Democracy is Coming--To the USA

Angelo Codevilla has made a splash with an article in The American Spectator explaining why the Tea Party movement has gotten such traction (http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print).

His argument is that the current US popular rebellion is a reaction to the emergence of a new ruling class on America--a self-conscious class that thinks alike and sees their interests as alike and distinct from those of the common man. In the past, he argues, America's leaders were not at all homogenous. This was largely due to regional differences--a benefit of being a large country; and also because they had achieved their wealth and prominence through a variety of sources, public and private. That, he feels, is the thing that has evoked the spirit of the Tea Party.
Improved communications and transportation in the postwar years have indeed surely allowed the ruling class to homogenize, to stay more closely in touch, to collude. But the growth of government also matters, according to Codevilla: more and more of those on top are directly or indirectly drawing their wealth and influence from the same source, the public tax revenues. Even most "private industry" is now entirely bound up in the government machine: it becomes necessary to have the right government connections to meet all the latest regulations and qualify for all the latest government grants.

This is all nothing new, in world terms. Europe has always had a ruling class, and really made few bones about it. But it is new to America, and counter to American traditions.

Arguably, the problem emerged in Canada before it did in the US. At least since the debates on Meech Lake and the Charlottetown Accord, and the non-debate on abortion and gay marriage--it has been pretty clear to the average Canadian that there is a ruling class in Canada of politicians, academics, journalists, judges, bureaucrats, and business execs who basically agree on policies among themselves and seek to avoid putting matters they consider important up to any public vote. The people would only get it wrong.

Canadians kicked back, a bit, with the Reform movement. Not that it helped much. But this trend may not sit nearly as well, it seems, with Americans. They probably have a stronger tradition of classlessness and democracy.

For this new ruling class, Codevilla observes, "Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters -- speaking the 'in' language -- serves as a badge of identity." Under the camoflage of "avoiding discrimination," this "politically correct" speech really serves to demonstrate whether or not you have gone to the right schools, read the right newspapers and magazines, attend the right cocktail parties, and buy in to the class consciousness and the class agenda. No wonder, then, that "speech codes" are most severe on college campuses. This is the main thing colleges are there to teach: the proper pc principles to hoist you into this ruling class. Can't have party members breaking ranks.

Hence in turn the "culture wars": these have been a symptom of the fact that the emerging ruling class has, more or less deliberately, created a separate culture very different from and hostile to that of mainstream America, or Canada. different languages is only the start. There is also the matter of differing religions. Mainstream America, one way or another, solidly believes in God; the ruling class holds all religion, but especially Judeo-Christian ethical monotheism, to be bad.

Codevilla relies on several figures to come up with an estimate that the ruling class plus its loyal supporters add up to about one-third of the American population; two-thirds are hostile to it.

I think we must concede Codevilla's basic point: there has been a growing class consciousness among those at the top in America (and Canada). But, we might say, so what? Does it matter so much that there is a ruling class? Probably not, so long as 1) admission is open to all based on merit, and 2) its interests are the same as the interests of the country as a whole.

America's new ruling class certainly claims that admission is based purely on merit: that it its basic premise. It is because they assume this is so that they see a right to intervene in private affairs generally. Because they are "experts," better educated and smarter than the rest of us, we are all better off if we cede some of our decisions to them. Things like wearing seatbelts, taking medicines, what TV channels we get to watch, and so forth.

Is it so? Codevilla argues that it is not, on the grounds that the grade inflation in the "best" schools, those that graduate the ruling classes, is so severe that they really make no distinctions on merit at all. If there is any selection, it must happen before that point, in high school. And "affirmative action" has seriously distorted the selection process at that level, away from merit. At both the high school and university level, conformity to class dogmas seems to have largely superceded academic merit as a selection criterion. If this is not a class, it is a party, a club, or a syndicate. You don't get bad marks for turning in a shoddy essay, any more. You get bad marks for failing to espouse the right views in it.

Secondly, it is clear that the ruling class itself sees its own interests as diverging from those of the nation as a whole. In fact, it is a hallmark of the new ruling class, one of the shibboleths for membership, that they view with contempt all the traditions and traditional values of the nation as a whole. the message is clear: the commitment to class must supercede the commitment to nation.

There are some tangible examples of this in the news recently. One symptom is the rather disturbing discovery that the average salary of federal government employees in the US is now double the national average. That's a pretty clear departure from the notion of a "public service": servants do not usually make twice as much as their masters. That is a ruling class.

Another is the bizarre recent trend in retail: bargain outlets are struggling, while luxury firms are doing well. This is the reverse of what has previously always happened in a recession. It shows clearly that this time, the pain is not evenly distributed; instead, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. Specifically, given a Keynesian approach, governments boom during a recession. Given that government workers are now about the richest sector of the economy, and larger in numbers all the time, this means a boom in luxury items.

This also makes it quite clear, however, that the interests of the ruling class are now very different from the interests of those they rule; that their cheif objective now is to exploit the country, not to advance its interests.

Hence, indeed, the need for a Tea Party.

It seems to me, though, that Codevilla is missing one important factor in the mix, a more hopeful one. The same technological forces that allowed a ruling class to form a generation or two ago, are surely now about to doom it. The improvements in transportation and communications are now at a point where the bulk of ordinary people are able to communicate with each other and organize without reference to the ruling class. This is exactly what the Tea Party has shown.

Step-by-step: In the slow-motion implosion of the "mainstream media," we are seeing a crucial pillar of this ruling class being taken out of the mix--the Ministry of Truth, their control over news and information. Soon, I expect the collapse of the conventional education system, its second pillar--already shuddering from incursions by homeschooling and online learning. The Internet can potentially completely privatize learning, making it essentially a small business, teacher-to-student, bypassing the indoctrination monopoly of the ruling class, just as the information monopoly has been turned.

The Tea Party, in turn, is kicking hard at the party system, the pillar of power within elected government. It is showing itself apparently able to organize politically quite effectively from the grassroots, through cellphones and Facebook and email, mostly without the ruling class political professionals. It may not work this time; it may be co-opted; but it will work next time, or the next.

It's all a snowball rolling downhill. It will get bigger. It is all the Sixties running in reverse, but raised by the power of ten. And God alone knows where it will end.