To my great surprise, I found out recently that a lot of what I have been saying in my musings on Populism, Authoritarianism, Liberalism, and so on are actually insights that have been brought up before by the so-called “Italian School of Elitism”. I’d recommend the substack blog that I read it on, but I’m tired of recommending those who do not recommend back and intend to end the practice.
I used to be really interested in stuff like this until the findings of certain people I follow discouraged me.
From my current point of view, most political and economic ideas, even if they are based on careful research and thoughtful discussion, end up on the public stage in the form of propaganda. Most people don't have the time or patience or intellect or some combination of those to study these ideas the way their originators studied them. And that said, it seems that some ideologies were originated only for their propaganda value, as they seem largely fatuous or unworkable (Eugenics?).
Populism, in my mind, encompasses any package of messages that validates ordinary people as the backbone of society, yet does not necessarily demand any more of them. Revolution demands popular activism, if not martyrdom. Anti-populism shudders at the history of deplorable decisions that ordinary people have been persuaded to make. Yet , is that not Democracy? Conservatism, in most of its forms, demands that adults do productive work if they are able. Authoritarians may demand that people do things they do not wish to do, thus they tend to be anti-populist.
Though decisions about the day-to-day operations of groups, businesses, cities or nations can be based on ideology, they usually aren't. They are based on a mix of political calculations. Thus, I hope that managers and leaders will be sane much more than I hope they will be "liberal" "conservative" or anything else.
Any good leader, whether "populist" or not, will respect ordinary people, as they are needed to work, to reproduce, and to fight. To the extent that they are less needed for these functions, they will be less respected. But in a democracy, ordinary people are needed at voting time. So, a degree of populist rhetoric would always be expected there.
Though anti-populists scream about the shallow ideas of the populists, they seldom reflect on the unworkability of their own ideas, no matter how theoretically rigorous they might be.
On top of this, I am intrigued by how different types of populism influence how ordinary people think about life and about themselves.
In American Dream populism, a constant striving to increase one's social status seems to be expected. In America, everyone wants to send their kids to college. The fact that a world full of doctors and engineers would quickly fall apart seems to be overlooked. And are the American suburbs really the perfect form of community living?
I could respect a form of populism that would assert that all jobs are valuable (and possibly should be remunerated with that in mind), so if you do your job, I'll do mine. A "populism" that expects competence from everyone, particularly if it finds ways to enable that competence, would be an ideology worth respecting, it seems to me. A populism that expects ordinary people to sit back with their popcorn and watch the show isn't worth much. And a populism that promised everyone as much wealth and power as they dream of having would be folly.
The challenge of any leader, populist or not, is to keep the game going for his or her people. In the face of the levels of crime and insanity found on this planet, that's a very difficult challenge.
In a round-about and sorta vague way, Rolo, you have defined populism.
I imagine most politicians and journalists who read this will nod and move on. They, too, use the word casually and with creative licence. But, in my not-so-humble opinon, thee effing errs. Quite uncharacteristically too, if I may say.
I have no idea how the word was used prior to the US Populist Movement and, frankly, I don't care. If it was used at all it was of insignificant import. Today, we have a tight resistance movement rallying against fascist tyranny and demanding government for the people, not just for the benefit of the elite.
The only comparable situation was the US Populist Movment that bourgened following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Now, here is where we need to pluck the naked and undecorated truth from a history written by the elite investment bankers who assassinated Lincoln. Abraham refused to fund the Civil War with private bank loans and, instead, established war bonds. He also refused to permit the same bankers to establish their own Federal Reserve Bank (they had to create their own President, Woodrow Wilson, to acheive that).
All of this was enough for the bankers to regard Lincoln as their worst enemy, but this resistance was not what they feared most. It was Lincoln's Gettysberg Address, which resonated more every day in American and even overseas minds, that terrified them. I refer, of course, to his brilliantly unambiguous and lyrical "Government of The People, by The People and for The People".
