Las luchas de los de arriba

 

Bajo el título: “The coup in Western elite” leemos interesantes reflexiones sobre el destino de Occidente y sus élites dirigentes (tanto las visibles como las que operan en las sombras). Según el autor de la nota, buena parte de las mismas está en pie de guerra y en medio de luchas fratricidas de las que emergerán unas pocas. La nota es de Mikhail Khazin y la reprodujo hoy el sitio “Fortrus” (http://fortruss.blogspot.com). La misma fue escrita originalmente para el  “Izborsky Club”, también ruso. Acá va:

Título: About the problems of the elite of the "Western" global project

Subtítulo: Brief description of the main problem of the elite of the "Western" global project

Texto: It has become obvious that divisions within the world's elites had intensified. In the United States and the European Union it is already visible to the naked eye, but in China and other regions the situation is no better. Within our Foundation we even started preparing analytical briefs to describe the unfolding events, which are very entertaining to watch.

I will not even talk about Russia - here things are so bad, that it already smacks of a new Civil war (which has already started in Ukraine). And in this text I will try to describe not which groups the global elites had split into but their interests and the mechanism of this fracture.

In general, the elite is not something "especially good", but a group of people who can make decisions on the fate of society. The reasons for such opportunities (property ownership, administrative power, military power and so on) can be different at first stage, then they intertwine, but the main criterion - is decision making. If there is no consensus on the adoption of the most important strategic decisions, then society is doomed for an unenviable fate, including a possibility of a civil war.

There are many examples. These are the bourgeois revolutions of the XVII-XIX centuries, the 1930-ies in the USSR, clashes in the Soviet republics at the turn of the 1990-ies of the last century, and so on and so forth. Since such scenarios are best avoided, the elites always create several fundamentally important mechanisms.

The first - is a consensus system. In particular, in the "Western" global project there are many such institutions: it is the notorious Bilderberg club, the Trilateral Commission, and the IMF (where purely economic issues are discussed), and many other clubs and organizations. Another thing is that they were created in the first place to coordinate forces against the Soviet Union and today operate poorly, but as an example, are quite suitable. The main thing that is necessary for their normal operation is that the contradictions between sections of the elite are not too strong.

Roughly speaking, if the choice is about how to divide the pie - the discussion is possible. But if the issue is about who will get the last piece of the pie, assuming that the rest will die of hunger, there may be serious trouble. Basically, everything goes down to that, but more about it below.

The second institute - is propaganda.  It transmits the consensus policies to the society, to counter and offset dissent. Actually, anti-elite (i.e. the part of society that is fundamentally not satisfied with the existing order), always exists, the goal is to keep it in a box and not allow serious support from the outside.

The third institute is "security". That is a system of suppression of potential anti-elite groups and movements. It operates in many ways - from "soft" suppression of dissent (in the U.S., for example, potentially dissenting voices are not allowed to make a career) to harsh crack down. In almost all countries around the world there is a system of "political killings" tasked with physical elimination of the most harmful dissenters. The establishment of such system in Ukraine we are watching with our own eyes, in the U.S. it already operated in the late nineteenth century (for example, an important tool was the notorious Pinkerton Agency), and the reach of this country [the US] is worldwide.

Note that the second and third instrument operate only in the presence of consensus in the elites on the path of development of the country. If there is no such consensus, the system goes off the rails. We saw this in the late 80's - early 90-ies, and can see it now. Our elite in the 2000s realized that just "security" is insufficient, there is a need for a positive ideology, however, all attempts to create it without touching the corrupt oligarchic system did not lead to success - attempts to repeat the individual elements of the ideological system of the USSR under "wild" capitalism did not cause nothing but irritation among the population. But what unites the population (a return to the Imperial-Patriotic elements), threatens the existence of the current Russian elite because of a clash with the elite of the "Western" project.

Note that if in our country the crisis is associated with a rift along the line of "elites-society", in the core countries of the "Western" project the society is so trained that until it receives a minimum "package" of goods and services, the elites have no problems. Of course, as the crisis intensifies the society will remember about their rights, so the process will unravel, but here we are discussing the situation of today, not tomorrow.

