On the Wrong Track: How the West Is Becoming Similar to the Soviet Union

By Ivan Pavell

Various opinion polls, both in the USA and Great Britain have revealed that a large proportion of citizens believe that their countries are heading in the wrong direction.

The book generally describes the trends in the governance of the West that have been gradually changing Individualistic free societies to Collectivist societies of subservient people. This progression has been carried out by the so called Political elite.

In practical terms we can see that there has been a growth of governments and their bureaucracies, as well as an encroachment of governments influence on what used to be citizens individual decision. This occurrence has driven the attempt to manage entire societies.

Examples can be noted in relation to: management of the economy, social engineering, the use of media and education to impose collectivist ideologies, extensive surveillance of citizens, and the general aggrandizement of governments and their rulers. These have all lead to the transformation of free individuals into subjects of the State (that is ruling elite)

Alongside this transformation, the governments in the West are currently living beyond their means and are accruing enormous debts.

The book compares the present Statism of the West with the Soviet Socialism, and how they are gradually drawing closer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491878453

Book preview

CONTENTS

About The Author

Introduction

Chapter 1

Social Order

Chapter 2

Collectivism And Individualism—A Short History

Chapter 3

Collectivist Ideology

Chapter 4

Political Elite

Chapter 5

The Leaders

Chapter 6

Foreign Relations

Endnotes

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The author is a British management and economic consultant working internationally.

Graduate of the School of Economics, guest lecturer at a US university. He worked in more than twenty countries, in Africa, in the Middle East, Asia as well as in the West, mainly UK and US. His clients were UN, the World Bank, EU Commission, British DFID as well as companies in the private sector.

Last twenty years he worked intermittently in the former Socialist camp, that is Central and Eastern Europe, but mainly in the countries of the former Soviet Union, especially Russia. He speaks fluent Russian and Czech and can communicate in Polish and Slovak.

In his work he had an ample opportunity to observe various social orders and economic management systems, for instance Soviet socialism as well as Western capitalism and to study the relevant literature. He examined the Soviet totalitarian collectivism and the present Nationalistic collectivism of Russia and could see how the formerly Individualist West became a new social order called Statism adopting many features of collectivism. He analyzed the ideologies of these social orders as well as emergence of the ruling political class in various social orders.

INTRODUCTION

This book started as a short paper on Russian mentality with an emphasis on how this mentality was affected by 70 years of Soviet socialism. Obviously, by any standard, the Soviet system was murderous, ineffective, bizarre and ultimately stupid. The present Putinist regime in Russia is in many ways becoming a mild version of the Soviet Union. However, the author felt that his paper would be a one-sided monochrome picture and that it was necessary to show the a better way, an example of a decent society, equitable political system, a real democracy and effective government as a comparison. So the paper was supposed to be a sort of comparative study.

Then soon after the author started to work on the revision of the paper he read a comment to an article either in The Times or The Economist. In that comment the reader wrote that he discovered the law of contemporary history: Every country will eventually become a Soviet Union

This statement gave a shock to the author and let the author to follow a new line of thought. He decided to test the reader’s statement. The subsequent research came as a blow. The West indeed looks likely to become a sort of Soviet Union, less brutal but probably equally nonsensical.

Working and living intermittently in Russia and former republics of the Soviet Union for the last 15 years, and returning home to Britain for short visits just a few times in a year resulted in an idealization of the home country as well as of the Western democracies. There were so many differences—especially in the mentality. The Russians, for instance, could not understand that Britain had no official identity documents and yet could function normally. However, when the Labour government came to power in 1997, it became perceptible that many adopted government policies were socialist, that is collectivist in nature, and indeed the reader’s comment that every country will eventually become a Soviet Union turned out to be not much of an exaggeration or a joke. The Labour government made the decision to introduce ID documents and increased the role of the government in the economy and interference in the everyday life of the citizens. The author also visited the USA a few times and noticed great differences in the country since the end of the Reagan administration. The US also followed the trend towards being similar to the USSR. The book overall compares the USSR and Russia with the USA and UK, the countries the author knows quite well. Sometimes it also brings Europe into the picture.

Perhaps the New Labour in the UK was inspired by the other European Union countries which had a strong flavour of social-democratic, that is Statist, Dirigist types of regimes. The Western Europeans favoured strongly regulated economy, welfare run by bureaucracy, high taxation, immoderate environmentalism, bureaucracy, control of the population by the government and other socialist measures.

