08-01-2019, 04:22 PM
So what is wrong with a world dominated by the Laborer class? The Laborers cannot keep society together. They are too atomized to lead themselves. They want a world of ease that operates on autopilot, and that is exactly what marauders from over the border or over the seas want to conquer and ravage. A Laborer world has nobody willing to make a sacrifice of life or limb to defend it. I will get back to that in a later paragraph.
The Laborers greatly undervalue genuine creativity and other intellectual activity. Intellectual ability results from honing the mind, which is not something people interested only in ease and material comfort find attractive. The laborers see intellectuals as oppressors for correcting their grammar, repudiating superstition and pseudoscience, and telling people that there are limits to consumption. Note well that Donald Trump successfully exploited such a sentiment, and that for all his real or imagined wealth, he is as vulgar as such TV characters as Ralph Kramden, Fred Flintstone, and Archie Bunker. At least Ralph Kramden and Fred Flintstone could not be shown as sexual rakes in view of the codes of good practice on television in their time, and Norman Lear made Archie Bunker loyal to a mousy wife whom he had married young and stayed married to until Death did them part. If they do 'art', then it is probably paint-by-numbers Kitsch or the like, or collecting Hummel figurines.
Laborers do not seek to do the entrepreneurship of the Acquisitors. They eschew thrift and investment, as both imply deferral of gratification. The most successful work of Acquisitors comes when they have solutions for unmet needs, like providing low-priced commodities for people who have lately been gouged or denied or improving the machinery of production and entertainment. Laborers are not competent managers. But the age of the Acquisitor is approaching its end when the capitalist class stifles further entrepreneurship in favor of trusts so that owners and managers of extant enterprises can wallow in sybaritic lives. OK, so it is arguable that a Laborer who leads troops into battle, builds fortifications [Soldier] or subdivisions [Acquisitor], writes poetry or composes sonatas for the fortepiano [Intellectual] or software for business programs or screenplays for marketable entertainment [Acquisitor] , or starts a small business [Acquisitor no matter what the size] is no longer a laborer.
The Laborers create through their neglect and inattention the Tragedy of the Commons. Unable to establish enforceable property rights and unable to create a rationale for civic cohesion, they end up with anarchy. Crime flourishes because people get lazy without losing their material lusts. People revert to barbarianism inside what remains of society, and the wealth for the taking attracts barbarians from beyond the gates. The dominance of Laborers is short-lived.
Sarkar says that the laborers will give way to the Soldiers who will raise their taxes; ration food and clothing; replace numbed entertainment with propaganda; organize a police force; establish military forces; build fortifications, naval harbors, and airstrips; and will make requisitions of firearms, tanks, missiles, naval vessels, and military aircraft -- just to preserve what already exists, whether the society be a hunter-gatherer tribe or a modern society. Such intellectuals who survived in the Acquisitor Era who have any desire to thrive will use their mathematical skills to direct artillery fire and their engineering skills on building military strength or their creative skills to create propaganda on behalf of the Soldiers. The managerial elite becomes subservient to the Soldiers as administrators of taxation, rationing, and provisioning.
Note well that the Soldiers' time is not by necessity a time of regimentation and despotism. It is far more equitable than the debased latter part of an Acquisitors' era in which the grandsons of bankers have become loan-sharks and the grandsons of builders have become slumlords. The chaos of the Laborers' era results from the every-man-for-himself ethos of the depraved end of the Acquisitor' era. Soldiers still need the laborers in plenty, but they do not need any growing body of intellectuals for some time, and they don't need the old elite of Acquisitors as owners of wealth.
The Laborers greatly undervalue genuine creativity and other intellectual activity. Intellectual ability results from honing the mind, which is not something people interested only in ease and material comfort find attractive. The laborers see intellectuals as oppressors for correcting their grammar, repudiating superstition and pseudoscience, and telling people that there are limits to consumption. Note well that Donald Trump successfully exploited such a sentiment, and that for all his real or imagined wealth, he is as vulgar as such TV characters as Ralph Kramden, Fred Flintstone, and Archie Bunker. At least Ralph Kramden and Fred Flintstone could not be shown as sexual rakes in view of the codes of good practice on television in their time, and Norman Lear made Archie Bunker loyal to a mousy wife whom he had married young and stayed married to until Death did them part. If they do 'art', then it is probably paint-by-numbers Kitsch or the like, or collecting Hummel figurines.
Laborers do not seek to do the entrepreneurship of the Acquisitors. They eschew thrift and investment, as both imply deferral of gratification. The most successful work of Acquisitors comes when they have solutions for unmet needs, like providing low-priced commodities for people who have lately been gouged or denied or improving the machinery of production and entertainment. Laborers are not competent managers. But the age of the Acquisitor is approaching its end when the capitalist class stifles further entrepreneurship in favor of trusts so that owners and managers of extant enterprises can wallow in sybaritic lives. OK, so it is arguable that a Laborer who leads troops into battle, builds fortifications [Soldier] or subdivisions [Acquisitor], writes poetry or composes sonatas for the fortepiano [Intellectual] or software for business programs or screenplays for marketable entertainment [Acquisitor] , or starts a small business [Acquisitor no matter what the size] is no longer a laborer.
The Laborers create through their neglect and inattention the Tragedy of the Commons. Unable to establish enforceable property rights and unable to create a rationale for civic cohesion, they end up with anarchy. Crime flourishes because people get lazy without losing their material lusts. People revert to barbarianism inside what remains of society, and the wealth for the taking attracts barbarians from beyond the gates. The dominance of Laborers is short-lived.
Sarkar says that the laborers will give way to the Soldiers who will raise their taxes; ration food and clothing; replace numbed entertainment with propaganda; organize a police force; establish military forces; build fortifications, naval harbors, and airstrips; and will make requisitions of firearms, tanks, missiles, naval vessels, and military aircraft -- just to preserve what already exists, whether the society be a hunter-gatherer tribe or a modern society. Such intellectuals who survived in the Acquisitor Era who have any desire to thrive will use their mathematical skills to direct artillery fire and their engineering skills on building military strength or their creative skills to create propaganda on behalf of the Soldiers. The managerial elite becomes subservient to the Soldiers as administrators of taxation, rationing, and provisioning.
Note well that the Soldiers' time is not by necessity a time of regimentation and despotism. It is far more equitable than the debased latter part of an Acquisitors' era in which the grandsons of bankers have become loan-sharks and the grandsons of builders have become slumlords. The chaos of the Laborers' era results from the every-man-for-himself ethos of the depraved end of the Acquisitor' era. Soldiers still need the laborers in plenty, but they do not need any growing body of intellectuals for some time, and they don't need the old elite of Acquisitors as owners of wealth.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.