This utterly undermined the ellaborate frauds that the elite inflicted on mankind, in which we clods get to elect some jerk to impose decisions on ourselves, made by the bankers, for the bankers. Lincoln's inspired words encouraged sharp students of history and economics to realise that elections, parliaments, policies, majorities, and representatives were pure windowdresssing and theatre, to veil the oligarch within.
Thus it was that, when aware citizens understood who had executed Lincoln, and why, the Populaist Movement came spontaneously into being and lasted well into the 1880s before finally being smotherd by the banker's media. But this was the second historical popular drive for genuine democracy.
Many historians doubt that the bankers were really so fearful of democracy being so unambiguously defined but this is because they know so little of real history. The truth is, only ten years earlier, pro-democracy activists from nations as diverse as Russia, China, France, eastern Europe and even America, travelled to Australia to form the world's first democratic nation. The American bankers panicked and requested that the City of London bankers instruct the British military to crush the movement to oblivion. In Australia this is known as the 1854 'Massacre at the Eureka Stockade' and we dumb-arsed Aussies are told it was all a rebellion agaainst the high cost of gold-digging licences.
What we have today is about a direct repeat of history: the demand that autocracy and tyranny be replaced with genuine democracy. ie the Populist Movement II. In many parts of Australia, you will see the crude slogan "Eureka... unfinished business".
The masses largely float through life. My ancestors the classical Greeks understood this. They saw the mankind in three categories:
First: The majority of mankind the average man will be just that, average. They're neither bad nor good they'll float through life work mundane jobs, marry and have kids, struggle though life with some personal success and a lot of boredom. They'll achieve nothing great nor do anything horrendous.
Second: The small minority of the few that will rise above their circumstances, transcend and triumph of the adversities of their lives. They will become the truly great men. The man on the horse "el Caballero", the great general, leader, scientist, inventor, innovator that steps up to the plate takes the bull by the horns and does what's needed in whatever situation he and his society finds itself in. These are the great crisis men that naturally rise and deal successfully with the crisis of their nation, culture and folk. Only a rare few rise to this level it could also be on a personal level. The man who had a horrendous life not only survives but transcends his circumstances and creates a life of his own, marries and raises healthy, culturally aware children. He's to them the father that he never knew nor had. (This was part of my own life trajectory. It's all in my memoir you can read about it on my page.)
Third: A category of humans that's so low, so vile, so degenerate, despicable, monstrosities they can barely be described as human. More like "man footed animals" as the ancients would say. They are to be shunned, avoided, and if need be incarcerated or terminated.
Nietzsche originally a classicist knew this he could read, ancient Greek, modern, Greek and Latin. He basically took the above ideas and created his own concept of the "superman". The superman (der Übermensch) was not what we've been propagandized to believe it was the man of category two (see above). The subhuman (der Untermensch) is the man of category three (see the above). What populist needs to do is appeal to category 1, he already has 2 in his corner. category 3 ignore and if need be keep in check until he achieves power then they can be dealt with accordingly.
One of the reasons the right is so "conservative" and "libertarian" is they're afraid of losing their "freedoms". But what does "their freedoms" translate into, what do they want their freedoms for?" Simply stated, they're scared shitless of losing their rights to, go to NASCAR, sports rallies, gun clubs, hunting, fishing, chilling in their trailers and cabins, cooking BBQ, drinking good cheap libations, smoke a little weed, and screw their girlfriends and wives (hopefully on different days). If a populist leader could guarantee that they'll keep all of this and get even more, like debt free money, abolishment of compound interest, the federal income tax, and capital gains taxes, closing the borders especially the southern one and bring industry back to the motherland they'd support an authoritarian populist regime in a heartbeat. Convince category 1 of this and we Eurocentric, ethnocentric nationalists, will be in power.
We do this and we'll be in power for decades. I'm a actor aside from writer, also in sales. You need to understand your audience.. The left does this very well they appeal to categories 1 and 3 to unite and hate category 2.) We nationalists need to do the same with our message.