As the work progressed the author was increasingly taken over by an overwhelming feeling of absurdity. It seems that the development of human society took an abrupt turn in the late 19th century to become as a movement towards absurdity rather than any other characterization. In the 20th century the Soviet Union or Mao’s China were criminal and cruel absurdities, the contemporary Russia or China are politically corrupt absurdities. What about the Western Democracies where so many new absurd collectivist features are appearing? Are they becoming bureaucratic absurdities? Immoral absurdities? Compassionate conservationism absurdities? Not only absurdity, also charlatanism, political, scientific, intellectual and even cultural. It seems that second law of thermodynamics indeed works universally, which means that degeneration and decline are inevitable.

One was wondering what was happening. The author often quotes others, like Thomas Sowell, an American economist and author of many books. For instance: It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. One should add not only being wrong but also lying. In the text we shall see the examples of American presidents and British Prime Ministers demonstrating this fatuousness. The political elite in the West increased both its mendacity and incompetence.

As further research also revealed additional folly of the Western governments and it became necessary to place the comparison between the USSR and the West within some conceptual framework. Thus the author’s hypothesis of the main factor of behaviour of states and their rulers is the social order.

As the author was doing his research and collecting information the number of pages grew. This is obvious as the subject is enormous. For instance the chapter dealing with corruption in Russia exceeded 300 pages and when corruption in the West was added the number of pages reached almost 500. The entire book would then have more than 1,000 pages and who would buy and read such a book? So it was necessary to reduce the text to a few key topics. The result is two books. This is the first one; the second book will look at the role of the government and actions of the so-called ruling elite, especially its corruption and immorality, and also at the European Union getting close to bureaucratic collectivism.

Introduction to a book should not be too long yet make clear what the book is about to help the reader and induce him to continue reading. In this introduction we shall identify the key points of the book so that an interested reader may refer to them as needed, unfortunately risking being repetitive. This Introduction is a sort of overview or recapitulation and the details are then presented in the book.

Chapter 1. The Social Order.

Using a 2008 incident of Russian aggression against Georgia, a small country in the Caucasus with half the population of Moscow, this chapter introduces a few concepts:

National Interest, Political Mentality and the types of Social Order. By social order we mean the way a society is organized and governed. The book proposes that the state’s actions are expression of its political mentality, which in turn is a reflection of its social order.

The book stipulates that there are two basic types of social order: Collectivist and Individualist. They differ in many ways but the essence is that Collectivism considers a community (group, tribe, state etc.) primary and the individual as secondary, subordinated to the interests of the community that stands above and controls the individual. Individualism considers an individual as end not means, autonomous, the state or the government should serve the individual and not the other way round. However, these two are the ends of a continuum, as there are sub-types of social order in between; hardly anything is clear-cut in reality. Thus Totalitarian Collectivism of the USSR or Mao’s China are one category, while Putin’s Russia and the present China are another category of Nationalistic Collectivism, as was Hitler’s Germany. Both represent Core Collectivism.

At the other hand we have Liberal (Conservative) Individualism, a system that existed in USA and in Britain during the 19th century and beginning of 20th century. At present there are hardly any states that belong to this category, perhaps only in some dimensions Switzerland. In fact one cannot today imagine life at the times of Liberal Individualism. A. J. P. Taylor noted, before the First World War, the average citizen’s interaction with the government was largely limited to paying tax.

"Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home¹."

At the second half of the 20th century the Western Democracies moved towards collectivism and adopted Statism (Dirigisme). Statism is the social order of Western Democracies at present.

Statism is a system that is in between Individualism and Collectivism, a transitory hybrid system. As we shall show further there is a strong trend towards the regimentation by the government. It is unlikely that the Statism of Western Democracies will convert into Core collectivism Soviet or Nazi type of society, hence we stipulated a new collectivist system: Bureaucratic collectivism, something that had been envisaged by Franz Kafka and George Orwell.

At present Statism is still a crossbred type of society. It is, however, changing. It is moving away from a society of free individuals and adopting features of collectivism, including totalitarian collectivism. It is called by politicians as moving towards the centre. In reality it is moving away from liberal individualism. In fact we could also see emerging somewhat blurred qualities of the Bureaucratic collectivism. A move of Western democracies towards collectivism is, according to the author, a sign of decline or even decadence. The author then describes how this movement proceeds.

Having identified the main types of social order—Collectivism and Individualism—the author thought it might be useful to look at history.

Chapter 2. Collectivism and Individualism—a brief history.

This chapter briefly describes last few thousand years of history looking at these two types of social order.

The review of history shows us that collectivist states were stagnating and their progress in all areas of human development was very slow. Why was that? Quite a few reasons. The population was subordinated to the ruler and no individual initiative was acceptable, simply people were not free. There was no private property, which as we know liberates individuals. Consequently, the market economy was limited to local exchanges. Additional brake to development was taxation, a factor often ignored by historians, but very important for understanding why societies develop or stagnate.

