Enclavism: The Legacy Options by Power Source
Previous Piece: The Enclavism Book: Chapter 1 – “The Need For A New System”
The Legacy Options by Power Source
Section 1: Modern Systems
We inspect the different legacy government forms as they relate to anacyclosis, or the cycle of political regime change: a continuous recycling of governmental frameworks.
There are numerous methods we could use to classify the current government systems. For example, looking at governments by power structure, we have forms such as confederation, unitary state, and federation. Even further, we can structure governments by power ideology, such as a constitutional government, absolute monarchy, or other forms like a general republic. The most popular method is to use socioeconomic attributes, such as anarchism, capitalism, communism, socialism, and monarchism. The list is expansive.
Yet, these aren’t helpful when trying to quantify government forms from a degeneration standpoint. Regardless of how you break down the government system, many types follow the historical trends of other types without the same designation. This seems confusing at first glance, but when we look at the underlying source of governmental power, it begins to make a lot more sense.
The four legacy types of government by power source are:
- Rule-by-one
- Rule-by-few
- Rule-by-many
- Rule-by-none
Given the above types of government:
The rule-by-one framework would include different government forms such as kingship, fascism, absolute monarchy, autocracy, communism, and dictatorship.
The rule-by-few framework would include oligarchy, socialism, aristocracy, and the like.
The rule-by-many framework would include liberal democracy, constitutional monarchy, ochlocracy (mob rule), and the republic.
A rule-by-none framework would include the single system of anarchism at its absolute break-even point when control is lost and before control is reestablished. It does not exist as a “government system” but rather the inverse of one. It is more of a philosophical system than a practical one.
Considering governments through the lens of their power source is essential for understanding why governments collapse. The power source drives the cycle of regime change and the individual regime cycle of collapse. Each government, regardless of their exact title or other attribute, always follows their power source. Whether you have a confederation or unitary state is not important to the cycle; what actually matters is whether they are controlled by the one, the few, or the many. The same is true of republic versus constitutional monarchy. The power source provides far more essential information regarding the state’s current cycle of political regime change status.
These frameworks are not just their hierarchical components. Each one shares their own philosophies, procedures, traditions, practices, beliefs, and attitudes. When we talk about each framework, we are talking about them as a whole. As we discuss them throughout this text, you will begin to recognize the full spectrum of a framework and their relation to one another, which is far more than just their technical structure. A rule-by-many has many of its own unique aspects that differentiate itself from a rule-by-few, for instance.
All frameworks and their practical systems rely on certain assumptions. A rule-by-many relies on the assumption of an educated population and the infallibility of democratic institutions that provide the “many” an effectual voice, for example. A rule-by-one relies on the assumption of a solid vetting procedure for the “one” once the previous one is no longer extant. A rule-by-few relies on the assumption that the power structure will be continually reinforced with the proper elites by the ruling class. The assumptions are sometimes valid but are often wrong or unsustainable. When the assumptions of these frameworks are misguided, we often find a key factor for why they degenerate.
There is one assumption that I desire to call out that is shared by all frameworks. That assumption is that the system creates a specific caliber of men that can protect the system. For instance, in a rule-by-one, the one is expected to be rightfully crafted or chosen while also diligently choosing their lower commanding ranks who will protect the system from insurgency. In a rule-by-many, it is expected that “the many” will contribute to the civic virtue aspects necessary for the framework to succeed. This is an essential assumption for any system, our own included.
The problem is that in each legacy framework, the framework itself demands the wrong incentive structure for attracting the right kind of people to continue directing the nation. So, this basic assumption shared by each framework is wrong. Each framework dangles a vice in front of the wielder(s) of power, and while the initial few may be powerful vanguards that resist this temptation, eventually that will no longer be the case. The legacy frameworks all promote some form(s) of degenerative vice that eventually doom the framework to failure.
Our rule-by-contributor framework, and our Enclavist system, seek to provide an incentive in the opposite direction: to encourage the vanguard to stay the course. So even if one falls, others can recover the pieces (and actually have strong incentives to do so), which is the opposite of modern frameworks. Correcting this inverted incentive structure is the only way to create a government that is truly sustainable long term. Otherwise, we will constantly rely on a permanent hope that mankind will always choose to do the noble thing instead of the personally advantageous thing, which is a reliance on a false hope against basic human nature.
Before moving on, we must discuss the difference between the framework and a system itself. A framework provides a template from which the system itself is built upon. Recall our miniature train example. For example, both fascist Italy and communist China are drastically different, but they both are based on a rule-by-one framework. The state simply takes the framework and then builds a practical government system on top of it, given the power source. A framework cannot be implemented by itself; it needs a system to define how it works in practice. Another example is the 1950s American republic versus Swiss direct democracy: both are rule-by-many forms, but the actual government functioning, role, and structure are entirely different. This is why there are many different government systems but only a handful of government frameworks. The system must define how the power source is used in a pragmatic manner.
This has to be fully understood before proceeding because this is our entire goal with this book. We are building a new framework, not just a new government system. Certainly, I have my interests with a political government, seeing as how I’m writing this book on the subject. But my goal is not the formation of a singular government but of a framework that could be used by many differing government systems that are resistant to the cycle of collapse. Therefore, throughout this text, I do my best to avoid specific policy positions and try to focus primarily on foundational framework elements. I am not flawless in this endeavor, but that is the focus.
In each of the next sections, we will discuss the legacy frameworks in more depth. But to wrap your mind around this topic, it may be helpful to give some initial examples.
For instance, a rule-by-many framework has a foundational element of a democratic, many-oriented (usually majority) voting scheme to elect their representatives, which is not shared with a rule-by-few or rule-by-one framework. Voting is largely the only way for a “majority” to contribute as a power source. Thus, it is an essential element of a rule-by-many. A rule-by-many framework also has a distribution of power where initially the state is accountable to the population. The framework often demands majority-selected leaders.
Compare those framework foundations to policy positions, such as a rule-by-many allowing firearm ownership. Firearm ownership is not an innate element of a rule-by-many form. A state could still be classified as a rule-by-many, regardless of its position on firearm ownership. Another policy example would be a sustainable energy policy. Activists for green government would certainly love such an environmentally friendly policy, but it could be included in any of the frameworks, as it is not a foundational element of them.
Compare that to a rule-by-one framework that has a foundational element in which the “one” must have centralized power. They all also place the culture under the control of centralized sources, have a top-down political hierarchy, have “chained” freedom (level dependent on the attitude of “the one”), and strict punishment of high crimes (a form of crime that is a direct assault against the one, who will not take kindly to it). These are foundational elements of any rule-by-one framework.
Compare that last paragraph to a rule-by-few framework, which exhibits foundational elements such as a controlled market system (oligarchy, corporatocracy), insider-selected leaders, and centralized cultural markers.
These things are elements of the framework itself. Different political philosophies choose one of these frameworks as a base and then expand on them with their preferred policies and structure, thus creating their system. All frameworks are neutral; they are not inherently good or bad. It is how they are used that determines their outcomes.
So, what is the framework we are building? Our framework goes by many titles. The objective is to create a framework that embodies the title of “rule-by-contribution”, which is distinct from a population quantity (such as “many”). It is meant to be a combination framework, taking in elements from all three legacy options to create a triune of sorts. Most commonly I refer to it as a “rule-by-contributor” because contributors who have a larger share in the nation have the majority of the power. Where contributor is defined as “a person who has a vested share in the nation acquired through contribution.” They are neither necessarily a “many” or a “few.” Rather, the power source is dissipated based on contributory share. It holds elements of all four legacy frameworks. I also call it a “rule-by-stakeholder” or a “rule-by-societal best,” all of which share the same meaning. This will make more sense later on.
Our framework is one where those who contribute the most are the true power source, hence the name. Our framework tries something different from the preceding frameworks. We do not place the power source under the one, the few, or the majority. Instead, we place the power with the contribution. Our idea is to place it with those who work the most toward bettering the nation.
Now that we understand the distinction between the framework and the actual political system, we may proceed forward in describing each legacy framework. The following sections in this chapter will all share a similar theme. They will provide some examples of the governmental systems that use the framework, define what the framework is, describe key elements of the framework, explain why we reject it as a viable option, and highlight what we can take from it. For each of these frameworks, we speak on the purest version of each, which means that they are not of mixed origin (as sometimes occurs, especially during degeneration).
We will discuss the full theory and explain the political evolution of government in the cycle of collapse chapter. But for the following sections, it will be helpful to preemptively note that the usual political cycle of regime change is:
- Rule-by-many -> rule-by-few -> rule-by-one -> repeat
Section 2: Rule-By-One
What exactly is a dictatorship? Does it differ from despotism? How do they differ from fascism or autocracy? Or even communism? While the branding may be different, the power source is the same. They are all a rule-by-one scenario.
In theory, there are quite a few distinctions defining the system differences. Fascism endorses tribal nationalism, whereas communism is more class-based. A monarch may declare themselves as leading by God’s will, while a dictator or despot may appeal to a cult of personality. However, in terms of power source, there is little difference. The power source remains “the one.” Every single thing in the state is centralized or could become centralized by the one at any point in time.
When implemented, they are all just differing versions of totalitarianism. I use that term not in the emotional or moralistic sense, but in the practical and technical sense. They all enact the principal components of central authority and total control. Let’s consider which of these components apply to communism, fascism, autocracy, and dictatorships:
- A leader(ship) that is unaccountable and unrecallable to the population they represent.