Reading what you have written here, there is something I don’t quite get. It seems it is argued that elites always are the ones that rule and the people those that are ruled, and those who contend for power are always led by sections of the elite and the people just follow them. But who decides who is of the people and who is an elite? Is there any kind of objective way of identifying the difference, or is it simply a matter of theoretical circularity, i.e., this must be true because theorists will always simply say that those who rule or who lead rebellions must simply for that reason be elites. It’s like self-fulfilling prophecy, or a theory that can never be falsified. Take for example Stalin as someone who ruled for over two decades. Was he an elite or of the people? Well we know he grew up in poverty in a dysfunctional family (if I remember correctly), had a delinquent and criminal youth, and rose in the Bolshevik party initially by robbing banks (again subject to correction). Anyway it was far from any kind of elite background, but he was soon part of the leadership of the struggle against the regime. So was he then of the people or an elite? And when did he become an elite? It seems to me that the problem with populist theorists may be that they can simply define him as an elite when it suits their theory. If one thinks psychologically on the basis of the biographies I’ve read it doesn’t seem to me that he ever became an elite psychologically – sure he was a real bastard, but psychologically it seems a pleb bastard.
You state that "Consider the fact that Leon Trotsky, one of the richest men in the world, considered himself a “worker”.
Kindly provide a source for this - or some evidence - I've read a number of biographies of Trotsky including highly critical ones such as that by Service and I find no evidence of that. His family started off as pretty poor farmers but due to the energy and dynamism of his father became wealthy farmers (but not a million miles away from richest in the world - that's just completely absurd) and most of their wealth was acquired after Trotsky left the parental home and made his own, very different, way. Until Trotsky was 17 years old the family lived in a simple peasants mud house. And by the way Trotsky never made any secret of this family's relative wealth, e.g., in his biography ("My Life") Trotsky stated: “As son of a prosperous landowner, I belonged to the privileged class rather than to the oppressed.” He certainly never made any attempt to pass himself off as a "worker".
Please, you're a good commentator on populism.. .. so please stick to what you know and have more care in making sweeping statements on topics you don't really know as they do your credibility no good.
A lot of this stuff reminds me of Peter Turchin's theories.
An excellent way to highlight the difference between an attempt to overthrow the established order with or without the support of the elites is to contrapose REVOLUTION (has elite support, may succeed) against JACQUERIE (peasants' revolt, doesn't have that support, fails 100% of the time).
Nah you just gotta keep churning out essays on obscure corners of the internet and eventually the masses will wake up, organize themselves and do all the work. After that they will profusely thank you and make you their Fuhrer.
Anyway even your old school Anarchist like Bakunin always preached the need for a vanguard to get the masses moving. Even the anarchist who eventually fell out with the Marxists over the whole dictatorship of the proletariat question still wanted a vanguard. Like we need a vanguard just to abolish everything and establish an absence of any authority.
And of course even the actual Marxist were all obsessed with their cadres and vanguards. The left has never had illusions about the need for an elite even when their obstinable goal was abolishing all elitism and hierarchy. The whole phenomenon of just waiting for the awakening while shitposting and making podcast is a modern phenomenon.
Even our thoughts about who or what group the "elites" or "rebel elites" are rarely identifies them accurately. Can't say the truth or you'll be cancelled (if things go well). Like the victims of the Bolsheviks next you'll be eliminated, first economically (mom and pop businesses gone) next politically (surpressed by phony "hate" speech laws), then eventually physically (did you get the jab?) as the Trillionaire class is planning to do by, say, 2030. Bolshevism was only a warm up act.
I don't know exactly which Italians you've been reading about, but I suspect Gaetano Mosca is one of them.
The average "peasant" would say, "Who has time for politics? I have better things to do." Elite activists, OTOH, are inherently parasitic s**t-stirrers, like rentiers in economics. There's a real behavioral tension between creators and dominators. The dominators will always explain why their behavior is superior (sustainability, e.g.). And the creators will hold the dominators in contempt. Dominators need to get enough power to hide the latter fact.
Let's assume we have a bunch of new elites in waiting, they are lacking a few things:
- To be communicated.
