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Sunday, January 28, 2024

The Western Ruling Elite: Its Development and Its Betrayal

The Western ruling elite has become oligarchic in nature; its political and economic influence is disproportionate and even harmful to society. It is necessary, therefore, to review its historical evolution and expose its current goals.

First of all, it must be recognized that it is natural and necessary for society to have an elite. Murray Rothbard wrote about the ideal of "natural aristocrats", who “live in freedom and harmony with their fellows, and rise by exercising their individuality and their highest abilities in the service of their fellows, either in an organization or by producing efficiently for the consumers.

A free society needs such “natural aristocrats” because they are its main drivers and inspirations. Major entrepreneurial initiatives are generally taken by people who are particularly far-sighted and motivated, willing to make more sacrifices and take more risks than the average person. The whole of society indirectly benefits from the initiatives of these people.

The problem, therefore, is not the existence of an elite per se, but the fact that it is no longer composed primarily of "natural aristocrats". Today it is composed of what Rothbard called "artificial aristocrats"; "those who governs by means of coercion", that is, with the help of the state. The “Machiavellian” thinkers were the first to describe this oligarchic elite in a systematic way; they referred to the “organized and ruling minority”, in opposition to the disorganized and controlled majority.

As Gaetano Mosca, the most eminent member of this school of thought, wrote in his work, The Ruling Class; "public power has not been and will never be based on the explicit consent of the majority because it has been and will always be exercised by this organized minority who has had or will have the means, to impose his supremacy on the multitude".

Indeed, when it becomes oligarchic, the ruling minority uses coercion to influence political decisions and even social values, in its own economic and ideological interests. However, it is not all-powerful and omniscient; its power never fully acquired, and it does not always exercise its influence very skillfully.

As elsewhere, Western societies have always had "organized minorities", but these have evolved over time. The political power of this elite has constantly increased, together with the expansion of the state and the crony capitalism that it facilitates. As Mosca wrote: "To the extent that the state absorbs and distributes a greater part of public wealth, leaders of the ruling class have more means of arbitrary influence over their subordinates and more easily escape anyone's control."

It must not be assumed that the introduction of "democracy" has reduced the influence of this ruling minority on society, for this political system has inexorably been accompanied by a considerable development of state power. Indeed, even in a "liberal democracy," the disorganized and generally uninformed majority has virtually no influence over, for instance, the foreign, monetary, defense, immigration, and health policies of their governments.

Three Phases of Development

It is possible to identify three phases in the evolution of the ruling minority. During the 19th century, this minority was quite close to the ideal natural elite described by Rothbard above. In the absence of strong states and supranational institutions, the ruling minorities (in plural), were thus initially more national than international in outlook, sought economic rather than political power, and were more industrially than financially oriented. In France, the Count de Saint-Simon wrote about the "industrialists", whom he described in an open letter to king Louis XVIII as "the natural and permanent leaders of the people."

These minorities have naturally always thought of their own interests first (although they were also philanthropist). Nevertheless, the increase in prosperity enjoyed by the West during the "long" 19th century is largely due to the investments of these ruling minorities.

The relationship between these elites and the rest of society was thus rather symbiotic, despite real tensions related to the social conditions of early industrialization; tensions successfully exploited and amplified by the socialist groups of the time. For example, until World War I, these ruling minorities were committed to deflation and free trade, and preferred to maintain a certain level of monetary control via the gold standard.

The modern ruling minority then consolidated, with the development of financial capitalism in the late nineteenth century, around the growing and increasingly political power of "international bankers" and their extended families. The historian Carroll Quigley listed them as follows: "Raring, Lazard, Erlanger, Warburg, Schroder, Seligman, Speyers, Mirabaud, Mallet, Fould, and especially Rothschild and Morgan." He described them thus:

“These banking families remained different from ordinary bankers in distinctive ways: (1) they were cosmopolitan and international; (2) they were close to governments and were particularly concerned with questions of government debts; (3) their interests were almost exclusively in bonds, since they admired "liquidity"; and (4) they were almost equally devoted to secrecy and the secret use of financial influence in political life. In all countries they carried on various kinds of banking and exchange activities, but everywhere they were sharply distinguishable from other, more obvious, kinds of banks, such as savings banks or commercial banks.”

In this second phase, the Western ruling minority emerges, international, politicized and mainly financially oriented. This description of the core of the Western ruling minority is still the same today, despite major changes in the financial system over the last half century. Around this nucleus, of course, need to be counted political leaders and senior civil servants, as well as publishers and editors of mainstream media, as well as the heads of many Western multinational companies.

As mentioned, this politicization of the ruling minority is closely linked to the rapid expansion of the role of the state in society from the end of the 19th century, which first increased its control over production (state control over key industries), then over money (giving up the gold standard), then over consumption (introduction of price controls). As Albert Jay Nock wrote, "It is easier to seize wealth (from the producers) than to produce it, as long as the State makes the seizure of wealth a matter of legalized privilege”.