- A rejection or outright restriction of opposition parties.
- A rejection of allowing any form of opposition to the state.
- A rejection of liberty when inconvenient to the ruler.
- A singular entity that directly or indirectly controls all aspects of the state.
These are the key elements of a truly rule-by-one totalitarian society. Does communism, fascism, and dictatorships not check all the boxes? Why then would we consider each separately? They are all different systems that are based on the same framework: a rule-by-one.
Therefore, we can define a rule-by-one framework as a governmental structure that exhibits absolute centralization through the “one.” All power sources and power centers are under control of the one. There are other traits that can define it further, but the most important component is recognizing the absolute centralization aspect of this framework. Other traits can often vary because of the whims of the one. Since they hold full centralization, the traits can change whenever they desire.
The “one” is not always a single individual, although often it is. It can also be a united polity that act as a “one” in regard to total centralization.[i] In nearly every case, this power comes through the politburo that dominates the entire society.
It’s rare for a single individual to truly hold all power alone, usually it is dispersed. But that dispersed nature is granted by the “one”. The rule-by-few differs through only sharing component centralization of the society and sharing that power amongst the few component arenas. In a rule-by-one, all the power either is, or could be, through the one.
Now we understand the key elements and the definition of the rule-by-one category. But why do we reject it as a possible form of government resistant to the political cycle of regime change?
We have two focuses with Enclavism: a government that is sustainable and a government that is desirable for our national people. The rule-by-one is terrible at both focuses. For our first argument here, we focus solely on sustainability. We only want to know what form of government can survive long term without falling into the cycle of collapse. So, can a rule-by-one government be a viable long-term option if we could establish the framework correctly?
After all, throughout history, there are examples of “dictators” performing remarkably well for their society. Many have done tremendous amounts of good for poverty alleviation, health and well-being of the nation, national enlightenment, security, or just simple economic development. A few of these leaders even preserved freedoms. Many emperors of Rome, such as Marcus Aurelius, were of totalitarian but populist origin. Despots can be loved for centuries after their demise. Regretfully, the totalitarian framework still falls prey to their own cycle of collapse.
The future of totalitarian regimes depends entirely on popular support for the leader and his or her actions. If either of these falters, the long-term viability plummets. Violent resistance or other leader-induced collapse is an inevitability over a long enough period for any country that rests its power in one leader. If the leader and ruling polity are not at least tolerated, they will eventually be ousted. Even if popular resistance does not arise, the leader can still drive the nation into the ground themselves.
History is replete with examples of dictators being deposed. Louis XVI being a relatively famous and recent example. He was executed by the French during the French Revolution in their transition away from a rule-by-one. But deposing of a dictator is not the only pathway to a failed rule-by-one. Let’s consider corporatist-fascist Spain. After the death of its dictator, Francisco Franco, the entirety of the regime was dissolved under Juan Carlos I. A rule-by-many returned thereafter. A similar theme occurred with Pinochet in Chile. Some dictators even voluntarily gave up power, such as Chun Doo-hwan of South Korea. If everything rests on one leader, the future will always remain uncertain. Regardless of how that transition occurs, it will invariably take place. Eventually, one person in the line of leaders will fall.
The declining periods of the Roman Empire were often due to poor leadership during the eras of certain emperors. The continual decline of the Roman Empire was brought about because of specific substandard individuals assuming the emperorship. One person cannot be entrusted with sustainability forever. These minor cracks in the otherwise strong armor of the Romans eventually culminated in enough cracks to fell the entire empire. Others, such as the Mongol Empire, the Qing Dynasty, the Russian Empire, and the Abbasid Caliphate, share similar tales.
What use is there in supporting regimes that can dissolve because of the actions of a single poor leader? There is no way to bulletproof a nation against a terrible leader who has absolute control. Neither is there a method to provide any forms of checks and balances when corrupt leaders naturally arise. Which comes to the crux of the issue with totalitarianism: it focuses too heavily on one single point of failure. If that leader loses power, the nation crashes. If that one leader is disliked, rebellion or foreign invasion could be the result. If the one leader is malevolent, people will suffer and disdain the system. If the one leader is not intelligent enough to rule properly, the nation will be subject to disastrous policies. When the one leader is not virtuous, that person will spread degeneracy and evil throughout their reign. If the one ruler is weak, they risk takeover or proliferation of degeneracy. But probably most catastrophic is the following scenario: if the one ruler does not like the system, they simply change it. So, no matter what kind of system we made according to the rule-by-one framework, there would be no way to truly safeguard against decline since the power can only truly rest with the leader due to the framework limitations. We could implement well-meaning safeguards, an excellent vetting system, and so on, but if a single ruler in the entire lineage of the nation’s history wanted the system changed, all of our precautionary measures would immediately be worth nothing. We’ve seen this repeatedly throughout human history with authoritarian monarchies, communism (e.g., communist Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge), and of course a plethora of others.
It generally holds that nearly no long-term viability is present when one leader can run the country into the ground. And, eventually, you are sure to get that one bad leader. Even the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which was arguably one of the most powerful rule-by-one forms in history, had a rough transition away from totalitarianism. It ultimately fell due in no small part to the decentralization actions of a single leader (Gorbachev).[ii] A governmental form that is susceptible to total collapse by the actions of one person is not a sustainable form for long-term viability. There is no manner of practice that could forever preserve the one dynasty, polity, or individual from becoming corrupted. No safeguards against it can exist because the ruler is the sole holder of power and can circumvent any safeguards at their leisure.
So, the rule-by-one system’s long-term viability is low. What about our second focus on being a desirable government? As in a government that is beneficial to the citizens, spiritually healthy, and relatively free? Outside of their lackluster long-term viability, the totalitarians also showcase a nasty habit of rejecting all liberties within a society. There is little to be found in these systems that is desirable for the long term. A totalitarian state is only beneficial for as long as a benevolent leader is in charge. When that benevolence ends, the desirability and sustainability aspects can both be on the chopping block. The nation may very well get an awe-inspiring Augustus, but with that Augustus comes an inevitable Caligula. For every Aurelius, you must endure a Nero.
A liberty-preserving constitution or other safeguard against tyranny cannot be enforced when no other societal power center shares power. Liberties are never guaranteed under a rule-by-one. Thus, freedom is not so much relative as it is absent in a philosophical sense, since it can be removed at whim. Likewise, the nation’s soul will only be safeguarded until a nonvirtuous leader takes the helm. At which point, it will nosedive. The same can be said for the benefits to the citizens. These states rarely aid their citizens. Instead, the focus is on aiding the one. Anything that aids the citizens is secondary to that focus.
The rule-by-one framework has resulted in some of the worst atrocities on the planet, such as Stalin’s gulags, Mao’s great purge, the Khmer Rouge genocide, the Armenian genocide, and all the associated failures by totalitarians. The Holodomor, the World Wars, and numerous other atrocities were enacted under the rule-by-one framework, with many of these barbaric acts being targeted at their own citizens. If the framework can allow these things to occur to a nation’s own people, then there is no way that we could ever consider that government truly desirable for the national citizenry.
Still, the underlying philosophy of a centralized leader is not necessarily a poor one. A king is immune to the failings that the other framework leaders all demonstrate. The king has everything; they are no longer entrapped by the petty power drives of the demos (rule-by-many) politicians or the elitist infighting to get a shred more power like the aristocrats (rule-by-few). The idealized king has full power, so he has no reason to squabble in the petty political games of the republican variant and has no more need to fight to gain more power as under a rule-by-few. This philosophy is then that he already has everything that he could desire on this earthly plane, so now he must seek “higher.” This king must seek after Divinity, as it is the only thing not already in his wide-reaching grasp. The thought is that the king will then transmit this heightened purpose down to his subjects. Historically, this isn’t always far off from the truth. Many kings, the benevolent and powerful ones, had tried just that. The problem isn’t so much their rule but the inability to keep it under that kind of benevolent control. A king should look “higher” since he already has everything else. But instead, kings often look downward maliciously. They get their thrill not in bringing down what is higher for the benefit of their people but in knocking further down what is already beneath them. The king treats his population like cattle instead of proper hierarchical subjects. This is where the divergence from a benevolent and the degenerated form of the rule-by-one begins. Because of the power centralization under the control of only the king, there is no way to evenly distribute power, given a single malevolent leader inevitably taking the helm.
For these reasons, tyrannical regimes are opposite to our desired end result. They are fully centralized by the one; they are not sustainable, and they are not desirable in the long term for the nation’s citizenry.
The rule-by-one regimes collapse easier, too. Because of the total centralization, there is an obvious target for enacting change. These regimes can collapse in many ways, rather unlike the other forms which generally show a more linear path. They can die quickly but painlessly, such as corporatist Spain and junta-era Chile. They can crash rather violently, such as with the fall of Western Rome or National Socialist Germany. Or they can decentralize marginally over time, as in the case with the USSR and Cambodia (after Vietnam conquered the Khmer Rouge). Their failures take place either because of a single leader disbanding their power base, a citizenry yearning for change, a population rebelling against tyranny, foreign intervention, or from economic failure. Their duration is uncertain, some lasting for brief periods and others lasting much longer.
Thus, the rule-by-one may not be an option for long-term success and well-being of the national citizenry. However, it still plays an important role in the political cycle of regime change. It is the bedrock, the place where the other forms return to when they have failed. We will address that further in the next chapter.