WLM and project phoenix do not count, as the first is a decentralized activism group and the second doesn't really connect elites, I checked, there are hardly any elites or potential elites there.
- Material resources.
This can be solved with crypto: some cryptobros became rich quite quickly, and if they were intelligent, they stayed that way. I made modest gains but never anything big.
So, let's make you fuhrer, what do we do? what other problems are there?
We need to organize an international anti-western-liberal-elite group that is resistant to psyops, glowies, and can accumulate power (guns, money, blackmail) as well as communicate and organize effectively.
Very thoughtful as usual. There is always the danger in political theorizing to be too theoretical; i.e not alert to historical specificity.
So, I am wondering in 2022 whether there even ARE any "rebel elites". I think the most terrifying aspect of the Covid Operation was the remarkable degree of consensus it revealed among globalist oriented national elites: an operation whose principle goal was to fix an election to deny Trump a second term (historically, incumbents with a strong economy are unbeatable) i.e. a fairly local interest; was eagerly implemented by almost every single nation state on the globe. The few resistors were out-right murdered (2-4 in Africa; almost our dear Luka). With huge popular protests occurring in much of Europe for months - where were the rebel/rival elites to seize that opportunity?
In short your theory may be perfectly true and extremely insightful but currently superseded by historical conditions.
All eyes on Brazil on Sunday! - That does look like a "classical" "populist movement" largely fueled by evangelical Christians. Can Bolsonaro pull it off (himself the target of a nearly successful assassination attempt some years ago) - what if any rebel elite does he represent? Elitism theorists! - there is your laboratory! I am not sure there are any others right now.
In Greek the word used for civil war in the Polis was frozen conflict-stasis. In Latin, revolvere. To go in a complete circle. Our word Revolution arises from revolvere.
Super interesting as usual, btw I am not able to listen to your podcasts but I love to read cause it's faster, if you publish even some basic transcripts of these discussions, I'll be glad to read through .... About Trotsky, was his wealth acquired during or prior to the bolshevik coup d'état?
I used to be really interested in stuff like this until the findings of certain people I follow discouraged me.
From my current point of view, most political and economic ideas, even if they are based on careful research and thoughtful discussion, end up on the public stage in the form of propaganda. Most people don't have the time or patience or intellect or some combination of those to study these ideas the way their originators studied them. And that said, it seems that some ideologies were originated only for their propaganda value, as they seem largely fatuous or unworkable (Eugenics?).
Populism, in my mind, encompasses any package of messages that validates ordinary people as the backbone of society, yet does not necessarily demand any more of them. Revolution demands popular activism, if not martyrdom. Anti-populism shudders at the history of deplorable decisions that ordinary people have been persuaded to make. Yet , is that not Democracy? Conservatism, in most of its forms, demands that adults do productive work if they are able. Authoritarians may demand that people do things they do not wish to do, thus they tend to be anti-populist.
Though decisions about the day-to-day operations of groups, businesses, cities or nations can be based on ideology, they usually aren't. They are based on a mix of political calculations. Thus, I hope that managers and leaders will be sane much more than I hope they will be "liberal" "conservative" or anything else.
Any good leader, whether "populist" or not, will respect ordinary people, as they are needed to work, to reproduce, and to fight. To the extent that they are less needed for these functions, they will be less respected. But in a democracy, ordinary people are needed at voting time. So, a degree of populist rhetoric would always be expected there.
Though anti-populists scream about the shallow ideas of the populists, they seldom reflect on the unworkability of their own ideas, no matter how theoretically rigorous they might be.
On top of this, I am intrigued by how different types of populism influence how ordinary people think about life and about themselves.
In American Dream populism, a constant striving to increase one's social status seems to be expected. In America, everyone wants to send their kids to college. The fact that a world full of doctors and engineers would quickly fall apart seems to be overlooked. And are the American suburbs really the perfect form of community living?
