The passage quoted in the preceding post continues:
"'Even as things are, there isn't enough work to go round for the Ministers. That's why you see so many wastrels and so much politicking among them.'" (p. 152)
An economy that supports a leisured class supports wastrels and also thinkers and some of the latter think about ways to improve things! The man who expounds this to Langley is half way there but stops half way. He says that society is ossified but stable, therefore most people are content because:
"'For the ordinary man, instability - change - means dislocation, war, uncertainty, misery, and death.'" (pp. 152-153)
Slow down there! Death faces us all eventually anyway although, yes, we do not want it to be sudden or unexpected. Who is this "ordinary man"? We heard about him earlier. He changes as society changes. Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis.
Instability and change bring dislocation and uncertainty - Ministers need to prepare Commons for that - but they do not have to bring war and misery. That idea is in the minds of some "ordinary men" because of their past experience but it does not have to be like that and Ministers can inculcate the idea of positive change instead of just maintaining the status quo with the implied threat that the only alternative is worse.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Problem is, you are asking too much of politicians and bureaucrats. If a fairly large number of both Ministers and civil servants are at least conscientious about keeping their society and Technarchy functioning not too badly, I count that as a success.
The first duty of any statesman is striving to keep the State he serves in existence. Not to engage in dangerous schemes of "reform" whose consequences would be unpredictable and all too likely to backfire catastrophically. Any successful reform needs to be cautious, gradual, built on consensus.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But cautious, gradual and consensus is what I suggest here. The changes would have to be understood before they were initiated but it would have to be understood that these changes would be big longer term.
Paul.
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