The rule-by-one is also often necessary for beating centralizers, regretfully. Decentralization has never demonstrated the ability to stop the massive degeneration of society that occurs during the cycle. The only thing that can stop this degeneration is full centralization against it. Transitional periods that move nations away from degeneracy or absolute centralization almost always share similar traits to a rule-by-one. (Or they are an outright rule-by-one.) Examples include governmental transitions brought about by George Washington, João Figueiredo, or Juan Carlos I.
While the rule-by-one often resembles a malleable and weak culture at the discretion of the “one,” there is a singular exception. This one notable exception is a religious rule-by-one framework known as monarchism.
Monarchy is an interesting form of government because there are varying levels of monarchal power. They can hold the reins as sovereign dictators or they can just be ceremonial puppets with no power. We are not interested in the ceremonial monarchies. The form of monarchy that we are addressing is a religious absolute monarchy. This form of monarchy is largely removed from modern society, except in the case of the Islamic states. Saudi Arabia and Oman are two prime examples of absolute monarchies. Christendom once held this form in the Middle Ages.
Under usual totalitarian rule-by-ones, the personality of the dictator becomes public policy and culture. Monarchies are unique because they take their source of cultural power not directly from a dictator but rather from their god. Whether an Islamic or a Christian monarchy, their traditional foundations and culture are grounded in their respective religious texts. The culture comes from the texts, not the monarch. The monarch and their subjects are thus limited by custom, tradition, and religious law.
Coincidently, these forms of government also tend to have the strongest cultures of any governmental form possible. Which is ironic, considering normal rule-by-one systems have cultures that can change as rapidly as their leader. Instead, religious monarchies are notoriously insulated from degenerate behavior. Largely because religious texts and tradition prohibit or discourage behaviors that promote degeneracy. These act as a cornerstone even greater than the monarch. Instead of having a culture that moves with the dictator, the culture is grounded in the religious texts that the dictator often must abide by to not be overthrown.
People are becoming increasingly secular in the West at the time of this writing. This secularism is devastating the moral fiber of the societies it inflicts. This decline directly encourages and expedites the cycle of collapse. Absolute monarchies appear immune to this disease, largely because of their cultural control mechanisms. While these control mechanisms don’t always work flawlessly, we can study when they do work and try to utilize them to preserve our own culture in our framework.
Repentantly, however, monarchies still share the same fate within the cycle of collapse as dictatorships do. Which is exactly why we see so few of them around the world nowadays. But it is worth noting that they rarely fell directly into degeneracy. Monarchies normally fell from either a religiously wayward leader, an external threat, economic decline, or a revolution unrelated to the culture. The culture and the national people were still sustained under monarchies. This is a major benefit to a nation that cannot be understated.
Were the values they upheld always just? Unlikely. But the values they upheld are irrelevant. What is relevant is their power to control this abject, ever-changing culture that degenerates the modern world. They secured their existence extremely well through cultural requirements.
Cultural degradation is one of the most rapid death-blows possible to a nation. If the culture falls, the nation will fall shortly thereafter. Remember that culture is an expression of the soul of the people. If that culture can be manipulated, then it follows that it is first the soul being manipulated. If the culture falls, the entire people may fall themselves because their soul has already fallen. But no culture changes overnight; it slowly erodes over time. Monarchies prevented this with their moral foundation. The culture was given enough flexibility to be acceptable to the population, but controlled tightly enough to ensure it never lapsed into decadence.
For these reasons, monarchies are the strongest form of government for cultural preservation. Is there any other government form that has had such strong cultural stability? They held tradition, morality, and values to the highest standards in all people within the nation, even if the leaders did not adhere to those standards in their own personal lives. During their non-degenerative era, the morals cannot shift because the religion cannot shift. The absolute stranglehold on a country’s culture within monarchy ensured no one discarded the core tenets of their specific religious documents. Which often resulted in the people following a similar moral and ethical code. This unified code becomes a unifying force for the nation and their people and further enhances cultural stability. A review of the monarchial nation-states within Dar al-Islam or Christendom will demonstrate this effect.
There is no culture more stable than one under a benevolent monarch. Sadly, it will not last forever. It will share the same fate as the other rule-by-one systems. Eventually, nothing could stop a spiritually wayward monarch from appearing that caused irreversible damage. When all the power is centralized in such a small space, it only takes a small catalyst to set off the ticking timebomb. Additionally, a strictly religious-political framework at this point is largely undesirable. The individuals and their communities would be better suited to deal with religion on their own personal levels. A desire for the spiritual underpinning and the morality of the nation is a completely different topic, however. One we will certainly use when crafting our culture.
So, while monarchy is not a viable long-term government, we can take some lessons from the one area it succeeds in. That area is in cultural containment and preservation, which is a preservation of the soul of the people and a conservation of the people themselves.
If we want to stop the cycle of political collapse, we have to stop the root reasons for the societal decline that leads to collapse. Which means we have to be careful with cultural degradation brought about by cultural arena centralization, which damages the national soul. We can take the lessons from monarchy and apply them to our government to preserve the cultural and spiritual backbone of the nation going forward, all while abandoning the other totalitarian aspects of a rule-by-one.
There are a few other aspects we will take from the rule-by-one, such as a recognition of power and oversight controls: oversight, for a proper centralization inhibition protocol; the recognition of power, to correct the issues of recognizing who holds true power in the state to keep them responsible and accountable (as is so often difficult to do in a rule-by-many). These will be addressed in later sections. For now, we will end by saying that we take the suitable pieces of the rule-by-one and discard the rest.
Section 3: Rule-By-Few
The most common example of a rule-by-few framework is an aristocracy. Other examples include an oligarchy, corporatocracy, feudalism,[iii] or non-dictator military junta system. We would lump a non-monarch theocracy and some forms of socialist (planned market) states under this banner as well.
Modern democratic (rule-by-many) systems of government have a strong tendency toward degeneration. When this degeneration occurs, we see ample centralization of the key power sources and power centers by a group of centralizers. These centralizers become the modern version of historical aristocrats. In effect, when a state declines from a rule-by-many, it goes straight into the hands of their own centralizers, thus creating the rule-by-few.
This rule-by-few happens because of centralization. Under it, “the few” do not hold absolute centralization, as in the form of a rule-by-one. Instead, only certain components of the state are fully centralized in their interests. Usually, it is dependent upon the group of centralizers that do the centralization. For example, in an oligarchy and corporatocracy, the isolated class centralizes financial wealth to the point of indirectly ruling the nation through their control of this societal power source. In this instance, the state is merely the lackey of the powerful oligarchical institutions. The distribution of power is in their favor. This isolated class would not control all means of power directly, but only a few select key components. For instance, the isolated class in a corporatocracy would not likely directly hold power over nor have the absolute ability to hold power over every aspect of the financial arena, but would control certain key components within that financial arena. The ownership of these key components would give them enough power to render the state submissive to their interests. In our example, the oligarchs do not need information or cultural arena control because the component centralization over certain aspects of the political and financial arena is enough to create a rule-by-few.
For this reason, a rule-by-few is a governmental structure that exhibits component centralization through the “few”. This means that certain power sources and power centers are under the control of the few, but not all. Generally, this framework indicates that enough of a nation’s power is centralized to where decentralized agents are not adequately able to curtail the centralization of the leading “few.” This separates the rule-by-few from its decentralized or absolute centralized alternatives.
This form is not super common in modern times except in the cases of a degenerating nation. Few modern political activists purposefully seek a rule-by-few. Most of the politically inclined rather align with either a rule-by-one or a rule-by-many framework, depending on their personal bent.
The rule-by-few is easily recognizable by its disjointed centralization. Some areas of society will be highly centralized and off-limits, while other areas of society will be battlegrounds for further centralization.
Usually, during the positive stages of a rule-by-few, the politicians are far superior to that of the rule-by-many form on average. This is easy to see if we compare aristocratic politicians to democratic politicians. However, during the latter stages, there is usually political in-fighting among the few for total control. This is often why a rule-by-few degenerates into a rule-by-one: because the centralizers continue to fight for total control until one of them succeeds. The rule-by-few is also recognized by other traits such as a repression of any action that does not benefit the centralizer group, a culture pushed from the top that is directly contrary to the culture at the bottom (that of which can morph the national soul for better or worse), the development of a hierarchical state, and the potential for a rapid division of the citizenry.
Two common rule-by-few systems in modern times are the socialist state and the oligarchical state. The socialist state exhibits component centralization in the politburo’s favor, who controls the political government and the financial sector through a politburo planned economy. Whereas, the oligarchical state exhibits component centralization by the isolated class who controls all the financial means and uses it to selectively corrupt other arenas. In the conquest of their respected areas of centralization, both systems end up indirectly controlling or fighting for control of other segments of the other centralizer arenas. The isolated class, through controlling the wealth in an oligarchy, will also control some of the political sphere through lobbying as well as some of the intellectual arena through financing the intelligentsia’s work. The politburo in a socialist state, through controlling the political levers, will also control some aspects of the cultural institutions through legal action and will control some of the isolated class through governmental policies. But they will not control all of it. This component centralization is usually used in connection with other centralizer groups, rather than against them. At least at first.
