antiquity doesn’t necessarily stay in antiquity. The forces of Anacyclosis are arguably turning again, and this time on an unprecedented global level.
And so it is, even as our intelligentsia bewails rising inequality and the decline of the middle class, we witness a rise in political populism across much of Europe and America.
Who says what’s happened before can’t happen again?
Related links:
America’s middle class meltdown — Financial Times
Guest writer
| Feb 26 09:30 | 14 comments | Share
This is a guest post by Timothy R. Ferguson founder and president of The Institute for Anacyclosis, a non-profit advancing the study of Polybius’s cyclical theory of political evolution.
According to the original version of Polybius’s theory of Anacyclosis, society begins as tribal monarchy, develops into royal monarchy, then degenerates into tyranny. This in turn is overthrown by aristocracy, gets corrupted by oligarchy, and is later succeeded by democracy, which itself is perverted into ochlocracy (mob-rule) — finally opening the door (once again) to the chaos that makes autocratic rule palatable, thereby restarting the cycle.
The base cycle being referenced over and over again is thus one-few-many.
While political evolution does not rigidly conform to any fixed sequence, a sufficient duration of time seems to average out the occurrences of chance. For example, England in the beginning was ruled by kings, then by an aristocracy, which quickly became oligarchic. Now it fancies itself democratic, even if in truth it has become rather more plutocratic.
The democratic phase alone, however, generates the broad sense of liberty, prosperity, equity, and stability we have come to associate with modern life. It is thus the most desired of the phases, and can be — if well instituted — the longest lasting. It is also among the rarest of the phases from the historical perspective.
Despite its pedigree, however, Polybius’s original version of Anacyclosis didn’t account for everything. It failed, for example, to register foreign interference in internal revolution, international integration, or even geopolitical conflict. This is a particularly striking omission perhaps given that Polybius was a Greek who experienced the Roman occupation of his homeland. But Polybius also failed to account for evolutionary mutations occasioned by accidents of chance, those leading to a non-anarchic ending to democracy, or properly identify the people’s champions as the true rulers in a collapsing democracy, rather than the swelling proletariat.
We now have the benefit of an additional twenty-two centuries of human political experience which Polybius did not have when he first laid out the template of Anacyclosis. This advantage allows us to supplement Polybius’ original model and more fully abstract general rules of evolutionary causality.
The middle class contribution to the cycle
The greatest defect in Polybius’s original model of Anacyclosis may have been its failure to clearly link the development of stable democracy with the emergence of a strong middle class, or the ephemerality of democracy with a weak middle class, as Aristotle did.
Man’s preoccupation with improving status fuels economic progress, but also animates political struggle. When the middle class is ascendant, you approach freedom and independence, aspire to equal justice under law, and promote moderation, which together channel human ambitions into creative and productive enterprises.
A declining middle class is consequently the harbinger of revolution, for the diffusion (and concentration) of wealth tends to precede the diffusion (and concentration) of political power.
When productive, unsubsidised wealth is more broadly and equitably diffused among a population, which is relatively rare, political power tends to be more broadly diffused. This is why a middle economic stratum precedes the first appearances of democracy. Not coincidentally, the Puritans who settled New England fortified their democratic institutions by preventing both the poor and the rich from joining their colonies from Britain, and by distributing land to colonists on a relatively equal basis.
This is also why the full sequence of Anacyclosis is rarely seen on the global scale: the emergence of an independent middle class large and stable enough to long maintain democracy is historically rare. Conversely, the re-concentration of wealth, particularly after democratic institutions have been entrenched, tends to produce a re-concentration of political power leading to antipathy among the middle classes.
The forces of Anacyclosis in play again
Ed Miliband’s recent article in the London Review of Books opens with an American billionaire’s premonitions of pitchforks. The billionaire in question is Nick Hanauer, and his 2014 Politico article warned his “fellow zillionaires” that there was likely an angry mob in their future.
