David Falkayn on power:
"'The politicians don't have that much. They put on a show, but most of the real decisions are made by owners, managers, bureaucrats, union chiefs, people who aren't conspicuous enough to need all that protection or all that secretarial prearrangement of their days.... Of course, the politicians think they lead.'" (p. 252)
This answers one of my questions in "Whatever That Means": "Will the real power continue to lie elsewhere?" Let's look at that hierarchy of power:
owners
managers
bureaucrats
union chiefs
This is deffo a hierarchy. It would be a falsification to suggest that these four groups wield power equally. Ownership is power. Bureaucrats change policies if owners threaten to move production elsewhere. The Polesotechnic League could impoverish the Solar Commonwealth. Union chiefs maintain their own intermediate social position by controlling their members but certainly do not share decision-making power with owners or managers.
Let's found an extra-solar colony!
For a book on land ownership, see here.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I am not so sure that the distribution of power is as clear cut as you may think. For example, I am sure many union chiefs hold powers as well from being managers and bureaucrats for either the state or nominally private entities as from being union bosses. That is what cartelization is: a merging of different kinds of functions and powers.
Ad astra! Sean
Let's put it this way: what prevents the people with the guns from simply taking what they want and kicking everyone else out of the way?
Belief in myths, basically.
Which usually work... but sometimes the myths break.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And the military virtues is simply not enough for running a state or society, as Jerry Pournelle made plain was his belief in his Co-Dominium stories. We NEED to believe in some kind of myth or system of belief, for a society to function tolerably well. It's always a disaster when such a system of belief is no longer believe--then we get anarchy, chaos, civil wars, military or ideologically based dictatorships, etc.
But even a Cromwell or Napoleon needed some kind of structure, bureaucracy, civil service, whatever you want to call it, to rule. To paraphrase a story I read about Napoleon and Talleyrand: the Emperor was boasting about his army and how much he could do with their bayonets. At which Talleyrand dryly asked if Napoleon could SIT on those bayonets.
Ad astra! Sean
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