The question then arises: is this necessarily a bad thing? We haven’t yet ruled out a rule-by-few as a governmental template for our framework. Yet, it does not take much argument to dissuade an individual from this category: most notably because we innately recognize that it would never benefit us. It’s the same as a rule-by-one, but with two major differences: there is still a void of centralization in certain components, and centralizers will eventually be in conflict with one another for pure power. It functions like a less stable rule-by-one. The rule-by-few is often also more degenerate since they target the national soul when they begin in-fighting.
The rule-by-few shares the same issues as the rule-by-one framework. It is improperly centralized, nonbeneficial to the average citizen, and unsustainable. A rule-by-few falls for similar reasons as a rule-by-one. Eventually, the privileged ruling class either provokes the nation to rebel, degenerates the nation through weakness—infighting until one of their own becomes the supreme leader—or bankrupts the nation into collapse. All of which lead the nation into the arms of a strongman, military junta, single centralizer, or mob takeover. Because even when centralization by a few exists, they do not stop seeking more centralization. They will keep fighting among themselves until a single centralizer is the “one.” They will use any means to do so even if that means degenerating, economically bankrupting, or splintering the nation. Which is how the rule-by-few degrades into a rule-by-one: the centralization does not stop when a rule-by-few arrives. Quite the opposite, it picks up in terms of speed since now full component pieces have been subverted.
There are no real checks and balances that can ensure the rule-by-few is reliable long term. A benevolent group of elites could do tremendous good for their country, but they would not last forever. These elites exhibit control with few (or sometimes no) checks and balances outside of their segregated social group. With no oversight, any measures we implemented to protect against degeneracy or the cycle of collapse could merely be overruled at any time. All it takes is for the elitist groups to no longer follow the long-term sustainability requirements. Then the cycle continues and the rule-by-few collapses to a war zone or into the arms of a strongman. This is the same problem as a rule-by-one. There are no checks and balances we could attempt to implement to stop this from occurring or to provide a hedge against it. Because anything that we would try could be centralized against us because of their privileged component centralization status. Even if we could stop them from changing policies, we would not be able to stop an inevitable power grab toward a rule-by-one, given that they have heightened control under their realm to do so.
A common critique of this position is that we could offer the remaining component centralization to one group to counteract the component centralization of the elite group. Then the state would be split among component centralization. The issue with this approach is the disunity problem, as both groups would then be in constant struggle against one another. This is not a stable position for a nation-state, and we run the risk of certain segments of either group coordinating with the other to progress the state toward rule-by-one centralization.
This governmental system also has other notable flaws that make it undesirable. Arguably, one of the greatest faults is the freedom it represses during degeneration. During the campaign of centralization, we witness a declining environment for liberty and the ability of the public to counteract the negative actors. Polarization occurs, violence breaks out, and the centralizers pulling the strings use every method at their disposable to cause instability. The more violence and societal instability that occurs, the more opportunities for further centralization. This is why the centralizers desire discord. They pretend it is a problem for them while they light the fires. Once the rule-by-few officially arrives, there is rarely much “freedom” left outside of what the ruling caste deems appropriate for its new conquered caste. There is little place to find safe haven, as everything is slowly being eroded by these individuals. There is no oversight over the overseers.
The rule-by-few is also not greatly beneficial to our people, as the rulers often target the soul in the quest for centralization. The rulers will pit the people against themselves and will mutilate the traditions and heritage if it aids them in their fight against the other internal centralizers or the people. We would expect this assault on the national soul to be even more damaging than a rule-by-one, considering that the one is secure in their position. Yet again, this form meets neither of our desired focuses: a sustainable government or a government that is desirable for the national people. Therefore, we can effectively rule out the rule-by-few as an effective long-term viable government. It would eventually collapse, just like the rule-by-one framework.
We can still learn from the system, however. Just like we did with the rule-by-one framework. To start off, we must note the reality that centralization will organically lead toward a rule-by-few framework in a decentralized environment. That is the first lesson. Which means that no area in the society can be decentralized if we want to prevent a rule-by-few. Nor can we allow centralizers the “freedom” necessary to act with impunity toward power consolidation. A rule-by-few will naturally lead to a rule-by-one due to the very same centralization effect. Thus, centralization must be contained or any future framework would be prone to collapse by devolvement toward a rule-by-few.
The rule-by-few is good at quite a few things. In the benevolent stages, its economic system usually involves the ability to overtake key industries that are nationally damaging. They bring them and other societally draining institutions into compliance. This prevents problematic isolated class individuals that are prevalent in a rule-by-many. They are also notoriously tough on petty crime that risks their positions, which leads to a safer environment than the mob-riddled past. This appeases the masses and encourages societal compliance. While the rule-by-few rarely care about their citizenry, they do care about making the nation efficient for themselves: destroying crime and properly managing the economic situation often do just that. During the latter stages, this may weaken, but the beneficial principles and processes they use are important for us to consider for our own framework.
We also utilize elements of their politician framework. Politicians in rule-by-few societies tend to be far superior to comparable rule-by-many politicians. They have their weaknesses in terms of virtue, but they are usually more resilient, more intelligent, and exhibit much higher levels of merit for their respective position. This happens because to be a politician in “the few” requires a lifetime of learning to lead and being brought up within the cult of the few. In the initial stages of a rule-by-few, it is usually highly intelligent and successful individuals that centralize control, even if they are malevolent. These leaders are then more adept and cunning to deal with the problems than an average politician from a rule-by-many. Which makes them dangerous, but also useful. We would ideally like to have the strong politicians in our framework, minus the virtue-weakness aspect. The rule-by-few characteristics are a gateway to this possibility. In most historical aristocracies, this trend of strong politicians was clearly evidenced in the upbringing of the noble class.
So, while we don’t advocate for the rule-by-few framework, we use elements of it that help with sustainability and societal-benefiting purposes when we build our own. Now, we can move on to the framework that we began with in this book.
Section 4: Rule-By-Many
The rule-by-many is manifested in systems such as mob rule, democracy, majority tyranny, republic, constitutional monarchy (parliamentary democracy), and the like.
We define the rule-by-many framework as a governmental structure that exhibits component decentralization. The power centers are not statically controlled like in the past two frameworks, but are ever changing and not concentrated into any one group, area, institution, or person. There are still components of the state and the arenas, but these components are decentralized. They are able to be used and changed by the many.
It is sometimes helpful to think of this framework as a “rule-by-majority” during its positive stages and a “rule-by-minority” or “rule-by-mob” during its negative stages, with the minority being a degenerating mob.[iv]
When defining a framework, we must ask ourselves who holds the majority of the sources of power within the nation-state. In a rule-by-one, it was the “one.” In a rule-by-few, it was the “few.” A rule-by-many is more complex. At first, the majority do rule through individual action and decentralization. For instance, the free market allows all national citizens a decentralized stake in the market and the economic classes. This changes based on generation and individual involvement. Even further, democratic institutions and voting allow for a decentralized politburo.
However, as the rule-by-many degrades, a minority zealot class forms to try to overtake that decentralization of the majority. Both majority and minority are still “the many.” The problem is that minor centralization occurs during this degeneration. The society moves from a decentralized majority to a decentralized minority (who hold more power than the majority of the many). Our decentralized societal components will still be decentralized, but they will be mainly available only to the minority within the “many”. This is the zealot power consolidation. This is opposite to what the framework desires, but it occurs nonetheless. The snowball effect increases as centralization against the majority continues to occur.
A rule-by-many does not necessarily mean that everyone in the state has complete access to the system for tasks such as voting. It merely means that the many hold the majority of the sources of power in the state. This often confuses people when thinking about democracy because they relate voting to the “majority” statement. Voting is only one way to access the power sources within the system. It is not the whole, so even if voting is somewhat restricted based on some qualifier, a rule-by-many can still exist if the many hold the sources of power through other means such as a free market, institutional control, military control, cultural control, wealth dispersion, direct power over governmental customs, or some other factor. For example, the United States had significant voting restrictions in the decades immediately after its founding, but it would still be a rule-by-many considering the decentralized nature of the other power sources in the state with ample examples including state rights, individual rights, community power, and so on. Every national could get involved in the market, the decentralized cultures of the regions, local governance, and various other decentralized avenues, without a centralized few having the ability to inhibit them. This is component decentralization in action, which is contrary to a rule-by-few or rule-by-one. The majority of decentralized agents held the true power, even if they didn’t use it. There was no “one” and there were no “few.”
This framework shares a few key elements such as democratic processes, representative politicians, a relatively free market system, protections of personal liberties, high levels of infighting and internal division, short-term focused policy approaches, high risk of cultural degeneracy, and various other similarities among each system that uses this form.
Rule-by-many has lots of obvious benefits. It’s the system with the most respect for personal liberty and freedom. The economic environment generally yields proper incentives for longer periods than a centrally planned variant. It can have a proper culture and morality, at least at the onset. The rule-by-many has demonstrated potential for sustainability given certain circumstances. Out of all the legacy options, it is generally the most favored framework by the masses, while remaining beneficial for the citizens during its positive stage. While other forms can be more sustainable through a stranglehold on centralization and authoritarianism, this form can last a moderate amount of time while being moderately beneficial to the citizenry until it degenerates.
Sadly, this form has still failed. It has fallen just like the preceding two frameworks. It was sold to us as a linear progression to a better future, but history has shown that it degenerates and recycles just the same as the other legacy frameworks.