I could respect a form of populism that would assert that all jobs are valuable (and possibly should be remunerated with that in mind), so if you do your job, I'll do mine. A "populism" that expects competence from everyone, particularly if it finds ways to enable that competence, would be an ideology worth respecting, it seems to me. A populism that expects ordinary people to sit back with their popcorn and watch the show isn't worth much. And a populism that promised everyone as much wealth and power as they dream of having would be folly.
The challenge of any leader, populist or not, is to keep the game going for his or her people. In the face of the levels of crime and insanity found on this planet, that's a very difficult challenge.
In a round-about and sorta vague way, Rolo, you have defined populism.
I imagine most politicians and journalists who read this will nod and move on. They, too, use the word casually and with creative licence. But, in my not-so-humble opinon, thee effing errs. Quite uncharacteristically too, if I may say.
I have no idea how the word was used prior to the US Populist Movement and, frankly, I don't care. If it was used at all it was of insignificant import. Today, we have a tight resistance movement rallying against fascist tyranny and demanding government for the people, not just for the benefit of the elite.
The only comparable situation was the US Populist Movment that bourgened following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Now, here is where we need to pluck the naked and undecorated truth from a history written by the elite investment bankers who assassinated Lincoln. Abraham refused to fund the Civil War with private bank loans and, instead, established war bonds. He also refused to permit the same bankers to establish their own Federal Reserve Bank (they had to create their own President, Woodrow Wilson, to acheive that).
All of this was enough for the bankers to regard Lincoln as their worst enemy, but this resistance was not what they feared most. It was Lincoln's Gettysberg Address, which resonated more every day in American and even overseas minds, that terrified them. I refer, of course, to his brilliantly unambiguous and lyrical "Government of The People, by The People and for The People".
This utterly undermined the ellaborate frauds that the elite inflicted on mankind, in which we clods get to elect some jerk to impose decisions on ourselves, made by the bankers, for the bankers. Lincoln's inspired words encouraged sharp students of history and economics to realise that elections, parliaments, policies, majorities, and representatives were pure windowdresssing and theatre, to veil the oligarch within.
Thus it was that, when aware citizens understood who had executed Lincoln, and why, the Populaist Movement came spontaneously into being and lasted well into the 1880s before finally being smotherd by the banker's media. But this was the second historical popular drive for genuine democracy.
Many historians doubt that the bankers were really so fearful of democracy being so unambiguously defined but this is because they know so little of real history. The truth is, only ten years earlier, pro-democracy activists from nations as diverse as Russia, China, France, eastern Europe and even America, travelled to Australia to form the world's first democratic nation. The American bankers panicked and requested that the City of London bankers instruct the British military to crush the movement to oblivion. In Australia this is known as the 1854 'Massacre at the Eureka Stockade' and we dumb-arsed Aussies are told it was all a rebellion agaainst the high cost of gold-digging licences.
What we have today is about a direct repeat of history: the demand that autocracy and tyranny be replaced with genuine democracy. ie the Populist Movement II. In many parts of Australia, you will see the crude slogan "Eureka... unfinished business".
The masses largely float through life. My ancestors the classical Greeks understood this. They saw the mankind in three categories:
First: The majority of mankind the average man will be just that, average. They're neither bad nor good they'll float through life work mundane jobs, marry and have kids, struggle though life with some personal success and a lot of boredom. They'll achieve nothing great nor do anything horrendous.
Second: The small minority of the few that will rise above their circumstances, transcend and triumph of the adversities of their lives. They will become the truly great men. The man on the horse "el Caballero", the great general, leader, scientist, inventor, innovator that steps up to the plate takes the bull by the horns and does what's needed in whatever situation he and his society finds itself in. These are the great crisis men that naturally rise and deal successfully with the crisis of their nation, culture and folk. Only a rare few rise to this level it could also be on a personal level. The man who had a horrendous life not only survives but transcends his circumstances and creates a life of his own, marries and raises healthy, culturally aware children. He's to them the father that he never knew nor had. (This was part of my own life trajectory. It's all in my memoir you can read about it on my page.)
Third: A category of humans that's so low, so vile, so degenerate, despicable, monstrosities they can barely be described as human. More like "man footed animals" as the ancients would say. They are to be shunned, avoided, and if need be incarcerated or terminated.
