Cronygarchy? You may well ask. Having already suggested that we dump all our 17th to 20th notions of this “ism” that “ocracy” or other “archies” in the light of a very changed world it is time to come up with something else. Like the scientists who discovered that were something called an atom or those who found that the atom was made up of particles I am trying out a new thesis.
You may have gathered, between the awards ceremonies, private lives of famous people, missing pets, Winter Olympics and rows over expenses that there is a General Election in the UK soon and your votes are being sought. This is for people to be elected to the House of Commons and if one party secures more than half the seats they will assume power in Whitehall. If none do, then there will be some deals struck to which the electorate will not be party to decide who does what.
There is also a House of Lords, but the electorate will not be troubled. This will soon be packed with the friends and neighbours of the winners in the House of Commons to out number those put in by the previous administration.
The people who are elected to the House of Commons you might assume will represent a large part of the electorate in all its diversity. This might sometimes have been the case in the past but not any more. From both Houses of Parliament the Captains and Kings have gone, along with those who rose from the ranks of ordinary trades and local business.
What we have had under New Labour is a form of Cronygarchy that having been given a long time in office by the vagaries of the electoral system has put so many of its cronies into the House of Lords and the agencies non-government organisations it has created (NGO’s) that we have lost sight of who rules, how, or why. It has allied itself closely to other cronygarchies in Europe, Russian, and elsewhere and could be argued to be simply a sub-set of what amounts to a global financial cronygarchy.
This is because what is one of the defining features of any cronygarchy is acquisition. Normally this requires power; military or political or ideological preferably all of them, but at least two, the ability to maintain enough other people in support roles and critically through these to reduce the majority to servility in one form or another. Simple forms are slavery and serfdom, complex forms include consumerism (bread and circuses) and imperialism. Complex forms usually subsume one or other simple forms in some form, not always obvious.
In the past sub-sets and varieties of cronygarchy include all forms of dictatorship, most religions, all the “ocracies” etc because each will either be formed or entail a type of cronygarchy. Like particle physics it can all be quite difficult to analyse and work out but if the essential principle is understood then things begin to fall into place.
The rise and fall of cronygarchies is another difficult field because each contains the elements of its own destruction. This arises because necessarily all the cronies and their respective supporters are in the business of acquisition. However, in order to create the conditions to allow such acquisition whilst the existing form might be overturned by a simple takeover or coup, too often an extensive breakdown is needed to accomplish the task.
In the 20th Century major world wars did the job in some cases, in the 19th the attempts to create what were called “democracies” and/or “representative government”, a high risk tactic as the old British upper classes discovered. At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries the surge into globalisation has created another breakdown.
In the middle of all this in the UK we are now invited to see if we want to chuck out one lot and replace them by another. Unluckily, we have a problem, alas not one but several. There was an old film, perhaps Three Stooges, maybe Marx Brothers or The Crazy Gang, where the group who have created a shambles are ordered out of the hotel through the revolving door, only to reappear having changed their jackets and hats. If you look at the background, interests and the lobby and commercial entities that most of the Tory prospectives haves signed up to it is much the same as those of New Labour.
In other words the Tories that come in will be simply another and related sub set of a sub set of the prevailing UK cronygarchy that I have called The London Mediocracy. As I said “ocracies” are a form of cronygarchy. Their problem will be the “Scorched Earth” breakdown that I suggested that the present government were embarked on many months ago in order to create the political conditions to allow Labour back in power next time around. Unluckily neither Labour nor Tories, nor any other party in the UK are remotely in control in what is going on and what is going to happen.
The House of Commons was once the major legislative body, the check on the Executive and responsible for the redress of grievance. Now, it does virtually none of those things and is almost defunct in practical terms. The EU is the major legislator, sundry government departments’ media advisers and NGO’s do a good deal as well, and the Human Rights Industry, a nationalised company directly under EU cronygarchy control has taken over the third. The UK libel laws ensure that anyone who tries to complain cannot, like the academics who wish to debate the mathematics of hedge fund dealing which supports so much of our cronygarch’s finances or the nastier activities of the property men involved with nationalised banks and funding the personal activities of politicians.
Wherever you look in government and administration you see staggering greed, incompetence and waste characteristic of a cronygarchy which has elevated acquisition to its most damaging level. It is rampant in the NGO’s, public utilities, and even local government (don’t tell the peasants how much we are getting, they may not like it and hurt our feelings). In the UK there are some parallels with that of the 18th Century. The huge increase in what is defined as crime, the pauperisation of the ordinary people, the displacement of population from the rural areas and their replacement by those with money made from money.
What kind of breakdown and on what scale is necessary to rid ourselves of these people and what do we need to create to take their place? We do not know and there is nothing on offer. Something is going to happen because cronygarchy’s do not last they always end in ruin.