And today the problem is different. Over the decades of peaceful existence of the elite of the "Western" project under the constantly operating emission pump (which allowed the elite to redistribute in their favor all the assets created by the society), it has greatly expanded and specialized. Unique research systems  created in the 30's - 80's were virtually destroyed (for example, "Sovietology" virtually disappeared), they, in many ways, turned into purely scholastic offices, which do not have the right (and opportunity) to discuss real social problems. In economics it is observed with a naked eye: "the only approved model" completely dominates, despite the fact that it cannot categorically explain what is happening in the world.

And the processes happening in the economy  (quite objective) make the existence of the current elite in the same shape and form absolutely impossible! But for a long time it could not even understand that, because narrow specialization (remember, the elite are those who can make decisions. Specialization in this context is the sphere of decision making for a particular group) made it impossible to disassemble the complex picture of the world.

The real problems emerged in the early 90s, the situation has become irreversible in the middle of the 8-year presidential term of Bill Clinton. Towards the end of his term the problems reached a scale of the beginning of the 30-ies of the last century (remember, we made our conclusions about the inevitability of the crisis on the basis of the analysis of inter-sectoral balance in the USA in 1998!), further the situation only worsened. And today there is nothing to compare the upcoming crisis to - it has no analogies. Western Europe of 1945 does not fit - it was under external control.

A clear understanding that there will not be enough room in the post-crisis elites for all members of the current elite came after "the case of Strauss-Kahn", which became an analog of October 1917. In itself a coup on October 25, 1917 did not cause any special consequences, however, the dissatisfaction of the former ruling elites led to the Civil war - which has transformed the coup into the Great October Socialist revolution. So, today we are in a situation, relatively speaking, of the end of 1917, when the coup has already happened, but the "hot" war hasn't started yet.

Of course, you cannot explain this to the citizens of Syria and Yemen, but the citizens of the baseline countries of the "Western" project never cared for the "savages". The most important thing is that based on "the case of Strauss-Kahn", the main beneficiaries of the global elite of the last decades, the financiers, were pushed away from the main "feeder". And they will inevitably prepare for war, because otherwise all their claims for a spot in the elites will break upon objective factors - the inability to continue unabated emission.

About the specific features of this process (particularly in USA) I wrote many times, so I will not repeat myself. The main thing is something else. How can the mechanisms of ideology and system defense operate more or less distinctly, if there is no consensus withing the elites? If some of its separate elements entered into a brutal battle?

Propaganda system in such a situation quickly retreats to "friend-or-foe" state and instead of more or less complex, albeit ideologically partisan, analysis, produces something that we see as part of American propaganda on Ukraine. Psaki is an example - she repeatedly voiced a simple and clear position: Poroshenko "is ours", and therefore "he is always right". Period. The situation is similar around the world.

Here, however, we have an issue. Hatred of Russia in the American elites is deeply layered, so here it is clear who is "friend" or "foe" (whoever attacks Russia). And what to do with the Middle East? And here the rift in the American elites is already visible to the naked eye.

In the European Union things are even more fun. Those who have already realized that in the long term plans of the United States there is simply no independent EU, are trying to jump out of the "embrace" of the US propaganda machine, but they are stubbornly pushed to the position of "love for Russia". It was a strong move by the US propaganda machine (to combine positions "against the USA" and "for Russia"), and today it is still working - but tomorrow it will go into the negative. Another thing is that there will be no one to answer.

But this is only in the sphere of ideology. And what about "security"? As we know from the examples of the USSR/Russia, "security" elites are forced to turn to business. And it will be difficult to recover its functions, if at all possible in the current situation. Because in order for "security" to properly operate, there is a need for a single, clear and coherent ideology, and with some constructive scenario. And what today can be constructive?

In conclusion, it can be noted that the main problem of the modern elite of the "Western" project is that the internal division of this elite destroys the two main mechanisms of any state: system-founding ideology and a system of political security. And this means that the countries of this project will inevitably face a scenario comparable to Russia of 1917-20, or 90-ies of the last century.