The first states that contained features of individualism and therefore brought progress to mankind were not ancient empires but small nations at their outskirts.

The Jews introduced new understanding of the world. Instead of having mutually quarrelling Gods inducing events, the Jews introduced monotheism and the idea of an order, causality, regularity, laws and morality.

The Phoenicians, not only invented non-hieroglyphical script, but were the first to develop the free-market culture with private property and contracts enforceable by law. They handed these ideas to the Greeks.

The Greeks who originally also saw events as results of their Gods’ decisions soon began to see rational explanations of actions and processes, Thales saw the orderly universe. The Greek philosophers are read even today. The Greek city-states had indeed individualistic societies with representative government, rule of law and private property rights. So did the Romans at their republican stage. History of Roman Empire must be of interest to everybody, as they are so many parallels with what is happening now, two thousand years later. Homosexual activists could find an inspiration in that period.

The chapter describes development of collectivist societies in Europe from the collapse of Roman Empire, with some features of individualism appearing in Italian city states starting in the 13th century. The elements of Capitalism had already appeared. The Bank of Sienna (Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A) was established in 1472 and by now has about 3000 branches. Yet the first individualistic societies genuinely emerged somewhat later. The English, Dutch and Americans became true individualists and these societies were flourishing. Many the other states remained firmly collectivist at all times. Russia is such an example and we describe its history in this Chapter. Nevertheless, Individualistic societies started to thrive and prevailed on the world stage.

Yet collectivism was not defeated and individualistic societies became contaminated with collectivist features. In fact, in the 20th century various types of collectivism became a prominent social order. Collectivism was spreading in two forms:

First as core collectivism: the Soviet Union, followed by China, Vietnam, Cuba and some other states as examples of extreme, totalitarian collectivism. Fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany as examples nationalistic collectivism.

The second form of collectivism that quickly spread in Europe, especially after World War II was the collectivism of Statist type, the so called social democracies or mixed economies. The features of Statism are many, and prominent features reflect the collectivist ideology as described in this book. The Statist societies are ruled by a political elite plus bureaucrats, with increasing power of the government, regulating all aspects of life, from economy to individual behaviour, caring about citizens and making them dependent and in fact ignorant. Widespread indoctrination and restrictions on individual liberty are typical Statist traits.

Chapter 3. Ideology of Collectivism/Statism

When we look at social changes throughout history and indeed social and political movements we see that they all started with ideas. The ideas could be wise and lead to material, moral and intellectual progress of mankind or they could be stupid, like Marxism-Leninism, the attempted implementation of which led to tragedies before they collapsed. Harmful ideas may be as easily adopted by people as beneficial ideas, we saw that in history. Usually the idiotic ideas are initially and most enthusiastically adopted by intellectuals, as ordinary people rely on common sense. Unfortunately, once nesting in the human mind, stupid ideas are almost impossible to eradicate, and then the course of history roams towards absurdity. So our survey of Statist social order, its emergence and its further movement towards collectivism has to start with ideas, that is Ideology, which we broadly define as a set of beliefs concerning society. Ideology is shaped by Values or Ideals, which then branch into layers of derivative beliefs.

Normally, it is believed that collectivism main idea is subordination of individuals to the collective, at present the state. This is of course one of the key ideas of collectivism. However, there is an idea underlining this, a deeper one. Why the subordination of individuals? Is there a moral and rational justification?

Indeed there is. Subordination of individuals is necessary in order to establish an ideal society. While the Collectivist believing the utopia of perfect and just society, called communism, the Statist believe in a rational and equitable society. Quite correct, as a perfect society is an empty abstraction and logical impossibility. Perfect society cannot be perfected and developed, consequently a perfect society would become stagnant and moribund. Unfortunately, the idea of a rational society managed by political and intellectual elite is equally absurd, in fact preposterous.

The Collectivists therefore believe in scientifically controlled socialist society. The Soviet and other Communists tried to implement that. The book reiterates methods used in Core Collectivism, specifically in the Soviet Union, like one Party leadership, planned and command economy, abolition of private property, conformity in thinking and dependency of citizens on the state. We know how that all ended. Corpses, poverty and collapse.

In Chapter 3 we posit the main values of both core Collectivism and Statism and placing them side by side we see that they are quite similar. We cover six basic values of the Statist ideology and some derivative beliefs. The book singles out six basic collectivist values and their variants in Statism.

Rational and fair society.