The rule-by-many framework has been sold to us as the only possible means to reach certain ends, but that has always been a lie. Certain other forms have demonstrated far superior cultural, political, individual, and constitutional freedoms throughout history compared to the degenerating rule-by-many framework. Any framework can grant freedom or tyranny, just the same as any framework can grant prosperity or poverty. It depends far more on the cycle of collapse, the leaders, the nation, and the national soul than it does on the specific system. The system just supports or hinders those potentials.
With this form, we already know an initial incursion on how it fails. We discussed it in the first chapter. Centralization occurs, leading to a “few” reaching component centralization. Certain component pieces are centralized in the decentralized environment. At that point, it’s no longer a rule-by-many. Now we also know that the internal cycle of collapse for the rule-by-many starts with a decentralized majority transitioning into a decentralized minority (mob). This minority-controlled position is the smoothest to centralize into a rule-by-few.
Still, the rule-by-many has demonstrated great ability to address our needs. It has the ability to institute proper checks and balances that the other two cannot. It has promise. Which is why I believe any individual trying to solve the problem of the cycle of collapse should build mostly off of this framework. Take what worked for this system regarding sustainability and fix what did not. We need to address the major weaknesses in this framework and correct them for the future.
The biggest weakness of the rule-by-many is its greatest benefit: decentralization. For example, consider the decentralized free market. Rule-by-many is overwhelmingly free-market oriented. It some respects it has to be, otherwise it would already be on the road to component centralized (the market would be partially centralized by some entity). Under a capitalistic economic policy, money drives everything from politics, to nonprofits, to families. This economic system is impressive for market incentives, economic stability, and gross domestic product growth. However, it also instills a sense of profit over people, market over community, and individualism over unity. It erodes societal cohesion and provides the easiest route for centralization through an isolated class. The free rein of the free market incentivizes capitalists to accumulate asinine amounts of money, which is then used to destroy the very system that brought them that wealth. This massive level of currency holding by only a few inevitably creates an oligarchical situation. A great benefit that is also a great weakness.
Under a system that has no restraints on the ability to earn or keep money, the top earners will continue to accumulate the vast majority of wealth. The inequality gap has no choice but to widen over time. Once the isolated class target them, the middle class will take the beating. The top earners will always be able to earn more or buy their way to more money. It is much easier to go from one million to two million than it is to go from nothing to one million. This is exactly why major billionaires such as Bezos and the Walton family can make up to $4 million every single hour.[v] Which is more than an average middle-class citizen earns in their entire lifetime.[vi]
The individuals that accumulate this level of wealth often hold far-reaching influence in the nation. Yet, none of these capitalists are accountable to the general population. We do not vote or elect the Gates or Rothschild family. The people do not regulate the private billionaires that finance our political parties and politicians. Nor do we have any semblance of control over the companies that they use to control us. We like to pretend that we control the institutions, but they control the narrative over everything we think about them. We also like to pretend that they are regulated by the state or the intellectual realm, but the levers of both rely on their financing.
No matter how the rule-by-many framework tries to solve this issue, decentralization will block it. Remember, this issue arose because of the decentralized environment allowing isolated class formation. Money controls everything in a free market system. Once that becomes centralized through the inability of the framework to do anything to stop it (because it is decentralized), everything else will soon follow. Decentralization will always work in the interest of centralizers because they can manipulate and subvert those decentralized institutions. There is no centralized or coordinated power available to stop them—That is, by its nature, a requirement of the decentralized framework.
Want to run for political office? You need money. A tremendous amount of it. Where will you get this money? Wealthy donors. Want to start a company that competes with a big corporation? How do you get funding? You need a loan from one of those big businesses or individuals who have an interest in controlling you through the financing. Want to compete against businesses that have fully centralized together? Good luck with your economies of scale and not being blacklisted or removed from payment processing.
This situation is bad enough internally. However, make no mistake that foreign money is also going into the pockets of these politicians and businessmen as well. Centralization has no border. Foreign actors work alongside domestic centralizers as a mutually beneficial tactic. For example, in the United States, while federal law prohibits contributions to federal politics from anyone besides American citizens and immigrants with green cards, loopholes exist. Foreign connected political action committees and other hidden methods allow for transferring the money through gray-area methods.[vii] What system controlled by unaccountable and culturally different foreign entities could possibly be worthwhile?
This degeneration example is but one of many. While the rule-by-many framework starts out strong, it eventually degenerates: either alongside cultural degradation, moral degeneracy, financial centralization, or a combination of the other factors we’ve introduced and that we will address further in the next chapter. These degenerate because of one thing: centralization. The natural human tendency toward desiring power. But the framework cannot stop centralization because it is decentralized. Once the centralizers get together, they can alter the system toward their interests alone.
The reality in the degenerative (negative stage) rule-by-many framework is that the average person controls nothing. No important societal agent is accountable to them. The authorities and the education system like to present it as though we control the country through free elections. Yet, the political parties are controlled by these unaccountable, unelected centralizers through the mob. We may sometimes control the vote itself, but we don’t control the politicians that get preselected for us by these centralizers and by their power players. Your choice is between two different puppets that are both on the string of the centralizers.
The media is no different: these are companies controlled by vested cultural centralizer interests that simply seek to subvert the people. They hold tremendous power over the thoughts and minds of the population, yet they are also unaccountable to that very same population and controlled instead through corporate wealth and subversionists. They seek to spark fear, confusion, and hatred solely as a means to get more power and fulfill their owners’ ideological desires.
Who controls these companies? Look them up, you will see a common trend. They all work together. They are all centralizers. The isolated class use their illegitimately gained wealth to centralize their power across many sectors to influence every aspect of our lives. The degenerative stage of the rule-by-many showcases an egregious act of profiteering over civic responsibility or even basic morality. These systems provide cover for the centralizers that subjugate, indoctrinate, and control the population.
This causes the minds of our people to be molded by those who control the power to do so. Through this failure of safeguarding decentralization, they can alter the course of the nation. Centralizers teach the majority what they need them to think in order to progress in their centralization schemes. An obvious example of that within the context of the isolated class is the push toward consumerism. The mass scale of consumerism in the country does not produce liberty; it curtails freedom in the interest of profit. But it is of major benefit to the isolated class on their conquest for control.
Unrestrained companies. Bloated corrupt capitalists. Lying, deranged media manipulators. Feeble intellectuals. Conglomerate corporate tax evaders. Degenerate cultural institutions. Fake elections. Politicized judges, attorneys, and courtrooms. Unfair and centralized markets. Even puppet politicians. Eventually, the people see through the facade that is “democracy” because the form of “democracy” that they knew has long since died. They realize that it is not a free market, a free culture, nor even a free state. It is creeping centralization of a previously decentralized option.
Once the nation’s inhabitants realize they live under a degenerated system, resentment festers. This is what we are witnessing currently in the United States. Both sides of the political aisle notice this happening. They just do not call it out for what it is. The leftists blame the corporations and things like wealth inequality. The right blames the media, degenerate culture, and giant tech companies. Yet, they are all targeting the result, not the cause. Poor societal institutions, loss of culture, low living standards, income inequality, the very rich, and corrupt businesses are the result. The cause is the degeneracy of the original governmental framework by centralization. If the lust for power did not exist, and the component decentralized environment could sustain, then these effects would not occur.
How can we support a framework that is decentralized with no long-term safeguards against centralization? One that by its very structure is decentralized to the point of having massive institutions and businesses that are unaccountable to the citizens? By its very nature and definition, this system is designed to fail. It will eventually become component centralized and therefore a rule-by-few.
Every government framework itself is a shell. It is merely a set of rules and instructions on how best to organize a society. Some of them are better than others at specific tasks in how they are designed. None of them are inherently dysfunctional or evil. Instead, the framework is used by people in certain ways. During good years, the framework can be used by honorable people to produce good results. During bad years, the framework is used by evil people for selfish gain.
The people that manipulate all the frameworks are centralizers. However, the framework most at risk of their takeover is the rule-by-many. This is because the rule-by-many is weak in defending against centralizer actions. We cannot stop the creation of centralizers, as the desire for power and control by a segment of our population has been a species-long obstacle. To try to remove it entirely would be akin to trying to change humanity itself. We can only manage the centralizers and make sure they can do no harm, which the rule-by-many fails to do through its complete lack of controls against them.
The centralizers justify this behavior to us and themselves through various means. They are the “educated” class, they seek a “greater good,” or they desire to “progress humanity.” But none of them actually care about any of this. They only attempt to convince themselves and you that they do. They are psychopaths in the strictest definition of the term.
This is why you cannot just leave them alone, because they will never leave you alone. They cannot be left in a free, decentralized environment. They use that government framework to destroy the nation itself. The centralizer does it because they want to abolish the rule-by-many form and institute a rule-by-few form, where they are “the few.” They believe that is the only way to achieve their view of progress. We must reject the rule-by-many framework because it offers no tools to stop these individuals in their mission for dominance.
Another significant reason for the rejection of this framework is the placement of importance. A rule-by-many system takes precedence over the people within that system. Ideology versus nation. This means that even if the people that created the system die off or deteriorate, the system won’t care so long as the system itself continues. This tunnel-vision focus on the framework of “the many” can end up terminating the “many” people that founded it. Along with their culture, traditions, and heritage. This is the reason the rise of globalism coincided with the proliferation of the rule-by-many framework. The framework places undue focus on the system that manifests it instead of on the people that entail it. This is why there is such a strong focus on “saving the republic” instead of “saving the American people” in the United States, where the people and their collective soul are clearly more important to save than the fabled, failed republic. Contrast this with a rule-by-few, where the “few” generally don’t care about the system at all, caring more about their position of power and the continuation of the conditions that allow for the aforementioned. The rule-by-one is similar to the rule-by-few, except that certain benevolent “ones” are often populist and care more about their people than their own power. Regardless, in no other framework is the importance placed so heavily on the system. Rather, they recognize that the system is a means to something, rather than an end in itself. This important realization is lost in the rule-by-many framework.
