Även dagens inlägg tar upp eliters uppgång och fall. Först genom en närmare titt på Vandalernas öde, och därefter genom en kort introduktion till Mosca. Mosca är särskilt intressant eftersom han menar att en styrande elit alltid behöver en viss social rörlighet för att fungera, så att den kan rekrytera de bästa ur det breda folket. Min analys av Sverige, och hela Västerlandet, utifrån Moscas perspektiv, är att så är inte längre fallet här. Vår styrande elit har cementerat sina positioner (i stor utsträckning gjort dem ärftliga och beroende av partitillhörighet), och vägrar konsekvent alla former av social mobilitet. Som följd därav växer avståndet mellan styrande och styrda, och de styrandes kvalitet, både mentalt och moraliskt, sjunker snabbt. Styrda av unkna ”anti-rasistiska” ideologier försöker de styrande att rekrytera så många minoriteter som möjligt till sina led, medan de djupare strata av de etniska svenskarna blivit totalt ointressanta, och ofta närmast pinsamma, för dem.
I think my first encounter with the cyclical view on elites, was the Byzantine historian Procopius’ account of the rise and fall of the Vandals. It is a more or less three-generational model, that seems to be true in many cases.
First there is the original generation. It is filled with a will to power, and at the same time grounded in the virtues and traditional worldview of the tribe. In the case with the Vandals, this was king Gaiseric. ”In 406 the Vandals advanced from Pannonia by way of Gaul, which they devastated terribly, into Spain, where they settled in 411. From 427 their king was Genseric (Gaiseric), who in 429 landed in North Africa with about 80,000 of his followers. Peace was made between the Romans and Vandals in 435 but it was broken by Genseric in 439, who made Carthage his capital after he had thoroughly plundered it. During the next thirty-five years with a large fleet he ravaged the coasts of the Eastern and Western Empires. In 455 he plundered Rome itself during two weeks.” (source: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15268b.htm) Say what you will about Gaiseric, but he wasn’t a coward. The first generation seizes power through virtu and personal characteristics, gained in battle or struggle.
Then comes the second generation. This one is born into privilege, but still has some of the martial and personal virtues of the first. The second generation usually is able to keep the spoils, but rarely expand them very much. And then comes the third generation, that is born into luxury, spoiled, and weak. Neither the virtues nor the will to power is left. This generation looses power, and the cycle begins anew.
This model can be applied rather well on Swedish Social Democracy (idealists-> bureaucrats -> corrupted and mentally bancrupt), on the USSR, and on many self-made millionaires.
The Italian scholar Gaetano Mosca had the following to say on the rise and fall of elites and nations:
These two causes seem almost inevitably to go together. Nations die when their ruling classes are incapable of reorganizing in such a way as to meet the needs of changing times by drawing from the lower and deeper strata of society new elements that serve to give them new blood and new life. Then again, as we have already seen (chap. XIV, §3), nations are also marked for death when they suffer a dwindling of those moral forces which hold them together and make it possible for a considerable mass of individual efforts to be concentrated, disciplined and directed toward purposes related to the collective interest. In a word, old age, the forerunner of death, comes upon political organisms when the ideas and sentiments which make them capable of the collective effort that is required, if they are to maintain their group personality, lose inflence and prestige without being replaced by others.
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/mosca.html
I would say that the current ruling class is doing its utmost to recruit new members from minorities, but is doing very little to draw from the deeper strata of their own kinfolk. And they are definitely causing a decline of the moral forces that hold society together. It is not a recipe for succes.
Om skribenten: Joakim Andersen