The basic belief of Statists and, as they are called at present Progressivists, is the supremacy of human reason, or as Arendt writes: firm and sincere belief in human omnipotence. This is the most conceited, preposterous and dangerous idea ever contrived. Marx fantasises of Freedom in this field can only consist in socialized man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature². There are various interpretations of this paragraph, but for the Soviet Communists is was simple. We shall rule over the nature. The attempts to change the course of rivers and so on led to pitiful results. Yet, statist intellectuals believe in planned and efficiently regulated society by omnipotent human reason, presumably their own. A gross overestimation of human capacities. Humans are faulty creatures. Elementary textbooks on the subject of human brain tell us how imperfect that is.

Planned and managed society.

Planned and managed societies, including strict control of all individuals is in fact a tool of attaining the rational and fair society.

The Statist ideology strives towards rational, efficient and equitable society. As we state in the book this is based on the belief of Academia, some media celebrities, politicians, charlatan scientists and improvers of the world, who absurdly believe that human society can be organized and managed by human design. That, of course, includes the management of the economy, which evidently demonstrates the foolishness of the idea.

In the book we state: So while the socialist countries were based on the belief that the society can be scientifically managed by the Party, a vanguard of the society, armed with the right theory, the Statism is based on the belief in professionalism and elitism. Society should be governed by experts. While the socialist countries were ruled by Party officials, the Statist countries will be ruled by political and intellectual elite.

The elite should not only be professional, perhaps the word enlightened would be more suitable. The members of this ruling elite, as we shall see in the book, believe in their superiority and some perhaps even destiny to rule. They indeed would be the government by inherent entitlement. One should add that the unshakeable belief of being completely right is the biggest folly conceivable, and on the historical stage the biggest tragedy.

The idea of a society being ruled by intellectual elite, philosopher kings is very old, first mentioned by Plato more than 2000 years ago. The government of the state should be best left to the wise men, professionals in today parlance; in fact it was a totalitarian elitism.

This is the idea that rules the Western democracies today and indeed we have the Statist Elite, in the past they were called the Rulers. The elites believe that due to increased complexities of the societies, they have an entitlement to rule their countries. Not that much different from the Communist elite that believed that Marxist/Leninist theories entitled them to rule. Unfortunately, a large part of the population in the West seems to accept the claims of their elites. It is not that apparent that often it is the elite who create the complexities that justify their rule.

However, here we have to stop and make one thing absolutely clear and we emphasize this point further in the book. We use the words State, Government, Country, and Society as if they were a real thing. They are not, they are abstract concepts. Mrs. Thatcher was absolutely right when she said there is no such thing as society. Abstract concepts are useful for analysis, communication and even understanding, but they are not real things. Thus for example, the State cannot speak, has no mouth, cannot write has no hands, cannot smile, think, play football and the only specific action the author would accept is the state wastes taxpayers money. Thus the government is not a real entity; in fact it is a group of people with a defined authority. The government consists of real people, and these people can be wise or stupid, honest or deceitful, informed or ignorant. Increasingly, they are the latter. What unites them is their conceit and striving for power over others.

Individuals subordinated to the common good.

In the core collectivist societies, the individual citizens are subordinated to the Party and its Leader. The subordination is absolute and challenging it ends badly for the challengers: in the Soviet Union either a Gulag or forced psychiatric treatment. No disrespect is allowed and under Stalin’s time telling a joke could end with a bullet.

The Statist ruling elite believes that the citizens should be subordinated to the state that is to them. This, however, is not so easy to attain, people sometimes resist. Therefore the need for indoctrination, or as some call it brainwashing, a topic covered in detail in various parts of the book.

The Statist idea of efficiently managed society by the political elite creates subservience of citizens and by deliberate indoctrination turns them into Political Zombies. It leads to constant enlargement of the government scope of activities and increase in its size thus not only making management more complicated and therefore inefficient but at the same time taking away liberties, self-confidence and private initiative of citizens.

Equality.

The idea of Statism of a rational, efficient and equitable society ruled by elite, as we shall see in the book, is dangerous nonsense. However, let us look at another key value of Collectivism and now also Statism: equality.

Equality has been one of those ideals for which people are ready to die. In practice it was almost always a movement against those who have by those who have not. Sometime those who have were killed, as many were in the Bolshevik revolution, by those who have not, as these are more numerous. Those who had lost, however, those who did not have did not gain either.

Let us reiterate what the book says about equality. In the book the first question we ask is: equality in what? There is no such thing as equality in general. Equality is a summary concept, in reality there are quite a few equalities and even more inequalities.

The first point that the book covers is legal equality. The book reiterates that legal equality is generally accepted and is expressed in various documents, for instance Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Legal equality means that people are equal before the law, without any discrimination. This is a very old idea, almost 4,000 years and already stated in the Bible,³ You shall not commit a perversion of justice; you shall not favour the poor and you shall not honour the great; with righteousness shall you judge your fellow.