Nietzsche originally a classicist knew this he could read, ancient Greek, modern, Greek and Latin. He basically took the above ideas and created his own concept of the "superman". The superman (der Übermensch) was not what we've been propagandized to believe it was the man of category two (see above). The subhuman (der Untermensch) is the man of category three (see the above). What populist needs to do is appeal to category 1, he already has 2 in his corner. category 3 ignore and if need be keep in check until he achieves power then they can be dealt with accordingly.
One of the reasons the right is so "conservative" and "libertarian" is they're afraid of losing their "freedoms". But what does "their freedoms" translate into, what do they want their freedoms for?" Simply stated, they're scared shitless of losing their rights to, go to NASCAR, sports rallies, gun clubs, hunting, fishing, chilling in their trailers and cabins, cooking BBQ, drinking good cheap libations, smoke a little weed, and screw their girlfriends and wives (hopefully on different days). If a populist leader could guarantee that they'll keep all of this and get even more, like debt free money, abolishment of compound interest, the federal income tax, and capital gains taxes, closing the borders especially the southern one and bring industry back to the motherland they'd support an authoritarian populist regime in a heartbeat. Convince category 1 of this and we Eurocentric, ethnocentric nationalists, will be in power.
We do this and we'll be in power for decades. I'm a actor aside from writer, also in sales. You need to understand your audience.. The left does this very well they appeal to categories 1 and 3 to unite and hate category 2.) We nationalists need to do the same with our message.
Reading what you have written here, there is something I don’t quite get. It seems it is argued that elites always are the ones that rule and the people those that are ruled, and those who contend for power are always led by sections of the elite and the people just follow them. But who decides who is of the people and who is an elite? Is there any kind of objective way of identifying the difference, or is it simply a matter of theoretical circularity, i.e., this must be true because theorists will always simply say that those who rule or who lead rebellions must simply for that reason be elites. It’s like self-fulfilling prophecy, or a theory that can never be falsified. Take for example Stalin as someone who ruled for over two decades. Was he an elite or of the people? Well we know he grew up in poverty in a dysfunctional family (if I remember correctly), had a delinquent and criminal youth, and rose in the Bolshevik party initially by robbing banks (again subject to correction). Anyway it was far from any kind of elite background, but he was soon part of the leadership of the struggle against the regime. So was he then of the people or an elite? And when did he become an elite? It seems to me that the problem with populist theorists may be that they can simply define him as an elite when it suits their theory. If one thinks psychologically on the basis of the biographies I’ve read it doesn’t seem to me that he ever became an elite psychologically – sure he was a real bastard, but psychologically it seems a pleb bastard.
You state that "Consider the fact that Leon Trotsky, one of the richest men in the world, considered himself a “worker”.
Kindly provide a source for this - or some evidence - I've read a number of biographies of Trotsky including highly critical ones such as that by Service and I find no evidence of that. His family started off as pretty poor farmers but due to the energy and dynamism of his father became wealthy farmers (but not a million miles away from richest in the world - that's just completely absurd) and most of their wealth was acquired after Trotsky left the parental home and made his own, very different, way. Until Trotsky was 17 years old the family lived in a simple peasants mud house. And by the way Trotsky never made any secret of this family's relative wealth, e.g., in his biography ("My Life") Trotsky stated: “As son of a prosperous landowner, I belonged to the privileged class rather than to the oppressed.” He certainly never made any attempt to pass himself off as a "worker".
Please, you're a good commentator on populism.. .. so please stick to what you know and have more care in making sweeping statements on topics you don't really know as they do your credibility no good.
A lot of this stuff reminds me of Peter Turchin's theories.
An excellent way to highlight the difference between an attempt to overthrow the established order with or without the support of the elites is to contrapose REVOLUTION (has elite support, may succeed) against JACQUERIE (peasants' revolt, doesn't have that support, fails 100% of the time).
Nah you just gotta keep churning out essays on obscure corners of the internet and eventually the masses will wake up, organize themselves and do all the work. After that they will profusely thank you and make you their Fuhrer.