Roughly a month before Mr. Hanauer issued this warning, Tina Fordham, Citi’s chief global political analyst, ran a piece in FT Alphaville elaborating the dramatic increase of so-called “vox populi” risks; risks of popular discontent arising from “anxious middle classes”.
In his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, meanwhile, French economist Thomas Piketty identified income and wealth inequality as one of the pervading factors behind declining economic prosperity. And Larry Summers, the economist, is today rallying in support of the reconstitution of the American middle class as an independent and prosperous sector of society. In an op-ed written for the Washington Post, Summers described the issues faced by the middle classes of industrialized nations as “the most challenging economic issue ahead of us” and ties it to economic stagnation in our time.
But it was two millennia before all this that Polybius first described how democracy inevitably degenerates into mob-rule, or “ochlocracy”.
Anacyclosis: a window to upcoming instability?
By linking the distribution of power to the distribution of wealth – and by correlating the diseases of the middle class to those of democracy – we can use Anacyclosis to analyse the concerns banks and billionaires now raise: understanding and mitigating the adverse consequences of sociopolitical evolution.
As wealth becomes re-concentrated among a small elite, society becomes increasingly stratified between the opulent and the dependent. (Or, to use Aristotle’s terms, masters and slaves, comprising “one class envious and another contemptuous of their fellows”.) The institutions of democracy do not retreat as quickly as the middle class declines, however, hence the rise of the “populist menace”.
The dependence of the masses on the wealthy and the state will lead to an orgy of pandering by politicians, with the eventual transformation of democracy not into ochlocracy, but rather, by virtue of patronage, into “demagarchy”. This rule by demagogues — the people’s champions — will echo the rise of Pompey, Julius Caesar and Octavian in ancient Rome. As was the case then, however, it stands to initiate a tournament of demagogues which, like any other tournament, can ultimately only have one champion. When that champion comes to the fore, the circle will be complete because the transition into and out of ochlocracy represents the seventh and final phase.
Drawing on yet more historical parallels, it’s probably no coincidence that Polybius was contemporary to the Gracchi, reformers who tried to rehabilitate the Roman yeoman farmers, the pre-imperial Roman middle class. This class had long been the backbone of the Republic, but by various causes was exhausted, its wealth concentrated into the plutocracy.
As Frank Frost Abbott, the historian, wrote:
Quote:The republic had been at the outset, and for several centuries afterward, a commonwealth of free landowners. This great middle class was now swept out of existence, and with it went the foundation on which the state rested. The object of the movement connected with the name of Tiberius Gracchus was to build this class up again.
Contemporary readers may be surprised to learn that, even in antiquity, the Gracchi resorted to arguably socialistic measures in an effort to restore this middle class. Yet the process of social stratification and territorial integration had advanced so far, and the intractability of the plutocracy was so complete, that there was little choice but to encroach upon the ancient constitution or else watch it evolve out of existence.
Can anyone break the wheel?
As it turned out, the Gracchi could not stop Anacyclosis. Had the Gracchi succeeded in restoring the Roman hoi mesoi, they probably would have forestalled the contest of demagogues that dragged Rome from plutocracy to monarchy. But they were murdered by the plutocracy, and within a century Rome was ruled by an emperor. From the monarchy of kings to the monarchy of emperors, the wheel of history completed one revolution.
It’s worth noting that land reform in postwar Japan and South Korea proved far more successful, although fears of Communist revolution and the presence of America’s occupation forces probably helped concentrate minds in ways unavailable to the Gracchi.
But, as we see now, what happens in antiquity doesn’t necessarily stay in antiquity. The forces of Anacyclosis are arguably turning again, and this time on an unprecedented global level.
And so it is, even as our intelligentsia bewails rising inequality and the decline of the middle class, we witness a rise in political populism across much of Europe and America.
Who says what’s happened before can’t happen again?
Related links:
America’s middle class meltdown — Financial Times