The second one is equality of opportunity. The book says that at first sight such equality cannot exist in general, in fact it is absurd. Normally, a modelling agency will hire a pretty and slim girl rather than a fat and ugly one. In practical terms it means things like: no unjustified obstacles should prevent people from achieving positions in the society that correspond to their abilities and motivation. Still, opportunities in life are not presented to people on a plate, often they are created by those who then can exploit them.

The third is economic equality, that is, equality in well-being, in income and property; this is the main criterion for most egalitarians. The French revolution in 1789 proclaimed its aims as: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, that is, Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood. These were all wonderful ideals. Although obviously vague, or maybe because of that, they inspired the French citizens to self-sacrifices and heroic deeds, as well to vengeance, barbarity, cruelty and stupidity. The biggest problem of course is its logical fallacy.

If you have liberty, then soon inevitably you shall get differences in wealth. Some people work harder, some people have talent while some are lucky, but in the end, you get inequality. Liberty and economic equality cannot exist together, liberty invariably creates inequality. This should be clear to a person of average intelligence.

Moreover, economic equality in a society is a concept with internal contradiction. In order to attain equality of wealth, you must take away from the rich and give to the poor. In modern times, apart from thieves, only the State can redistribute wealth and it does it everywhere without exception, the difference is in degree. In order to redistribute wealth you have to take it away in the first place and obviously as giving to the State will not be done voluntarily, it has to be enforced. In order to be enforced you have to have enforcers and by definition, these have power over others, that is, are unequal in power and as experience showed, in wealth and well-being as well. So striving for equality generates inequality. Consequently the call for equality and Obama’s taxing the rich in the present Statist societies is more a sheer demagoguery than a social or economic necessity.

Social Justice.

The ideal of Social justice is also covered in the book. It concludes that there are significant disagreements about what it means and that it is in fact meaningless phrase. This does not prevent politicians and media from using it. It is similar to equality, but even more abstract. The concept is generally used by the Statist government to increase taxation. It is also used by politicians to justify welfare state and creating a system of entitlements whose recipients then vote for them in the election. So social justice in the end wins not economically but politically.

Individual insignificance.

In the individualistic societies each individual creates his or her own significance, mainly by being a decent person. In the collectivist states it is the Collective that is significant. The collective, whether the State, Nation or Motherland, tower over individuals and award to individuals their significance, in simple terms, serving these entities should provide individuals with a meaning of life.

The Derivative beliefs.

Below the values and ideals of Collectivism and Statism there is a complex hierarchy of derivative beliefs. The book cannot list all of them, it is impossible as there are thousands with new emerging daily. The book lists nine key ideological beliefs and elaborate two of them in more detail.

The derivative beliefs of the present Statism elaborated in the book are:

Western capitalist culture is inferior to other cultures.

This idea was originally promulgated by Western Academia as all cultures are equally valid, which is an obvious nonsense. There are cultures that did not invent a wheel. Yet this idea eventually turned by collectivist ideologues into the belief of inferiority of the Western culture and promotion of other cultures and sub-cultures, especially in the USA. This is an immigrant country and used to be a melting pot where all the immigrants turned into Americans, people with the common culture. That changed and diversity has become a fashion. President Jimmy Carter stated: We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. So we now have multiculturalism, an opposite of the melting pot. It is not even society serving different dishes at one dinner-table; it is a society consisting of many tables separated by partitions. The consequences are becoming disastrous. USA may fall apart into different peoples, each with victim mentality and intolerance and demands on others.

The second derivative belief handled in more detail is this:

The government should take care of citizens.

Compassion is a human quality that always existed in human communities. This quality has been nationalized, so we now have institutionalized compassion and human compassion has become superfluous. The state, or to be more accurate the government now provides social security to citizens. It also provides health care, education and housing. The government has become a nanny.

The consequences are obvious and the book reiterates some of them:

- Loss of individual responsibility

- Loss of compassion

- Growing dependence of individuals

- Loss of striving and fortitude

- Breakdown of family

- Incurring debts by the government

This chapter in the book lists a few other derivative beliefs of the collectivist ideology, and then concludes that adopting collectivist, including Statist ideology will eventually lead to decline and collapse of Western societies.

Chapter 4. Political elite

This chapter describes how the citizens are ruled and who rules them. Let us provide a brief overview of what it says.

In the individualistic societies the power was broadly spread and the people’s representatives did care about the citizens’ liberties and well-being. Politics was not a profession; it was a service and duty to others in accordance at the time prevailing Christian culture. Moreover, the citizens were more active and exercised a degree of control over the government, which at the time was relatively small.