In this second phase, the Western ruling minority began to be harmful to society, even if the impact was not always so visible. Nevertheless, its irresponsible financing of the Russian Revolution as well as Nazi Germany, described in detail by the historian Anthony Sutton, probably had a major influence on the course of History...

Phase 3: Messianic and Nefarious Globalism

With the Second World War and the rise of Keynesianism, monetary inflation – this artificial scourge upon the majority – became an important tool for the enrichment of the large banking institutions. With the financialization of the Western economies in the 1970s, the interests of the ruling minority began to clearly diverge from the interests of the “real” production-based economy in which the majority participates. The Western oligarchic elite then entered its third phase.

In this phase, the list of extended families belonging to it has changed little. However, some names have lost influence, and new ones can be added, such as: Soros, Gates, Goldman Sachs and obviously, Rockefeller.

In recent decades, this Western ruling minority has become much more ambitious and aggressive than it once was. It is now fully imbued with an ideological mission, even a messianic one, to change the world. As an assistant to the Rockefellers said : "In our dreams we have limitless resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands.”

This ambition existed already at the beginning of the 20th century but remained mostly latent. Today, return on investment and control of resources are no longer the only or even the most important objectives; the current ruling minority has a technocratic desire to shape societies; to control and direct their evolution. Indeed, its purpose today can be summed up in one word: control. It's about controlling everything; people, finance, food, energy, health, and even nature.

This means weakening the nation-states by accelerating the transfer of national sovereignty to supranational authorities. Indeed, this globalist oligarchy has long felt itself restrained by a multitude of national jurisdictions. In order to convince the majority that political globalism is the only hope for mankind, crises have been fabricated, and presented as insoluble at the level of the sovereign state. The three main crises created for this purpose are the climate "crisis", the pandemic "crisis", and the immigration "crisis". The latter also serves to dilute ethnically homogeneous nations, and thus to diminish natural social and cultural resistance to political globalism.

The United Nations and the governmental institutions and NGOs that orbit around it all play a key role. To name of few examples, the WHO must be given the power to introduce a digital health tool that will allow the control of populations under pretexts of public health concerns. The European Union must impose obligations and restrictions on the behavior of European individuals and companies (see CSRD, the Digital Services Act and the Green Deal). The introduction of digital currencies by central banks will allow the control of all individual economic transactions. The digital wallet will allow the introduction of a system of social credits, Chinese style. All these initiatives are coordinated by the World Economic Forum.

The Western oligarchy is now openly showing its neo-fascist and anti-liberal conviction; economic control consists in openly pushing the model of “public-private partnership" and stakeholder capitalism. Moreover, it wishes to force the majority, and if possible convince it, to give up private property (renting instead of owning) thus increasing the financial dependence of the population on the major financial institutions.

All these initiatives are progressive steps towards the establishment of a world government under the control of the Western ruling minority. Indeed, it has been dreaming about such planning for a century, supposedly for the good of humanity. This idea is encapsulated in the following revealing words from Nelson Rockefeller: "I am a great supporter of planning – economic, social, political, military, total world planning."

An Enemy of the People

These nefarious plans of the Western ruling minority obviously represent a significant threat to individual freedom on a global scale. Unfortunately, they have already been partially implemented. It is nothing less than a betrayal by the Western ruling minority of its own societies.

This is a new phenomenon. A priori, a national elite has no interest in seeing its own society decline, in seeing the majority it leads become poorer. But the Western ruling minority has long been cosmopolitan, and its interests are now transnational and therefore unrelated to its cultural and geographical origins. The Western ruling minority has become over time an enemy of the people, which the majorities have no choice but to oppose.

Libertarians in particular, and all who defend the fundamental right of non-interference by political authorities in the life of the individual, cannot but react with horror to these dystopian plans. Fortunately, there is some opposition to these globalist initiatives, but it is still timid; it is a political battle that is far won.

A Political Fight for Freedom

The struggle against this tyrannical globalist agenda requires efforts to increase the political consciousness of the majority in order to counter the propaganda disseminated by mainstream media. The process of political globalism can be reining in by exposing the three crises mentioned above as artificial.

It is necessary to return to the situation that prevailed during part of the 19th century, when the Western ruling minority was mostly an economic elite. That is, the ruling minority should be composed essentially of Rothbard’s "natural aristocrats", or of "industrialists" to use Saint-Simon's term.

It is possible that the plans of the modern ruling minority will not succeed, or only partially. They may prove to be too ambitious and too illiberal to be fully accepted, even by a largely apolitical, disorganized and disinformed majority. But it is not possible to passively expect this. When freedom is at such risk, these words of Ludwig von Mises come to mind:

"Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way for himself if society is sweeping towards de­struction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. No one can stand aside with unconcern: the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us."

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