There exists a plurality of other reasons plaguing nations under the rule-by-many framework. One such ironic example of a rule-by-many failing is the government’s inability to compete with more organized forms. A dictatorship or socialist state can act much quicker in response, whereas a republic needs a congress and a vote. Additionally, the centralized politicians are stronger than the decentralized ones, who are corruptible politicians. The centralized politicians are secure in their position, whereas the decentralized politicians are at the whims of both the institutions and the people that influence them. The only solution to this is within a rule-by-many there to implement more centralized political power, which would then eliminate the “many” aspect.
We briefly touched on culture in the previous section about the extraordinary ability of a monarchy to control culture. Rule-by-many is the exact opposite of that. In a rule-by-many, the government and her citizenry hold virtually no control over the culture. Those that hold the keys to the culture (cultural markers) are unaccountable to the people and the government. Whoever owns the means of cultural indoctrination or the most capital chooses the culture. In the United States, this is Hollywood and their affiliates.
Let’s consider Hollywood for a second. We have no control over what they produce. Yet their productions control the very culture we live with every day. The media and their culture of hysteria also collaborate with Hollywood. We have no control over them, either. No one does except the cultural centralizers. Is it surprising that the individuals that control these sectors of cultural influence also block off anyone else from entering them? They want the monopoly on cultural control.
Wasn’t the government supposed to eliminate monopolies? Sadly, the centralizers finance and lobby the politicians. But couldn’t the media catch this and report on it? A noble try, but the isolated class bought the media companies a long time ago. Surely, academia would research and dispute it? Well, not quite. See, their research projects are actually funded by that same cartel. There is no power center that controls anything of cultural significance that is accountable in the long term to the people in a rule-by-many.
No control over the culture results in degeneracy and degradation over time. Cultural and moral degeneracy is a key aspect of the decline of any framework. It happened in places such as Athens, the Holy Roman Empire, and even Baghdad. Two hundred years from now, our present civilizations will be on that list. The rule-by-many’s weakest link is its inability to influence the culture at all in their own state. Since it is decentralized, it is at complete risk of coordinated takeover. This is why the United States went from a Protestant nation with strong nuclear families to a degenerative nation with an illegitimacy rate of 40 percent in only fifty or so years.[viii] Other nations will soon emulate us. What nation will survive that does not honor their families and promote unity in the nation? What nation will survive that can’t control its cultural shifts?
Another massive issue plaguing certain degenerative nations is political incentives. The short-sightedness in “free” countries results in policies that are not long-term financially viable. A dictator has a vested interest in ensuring there is economic success in his or her country for decades to come. If there isn’t, they’ll revolt and kill the leader. Under the rule-by-many, a politician can get elected for a two- or four-year term, get the network and power they want, and then leave. The long-term fiscal importance is nonexistent to them. By the time their policy fails, it will be someone else’s problem. Short-term politicians will only ever provide short-term solutions.
This is also why socialist policies end up being so appealing as rule-by-many declines. The policies appear to be the only way to level the playing field among the lower classes and the centralizer. This is by centralizer design. The average citizen just does not understand that the centralizers insidiously desire this change because it brings them closer to even more centralization. This is why the ultra-wealthy all seemingly support socialistic policies.
Additionally, uneducated voters often desire free or subsidized policies such as social benefits, unaware of the fiscal burden behind the programs. Still, they will vote in favor of them regardless. Politicians know this. They know they can get easy votes by supporting these policies. So, they do it. They get the power they want and leave long before the system collapses under the weight of their own policies of fiscal illiteracy. Citizens overwhelmingly prefer short-term dopamine rushes, resulting in immediate gratification rather than long-term stable fiscal platforms. This flaw is as old as humanity itself.
This is also why most rule-by-many states are in perpetual debt. Imagine an election with two participants: A and B. A is a reasonable politician with long-term goals and objectives that favor a sustainable society. B is a politician that says he will give you, and only you, a blank check for any amount of money if you vote for him. Even if you are reasonable and would only write yourself a small check for a million, the vast majority would vote for politician B if they were in this scenario. That is welfare and socialism for the lower subjugated classes. Politicians buy votes with the promise of socialized financial return. Eventually, the voters realize they can vote themselves into short-term personal profit but forget the long-term expense.
Speaking of elections, voter participation is already incredibly low in most free election states and has been declining since the 1980s.[ix] Especially in the elections that matter, such as the local and state versions (or equivalent). On top of that already low number, we have an incredible number of noncontributors that vote and a massive number of corrupt influences affecting the voting process like the intelligentsia and the cultural markers. The combination of these voting traits is massively damaging to sustainment.
In a rule-by-many, contributors are considered as important as traitors in terms of their voting power. Because they are both a part of the many who share the vote equally. People who put their life on the line for their country, net taxpayers, individuals who build employment opportunities for others, and the like, are equal to a homeless criminal. The aforementioned are the people that actually hold a stake in the country’s future and have contributed to earn that stake. These are the people that should steer it. Under rule-by-many, these contributors often take a backseat to the volatile youth, the extremist degenerate, the lower classes, the isolated class, or the societal leech that contributes nothing but expects all. It is no wonder that the net taxpayers and other societal contributors eventually grow resentful of their countrymen who only seek to exploit them and their contributions. It’s also no wonder they eventually diminish in size as time goes forward.
There are many other reasons for the decline, but these are a few significant ones. Others will be addressed in future chapters. With these topics, we can clearly see that there is no way for this framework to fulfill our first objective of long-term sustainment.
While describing a rule-by-many, we should also make note of how this framework differs from our framework. Ours is a “rule-by-contributor” or a “rule-by-contribution,” depending on your preferred phrasing. Opponents could argue that these individuals (the contributors) are of the “many,” and thus the framework is simply a modified version of the rule-by-many. But this is not accurate. We’ll address four of the most significant reasons why here, but more will become apparent as you become increasingly familiar with the differing frameworks.
First, and most importantly, is the decentralization factor. The rule-by-many has decentralized sources of power in the state. The “many” control the power sources through a decentralized nature. Our rule-by-contributor framework is not decentralized at all. We desire absolute centralization. Except it is by and for the contributors instead of the one. Everything in our framework is accountable and centralized to the contributory class. This fixes the decentralization issue but doesn’t place it into the hands of the unaccountable.
Second, the rule-by-contributor has no need for a majority or an activist minority. All that matters are the contributions of the individual.
Third, we focus our framework on preserving the people, not the system. If we preserve the people, the system that they desire will naturally be preserved. If the system is preserved, there is no guarantee of the people being preserved.
Fourth, our framework is fluid between the legacy frameworks, since it is a combination framework. It is not static by remaining firmly locked within one. It can move according to the needs of the system. Prior rule-by-many forms have certainly demonstrated aspects of a rule-by-contributor but have never been based on one. The Roman Republic had only certain contributors allowed to participate as politicians, whereas the American Republic had only certain contributors who were given the right to vote in the early years of the United States. These were aspects of a rule-by-contributor framework, but the overall system was still a rule-by-many. These aspects naturally deteriorated until becoming more like a traditional rule-by-many.
Under the rule-by-many, a majority had decentralized power over the political class. Whereas the political class had limited power over the other power centers. Instead, our framework has the contributors having full power over all power centers in their nation and the institutions sharing none.
It’s necessary to look at the overall power source in the government when addressing this potential critique. While certain aspects in a rule-by-many may have shared a contributor power source, the majority of the state did not. Only specific components did. Pieces of a rule-by-contributor have been tried alongside a rule-by-many but not in totality of it. Just like components of the other frameworks have been tried in conjunction with others at various points in time.
Full contributor oversight with absolute centralization as the power base is our system. The contributors hold most of the country’s voter strength; the politicians are all demonstrated contributors, and the politicians are accountable to the contributors, while the contributors lead the culture. Our distribution of power is fully contributor owned, and even the economy is a contributor market. Each component is based on power from and for the contributors. This did not occur in the legacy rule-by-many forms. In a rule-by-many system, all of these are decentralized. For example, in Revolutionary-era America, the voting was somewhat contributor related regarding the requirements, but the politicians, the economy, culture, communities, and the institutions were of the many.
Historically, these contributor-dominant components were the most secure and most heavily targeted by centralizers, demonstrating their effectiveness. What if every single one of them had a contributor power base? What if there was no option for centralization because of the structure of the framework? The framework would be unstoppable. The centralizer would have no ability to use the mob to subvert the contributors.
For these reasons, a rule-by-contribution is not a type of rule-by-many, but a different framework entirely. It is a hybrid of the four legacy frameworks, with new additions.
Whether rule-by-many is heralded by a republic, democracy, preoligarchy, or liberal democracy, the results are the same: eventual centralization, cultural degradation, societal degeneracy, and collapse. Still, the rule-by-many does at least mark one of our focus boxes: it is often beneficial for the people that live under it, but only during the positive stages. Decentralization is rarely harmful until the degenerative stage occurs. Regretfully, it is not sustainable. That temporary benefit comes at an extreme cost, as degenerating rule-by-many systems can be some of the most nationally damaging of all. So, it is not a long-term option if we take an honest account of historical trends of similar rule-by-many framework systems.