In the Collectivist societies there are essentially two classes: the rulers and the ruled. In the Soviet Union the group of rulers, although relatively homogeneous, had layers of power. At the top of the General Secretary of the Communist Party, then a group called Politburo, the Central Committee rubber-stamping organ and then was called nomenklatura a group including bureaucrats (apparatchiks in Russian), propagandists, artists, selected scientists and other courtiers. Their political legitimacy was based on the only true theory of society as well as KGB and Gulags and the majority of the population turned into ignorant Political Zombies. Many were not only ignorant but enthusiastic.

There were of course paraphernalia of democracy which included regular elections with 99 percent participation and 98 percent votes for the Party. In the Putin’s Russia this changed, but not much and two thirds of the population remained Political Illiterates.

The book gives brief historical overview of the collectivist governance in Russia, again as a basis of comparison and a warning against its imitation by the West.

Statism of the Democratic West.

To quote from the book: In 1911 German sociologists Robert Michels formulated his (in 1911) An Iron law or oligarchy. It stated that all forms of organizations will inevitably develop into oligarchies, that is government be the few, by a small group exercising control.⁴ The reasons for this are specialization; need for coordination the technical indispensability of leadership, the tendency of the leaders to organize themselves and to consolidate their interests, the gratitude of the led towards the leaders; and the general immobility and passivity of the masses⁵. The ruling oligarchy, which now is called a political elite⁶ may be autocratic or may be under democratic control", which many, especially the elite itself, claims still exists in the Western Democracies. Yet, the fact remains that once in office the elites have means and also the urge for increasing their power and manipulating people, especially by control of information, in order to remain in office.

The political control in Western Democracies and therefore claims for legitimacy means regular election of the people’s representatives and officers. The election usually leads to a victory of one of the two main parties. The election looks like a choice but it is not. The parties at present, Democrats and Republicans in the USA and Labour and Conservatives in the UK have some differences in their programs, and hardly any differences in their actual policies and actions. It scarcely matters, which party wins. As we saw G.W. Bush, although Republican behaved like a Democrat, his predecessor was a bit opposite, but not much. Last time, when there was difference between the parties was with President Reagan and Prime Minister Thatcher, which was more than a generation ago—a long time.

It is therefore surprising that there appear people who claim that this situation does not exist and even write books about that. The Economist⁷ commented on a book titled It’s even worse than it looks which, against all evidence, claims the opposite. According to the authors the Republican Party became ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise, dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition and so on. Unfortunately, in the author’s opinion not true. Both parties are collectivist in various degrees, both make the government bigger. The author wishes that an individualist party appeared. Irrespective of which party wins the election in Western democracies, the rulers remain the same.

The Statist society, like in the USSR, consists of two main classes:

The ordinary citizens.

Numerically the biggest, least influential are the people at the bottom of the hierarchy of the society. These are the ordinary citizens, producers of goods and services, the taxpayers and milch cows. These are the silent minority, and unfortunately most of them are Political Zombies. Their participation in the governing as a rule starts and ends with voting at the elections.

The ruling class.

This group of people are now called the political elite or directing elite. They have existed in all societies for centuries; their present form has been the representative democracy. The main problem of course is who is elected. In the past as Peter Oborne writes The governing class internalised the idea of public duty . . . . with Christian traditions powerfully present in the minds of most nineteen-century public man.⁸" That was written about Britain, but in the USA it was similar.

That of course does not exist any more. With the demise of Christian culture and the increased role and size of government, the character and composition of the ruling elite changed, especially the last twenty years in both US and UK with the changes starting after the World War II.

Of whom we are exactly talking? The book gives two definitions: The ruling class in both USA and Britain are self-selected and self-contained class, who hold the commanding heights of government ⁹. Roger Scruton defines Political Class: The class increasingly important in modern politics, of people who have made career in political and administrative institutions, but have not had any experience in the ordinary workplace.

What is the composition of the ruling class in Western democracies? The first are politicians. In the past there was no such thing as a professional politicians. Now politics is a profession, especially for unsuccessful lawyers. The politicians know nothing else than politics, their career is in politics, their status is related to politics. One they get elected, they as a rule remain elected. Thus the US Congress or British Parliament consists of politicians, so do their executive branches.

The second category is what mistakenly was called public servants, in fact government bureaucrats. Thus the employees, especially the top layers of ministries, government organizations, quasi-agencies, some members of the Academia, and others associated with the government. The bureaucrats have been steadily increasing their influence while the power of politicians in general has been diminishing.