So what are you giving up for Lent? I think I might give up voting.
You may have gathered, between the awards ceremonies, private lives of famous people, missing pets, Winter Olympics and rows over expenses that there is a General Election in the UK soon and your votes are being sought. This is for people to be elected to the House of Commons and if one party secures more than half the seats they will assume power in Whitehall. If none do, then there will be some deals struck to which the electorate will not be party to decide who does what.
There is also a House of Lords, but the electorate will not be troubled. This will soon be packed with the friends and neighbours of the winners in the House of Commons to out number those put in by the previous administration.
The people who are elected to the House of Commons you might assume will represent a large part of the electorate in all its diversity. This might sometimes have been the case in the past but not any more. From both Houses of Parliament the Captains and Kings have gone, along with those who rose from the ranks of ordinary trades and local business.
What we have had under New Labour is a form of Cronygarchy that having been given a long time in office by the vagaries of the electoral system has put so many of its cronies into the House of Lords and the agencies non-government organisations it has created (NGO’s) that we have lost sight of who rules, how, or why. It has allied itself closely to other cronygarchies in Europe, Russian, and elsewhere and could be argued to be simply a sub-set of what amounts to a global financial cronygarchy.
This is because what is one of the defining features of any cronygarchy is acquisition. Normally this requires power; military or political or ideological preferably all of them, but at least two, the ability to maintain enough other people in support roles and critically through these to reduce the majority to servility in one form or another. Simple forms are slavery and serfdom, complex forms include consumerism (bread and circuses) and imperialism. Complex forms usually subsume one or other simple forms in some form, not always obvious.
In the past sub-sets and varieties of cronygarchy include all forms of dictatorship, most religions, all the “ocracies” etc because each will either be formed or entail a type of cronygarchy. Like particle physics it can all be quite difficult to analyse and work out but if the essential principle is understood then things begin to fall into place.
The rise and fall of cronygarchies is another difficult field because each contains the elements of its own destruction. This arises because necessarily all the cronies and their respective supporters are in the business of acquisition. However, in order to create the conditions to allow such acquisition whilst the existing form might be overturned by a simple takeover or coup, too often an extensive breakdown is needed to accomplish the task.
In the 20th Century major world wars did the job in some cases, in the 19th the attempts to create what were called “democracies” and/or “representative government”, a high risk tactic as the old British upper classes discovered. At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries the surge into globalisation has created another breakdown.
In the middle of all this in the UK we are now invited to see if we want to chuck out one lot and replace them by another. Unluckily, we have a problem, alas not one but several. There was an old film, perhaps Three Stooges, maybe Marx Brothers or The Crazy Gang, where the group who have created a shambles are ordered out of the hotel through the revolving door, only to reappear having changed their jackets and hats. If you look at the background, interests and the lobby and commercial entities that most of the Tory prospectives haves signed up to it is much the same as those of New Labour.
In other words the Tories that come in will be simply another and related sub set of a sub set of the prevailing UK cronygarchy that I have called The London Mediocracy. As I said “ocracies” are a form of cronygarchy. Their problem will be the “Scorched Earth” breakdown that I suggested that the present government were embarked on many months ago in order to create the political conditions to allow Labour back in power next time around. Unluckily neither Labour nor Tories, nor any other party in the UK are remotely in control in what is going on and what is going to happen.
The House of Commons was once the major legislative body, the check on the Executive and responsible for the redress of grievance. Now, it does virtually none of those things and is almost defunct in practical terms. The EU is the major legislator, sundry government departments’ media advisers and NGO’s do a good deal as well, and the Human Rights Industry, a nationalised company directly under EU cronygarchy control has taken over the third. The UK libel laws ensure that anyone who tries to complain cannot, like the academics who wish to debate the mathematics of hedge fund dealing which supports so much of our cronygarch’s finances or the nastier activities of the property men involved with nationalised banks and funding the personal activities of politicians.
Wherever you look in government and administration you see staggering greed, incompetence and waste characteristic of a cronygarchy which has elevated acquisition to its most damaging level. It is rampant in the NGO’s, public utilities, and even local government (don’t tell the peasants how much we are getting, they may not like it and hurt our feelings). In the UK there are some parallels with that of the 18th Century. The huge increase in what is defined as crime, the pauperisation of the ordinary people, the displacement of population from the rural areas and their replacement by those with money made from money.
What kind of breakdown and on what scale is necessary to rid ourselves of these people and what do we need to create to take their place? We do not know and there is nothing on offer. Something is going to happen because cronygarchy’s do not last they always end in ruin.
So what are you giving up for Lent? I think I might give up voting.
First class as usual Sir.
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