That does not mean it is useless to us, however. Rule-by-many showcases many favorable traits we seek in a governmental foundation, and we can learn a lot from this framework. We desire to take the democratic institutions that are sustainable, certain market incentives, traits of the voting system, the hierarchy of government, and the preservation of community liberties. The rule-by-many provides us with some very necessary traits to help the government secure its citizens. We just need to create the “sustainable” part.
We are not truly free if we are destined to be conquered by centralization. We must first get off the conveyor belt that is leading us straight to disaster. Only then will we be truly free.
Section 5: Rule-By-None
Rule-by-none isn’t a practical governmental framework or system. Rather, it is a lack of one. “Anarchy” is the only political system that manifests the rule-by-none framework (in theory).
The framework seeks the abolition of whatever it deems as “the state.” Instead, the idea is to replace the state with self-managed and self-governed societies based on voluntary co-op institutions where there is no power holder.
Anarchy creates an absolute power vacuum. In theory, it tries to create a stateless society. In reality, it usually ends up just masking the state with something else, such as the institutions. Power is still distributed within a society by a state-like figure. It is just done so in a different manner temporarily.
Our prior frameworks had the following descriptions:
- Rule-by-one: absolute centralized
- Rule-by-few: component centralized
- Rule-by-many: component decentralized
Here “centralized” means “consolidated” or to be under a central authority. Additionally, “decentralized” means power distribution away from a central authority into local or smaller authorities.
The rule-by-none would be aptly described as “absolute decentralized.” This is where “none” holds power. Not even local authorities, traditionally decentralized agents, or local institutions. There are no rulers; not even the people themselves.
A system that derives from this framework has never truly existed in its pure form. Communism sought this as an end goal but failed. Various systems of anarchy existed but have never quite fit the definition. Instead, anarchy was a power vacuum where most everything was decentralized, but certain components were still left centralized or openly communalized by the masses to allow the society function. These were then still instances of rule-by-few or rule-by-many. Which is why they all still followed the exact same political cycle of collapse.
The only time a rule-by-none could exist (as a very short-term singular point) would be in the middle of a war-torn state experiencing widespread chaos under the condition that no tribal leader has yet arrived to exert influence over the region yet. Or in instances of major disasters, where no authority exists.
This form is not related to our nomadic past. This is because in the history of our species, during the tribal times preceding the state, we still exhibited hierarchy within both the tribe and the family. There were still power centers and components either centralized or decentralized within the tribe. This was just demonstrated on a much smaller scale. Thus, there was not absolute decentralization. While anarchic proponents point to the lack of the state as differentiation of their system, it is still a rule-by-many once implemented due to the influence of the many through these voluntary institutions. The distribution of power just changes from a state dominance to an institutional dominance, something that we will discuss when we address the power cycle in a later chapter.[x]
Anarchy rapidly devolves into minority rule and then a rule-by-few because of these conditions. In fact, it would probably be the fastest degenerating framework of them all, if we could accurately test it. But we struggle to get raw data on this subject because of how quickly the system falters when put into practical application and how few historical examples we have available. There are so few instances because it is not a sustainable position for a nation-state.
What traits are there in a rule-by-none? One is voluntary cooperative institutions (that theoretically do not function as a governing body but must still carry out duties of the state). Two further characteristics are a lack of a governing body and virtually no centralization.
There were two actual historical instances of anarchism that we will address here (being the only two notable instances from which we can learn something of benefit for our framework). Both ended how you would expect a “stateless” society to meet its end: by being annihilated by an external state that took over the decentralized territory. The two societies were the Free Territory of Ukraine under Nestor Makhno’s army and the Korean People’s Association in Manchuria (KPAM). The Korean People’s Association lasted roughly two years before Japan and China both overran the territory to claim it as their own. Whereas the Free Territory of Ukraine operated in a decent chunk of Ukraine for a few years until everyone involved was in hiding or had been executed by the Soviet Red Army.
These two societies definitely still had tribal leaders, power structures, a military that could seize control at any moment, and some forms of centralized control that a true rule-by-none is lacking. While neither of these societies were actually “anarchist” in our rule-by-none sense, at points they were as close as any society could possibly get.
While taking anarchy as a serious form of sustainable governance is laughable when considering a population of hundreds of millions over the long term, the knowledge of their communities is highly coveted. For instance, KPAM was a zone in Manchuria near the Korean borderlands with nearly two million people that cooperated enough to fend off two massive political powers for two years.[xi] The Ukrainians had nearly seven million in “The Free Territory.”[xii] We will lean heavily on the account of Heather-Noël in describing the Ukrainian Makhnovists.[xiii] An interesting lesson from both is the power of community. With no formal government and no law, the KPAM communities still worked together internally and externally. The Ukrainians had seven million people working together as everything fell apart in the countries surrounding them.
The trials of rule-by-none societies throughout history show that rule-by-none is not a viable long-term option considering external threats and human desires for power. That is apparent just based on what we have discussed so far in this chapter. Eventually centralization would occur. But their example does show us the power of community. When external threats exist, humans work together with the ones they feel are their “in group.” Human nature draws us together. Powerful communities can do incredible things. We just have to give them the conditions that will allow them to thrive.
The principal focus of government on their communities should not be on enforcing obedience. Rather, it is on protecting the communities and letting them find harmony together. Rule-by-none thrived in this respect. Consider the Free Territory of Ukraine. The people in the communities came together to form their own decrees and functions. They then convened in regional congresses with neighboring communities to strengthen their existing communal ties.[xiv] They also addressed matters of extreme importance during these congresses and enlisted volunteer fighters. Their community became an extension of them.
When cities were liberated by these volunteer fighters, they would post signs that simply said: “This army does not serve a political party, any power, any dictatorship. It will not subject anyone to any obligation whatsoever. Its role is confined to defending the freedom of the workers. The freedom of the peasants and the workers belong to themselves, and should not suffer any restriction.”[xv] The population, upon learning the military was not an occupying military force, was thrilled. They quickly communalized together, often remarkably successfully. The new town would then create their own community and take part within the regional conferences as it deemed desirable. This shows the natural proclivity of humans to first unite communally and then to further unite among other communities in a defensive and brothers-in-arms fashion and without the need or threat of a state.
The KPAM contributes similar community knowledge. They had established mutual banks, democratic schools, and regional councils[xvi] that stretched across communal lines. KPAM also operated with no form of currency because of the close-knit relationships among the populations. They managed private property effectively during wartime. Even considering the massive war they would eventually lose, they still found cooperation among their communities. This shows the power of communities when individualism is left behind and a communitarian focus is demanded for survival.
Still, they did not last long for a reason. A new variant would not, either. This form is not sustainable, nor is permanent chaos desirable. So, it meets neither of our focuses.
Humans desire power. Any type of large-scale power vacuum of millions of people and property will eventually be sought after. Centralizers would love this form the most as there is absolutely nothing inhibiting them. There is no opportunity for cultural control to prevent centralization. Direct communal democracy also has its own plethora of issues, many of which were addressed in the previous section. A free army, even internally, would eventually turn corrupt with one wayward leader. Isolated class companies would monopolize without intervention. The voluntary institutions would have no hope of offsetting foreign or even domestic infiltration. The nation will have difficulties even providing the most basic building blocks required of a governing body: national defense. How could we consider any of this beneficial to the citizens?
Different forms of anarchist theory come to the same conclusions through different methodologies. For example, let’s briefly consider the anarcho-capitalist theory. The anarcho-capitalist believes in a removal of the centralized state in favor of things like “private defense agencies” and “insurance companies” who would oversee state defense, policing, property disputes, and courts. In many ways, these are just fancy ways to circumvent having a state by not calling it a state. Apart from such flawed thinking, the theory would still never hold up long term because of the power imbalance and centralizer issue. The anarchist hates the politburo centralizer and occasionally also hates the isolated class centralizer along with them, but they do little to notice the cultural or intellectual centralizer in their midst. Their stateless, classless society does not address this glaring blind spot. The problem with centralizers is that if we don’t collectively address all of them, we haven’t actually addressed any of them. They will simply relocate to societal arenas in which they can continue to centralize. In the case of the anarcho-capitalist, if they don’t have the state to work with, they’ll just go to these “defense agencies” and “insurance companies.” If those are heavily watched, they’ll target the culture and intelligence arena to degrade the environment enough to eventually infiltrate the more powerful institutions. In an anarcho-communist variant, they’ll aim for the national defense or cultural institutions. There isn’t a way to escape this effect unless you target the root of the problem, which is the ability to centralize.
The anarchist political philosophy is stricken with emotional idealism. The philosophy shares a similar false worldview with communism, by which we mean it worships unattainable utopian ideals. They both even share the same end goal of a stateless, classless, and moneyless society. There is no practical, reality-based method to deny the human condition and reach an anarchist dream world. Pure decentralization, voids of power, will always be filled. The anarchist political approach is an obsession with abstract ideals instead of practical implementations, which is eerily similar to other failed utopian fantasies, like communism and socialism.