The third category is what in the past was called courtiers. Like in the medieval courts some of the courtiers hold significant power. Among the courtiers, instance we see propagandists, whose job is to present the government in the favourable light. So majority of the mass media members, again Academia, some scientists and others also belong here. Another class of courtiers are the big business executives, especially of the finance sector, trade union leaders and entertainment industry celebrities.

The book describes the Statist ruling class in detail. The unfortunate fact is that the Statist ruling elite in the West does not significantly differs from the rulers of the collectivist Soviet Union or China. Sure, they have not reached their cynicism, neither power nor invulnerability. Yet their rule leads to diminishing freedom for the citizens whom they try to brainwash into Political Zombies.

The consequence of the existence of the Ruling elite in the present form is its unresponsiveness to the long-term well-being of the population, in fact indifference towards the citizens. The elite tries to bribe the citizens by acting like a caring father and providing all sorts of supports and social welfare, thus creating a dependent class. It makes a great effort to indoctrinate the citizens, starting with the education and ending with mass media. The ruling elite also takes away a large chunk of citizens’ liberties by promulgating an enormous amounts of rules and regulations.

The western political elite rules in a manner that is often close to farce, if it did not cost so much money. Look at the problems of Eurozone. Politicians promised their citizens prosperity and care and were duly elected. They were compelled to keep some of their promises, which cost money. The money was borrowed. The political elite in perhaps all Western democracies are guided by Madame Pompadour principle: After us deluge.

The first deluge came in Greece, which in simple terms was bankrupt. The initial impulse of the European elite was the same as of Presidents Bush and Obama: bail out. The American presidents manage to bail out bankrupt corporation with the taxpayers money, so why not use the same method in Europe? It is not their money. There were, unfortunately, some complications. Bailing out Greece was costly, and even if that was done, other countries like Portugal, started to queue for the next bailout. Moreover, the taxpayers in paying countries objected against support of profligacy of other countries. After all their government were also in debt. What to do?

The farce we refer to at the beginning of the paragraph was in this: the leaders of the elites participated in numerous meetings discussing what to do. Each meeting was held in an attractive place, eloquent speeches were made, politicians were accompanied by numerous experts and bureaucrats, some resolutions were promulgated, some money allocated to cover various costs, and then the elite went home. Nobody really remembers what was decided at about dozen meetings and what was implemented. However, there surely are accountants who know how much each meeting cost. But nobody really knows what to do.

The recent meeting of the world elite in Davos cost according to various sources US$ 180 million. Was anything meaningful decided? Even worse was anything achieved? Just talking shop costing a lot of taxpayers money. And what about the UN conferences? Millions of dollars wasted that could help children in Africa were spent on hot air.

Chapter 5. Leaders.

Perhaps even the young generation remembers adoration of the collectivist leaders: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Castro and others. This obviously is quite different with the leaders of Statist countries. First the leaders in the Statist countries are fairly elected; second there is hardly any adoration, just the reverse, towards the end of their term many are detested. Consequently, to talk about leaders of the Statist regimes seems to be rather superfluous.

And yet it is not. Once elected the leader is the boss. It is indeed the leader of the government in the Statist countries who makes the final decision. He or she may be influenced, yet he is theoretically accountable for the decisions he makes. Well, the word accountable has changed its meaning; it now means presenting acceptable reasons for one’s actions. Thus, even the most stupid and immoral decisions are not subject to a serious analysis let alone judicial scrutiny. Thus misleading the public and lying can be explained away as the experience in US and UK shows.

The book then describes the cult of collectivist leaders in the past, with an emphasis on Russia again, a comical matter, were it not so sad. The book describes how the Russian leaders get blind trust, permanent power, uncritical adulation, and so on. Ambition of the statist leaders is similar.

Cult of the leaders is not a new thing. It is based on the great idea the leaders embodies, leader’s charisma, reputation, often deliberately created and false, on the one hand, and on the other hand on the infantilism, dishonesty and stupidity of the population. Just one observation made more than two thousand years ago in ancient Rome: "Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and given him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the new wonderful good society which shall now be Rome’s, interpreted to mean more money, more ease, more security, and more living fatly at the expense of the industrious."¹⁰

The danger of the cult of the leaders exists in the USA, where the president is the head of the state as well as government. Critical articles about imperial presidency appeared decades ago. While the creators of the US constitution never envisaged the presidential post equal to an absolute monarch, the US presidency has become increasingly monarchical. There are rumours that he third Bush, (Jeb) will be a candidate for US presidency, in spite of disaster rule of his father and brother.