Anyway even your old school Anarchist like Bakunin always preached the need for a vanguard to get the masses moving. Even the anarchist who eventually fell out with the Marxists over the whole dictatorship of the proletariat question still wanted a vanguard. Like we need a vanguard just to abolish everything and establish an absence of any authority.
And of course even the actual Marxist were all obsessed with their cadres and vanguards. The left has never had illusions about the need for an elite even when their obstinable goal was abolishing all elitism and hierarchy. The whole phenomenon of just waiting for the awakening while shitposting and making podcast is a modern phenomenon.
Even our thoughts about who or what group the "elites" or "rebel elites" are rarely identifies them accurately. Can't say the truth or you'll be cancelled (if things go well). Like the victims of the Bolsheviks next you'll be eliminated, first economically (mom and pop businesses gone) next politically (surpressed by phony "hate" speech laws), then eventually physically (did you get the jab?) as the Trillionaire class is planning to do by, say, 2030. Bolshevism was only a warm up act.
I don't know exactly which Italians you've been reading about, but I suspect Gaetano Mosca is one of them.
The average "peasant" would say, "Who has time for politics? I have better things to do." Elite activists, OTOH, are inherently parasitic s**t-stirrers, like rentiers in economics. There's a real behavioral tension between creators and dominators. The dominators will always explain why their behavior is superior (sustainability, e.g.). And the creators will hold the dominators in contempt. Dominators need to get enough power to hide the latter fact.
Your best essay by far.
Let's assume we have a bunch of new elites in waiting, they are lacking a few things:
- To be communicated.
WLM and project phoenix do not count, as the first is a decentralized activism group and the second doesn't really connect elites, I checked, there are hardly any elites or potential elites there.
- Material resources.
This can be solved with crypto: some cryptobros became rich quite quickly, and if they were intelligent, they stayed that way. I made modest gains but never anything big.
So, let's make you fuhrer, what do we do? what other problems are there?
We need to organize an international anti-western-liberal-elite group that is resistant to psyops, glowies, and can accumulate power (guns, money, blackmail) as well as communicate and organize effectively.
Wat do?
Very thoughtful as usual. There is always the danger in political theorizing to be too theoretical; i.e not alert to historical specificity.
So, I am wondering in 2022 whether there even ARE any "rebel elites". I think the most terrifying aspect of the Covid Operation was the remarkable degree of consensus it revealed among globalist oriented national elites: an operation whose principle goal was to fix an election to deny Trump a second term (historically, incumbents with a strong economy are unbeatable) i.e. a fairly local interest; was eagerly implemented by almost every single nation state on the globe. The few resistors were out-right murdered (2-4 in Africa; almost our dear Luka). With huge popular protests occurring in much of Europe for months - where were the rebel/rival elites to seize that opportunity?
In short your theory may be perfectly true and extremely insightful but currently superseded by historical conditions.
All eyes on Brazil on Sunday! - That does look like a "classical" "populist movement" largely fueled by evangelical Christians. Can Bolsonaro pull it off (himself the target of a nearly successful assassination attempt some years ago) - what if any rebel elite does he represent? Elitism theorists! - there is your laboratory! I am not sure there are any others right now.
So what did the bolsheviks mean when they talked about workers? I have a guess but I’m not 100% sure.
Great Populism 101 aka likbez, charmingly & lucidly written 👌
💬 I’d recommend the substack blog
Well, I don’t suffer from your quibbles & reservations, so here goes ↓ 😇
The Circulation of Elites by Michael McConkey → https://thecirculationofelites.substack.com
In Greek the word used for civil war in the Polis was frozen conflict-stasis. In Latin, revolvere. To go in a complete circle. Our word Revolution arises from revolvere.
Super interesting as usual, btw I am not able to listen to your podcasts but I love to read cause it's faster, if you publish even some basic transcripts of these discussions, I'll be glad to read through .... About Trotsky, was his wealth acquired during or prior to the bolshevik coup d'état?