Neither do we find it practical or reasonable to push for elimination of the state. The state, in its pure form as simply a structure with leadership, is not entrapment. It is an escape, a relief, from the entrapment of the pressures of nature. The state provided a means for us to escape constant struggles against nature and the pressures of earthly survival. It provided a means for us to seek higher things and to be free to determine what those higher things entail. A rejection of the state is a rejection of the foundation that provided the means to develop the antistate philosophy. The state is a tool like any other, which can be used to build up or to destroy. The rule-by-none desires to rid us of the tool completely, which will not change the part of human nature that leads to the corruption of the tool. It is a masking of the illness.
The rule-by-none, while desiring a removal of power centralization, is a massive failure at successfully accomplishing that goal. Their power vacuum ensures they are soon engulfed by rapid centralization.
Anarchy as a political philosophy is useful for fence sitters as an easy virtue-signaling type of government. It is often used by people that do not want to have to choose between actual government frameworks along with the reality of their failures and limitations. So, they simply say they are “anarchist” and include some iteration of not believing in the state even though they likely intrinsically know that it is an impossible solution. It’s an easy philosophical cop-out by not having to choose real-world solutions which result in real-world setbacks and problems instead of an imaginary stateless utopia where everyone believes in ideals such as the nonaggression principle and voluntarism where normal human desires apparently no longer apply. This makes it easy to claim the virtuous position while not having to debate pragmatic reality. There will always be power centers in a nation and there will always be a need for a state, regardless of if it is called as such or not.
Another related rule-by-none consideration that is necessary to discuss is the “anarchic nation condition”. While not “true” anarchy as a proponent of anarchy would describe it, it functions in a similar capacity on a national level and is necessary for us to consider as a potentially viable alternative. This condition occurs when a nation is anarchic on a national level, but state-dominant on a regional or communal level. A good example is the historical Greek city-states (poleis) during their golden years prior to Macedonia control. The Greek city-states such as Athens, Thebes, and Sparta were not centralized together under one nation-state because each city had their own “state”. The Greek nation as a whole was not united, but the regional entities were united, so they were under an anarchic nation condition. Could this be a viable alternative to the legacy frameworks?
This condition is what would happen in a truly anarchic society, given enough time and no foreign invasion, as certain communities evolve into centralized city-state regions. But what happens if a foreign invader attempted to invade their anarchic state? Most anarchists believe that this is where all the anarchists would unite to repel the invaders. These anarchists likely are not wrong, given that this is exactly what happened during the Persian Wars, when the anarchic nation condition Greek city-states repelled the Persians. It’s useful to continue down this path, however, to see what the national anarchic condition resulted in. The Greek city-states eventually began fighting for internal hegemony (centralization), culminating in major internal conflicts such as the Peloponnesian War and the Corinthian War. This led to their downfall, as the city-states fought over the centralization of the region—an inevitable event. This internal fighting is largely what weakened them enough so that when a new foreign threat arrived (Macedonia), they could not repel them. Thus, resulting in the same end scenario we described with the other anarchic conditions: a conquered nation. This process is exactly what would happen in any anarchic condition, national, state, or regional. Or it would be centralized from within, which Greece was nearing if Macedonia hadn’t done so first. Humans desire power. If an entire regional area has power and is individualistic and decentralized, its power will be sought after. This is the natural order, and to deny it would be to set us up for failure. Additionally, the anarchic nation condition provides numerous other centralization avenues through the decentralized regions. Since each region is different, each region would have unique manipulation and subversion potential that others could not control. The centralizers would have an easy time pitting the regions against one another and enlisting the aid of foreign influences to conquer the anarchic nation. Similarly, there is no way to sustain the entire nation when the nation itself is not unified. Therefore, there is not much usefulness or viability of a sustainable state within the anarchic nation condition.
With all of this in consideration, neither the system nor the framework in the rule-by-none is particularly useful to us in forming a framework outside of the lessons it teaches. But those lessons are still very important.
The anarchist mindset may not be the most viable option when seeking a long-term governmental form. But that does not mean it is useless. The anarchists’ acknowledgment of the importance of community will be frequently utilized by Enclavism. Their rejection of both collectivism and individualism in favor of communitarianism is important. The unification of communities can offset some risks produced by individualism, politburo centralization, and disunity. Communities are also the building blocks of any government. By allowing them the freedom to cooperate in a fashion similar to a rule-by-none, we would produce very strong vanguards for any nation and a tight-knit, communitarian mindset.
Rule-by-none produces the strongest arguments in favor of communitarianism and vanguards. This focus on community from the top down is something that is rarely recognized in other frameworks or systems. Other frameworks focus on the individual or the government. Perhaps, in theory, the rule-by-none focuses on the individual, but in practice it only does so through the community. Because in such a climate, no individual could truly thrive (or even barely survive) without their community. This is an important focus. Just as important as the cultural enclaves and their vanguards that the rule-by-none produces. Even antiqued governments such as tribalism showcase how humans are preprogrammed to desire unity in their chosen communities. This practice is imperative to a sustainable government, as it is the only way we will ever cement the power of people together against the centralizers and degenerates. Power in the community is localized power in the government.
The vanguards are necessary to keep centralization under control. But our people still need the tools to do so. Absolute decentralization does not give them that toolset.
So, we may not be able to build on this framework. It may not even be a true government by a strict definition. But we can take lessons from its short, mostly philosophical existence to put toward a stronger, more viable practical system and a broader understanding of the human condition.
[i] A good example of this would be the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in recent years before Xi. The CCP was a singular, hivemind type “one” in the state that held absolute centralization, but without a single master.
[ii] William Taubman, Gorbachev: His Life and Times. If you desire to understand why Gorbachev took the actions he did, this account of his life will lead you to the answer.
[iii] Some would initially dispute feudalism as being a rule-by-few. The system of feudalism grew out of the necessities of the time and region, and does not share a single implementation. In theory, feudalism was based upon a hierarchy that ascends to a singular governing lord. However, this form rarely exhibited absolute centralization in practice. Most of the regions had wide swaths of power to themselves and only had customary requirements to their supposed superior. The system had numerous regions with numerous lords that had competing levels of power. These lords often competed directly with one another. For example, Feudal France had a loose network of vassals until it was eventually centralized into a rule-by-one under the Capetians. But few would argue that the disparate regions were centralized before under any semblance of a “one”. Many of the vassals didn’t even pay respect to the Capetians in their early years. Instead, the system was a few lords that held component centralization within each of their regions. These components were land, as that was the prized asset in the feudalist time period. So, the power was distributed in a rule-by-few fashion based on landholding. This was not the case in every instance of feudalism, but it was the norm.
[iv] The “mob” is an important concept, one which we dedicate an entire section to in a later chapter. For now, we should define the mob as a centralizer-controlled force that aids in the transition from a positive stage rule-by-many into its negative stage.
[v] Tom Metcalf, Bloomberg, “The World’s Wealthiest Family Gets $4 Million Richer Every Hour.”
[vi] According to the Census Bureau, in 2019 the median household income (in 2019 dollars) was $62,843 and the per capita income in the past 12 months (in 2019 dollars) was $34,103. This means that even if an average citizen started earning the average household income at age 18, and earned that for fifty years to a retirement age of sixty-eight, they still would have only earned $3,142,150. If they only earn the per capita income and work for forty years, they’ll be at only $1,364,120. Far off from the $4 million hourly earnings of the isolated class. No matter how we look at the numbers, the lifetime earnings of the median or average come nowhere near these hourly earnings.
[vii] The Center for Responsive Politics (Open Secrets), “Foreign-Connected PACs”. Data tools and amounts are available on their webpage as of May 2021.
[viii] The source for the 40 percent figure is the National Vital Statistics Report. Volume 70, Number 2. Births: Final Data for 2019, page 6 under “Births to unmarried women”.
[ix] Niemi and Weisberg. Controversies in Voting Behavior. 5th Edition. Page 31.
[x] The power cycle is defined as how power is distributed within a state between the major centers of power including citizens, the state, and institutions.
[xi] Michael Schmidt, Cartography of Revolutionary Anarchism. The Third Wave chapter.
[xii] Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible, PM Press (2010). Page 473.
[xiii] Heather-Noël Schwartz, The Makhnovists & The Russian Revolution.
[xiv] Peter Arshinov, History of the Makhnovist Movement 1918-1921. Chapter 5.
[xv] Volin, The unknown revolution, 1917-1921. Page 269. Relevant text: “To all the workers of the city and its environs! Workers, your city is for the present occupied by the Revolutionary Insurrectionary (Makhnovist) Army. This army does not serve any political party, any power, any dictatorship. On the contrary, it seeks to free the region of all political power, of all dictatorship. It strives to protect the freedom of action, the free life of the workers, against all exploitation and domination. The Makhnovist Army does not therefore represent any authority. It will not subject anyone to any obligation whatsoever. Its role is confined to defending the freedom of the workers. The freedom of the peasants and the workers belongs to themselves, and should not suffer any restriction. It is up to the workers and peasants themselves to act, to organise themselves, to reach mutual understanding in all fields of their lives, in so far as they desire it, and in whatever way they may think right. They must, therefore, know right away, that the Makhnovist Army will not impose on them, will not dictate to them, will not order them to do anything. The Makhnovists can only help them, by giving them opinions or advice, by putting at their disposal the intellectual, military and other forces that they need. But they cannot, and, in any case, will not govern them or prescribe for them in any way.”
[xvi] Michael Schmidt, Cartography of Revolutionary Anarchism. Third Wave Chapter.
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