Thus US presidents have gradually acquired more duties and therefore power. American president, to quote Gene Healy¹¹ now is:

1. Chief Legislator

2. Manager of Prosperity

3. Protector of Peace

4. World Leader

5. Voice of the People.

How that happened? Let us go back to the quotation from ancient Rome. Caesar wanted power, and the population willingly gave it to him. So the answer is simple: American people want more and more from the president and are willing to give him more power. Similarly in Britain.

The entire process is quite simple:

1. Growth of the government due to more duties

2. Growth of the government is accompanied with the growth of responsibilities of the head of the government

3. In order to fulfil his increased responsibilities the leader need increased power

4. Increased power of the leader leads to higher expectation of the population on the leader and in fact demands for resolute leadership.

5. Power breeds power, consequently the power of the leader grows by an accrual

6. The power of the leader cannot be self-sustained without support, in fact enthusiastic support of the nation.

7. The nation is led to believe that the leader needs more power to serve them.

8. The cult of the leader may start with small beginning, for instance sycophantic reported by the media.

9. The cult of the leader increases. The leader ceases to be a mortal and becomes an object of adoration. He continues his rule indefinitely.

10. The leader rules until he passes away, and even after that as he chooses his successor.

11. Thus Statist societies repeat the history of the Soviet Union.

The cult of the president thus may appear. The process goes forward along these lines. It is not a planned march; in fact it is a rather haphazard. Yet all the developments proceed in the same direction. So, for instance, development in the USA reached stage 8. The book quotes sycophantic statements in the media about President Obama. Propaganda is easy to spread. Changing constitutional provision forbidding more than two terms may be abolished. Like in the Soviet Union, heroic deeds will be invented, feats of intellect manufactured, books written and zombies made of the majority of the population.

Chapter 6—Foreign relations

All the previous parts of the book were dealing with the relationship between the citizen and the rulers. Obviously the most important dimension of the social order. Yet the relationships between the states are also important. So just a few brief comments.

The area of foreign policy is one of those with a lot of meaningless words. In no other area of human activities there is more mendacity, obfuscation and direct lies than in the foreign relations. Still, let us try to see how the social order reflects foreign relations.

Study of history shows that most collectivist countries are expansionist and usually aggressive. This is demonstrated on the case of Russia, a collectivist country par example. Collectivist countries tend to attain domination over others, apart from that basic instinct their expansive actions are motivated by glory of the country, protection from enemies, getting respect from others, defending themselves against potential enemies, and so on.

The book describes the basis of foreign action—power. There are obviously sorts of power, military power being the most important one. But there is also an economic power, not very effective against dictators, who personally do not starve unlike their population. There is also a power of ideology, effective only if supported by the military or economic power. There is such a think as soft power, not a very effective one.

Territorial expansion used to be the most prevalent sort of expansion in the past, but now it is usually abandoned in favour building alliances, selling arms, military threat, spying and subversion, and economic and financial expansion. The books depict the foreign policy and actions of Statist western democracies last few decades. It covers Iraq war, Iran hostility, Arab Spring, strengthening of China and other developments.

The absurdities in foreign policies are evident. President Bush Snr. advised Ukrainians not to leave the Soviet Union, President Clinton compared the war in Chechnya to the American civil war and President Bush Jnr. got bogged down in unwinnable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, costing lives of thousands Americans and allies and tens of thousands of locals as well as billions of dollars without achieving any goal if had had some. The conclusion is that Europe has no foreign policy and US foreign policy is a puzzle and in fact folly. The main instrument of foreign policy of US and Europe has been appeasement.

As this is a book that may annoy many people both in the West and the East the author decided to publish it under a pen-name, remembering Thomas Sowell’s statement that truth can be published only anonymously or posthumously. The author prefers the former.

CHAPTER 1

SOCIAL ORDER

This is a book about decline, in fact degeneration, of Western Democracies. It describes various dimensions of this decline as we go along. However, we shall start with a small incident in quite recent history to demonstrate one element of the decline and introduce the subject and also a conceptual framework for our investigation. We shall use Russia of the past (USSR) and present as an example to compare with the developments in the USA and UK.

Georgia is one of the former Soviet republics, an ancient but small country with a population half of Moscow’s. Russia still considers Georgia and the other former USSR republics as a part of its own territory, perhaps temporarily detached. It defines these countries by using an untranslatable term blizhnoe zarubezhie (near foreign countries, implying their tie to Russia) as a special geographical and political category and treats them accordingly. The population in both Russia and Georgia is mixed; there are thousands of Russians in Georgia and thousand of Georgians in Russia, especially Moscow.

The entire world now knows that a small Caucasian republic Georgia exists, it was attacked by the Russians 8 August 2008 on the ridiculous grounds that the Georgians were committing genocide against South Ossetians, a minority in